Hunt Among the Killers of Men

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.