The metal cable and pulley system was stiff with rust, so it took the combined strength of Oakshott and Kavanaugh to break loose the catch latches so the slack could be run through the drum. Crowe, Mouzi and Honoré guided the boat down, settling it gently in the water.
The interior of the craft looked surprisingly clean, with only a few spots of greenish mildew on the seat cushions. To Mouzi’s relief she saw no evidence that snakes or insects had taken up residence.
She and Crowe clambered aboard and ran fast checks on the craft’s systems and supplies. While they worked, a gusty wind rattled the leaves of the underbrush and the fronds of the trees. The sky rolled with a pair of overlapping thunderclaps.
“We’re going to have a storm in our teeth in a minute,” Kavanaugh called over to McQuay. “You might think about getting out of the rain.”
The bandaged man pushed himself up from the bench and walked slowly to stand beneath the roof of the lean-to. He focused his attention on the playback window of his camera.
Crowe unscrewed the cap of the fuel tank and checked the dipstick. With a note of surprise in his voice, he said, “There’s half a tank. I thought it would’ve evaporated after all this time.”
“If you started with a full tank in an airtight container,” Belleau said patronizingly, “then the rate of evaporation is about average.”
Crowe checked the oil sump and found it full, although slightly dirty. “Mouzi, check the electrical system.”
Mouzi climbed into the Nautique’s cockpit and flicked the power switch of the shortwave receiver to the on position. Green lights glowed and the radio juiced up with an electronic whine. “Huh,” she said dispassionately. “It works. Go figure.”
“I went only with state-of-the-art equipment,” Crowe said impatiently. “Don’t act so surprised. Turn it off until we test the ignition. We’ll need all the power to start the engine.”
She did as he said. Crowe pushed the primer button on the exterior engine housing. “Give it a kick,” he called to her.
Mouzi turned the key. The engine made a bubbly, burping noise, then died. Crowe pumped the primer again just as wind-driven sheets of refreshingly cold rain fell, first in scattered showers, then in a torrential downpour. The surface of the river dimpled under the barrage of raindrops. The wind tore at the treeline.
Water streaming from the brim of her hat, Honoré suggested loudly, “Captain Crowe, perhaps we should get under cover until you ascertain if the engine works.”
She, Oakshott and Belleau joined McQuay in the shelter of the lean-to. Kavanaugh remained on the pierside, offering suggestions that neither Mouzi nor Crowe affected to hear.
Mouzi pressed the gas pedal and grasped the throttle. “I’ll try ‘er again.”
There was a sputtering cough and a gout of blue-black smoke puffed from the exhaust. Then the engine roared and the entire length of the boat vibrated violently. Ripples spread out over the river. Kavanaugh saw the dark water roil and bubble ominously, as if something large moved off the bottom, attracted by the prop-wash and the noise.
Mouzi maintained a steady pressure on the throttle. Both Crowe and Kavanaugh expected the engine to stall and die but although it stuttered, it continued to run.
Kavanaugh stepped off the edge of the dock and into the boat. In Crowe’s ear he shouted, “Do you want to see if you can get her moving?”
“First things first. Mouzi, try to raise to Pendlebury.”
She turned on the transceiver, thumbing the channel scanner until she reached the correct frequency. She put the microphone to her lips. “Pendlebury, come in. Are you there? Do you read me?”
Pendlebury’s high, shrill voice crackled out of the speaker, but because of the engine noise and thunderclap, they couldn’t understand what he said.
Twisting the volume knob to full, Mouzi said, “Pendlebury, say again. Over.”
“I said something has happened to Howard! When I called him to tell him what had happened to the chopper, he told me the boat was under attack by shadows!”
Scowling, Crowe moved forward and snatched the microphone from Mouzi’s hand. “What the hell are you babbling about, Bert?”
“Howard just called me—he told me to tell you if I could that you guys need to get the hell out of wherever you are…Belleau is in on it, too. They’ve got Bai Suzhen and once she signs her interests over to Belleau, she’ll be killed. They’re coming for you, too. Do you read me, Gus?
They’re coming for all of you.”
