by Gabriel Hunt
“Do not speak further of that here,” said Ivory. “That is privileged information. But rest assured I understand your meaning. You are an honored visitor here, and all courtesy must be extended.”
Spoken by anyone else, it might have been a veiled threat.
“Watch the combatants,” said Ivory. “There is no good or evil here. No ring characters or personae. Only a victor.”
“The last person standing.”
“Precisely.”
Jin Huáng dropped low and launched a perfect pivot kick to her attacker’s throat, which slammed the other woman down, sucking dirt in hulking gasps.
“Now, take a moment to admire that,” said Ivory. “A single blow decides the outcome of the entire contest. It is always one single act. An atomic explosion or the twitch of a fly’s wing—it is all the same, in all warfare, in all times. It always comes down to a single act at the correct time.”
“That is what makes history,” said Gabriel. “It’s what makes my job interesting.”
“Would you mind if I asked you what happened to your head?”
The scarlet crease from the bullet wound still defaced his temple in a spot impossible to hide or entirely cover with makeup, though he’d applied some in his hotel room. Perhaps the bullet had been fired at him by this very man, Ivory, with whom he was now conversing so pleasantly. The talk was lulling, almost coaxing or coddling, the kind of innocuous byplay that of course was just another form of warfare according to Sun Tzu.
“The Hunt Foundation jet has very small doors,” Gabriel said ruefully. “Hatches. No headroom. It looks worse than it is.”
“And your intelligence regarding Kangxi Shih-k’ai? What makes that special? Please forgive my natural curiosity.”
“I assume you mean apart from the historical record?”
“Yes. Mr. Cheung is an expert on that particular warlord.” The implications were clear, including Don’t waste our time and If this is a bluff, we’ll know.
“My father’s journals,” said Gabriel, not exactly lying. “He recorded certain information. Longitudes and latitudes. Parallel evidence. I believe he was on the verge of a breakthrough at the time of his death.”
“That is a pity. A great loss.”
“Maybe I can salvage some little piece of that loss,” said Gabriel. “Maybe help find the Favored Son’s tomb at last, with Mr. Cheung’s help. It could benefit us both and become a great boon. For my father, not for me.”
“Ah, now that I understand,” said Ivory. “For you, it is personal, a matter of legacy and duty. An emotional involvement beyond statistics and records and treasure.”
“Well, treasure wouldn’t hurt…”
Ivory permitted himself a small laugh. “Exactly. Come with me. It is time for us to go present you to Red Eagle.”
Red Eagle was a florid, pashalike woman who tipped the scale at about 350 pounds. Her surroundings were garishly Japanese but she spoke with an inflection favoring an affect for the American South.
Her chambers opened onto a wide balcony about five stories up inside one of the subway-crush of tall buildings that broke up this area of the Night Market into a series of large atriums. A few other bidding balconies could be seen across the vast open space above the tents and stalls of the vendors below. From such a balcony, a select section of the Night Market could be locked down with no indication whatsoever to the outside world. Below, the Beggar’s Arch and other tunneled accessways into this area would soon be sealed off by Cheung’s security force.
Which was why Qingzhao had chosen to come in via the sewer.
Red Eagle took a dainty hit from a hookah and offered the pipe to a Mr. Yawuro, an Armani-suited African gangster with a complement of Masai bodyguards. Red Eagle’s own guards and functionaries, Gabriel noticed, all seemed to be turbaned Sikhs. Cheung’s men were all clad in black-on-black. There were three other bonebreakers in Secret Service wash-and-wear accompanying a boisterous Texan (complete with Stetson) named Carrington. The real problem of any meeting was finding a place to park all the bodyguards, and make sure their pecking order was not ruffled.
“Please try the quail eggs, Mr. Yawuro,” said Red Eagle. “They’re very special.”
Carrington made a face and scanned the room for more whiskey.
Having satisfied Ivory’s pat down, Gabriel was presented.
Carrington squinted at him. “I know you,” he said. “You’re that explorer guy. You was at the North Pole awhile back.”
“South Pole,” said Gabriel, who knew Douglas Carrington III was an oil man. Inherited wealth. Global pollution. Third World usury.
