Hunt Among the Killers of Men (19 page)

The hairy eyeball. That is what the black-suited Cheung men were giving Gabriel. They had been vaguely alerted, but few specifics had trickled down the chain of command this far, to the ground-level enforcers. They were strictly guns, muscle, hired hands.

Further, they eyeballed every Zhang soldier who saw fit to trespass upon the Peace Hotel as though personally affronted their limited authority was being usurped by the emergency brewing out in the street.

They were tetchy and trigger-happy; itching for conflict.

“You are going to have to be my prisoner,” Ivory told Gabriel. He drew his trusty OTs-33, his thumb automatically switching the gun to three-shot-burst mode.

For him to grab Gabriel’s arm would be too aggressive, thus alerting the sentries. For them to casually stroll in without a declared hierarchy—Cheung operative plus prisoner—would be too casual. Ivory opted for polite formality: The captive or suspect proceeds one pace ahead, to the left. Normally this was a submissive, almost servile position for the man behind,
but the guards would understand that Ivory was keeping a ready weapon trained on Gabriel’s kidneys. Under normal circumstances, a jacket would be draped over the weapon in deference to public view. These circumstances were not normal—weapons were abundant thanks to the panic from the chopper crash—hence Ivory’s gun would be visible, reinforcing the idea of a general alert. The guards would see the gun and the prisoner and never think this was any sort of deception. This was business, expediently out in the open, and so Ivory would be taken at face value since his disfavor in Cheung’s eyes was still not widely known.

The two men bracketing the brass doors to the Peace Hotel were named Bennings and Jintao. Acquisitions, Ivory knew, from a recent canvass of Cheung security candidates based on such employment advantages as blackmail leverage, capacity for violence and general criminal records.

“For Cheung,” Ivory said, indicating Gabriel. “Dinanath was sent to retrieve this top-priority guest. He failed and I have assumed personal responsibility for the delivery. Check with Constantine on the fifth floor if you must, but this is most urgent.”

Gabriel did his best to look captured and cowed.

Bennings, a rangy Australian, was the guy giving Gabriel the once-over, twice. “Does this have anything to do with that balls-up?” he said, pointing to the wreck of the helicopter and the attendant madness.

“With what?” Ivory said, not even looking back.

Gabriel had to admire the ice-cold resolve of this guy.

Jintao had removed his sunglasses, silently exposing
his eyes to his superior, and Ivory gave the man his own stern gaze in response. Jintao averted his gaze first.

“Is there a problem?” said Ivory.

“No problem,” said Bennings, waving them inside.

They crossed the lobby in silence. The Old Jazz Bar of the Peace Hotel featured a large easeled placard that boasted
Real Shanghai Style Jazz Nightly!

“I helped Jintao’s children get into their present school,” said Ivory finally, when they were out of earshot. “There are many like him in Cheung’s employ—decent men who do this work from fiscal necessity. It would have been a pity to kill him.”

“Would you have?”

“If it had been necessary,” Ivory said. “I am glad it was not.”

Cheung’s floor was privately keyed, but Ivory still had the magnetic card that permitted direct elevator access.

“Wouldn’t Cheung have deactivated your card if he didn’t trust you?” said Gabriel once they had begun their ascent.

“Cheung does not wish to admit to himself the inevitability of my betrayal,” said Ivory. “I believe that he expects me to return, in fact, of my own accord.”

“So he left the door open for you,” Gabriel said. “He’s hoping you’ll come back.”

“I have come back, Mr. Hunt. And I have brought him the prize he seeks.”

Gabriel was contemplating Ivory’s gun, which had not lowered. “Please tell me…that I’m not worth a trap
this
elaborate.”

Ivory’s eyes indicated the ceiling, and the surveillance camera there.

“You are worth every effort, Mr. Hunt,” he said. “Maximum effort.”

The doors parted to admit them to the Junfa Hall.

Gabriel stepped out but was halted by Ivory, who merely said, “Hold.”

He pointed.