Footsteps slammed down the ladder from the pilothouse, punctuated by frantic shouting in Thai and Cantonese. Interwoven throughout the thumps and thuds came the stutter of automatic weapons. A man’s voice rose high in a scream of pain.
Bai Suzhen yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out a black handgun. Swiftly, she checked the action, working the slide, jacking a round into the chamber.
“What the hell is going on?” demanded Flitcroft, eyes darting from the pistol in her hand to the ceiling.
“We Are the Champions”
continued to trill from his pocket.
“Jimmy Cao and the Ghost Shadows,” she bit out, whirling toward the door. “Answer your damn phone!”
Bai ran down the companionway and up the short ladder, shouldering open the hatch. Wood splinters flew in a spray above her head with the whine of ricochets. She ducked back into the hatch, holding her CZ75 in a two-fisted grip. Her security staff ran to and fro across the deck, but she didn’t see either Dang Xo or Pai Chu. She had expected one or the both of them to make sure she was safe at the first vague hint of trouble.
Bai Suzhen counted to five under her breath, then lunged from the hatch and up the flight of steps to the pilothouse so she could see more of the foredeck. Glass shattered and flew from the pilothouse windows. More subguns opened up from below, bullets slamming against the hull. Wood splinters snicked through the air.
Ricochets went keening away as she reached the superstructure. Shielding her face from flying fragments of wood and glass, Bai Suzhen elbow-crawled around the corner of the cupola that served as a pilothouse to a point where she could see most of the
Keying.
Her crew and security men raced over the decks, all of them armed. Three of her men were down, dark blood pooling around their bodies. Bai saw six sampans circling the junk like sharks, water purling around their prows. The drone of overtaxed outboard motors was very loud. From the little cabins amidships stabbed muzzle-flashes, like clusters of mad fireflies.
Autofire rattled and bullets sent water fountaining up all around the junk. A hailstorm of slugs thudded into the hull, just above the waterline. Bai recognized the distinctive rattle of spidery-looking Chinese-made Type 64 subguns. She only caught glimpses of the men—they wore headbands divided by equal rectangles of black and white, the colors of the Ghost Shadow triad. Half of them wielded curved, single-bladed dao swords, more meat cleaver than weapon.
She grasped the mechanics of the assault in an instant—the Ghost Shadows had hidden in plain sight among the daily flotilla of fishing sampans and then surrounded the
Keying
while Jimmy Cao’s sailing yacht effectively bottled up the only exit from the bay. Steel-jacketed bullets sang through the rigging and sails. Holes appeared in the sailcloth, giving them the likeness of giant lace doilies. One of her security guards doubled up and fell overboard, tumbling headfirst into the water.
Bai gritted her teeth in fury and rose to a knee, sighting down the length of her pistol. A man stood at the bow of Den Lau’s sampan with a long-barreled Dragonuv SVD sniper rifle at his shoulder, peering through the scope. He wore Lau’s characteristic lampshade hat and she realized how the Ghost Shadows had managed to get so close to the
Keying
.
Centering the sights of her pistol on the sniper, she squeezed the trigger. The single shot cracked, like the snapping of a whip. The man's hat floated away, propelled by a mist of blood. Legs twisting in clumsy pirouette, he and the rifle fell into the bay.
The rattling of the Type 64s drowned out the shouts and engine roars. She ducked down as bullets scooped out gouges in the side of the pilothouse, stinging her bare arms with splinters. Quickly, she backed up into the cupola and found Dang Xo sagged over the wheel, wheezing, blowing droplets of blood from his slack lips. A wet stain spread across his shirtfront. With a surge of horror, she realized the pink froth on his lips meant her bodyguard had taken a bullet through the lungs.
“My lady—” he managed to gasp out, his straight, double-edged jian sword hanging from his right hand. “Tried to stop them, to warn you, but—”
Rising to her knees, Bai Suzhen pulled the man away from the wheel and sat him down, propping him against the wall. Judging by the size of the entrance and exit wounds in his chest, she knew Dang Xo had been one of the first casualties of the Dragonuv sniper rifle. “Don’t talk,” she told him quietly.
