Stealing the Dragon (26 page)
Lin opened her eyes.
Her pupils were dilated, her vision blurry. Her shoulder was cold, almost numb, but she could feel something warm and wet running across her elbow and assumed she was still bleeding. She blinked and tried to take deep breaths to clear her head, but her lungs felt like they had collapsed, an invisible elephant sitting on her chest.
Her arms were tied behind her back and she couldn’t feel her hands. Rocking forward, she shifted her weight, and on the third try managed to sit upright and get her legs under her. Almost immediately her left hand started to pulse, then throb, until she almost fainted from the pounding and the dull, ragged pain.
That’s when she remembered the knife.
She didn’t have to see her hand to know her finger was gone. She tried to control her breathing, the way she’d been taught, but she could only manage shallow breaths. Her head was still cloudy, and she struggled to keep her eyes open.
She was sitting in a small room, almost a closet, maybe four by four with a ceiling roughly eight feet high. Buckets and mops had been pushed into one corner, and shelves covered the wall to her left, stacked with toilet paper, paper towels, tampons, and cleaning supplies. The wall behind her was empty, painted white. To her right was a door with a deadbolt lock. Directly in front of her, set against the far wall, a video camera rested on a rolling table. The red light above the lens was illuminated.
Beneath the camera was a monitor, a new TV with picture-in-picture, a little square in the corner of the screen showing one scene and the big screen showing another. On the big screen was a room dominated by some kind of conveyor belt running down the center, with a large central structure jutting upward like a smokestack toward the ceiling. At the end of the conveyor was a beige mountain almost ten feet high. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a pile of fortune cookies.
It took Lin a moment to make sense of the image in the small screen until she moved, because she didn’t recognize herself. Haggard and bloody, she bore no resemblance to the girl who boarded that ship in Fuzhou such a short time ago.
Lin closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw the bomb.
She saw it on the monitor first, sitting on the floor next to her, in plain sight but off to the side. A gray square with texture like clay, wires wrapped around it leading to a digital clock. Lin squinted at the small screen and then twisted her head around. The clock was counting backward in minutes.
She said the number as it changed, as if saying it aloud would give her control over its inexorable decline.
“Fifty-three…”
“…two…one.”
Xan opened his eyes.
He turned his head slowly and studied the ropes binding his hands, then looked at Cape with a bemused expression. Then he noticed Sally and almost smiled. When he saw Dong standing a few feet away, he scowled.
He turned back to Sally. “So it’s true,” he said in Cantonese.
“What?” she replied in English, wanting Cape to follow the conversation.
“You’re part of the conspiracy, little dragon?”
“What conspiracy?”
Xan shook his head sadly and changed to English. “You’re denying you have the heart?”
“No, we’ve got it.”
“You admit it!”
“Aren’t you going to ask where we got it?”
“You stole it, obviously.”
“Why is that obvious?”
“It was stolen,” said Xan. “And you have it.”
Sally shook her head sadly. “You haven’t changed.”
“What does that mean?”
“Things were never complicated for you.”
Cape noticed a change in Xan’s eyes, as if he were about to say something and caught himself. Cape didn’t know Xan, but he knew Sally. He wondered if she had been the only complicated thing in Xan’s world.
Xan asked, “Then where did you get it?”
“Lin brought it here.”
“Lin is in Fuzhou.”
Sally raised her eyebrows but said nothing, challenging him with her eyes.
“I sent her there myself,” said Xan indignantly.
“On whose orders?”
“What does it matter?”
“Lin boarded a freighter in Fuzhou,” said Sally. “She took the heart, smuggled herself onboard, and came here.”
Xan stared at her, then looked over at Dong, who nodded.
Cape stood back, watching Xan’s reactions, surprised at how little emotion he betrayed for a man tied to a couch. The wound in his leg had to hurt, but he did not flinch, totally focused on the mission that brought him here. It reminded Cape of Sally. She hadn’t said
hello, nice to see you after all these years, you’re an asshole, why didn’t you write?
