David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

She leaned back to get a better look and felt something hard and cold against her neck. A voice she thought she recognized said, “Don’t make a fuss. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Chen was surprised when Fong put his gun to the nape of the neck of the peasant woman with the bad haircut, who had done nothing but try to buy some grub pupae. But he wasn’t surprised to see, out of the corner of his eye, the two Beijing men running, followed by a dozen federal cops all heading right for the tall middle-aged man standing behind the barrel of live grub pupae.

Xi Luan Tu saw it all happen before him and executed the escape plan he’d worked out months ago. He grabbed the brown paper bag with the money, ID and passports, patted his pocket once to assure himself he still had the cell phone, kicked over his barrel of grub pupae then charged around the corner and threw himself right at the mountain of fragile bamboo birdcages. Instantly, hundreds of the delicately balanced things crashed to the ground and split open – freeing their tiny captives. Amidst the screams of their owners, the birds moved as one living thing, claimed their freedom then headed directly for the mass of grub pupae on the ground. The shouts of anger and the hundreds of dive-bombing birds gave Xi Luan Tu enough cover to head toward the warrens.

A volley of gunshots cut through the mayhem. A window shattered. An old man screamed in pain. Xi Luan Tu sped down the alleyway that accessed the warrens. As he made the last turn, he slipped and crashed to the pavement. He heard the skip of bullets off pavement all around him. When he regained his feet, a sharp pain on the outside of his left thigh almost threw him back to the ground. Then he heard a bullet splat into the alley wall beside his head and he forgot about the pain in his thigh or the blood that was flowing freely down his leg and pooling in his sock. He summoned all his strength and raced toward the safety of the warrens.

On the first gunshot, Fong grabbed the peasant woman with the bundle and shoved her into the safety of a doorway. More shots. Birds screeched, people screamed.

“Do you know who I am?” Fong hissed.

Joan nodded.

For a moment, Fong didn’t know what to do then he said, “Do you trust me?”

Joan didn’t move.

“Well, here are your choices. You trust me and help me or I hand you over to the federal officers who will arrest you for treason.”

Joan looked at Fong. “If you put it that way . . . ”

The Beijing men stood behind a stall that sold polished driftwood about halfway between Fong and the alley entrance to the warrens. The younger Beijing man barked orders to the local militia he had stationed strategically in the Old City. He paced as they began evacuating buildings and then entered the warrens from four different access points. The older Beijing man stood patiently to one side and allowed his fingers to trace the pleasing curve of one of the polished pieces . . . and he watched. He assumed Xi Luan Tu had a fifty-fifty chance of avoiding the troops in the warrens. But the Dalong Fada leader had no chance of avoiding Fong because of the bug in the cell phone – so the older Beijing man waited for Fong, his uncomely Captain Chen and the peasant woman with the awful haircut to make their move. Their move would betray Xi Tuan Lu’s whereabouts. His finger snagged as a splinter of wood entered a full two inches into his right ring finger. He didn’t wince but rather slowly backed his finger off the splinter. A thin line of blood dripped down his finger and pooled in his palm.

Fong turned to Chen, “Captain Chen, Joan Shui. Joan Shui, Captain Chen.”

Chen didn’t know what to do, whether he should shake hands or what. Before he could make up his mind, Fong asked, “We still have him?” Chen showed him the PalmPilot with the street overlays. “Not all that useful with Xi Luan Tu underground in the warrens.”

“We’ll have to follow the best we can. I think it’s time to throw our friends off the track, don’t you, Captain Chen?”

Chen hesitated for a moment as if he were unsure of the meaning of Fong’s question. Fong saw it and a shiver of fear went up his spine. Chen smiled and took out his cell phone. He punched in 555 555 555 1, listened for a tone, got it, then punched the pound key twice. Then he flipped his cell phone shut and said, “Problem turned into opportunity, sir.”

Li Chou had heard the shots and screams from the market. The blip on his laptop began to move like someone running then stopped. He had his men in position and was about to give them directions when all of a sudden the street map overlay on his receiver began to move at tremendous speed. “Hold on,” he shouted into his cell phone. Finally the street map slowed then suddenly stopped. Li Chou looked at the thing. Shook it. The blip didn’t move. He hit the Enlarge button to get an exact address then dialled the snitch in central stores. He quickly told the man what had happened.

The man really didn’t know what to make of Li Chou’s information but asked, “The blip is stable now?”

“Yes.”

“And you can identify the cross streets?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s where the bug must be.”

Li Chou contacted his men on his cell phone and shouted orders to them, hit the siren, U-turned across eight lanes of traffic and sped toward the arrest that he knew would send Zhong Fong back to the wasteland west of the Wall.

While Li Chou’s siren pierced the din of Shanghai’s constant traffic jam, the young Beijing man stayed above-ground and on a makeshift map charted the unsteady progress of his troops in the warrens. Beside him, the older Beijing man kept his eyes on Fong, Chen and the peasant woman, who was with them now.

“Money and passports and ID papers,” Joan answered Fong’s question. “I brought him all those things. Maybe you should arrest me.”

“Maybe I will,” said Fong.

Joan looked at the blip on the PalmPilot. “How did you bug him?”

“It’s in the cell phone I brought him.”

“Do you know who he is, Zhong Fong?”

Fong nodded but said nothing. The blip had stopped moving. He looked at Chen who nodded. Then they moved quickly.

The older Beijing man sat up straight and tapped the younger Beijing man. He pointed at Fong and Chen and the peasant woman who were running across the alley not twenty yards ahead of them.

Li Chou whispered directions into his radio transmitter. His men responded with whispered affirmatives when they had reached their assigned positions around the Park Regent Hotel in the fashionable embassy district in the south end of the city. Four of the six had reported. He awaited the last two before he made his move.

The tunnels got steeper and steeper while Fong, Chen and Shui made their way deeper and deeper into the heart of the warrens. Chen guided them as best he could by the blip on the screen of the PalmPilot. Fong knew the ins and outs of most of Shanghai, but this underground world was foreign to him. As a child, he’d ventured into the warrens only a few times. Although he was never wealthy, Fong’s family had controlled night-soil collection throughout the Old City and he had some standing as a part of the family’s age-old business. The warrens were for those who had nothing. Not people like him. It was their domain, not his. The last time he’d gone down there he was twelve years old. He’d been robbed, beaten and only escaped worse through the unexpected kindness of one of the older ruffians.

They passed by filthy mattresses on the wet ground and other evidence of human habitation. The blip had not moved for over ten minutes. Xi Luan Tu must have gone to ground. On occasion, the shouts of the militiamen echoed to them from a distance, but even these thinned out in the last few minutes. Twice Fong had put his hand up for them to stop and crept back to see if they were being followed. He was convinced that he’d heard footsteps but could not find anyone on their tail.