“Why, hell, son—you’re famous,” the Texan said broadly, getting the notice of everyone in the room. Gabriel watched a pit-viper expression cross the man’s tanned face. “And you’re rich, too. But you ain’t this rich.” He spun on Red Eagle. There were questions of privacy and decorum to be dealt with here.
“I may not have as much as you,” said Gabriel, “but I figured I could pick up something small.” The Texan eyed him unhappily, as though detecting the undercurrent of sarcasm Gabriel was trying so hard to hide.
“He is here for me, Mr. Carrington,” said Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung, interceding. “Be wise and do not insult my special guest, for he is a man who has at least earned his reputation.”
Carrington actually blushed, then gruffly apologized and retreated.
Gabriel almost felt like blushing, too, when in response to Cheung’s endorsement Red Eagle began fussing over him. She giggled like an adolescent and kissed his cheek, leaving a smear of crimson lipstick. He found himself staring at her. There was, he thought, the distinct possibility that she was actually a he. Gabriel’s eye sought the seams of the illusion. Anything was possible here in this polyglot microcosm.
“I am honored to make your acquaintance face-to-face,” said Cheung.
Gabriel could not help wondering what that phrasing meant: Was Cheung toying with him? Had he made Gabriel from the security footage from the casino?
“I have read your book,” said Cheung with an eager smile.
“Which one?” said Gabriel.
“Hunt Up and Down in the World,” said Cheung. “Your most incisive chronicle of excavation and underground exploration. Some of it is quite exhilarating. Exciting and improbable, almost like pulp fiction. It speeds the blood.”
“I actually didn’t write that book,” Gabriel said, “in the strictest sense. It’s more of an ‘as-told-to.’ Dahlia Cerras did the hard part, the donkey-work. But of course her name is smaller on the title page than mine.”
“And nowhere at all on the cover,” Cheung said, clucking gently. “Poetic license, then?”
“I try not to embroider too much.”
He thought back on the book’s compendium of snake pits, booby traps, torch-bearing locals, gunfights and wild escapes. Yes, it probably would seem ridiculous…to anyone who had not been there.
“No literary aspirations?” said Cheung, apparently genuinely intrigued, leaving Ivory to keep an eye on the rest of the room.
“My brother Michael is more the author type,” said Gabriel. “In that respect he takes after my parents. I’m afraid I’m the roustabout.”
Gabriel also watched Ivory, watching Cheung. This man knew his exits, backstops, contingencies and cover plans. But there was something off about his manner. Ivory was a man of secrets, more than simple hired muscle. He seemed to command the bodyguards and thus be ranked higher. Not quite a partner of Cheung’s, but not quite an employee, either.
“Our lots tonight include adult men and women,” Red Eagle told her guests, clapping briskly to draw everyone’s attention. “Psychics, androgynes, jesters, amputees. Ah, Ms. Carlsen.”
A tall Scandanavian woman with an elaborate Maori neck tattoo had just joined them. She drew tiny birdlike sips from a cut crystal flute of champagne.
In his peripheral vision Gabriel saw Ivory running check-ins with his sentries. Very pointedly, none of the security men i
n the room were drinking.
There was no way, Gabriel knew, that Qi could take Cheung from ground level. She had to be lurking in one of the buildings across the way, with a good angle on the proscenium of Red Eagle’s balcony.
Her chosen tool was a “slightly used” bolt-action British L115A, a sniper rifle codesigned by an Olympic gold medalist shooter and chosen by the SAS to use against the Afghans in 2001. It could destroy the engine block of a truck at 1,200 meters. Body armor did not matter to this weapon.
Gabriel wrestled with the role he was about to play. He did not doubt that Cheung was an unsavory sort—but so far all of Cheung’s crimes had been hearsay, not verified. Someone had killed Mitch’s sister and someone had ordered the attack on the pedicab, but there was no way to be certain who. Meanwhile Qi was hardly the most stable person Gabriel had ever met. Her whole touching story (complete with pathos in all the right places) might have been fabricated to recruit him.