He nodded, lips writhing as he bottled up the pain. As formally as he could, he handed her his sword, pommel-first. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes as if he were lost in thought, and died. Bai ducked her head in a respectful acknowledgement, then peered around the edge of the door.
The sampans had pulled close to the junk’s portside and the Ghost Shadows hurled grapnels aboard, the metal hooks biting and holding into the deck-rails. A dozen of them swarmed up the knotted nylon ropes while their comrades in the boats maintained a covering fire.
The Ghost Shadow soldiers were stocky, saffron-skinned men. Their faces were broad and flat, their crewcut hair black and coarse. She guessed they were Nanai, from Manchuria. They were armed with subguns, pistols and curved dao swords. Nothing was orderly and organized about the boarding. They charged across the deck in a howling horde.
Cupping her right hand with her left, Bai Suzhen fired steadily into the first group of attackers. Some of them folded over, some fell down into the bay and a couple of others jumped back onto the decks of the sampans, clutching at wounds. She burned through the rest of the CZ75’s clip, spent cartridge cases tinkling down around her in a glinting rain.
Bai squeezed off one more round, then the slide of the pistol blew back into the locked and empty position. She flung herself backward, behind the shield of the corner of the pilothouse. Bullets crashed into it, tearing away long fragments.
The defense put up by the
Keying’s
crew was disorganized and sporadic. They retreated toward the quarterdeck, while more Ghost Shadows hauled themselves over the rail until Bai estimated nearly a score were assembled on the deck.
Bai Suzhen glimpsed Pai Chu wielding his jian blade with expert ease, slicing halfway through the neck of a Ghost Shadow soldier. Blood spouted from the severed carotid artery, a scarlet fountain that splashed across the deck and slicked the boards.
Bai cast Dang Xo a final glance, put down her pistol, gripped his sword and then vaulted out of the cupola and off the superstructure. She landed directly behind two Ghost Shadow soldiers, bending her knees to absorb the shock of impact. She spun the mirror-bright blade over her head, cutting bright wheels in the air.
Bai’s grandmother, Lady Hu had matriculated her to take over the White Serpent triad on her twelfth birthday. She had enrolled Bai in the finest martial arts schools in Asia, which taught all forms of wushu with a strong emphasis on Taijijian, combat with the sword.
The two men stared at her in silence, their eyes wide, expressions registering a blend of confusion and fear. The man on her left uncertainly lifted his dao sword, as if he intended to shake it at her like an admonishing finger. Bai Suzhen bounded forward. The blade in her right fist sliced through his neck and blood splashed across the shocked face of the man standing next to him.
As he reeled away, trying to raise his subgun and clear his vision at the same time, Bai Suzhen performed a half spin on the ball of one foot and drove the sword into the man’s midsection. As he doubled over she snatched the dao sword from his slack fingers.
A Ghost Shadow soldier shouted in wordless fury and whirled toward her, stroking a short snare-drum rattle from his weapon. Bullets thumped very rapidly just above Bai Suzhen’s head and then she was among the invaders. She thrust the jian at the man who had fired at her but he danced aside, managing to block the sword with the frame of his subgun.
She slashed the heavy edge of the dao across a man’s wrist and with a faint wet sound, the blade sliced off the soldier’s right hand. He screamed, clutching his blood-spurting stump, eyes bugging out. Whirling around him, back to his back, Bai Suzhen executed a half-turn, the dao and the jian cutting arcs in the air.
The crossed blades sank into a soldier’s neck, catching it between a long scissors of steel. The razor keen metal grated against vertebrae, then she whipped the two swords free, leaving the man to clap his hands to both sides of his throat, trying to staunch the river of blood.
With the speed of a striking serpent, Bai Suzhen constantly shifted position so none of the men could achieve a proper aim with their subguns. If they fired, they would kill their own. She pivoted, slashing backhanded with the jian. The razored tip sliced through a man’s belly.
As he staggered away, she received a jarring blow between her shoulder blades. She lurched forward, throwing her arms wide to avoid impaling herself on her own swords and managed to execute a somersault like an acrobat, bouncing back to her feet.
