Hunt Among the Killers of Men gh-5

by Gabriel Hunt

  But most of her hair was still here. It lay at the foot of a narrow mirror, hacked off in clumps, apparently with the combat knife lying atop one clump.

  The water in the big iron cauldron was room temperature. Gabriel decided to stick Mitch inside to keep her from running too hot. She didn’t resist as he undressed her. He helped her up and over the side. She settled in, laid her head back against the rim. Her head jittered against the metal, perspiration beading on her brow.

  He had ten cubic centimeters of amber fluid in the needle.

  Okay, give her two.

  He did not want to waste time or serum on a skin pop that might not take hold, and she was compliant when he tapped up a vein in her forearm. He uncapped the syringe. It was the sort of small, disposable plastic hypodermic found at free clinics all over America. The Iron Fist had probably went through these things by the gross.

  Very carefully, he allowed about a drop and a half to enter her system.

  Her response was instant. The tremor in her head and neck vanished, and she seemed to nod off. Gabriel hurriedly checked her pulse (slow), respiration (shallow), pupil dilation (considerable). Her breathing was barely audible but regular. She wasn’t dead.

  He checked her again about every two minutes while he fired up a few torches and managed to get some coffee going on Qi’s campstove.

  It was the better part of an hour before Mitch cracked her eyes open. Her pupils were huge. Her green irises had subsided to a pale shade similar to algae.

  She brought up a handful of water as though it was a rare treasure, and trickled it over her face. Droplets hung from her brow, nose and chin as she watched the water return to the tub in a stream. Her expression was concentrated, one of almost religious intensity. She ignored Gabriel checking her vital signs. Watching the water was paramount right now.

  “Are you back?” said Gabriel. “You okay?”

  In response she grabbed his wrist, pulled him close. “Where am I? Who are you?”

  “I’m Gabriel,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Lucy’s brother.” Her face relaxed at the mention of Lucy’s name. Her grip did, too. He pulled his arm free. “Lucy,” she whispered. “Come here, Lucy.”

  “Mitch,” he said. “Lucy’s not here.”

  “Sure she is,” Mitch whispered, her gaze unfocused. “She’s right next to you. Why don’t you say something, Luce? You mad at me?”

  “It’s not real, Mitch—it’s the crap in the needle. Mitch, are you listening to me?” She’d begun to weep, had raised one arm from the water and was reaching out toward the empty air beside him.

  “I can hear your heartbeat, Luce,” she murmured. “Come here, baby. Come here. That’s it, get in.”

  “Damn it, Mitch, she’s not…” He dropped it. There was no arguing with someone under the influence of a hallucinogen this powerful. At least she wasn’t imagining herself at war again. Who knew what she was imagining, exactly, but it seemed to be giving her pleasure. The tears had stopped, and her head was tilted back against the cauldron’s edge once more. Her breathing was becoming rapid. Gabriel turned away. Let her have her privacy.

  Full-blown traditional Chinese funerals are notoriously ornate, complicated and lengthy affairs. Some of the more elaborate ones last two years.

  In the case of the late Tuan, many of the rites were Westernized in accordance with China’s lunging urge toward modernity. But his casket was the traditional three-humped rectangular box, decked head-to-toe with flowers and literally thousands of encomia calligraphed on white paper or cloth. Tuan would be wellhonored on New Year’s, and on Grave-Sweeping Day.

  Presentation of the casket (not sealed until after the wake) was strictly according to feng-shui: the head of the deceased facing the inside of his place of residence, white cloth over the entrance, gong on the left side of the doorway. Along with jewelry, red appointments or clothing were forbidden, as red was a color of happiness (exceptions were made if one died eighty or older, but Tuan had been far from this milestone). Inside the casket, Tuan was swathed in finery, a yellow cloth over his face and a blue one over his body. All of his other clothing had been burned, and a pile of ashes on a rattan mat attested to this.

  Tuan’s send-off was in defiance of the Communist imperatives that frowned on lavish funerals. Not only were big funerals seen as superstitious and wasteful, but their sheer level of filigree was in itself an indictment, suggesting that the deceased was a criminal, since only ill-gotten gains could pay for something this fancy. Stacked against this official modern stigma was the common belief that expensive funerals guaranteed peace in the afterlife.