The two Tosa dogs were strewn all over the hallway in a welter of blood. Over there, between two of the warlord statues that lined the corridor, were the protruding feet of at least one deactivated sentry.

A single shot of rifle fire resounded so crisply through the hall that you could hear the ejected brass sing. Gabriel and Ivory hotfooted it to the alcove that lead to Cheung’s Temple Room.

Which is where they found Sister Menga with her brains painting the wall, and an insane-looking Mitch holding down on Cheung himself at point-blank range.

Getting past the door guards had been easy. All Mitch had to do was wait for a pair of Zhang soldiers to make for the Peace Hotel doors on some mission, perhaps to set up a triage center or summon medical backup. She blended through in their wake and made sure she was not noticed once she broke away from them. The soldiers were barely aware that they had even been tailed.

The captured helmet over her shaved head covered up a multitude of giveaways.

Getting to the top of the hotel had been tougher. Scaling the exterior wall was not an option. She might fall, be spotted or get shot. While she felt the drive and had the strength, more nimbleness than she possessed would be required for her to navigate slight
brick interstices and dicey, crumbling handholds all the way up. One slip, one misplaced boot-tip, and her life and mission would end in a big wet splattered puddle. Like they’d told her in jump school,
It ain’t the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop.

Qingzhao had warned her about guards and security elevators. Mitch was going to have to concoct a plan on the fly, and not hesitate lest she betray her own unauthorized presence. She quickly found the utility stairs and took them two at a time, as though she knew where she was going.

On the fourth floor she found a lone Cheung man patrolling the hallway. She hustled toward him with the urgent affect of a messenger, snapped a sharp salute, and hit him in the forehead with the butt of her borrowed carbine. The man’s eyes crossed as he fell. She stripped him of a Beretta nine and a fighting knife the length of a bayonet. In a jacket sheath she found a silencer for the handgun that was nearly a foot long. Serious business.

She jabbed the blade into the rubber seal of the nearby elevator and levered the doors about eighteen inches apart—far enough to see cables reeling past. The car squeaked to a stop at the floor below. It was near enough for her to snake into the shaft, spider downward, and put her boots on the roof as softly as a moth lighting on a lampshade.

Mitch flattened out. It would not do to get hamstrung in a big cog or fail to see the metal girder-brace at the top of the shaft if it happened to rush at her suddenly in the near-darkness here. There were no Western numerals spray-painted on the cement stanchions, only Chinese characters. But she knew where she needed to be: the top floor.

Eventually somebody would need to go all the way up.

She ejected the Beretta’s clip and verified the pistol was full up, with one in the pipe. She screwed on the hefty silencer and snugged the gun into her waistline, ruefully thinking it would take a week to draw out in combat. She slid the knife into her boot.

Her heartbeat was redlining. She could hear the thumps and clunks of the building’s own metabolism—it, too, had a heartbeat. A fine, clean sweat had broken all over Mitch’s body. She was an invading virus.

Another elevator car husked past on her left.

Then the car she was on was climbing, climbing.

At the apex of the shaft was a short service ladder, which led to a bolted vent. Mitch used the bayonet again. The vent led to a grate, and the grate emptied her into the Junfa Hall.

The Junfa Hall was crowded, but not with the living. Warlords lined the corridor of honor, stolid in their cast metal and forged expressions. Mitch peeked around a life-sized bronze of Zhang Zongchang, also remembered as Marshal Chang Tsung-ch’ang, who died in 1928. Perhaps Cheung had named his floating casino after this man.

Two Cheung men in the corridor, pacing like expectant fathers, sticking more or less to the row of statues, one on each side, their pace so metronomic that they always crossed in the center of the room. One Chinese, one western, Latin American, perhaps. The Chinese man looked like the boss hog, so Mitch took him first, at the end of his circuit.

When he turned, she yanked him backward by the strap on his shortie M4 rifle, chopped his throat to
shut him up, and buried the bayonet in his solar plexus. Thrust, twist, withdraw. He fell into her grasp behind a Wu Dynasty bronze.

