by Gabriel Hunt
“Mitch,” Gabriel said softly. “Don’t take him. Not yet. He’s got my brother.”
“He already got my sister.”
“I could use someone like you,” Cheung told Mitch, “as my new head of security.” His gaze indicted Ivory, but Ivory did not waver.
“Lower the weapon, Jin Huáng,” Ivory said. It was not a request.
Gabriel saw Mitch almost comply.
“No.” She refocused on Cheung. “Valerie Quantrill.”
“Who?” said Cheung.
“My sister. You should think more about the people you murder.”
“And how many have you murdered?” said Cheung, almost avuncular. “Killed in the name of your just cause? You should thank me. I determine what people like you become.”
“Don’t listen, Mitch,” said Gabriel.
“You may avenge your sister’s death,” said Cheung, “but it will cost you your own life.”
Cheung smiled like a cobra and lowered his own weapon.
Gabriel’s hand touched Ivory’s back, but he spoke to both Ivory and Mitch: “I need him alive.”
Tears were rolling from Mitch’s eyes but she fought to preserve her zeroed aim.
“Cheung—let them out of the building and I will take you to the Killers of Men. I alone know the burial secrets of the Favored Son. The men you sent to the site have fallen to those secrets. I will guide you and you may do with me what you will…but you will guarantee the release of my brother.”
“That, I believe, was our agreement,” said Cheung.
Ivory put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder, turned her slowly. “Please,” he said. His eyes were entreating. He backed her toward the glass doors, her gun gone wayward.
“I can’t just leave—” she began.
“You must,” said Ivory. “Trust me.”
Gabriel let his muzzle drift in their direction. “Get her out of here or I’ll shoot you both myself,” he said, not taking his eyes off Cheung.
Mitch was still trying to process what had gone wrong, and the drug inside her was not helping. Soon enough the spikes, the flares, the knifing headaches would resume, and Gabriel knew that Ivory knew that, too.
“It seems that our moment is over before it has properly begun,” said Cheung as he watched them exit. “Too bad. For just a second, there…” He sighed. “It would have been magnificent.”
“We’ll never make it out of the building alive,” said Ivory as they hustled past the bloody remains in the hallway.
“What?” said Mitch. “I thought Cheung—”
“Cheung has a casket already carved,” Ivory said, overriding her. “I saw it in the Temple Room. It is for one of us. Or all three of us. How did you get into the building?”
Mitch recapped. While admirable, her ingress route would not serve their escape.
“I watched Cheung shoot down Mads Hellweg,” said Ivory. “It was one of the most decisive, cold-blooded things I have yet seen. And Cheung did not particularly care about Hellweg. He will have something much worse planned for us.”
“We can always hit them frontally,” said Mitch, rechecking the loads in her purloined M4. “Go out the front door.”
“Not and survive—there are still too many of them.”
“Then let’s go up. Helipad’s on the roof, right?”
“Yes…” Ivory’s eyes showed doubt.
“And the chopper is toast, so nobody will be in a big hurry to go to the helipad…right?”
“True.”
“So let’s hit it, partner. Before my damned headache comes back.”
He searched her expression for signs of xipaxidine fatigue. When she finally ran out of gas, she’d drop like a clipped puppet. And with no more drug to dose her with…
Together they found the access stairs that led from the Junfa Hall to the helipad. Four Cheung men were in charge of the perimeter.
“Do you know them?” Mitch said.
“I recruited two of them.” Ivory peered through mesh glass to enumerate his potential allies. He indicated a willow-tall fellow in wraparound tinted glasses that seemed to be in charge of the other three patrollers. “Parkman Ng. Kam Ng’s brother; took his brother’s place when Kam was killed in a yakuza counterattack two years ago. Very loyal. And Kong—” he pointed to a broad-shouldered, hairless man “—he might be sympathetic, too. The other two, I just know their names. Güyük and Breedlove. Breedlove is British.”
“So take the white guy and the short-round-fat guy first?” said Mitch.