  Tuan’s would be no simple village funeral. There would come snake dancers and professional wailers, demonstrative mourners, extravagance, fireworks, fury and a party atmosphere lit by a conflagration of burned paper effigies. So what if it implied he’d been a criminal? In his case, everyone knew it was true, and this liberated the planners to spare no expense.

  But for now, the private, invitation-only elite entitled to a more privileged remembrance inside the Pleasure Garden were startled by the sight of two caskets on the ceremonial bier.

  Mads Hellweg and his entourage cast uneasy glances around the area. No sign of Cheung or his number one, Ivory. Their absence was a disappointment to Hellweg. Entrance to this sanctum sanctorum required crawling on hands and knees, kowtowing and offerings. Hellweg had a perverse desire to watch Cheung crawl for something, even if it was only to further his intrigues.

  General Zhang’s group was present and the stiff-spined ex-military men gave the proper bows and acknowledgement to Hellweg’s group. Others present included Cheung’s customary cadre of international financiers and a scatter of the best and most influential Tong leaders. All with their bodyguards, of course.

  And still, no Cheung. Which suggested deceit, possibly a trap.

  No, wait—here was Ivory, acting cordial, even deferential, toward the high rollers in the room.

  Then the lid of the casket next to Tuan’s opened entirely on its own.

  Qingzhao was surprised least of all, but surprised nonetheless. She had expected and anticipated many things, but not this.

  When the casket opened, she was standing near Zhang’s contingent of police enforcers. She was the only woman present in this boy’s club—more nonsense about females not being worthy, here—but so far no one had pegged her as such because she had taken great pains to blend.

  She had cut her hair short and combed it straight back. She wore tinted glasses with stainless steel frames to abet the coarsening of her complexion, which she had achieved with makeup. Her brows were bolder, more masculine, and she had expertly stippled her cheeks and chin to provide the illusion of shaved facial hair. She had avoided using a padded suit to keep from making her head look too obviously small in contrast to her frame. The man’s suit she wore was black with a black respect band on one sleeve, and plenty of room for the hammerless automatic pistol nestled against her spine.

  The secret lords of the New Bund’s underworld rarely congregated in one place together, making Tuan’s wake and funeral a notable occasion. Most of the important men, from Tong leaders to drug royalty, had come as a measure of respect to Cheung’s influence, not Tuan’s stature.

  And Cheung was not present.

  Qi immediately theorized a mass trap; Cheung drowning all rodents at once, slicing through the Gordian knot instead of unraveling it, and clean-slating the entire playing field. It was easy to envision the Pleasure Garden sealing up and filling with lethal gas.

  But no…if trap there was to be, then Ivory wouldn’t have shown either. It was highly unlikely that Cheung would sacrifice his right hand man, and here he was as a kind of Cheung manqué, pressing the flesh and making sure everyone was acknowledged, given an equal show of respect.

  Unless—

  Unless Ivory had finally blown it one too many times, for instance by repeatedly failing to kill Qi.

  He surely could have k
illed her, Qi knew—more than once he’d had the opportunity. She could not chalk her continued survival up to skill on her part or the operation of chance or luck. Ivory’s failure to end her life was beginning to seem more willful than inadvertent, a choice even if only an unconscious one and one wrapped up in some other struggle, purely internal, between Ivory’s ambition and sense of duty to Cheung on the one hand and, on the other, his sense of honor and duty to himself. Whatever the reason, something had kept him (so far) from completing the preordained arc that ended with Qi’s death. Qi was determined not to become similarly handicapped. When she had a clear shot at him, she’d take it. Because ultimately, one of them had to die.

  The unexplained second casket opened, then.

  Cheung was inside, and sat up. This was his entrance, intended to impress, and he was making the most of it.

  The side of the second casket dropped down on hinges so Cheung could dismount the bier.

  Qi should have drawn, fired and fled in that moment. She could not. Even she was momentarily transfixed.

