Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Among the Killers of Men

Because though Kong had reacted professionally, cross-drawing and sighting, he had jerked his own pistol up into neutral when he recognized Ivory.

“Ivory!” Kong yelled. “Parkman said Cheung’s orders were to kill you. What’s going on?”

Ivory kept his weapon dead-on as he approached Kong.

“I cannot believe it,” Kong sputtered. “I will not believe it! Not of you. Many of us have heard the rumors, the news you were to become a Nameless One. I say that if Cheung decides you are a Nameless One, then I am a Nameless One as well.” He was as frantic as anyone might be, presented with the prospect of killing a friend. “Longwei, please, tell me, what is the truth?”

Kong actually placed his weapon on the deck, stepped away from it.

“For the things you have just said,” Ivory said softly, “for disloyalty to our master, the penalty is death. You understand that, Kwong Leung Kong Ngan?”

“Yes,” Kong said, lowering his gaze. “The penalty is death.”

“Under normal circumstances,” said Ivory, drawing even closer.

Fearing the most intimate of killings, Kong kept staring at the concrete and said, “What…?”

“Under Cheung’s rule the penalty is death,” said Ivory. “But Cheung’s covenant is false. Were I to kill anyone for such a violation, I should first kill myself. You understand the gravity of what I say.”

“I—I do?” stammered Kong. He regained some of his composure. “I mean, I do.” Leery of the American woman with the weapon in the background, he leaned closer to Cheung, as there were some things so toxic and important that women should never hear them. “We heard Dinanath was gone. That you were turned. All our information is unreliable. Tell me, please—what is happening?”

“The foundations of Cheung’s New Bund are collapsing as we speak,” said Ivory.

“Can it be?” Kong said. “At long last…”

“My friend,” said Ivory. “I need an Immortal, and you shall do quite nicely. You say there are others of like disposition.”

“Yes. Jintao. Yu Peng. Hsiang Yun-Fa.”

“Stop. Do not betray them until you see with your own eyes the evidence of my intent.” There was no use in telling Kong that Yu Peng was already dead. “But gather them close. If I survive, they will be needed. If I do not survive, you must—you must —go for yourselves, is that understood?”

Kong directed them to a secure ladder that put them onto a disused fire escape, then headed in the other direction to round up his men.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Mitch as they descended along a rear face of the building to street level.

“I have never done anything like that before,” said Ivory. “But I suspected that Kong might be with me in spirit. I gambled on that.”

“You should think about it, you know? Taking Cheung’s place. You could undo a lot of damage.”

Ivory pressed his lips together until they were white and bloodless. One never said such bald things out loud. Putting such words into the air was unwise.

Instead he said, “Hurry. Just because we regain the streets, it is no guarantee of our safety.”

“Where’re we going?” said Mitch.

“I have to take you to meet a monk.”

Chapter 27

Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung stared dourly at the dead man’s arm sticking out of the base of the giant bronze idol in the shrine room. His expression seemed to say: Hmm, he almost made it.

Gabriel was the focus of two aimed guns, in the hands of the pair of Cheung men who had accompanied them in an armored limousine to the leaning pagoda. Shorthanded, Cheung had snatched them off guard duty in front of the Peace Hotel and both men, smelling imminent promotion and favor in the boss’s eyes, were eager to comply.

They seemed just as eager to fill Gabriel up with bullets.

“A booby trap,” said Gabriel. “As I warned you.”

“It certainly seems that the obvious way in is not the way in,” said Cheung.

“My brother. What assurance do I have you will release him?”

“You have no assurance, Mr. Hunt. Once my needs are seen to, then I shall consider the disposition of your brother.”

“Then you are not a man of your word,” said Gabriel.

“And you are not naïve,” said Cheung. “It is your duty to acknowledge who holds the power in our brief relationship. You have cost me immeasurable time and resources. Your help inside this tomb could compensate for all that, but in the meantime you are at my command.”

The two Cheung men glanced at each other.

“I was you, mate,” said the taller Cheung man in an Australian accent, “I’d answer direct questions as asked, and otherwise keep my big yap shut.”

“But you’re not me,” said Gabriel. “Too ugly and stupid, cowboy.”

The guard bristled but kept his place.

“Now, Mr. Hunt,” Cheung said. “As you say in New York: Time’s wasting.”

Under the gaze of the guards, Gabriel climbed down into the trench and brought up the big, faceted orb of crimson glass.

“There were two at some point,” he told Cheung. “Now there is only this one. Watch.”

As Cheung and his bodyguards looked on, Gabriel climbed the bronze idol and mounted the jewel in the socket. Under direct lamplight, they all saw the arc of backward ideograms projected on the far wall.

“Now, if we move it to the other socket…”

Gabriel had a good grip on the jewel and hated to let it go. The thing was at least a century old and surely unique. But survival called for sacrifice. He made a show of carelessness and let an expression of not entirely false horror emerge on his face as he allowed the orb to slip from his fingers. It shattered into a million crushed-ice fragments on the floor.

“What have you done?” demanded Cheung, growing red in the face, but when he looked up again he was staring into a pistol in Gabriel’s hand. There’d been more in the trench than just the jewel.

The Australian leveled his .45 automatic at Gabriel, but Gabriel said, “Don’t move or your boss gets it.”

“Shoot him,” said Cheung, regaining his composure. “Just not fatally. We still have need of him.”

A pair of gunshots erupted—but not from the Australian’s gun and not from Gabriel’s. The blasts came from the other guard’s M4. The Australian, Bennings, clenched tight with hits and fell down dead.

Cheung quickly raised his own pistol and blew the other man apart at the seams with three perfect shots.

“Poor Jintao,” said Cheung. “I was hoping Ivory had not gotten to him.” He prodded Jintao’s corpse with the toe of one boot. “You see, Mr. Hunt? Betrayal at every turn.” He waved his gun in Gabriel’s direction. “Come down off that statue, please. And throw the gun away. You will not shoot me, not when I hold your brother’s life in my hand. Let us stop wasting each other’s time, shall we?”

Slowly, reluctantly, Gabriel tossed his gun and began to descend.

“Tell me how my sister died,” said Mitch. She was having difficulty keeping focus. The headaches were starting to belabor her skull again.

Pan Xiao had conducted them to Ivory’s safe haven deep within the monastery. From supplies he had on hand, both herbal and medical, Ivory had prepared an injection that would help Mitch cycle down from the effects of the xipaxidine.

“You will feel weak,” he said. “The effect is compensatory. This is a buffer, it is not a cure. Your body will have to cure itself. But while that happens, this will at least keep you from hurting yourself or suffering too severely.”

“Thank you,” she said, shivering.

Ivory lowered his gaze. “Do you trust me?” he said.

She extended her arm to him to accept the waiting needle.