But perhaps Qi was right, and perhaps everything she’d told him was so. At least it jibed with what he’d heard from Mitch. That had to count for something.
Though the question of Gabriel’s role remained. He was supposed to steer Cheung onto the balcony and into the path of a bullet. But why? If Qi had the capacity to shoot through a bodyguard to nail her target, why was Gabriel needed? As an on-site witness to confirm the kill?
Red Eagle rang a small gong to indicate commencement. Outside, from high above them, counterweighted cages began to lower into view on chains. The sale stock hung in the air before them like Christmas ornaments. In one cage a twelve-year-old girl stood with her hands on the bars and a tri-pronged lot tag stapled to her earlobe. He could have been looking at Qingzhao, fifteen years ago. The girl’s eyes were dull with tears and she stood without energy or focus, as if she did not have any real awareness of where she was or what was transpiring.
In another cage, a Caucasian woman in her early twenties, same deal.
In another, an eight-year-old boy, twirling a black sucker in his mouth.
In another, a man with both forearms missing. He was the most active of the lot, scampering from one side of the cage to the other and calling out in a language Gabriel didn’t recognize. He wore a fixed, forced smile, apparently trying to court bidder favor.
Mr. Yawuro pointed at the girl and said, “Open for ten thousand.”
“Pacific dollars?” Red Eagle asked. The man nodded.
Cheung countered: “Eleven. In platinum.”
If Qi was to be trusted, Cheung had the advantage, when bidding, of a man who knows he is giving money only back to himself. He attended these auctions to play the players.
“Mister Yawuro?” Red Eagle prompted.
“Twelve,” Yawuro said.
Gabriel took a step forward and Cheung came forward with him. They had cleared the overhang and were now in plain sight. Ivory was already moving toward the balcony, to advise his master to back up.
Though it wasn’t his turn to bid again, Yawuro uttered a small sound, like a chest cough. Then he was flung backward as the incoming round blew both of his lungs out through the back of his rib cage. His blood lingered on the air as fine red mist.
A second shot sizzled through the air, spanged off one of the hanging cages, missed Red Eagle’s beehive hairdo by two inches and burrowed into the wall, starting a fire. A tracer bullet. Why was Qi firing tracers? thought Gabriel as he hit the deck. That would only happen if—
The muzzle of Ivory’s big automatic was nestled beneath Gabriel’s jaw, and from his prone sprawl Gabriel saw Cheung’s other bodyguards all leveling firepower directly at his head.
Quite abruptly, as one of the men swung the butt of his gun at Gabriel’s injured temple, Gabriel found himself out of the world again.
Chapter 12
Qingzhao could not believe she had missed the shot, and quickly chambered her tracer—her followup round, to track and correct aimed fire.
She’d had Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung dead in her sights on the balcony across from her, with only a ten-degree angle of correction for a downward shot. The picture in the crosshairs told her that Cheung was history. Her trigger pull was a steady, clean, slow squeeze.
But the man standing next to Cheung had died instead.
Which meant that the sights on this ex– Royal Marines rifle had been tampered with.
Her tracer shot strayed to bounce off one of the hanging cages and ignited the wallpaper inside Red Eagle’s eyrie. Perhaps it was because Qi, too, had seen the young girl up for sale, so much like herself, once; perhaps it was because Qi had fired with tears welling in her eyes? But no—the tracer proved the weapon’s sights to be decalibrated. The scope was supposed to have been zeroed. It obviously had not been. Useless.
Even more useless: The adjustment ticks on the scope had been shaved down, preventing a fast adjustment with a coin edge or anything else.
Cheung was under cover by now. Ivory’s response was frighteningly efficient.
She could have chambered the next powerful Magnum round and taken out one of the bodyguards, but there was little point.
Her window of time had spoiled faster than burning paper. Without checking the window again she fired up her preset fuses and ran from the room, abandoning the rifle and going hot on her backup pistol—a supersized Ruger revolver, so as to avoid even the faintest possibility of a jam.