“Hey, Penga,” said the man from the opposite end of the corridor, realizing his partner had vanished. Yu Peng, when alive, had wrongly assumed that Dagoberto Ayala’s nickname for him was a friendly diminutive—like “Bobby” for “Robert”—but in truth, it was closer to a dirty pejorative. Ayala detested anybody higher than him on the command chain.

Ayala keyed open the bulletproof glass doors. If kept open, the doors allowed the Tosa dogs to run back and forth—endlessly—between the Junfa Hall and the Temple Room, as if the retarded mutts could not decide whose butt to sniff more, Cheung’s or Peng’s.

“
Podido
,” Ayala griped. “You go to the can, at least tell me—”

Mitch took him. Thrust, twist, withdraw.

But the Tosa dogs in the adjacent room had already whiffed Yu Peng’s freshly liberated blood, and came charging in like assault tanks. Mitch heard their claws scrabbling on the slate tile of the corridor and had no idea how to close the glass doors.

She caught the first headlong animal with her forearm, feeling the crushing jaws closing to snap her bones as she buried the bayonet to the hilt in the huge beast’s chest. It rolled—and her with it—but hung on. She put five shots from the silenced Beretta into the second one, which at least slowed it down, but also seemed to piss it off.

She jammed the pistol under the dog’s chin and blew the crown of its head off, swearing she could feel the slug pass right by her own arm. By then the other one had a grab on her leg at the bootline. She had to fire
without hitting her foot, and abruptly realized there was blood everywhere. Her own, in part, plus a generous geyser from the first dog. Its demon pal finally relaxed its chomp after Mitch emptied her mag into it. She felt the teeth slowly withdraw from her leg as the bite went slack, but that caused even more blood to course out.

The xipaxidine would roadblock the pain, though only for a time. Her leg felt malfunctional but just now she could still stand on it.

Valerie would have been horrified. Her sister had transmogrified into a butchering monster who even killed animals. Poor doggies.

Yeah,
thought Mitch,
say that when you see your own limbs hanging out of their mouths, little sis.

Her vision zoned out for an instant, then snapped back into focus. The edges glistened now, as if she were seeing through a glaze of ice crystals.

She collected her rifle and moved for the glass doors, wondering how many more mad dogs she would have to put down before she was done.

Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung was laughing. He loved the theatrical. Exaggerated gestures. Glandular suspense. Cheap thrills.

He and Mitch were pointing guns at each other. Ivory was pointing a gun at the back of Mitch’s head. And Gabriel Hunt was pointing a gun at Ivory.

Alliances were more fluid than they seemed.

“Laugh at me, you bastard, and I’ll blow your tongue through the back of your head,” said Mitch, holding steady with the Chinese carbine. She could do it, too, with this gun—maybe twice before gravity dropped the man. Upon entering the Temple Room, Mitch’s first sight was Sister Menga raising a hand against her. The seer’s ornate fingernails caught the light and suggested a weapon. Mitch was aboil with endorphins and the drug coursing through her, and her body reacted without the time-delay of premeditation. She had automatically put Sister Menga down because her eyes had seen a threat. Her eyes had lied. But so what?

In response to Sister Menga’s moist demise, Cheung had whipped out a Czech CZ-52 pistol, two pounds of gorgeously machined steel filling his enormous hands.

Their stand-off was about five seconds old when Gabriel and Ivory brought up the rear.

Ivory put his pistol, still set on three-shot-burst, within four feet of the curve of Mitch’s occipital.

Gabriel’s hands familiarized themselves with Dagoberto Ayala’s M4, which he’d scooped up on the run from the Junfa Hall. Cocked, locked, ready to rock. He did not think Ivory would actually shoot Mitch, but he had to draw on
somebody,
and Cheung was already staring down the bore of Mitch’s rifle. Tension ran molten-hot through the room, thickening the air. Hell, sheer trigger reflex would kill them all if somebody sneezed.