When she regained her balance, she faced Jimmy Cao, aiming a big-bored Casull .454 revolver directly at her heart. The barrel gleamed with a blue-satin finish. An unlit cigarette dangled from between the man’s lips. He was dressed very casually in a multi-colored tropical print shirt and white jeans as if he planned to attend a beach party right after the massacre. Braided gold chains glinted at the base of his neck. His upswept black hair glistened with a combination of pomade and sweat.
Although he affected a calm semi-smirk, Bai noticed how the barrel of the pistol trembled and the sweat beaded in the sparse hairs on his upper lip. “Nice boat,” he said in English. “A little too traditional for me.”
“And it’s all messed up with your men’s blood, too,” Bai retorted, not lowering her swords.
Jimmy Cao’s smirk faltered. “We won, didn’t we?”
Bai Suzhen didn’t do a head count. Instead, she stated flatly, “There is no way in hell the council would have sanctioned this insanity, Jimmy.”
His lips skinned back over his teeth in a malevolent grin. “You’re right. But you made a very stupid mistake leaving Zhou Zhi alive.”
“So you and he are working together? The Ghost Shadows and the Blue Lotus? I should have known when I saw those Nanai…that’s Zhou Zhi’s clan of pigs.”
Cao gestured with the barrel of his pistol. “Drop the stickers, bitch.”
“Why should I?”
Jimmy Cao turned his head and spoke rapidly over his shoulder. Two men wearing Ghost Shadow headbands dragged Pai Chu forward. His head lolled loosely on his neck and his face was masked by a layer of blood sliding from his hairline. They forced him to his knees.
Cao pointed the pistol at Chu “You should do it because not all of your men are dead. But I’ll fucking make them all that way if you decide you’re a complication instead of an asset.”
Bai drew in a long breath through her nostrils and tossed the swords down on the deck, the blades chiming. Instantly, a man grabbed her wrists, twisting her arms up behind her in painful hammerlocks.
Between clenched teeth, she said, “None of the triads would authorize this kind of action against one of their own. What are you really up to, Jimmy?”
He swaggered close to her, idly passing the barrel of the revolver back and forth before her eyes. “I might tell you if you asked the right questions, white serpent-whore of good fortune.”
“Which is what?” she snapped. “What size dick extender you use?”
Without warning, Cao kicked her, a whipping crescent kick with his left leg that caught her on the right side of her head. She would have fallen if not for the man gripping her arms. She sagged, knees turning to rubber, her vision blackening at the edges. Her ears rang and she tasted the salt of her own blood.
Then, slowly she straightened up, fighting her way out of unconsciousness. She blinked away the amoeba-shaped floaters swimming across her eyes, tossed her hair back and stared steadily at Jimmy Cao. His face had gone red, twisted with savage anger.
“You’re a stupid, arrogant lesbian bitch and you have no place in United Bamboo.” He spoke in Thai so she would be sure to understand him. “The council will reward me for getting rid of you.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want.”
“What do you think?” He returned to English. “Your signature on a sales agreement to Aubrey Belleau. I knew you wouldn’t do it willingly. I bet that fucking Tombstone Jack talked you out of it. I know you met with him this morning. So, I’m forcing the issue…you’re going to sell your shares of Cryptozoica Enterprises to that limey midget and you’re going to do it today.”
Howard Flitcroft’s voice announced, “That limey midget isn’t here and he’s not likely to be any time soon.”
Heads and gun barrels swiveled toward Flitcroft as he walked casually from the direction of the quarterdeck. He held his hands up at shoulder level. A Ghost Shadow soldier grabbed him by the arms, twirled him around and roughly patted him down. The man pulled Flitcroft’s cell phone from his pocket and tossed it to Cao, who barely gave it a glance.
“I figured we’d have to hunt you down, Flitcroft,” Cao said. “You saved me some time and trouble. What do you mean, Belleau isn’t here?”
Matter-of-factly, making a show of straightening his clothes, Flitcroft declared, “He’s trapped on Big Tamtung.”