White Tiger

CHAPTER 25

The office building was well secured, seemingly surrounded by dozens of video cameras. She knew the doors would be locked, as it was the weekend and there was only a skeleton workforce on the premises, at the very best. This was simultaneously to her advantage and a sort of drawback. If there had been more foot traffic entering and exiting the building, she might have had the opportunity to slink inside and take her chances that way. But that was not an option; to try such an approach in the late afternoon hours would have been carelessly brazen, not to mention a complete failure. While she had no doubt the building’s security team was less than effective-how often had they truly been tested? — she was certain that even on a Saturday afternoon, their numbers were substantial enough to delay her. And more importantly, one of them might be able to summon the police before she could effectively deal with them.

Another impediment to trying to slip in through the ground floor was that, after all these years of waiting, of practicing, of training…she found the blood lust she needed to complete her mission was fading. There had been enough death in her past already, enough to fill a dozen lifetimes with unending remorse and grief. The security guards in the lobby of 101 California were only trying to earn a living, and were not guarding Lin himself, per se. Killing them might give her a few minutes of advantage, but that advantage would be tenuous, at best. She’d had the opportunity to slip into Lin’s mansion the night before, but she’d squandered it, wasted the chance on killing his primary guard dog, just to send a message, to increase his terror a thousandfold, to ensure he knew his life was near its end. She cursed herself now for her stupidity, for prolonging the inevitable. Time had been wasted, and opportunity had been frittered away like rice thrown at a Western-style wedding, despite the fact that millions went hungry on a daily basis.

Bu zhan, bu he. She repeated the hated axiom to herself, over and over, like a mantra. It took some time, minutes even, but soon her breast filled with the anger, the hatred, the components that allowed her to disassociate herself from the horrible events that lay in the near future. Bu zhan. bu he. Bu zhan, bu he. Bu zhan, bu he.

No war, no peace. Without going to war with oneself, there was no chance for peace.

She embraced it fully now, as she had never allowed herself to do before. It was an interesting moment, drawing power from her enemy’s most hateful slogan, a slogan that had been the epitaph for thousands. Friends. Family. Her mother, her father. Her brother, so small, so defenseless.

If she’d had much humanity left, she might have shed another tear for their absence. But the part of her that felt pain at the touch of grief had perished long ago, and now the despair only served as fuel. As motivation.

She pulled her old Corolla into the driveway that led to the parking garage. She pulled the magnetic card she had taken from Baluyevsky’s body last night before fading into the night, and swiped it across the card reader before the sealed garage doors. Automatically, one of them opened, rolling upward into its ceiling recess. She pulled her car into the garage and drove around, looking for the black GTO. The garage was mostly deserted, and she had no trouble finding it. She parked a few spaces from it, then exited her car, carrying a black, nylon duffel bag over one shoulder. The bag’s color matched her clothes, baggy garments the color of midnight, loose enough to allow for freedom of movement. She walked toward the car and pulled a lock pick from one pocket.

In just a few moments, she had the trunk open. She removed the recording device she had planted in the vehicle the night before while Manning slept, sated. The memory of the early part of the night rose in her mind unbidden, and she remembered the rapture she had felt while riding him. It had been years since she had allowed herself to run so freely, to take pleasure, and in a rare moment, return it as well. She wished she had allowed herself to lie beside him throughout the night and take him again the following morning, but that was not to be. Never to be.

She knew Manning was perhaps more lethal than Baluyevsky, and most certainly smarter. Otherwise, Lin would not have recruited him. The old man must have sensed that Baluyevsky, for all his skill, would have been nothing more than a helpless sheep being led to the slaughter. Manning was not that way at all, and she knew if he’d had even an inkling as to who she was, she would be dead.

Walking toward the elevator bay, she inserted a pair of ear buds into the recording device’s RCA input. As she entered the bay (once again with the assistance of the magnetic card she had liberated from Baluyevsky’s bloodied corpse), she played back the conversation Manning and Lin had had during their drive back to San Francisco. She had missed nothing, and it presented no further clues as to what Manning’s plan was.

