Shadow of the Dragon

5

Chau’s first mistake at the pastry shop was to forget that he was dealing with Russians and not fellow Chinese.

“Hey, Igor,” he said in Chinese to the man behind the register, showing a screenshot of the blond girl from the professor’s door video. “Have you seen this girl before?”

The Russian was older, perhaps fifty, with a thick neck and a swollen nose that was mapped with tiny red veins from his nightly affair with vodka. Had Chau taken the time to notice, he would have seen a map of scars along the right side of the man’s head, almost but not quite covered by his shaggy salt-and-pepper hair, and the tip of a blue star tattoo peeking out from the collar of his button-up shirt.

“My name is not Igor,” the man said in perfect Mandarin. He wiped his hands on a rag. Remnants of flour and dried dough on a white apron said he’d been baking since early in the morning.

“Igor, Ivan, Boris,” Chau said and sneered. “I do not give a shit what you call yourself. What I want to know… what I require that you tell me, is if you know this girl.”

Chau’s second mistake was getting too close.

The baker acted as if he were reaching across the glass case full of sweets to get a better look at the phone, but grabbed a handful of Chau’s forelock instead. Chau was already leaning forward in an effort to intimidate, and the Russian had no trouble slamming his head into the counter, driving it straight through the glass case and into a platter of sugared teacakes.

The MSS man yowled in pain, freezing in place for fear of cutting his own throat on the shards of glass if he jerked away. The baker lifted him straight up, as if he, too, was aware of the dangerous teeth of glass so near Chau’s neck. Instead of letting go, he slammed Chau’s face against the wooden beam beside the till, roaring something in Russian that Chau couldn’t have understood even if he wasn’t getting his face bashed in.

The baker let go suddenly and stepped back, raising his hands.

Chau dabbed at his tattered face, feeling shards of glass. His left eye was swollen shut, but out of his right, he could make out bald-headed Lung pointing his Glock at the baker. A Chinese woman came through the front door, ringing a chime as she entered. She took one look at Chau’s face, covered with blood and powdered sugar, and turned on her heels. A gruff voice carried from beyond a set of heavy curtains that divided the kitchen from the public area.

“Who else is here?” Lung demanded, prodding the air with the muzzle of his pistol.

Before he could answer, a blond man who looked to be a younger and stronger version of the baker shouldered through the curtains carrying a heavy wooden rolling pin like a weapon. A female face peeked out behind him — the girl from the video.

The younger man saw Lung’s pistol and swung the rolling pin.

Lung was quicker than he looked and sidestepped, letting the heavy pin whistle by his head to glance off the shoulder of his non-gun side.

“I will shoot you!” he barked.

The girl pulled her head back from the curtain, vanishing.

“Get her!” Chau screamed.

The younger man dropped his rolling pin but stepped sideways, blocking Lung’s access to the back room.

“State Security!” Lung shouted. He was smart enough to bring the pistol in close, tucked in next to his body so the Russian couldn’t snatch it away.

The baker, seeing Chau’s attention drawn toward the kitchen, lowered his hands and made to vault over the counter. Chau drew his pistol and put a single nine-millimeter round through the man’s neck. The baker stopped cold, one hand still on the wooden support of the counter. His other hand shot to his throat in a vain attempt to stanch the flow of blood. He swayed there for a long moment, opening his mouth as if to speak, and then pitched forward, crashing through the same glass where he’d sent Chau’s face.

The younger man’s mouth fell open. He stared in horror at the dying man. “Papa…”

Chau moved quickly to lock the door and draw the blinds so passersby wouldn’t see what had happened.

The astonished Russian moved to help his father, but Chau leveled the pistol. “Sit down on the floor and cross your legs at the ankles. Hands flat on your knees.” He nodded to Lung. “I have him. Get the girl.”

Lung disappeared behind the curtain.

Chau began to gingerly pick fragments of glass from his face, all the while covering the young Russian with his pistol.

“I thought you were trying to rob us,” the Russian said.

“I seriously doubt that to be the case.”

“What do you want with my sister?”

Chau prodded the air with his gun. “I will ask you the questions.”

“Okay,” the Russian said, all the fight having left him at the sight of his father’s blood.

“What is your name?”

“Ruslan Petrovich,” the Russian whispered. “My father is Peter Nimetov. He was…” His voice trailed off and he began to sniff back tears.

Chau clapped a bloody palm softly against the side of the hand holding the pistol, feigning applause. “You may spare us the performance. If you are not Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki,” he said, using the full name of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, “then you at least work as their assets.”

Ruslan Petrovich eyed the dead man and gave a slow shake of his head. His words, barely audible at first, grew louder as he spoke. “You are insane. But even if I were SVR, that was still my father you murdered — for nothing but trying to stop you from robbing him.” His eyes locked with Chau, flaming with intensity. “You would be wise to kill me now.”

Chau ignored the threat.

“How did you meet Professor Liu?”

Ruslan shook his head. “Who?”

Chau prodded the air again with his pistol, quickly losing his patience. “The woman you call your sister spent the night at his house two weeks ago. Do not lie. We have her on video.”

Ruslan’s brow shot up, the only indication that he was surprised by this revelation. He took a deep breath. “She is a grown woman. I do not—”

“It’s me!” Lung called from the kitchen. “Do not shoot.” He parted the curtain with an open hand and shoved the girl in ahead of him, pushing her to the ground behind her brother — or whoever he was.

