J.F. Kirwan - 88° North

‘Weapons to Kai Tak,’ she said. She studied the three corpses for a moment, and their military insignia. British. SAS. Okay, that made up for it a little. Aside from the wounds, they were in good condition – or at least most of their organs would be, not to mention their bone marrow. “Bodies packed in ice, straight to Dr Lam.’

Another man entered. Not merely old, ancient, his white beard knotted together by a pale blue opal ring, the same colour as his eyes. Like Death come for a visit. The Judge , independent from any triad, yet holding them all to account. She had other names for him.

‘You know what day it is?’ the Judge croaked.

How could she forget? It was her birthday. Which meant this had been nothing but a warm-up. These men had been professional soldiers. But today she would face something else. A triad assassin. Someone like her. Not as good, though. Never as good.

‘You must prepare,’ he said.

As if he cared. He’d love to see her dead on the floor, sell her kidneys, her eyeballs, probably give them away for free. He was Old School, and she was a woman, one who’d risen higher than any other in a triad. She met his eyes. They exuded warmth, friendship, trust. She knew better. He’d spent a lifetime perfecting how to lie with his eyes, and too many had gone to their graves trusting them.

‘I am always prepared,’ she replied.

‘We shall see.’

***

The rain fell thick and fast, like dull blades. Blue Fan stared down at the tangle of silver carp wriggling in a white plastic box, protected from the downpour by a tarpaulin. Their sharp eyes accusing, their mouths gaped, barely able to breathe. Soon to be bought, cooked, digested, excreted, chemically treated, and flushed back into the sea. She selected the healthiest, most vigorous one. The fishmonger, a stooped and crinkly old woman with dyed red hair in a bun, snatched the fish out of the bucket with bony fingers, quick as a heron, then went back into slow motion. Blue Fan regularly saw this woman teaching tai chi fan at six every morning in Victoria Park. Funny, in the West, people flaunted their talents. Here, they concealed them.

The open-air food market in Wan Chai bustled as always, Blue Fan’s nostrils assaulted on all fronts by pungent spices and glutinous stews. She didn’t need to buy food. She was the acting head of the Green Dragon triad, its enforcer . She could breeze into any one of a hundred homes and they would let their children go hungry in order to feed her. Yet every day she walked the streets on which she’d grown up, reminding herself who she was, how far she’d come, and how easy it would be to fall back there. She glanced up through the torrent to the overpass, clogged with taxis on their way to the snail’s-pace undersea tunnel to Kowloon. Turning back, she scanned the apartment windows, each with its dim aluminium box housing an aircon unit, searching for a thin sniper’s barrel. Nothing. The attempt would be close-quarters. Triad custom. A knife, or a butcher’s cleaver, perhaps even a spear. Or a death-touch, though that skill was almost lost now.

The sea of faces around her were all normal; people hurried on account of the rain and the imminent threat of a cyclone – it was August, the season for them – whereupon everything would be quickly battened down and all the streets would empty. A few confused tourists sheltered their phones more than their heads in order to translate shopping requests. Triad assassins would never masquerade as foreigners. There was a code, after all. They lived and died by it, herself included. She searched for men with tattoos. Nothing. The warning had said noon.

It was 12:03.

She heard it before she saw it: the stuttered hum of a bladed weapon tomahawking through the air. She dropped down low into a snake posture, right leg outstretched on the soggy ground, left leg bent double, as the axe sailed past her and squelched into the forehead of a balding man with an umbrella, his shirt spattered by rain, a sheen of sweat on his face from the intense humidity. Until a moment ago he’d been next in line to buy fish. He keeled over, rigid, silent, already dead, eyes unseeing, the umbrella falling with him like a frozen parachute. Blue Fan triangulated the position of the attacker behind her, and was about to let one of her razor fan-knives slip from her fingers, when a ragged child ran across her path.

Her eyes met the assassin’s: an athletic male, jet black hair in a ponytail, a tiger tattoo on his inner forearm, its front claws outstretched, its jaw set in an eternal, angry roar. Others around her suddenly caught up with events. A woman screamed. The fishmonger vanished into the dark recesses of her shop, while another shopkeeper stumbled backwards and tripped over his wares, upsetting water-filled cartons, spilling gawping koi and angry crabs onto the cobbled pavement. People ran. The attacker removed two more short axes from his belt, one in each hand, and crossed them in front of him as he faced her. A male tourist tried to video them, until Blue Fan skewered his smartphone with one of her blades. He stared at it a moment, then dashed off.

Thunder cracked, loud and close. Warm rain lashed down, drenching everything. Wind whipped water into her eyes. The cyclone was early. On cue, the siren wailed, and everyone vanished.

Now it was just the two of them.

She hadn’t moved from her snake-stance, a fresh blade in each hand, four more in reserve. He uncrossed his arms, yelled a warrior’s cry and scythed through the rain, arms whirling like propellers, slashing the air, leaving no space. He was good. She pulled her legs together to stand upright. No mean feat, but she trained every day, she had since she’d been a child. She watched, perceiving the pattern, looking for an opening. There was none. Make that very good. She raised her arms ready to throw, and timed it so that one blade would follow a fraction of a second after the first. It might be possible to block the first, but almost impossible to dodge the second. She launched her two blades. They clanged as he deflected them, sending them skittering across the ground.

Make that exceptional.

He was methodical, focused, a thresher bearing down on her. She couldn’t see a way through, and so, not for the first time, she knew she would have to kill him using psychology, as her grandfather, Salamander, had taught her.

She turned and ran.

He chased her into a blind alley. She let her gait falter, just a fraction, giving the impression of fear. She glanced left and right, as if in panic, felt him close on her, heard the fast helicopter rhythm of his axes. She needed to make him break his stride, accelerate for the kill, create an opening. It wasn’t happening. Somewhere deep inside her, panic tried to rise, but years of brutal training pulped it.

The most difficult martial art she’d mastered was Mind Boxing , a linear mode of attack, whereas his movements were circular. But it was only partly about movements. She was out of space, and out of time. Never put your back against the wall, Salamander had told her, because you might as well be stood up in a coffin, and this assassin almost had her there. Almost. She raised her right leg behind her, planting her foot against the wall, her standing leg vertical and straight. She faced her attacker, her hands in fists close to her chest, blades pointing upwards. His eyes narrowed. He’d not seen this move. How could he? Only Salamander knew it. A lost North Korean technique. She added the final, necessary touch.

She closed her eyes.

A shift in his rhythm created that split-second opening she needed. He accelerated forward. She sank backwards, both legs arcing like bows, opened her eyes and locked onto the axes, computing the timing. He lunged forwards, his left axe aiming the killer blow to her head, the right whirling behind for the follow-up. She kicked off from the wall. Her turn to yell now, a dragon’s roar. Her right blade spiked through his descending wrist, while her body twisted, giving her that extra reach. Her left blade punctured his throat and severed his spine, cutting his brain off from his limbs. Blood spattered her face. The assassin’s second axe, momentum still guiding its course, slammed into her shoulder. But it was devoid of power and precision, and struck her with a glancing blow, the axe toppling from his fist. A flesh-wound. A gash she’d stitch later. A scar for the rest of her life.