That was when that son of a bitch Cheung started laughing.

“You impress me,” Cheung told her. “You have accomplished the unthinkable. You got under Ivory’s skin. You have truly earned my awe.”

“Mitch,” Gabriel said softly. “Don’t take him. Not yet. He’s got my brother.”

“He already got my sister.”

“I could use someone like you,” Cheung told Mitch, “as my new head of security.” His gaze indicted Ivory, but Ivory did not waver.

“Lower the weapon, Jin Huáng,” Ivory said. It was not a request.

Gabriel saw Mitch
almost
comply.

“No.” She refocused on Cheung. “Valerie Quantrill.”

“Who?” said Cheung.

“
My sister.
You should think more about the people you murder.”

“And how many have you murdered?” said Cheung, almost avuncular. “Killed in the name of your just
cause? You should thank me. I determine what people like you become.”

“Don’t listen, Mitch,” said Gabriel.

“You may avenge your sister’s death,” said Cheung, “but it will cost you your own life.”

Cheung smiled like a cobra and lowered his own weapon.

Gabriel’s hand touched Ivory’s back, but he spoke to both Ivory and Mitch: “I need him alive.”

Tears were rolling from Mitch’s eyes but she fought to preserve her zeroed aim.

“Cheung—let them out of the building and I will take you to the Killers of Men. I alone know the burial secrets of the Favored Son. The men you sent to the site have fallen to those secrets. I will guide you and you may do with me what you will…but you will guarantee the release of my brother.”

“That, I believe, was our agreement,” said Cheung.

Ivory put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder, turned her slowly. “Please,” he said. His eyes were entreating. He backed her toward the glass doors, her gun gone wayward.

“I can’t just leave—” she began.

“You
must
,” said Ivory. “Trust me.”

Gabriel let his muzzle drift in their direction. “Get her out of here or I’ll shoot you both myself,” he said, not taking his eyes off Cheung.

Mitch was still trying to process what had gone wrong, and the drug inside her was not helping. Soon enough the spikes, the flares, the knifing headaches would resume, and Gabriel knew that Ivory knew that, too.

“It seems that our moment is over before it has properly begun,” said Cheung as he watched them exit.
“Too bad. For just a second, there…” He sighed. “It would have been magnificent.”

“We’ll never make it out of the building alive,” said Ivory as they hustled past the bloody remains in the hallway.

“What?” said Mitch. “I thought Cheung—”

“Cheung has a casket already carved,” Ivory said, overriding her. “I saw it in the Temple Room. It is for one of us. Or all three of us. How did you get into the building?”

Mitch recapped. While admirable, her ingress route would not serve their escape.

“I watched Cheung shoot down Mads Hellweg,” said Ivory. “It was one of the most decisive, cold-blooded things I have yet seen. And Cheung did not particularly
care
about Hellweg. He will have something much worse planned for us.”

“We can always hit them frontally,” said Mitch, rechecking the loads in her purloined M4. “Go out the front door.”

“Not and survive—there are still too many of them.”

“Then let’s go up. Helipad’s on the roof, right?”

“Yes…” Ivory’s eyes showed doubt.

“And the chopper is toast, so nobody will be in a big hurry to go to the helipad…right?”

“True.”

“So let’s hit it, partner. Before my damned headache comes back.”

He searched her expression for signs of xipaxidine fatigue. When she finally ran out of gas, she’d drop like a clipped puppet. And with no more drug to dose her with…

Together they found the access stairs that led from
the Junfa Hall to the helipad. Four Cheung men were in charge of the perimeter.

“Do you know them?” Mitch said.

“I recruited two of them.” Ivory peered through mesh glass to enumerate his potential allies. He indicated a willow-tall fellow in wraparound tinted glasses that seemed to be in charge of the other three patrollers. “Parkman Ng. Kam Ng’s brother; took his brother’s place when Kam was killed in a yakuza counterattack two years ago. Very loyal. And Kong—” he pointed to a broad-shouldered, hairless man “—he might be sympathetic, too. The other two, I just know their names. Güyük and Breedlove. Breedlove is British.”