But she knew. Both men were upstairs, where there was almost no place to run. It was a trap. Manning intended to ambush her when she went for Lin Yubo.

She called the elevator and pressed the button for the 46th floor, which was also leased to Lin Industries. As smart as Manning doubtless was, there were other ways to defeat an ambush.

The manager and the hotel security officer granted Ryker and Chee Wei access to the room with barely any questioning. They stood in the doorway and watched while the two detectives pulled on latex gloves and went through the room with a practiced, methodical ease.

There wasn’t much to it. While the hotel room was certainly upscale, it was also bereft of anything other than the most carefully-manufactured character-most certainly nothing like the Taipan Room at the Mandarin. Ryker didn’t need to turn it upside down to see that it had barely been used, if at all. While he’d been hoping the room had been used as a home base, he was disappointed to find that wasn’t the case. The closets and dresser were bare, and there were no feminine toiletries of any sort in the bathroom. The glass-walled shower was bone dry, the towels perfectly folded and aligned in the rack above the toilet. Of course, housekeeping had been through. Ryker asked about that.

“I’ve already checked,” the hotel detective said. “The staff says the room’s pretty much been like this the entire time. No room service, no calls for extra towels, no nothing.”

Chee Wei carefully stripped the bed and inspecting the linens. He looked up at Ryker after a few minutes and shook his head.

“Nothing. Not a single hair. You want to get forensics in on this?”

Ryker debated that, then turned to the hotel manager and the detective. “You guys mind if we call in some extra troops? We’ll keep things as discreet as possible.”

“Is it absolutely necessary?” the manager asked. “This is a Saturday night, and we have plenty of filled rooms on this floor.”

Ryker nodded. “Sorry, but it is.”

The manager looked entirely unhappy about it, but he nodded his assent. Ryker looked at Chee Wei.

“Go ahead and call in the troops. And have the local district send a cruiser over.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because you’re going to stay here and keep an eye on things. I’m headed cross-town.”

Chee Wei frowned. “Where to?”

“One-oh-one California. I’ll bet you twenty bucks I’ll find Lin and his hired boy Manning there.”

The time passed slowly, but Manning was used to waiting in place for something to happen. He had long ago trained himself to ignore boredom, and to stave off sleep through sheer discipline. Those were the major problems with pulling sentry duty like this. There was usually nothing to do, nothing to keep the mind occupied. Waiting in ambush took a great deal of patience, and Manning had had years to cultivate that specific skill, both inside the Army and outside in the private sector. While it had been some time since he’d had to tap that well of patience-working for Chen Gui was usually all rough-and-dirty work that was over in minutes, if not seconds-he still had the hunter’s knack for lying quietly in wait until his quarry showed itself.

And as the sun slowly slid toward the western horizon, his gut told him he wouldn’t have to wait for much longer.

The food arrived from a restaurant in Chinatown that served authentic Chinese food, not the overly sweet/overly sour fare that most Americans thought was the real deal. Manning paid for the order with his credit card and promised one of the security guards a $50 tip to bring it up to the office floor. That way, Manning wouldn’t have to go to the lobby to pick up the food and leave Lin alone. The young security guard took the bait, of course; he was all over the extra money. Manning wasn’t gone for long, and he found Lin was still in his office, checking his email and doing what work he could by himself. It didn’t seem like there was much for him to do. Manning figured he was more the type of boss who told other people what to do as opposed to actually doing anything himself.

“Your food,” Manning said. He unpacked several containers and placed them on the credenza. Most were still warm.

Lin rose and checked out the selection. He slid open a drawer and removed some very expensive-looking china and handed a plate to Manning.

“I will not serve you,” he said, “so ‘help yourself’, as you Americans say.”

“Thanks.” Manning didn’t serve Lin either, but did allow him to go first. The older man arranged different varieties of food on his plate in small, neat piles and returned to his desk. He had already warmed himself some tea from the electric pot on the desk. Lying next to it was the pistol. Manning quickly dumped three different dishes onto his plate with his chopsticks and headed for the door.

“How long will we wait?” Lin asked.