Ivory stared at her, remembering that Americans were not famous for their tact. But he nodded.
They came through the push-barred door to the helipad brisk and businesslike, Ivory in the lead.
Guns came up to meet them. Mitch dropped to a solid kneeling position and did the smart thing—she patched the two men carrying rifles, which would be more accurate in a firefight. Breedlove the Brit folded and fell with multiple hits, followed by Güyük. By then, Parkman Ng had spun like a dancer and popped a wadcutter that sang past Ivory’s right ear. Return fire was instinctual, and Ivory’s weapon was on full-auto cycle. Red punctures jump-stitched up Parkman’s long torso and he collapsed onto his face. Mitch could see the unhappiness in Ivory’s eyes as his recruit fell.
Ivory raked the autofire toward the last man standing, the one he’d called Kong. But Mitch saw Ivory do an amazing thing—he pulled his weapon up out of the firing line while it was firing, before his finger left the trigger. The errant shots flocked away to make someone else’s life miserable.
Because though Kong had reacted professionally, cross-drawing and sighting, he had jerked his own pistol up into neutral when he recognized Ivory.
“Ivory!” Kong yelled. “Parkman said Cheung’s orders were to kill you. What’s going on?”
Ivory kept his weapon dead-on as he approached Kong.
“I cannot believe it,” Kong sputtered. “I will not believe it! Not of you. Many of us have heard the rumors, the news you were to become a Nameless One. I say that if Cheung decides you are a Nameless One, then I am a Nameless One as well.” He was as frantic as anyone might be, presented with the prospect of killing a friend. “Longwei, please, tell me, what is the truth?”
Kong actually placed his weapon on the deck, stepped away from it.
“For the things you have just said,” Ivory said softly, “for disloyalty to our master, the penalty is death. You understand that, Kwong Leung Kong Ngan?”
“Yes,” Kong said, lowering his gaze. “The penalty is death.”
“Under normal circumstances,” said Ivory, drawing even closer.
Fearing the most intimate of killings, Kong kept staring at the concrete and said, “What…?”
“Under Cheung’s rule the penalty is death,” said Ivory. “But Cheung’s covenant is false. Were I to kill anyone for such a violation, I should first kill myself. You understand the gravity of what I say.”
“I—I do?” stammered Kong. He regained some of his composure. “I mean, I do.” Leery of the American woman with the weapon in the background, he leaned closer to Cheung, as there were some things so toxic and important that women should never hear them. “We heard Dinanath was gone. That you were turned. All our information is unreliable. Tell me, please—what is happening?”
“The foundations of Cheung’s New Bund are collapsing as we speak,” said Ivory.
“Can it be?” Kong said. “At long last…”
“My friend,” said Ivory. “I need an Immortal, and you shall do quite nicely. You say there are others of like disposition.”
“Yes. Jintao. Yu Peng. Hsiang Yun-Fa.”
“Stop. Do not betray them until you see with your own eyes the evidence of my intent.” There was no use in telling Kong that Yu Peng was already dead. “But gather them close. If I survive, they will be needed. If I do not survive, you must—you must—go for yourselves, is that understood?”
Kong directed them to a secure ladder that put them onto a disused fire escap
e, then headed in the other direction to round up his men.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Mitch as they descended along a rear face of the building to street level.
“I have never done anything like that before,” said Ivory. “But I suspected that Kong might be with me in spirit. I gambled on that.”
“You should think about it, you know? Taking Cheung’s place. You could undo a lot of damage.”
Ivory pressed his lips together until they were white and bloodless. One never said such bald things out loud. Putting such words into the air was unwise.
Instead he said, “Hurry. Just because we regain the streets, it is no guarantee of our safety.”
“Where’re we going?” said Mitch.
“I have to take you to meet a monk.”
Chapter 27
Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung stared dourly at the dead man’s arm sticking out of the base of the giant bronze idol in the shrine room. His expression seemed to say: Hmm, he almost made it.
