White Tiger

Han relaxed as best he could in the rear seat behind Tao Baozong, who confidently maneuvered the sedan through San Francisco’s swollen traffic stream en route to the Medical Examiner’s office. Han didn’t expect to find any surprises in the M.E.’s report. After all, there was little doubt that Lin Dan had been murdered by the same hand that had slain his older brother. As Lin Yubo had intimated, the killer could still be in the city of San Francisco, planning further mayhem against the Lin family, and its adopted members. Han found this possibility unsettling. They were dealing with an unpredictable psychopath, the worst kind of enemy, against whom ordinary security precautions might well prove useless, unless the Russian and his men maintained round-the-clock vigilance. Which, as Han knew only too well from personal experience invited tiredness, disorientation, and fatal error.

“We should be there in another five minutes,” Baozong said over his shoulder.

“Traffic could be a lot worse,” Fan Guolong, in the front passenger seat, said.

Han’s cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and opened it. He expected to see Lin Yubo’s name on the display, but instead “Caller unknown” showed. “Hello?” he said cautiously.

“Ah, Mr. Han? This is Michelle Huang in the Medical Examiner’s office.” He recognized the woman’s voice; they had spoken half an hour ago. Evidently she had stored his cell phone number, an impertinence. “I’m really sorry to bother you again, Mr. Han. There’s been a mix-up here.”

“What kind of mix-up, Miss Huang?” He detested the Americanization of Chinese names, the willingness to blend into the alien environment. Lin Yubo himself used the pseudonym James Lin when dealing with American politicians and businessmen, which was necessary, but what Chinese family would willingly name their daughter Michelle?

“The report, Mr. Han,” the woman said, sounding distressed. “It’s been sent to our offsite records facility by mistake, along with some other stuff. I’ve been trying to contact the driver, but I can’t get hold of him. You aren’t on your way to the M.E.’s office, are you?”

“As a matter of fact I am.”

“Oh dear. Mr. Han, would it be an inconvenience if I asked you to meet me at the records facility instead? I’m on my way there now to find that report.”

Han considered the request. It was not too outrageous, although clearly the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s administrative procedures were inadequate, oand the staff incompetent. “Where is this facility?” he asked.

She gave him the address, which he repeated to Baozong. The driver nodded and immediately moved into the right-hand lane. “No problem,” Baozong said. “Another couple of minutes, that’s all.”

“I will see you there, Miss Huang,” Han said.

“My car’s a red Toyota hatchback. It’ll be parked outside the rear entrance.”

“Thank you.” Han hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Aiyah. The stupid whore has managed to misplace the Medical Examiner’s report,” he told the two men. “We are to meet her at this other address. She drives a red Japanese whorehouse. A Toyota hatchback.”

Guolong said, “I bet she fucks with the hatch wide open. She likes the cool breeze on her ass.” They laughed, and Han conceded a smile.

As they navigated the streets their surroundings changed from a mix of stores and residential apartments to older office and utility buildings, some of which appeared empty. Traffic thinned, then became non-existent, with only a handful of vehicles parked in otherwise deserted alleyways. Baozong slowed while Guolong consulted a street map he took from the glove box. They reached agreement and the sedan entered a dark city of one-story buildings and tall warehouses. It reminded Han uncomfortably of times long past in his faraway homeland, of entire towns left populated only by ghosts.

The street narrowed so much that two cars would have found it difficult to pass. The shrinking dimensions gave Han an acute feeling of claustrophobia. “There,” Guolong said. He pointed to the alleyway directly ahead, in which a red car sat near a stairway that led up to a sheltered doorway.

Baozong said, “Is that it, Mr. Han?”

“It has to be,” Han said, irritated by the question.

“Maybe she’s fucking someone in the back seat, hey?” Guolong said.

“She can’t be, the hatch is shut,” Baozong said, cackling with amusement. But Han found himself focusing on something other than their asinine humor, something external and inexplicable that chilled his spine and caused his stomach to lurch.