Manning turned back to him. “Not long.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s time to get this over with,” Manning said. He returned to the secretary’s office and left Lin alone with his dinner and thoughts.

The patrolman didn’t seem very enthused to drive Ryker from the Hyatt to 101 California, and for good reason. The traffic was thick, and even worse, it was weekend traffic, which meant the out-of-towners were out in force. As the revelers were just getting started, the black-and-white squad car made some good time at first, but once it hit Kearny the traffic thickened enough that it took almost ten minutes to make it to the intersection with California.

“You want the lights, Sergeant?” the patrolman asked.

“Not necessary,” Ryker said, though he felt a peculiar anxiety beginning to build in his chest. And why was that? His instincts were trying to tell him something, but he didn’t exactly know what.

“Then I guess we’ll get there when we get there,” the patrolman said, slouching in his seat. He was already bored as hell.

Ryker wished he was also, but he was far from it. Far from it.

The air duct was just large enough for her to fit, but not at all comfortably. It was a tight squeeze, and very, very dark despite the night vision monocle she wore over one eye. The aluminum duct felt thin and flimsy beneath her weight, and she feared it might give way and she would crash through the suspended ceiling onto the office floor below. Or worse, the duct might simply fold up and trap her, leaving her pinned inside. That was her greatest fear-being trapped with no chance of escape, alone in the darkness, until the police found her or she simply died from thirst and starvation. And with the accursed Lin Yubo so near…

She pushed the thoughts from her mind and inched forward through the darkness on her belly, slithering through the ductwork like some sort of jet-black serpent, her movements slow and measured and precise. And virtually soundless. Stealth was her primary weapon now.

She came to a junction where the ducts split off, up, down, left, and right. She moved to the edge of the intersection and peered down, the direction she needed to go. Darkness waited, so deep and impenetrable that even the night vision monocle couldn’t properly pierce it after a hundred feet or so. But she could make out junctions like the one she lay at below, one for every story. She only needed to make it to the next one.

Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself over the edge until she hung head-down in the vertical duct. Using her arms and legs as brakes she slowly descended, leaving the ductwork of the 46th floor behind. She arrived at the 45th floor and slowly, oh so slowly, curled to her left and entered the horizontal duct there. She made very little sound the entire time, only a sliding scuffle here, a slight metallic creak there as the aluminum channel flexed beneath her body weight. She knew approximately where Lin’s office would lie, but she had no allusions about being able to attack him directly by alighting from the HVAC ducting. Nor would it be wise; Manning would likely be right with him.

And for some reason, she did not want to kill Manning…but she didn’t know how that could be avoided.

Slowly, she crept forward through the dark shaft, stopping every few feet to listen. All she heard were the sounds of the building, the air whispering past her, the gurgle of water in pipes. There was a distant metallic clicking sound, and it took her a moment to recognize it as a magnetic lock activating. And then-muted voices. Vague, indistinct, almost lost in the rumble of the building, but her keen senses picked them up the same way a bat’s sonar might detect a solitary moth fluttering along in the darkness. She peered through every vent she came across and found nothing more remarkable than empty cubicles or vacant carpet. Yet she was certain she was on the right floor…

And then she smelled it.

Chinese food. Wafting through the ventilation system, Very slight, but unmistakable.

Spurred on by this, Meihua Shi pushed forward through the ductwork, her heart hammering in her chest.

“But we didn’t call the police,” the security guard said. He was young black man with close-cropped hair who wrapped his arrogant air around him like it was an expensive topcoat. He glared at Ryker’s proffered badge and identification with surly eyes. Ryker sighed. He didn’t have the time to deal with some punk who had an attitude problem.

“Yeah, yeah, I get that,” he said. He tried to step inside the lobby of 101 California, but the kid wouldn’t budge-he stood smack in the center of the doorway. He’d decided to make his stand. From the corner of his eye, Ryker saw the squad car he’d arrived in pull away from the curb and merge back into the weekend traffic. He was on his own.

“Listen, you going to let me in, or not?”

“Why should I?” the kid said. “We didn’t call you.”

“Kid, let me ask you something-are you a special kind of stupid? Did you ride the short bus to school? I’m a police officer here on police business, and I need access to this building.”