Nothing mattered but the present situation and her ability to control it.
Sally studied Xan for a minute, then said, “You didn’t know.”
She produced a knife and bent down to cut the ropes.
Dong, watching, raised his hands. “Are you sure…?”
Sally waved him off as Xan slowly shook off the ropes. He remained seated in a nonthreatening pose and tilted his head from side to side, sharp cracking sounds coming from his neck.
“You caught me off guard,” he said.
“You’re an old man,” said Sally. “And I’m in my prime.”
Xan gave her a look.
Sally asked, “Why are you here?”
“To kill you.”
Cape unconsciously took a step forward at the same time Dong took a step back. Sally didn’t move, saying “Didn’t you once tell me students should become better than their teachers?”
“Was that a challenge,
little dragon
?” asked Xan.
“Which one of us was tied to the couch?”
Cape interrupted. “She’s got a point.”
Xan looked at Cape with a puzzled expression. “Who
are
you?”
“A friend.”
Xan looked at Sally. “A friend of yours?”
Sally nodded and smiled as if laughing at some private joke.
“This
man
,” said Xan. “Is a friend of
yours
?”
Sally nodded again.
Xan glanced at Cape. “What does he do?”
Sally stopped smiling. “He tells the truth.”
Xan met Sally’s gaze and the room went quiet. After a minute, Cape cleared his throat.
“Looks like you two have some catching up to do—mutual friends, orders to kill each other, that sort of thing—think I’ll go check my phone.” Stepping around the couch, Cape met Dong on his way to the rear entrance and whispered, “You trust this guy?”
“No.”
Cape considered the source. “Do you trust anyone?”
Dong seemed to think for a moment. “Not really,” he said. “Probably why I’m still alive.”
“Let me ask that another way—can I trust this guy?
“He’s a beastly chap,” said Dong. “But I’d say he’s telling the truth.”
“How can you be sure?”
Dong looked over toward the couch. “Because he’s talking to
her
.”
Cape watched Sally, talking to Xan but still standing in front of the couch, just out of arm’s reach. He turned back to Dong. “I’m going outside,” he said. “Don’t lock the door.”
“What about Yan?”
Cape shook his head. “Sally’s right. He won’t come here. I only met him once, but he’s the kind of guy who wants to be in charge. He chose the playing field—he wants us to come to him.”
Dong spoke deliberately. “The girl is dead.”
“Maybe,” said Cape. “But we won’t know sitting here, will we?”
Dong glanced at Sally. “You’re as mad as she is, aren’t you?”
Cape shrugged. “Guess that’s why we get along.”
“Bollocks.” Dong sighed heavily.
Cape left Dong muttering under his breath and stepped through the metal grating. The tunnel was almost seven feet in diameter, so he could walk easily, but the floor was damp and the first thirty feet pitch black. He should have borrowed one of the guard’s flashlights. Finally, he saw a small patch of light and picked up his pace.
The opening in the Stockton Street tunnel was a sewer grate. Since the only things passing through the tunnel during the day were cars, and this part of San Francisco was dead at night, the possibility of anyone spotting the entrance was slim. But Cape saw no reason to risk going outside if he could get a signal right here. Holding the phone up to the grate, he checked the screen—three small bars flickered above the antenna symbol.
The message was from Agent Williams. Cape listened to the message twice, then scribbled some notes. He considered calling back, since Williams had threatened to kill him if he didn’t, but Cape rejected the idea. There were too many variables and not enough time. He liked Williams, but the FBI would have to handle this by the book, just like the cops. By the time they knocked on the door with a warrant, Yan could have killed the girl and taken off. Cape thought of Sally’s words.
We don’t have much time.
He turned away from the light and headed back down the tunnel.
“…forty-four…”
Lin jumped at the sound of the deadbolt.
