he let this information bother him? Could it be Maria’s curse taking effect?
Exhaling smoke, Wei sneered. Silently, he mocked the concept of karma. Perhaps it was a useful tool to help keep fools in line. Let them think their bad actions rebounded on them later. Let fear keep them on a “pure” path of action. Ha! A simple scrutiny of life showed the folly of such thinking. The powerful trampled others in their quest for influence, fame and money. Thieves prospered, some of them running the largest banks in the world. Adulterers ruled nations. Mass killers received medals and politicians stoked voters lust for other people’s money. The entire idea of the redistribution of wealth was nothing more than coveting what others possessed and then stealing it from them, all while praising yourself at how noble such theft was. Karma—it was a ridiculous idea.
It he was lucky, he might actually leave this barbaric land and return home to civilization.
While resting his head on the back of the chair, Captain Wei heard a faint sound. His sneer shifted to a frown. Usually, it was quiet up here in
No, that was preposterous. The outer guards would have fought to the death before admitting the military into East Lightning Headquarters. The outer guards were chosen specimens, hypnotically motivated and thus fearless fighters even against outrageous odds. If the military had attempted to enter these halls, he would have heard gunfire.
The sound of marching grew louder. It was in cadence, too. Likely, that meant several jackbooted thugs trained to move in step. What were they doing here?
Wei inhaled so the tip of his cigarette wobbled as it glowed. Cadenced steps of booted thugs—
Wei sat up and opened his eyes. He blew smoke out of his nostrils and mashed the cigarette in his overflowing ashtray. He still had half the cigarette to smoke, too. It was the only one of its kind in the tray. All the other stubs had been smoked down to the end. Wei hated wasting cigarettes.
He’d heard such cadenced steps before from Easting Lighting personnel. The Guardian Inspector kept armored enforcers with her wherever she went. They often marched like that, with boots crashing down against the tiles. If she was in the halls—Wei blinked rapidly. The Guardian Inspector was second-in-command of East Lightning personnel in Mexico. Why would she be here in his halls?
Wei recalled the doctor’s sly sidelong glances as the man had probed Maria Valdez’s corpse. The doctor’s silence during the examination had unnerved Wei enough to mention several of the doctor’s indiscretions he’d committed this past year.
For many years now, Wei had found it useful keeping a dossier on his underlings, on anyone who could write a report about him. Would the doctor have been foolish enough to write or speak to others about his suspicions concerning Maria’s death?
Wei released his crumpled cigarette as his office door swung open. There was no polite tapping on it first by his secretary. No one would barge in here like this unless he or she wielded power. Therefore, Wei raised his eyebrows in an attentive manner, in the way an East Lightning operative should do before his superiors.
Three red-armored enforcers strode into the room. They were big men in body armor and enclosed helmets with darkened visors. Each cradled a close-combat carbine, an ugly-barreled weapon with a pitted end. They took up station in his cramped quarters and leveled the carbines at him.
Inadvertently, Wei touched his constricting chest. Those pitted barrels...
The Guardian Inspector entered the office, confirming Wei’s worst fear. She was taller than he was, average-sized for a Chinese woman. Her hair was short, barely covering her ears. She wore a scarlet uniform with brown straps, reversing the normal East Lightning uniform. A short brown cape was draped over her shoulders and pigskin gloves clad her hands. She had a peasant girl’s features. They were too wide in Chinese terms to be called beautiful. Even so, she had a pleasing face, with incredibly dark eyes of a compelling nature. They made her seem like a night creature, a seductress who would leave his bloodless corpse for jackals or rats to quarrel over.
She stopped before his desk and regarded him. “Captain Wei,” she said.
He recovered from his shock enough so his chair scraped back. He stood, saluting smartly in the accepted manner.
“Sit,” she said, while unpinning her cloak. She let it drape over a chair and then sat down.
Wei sat stiffly, putting his hands on the desk, waiting.
“You’re surprised to see me,” she said.
Wei nodded. How could it be otherwise?
“The carbines,” she gestured at her enforcers. “Do they unnerve you?”
“Innocent men need not fear,” Wei said, quoting an East Lightning maxim.
Her smile became cruel. “It surprises me then that you are not a quivering wreck on the floor.”
Wei blinked several times. He wanted a cigarette. No, he needed a pill as his heart thudded. “Your words wound me,” he managed to say.
While staring into his eyes, she shook her head. “It is my policy to never utter false words or to bandy in jest with those I’m about to destroy.”
His throat tightened. What had gone wrong? The doctor—he would kill the man before this was over. He would escape and hunt the weasel to the earth, using a knife to castrate the informer and stuffing the man’s—
“May I inquire as to what this is about?” Wei forced himself to ask. He needed to concentrate, not escape into revenge fantasies.
“Poor Wei,” she said. “You wish to maintain dignity in your final hour. You have hidden like a snake among us all these years. I wonder now upon the number and magnitude of your transgressions.”
“Guardian Inspector?” he asked. He would slice open the doctor’s belly and pull out the man’s—
“We know about your drug addiction,” she said.
Wei stared at her and he almost let his shoulders slump in relief. He had to suppress a caw of laughter. Drug addiction, this was about drug addiction? No one could torture people long and escape some form of relaxant. East Lightning knew this. Oh, they all spoke about hard men determined to do the unwanted tasks because this was the hour of China’s greatness. But the truth was no one was hard enough except for a psychopath.
“Ah,” the Guardian Inspector said. She was watching him closely. “You interest me, Captain. You’re relieved at the charge, not worried as you should be.”
“I assure you—”
“No!” she said. “Do not assure me of anything. You are a snake, Captain Wei. You have abused your privileged post in order to practice a loathsome habit. How can we trust your judgment if you’re addled with drugs? You are an addict. You ingest drugs to sustain yourself instead of hardening your resolve for the good of the State. You have stained yourself. You are no longer worthy of your rank or your station. I begin to wonder now about this report of yours concerning Maria Valdez.”
Was she playing him like a mongoose with a cobra? That must be it. It couldn’t really be about drug addiction. Besides, he wasn’t an addict. He merely used the pills to ease his burden. He was hard inside. He did work for the good of the State. China was everything and he was nothing, an ant tirelessly working for the nation, for the people.
The Guardian Inspector shrugged. “By his actions, our Great Leader has stamped your Maria Valdez report with approval.”
“Ah,” Wei said. “That disproves your charge then. My hard work—”
She held up a gloved hand. The glove was thin leather with little holes running up and down the fingers. The gesture was menacing, as it seemed to Wei that if she should drop her hand too quickly, the three enforcers would open fire.
“Your report has reached too high for us to dig too deeply into it,” she said. “But is there anything you wish to tell me about it, anything you wish to confess?”
He tried to appear contrite, but it was so foreign to him. He had dominated shackled patients too long, perhaps. He had always been in control.
“It is true I have sipped a drink to…to pass the time,” he said.
“You were going to say something else. Tell me what it was. Confess to me, Captain, and you may find mercy.”