Gabriel was the focus of two aimed guns, in the hands of the pair of Cheung men who had accompanied them in an armored limousine to the leaning pagoda. Shorthanded, Cheung had snatched them off guard duty in front of the Peace Hotel and both men, smelling imminent promotion and favor in the boss’s eyes, were eager to comply.
They seemed just as eager to fill Gabriel up with bullets.
“A booby trap,” said Gabriel. “As I warned you.”
“It certainly seems that the obvious way in is not the way in,” said Cheung.
“My brother. What assurance do I have you will release him?”
“You have no assurance, Mr. Hunt. Once my needs are seen to, then I shall consider the disposition of your brother.”
“Then you are not a man of your word,” said Gabriel.
“And you are not naïve,” said Cheung. “It is your duty to acknowledge who holds the power in our brief relationship. You have cost me immeasurable time and resources. Your help inside this tomb could compensate for all that, but in the meantime you are at my command.”
The two Cheung men glanced at each other.
“I was you, mate,” said the taller Cheung man in an Australian accent, “I’d answer direct questions as asked, and otherwise keep my big yap shut.”
“But you’re not me,” said Gabriel. “Too ugly and stupid, cowboy.”
The guard bristled but kept his place.
“Now, Mr. Hunt,” Cheung said. “As you say in New York: Time’s wasting.”
Under the gaze of the guards, Gabriel climbed down into the trench and brought up the big, faceted orb of crimson glass.
“There were two at some point,” he told Cheung. “Now there is only this one. Watch.”
As Cheung and his bodyguards looked on, Gabriel climbed the bronze idol and mounted the jewel in the socket. Under direct lamplight, they all saw the arc of backward ideograms projected on the far wall.
“Now, if we move it to the other socket…”
Gabriel had a good grip on the jewel and hated to let it go. The thing was at least a century old and surely unique. But survival called for sacrifice. He made a show of carelessness and let an expression of not entirely false horror emerge on his face as he allowed the orb to slip from his fingers. It shattered into a million crushed-ice fragments on the floor.
“What have you done?” demanded Cheung, growing red in the face, but when he looked up again he was staring into a pistol in Gabriel’s hand. There’d been more in the trench than just the jewel.
The Australian leveled his .45 automatic at Gabriel, but Gabriel said, “Don’t move or your boss gets it.”
“Shoot him,” said Cheung, regaining his composure. “Just not fatally. We still have need of him.”
A pair of gunshots erupted—but not from the Australian’s gun and not from Gabriel’s. The blasts came from the other guard’s M4. The Australian, Bennings, clenched tight with hits and fell down dead.
Cheung quickly raised his own pistol and blew the other man apart at the seams with three perfect shots.
“Poor Jintao,” said Cheung. “I was hoping Ivory had not gotten to him.” He prodded Jintao’s corpse with the toe of one boot. “You see, Mr. Hunt? Betrayal at every turn.” He waved his gun in Gabriel’s direction. “Come down off that statue, please. And throw the gun away. You will not shoot me, not when I hold your brother’s life in my hand. Let us stop wasting each other’s time, shall we?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Gabriel tossed his gun and began to descend.
“Tell me how my sister died,” said Mitch. She was having difficulty keeping focus. The headaches were starting to belabor her skull again.
Pan Xiao had conducted them to Ivory’s safe haven deep within the monastery. From supplies he had on hand, both herbal and medical, Ivory had prepared an injection that would help Mitch cycle down from the effects of the xipaxidine.
“You will feel weak,” he said. “The effect is compensatory. This is a buffer, it is not a cure. Your body will have to cure itself. But while that happens, this will at least keep you from hurting yourself or suffering too severely.”
“Thank you,” she said, shivering.
Ivory lowered his gaze. “Do you trust me?” he said.
She extended her arm to him to accept the waiting needle.
