Hunt Among the Killers of Men (21 page)

The jazz band at the Peace Hotel was actually quite good. All the musicians looked to be over sixty, and the saxophonist seemed to be channeling Coleman Hawkins directly when he blazed out the solo to “Body and Soul.”

Gabriel caught Ivory tapping his foot more than once to the music.

“I still don’t understand how I could have been duped so thoroughly,” complained Michael Hunt. “It never occurred to me I was a captive. I just assumed, you know—gunfire in the street, my floor on lockdown, no cell phone service…”

“You blamed China,” Mitch said. “I made the same mistake, I suppose. In my own way.”

The barman in the lounge had talked Gabriel into sampling a drink that was essentially vodka on the rocks with most of a lemon squeezed into it. Gabriel considered the beverage moodily. It was good but somehow the celebratory atmosphere seemed askew.

“It turns out the coordinates in our parents’ notes were about five miles off,” said Michael. “They were amazingly close to discovering the Killers of Men.”

“The official discovery now must be handled with
utmost delicacy,” said Ivory. “I agree with your brother, Gabriel—he should finish the lecture series as planned and in that context he can provide a clue that our own scholars may follow to deduce the location. Let it be done that way. Credit will accrue to our cultural historians and you will not be blamed for the damage discovered at the site.”

“And what of Cheung?” said Gabriel. “Or should I say Dragunov.”

“That was also not his real name,” said Ivory. “It is just the identity he used in the Soviet Union. I believe he was born in Ukraine, and from what few facts I learned over the years, it is entirely possible that his birth mother really was Chinese.” His voice had a tinge of sadness to it. “We met in the midst of a gun battle, you know. It was a long time ago. He was a bad man even then—a drug smuggler. But not yet an insane one.”

Mitch shifted uncomfortably at the mere mention of drugs. She wasn’t drinking, just nursing a tall glass of seltzer. The purge program for xipaxidine worked on her by Pan Xiao, the monk-who-was-not-a-monk, had been effective but fluidly gruesome, and her insides were still fragile.

“What about the big payoff?” she said quietly. “The gold statue, or the treasure, or whatever it was that was supposed to be there?”

Gabriel and Michael looked at each other with an air of conspiracy.

“What?”

“We went back,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice low. “After putting in a call to the Foundation and having a truckload of gels and gems and lenses overnighted. We tried them all in the statue’s eyes, various
combinations. Eventually got an arrangement that mimicked the jewels and allowed the ideograms to converge on the far wall.”

“And what did they say?”

“It took a while to translate and some of it is still obscure,” Michael said, “but—”

“But it boiled down to ‘Dig here,’” Gabriel interrupted. “Kangxi Shih-k’ai’s burial place is behind about a foot of rock directly across from the idol—the idol’s looking right at him.”

“The ideograms describe his tomb,” Michael said. “His body was apparently installed inside a hollow jade carving of a warrior. It is described as weighing five hundred pounds.”

“
Five hundred pounds of jade
?” Mitch said this a little too loudly and some heads turned their way.

Michael waited till the eavesdroppers had returned to enjoying the music. “Yes. And supposedly his body was completely outfitted in gold. Gold armor, gold clothing, gold weapons. Please don’t shout.”

Mitch restrained herself. “And this will all now be discovered by the Chinese government.”

“It is their treasure,” Michael said. “Their history.”

“And what of Cheung?” Gabriel asked again.

“He perished, sadly, in his sleep,” Ivory said. “It seems to have happened the night of the unfortunate helicopter crash in the street outside this hotel. It may have been a heart attack, perhaps brought on by the shock. He has already been cremated, in keeping with his instructions.”

“And who’s going to take his place on the Bund?” Gabriel said.

Ivory lowered his gaze in modesty. “There are
enough of us. Enough loyalists to repair the New Bund without the incursion of gangsterism.”

“Will Zhang give you trouble?”

“General Zhang is content to run the People’s Police,” said Ivory.

“You won’t have an easy time of it,” said Gabriel. “Cheung left quite a mess behind him.”

Ivory nodded in agreement. “Yes, but…I have excellent advisors.”

When he said this, Mitch took Ivory’s hand.

“I’m staying,” she said.

Gabriel and Michael exchanged their second glance of the evening, less conspiratorial this time than incredulous.

“You’re staying?” Gabriel said.

“What have I got to return to? My sister was my only family. She’s dead. The Air Force doesn’t want me back. I have as much to offer here as anywhere.”

“What about—” He’d been about to mention Lucy’s name, but realized that doing so in front of Michael would be opening a can of worms; in front of Ivory, too.

But Mitch knew what he’d held back from saying. “I’ll see her again,” she said. “When the time is right.”

“Who?” Michael said. “That nurse from Khartoum?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “The nurse from Khartoum.”

The four of them drank their drinks, and the music played on.

“What about you, Gabriel?” Michael said finally. “Would you like to come with me on the lecture circuit or would you prefer to go home?”

Gabriel was sunk in thought. He’d spent the past
day trying to make amends and lay ghosts. He’d sought out the little old lady in charge of the Su-Lin Gun Merchant shop and crossed her palm with enough money to fund her retirement in the country and out of the firearms trade. On her little translating screen she had typed:
I THANK YOU AND TUAN THANKS YOUR GRACE
.

It had made him feel better, briefly.

“What about me?” Gabriel repeated. “I was thinking I might take a trip someplace quiet.”

Which is how Gabriel Hunt found himself winging back to America all by his lonesome on the Hunt Foundation jet, his trusty Colt revolver never drawn nor used, his collection now enriched by the Colt .36 wheelgun from Su-Lin’s. He stared out the window and composed in his head the e-mail he’d send to his sister when he landed, the one in which he’d explain to Lucy what Mitch had decided to do and why. It wouldn’t make any sense to her if he started there, at the end of the story. He’d have to tell her the whole lengthy and unimaginable tall tale of what she had started.

If they’d been children still, she’d have sat at his side and soaked it in wide-eyed, believing every word. But childhood was far behind them, and now he imagined she’d parse every word cynically. Assuming the message even reached her—assuming she hadn’t skipped house arrest, fled to another country and abandoned her last anonymous e-mail address for a new one he didn’t know.

But he would try. She deserved to know the story.

There was just one part Gabriel would leave out; one memory that was his alone, not for sharing.

The taste of Qingzhao Wai Chiu’s lips on his own, during the only time they had ever kissed, there in the life-threatening panic of the Night Market, the two of them trapped in their own transient bubble of supertime, the scant seconds that became days where they were briefly in love. The taste and smell of mangoes and rare spice, of night-blooming jasmine.