“So take the white guy and the short-round-fat guy first?” said Mitch.

Ivory stared at her, remembering that Americans were not famous for their tact. But he nodded.

They came through the push-barred door to the helipad brisk and businesslike, Ivory in the lead.

Guns came up to meet them. Mitch dropped to a solid kneeling position and did the smart thing—she patched the two men carrying rifles, which would be more accurate in a firefight. Breedlove the Brit folded and fell with multiple hits, followed by Güyük. By then, Parkman Ng had spun like a dancer and popped a wadcutter that sang past Ivory’s right ear. Return fire was instinctual, and Ivory’s weapon was on full-auto cycle. Red punctures jump-stitched up Parkman’s long torso and he collapsed onto his face. Mitch could see the unhappiness in Ivory’s eyes as his recruit fell.

Ivory raked the autofire toward the last man standing, the one he’d called Kong. But Mitch saw Ivory do an amazing thing—he pulled his weapon up out of
the firing line
while
it was firing, before his finger left the trigger. The errant shots flocked away to make someone else’s life miserable.

Because though Kong had reacted professionally, cross-drawing and sighting, he had jerked his own pistol up into neutral when he recognized Ivory.

“Ivory!” Kong yelled. “Parkman said Cheung’s orders were to kill you. What’s going on?”

Ivory kept his weapon dead-on as he approached Kong.

“I cannot believe it,” Kong sputtered. “I will not believe it! Not of you. Many of us have heard the rumors, the news you were to become a Nameless One. I say that if Cheung decides you are a Nameless One, then I am a Nameless One as well.” He was as frantic as anyone might be, presented with the prospect of killing a friend. “Longwei, please, tell me, what is the truth?”

Kong actually placed his weapon on the deck, stepped away from it.

“For the things you have just said,” Ivory said softly, “for disloyalty to our master, the penalty is death. You understand that, Kwong Leung Kong Ngan?”

“Yes,” Kong said, lowering his gaze. “The penalty is death.”

“Under normal circumstances,” said Ivory, drawing even closer.

Fearing the most intimate of killings, Kong kept staring at the concrete and said, “What…?”

“Under Cheung’s rule the penalty is death,” said Ivory. “But Cheung’s covenant is false. Were I to kill anyone for such a violation, I should first kill myself. You understand the gravity of what I say.”

“I—I do?” stammered Kong. He regained some of his composure. “I mean, I do.” Leery of the American woman with the weapon in the background, he leaned closer to Cheung, as there were some things so toxic and important that women should never hear them. “We heard Dinanath was gone. That you were turned. All our information is unreliable. Tell me, please—what is happening?”

“The foundations of Cheung’s New Bund are collapsing as we speak,” said Ivory.

“Can it be?” Kong said. “At long last…”

“My friend,” said Ivory. “I need an Immortal, and you shall do quite nicely. You say there are others of like disposition.”

“Yes. Jintao. Yu Peng. Hsiang Yun-Fa.”

“Stop. Do not betray them until you see with your own eyes the evidence of my intent.” There was no use in telling Kong that Yu Peng was already dead. “But gather them close. If I survive, they will be needed. If I do not survive, you must—you
must
—go for yourselves, is that understood?”

Kong directed them to a secure ladder that put them onto a disused fire escape, then headed in the other direction to round up his men.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Mitch as they descended along a rear face of the building to street level.

“I have never done anything like that before,” said Ivory. “But I suspected that Kong might be with me in spirit. I gambled on that.”

“You should think about it, you know? Taking Cheung’s place. You could undo a lot of damage.”

Ivory pressed his lips together until they were white
and bloodless. One never said such bald things out loud. Putting such words into the air was unwise.

Instead he said, “Hurry. Just because we regain the streets, it is no guarantee of our safety.”

“Where’re we going?” said Mitch.

“I have to take you to meet a monk.”