Guolong leaned forward and twisted his head to look upward. A shadow passed over his face and he said, “What the fuck?” A heavy weight struck the sedan’s roof, the boom reverberating through the car like a gunshot. The windshield shattered a split-second later, showering Guolong with a storm of glass. Han, even as he reached inside his jacket to draw his pistol, a copy of the Russian Makarov, from its cracked leather holster, understood that someone had leaped from the roof of the warehouse. The analytical part of his mind calculated the height and distance, and told him that such a leap should not be possible.

Baozong’s side window exploded and the driver abruptly jerked sideways, his head dragged outside by his tie. He choked and fought back, pulling with all his strength. But then a knife descended and slipped so easily across his throat, opening Baozong’s carotid artery and windpipe in the same fluid motion, as if the tough cartilage of the throat posed no obstacle to the gleaming blade. Blood sprayed across the dashboard and Baozong began to die, his brain deprived of vital oxygen.

Han fired upward through the roof, five deliberate shots that drew a straight line from corner to corner. He didn’t wait to see whether he’d hit anything; while he remained inside the sedan with his back to the rear window he was at his most vulnerable. He kicked the rear door on the driver’s side open, a diversion, then opened the opposite door and threw himself from the sedan, trusting his fate and his life to the gods. He rolled as he landed and came up on one knee, facing the sedan with his gun in both hands, the hammer thumbed back, two rounds still in the magazine.

Guolong, his face cut to bloody ribbons by the glass, recovered sufficient presence of mind to pull an Uzi submachine pistol from inside his jacket and cock the weapon. Absurdly, Han wondered how he would have explained the Uzi if they had been stopped by the police for any reason and searched. So sorry, officer, I didn’t realize automatic weapons were illegal here, they’re all the rage in Shanghai, don’t you know? Guolong screamed his rage and blindly unloaded his Uzi into the sedan’s roof, even as Han realized there was no one up there.

Death came to Guolong not from above but from beneath the sedan, as a figure clad all in black slid out between the wheels, wrenched Guolong’s door open and, with a clinical precision that a surgeon might have admired, inserted the point of a long, straight sword into his exposed lower back. Han watched, utterly fascinated, as the blade slid up and completely disappeared inside Guolong’s torso. There seemed to be no resistance at all. Guolong threw both arms wide and arched his back, his mouth open but making no sound. Han could barely imagine his agony. The Uzi barked once more as confused nerves caused dying fingers to tremble. Brass cartridge cases pinged and bounced on the asphalt. Then the door was slammed shut and Guolong slid down out of sight, leaving bloody streaks on the side window.

Han’s eyes almost failed to pick out the black-clad figure crouched on all fours like an animal about to pounce. It blended into the shadows around the sedan-seemed to belong to a world of confused light and shade rather than be an individual human entity. And it was staring at Han over the barrel of his pistol. Han willed his finger to pull the trigger and send a bullet into the killer’s skull, but those eyes, those terrible eyes and the dark force behind them stopped the signal from passing along the network of nerves that connected Han’s brain to his hand. Try as he might, he could not pull the trigger. And for the first time in nearly forty years, Han Baojia experienced fear.

Too late, his troubled mind acknowledged the object that whirled through the air and struck the gun from his hand. Red-hot pain lanced up his arm. At least one bone in his hand had been shattered by the impact. He looked down and saw what looked like an iron rod, no more than six inches in length, lying beside his foot. Further back up the street, the way they’d just come, a car hissed by. Han clutched his hand to his chest and ran for his life. If he could find someone, if he could surround himself with witnesses whose presence might deter the killer, he might stand a chance. His footsteps echoed up the lonely street, vying with the thump of his heart against his ribcage and his laboring, wheezing lungs. He shifted left and right, hoping to avoid any thrown objects. Another car passed by only a hundred paces away, perhaps even less. The possibility that the killer had chosen not to pursue him grew in his mind, until the split-second when his ankles snapped together and he fell headlong, landing on his broken hand