“Your sister Valerie was a very strong person,” Ivory began as he swabbed alcohol over her skin. She felt the prick as the needle went in. “As you may have guessed, Cheung is tied into banks all over the world. Stocks, securities, laundered money, much of it from illicit business enterprises. Big money, high security. Valerie gained intimate knowledge of this information stream. But Cheung is not the only man with such connections—all men at his level of wealth and power have similar secrets, and Cheung asked your sister to tap into their information streams on his behalf. To engage in industrial espionage. He wanted details on his enemies’ activities, their resources. Valerie had learned so much so quickly about him; Cheung simply tried to turn this talent to more useful ends.”
“And she balked,” said Mitch, beginning to drift, her eyes growing large and dark. “She found the line she would not cross.”
“But here is the unusual part,” said Ivory, his voice low. “Cheung wanted to convince her so badly that he flew to the United States himself. He exposed himself to capture, to great physical danger, even possible assassination, hoping that his gesture would impress your sister. Valerie showed no appreciation. It wasn’t just that she said no—that he might have accepted. But she didn’t respect the gesture.”
It’s a face thing, Valerie had told her jokingly before heading off to the late-night in-person meeting. It’s all very Chinese.
“Cheung told Valerie he thought she was extremely talented. He wanted to leave the door open for a possible future reconciliation. Valerie said no. She would be happy to return any file Cheung requested, sign any release, pay back the salary she had received, but her decision was final.”
Ivory also remembered how Cheung’s gaze had gone flat, reptilian and metallic, as he merely answered Valerie by saying, “A pity.”
“I asked you how she died,” Mitch said again, half-asleep.
“It was…unpleasant.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Ivory called up strength. “He struck her, one time. Not too brutally. I think she expected that to be the end of it. But then he gave her to his men, instructed them to ruin her. There were five. One to hold each arm, one for each leg, and the fifth to…to defile her. They switched off the fifth spot, each man took a turn. She was unconscious before long. They brought her to with water, waited till they knew she could feel it, then continued. It went on for more than an hour. And then they cut her throat.”
“You stood by and watched this,” Mitch mumbled. “You did nothing.”
“My responsibility was Cheung’s security,” Ivory said in a voice redolent with shame. “I did my job. And they did theirs.”
Mitch
tried to lift her head but it seemed to weigh a million pounds. “And you have suffered ever since,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Ivory said.
“And then you saved me, when you could have let me die.”
“Yes,” Ivory said.
Mitch felt herself slipping out of consciousness, felt oblivion creeping up on her. “I forgive you,” she murmured. “Valerie forgives you.”
She was swept away, as on a gently rocking boat, to the sound of Ivory’s tears.
Chapter 28
“The vent is corkscrew-shaped, with a switchback,” said Gabriel when they had reached the rockfall that disguised ingress to the cavern. The climbing had been steep, and Cheung had made Gabriel go first, knowing of his physical abilities and desirous of keeping his gun.
“The Killers of Men are inside?” said Cheung.
“Just inside. I can show them to you.”
“And this climbing equipment?” Cheung indicated the gear still scattered around the vent.
“Turned out to be unnecessary,” said Gabriel.
“This is an interesting conundrum, Mr. Hunt. If I let you precede me, you might enact some futile ambush. If I go first, you could conceivably slam the door on me.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have shot your other bodyguard,” said Gabriel.
Cheung steamed briefly. “Pah! Bodyguards are no more than physical extensions of my command. Without my authority, no power exists in the first place, do you understand? Kangxi Shih-k’ai, the Favored Son, was unafraid to lead his men into battle. No warlord fears to put himself at risk above all. That is why I do not fear you.”
Gabriel said nothing. He knew his brother’s life was dependent on making Cheung believe that whatever happened next was Cheung’s own decision.
“Snap these tight, so I can see them,” said Cheung, tossing Gabriel a pair of manacles retrieved from some inner pocket of his jacket.
“The funnel is difficult to negotiate.”
“You will cuff yourself and hold the lamp as we both proceed.” The ever-present gun terminated further debate.