  Stunned, rather. As was everyone else in the room who beheld the spectacle of Cheung’s warlord outfit.

  Qingzhao stared frankly, her jaw slowly coming undone.

  In cut and architecture the costume was essentially military, following the aspirations of conquerors of the early 20th Century, such as a photo Qi had once seen of Manchurian warlord Chang Tso-lin. High, stiff, embroidered collar with pins of rank, Sam Browne belt, tasseled epaulettes, cockades, pips, chevrons and medals with maniacal emphasis on the breast hash and ribbon rack. A sash. Three red stripes on the jodhpurs, also denoting high rank. Riding boots, leather puttees and golden spurs, for godsake. For those who care to recall history, it was comparably flamboyant to the outrageous tanker’s uniform confabulated by General George S. Patton—yes, the one said to be topped by a gold football helmet. But instead of olive or khaki, Cheung’s ensemble was rendered entirely in black silk brocade. The only thing missing was a flag and a plumed helmet.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Cheung said, straightening his seams and perching one hand on the black leather flap holster belted around his middle. “We gather today to confer honor upon our fallen comrade, Tuan, and to help him toward the afterlife with such ceremony as he merits.”

  He leveled his gaze at everyone in the room, including Qingzhao.

  In his hands was another of the tiny carved caskets.

  “And one of you will be accompanying him to the afterlife, right now.”

  Chapter 18

  Gabriel riffled Qi’s first-aid supplies for saline with the thought he might be able to play alchemist and whip up a larger batch of the mystery drug from the eight cc’s he had remaining in the syringe. Mitch had lapsed into comfortable silence in the big iron tub, much akin to a heroin nod. Without a fresh application of the drug, the slamming headaches and disorientation would soon resurge, and without a medical facility at hand, Gabriel was trying his best to preload a stopgap.

  All the supplies he and Qi had ferried back from her bartering excursion were still here, indicating that whatever had happened to Qi, she had not yet abandoned her stronghold. But of saline there was none. Gabriel gently set the precious syringe down under a protective protrusion of rock and turned his attention back to the big bronze statue.

  He had gathered 200 feet of climbing rope in 50-foot coils, along with a basic climbing kit—a bandolier of base hooks, rock anchors, carabiners, pitons and spikes; a vertical harness, an array of belay and rappel geegaws, plus a couple of high-impact strap-lamps. Among his other tools and gear were a crate of chemicals in plastic bottles, and a few sticks of dynamite, this last courtesy of Qi’s armory.

  “How’re you doing, Kangxi, old fella?” he said. “Still rotting away inside? Still got bats in your belfry?”

  Those bats needed to tell Gabriel how they normally got out of the cave to hunt. He presumed a hole in the ceiling somewhere, fifty or sixty feet above the dung-fouled bowl of the floor.

  Only once he’d found this secret could Gabriel put the Killers of Men to work on his behalf.

  Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung spoke multilingually. Leftovers were handled by interpreters.

  “I particularly wish to thank our brothers from Sechen Tong for attending,” he said. “It is their work in chemical engineering that will permit us shortly to commence worldwide distribution of our new narcotic, which we have elected to call ‘freon’ for short. General Zhang’s selfless work with the constabulary of the military police and affiliated forces has proven invaluable, and his men have proven to be compassionate and worthy.”

  Zhang, in the dress uniform of his office, bowed slightly.

  “As the West becomes more socialist, so do we inevitably become less communist,” continued Cheung. “It is a new century. It is the order of things.” He opened his fingers into a butterfly. “Information now flies freely through the very air. This in no way should be perceived as a threat.”

  Mads Hellweg shuffled foot-to-foot, waiting to be congratulated for his supposedly equal role in the coming new order.

  Qi’s hand drifted back toward her gun. Was it Cheung’s intention to bore them all with a banquet speech?

  “I further wish to assure all of our most honored Tong brothers that your Japanese counterparts have been assuaged. I have taken independent action to ensure their noninvolvement. The ruffled feathers are eased.”

  Hellweg narrowed his gaze. What?

  Cheung was looking directly at him. “Your plot to disrupt was obvious and doomed,” he told Hellweg. Then with the air of someone bestowing a great boon, he handed the little wooden casket to Hellweg.