“You got a warrant?” the security guard said.

Ryker looked past him at the older man sitting behind the desk in the lobby. The man watched the proceedings with something approaching a smile.

“Hey pal, can you give me a hand here?” Ryker called.

“We don’t need ‘a hand’,” said the younger man.

The older black man slowly rose to his feet and started walking toward the door. His gait was slow and ponderous, as if his knees were giving him some trouble. The bemused expression he’d been wearing before was gone. Now, he was all business.

“Malik! Let the man inside.”

The younger security guard kept his eyes on Ryker. “But we didn’t call the po-lice,” he said.

“Let him in.” The older guard made it to the lobby door and stood right behind the younger man, staring holes into the back of his head with his eyes. “Do it right now.”

The young man glared at Ryker for a moment longer, then backed off.

“Thanks,” Ryker said to the older man as he stepped inside. He presented his badge, and older man examined it for a moment then waved for him to put it away.

“I was on the Job myself for over twenty years,” he said. “Patrol. Retired out of Mission four years ago.”

“Ah-how’s life on the outside?”

The older black man shrugged and waved a hand at the lobby. “A lot less threatening.”

Ryker extended his hand. “Detective Sergeant Hal Ryker, homicide.”

“Willy Terrell. Good to meet you, sergeant. What can we do for you?”

“Looking for James Lin.”

“I see.” Terrell hesitated for a moment. “And might he be expecting you?”

“He might be, yes.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“I’m here on official business, Willy.”

Terrell looked past Ryker’s shoulder. “Where’s your partner?”

“At the Grand Hyatt, conducting part of the investigation there.”

“What investigation is that?”

“The son,” Ryker said simply. There was no need to be coy, especially since Danny Lin’s death had made the front page news. “And I guess you know that, right?”

Terrell nodded. “Kind of big news around here.”

Ryker glanced at the ceiling, several stories overhead. “Is Lin upstairs?”

“He is.”

“How do I get there?”

“Follow me,” Terrell said. He started lumbering across the lobby, and glanced over his shoulder at the younger security guard. “I’ll be right back. Keep your eye on things while I’m gone, and if I come down and find you surfing porn on the workstation, I’ll kick your ass.”

“In your dreams,” said the other security guard.

It took almost thirty minutes for her to make her way to the side of the building where Lin’s office suite lay. The vents leading to the office itself were too small for her to make use of, unless her intent was to drop a hand grenade into the office and hope for the best. Of course, that was not part of the plan. The plan was to see Lin’s blood flow from her artful blade work, to peer into his eyes as the light in them slowly faded. But a direct attack was out of the question. The vents were just too tiny.

But the single vent leading to the outer office was larger, and while not as wide as the duct she had crawled through for the past half hour, it was large enough. Slowly, she edged into it head-first, using the palms of her hands as brakes. Her shoulders barely fit, and she worried about her hips, but they were just narrow enough to allow her to slide her body inside the smaller channel. The aluminum sheath that made up the ducting flexed slightly, but the sound was virtually lost in the medley of background noise. She edged closer to the grating covering the vent’s terminus, barely moving now, descending only millimeters at a time, as silent as a phantom gliding through still air. She peered through the grate and looked into Lin’s secretary’s office. She could see only a small portion of the room; directly below her was a credenza and a patch of gray carpeting, over which a Persian rug had been thrown. She thought she saw a hint of a desk’s return, but the grating was too small to allow much more of the room to be shown. She examined the grate itself. It was plastic, and hinged on one side. Opposite the hinges was a small lever, meant to be pulled from the outside so the grate could be opened. She slowly reached for the lever with her left hand. As she did so, she heard a small squeak from below, something barely audible above the building noise that filled the duct. She watched as Manning suddenly appeared, leaning back in an office chair, his hands clasped behind his head. She couldn’t see much more than that, only the top of his head and a bit of his shoulders. His attention was not directed at the vent overhead.

And so, this is how it will be.

With that thought, Meihua Shi closed her legs and allowed her body to fall through the grate life a warm knife through butter.

