White Tiger

CHAPTER 20

Alexsey Baluyevsky walked the grounds himself even though it was almost four in the morning. The courtyard had been cleaned and returned to its original, pristine condition, as had the interior of the great house behind him. All occupants were safe and accounted for. Baluyevsky had his security team searching the house throughout the night’s festivities, poking about in all the rooms, ensuring that no one could hide out. Baluyevsky even went so far to look through the kitchen cabinets. Once, as a much younger man, he and his soldiers had been attacked by a Chechen youth who had hidden in the cabinet beneath a kitchen sink. Two men had died that day, and Baluyevsky never looked at a kitchen quite the same way again.

The house was clear. The grounds were clear. Lin was safe in his second story master suite, guarded by two of Alexsey’s best men. The suite’s doors and and walls were virtually impenetrable, and Baluyevsky would not be surprised if they could withstand the blast of a 155 millimeter artillery shell. The windows were likewise hardened and bullet-resistant. And if that failed, one of the master suite’s walk-in closets had been turned into a safe room. If an attacker decided to come after his employer, Baluyevsky hoped he or she brought a lunch.

Just the same, he watched as his security team checked the grounds, using flashlights, hounds, and night vision devices. Nothing more amiss than some unnoticed party garbage came to light. Baluyevsky had the men check again. Only after the second check was completed did he release them, and only after they left did he allow himself to relent in the face of what felt to be nearly bone-crushing exhaustion. It had been days since he had had a proper night’s sleep, but he dared not reveal that his performance was degrading. After all, his employer slept even less than he did, and had been doing so ever since the death of his prized son and heir Lin Jong. While Baluyevsky was not enchanted by Chinese in general or Lin in particular, he had to admire the older man’s ability to continue to function on almost no recuperative rest whatsoever.

Baluyevsky took in the view of San Francisco from across the bay. Many of the city’s lights had dimmed as the night wore on, but there was still a quality of sleeplessness that surrounded it. Even though the majority of its inhabitants were fast asleep, the city itself and those who tended it remained awake, watchful, never succumbing to exhaustion or fatigue. Baluyevsky stood and watched the city for a few moments, his hands clasped behind his back. A chill had crept into the air, but he barely felt it. He was from the Ural Mountains, and the bitter cold weather he had grown up with had left him almost invulnerable to simple chill such as this. He unclasped his hands and checked his watch. It was 4:40am. It was time to get as much rest as he could before starting over again tomorrow. Hopefully, that troublesome American Manning would be able to get something actionable out of Ryker and then they could put all this weariness behind them, once and for all.

As he turned, he heard the vague rustle of clothing over skin, barely audible over the whisper of the breeze that blew in from the San Francisco Bay. His right hand went for his pistol, strapped to his hip. At the same time, a shape disengaged from the darkness almost directly in front of him, visible only when it moved. Baluyevsky was surprised, and initially thought it was an animal of some sort-but it was no animal. He stepped back as his hand closed around the butt of his pistol. At the same time, the shape lunged toward him with more speed than Baluyevsky had thought possible from a human being. Pain flashed through his arms, and he found that he could no longer draw his pistol. Two more strikes on his biceps made the pain go away-in fact, all sensation in his arms faded, and Baluyevsky wondered if the radial nerves in his arms had been severed. He lashed out with one leg, launching a powerful kick at his opponent even though it was too late. His combatant was far too close for kicks to be effective, but it was all he had. The black shape avoided the crescent kick easily, then launched upward like a striking viper. Baluyevsky felt a peculiar thrill pass through his neck, then something like an electric charge blossomed in his head, crackling through his cranium like a bolt of lightning. He couldn’t make a sound, and he wondered if he had been hit with a stun gun of some sort. Then he felt the wetness pour into his mouth and tasted blood. He knew then that it was no stun gun.

It was a blade.

And then, the blade twisted inside his skull, and cohesive thought came to an end.