Harold Yan leaned through the open door, his serpentine smile making Lin tense involuntarily, her instincts telling her to strike, vertigo hitting as her muscles flexed against her bonds. She shut her eyes as bile burned the back of her throat.
Yan looked smug. “The poison is still working,” he said. “You don’t think I’d leave someone of your—station—free to move around, do you?”
Lin opened her eyes and managed a deep breath, getting enough wind inside her to spit across the small room. A wad of saliva smacked against Yan’s pants just below the crotch. Lin felt faint from the effort but managed a smile of her own.
“
Yat-zeu
.” Go to hell.
“
Baat poh
.” Yan’s eyes turned cold. “I’ll meet you there, bitch.” He forced a smile, adding, “But don’t die just yet—I’m expecting company and you’re the main attraction, so don’t forget to smile for the camera.” He pulled the door closed and slid the deadbolt into place.
Lin stared at the locked door for a moment, then turned to the monitor and concentrated on her image in the corner of the screen.
“Thirty-nine…”
“It’s too risky.”
Cape heard Dong before he could see him over the jumbled furniture. As he neared the center of the chamber, he saw Sally sitting across from Xan, with Dong standing next to her, the guard named Shen a few feet away.
Sally turned toward Dong. “You have a better idea?”
“He’ll be expecting you,” replied Dong, nodding toward Xan and adding, “Or someone like you.”
Xan nodded. “Surprise is lost, the field of battle is under his control.
The Art of War
—”
“—is irrelevant,” snapped Sally. “Because we have no time.”
“He won’t be expecting me,” said Cape.
All heads turned.
“Think about it,” he said. “Yan met me only once, and I asked for his help. He may not trust me, but I doubt he thinks I’ve got the heart.”
“
We’ve
got the heart,” said Dong. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”
“I have plenty of paperweights already,” said Cape. “But Yan thinks I’m just a
gwai loh
—and I must be, because everyone keeps calling me that.”
“It’s colloquial Chinese for someone who is white—an outsider,” said Sally. “It means devil.”
“White devil, actually,” added Dong. “Nothing personal, of course.”
“Of course,” said Cape. “But Yan is expecting someone who’s Chinese, not me. Someone connected to the heart is supposed to walk through the front door.”
“What do we do?” asked Dong.
“Come through the back door.” Sally turned to face Dong. “You’ll be relieved to know I want you to stay here.”
“With the heart?’
“Not a chance,” said Sally.
Dong looked crestfallen. “And the guards?”
Xan shook his head. “
Sei chun
.”
Sally glanced at Cape. “He said ‘stupid.’”
Cape looked at Shen, who seemed oblivious to the remark. He had a pistol holstered on his hip, which Cape pointed to as he addressed Dong. “Mind if I borrow that?”
Dong barked something in Cantonese, and Shen came over and handed Cape the gun, an H&K 9-millimeter semi-automatic, black metal and composite with a contoured grip. Cape got the same sensation he always had holding a gun, an almost primal fear mixed with an undeniable sense of power. It sickened him to admit how good the weight of the gun felt in his hand. He glanced up to find Sally looking at the gun, a somber look on her face.
Cape caught her eye. “We can’t all leap tall buildings.”
“You should try sometime.”
Sally walked toward the south tunnel and came back with a sword slung across her back. She was still wearing the black clothes she’d had on the night before.
Xan stood. “How far away is this bakery?”
“Five blocks,” said Sally. “But if we take the tunnels, we can cut it to three.”
“Don’t forget what was in the box,” said Dong. “This man is dangerous.”
Cape looked at Sally, then at Xan. “So are we. Besides, I might be able to distract him.”
“How?”
“I know something about him.” Cape patted the pocket where he’d put his notes.
“What?” asked Xan.
Sally said, “We don’t have time.”
Cape slid the gun into his belt and pulled out his shirttails. “I’ll tell you on the way.”