Stealing the Dragon

voice said, “Lin was trained to shadow and kill men. Men who are killers-not women and children. Even in death, there is a code.”

Cape studied his friend, wondering where you drew the line after you’d crossed it so many times.

“The crew were sze kau,” said Sally. “Triad thugs. At school, we called them 49s.”

Cape remembered Beau’s description of the ship, the number drawn in blood.

“Everyone in a Triad has a name and a number,” explained Dong. “Based on tradition. The Dragon Head is 489, or sometimes 21, which is 4+8+9. Mine was 438. The foot soldiers are 49s.”

“Numerology is a big deal in China,” added Sally, shrugging. “It gets complicated.”

Cape looked at Sally, thinking complicated didn’t even begin to describe her upbringing. He rubbed his temples and tried to concentrate.

“But why would Yan take the risk now?” he asked.

“The heart,” replied Dong. “The election.”

“I don’t know,” said Sally, forever the skeptic.

“Why don’t we ask Lin?” suggested Cape.

Sally and Dong exchanged a look.

“What?”

“We’ve got a little problem,” said Sally. “Lin has disappeared.”

Chapter Forty-eight

Xan taught his students the value of patience, though he had none himself.

It had been a long day, and the night was turning cold. But as he looked across the street toward the alley, Xan smiled for the first time in days.

Patience had its rewards, after all.

Chapter Forty-nine

Sally told Cape that when she came back last night, Dong was asleep, his two guards were unconscious, and Lin was gone.

Sally had mistakenly assumed Lin was too weak to move. And since their view from the bunker was limited, Sally had gone out to patrol the neighborhood.

Cape asked why Lin had run.

“If Lin recognized Dong-and it’s not hard, with that eye rolling around-she’d know he was forced out of the Triad. She could have fallen into a trap or a plot to steal the dragon’s heart for himself.”

“Wouldn’t she have trusted you?” Cape had asked. “You said you were close to her sister.”

Sally’s eyes hardened. “That was a long time ago,” she said, adding, “And I’m not there anymore.” She looked at Cape, but her eyes were still somewhere else. “Lin is who I would have become, had I stayed. Trust isn’t part of her vocabulary.”

“You think she went to Yan without the dragon?”

Sally shrugged. “She wasn’t strong enough to risk stealing it, even if she knew where Dong kept it hidden. I might have come back at any minute. This way, at least she could tell Yan where it was. That’s better than being trapped or dead underground.”

“I thought I was paranoid.”

Sally shook her head. “You’re not even close,” she said. “Lin was trained to be suspicious.”

Time was running out now that Lin was missing. They needed to get an angle on Yan quickly, otherwise they’d be going in blind. And since Yan was a respected public figure and they were an exiled criminal, a trained assassin, and a private investigator with questionable judgment, the best they could hope for would be to get arrested.

So Cape climbed the ladder and crawled out of the hole. His phone couldn’t get a signal in Dong’s underground lair, and reception wasn’t much better between the buildings. He walked the length of the alley, checked the signal on his phone, and dialed Linda’s number.

It rang almost ten times before there was an answer.

Linda didn’t like to get too close to phones, so when it rang, she dashed across the room, pushed the button for the speakerphone, then retreated to a safe distance and shouted, which always made her sound angry.

“It’s the middle of the night!” she yelled, making Cape think maybe she really was angry. He visualized her hair lurching forward as she reprimanded his disembodied voice.

“Sorry,” said Cape. “But Sally and I-”

“Sally’s OK?” shouted Linda.

“Oh, yeah,” said Cape. “I forgot-”

“Then why are you calling?” demanded Linda, sounding pissed again.

“Remember when I asked you to look into Harold Yan?”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

Cape held out his phone and checked the screen, which read: 2 new messages. Beau had mentioned he’d called several times, but he wouldn’t have left more than one message.

“I got it,” said Cape, putting the phone to his ear. “I just haven’t listened to it.” He imagined Linda’s hair crouching down, ready to strike.

“Why not?”

“I’ve been in a tunnel,” said Cape. “Under a manhole cover.”

That put Linda at a momentary loss.

“So what did you find out?” asked Cape.

“Almost nothing,” said Linda, her voice dropping to a normal pitch. Cape could tell she was standing closer to the phone, fears of electromagnetic menace temporarily gone. “Lots and lots of press clippings, going back ten years, but it’s all pretty standard stuff for a public figure. The more public he became, the easier the trail is to follow.”

“OK,” said Cape, discouraged. “Is that what you said in your message?”

“No,” said Linda. “The Sloth and I tried to go back, to before Yan left China.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” said Linda. “Before immigration, the guy disappears.”

“Isn’t that because you’re trying to access records in China? That must be next to impossible.”

“Not for the Sloth,” said Linda. “He even has a program that can translate the characters into English as you scroll down a page.”

“So?”

“So either Yan had a really, really boring life in China,” said Linda. “Which I doubt. Or…he’s a criminal.”

“Who changed his name when he came to the States,” said Cape. “Because he wanted to get into politics.”

“Where the real power is.”

“The real power is in politics?”

“I heard that on an episode of West Wing.”

“Then it must be true. OK, so he gets a new identity.”

“Exactly,” said Linda. “Not that hard, really, if you know the right people.”

“But if I can prove Yan has a criminal past…”

“You’ve got some leverage,” said Linda. “You could really screw up the election.”

Cape started to get excited until he realized he didn’t have a single piece of evidence.