Ten seconds later, cherry bombs, M-80s and firecracker strings began to detonate around the perimeter below. This would give eager bodyguards false gunfire they would waste time trying to track. The final fuse crisped the support rope for her buckets of coins, which tumbled loose and sprayed a metallic rain of money from the sky, all jingling downward to spin and roll across the cobblestones of the Night Market. Everyone below would scramble to collect the coins, which was good for Qi’s escape plan. Sentries would be blocked, hazarded, mobbed and trafficjammed as they tried to fan out from the archways.
From the doorway into the wild free-for-all of the Night Market, it was five swift steps to the bridge to the Tea House. Qi sprinted across, zigzagging. The propane tanks she had emplaced earlier were still in position. She shot each one with modified tracers like the big hazard-striped rounds she had used at Pearl Tower. Both tanks combusted and blew spectacularly, punching the air out of the space with twin fireballs and lopping off the first fifteen feet of the bridge, which noisily redistributed itself over the surface of the pond water, blackjacking a few curious fish.
Inside the Tea House was a narrow stairway leading down to a supply room with a trapdoor in the floor. The access led down into the sewer system, where Qi had a small motorboat waiting.
Gabriel was not there to meet her as planned.
She had to leave the area now. She waited a few extra beats anyway.
At the very least, she had seen Cheung crawling on his hands and knees, clothing disheveled, panic on his face.
That would have to do until next time.
At the top of the Peace Hotel, Cheung commanded an entire floor. From the elevators one walked across his Junfa Hall, a long corridor lined with statues of Chinese warlords and decorated with ostentatious Peking Opera weapons on wall displays. But for the sliding glass doors, all bulletproofed, and the sentries at each end, the hall held the stately ambience of a museum.
Ivory found Cheung in his Temple Room, a chamber enameled in shiny black and hung with silks. Catercorner to a small shrine was a custom dentist’s chair on a hydraulic riser. Mugwort leaves smoldered from a salver next to a sterile work tray.
A technician in a crimson medical tunic was meticulously inserting long acupuncture needles into Cheung’s face and scalp.
Cheung indicated his eyebrow. “Here. Deeper.”
Dinanath waited in one corner with the behemoth Tosa dogs on stand-down. Cheung ignored them and kept his gaze on Ivory.
Lurking silently in her usual corner was Sister Menga, a white-haired, pink-skinned Taoist soothsayer with the bearing of a lifelong martial arts practit
ioner. She was one of Cheung’s spiritual advisors and seemed to thrive on breathing fog-thick incense smoke.
“Do we know whose base area is the Night Market?” said Cheung, already knowing the answer. Ivory nodded.
Cheung handed Ivory the small carved casket he had been tooling earlier. His expression was benign, yet made hideous by all the needles sticking out of his face.
The Tosa dogs snarled, sensing the gravity of the moment.
Ivory nodded, turned and departed.
Tuan hand-fed a toucan from his table in the Pleasure Garden and meditated on the little coffin that had just been delivered to him. He treated himself to an extra goblet of absinthe and waited for Ivory to arrive.
Ivory entered the room with no fanfare.
Tuan spoke first. “Real warlords made no such foolish rules as Cheung demands.”
“This was not a personal decision,” said Ivory, taking the seat across from the big man.
It was all smoke in any event, Tuan knew. “Real” warlords were rapists and plunderers, thugs and mercenaries risen to glory via massacre, whose idiom was the raid, not the bargaining table. Once they got legitimized, the rigors of politics almost always unseated them.
Ivory helped himself to the glass that had been put out for him. “Tell me about the rifle,” he said.
Tuan chuckled. “You already know about the rifle.”
“A very efficient weapon for its intended purpose,” said Ivory, who had examined the gun once it had been recovered from the Night Market. “But tampered with so as to be useless for that purpose. Why?”
“To even the odds,” said Tuan. “A last-minute change of heart. A perverse notion of fairness in combat.” He lifted his big hands to the air. “What does it really matter, now?”
“You supply the rifle,” said Ivory. “But you make sure the sights are skewed. You are still trying to play both sides against the middle, Tuan. Unwise, given your position in this scenario. It suggests that you would prepare to align yourself with whichever side emerged victorious. It should be clear to you that Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung is destined to rule New Shanghai. It is an inevitability, not a choice.”