“So the department’s still the same, huh?” Terrell asked as he escorted Ryker to the elevator bank.

“Same thing. More politics, though. Tough to get work done.”

“Tell me about it.” Terrell punched the UP button and turned back to Ryker. His expression still wasn’t very friendly, but it was more welcoming than the one the kid had shown him at the door. “Politics are the death of the department. When that lesbian became the chief a few years ago, that absolutely blew my mind.”

“She’s gone. Replaced by a guy named Hallis.”

“He and I worked Tenderloin together, and later in the 80s, Western Addition. He was an okay cop then, I thought. How is he as a chief?”

Ryker shrugged. “Not a lesbian.”

Terrell allowed himself a glimmer of a smile, then looked up as the elevator arrived and the doors slid open. He preceded Ryker inside and pressed the button marked 45.

The ceiling collapsed before Manning could do anything more than fling himself forward, out of the secretary’s chair. Even as he did, he felt something bite the back of his left shoulder, something that penetrated the fabric of his jacket and the shirt underneath. As he hit the carpet, he cursed himself for not having the foresight to wear body armor. What the hell had happened to all his training?

He rolled onto his back as quickly as he could, moving fast, the injury to his shoulder not slowing him for a moment. Behind him, the chair he had sat on was flung into the wall, striking it so hard that it shattered into two pieces and cracked the expensive mahogany paneling. A figure clad in black from head to toe caught itself on its hands, folded at the waist, and alighted on its feet like some sort of circus performer. A small slit in the black hood was just wide enough for the assassin to see through. Black eyes glittered there, eyes that Manning recognized, though when he had last seen them they were full of a different kind of passion.

“Shi Meihua,” he said quietly, as he brought up the Smith amp; Wesson. His training had reasserted itself fully now. He pushed his personal feelings aside and allowed it to take over. The person who stood before him wasn’t his lover of no more than sixteen hours ago; the person there now was a target, someone who intended to kill him unless he struck first.

There was no hesitation on her part, and she hurled the knife she held at him with expert accuracy as Manning fired, aiming for her center of mass. Two rounds found their target, and she was flung against the credenza, arms flailing beneath the power of the double impacts. At the same time, her knife slashed through Manning’s abdomen; it had been skillfully thrown, and it cut deep into his liver. Manning ignored the spike of pain as he gathered his feet beneath him and stood, reaching across his body with his left hand. He grasped the knife and pulled it out, gasping slightly as a greater degree of pain lanced through him, a kind of agony he had thought he’d grown used to. As the black-clad figure rebounded off the credenza and fell toward the carpet, Manning tracked it with his pistol, but he was off by just a fraction. His responses slowed by the spreading web of pain, he was slow to respond to the change in her body’s attitude. She wasn’t slumping to the floor, a victim of what had to be two fatal shots. Instead, she gathered her legs beneath her and hurtled toward Manning like a guided missile.

She’s wearing a ballistic vest! he thought, too late.

He fired again, twice. The first shot tore through her left thigh and blasted a path out of her calf. The second missed entirely. And then the pistol was sent flying as her left hand knifed out and struck his wrist with all the power of a sledgehammer, making his entire arm light up with pain. Manning pivoted at the waist and lashed out with his left fist, driving it into the side of her head with as much power as he could muster, which wasn’t much given his current position. He knew her target would be the knife wound. The liver was one of the most vulnerable organs in the human body, and he doubted her knife had perforated his entirely by accident.

Her body slammed into his, and the force of the impact made him stumble backwards as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her uninjured leg scythed out, describing a brief crescent as it tangled up with one of his own legs. Manning fell onto his back, his right arm flopping uselessly at his side as he fired off another punch. Meihua’s head rocketed back under the force of the impact.

And then she punched the knife wound.

As the elevator reached the 45th floor, both Ryker and Terrell heard the gunshots, two fired close together, another a moment later. Ryker pulled his pistol as the doors slid open and held it in a combat stance, feet spread, crouching slightly. The elevator bay was empty, so he stepped into it, panning the pistol from left to right. There was no target for him to engage.

