White Tiger

find her willing mouth. He moaned again when he was successful; her warmth enveloped him, and a shudder ran through his body. He had no self-control left; the quality of her work was far too much for him to handle. In seemingly no time at all, he was on the brink of orgasm. He thrashed about on the bed, moaning, hips thrusting. Xiaohui fixed her efforts on the head of his cock, and it was more than Lin could bear. As he began to come again, he felt a startling thrill-almost electric-course through his member. But then, he was overcome by his orgasm. Xiaohui lifted her head, and Lin spurted across his chest and stomach in great heaving gouts, his body strumming like a string.

More wetness landed on his face. As his orgasm began to fade, he was surprised that his outpouring continued. Truly, he was a titan tonight! So much seed!

More warm wetness landed on his face. A droplet landed on his tongue; it had a coppery taste, not at all like ejaculate, more like-

Blood?

Light flooded the room as the lamp on the nightstand was flicked on. Lin blinked at the surprising brightness, and he squinted up at Xiaohui as she crouched over him, her hair bound up in a long queue that ran to the small of her back.

The eyes that glared back at him were not Xiaohui’s.

“Do you remember me?” the woman asked in Xiamenese, the local dialect of Lin’s home city. “Do you remember me, Lin Dan?”

Lin’s shock was matched only by a spreading discomfort in his loins. The woman squeezed something in her hand, which she held above his head; blood streamed out of it and spattered across his forehead. With a shock, Lin realized he was covered with blood, blood so rich and dark that it had stained the bedding almost crimson. With that came an additional reckoning.

The woman held his severed penis over his head.

Lin opened his mouth to scream, and the woman shoved the severed appendage into his mouth. Lin half- choked on it, but the woman slammed his jaws shut with such force that it broke several teeth. Lin struggled against the bonds that held him, half-gagging and half-screaming in his throat.

The woman’s free hand descended toward him, the small blade she held glittering for an instant like the brightest of diamonds.

CHAPTER 2

Tokyo, Japan

The Fujianese weren’t that hard to detect, even for a supposedly hapless gaijin like Jerome Manning. They sat in their parked car across from the Mansions at Azabu Towers, an extended-stay facility in Tokyo’s Minato-ku ward less than a mile from the crowning indelicacy that was Tokyo Tower. Despite having risen from the ashes of World War II under American stewardship, the Japanese loved all things European; Tokyo Tower was nothing more than a copy of Paris’s Eiffel Tower, although substantially less romantic. Manning had long grown used to the ugly up thrust-after all, his own home in Japan was just another half-mile past the tower. Manning wished he was there now, kicking back on the couch and watching some inane Japanese TV show. Regrettably, work prevented that.

The men in the Toyota sedan sat and smoked, unaware of Manning’s covert surveillance even though he was only twenty feet away. One of them, sitting in the passenger seat, spoke into a cell phone endlessly. Manning made him as the team leader, and took several pictures of him with his smartphone. The Chinese did not notice this.

Time for some closeups, Manning thought to himself as he approached the car from the rear. He put the phone to his ear and pretended to be in the middle of a difficult conversation, speaking a spattering of Serbo-Croatian curses he had learned some years ago. He paused next to the vehicle and took three quick photos while still holding the phone to his ear, pretending to listen carefully to the nonexistent conversation. He then slid the phone inside his jacket pocket, his fictional conversation over. The men in the car looked at him. Not in suspicion; it was just something to do while waiting.

Guess they don’t recognize me…

Manning took a gamble and approached the car as if noticing it for the first time. The passenger window was open, and the man with the cell phone looked at him as he strolled up to the vehicle.

“Roshia Taishikan wa doko ni aruka gozonji desuka?” he asked in less-than-perfect Japanese. Excuse me-where is the Russian embassy?

The man barked back something in a language that was neither Japanese or English, or even Mandarin, yet Manning deciphered it as a Chinese provincial dialect. Fujianese, he was certain. Manning stared back, perplexed for a moment, then the man motioned him away from the car. Manning bowed slightly, and resumed his walk up the street. He crossed it and walked to the slab-like Azabu Towers main building. He pushed through the glass doors. There were several people milling about in the lobby-some were definitely Chinese, but their presence didn’t necessarily implicate them as associates of the Fujianese thugs outside. While waiting for the elevator, Manning kept his eyes on the marbled lobby, hands clasped behind his back. No one seemed unduly interested in him.

One man, sitting in an overstuffed lounge chair with a copy of the Daily Yomiuri on his lap, was chatting into a cell phone. While he wasn’t apparently interested in the tall foreigner in the elevator bay, he was in a perfect position for reconnaissance. Manning watched him from the corner of his eye. Was the man Chinese? He couldn’t tell, though he had an eye for such things; then and again, Asians mistook each other all the time. Koreans would approach a Chinese thinking he was a fellow Korean; Japanese might be approached by a Taiwanese. Manning frowned. It could have been entirely coincidental, and how often did one see an Asian man using a cell phone? Asians lived or died by the instruments.

The man disconnected and placed the phone on his lap. He picked up the Japanese-language newspaper and thumbed through the pages. He wasn’t reading it, just gazing at the pictures.

The elevator arrived and Manning stepped inside. Chinese.

He rode alone in the elevator to the ninth floor. The hallway was deserted; it was early afternoon, and most of the guests and residents were out. Manning walked to his suite, rapped on the door once, and dipped his keycard into the lock. He opened the door slowly.

“Ke jian bao Bai Hu,” he announced as he stepped through. It is the White Tiger.

Chen Gui, his current charge, stood in the short hallway inside. He was a short, cherubic Shanghainese with a potbelly who enjoyed wrapping himself in extravagance like a fine coat. He also held a Taurus.380 pistol with both hands. The barrel wavered back and forth. Chen Gui was trembling.

Manning closed the door behind him. “Put that down,” he said evenly.

Chen Gui let out his breath in a rush and nodded. He lowered the pistol and pulled a kerchief from his jacket pocket. He used it to dab at the sweat that beaded on his shaven head.

“Where’s your nephew?” Manning asked. He remained standing by the door.

“Chen Song!” Chen Gui barked. “Guo lai!”

From the small hallway leading to one of the bedrooms, a tall Chinese stepped into the clear. He wore all black and gray, and his long hair was tied back in a ponytail. Raffishly handsome, he looked at Manning with a smirk as he slid his Beretta 92 pistol into a shoulder holster.

Manning didn’t bother to smirk back, just pushed past the two men and walked into the living room. The drapes had been closed; Manning opened them slightly.

“Don’t do that!” Chen Gui shouted in English. “They can see us in here!”

Manning looked back at him. “This is the only room with closed drapes,” he said. “That’d be a pretty big clue right there, don’t you think?”

Chen Gui wiped his face with his kerchief. “You saw them?”

“Four on the street. One downstairs in the lobby.” Manning pulled his phone and showed the pictures to Chen Gui. “Recognize them?”

Chen Gui scrolled through the photos, looking at them carefully. “Yes, all of them. All