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Bending down, he removed the 5.8 mm QSZ-92 pistol from the holster affixed to his ankle and called in via wireless.
“Captain,” he whispered, barely able to contain his excitement, “we’ve caught two birds with one stone. Cho Xilan’s emissary and Jason Bourne.”
“Proceed with caution,” Captain Lim’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Backup is on site and will be on your floor within minutes.”
“Apart from clearing the surrounding rooms, which should be done in conjunction with the hotel manager, too many people are going to be a hindrance, rather than a help.” Jin stepped out into the hallway, which was now deserted.
“I don’t want you unprotected,” Lim said.
“With all due respect, Captain, you don’t know me well enough to have that worry.” Jin grinned to himself. “I do better on my own.”
“There’s no room for error,” Lim said.
“I don’t make errors, Captain.”
“You understand the directive regarding Jason Bourne.”
“‘Detain, do not harm.’ Got it, Captain.”
“All right.” There was a short pause. “See you on the other side.”
Cutting the connection, Jin crept down the hall on the outsides of his soles. He held the QSZ-92 tilted slightly upward, at the ready. When he reached the double doors to the suite, he stopped, remained motionless for a space of twenty seconds, then put his ear to the polished wood.
Go back into the bedroom and close the door,” Yue ordered the man who had accompanied her from Beijing as her husband. He nodded and complied.
When she was alone with Sam Zhang, she glanced down at Bourne’s inert body lying at her feet, and said to Zhang, “You have been playing a dangerous game.”
With a sigh, the fat man lowered himself into a Mandarin chair. “Does this warning come from you or from Cho Xilan?”
Her lips twitched in the semblance of a smile. “Pulling both ends against the middle can get you killed. Just look at Wei-Wei.”
“Did you have to kill him?”
“By definition, Sam, everything I do, I have to do.”
“And Sergeant Amma?”
“An honest cop is a dangerous cop, Sam. You know that.”
Zhang shook his head. “The trouble with you, little sister, is that you have no ethics.”
“I have plenty of ethics,” Yue said. “What I lack is remorse, and thank the gods for that.”
The fat man tilted his head back and spoke to the ceiling. “What have I done to deserve this morass of immorality?”
“Don’t kid yourself, Sam,” Yue said as she kicked Bourne to make certain he was still unconscious. “Like me, you’ve done everything humanly possible to survive in this cesspit of a city.”
Her eyes lowered to Bourne. “I kind of like this fellow. He’s got something of value burning inside him. I envy him that.” When Zhang grunted, she glanced up at him. “He did save my life, Sam.”
“What does it matter now? We have to turn him over to Colonel Sun, as instructed.”
“Not yet.” Yue squatted down beside Bourne, put a hand on his head. “He intrigues me.”
“Come on, little sister, no one intrigues you.”
“Oh, but he does, Sam. Truly. He has a history not only with Sun, but with Minister Ouyang.” She smiled. “Now, that is intriguing.” She caressed Bourne’s head. “I’m not letting him go until I find out what that history is and whether it can benefit me.”
Zhang licked his lips. “Now who’s playing a dangerous game?”
Yue chuckled softly. “The difference is I can handle it, Sam. You, I’m not so sure about.”
“It’s true I’m getting older,” Zhang said ruefully.
“That’s not the same as getting old,” Yue pointed out.
He smiled at her. “Sometimes, you do surprise me.”
“Sometimes I’m convinced I was hatched out of an egg.”
“I have observed your reptilian brain is highly developed.”
For a moment, Yue sat back on her heels and watched him thoughtfully. “You’re the only one who knows me, Sam.”
“As much as one can know a Komodo dragon.”
Yue smirked, prodding Bourne between the ribs. Then she slapped his face. “Time to get down to business.”
Zhang leaned forward, his massive belly compressed. “How are you going to handle him?”
“How d’you think.” Yue held up the knife Bourne had taken in the tunnel.