“What do you want me to do?” Terrell asked. He had no weapon, and he had pressed himself against one of the elevator’s walls.

“Call nine one one, tell them shots fired at this address and floor, and tell them I’m on scene. Then let the cops up here as soon as they arrive. It’s probably going to be a few minutes, though.”

“No kidding?” Terrell knew the traffic patterns of San Francisco as well as anyone.

“Where’s Lin’s office?”

“Far corner. Left out of the elevator lobby, walk to the wall, then hard right. Office suites are at the end of a hall, his is the last one. Secretary’s office outside, and then Lin’s office is past that. Here, you’ll need this.” Terrell held out a magnetic card, but did not leave the elevator. Ryker was forced to sidestep into the elevator and take it with his left hand, crossing it under his right arm to do so. It was awkward and left him momentarily vulnerable, but there was no helping that.

“Later,” Ryker said. He moved toward the glass doors that led to Lin Industries and swiped the card across the reader there. Magnetic locks clicked loudly-too loudly, he thought-and he pulled open one door with his left hand. Keeping to a crouch, he turned left and hurried toward the far wall.

Behind him, the elevator doors closed.

The pain was so intense that Manning had no choice but to scream. As Meihua’s fingers rammed into the slit that had been opened by her knife, she tore the wound open even further. Manning screamed again, but rocked to his right. At the same time, he wrapped his left arm around her head, cupping her chin in his hand. He made to spin her head around with all his strength; he doubted he could break her neck this way, but he would doubtless damage ligaments and tendons there. She knew what he was up to, and she released him, rolling with his arm’s motion, but her movements were slowed by her damaged leg. Manning ripped his arm out from beneath her and powered another strike at her head, and his fist caught her full in the face this time. His choices after that were to roll up on her and pin her beneath his body mass, but with one arm out of commission there wasn’t much he could do; she would doubtless immobilize his left arm and break it, leaving him mostly helpless. So he rolled away from her and sprang to his feet as quickly as he could. He reached inside his jacket and pulled the Asp from his belt and flicked it open to its full 42-inch length. At the same time, Meihua pulled herself up onto her good leg, using the secretary’s desk for support. Manning took a step back, using his peripheral vision to scan for his pistol. He didn’t see it, which meant he was either standing right over it or it was behind him. Warm wetness made the front of his shirt stick to his body, and the wound in his side throbbed sickeningly. He knew the damage to his liver was bad, and was very likely bleeding profusely into his body cavity. He didn’t have much time left before he passed out from blood loss.

Meihua sprang toward him suddenly, moving with more speed than she should have been capable of, given the damage done to her left leg. Manning swung the Asp expertly, cracking her across the right forearm with enough force to snap her radius. He then reversed the swing as she continued to close and raked her across the skull. The blow was mostly ineffectual, for at the last moment she dipped her head, and the tip of the Asp managed only a grazing strike. She kept coming, and Manning stepped forward, lifting his right leg, snap-kicking her with his knee against her chest. The force of the blow was strong enough to knock her back, and for a moment she tottered on her injured leg. Manning swung the Asp again, striking her in the chest, and she grunted in pain.

“Let me do this!” she shouted finally. “Let me do this, and I’ll let you live!”

“Not hardly,” Manning said. He swung the Asp again in a vicious backhand, and his target was her throat. The force of the strike would have shattered her larynx and promised a long, lingering death.

Despite her injuries, she spun on her damaged leg and took the strike on the back, right between the shoulder blades. At the same time, her right leg lashed out in a ferocious spin-kick that Manning couldn’t block-his right arm still hung limp at his side, the nerves tingling as if on fire. He tried to duck down, but there just wasn’t enough time-she was much faster than he could ever be.

Light exploded behind his eyes as he took the kick right to the side of the head.

Ryker heard the sounds of struggle somewhere on the floor. His Glock at the ready, he advanced toward the office suites in the far corner, glancing into cubicles as he passed by them. Through the ceiling to floor windows, he saw the sun was already below the horizon. The city of San Francisco was lighting up, ready to repel the darkness of night. In counterpoint, half the lights on the office floor switched off suddenly. Ryker cursed the lack of illumination, as now every shadow could offer cover to a potential attacker.

