Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Among the Killers of Men

“Do we know whose base area is the Night Market?” said Cheung, already knowing the answer. Ivory nodded.

Cheung handed Ivory the small carved casket he had been tooling earlier. His expression was benign, yet made hideous by all the needles sticking out of his face.

The Tosa dogs snarled, sensing the gravity of the moment.

Ivory nodded, turned and departed.

Tuan hand-fed a toucan from his table in the Pleasure Garden and meditated on the little coffin that had just been delivered to him. He treated himself to an extra goblet of absinthe and waited for Ivory to arrive.

Ivory entered the room with no fanfare.

Tuan spoke first. “Real warlords made no such foolish rules as Cheung demands.”

“This was not a personal decision,” said Ivory, taking the seat across from the big man.

It was all smoke in any event, Tuan knew. “Real” warlords were rapists and plunderers, thugs and mercenaries risen to glory via massacre, whose idiom was the raid, not the bargaining table. Once they got legitimized, the rigors of politics almost always unseated them.

Ivory helped himself to the glass that had been put out for him. “Tell me about the rifle,” he said.

Tuan chuckled. “You already know about the rifle.”

“A very efficient weapon for its intended purpose,” said Ivory, who had examined the gun once it had been recovered from the Night Market. “But tampered with so as to be useless for that purpose. Why?”

“To even the odds,” said Tuan. “A last-minute change of heart. A perverse notion of fairness in combat.” He lifted his big hands to the air. “What does it really matter, now?”

“You supply the rifle,” said Ivory. “But you make sure the sights are skewed. You are still trying to play both sides against the middle, Tuan. Unwise, given your position in this scenario. It suggests that you would prepare to align yourself with whichever side emerged victorious. It should be clear to you that Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung is destined to rule New Shanghai. It is an inevitability, not a choice.”

“You sure about that?”

“As I said, it is not a choice,” returned Ivory. “We cannot abide allies who are less than committed to our purpose. Collaboration with our enemies is more than interference, it is antiparticipation.”

“I supplied the terra-cotta figures, as requested,” said Tuan.

“Yes. Four so far. Four figures of indeterminate origin, which Cheung found to be useless. A stalling tactic.”

“By which I take it to mean that Cheung destroyed them? In his search for a skeleton or a skull or a jewel or a key or anything that would relate them to the dynasty of the Favored Son?”

Ivory had, in fact, witnessed Cheung knock off the heads, lop off the arms, powder the fragments with the intensity of a junkie searching for a fix. He’d found nothing to assuage him. Each time his reaction had been more terrifying. Cheung needed a breakthrough to the past so badly that he was apt to start killing his own men left and right just to vent his rage.

“Cheung’s quest after his heritage is no longer a concern of yours,” Ivory said. “Even in that, you have failed him.”

Neither Cheung nor Ivory, nor for that matter Tuan, had any idea that the figures brought to the city by Qingzhao had come from outside the tomb, that they had been decoys, leftovers. Vague hints as to what lurked farther onward, nothing more.

“Further,” said Ivory, “you became culpable by dealing directly with the woman formerly known as Qingzhao Wai Chiu, when you know Cheung has designated her as one of the Nameless. The figures were brokered directly through your offices.”

“Guilty,” said Tuan. “But I did it to further my own interests, while providing a layer of insulation between the statues and Cheung himself. I may play both sides against the middle, as you say, but I never cheat anybody.”

“You were the conduit to the Nameless One,” Ivory insisted. “You should have informed us of this detail directly. Instead, you kept it shadowed. Needless to say, Cheung can no longer trust you with the lower Bund.”

“Is that why I received this delightful item?” said Tuan, meaning the little carved casket. “It’s quite exquisite. Is it Cheung’s own handiwork?”

Ivory nodded gravely.

“Then Cheung is serious about all this,” concluded Tuan sadly. “Real warlords,” he said, “found no dishonor in surprise attack, or night maneuvers, or bribery, or shifting alliances—these are our tools, the basic armament of deception.”

“In theory I agree with you,” said Ivory. “History bears you out. But Cheung’s intention is to rewrite history. That means new rules— his rules. There can be no gray area.”

“My friend,” Tuan laughed, “all of Shanghai is one gray area.” He finished his drink. “I’m not surprised by Cheung’s decision,” he said with a massive sigh. “I am surprised by his choice. I expected some cat-eyed assassin, skulking about in the shadows. Someone all steel and no heart.”

Ivory merely closed his eyes and nodded, respectfully.

“I suppose whistling up my bodyguards would be futile,” said Tuan.

“They have all left already,” confirmed Ivory.

Tuan spread his vast fingers across the tabletop like two opposing camps; the tents of honor versus betrayal, love versus hate, good versus evil. “Of all people,” he said, eyes down, “I hoped it would never be you.”

“So did I,” said Ivory.

Tuan extended his hand. Ivory accepted it. They clasped firmly.

With his free hand, Ivory drew his automatic and gave Tuan two in the chest and one in the head, to ensure a quick death. He held onto Tuan’s hand until the big man’s heart stopped forever.

Gabriel Hunt considered the limits of his cage.

The large, low-ceilinged room was like a pet sanctuary or a bondage emporium. A warren of floor-to-ceiling bars, wire cages, food pans, filth and dicey light. On a medical tray a series of prepared hypodermic needles was lined up like little soldiers.

His companions were the grist of the slave sale, snoring in drugged sleep or sitting in the corners of their cages with eyes full of fog, blinking little, breathing shallowly, zoned out.

This is no way to treat an honored guest , Gabriel thought.

A case-hardened padlock secured his cell; sadly, Gabriel had neglected to pack his secret agent kit. In any event he had been body-searched down to seams and naked skin before being remanded to Red Eagle’s custody. He presumed narcotics came next.

He wondered if Qi had gotten out.

Thinking about her, he realized this was how Qi had begun, perhaps in this very room. He might even be tenanting her old cage. This was the place that had set the path for her whole life.

One cage over, Gabriel saw the doll-eyed twelve-year-old, barely cognizant of her surroundings. She hummed softly and twirled her hair as though she had been left too long to simmer in a madhouse.

From his restricted vantage he could see another prisoner who reminded him very much of Qi—a ruined shadow version of her, same age and same general comportment. The woman was sleeping, or feigning sleep to avoid seeing where she was or attracting the attention of her captors.

It is a general rule of the flesh trade that high profit resides in the tarting up of what is, at heart, rather rude raw material. When up for bids in the open air, the girl would look heartbreaking, done up to entice you to save or pervert her. She would be a dazzling, powerful temptress. Between shows, however, they were all cast back into this dungeon to live like animals.

“Gabriel. You are…Gabriel,” said a voice.

He looked up, expecting a jailor or tormentor.