Stephen Knight - White Tiger

“He was at Lin’s last-” Ryker said before he stopped himself. “I saw him with Lin,” he amended, and quite lamely, at that.

Chee Wei looked at him, puzzled. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Huh. Maybe he will make a good detective after all.

“I was invited to Lin’s house last night. For a, uh, social function. This guy, Ren, he was there. Looks about the same, only a billion years older.”

“You went to a party at Lin’s house?” Chee Wei was appropriately scandalized. “Hal, you realize that’s a bona fide conflict of interest, and probably ethically questionable, right?”

“Neither of those things ever separated Cueball from his badge.”

“Everyone knows he’s fat and stupid, and every village needs its idiot, so Wallace is ours. But you? You’ve got baggage, and superiors who fucking hate you, man. Going up there was probably not that smart.”

“Yeah, well.” Ryker lifted his coffee cup to his lips.

“You get laid?”

Ryker almost spit his coffee all over Chee Wei. “What?”

“I said, did you get laid? Was Valerie Lin there? Did your hormones assault her?”

Ryker sputtered for a moment, then made a face and shook his head. “Kid, you’re some piece of work.” He dropped his eyes back to the papers, hoping that Chee Wei wasn’t that good of a detective yet.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I guess it’s just not your time of the year yet. Don’t worry though, I hear rutting season is right around the corner. In, like, New Zealand.” Chee Wei caught the look of the woman seated at the next table. “Eh, sorry.”

“Do we know what this guy’s here for?” Ryker asked.

“What guy?”

“This guy. The guy I saw last night.”

“Why didn’t you ask him last night when you saw him?”

“Because we weren’t exactly formally introduced?”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know. I guess I can try and find that out, though. But there’s something else I got to tell you. This is the creme de la creme, man. You interested?” Chee Wei wiggled his sparse eyebrows.

“Not at all.”

“Lin had two sons. Danny was the youngest. His eldest? Killed in Shanghai last month. Care to guess how he died?”

Ryker didn’t need to guess. He stared at Chee Wei for a long moment, too stunned to even speak. Then finally: “You mean to tell me this has happened to Lin before? ”

Chee Wei nodded. “Totally weird shit, right?”

“A month ago, you say.”

Chee Wei went through the printouts and showed him another page. A younger, taller, more vital version of James Lin stared at him from the small picture on the paper. While he couldn’t reasonably ascertain these things from just a two-inch by two-inch picture printed out from an inkjet printer, he got the impression that Lin’s eldest son had been nothing like Lin Dan. This one had been serious. This one had been intelligent. This one had been studious. And more than likely, this one had been legitimately dangerous.

“Do we know the full circumstances behind this one’s murder? And what’s his name, anyway?”

“Lin Jong. John Lin here in the U.S. No, we don’t know the full circumstances, it’s still an active investigation in Shanghai, and the police have the information closed off. My cousin mentioned that it might not be real smart for him to start a fishing expedition that way, because he thinks the Ministry for Public Security is involved. The Chinese version of the FBI, only not so nice and not restricted by things like, you know, basic human rights.”

“So he can’t really help us any further. I got it.” Ryker tapped the tabletop for a moment, looking down at the photos before him. “Whatever’s been following Lin around is finally catching up to him. Both his sons, gone. That’s got to be a tough thing to deal with.” And the cunning bastard never even thought to tell us!

“So what do we do now?”

Ryker leaned back in his chair and looked out the windows that overlooked Polk Street. He tapped the tabletop again, an aimless patter. “Let’s go back to the stationhouse and review all this stuff. Then maybe take a ride up north and see what we can find out.”

The video wasn’t as clear as it could have been, despite having been captured by state-of-the-art digital recording equipment employing sophisticated night vision imaging systems. But there it was, Baluyevsky taking in the view of San Francisco, totally unaware of the figure that slowly separated itself from the hedges to his right. While Baluyevsky’s body glowed in the darkness thanks to the night vision system’s ability to read infrared imagery and therefore “see” the big Russian’s body heat, the figure stalking him was muted, not as distinct. She (and Manning knew that killer was a female, and had always known it since Lin had described what had happened to his sons) crept toward Baluyevsky like a tiger, slowly stalking across the wide swath of lawn that separated the two of them. Even shrouded by the darkness of night, Manning thought Baluyevsky should have sensed something, that his mortality clock was slowly winding down. And at the last moment, he did. The assassin had closed to within fifteen feet of him when he turned suddenly, already reaching for the weapon at his side.

His assailant leaped toward him and launched a barrage of strikes that Baluyevsky only started to block. Then, his left arm went limp, as did his right, though he kept his grip on the butt of his pistol. He lashed out with one trunk-like leg then, executing a surprisingly swift crescent kick that would have floored his attacker had it made contact. But she had anticipated such a response and ducked down. Baluyevsky’s leg sailed over her, and then she launched herself at him, stabbing upward with both hands.

Baluyevsky tottered for just a moment, then collapsed on his back. Bright blood squirted into the air. The night vision gear read it as white, so it showed up clearly on the video screen.

And then the killer relaxed. She bent over the body and verified the kill. Satisfied, she rose to her feet and slowly walked back the way she had come. There was no urgency to her gait. It was almost as if she was taking a leisurely stroll.

Manning watched the video twice. The attacker practiced an easy economy of force, despite being arguably outmatched by Baluyevsky in almost every way. The only chance she had-other than shooting him in the head from a safe distance-was to get close to him and work fast. And that was how it went down. Manning didn’t kid himself, he knew Baluyevsky was as deadly as any man could be, but in this instance stealth coupled with speed and precision had won out.

Is she better than I am in close quarters? he wondered. How much punishment can she take? Will one punch make her fold up? If I break her collarbone, will she still come after me?

If it had been me out there last night instead of Baluyevsky, would I be dead now?

Manning didn’t know the answers to these questions, but he had the nagging suspicion he soon would.

Nyby and another security man stood in the small room with him. Manning turned to them.

“Thanks for showing me this. Where did you take Baluyevsky’s body?”

Nyby looked at the other man, a broad-shouldered Chinese. “To the wine cellar,” he said simply.

“Take me to him. And get me some latex gloves.”

Surrounded by dozens of bottles of rare vintage wines, Manning donned the latex gloves Nyby had given him and knelt on the cold concrete floor to examine Baluyevsky’s body.

The corpse was stretched out on the cement floor and its clothing cut away. Manning went through the garments one by one, gingerly going through the pockets of his trousers-Baluyevsky had urinated when he died, and his pants were still damp. He extracted a thin wallet which held only two plastic cards, one American Express Gold charge card and one Wells Fargo ATM card. Neither card bore Baluyevsky’s name, but that of an alias. He carried no cash. Manning removed the pistol and found another one in an ankle holster, as well as a Spyderco Tenacious knife in a special pocket sewn to his dress shirt. The shirt was more red now than white. Baluyevsky carried a cell phone, but it was password-protected. Manning set that aside.