The survivor

Nineteen

Red Mask lay on a table. He opened his eyes. Looked around.

The room he was in was small, lit by bulbs bright as the winter sun. In the far corner by a greyish wall stood a small, old man. He was bald. With wrinkles carved so deep his face looked wooden.

It was the doctor. Jun Kieu.

Red Mask ignored him. He lay, staring up at the glaring whiteness above. Suddenly, Kim Pham blipped into view, snapped his fingers at the two men who stood guard by the door and said, ‘Get the fuck out.’

The room cleared, and then there was only Red Mask and Kim Pham and the doctor.

‘Release me,’ Red Mask said.

The doctor came forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Be still.’

Red Mask could not. He had gone back in time.

In his mind, Kim Pham’s white suit fell away and was replaced by a green cap and a grey buttoned-down jacket. There were screams coming from outside the window, from where the women were kept. And a machinelike voice spoke.

‘You are a special agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.’

‘Sister,’ Red Mask replied, and in his mind he was eight years old again. ‘Where is my sister?’

‘You are an emissary of the United Socialistic Soviet Republic.’

‘No. No. My family-’

‘You have shit in the food supplies to make the others sick.’

‘What?’

‘You have falsified medical documents to undermine the reputation of this hospital because it is an icon of its kind and a great testament to the glory.’

‘Mother! I want my mother!’

And then, like an evaporating mist, the vision dissipated. And Kim Pham stood there. The muscles of his face were tight behind his padded cheeks.

‘Fuck, this is bad. Bad, bad, BAD. Nothing is finished! The bosses won’t be happy.’ He paced back and forth, balled his fists against the sides of his head, then stopped. He leaned back over Red Mask and spoke in English, as he always did, for their dialects were too far apart. ‘Can you hear me? For fuck’s sake, can you hear anything?’

The words were too loud and too soft. But Red Mask responded. ‘I am here, I am awake.’

Kim Pham’s voice deepened. ‘What the hell happened over there? Did you get the job done?’

Red Mask felt the images overtake him, wave after nauseating wave. ‘A man appeared. Like a ghost. He came from nothing.’

‘A man? What man? What are you talking about? Was he a cop?’

‘A soldier, yes.’

Kim Pham became silent. He looked up at the flat-screen monitor that hung on the far wall. The news was on. The entire focus was St Patrick’s High. The images were blunt: yellow police tape; dead kids; frantic parents; lots of cops. Pham watched for a long moment, then nodded in acknowledgement of what was happening. He turned around slowly and gave Red Mask an odd look.

‘Where is Tran?’

The words hollowed out Red Mask’s heart. ‘Tran is no more.’

‘Stop talking in fucking riddles!’ Kim Pham yelled. He paused. ‘And what about Sherman Chan?’

‘Dealt with. As planned. But not… not Que Wong.’

‘Not Que.’ The words sounded flat as Kim Pham spoke them. ‘You let him get away?’

‘He did not show. That is why Tran had to come.’

‘Fuck! Another fucking failure. There’s gonna be a lot of heat over this, a lot of heat. They will not tolerate this.’ Kim Pham got on his cell, dialled and had a quick conversation in a dialect Red Mask could not understand. When he closed the flip-phone, he asked, ‘Where is Tran’s body?’

‘Where it fell.’

‘Stop talking in chicken fucking English — where did it fall?’

‘Saint Patrick’s.’

Kim Pham’s eyes took on a faraway stare. Eventually, he nodded. Gave Red Mask’s uninjured shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘Rest, my friend. You need to heal.’ As Kim Pham turned to go, he gave the doctor a sideways glance. The old man nodded back. The movement was minimal, but Red Mask noticed the exchange.

And he acted.

When the doctor came towards him with the syringe, Red Mask grabbed the old man’s wrist. ‘What is name of medicine?’

The doctor tried to pull away. ‘It’s… it’s an antibiotic.’

‘What is name?’

‘… Naxopren…’

‘Liar!’ In one quick motion, Red Mask bent the old man’s wrist back until a loud crack filled the room. The doctor screamed, fell back, and Red Mask sat up. Kim Pham turned from the door, his hand going for his gun.

Red Mask was quicker. With his good arm, he pulled the Glock from behind his waistband and fired three times from the hip.

Pham’s white suit exploded with redness and he let out a strangled sound; he fell forward, landing hard on the dirty green vinyl. Almost immediately, the stairwell door burst open and the two men who’d brought Red Mask downstairs raced into the room.

Red Mask shot them both. By the time they hit the ground he was rushing across the small room. He locked the stairwell door. Spun and found the doctor. The old man was crouched in the corner, the needle still clutched in his broken right hand.

‘I have done nothing! Nothing!’ he whispered.

Red Mask neared the old man. ‘Untrue. You have done much, Doctor Kieu. In Vu Nuar, and Anlong Veng. Yes, you have done much horrible things. What is name of medicine?’

‘Naxopren! Naxopren!’

‘Inject yourself.’

The doctor’s eyes became rounder. ‘I… am not sick.’

‘Inject yourself!’

When the doctor did not move, Red Mask snatched up the syringe and drove the needle into his shoulder.

The old man screamed. ‘Please, please, Mok Gar Tieun!’

But Red Mask did not listen. He depressed the plunger.

The old man gasped. Trembled. Started to cry.

Red Mask’s face hardened. ‘Tears from you, Doctor? An irony — and an insult to your victims.’

The old man opened his mouth to speak, but only spittle came out. He clutched at his chest, then fell forward and slumped in the corner like a child’s doll. His breaths came deep and heavy; soon he began to shake more violently. Foam bubbled all around his lips. And then he became still.

The threat was over.

Red Mask struggled to get up and let out a cry when he put pressure on his injured shoulder. He focused on the TV screen. The news was on, showing a photograph of the cop who had ruined everything. The one who had manifested from nothing. Beneath his face was a name: Detective Jacob Striker.

Red Mask stared at him with dead eyes, this man who had killed Tran.

Let him come, he thought. It will change nothing. I will find the girl. And I will finish the job.

He headed for the exit with this one thought on his mind. The girl was still out there somewhere — the only one who had escaped him. Now that Tran was gone, her death was all that mattered. He would find her. And then he would kill her.