Only two lights were on in the dark hallway that led to the office suites. Ryker considered his chances for a moment. There were many, many places for an attacker to hide, but at the end of the hallway, a thin strip of light beckoned. Light that escaped from beneath a shut door.

And then he heard a woman shout something, and then a loud crash.

Ryker firmed his grip on the Glock. Time to join the party.

Meihua watched as Manning collapsed face-first to the floor in an awkward sprawl. The Asp slipped from his grasp, and the bend in his left arm told her she had indeed broken it as she had intended. His jacket and shirt were darkened by the blood pouring from the injury in his side. She hadn’t meant it to be a fatal wound, but he had rushed her; the speed at which he had pulled his weapon, turned, and fired hadn’t left her with much choice in the matter. She had hurled her knife as she had been trained to do those many, many years ago in China and Taiwan. The liver was one of the human body’s most important organs, and as such, it was incredibly vulnerable to injury. Even the smallest wound could impair its function, and of course, it bled a great deal. If she hadn’t struck him there, she knew his next shot would be to her head, and that would be that.

Convinced Manning wasn’t going anywhere, she limped toward the office suite’s inner door. She was bleeding badly, from the wound in her left leg and from her nose, which Manning had broken with his punch. And her right arm was damaged as well; in just a matter of seconds, Manning had rendered her almost combat-ineffective. It was by more luck than skill that she had persevered and overcome him, but she had known that fighting him would be a great challenge. She felt no euphoria at the victory, just a deep, hollow fatigue.

She threw open the office door and leaped inside with as much vigor as she could summon, landing in an awkward crouch, her right arm curled before her chest, her bleeding left leg extended behind her for balance. The pain was starting to mount now, interfering with her ability to concentrate, to remain focused; she used every ounce of her conditioning to hold it at bay, to short-circuit the nerve impulses carrying useless messages of pain before they reached her brain. She looked from right to left, but the office appeared to be empty. All the lights were on, but where was Lin-?

The sound of trickling water captured her attention, and she looked to her left. The sound came from behind a closed door, and she saw a strip of wan light radiating from the small gap between the door and floor. Through her damaged nose, she could still smell the lingering Chinese food, and the glance to the credenza to her right revealed the remains of a large dinner, in foil trays and white cardboard boxes. Back to her left, the trickling water beckoned to her.

He’s in there, she thought.

She rose and advanced toward the door at a slow, hobbling pace. As she walked, she reached to her waist, where the belt of blades was cinched tight around the thin, high-tech ballistic armor that protected her chest. She pulled a long, thin blade from its sheath. Its hilt was made from white pearl. White-the color of death in China.

As her fingertips touched the door knob, she sensed movement to her right. She crouched instinctively as the first pistol shot tore through the wooden door, sending splinters flying. The second shot hit her in the back, but the armor protected her from most of the damage, though she screamed as the force of the impact knocked her asprawl. She continued with the motion, rolling across the carpeted floor as Lin Yubo stepped around the desk, his pistol held before him in both hands. He squeezed off another shot. It missed, but not by a wide margin.

“Face me!” Lin shouted in Shanghainese. “Face me! Don’t hide behind your mask, show yourself, assassin!” As he spoke, he continued firing, again and again. Meihua backpedaled as quickly as she could, leaving a broken trail of blood on the carpeting from her leg, whimpering behind her mask as the shattered bones of her right arm ground against each other. A bullet struck her right hand, decimating the fine bones there. Another slammed into her chest, followed by another, but both rounds were turned by her armor. She backed into the hard, unyielding credenza behind her, and another bullet smashed through the fine wood only an inch from her left ear.

And then the Walther PPS Lin held was out of ammunition, its slide locked back. Smoke rose from its exposed breech. Lin kept the weapon trained on her, as if unaware its magazine was depleted.

Slowly, painfully, Meihua pushed herself to a half-standing, half-leaning position against the credenza. With her bleeding hand, she pulled the black hood from her head and tossed it to the floor. She wiped at the blood pouring from her nose and glared at him. For his part, Lin returned the stare, and even now his gaze was cold, reptilian.

