Hunt Among the Killers of Men

Chapter 17

“We need to get out of the middle of this thing,” said Gabriel. “Nobody is going to back down. Everybody is going to get killed.”

The leaning pagoda was within view as they crested a jut of rock. Mitch was climbing right behind him, but her attention seemed to be wandering and she had gone from breathing nasally to orally—not a good sign, for someone as fit as she was.

“You’re part of it now, too,” she said, her breath more ragged than it should have been.

“No, I’m not, and neither are you. We get to Qi’s place, I call my brother. I’m pretty sure Qi’s got a secure cell phone or can bash one up. Michael calls the embassy and the Marines and we burn our tail feathers straight out of here.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

He turned and gave her a hand over the next rise. “You’re going to tell me that the guy who imprisoned you, drugged you, turned you out to fight for money, the guy who imprisoned me, for god’s sake, has some kind of hypnotic hold over you that’s going to keep you trying to kill phantoms?”

“No,” she said. “Stop. Please. I’ve got to stop.” She halted, bent over, hands on her thighs.

Mitch sat down heavily on a knobby outcrop of feldspar.

“It is the drug?” said Gabriel.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t tell if this is an aftereffect, or withdrawal, or bad chemistry, or what. But it’s starting to hurt so bad I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“You can’t go to sleep,” warned Gabriel. “You might not wake up.”

She took a deep breath and her vision seemed to clear slightly. “He told me a story,” she said. “A parable.”

“Ivory?”

“Yes. He asked if I’d ever had a crisis of faith…god, I can’t remember what he said. It seemed to make a lot of sense at the time. He was talking about himself, I’m pretty sure, and about Valerie. He said he didn’t kill her. But he didn’t stop it when he saw it happening.”

“That was his crisis of faith,” said Gabriel.

“Exactly. His duty versus his honor. Very Chinese.”

“I know how this one ends,” said Gabriel. “Betrayal. It’s who betrays whom I’m having a hard time figuring out.”

Meanwhile, Gabriel was suffering his own crisis. He still had a syringe of the Iron Fist happy-hour cocktail in his pocket. He’d grabbed two and only used one on the gunner in the cage room. The other he’d begun thinking he could get to a lab, have them break it down, analyze it. Synthesize countermeasures.

But if what he was seeing in Mitch was the first stage of withdrawal, he was going to have to use the needle on her. Perhaps diluted. Perhaps in increments. But even so, the sample would soon be gone—and she’d be rendered a null-sum as a team member for the duration.

Part of his mind—the impatient part, the selfish part, the part that had so often kept him alive in tight spots—was asking what, really, did he owe her? Hadn’t he picked up that check? Hadn’t he been picking them up for Mitch ever since he’d posted her bail back in New York? Hadn’t he paid plenty in skin and blood and gunfire; in nightmares and pain?

But his sense of justice was at stake here. That was the other part of his mind, the part that kept getting him into all those tight spots in the first place. He had allowed the undertow to drag him this far because Lucy was relying on him—and because men like Cheung needed taking down. And if Mitch’s tragedy was a minuscule one for planet Earth, so what? Move a single grain of sand on a beach, everything in the world is changed. How’s that for Zen?

“I’m not so sure Qi won’t just shoot us on sight,” said Gabriel, considering their range from the pagoda. “If Tuan knew her whereabouts, then Ivory knows, which means Cheung knows. And if she’s found out that Tuan’s dead, that he betrayed her…”

“…she may be in a mood to shoot anyone that approaches.”

“Keep your eyes open,” Gabriel said.

“I’ll try,” Mitch said.

But Qingzhao was not to be found.

They entered the pagoda without incident and searched from room to room without turning her up. Mitch doubled over with a cramp about the time they entered the third of the shrine rooms.

“God, this feels really…weird,” said Mitch, breaking a sudden sweat. Her temperature was skyrocketing.

The puzzle-box base of the idol was securely shut. Qi’s bike was gone.

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 killed 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 20^th 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.”