James Rollins: The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel

Gray craned around, remembering the man who tried to shove past him. It had been a ruse to distract him, while another relieved him of his wallet, apparently stealing his dignity also. Luckily, Seichan had skills of her own, learned on streets not unlike these.

After her mother had vanished, Seichan spent her childhood in a series of squalid orphanages across Southeast Asia, until eventually she was recruited off the streets and trained to kill. In fact, the first time the two had met, she had shot Gray in the chest, not exactly the warmest of meetings. Now, after the destruction of her previous employer’s cartel, she found herself orphaned once again, left adrift, still unsure of her footing in the new world.

She was a trained killer with no roots.

Even Gray expected her to vanish at any moment and never be seen again. While they had grown closer over these past four months, working side by side to hunt for clues to her mother’s fate, she still kept a wall between them, accepting his companionship, his support, and once even his bed. Not that anything had happened that night. They had simply been working late, and it was a matter of convenience, nothing more. Still, he had gotten no sleep, lying next to her, listening to her breathe, noting small twitches as she dreamed.

She was like some wild beast, skittish, feral, wary.

If he moved too fast, she would likely spook and bolt.

Even now she sat stiffly in the taxi, wound as tightly as the strings of a cello. He reached over to her, slid a palm along her back, and pulled her closer. He felt the steel in her slowly soften. She allowed herself to sag against him. One hand fiddled with the small pendant at her neck, in the shape of a tiny silver dragon. Her other hand found his, one finger tracing a scar across the back of his thumb.

Until she found her place in this new world, this was the best he could hope for. He also sensed what fueled the intensity of this four-month-long search for her mother. It was a chance for her to rediscover herself, to reconnect to the one person who had loved and sheltered her, to rebuild the family she had lost. Only then, he suspected, could she turn from the past and look to the future.

Gray shared that goal with her, wanted that for her, and would do anything to make that happen.

“If this guy knows anything,” he promised aloud, “we’ll get it out of him.”

12:32 A.M.

“They’re en route,” the caller said. “They should reach their destination in another few minutes.”

“And you’ve confirmed their identity, Tomaz?”

Ju-long Delgado paced the length of his desk, constructed of solid Ceylon satinwood. The wood was as rare as it was expensive, which defined his interests. The remainder of his office was shelved with antiques, a mix of Portuguese and Chinese, like himself.

“We attempted to steal the smaller man’s papers,” Tomaz said, “but the woman intervened. She somehow got his wallet back from us.”

She was certainly skilled.

Ju-long stopped and touched one of a trio of photos on his desk. The woman was Eurasian, a mix of cultures like him, but in her case, she appeared to be French Vietnamese.

He caught his own reflection in the dark computer monitor. He carried his father’s surname, marking their family’s Portuguese presence in Macau going back to the opium wars of the early nineteenth century. His given name came from his mother’s side of the family. Likewise, he also shared his father’s round eyes and heavy facial hair, trimmed tight to his face, and his mother’s refined features and smooth skin. Though he was in his forties, most considered him much younger. Others made the mistake of assuming him inexperienced from his youthful demeanor—and made the worst mistake of trying to take advantage of that.

It was an error that was never repeated.

He returned his attention to the woman in the photo. As an assassin of some distinction, she had a steep price on her head. The Israeli Mossad had placed the highest bounty so far, for some past crime of hers, with the promise that she would be killed, silenced before anyone learned of his involvement.

That was Ju-long’s best talent: to move unseen, to manipulate from afar, to find profit in opportunity.

He stared at the picture of the soldier, a former army ranger. His face was deeply tanned, his gray-blue eyes sun-crinkled at the corners, his strong jaw shadowed with dark stubble. The bidding for this one still continued to grow, especially over the past twelve hours. It seemed this man had made many enemies—or knew secrets of considerable value. It was of no matter. Ju-long dealt merely in commodity. So far, the anonymous buyer from Syria held the highest bid for him.

The third man—with a face like a gorilla—seemed to be nothing more than a bodyguard. Someone to sweep out of the way to reach the true prizes here.

But first Ju-long had to secure them.

It would have been easy enough to grab them both from the ferry building, but such a kidnapping in the open would have drawn too much attention. After the Chinese took over control of Macau in 1999, he had to operate with more stealth. On the positive side, though, the crackdown by the new government had rid the peninsula of most of the warring Chinese Triad gangs, eliminating his competition and allowing him to assume greater control of his organization. Now, as the Boss of Macau, as some called him, he had a thumb in everything, and the Chinese government turned mostly a blind eye as long as he kept a firm rein on matters, and the officials here got their weekly cut.

As Macau grew richer, so did he.

“Your men are in position at Casino Lisboa?” Ju-long asked Tomaz, wanting no mistakes. “They are ready to receive them?”

“Sim, senhor.”

“Good. And what resistance do you expect?”

“They carry no firearms. Yet we suspect they all have knives on their persons. But that should not matter.”

He nodded, satisfied.

As he ended the call, he glanced over to a plasma screen resting atop an antique Portuguese naval chest. Earlier, he’d had Tomaz bribe one of the security guards at Casino Lisboa to gain access to their internal video surveillance, specifically the feed into one of their VIP rooms off the main gaming floor. Such rooms were plentiful throughout Macau, servicing high-stakes gamblers who wanted a private table or some exclusive time with one of Macau’s elite prostitutes.

This room held a lone occupant, seated on a red-silk sofa, awaiting his guests. The man had been too loose with his tongue over the past few days, telling of this midnight rendezvous, sharing the story of his upcoming good fortune. And when it came to reports of newfound money of this size, especially windfalls from foreign lands, word eventually reached Ju-long Delgado. He quickly learned the identity of the newcomers.

Where money flowed, there was always a way to turn a profit.

Ju-long stepped behind his desk. His family’s mansion overlooked Leal Senado Square, the historic colonial heart of Macau, where for centuries Portuguese troops had paraded in force and where now Chinese dragons danced during holidays. Even this night, lanterns hung in the neighboring trees, amid cages holding songbirds. Across the plaza, small shrines to the dead held floating candles in small earthenware bowls, all to light the way for the departed spirits.

But the biggest flame of them all hung in the sky, shimmering and bright: the silvery fire of a comet.

Content, he settled into his seat and swung his attention to the plasma screen, ready to enjoy the night’s entertainment from Casino Lisboa.

12:55 A.M.

This was not the Macau she remembered.

Seichan climbed out of the cab and stared around. It had been over fifteen years since she had last set foot here. On the dark ride from the harbor, she could barely pick out the sleepier Portuguese town of the past, a place of narrow alleys, colonial mansions, and baroque plazas.