Chau picked a thin shard of glass from the point of his chin and threw it at the girl to get her attention. “Where did you think you would go?”

“The police, I imagine,” Ruslan said, sneering. “You come in our shop making demands without identifying yourself. What do you think we will—”

Chau drove the toe of his shoe into the hollow of Ruslan’s hip.

The Russian yowled, falling sideways on top of the injury, protecting it from another blow.

“Stoy!” the girl screamed. Stop!

Chau reared back to kick Ruslan again, but was stopped by a banging at the door.

“Come back later!” Chau yelled.

“Help!” the wounded Russian cried in slurred Mandarin.

The girl joined in. “Robbers! Murderers!”

A stern voice demanded entry. Chau recognized it.

Chau nodded to Lung to make certain he covered the Russians with his pistol before letting in Deng Li Wan, a major and regional supervisor of counterintelligence for the Ministry of State Security. Unlike Chau’s and Lung’s casual slacks and sports shirts, Deng wore a dark suit and heavy black glasses. Close-cropped hair and a crisp white shirt made him look more like a Party functionary than one of the Ministry’s top spy catchers.

Major Deng took one look at the dead Russian draped over the shattered glass display case and closed his eyes.

“What is all this?”

Both Chau and Lung snapped to attention.

“We believe these Russians took a scientist we were watching.”

“Ah,” Deng said. “The nautical engineer, what was his name?”

“Liu Wangshu,” Lung said.

“That is the one,” Deng said. “So, am I to understand that you lost him?”

Chau and Lung exchanged glances. The Russian on the floor grinned, despite his injury.

“We,” Chau began, careful not to shoulder the blame alone, “… we are assigned to check on Liu once or twice each month — as needed. He was—”

Deng cut him off. “As needed are the key words on which you should focus. Would you not agree?”

Chau began to protest, but Deng raised his hand. “So you believe the Russians took him against his will? Or do you believe he defected of his own accord?”

Chau looked at Lung, who nodded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Deng said, growing tired of speaking to these underlings. “I will tell you this much. Whatever happened, the Russians were not involved.”

“You are certain?” Chau asked. Had Deng not so severely outranked him, he would have pressed harder.

“Quite certain,” Deng said. “While you were supposed to be watching Professor Liu Wangshu, my squad and I have had eyes on these SVR operatives.”

Both the Russians looked up at the major.

Ruslan muttered: “We are not SVR. I told them that already.”

Deng raised his hand again, shushing the prisoner. The young Russian’s head slumped to his chest, knowing, no doubt, how this was going to play out for him.

Lung ran a hand over his bald scalp, leaving it there for a long moment while he worked through an idea.

“Liu Wangshu’s loyalties to the Party appear to be firm enough,” he said. “He has made no recent withdrawal of funds. He is not living above his means.” Lung raised his index finger, tapping the air as he thought. “The video showed he had only a briefcase when he left his home for the last time. He was not planning a trip.”

“The North Koreans?” Chau mused, going back to an old thought.

Deng shook his head. “Naturally, they have operatives here. But we have people on them as well.”

“Not the Koreans,” Lung said, almost to himself, before looking down at Ruslan. “And your people do not have him?”

“Nyet,” Ruslan said, despondent, knowing that he’d heard far too much for these men to let him live. “Perhaps, if your scientist was working on something very important…”

Chau and Lung both spoke at the same moment.

“Meiguo!” The Americans.

Major Deng gave a slow nod.

Chau’s head snapped up at the scrape of a footfall in front of the shop. “Closed!” he managed to say as the door flew open. A tall man in a long wool coat stood with a pistol in his hand. A felt hat was pulled down low, over his brow, completely obscuring his face. Major Deng attempted to draw his sidearm, but the man shot him twice in the neck. Chau registered danger a hair too late, catching two rounds in his chest before he could will his hand to move toward his own weapon. The rounds were suppressed, loud enough to crack inside the small shop, but hardly loud enough to cause concern to anyone in neighboring shops or even on the street. The man in the hat continued to fire, taking down Lung with a head shot. The girl lunged through the curtain, running, while the newcomer dealt with the others. Chau had planned to shoot her himself only moments before, but now he hoped she got away. Mortally wounded, he lay on the floor. At first he thought the man in the felt hat was an SVR asset, but he shot the Russian as well, twice, as he did everyone in the room.

“Mmmm… eeem…” Chau coughed, blood covering his teeth and chin. A crushing weight pressed against his chest. He reached upward, his bloody hand opening and closing in the empty air. “Eeemmm… MS… S…”

The man in the coat shook his head, but did not speak.

“W-w-w-wait!” Chau blurted out in English.

Blood spilled from his wounds, mingling with the shattered glass on the floor around him. His heart raced, trying in vain to supply his brain. The room was fast closing in around him. He could tell the man was standing over him now, but his vision was too foggy to make out any facial features. “Pl… Please… wait,” he said again.

He was vaguely aware of the dark form of the pistol before his vision failed him completely, sparing him the momentary sight of the flash that killed him. It made sense, he thought, a split second before the faceless man fired. The CIA would take Professor Liu and come back to tie up loose ends.

The Americans were everywhere.