  Ivory saw confusion mar Hellweg’s gaze. The man did not understand the meaning.

  It became clear as Cheung unholstered the revolver on his belt and fired point-blank, not stopping until all six heavy-powder rounds were snugged deeply into Hellweg’s chest. The cacophony of report seemed to stop time itself.

  Hellweg staggered backward without a word and fell with his legs in a figure-four. Gunsmoke grayed the air.

  Everyone in the room was frozen in tableau, as though posing for a Renaissance painter.

  Ivory’s crew had all drawn down on Hellweg’s bodyguards. Qi, following suit, had pulled her pistol and leveled it at the nearest subject most likely to preserve her disguise.

  The uncertainty in the room was thicker than the drifting webs of gunsmoke. Half the other bodyguards had freed their weapons, but nobody dared to aim at Cheung. Ivory had a gun in each hand, pointed at two different men.

  Nobody held as much import in that instant as General Zhang, whose hand had flown down to his sidearm. It hovered there, tentative as a hummingbird.

  Cheung watched him. “If I have done wrong, General, then it is your duty to kill me right now.”

  Zhang sought out Cheung’s eyes. Their communion was massive. He slowly withdrew his hand from his holster. Cheung smiled.

  “You see? The General is with us.”

  Ivory had to admire the sheer bravery on display, no matter how foolhardy it might have been. Cheung was showing the assembly the sort of leader he was. This was a public demonstration of his capacity to rule as well as a test of his personal magnetism. If he could swing Zhang, then he could swing the Tongs, and the traditionalists, too, especially since he had just coldly blown down another invading outsider. He’d still need to verify his true Chinese identity in the bloodline of older warlords, of course; there would be no winning over the hard core without that. But today’s events would go a long way toward silencing his critics.

  Hellweg’s bodyguards were left dangling. Most of them were not aiming at anyone. They were gawping at their dead boss, now full of holes and slowly cooling on the cobblestoned floor. To a man, they were all hired Chinese muscle.

  “We welcome you,” Cheung told them. “You were misguided, but now your minds have been set free. Ivory will see to your employment needs.”

  Hellweg’s men took their cue and d
eparted en masse with nervous shows of respect.

  Call it charisma or call it power, Cheung ruled the room. His aspirations were not delusional, thought Ivory. This man could really do it, and he had just proven it.

  It was that unmitigated show of power that had caused Qi to hesitate, just at the microsecond she should have been blowing Cheung’s brains all over the tapestry.

  Now Ivory’s grip closed on her forearm from behind. His other hand already had her gun.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said.

  As though he had known all along it was her, Cheung gave a little nod and motioned his partners back to business.

  Gabriel fired a round from the Navy Colt into the blackness of the cavern, and the bats all freaked out, taking wing.

  He ducked down among the dung-encrusted impalement victims, these skeletal Killers of Men, to observe. He wore a hat borrowed from Qi’s stores and the rainfall of batshit, both dislodged and fresh, descending from on high spattered on its crown and brim. He tracked their nightwing pattern with a handheld million-candlepower spotlight.

  There.

  There, in the back curvature of the ceiling about sixty feet from the cave floor, was a geological rupture that resembled a scowling stone mouth. The bats were piling through it in a centrifugal pattern that indicated it was fairly large. Apparently it led to a switchback to the surface, presumably S-shaped, since that would account for the fact that it admitted no light to the cavern in daytime.

  Gabriel roughed out the distance and calculated as best he could the location of the rift on the outside of the mountain. It would have to be on the eastern slope—the steepest and most overgrown side, from what he had seen.

  The vent was funnel-shaped, with the wide end inside the cavern. He headed toward its opening, lugging his climbing gear behind him. It should be possible to arrange a mechanism that would lift him toward the opening…

  Gabriel had no way of knowing that, as he worked out this problem in engineering, back in the city the Hellweg Tower—sometimes called the Tower of Flame—was already burning for real, a five-alarmer that froze traffic for miles and caused firefighters from four districts to be called in as reinforcements.