“A woman,” he said, almost disgusted. “A woman was able to penetrate my defenses, kill my sons, and almost kill me. A woman. The gods must be laughing.”

“Do you know who I am, Lin Yubo?” she asked. Her voice was still strong and vital, even though her body was damaged and failing. But she had strength enough to overpower an old man in his 80s. She knew that. It was fate, both his and hers.

“I know you are Ren Yun’s translator.”

“My family name is Shi. My father was Shi Yue, my mother Zuo Gong, my brother Shi Tian. You and your people killed them in your purges. In Shanghai.”

“Do you think I care?” Lin asked, his voice pitched low. “Do you think I even knew their names? Do you think you would have done any differently? You want revenge, Shi Meihua? Find the ghost of Mao Zedong. Take it up with him.” As he spoke, Lin ejected the Walther’s spent magazine and pulled another from his pocket.

Meihua screamed and lurched toward him, her blade glittering in her left hand. Lin’s eyes registered something other than cold calculation for the first time as an expression of surprise befell his face. It was clear he hadn’t expected such vitality from her, that he had been convinced her time was over. He stepped back at the very last moment to avoid her blade, but it slashed open the back of his right hand. Lin cried out and dropped the Walther to the floor as he backpedaled, steadying himself against the expanse of his desk as she continued her advance. Meihua grinned. At last, she had her quarry cornered-

She was rammed against the desk as Manning charged into her like a bull, using his superior weight to pin her against it. The wind rushed from her lungs, but still she twisted and elbowed him in the face. Manning grunted but did not relent, so she buried her blade to its hilt into his chest twice. Manning gave her a head-butt in return that made her see stars, and she felt at least two teeth break when her jaws slammed together. But Manning did fall back slightly, and she kneed him in the groin and elbowed him in the face again. His jaw dislocated with a brief pop! and he staggered backward. Blood poured from his nose, and his eyes looked wild, unfocused.

But his gaze never left her.

Meihua reached behind her with her good hand and groped about Lin’s desk. Her fingers contacted something smooth, hard, cold; she seized it and hurled it at Manning as he charged toward her again, his left arm already shooting out from his body. The glass paperweight she had thrown smashed against his forehead, and Manning lurched to his right drunkenly, then collapsed to the floor on his back. His eyes rolled up in his head as he passed out, and Meihua limped over to him and yanked her knife from his body. She turned back to Lin, who stared at her with wide eyes.

“Lin Yubo,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, “you’ve troubled humanity for long enough. I’ve killed your bloodline, and now, I shall kill you.” She rose and advanced upon him, blade held high.

“I don’t think so, lady.”

The voice was a total surprise, catching her off guard at the moment as surely as a delivery of flowers from FTD would have. She turned and saw the policeman, Ryker, crouching in the doorway, his gun trained on her. His grip was steady, and there was nothing to indicate he would have trouble gunning her down. And he was over twenty feet away; too far for her to get to him before his bullets got to her.

“And before you decide to try and take me on, I know you’re wearing body armor,” Ryker said. “And believe me, I’m good enough to put a round in your head before you can take a single step.”

“Do…do not interfere!” she said, almost pleadingly. “Lin Yubo must pay for his crimes! He killed thousands!”

“I get that,” Ryker said. “But no, you can’t kill him. I can’t let you, even though I know he’s one dirty motherfucker. I’d put down the knife, lady. And I’d do it right now.”

Meihua hesitated, then looked back at Lin. He still fairly cowered before her, only a few feet away, holding his cut hand in the other. But now there was hope in his eyes, hope that the policeman would be able to save him from his just fate. Hope that he would once again escape the punishment he so deserved, punishment for ordering the blood of thousands spilled-

No.

Using every bit of speed she could summon, using every ounce of energy she had left, she lunged toward Lin Yubo. The tip of her blade caught the office light, reflecting it for a moment like a bright jewel. And then the tip found Lin Yubo’s flesh.

Light exploded behind Meihua’s eyes as a loud report filled her ears, and then she knew nothing more.