For the first time, Zhang looked alarmed. “Colonel Sun was quite clear. Bourne is not to be harmed in any way. Minister Ouyang wishes to interrogate Bourne himself.”
“Minister Ouyang has returned to Beijing to root out the double agent in his inner circle.”
“You know that?”
“I keep learning from you, Sam. My network of contacts has broadened exponentially.”
Zhang, sighing, said, “Little sister, it occurs to me, not for the first time, that this—intrigue, this mayhem—may not be what we want.”
She gave him a curious look. “It’s what we’ve always wanted.” She shrugged. “Besides, our lives are not our own.”
“So we have been told. A lie becomes the truth when it is repeated often enough. Tell me, is this acceptable to you?”
Yue eyed him speculatively. “You talk as if we have a choice.”
“Well, actually we do.”
She shook her head. “An illusion, Sam.”
“We can get out.”
Yue’s expression turned quizzical. “Get out?”
“Yes. Leave. Go somewhere else. We have the means.”
“We have money, yes. But where in China would we go? We’d be found even in the most remote corner of the country, where, frankly, I’d rather slit my wrists than live anyway.”
“There’s an immense world outside China, little sister. It’s so vast we could get lost in it in no time.”
“You think so. Cho Xilan’s reach is long, his influence great.”
“Here in China, yes, that’s true enough. But beyond the Middle Kingdom is a world he knows very little about. This is where Minister Ouyang has a great strategic advantage. Cho is a tactician, which means he’s involved in the finer details of maneuvering within the Politburo. This is his concentration. He and his Chongqing reactionaries are hidebound, myopic. The Middle Kingdom is their sole focus. Their influence outside China is negligible.”
Yue rocked back on her heels. “You’re serious.”
“Perfectly.” Zhang passed a hand across his broad face. “It isn’t simply that I’m getting old, little sister. I’m tired of this life, doing other people’s bidding, making them rich, receiving only the crumbs from their table. It has occurred to me recently that I have never paid any attention to myself. I’ve never had the time. I’m guessing neither have you.”
He looked down at Bourne. “Let’s begin by giving this man back his freedom.”
Yue considered. “Bourne knows things about Sun and Ouyang—information we can use as leverage should there be a need. Bourne’s our insurance policy.”
“Then you’re with me?”
At that moment a bullet blew out the lock on the suite door.
What have you done?” Maricruz said as she saw Felipe Matamoros walking toward her through the watery dawn light. “What the fuck have you done?”
“I?” Matamoros pointed at his chest. “I’ve done nothing. However, my compadres, lacking your faith that Raul Giron was ready to let go of the Sinaloa’s independence, decided to take action.”
Maricruz glanced again at the severed head between her feet. “The decision was out of Giron’s hands. It was agreed to by Carlos. I told you that.”
“Carlos flew back to Mexico City the moment dinner was over. I imagine he’s already plotting your demise.”
“My demise?”
“You’re now more dangerous than Los Zetas. Us he can deal with, but you—you’re another story altogether. You’re threatening to overturn the balance of po
wer in Mexico. That he cannot abide.”
Maricruz looked at the abattoir of the SUVs interior. “This is a fuck-up of another order, Felipe.”
“Mujer, por favor. Since this is my territory, let me explain the vicissitudes of the situation. First, my good friend Giron wasn’t going to roll over for anyone, least of all you. If you believed that fairy tale, you were living in an alternate universe.”
He kicked Giron’s head as if it were a soccer ball. It flew through the air, struck the trunk of a palm, and spun away onto the ground. The eyes had grown as opaque as those of a dead fish.
“Second, Carlos comes from money; he never bloodied his hands, he never lived in the muck like me and our friend here. He has no real knowledge of us and our motives. Third, Carlos is a prick, a liar, and a thief. Worst of all, he’s a coward. Cowards never move forward; they cling to the status quo. To ensure the status quo they hide behind their mothers’ skirts—in Carlos’s case, the federal government. El presidente is who gave him his job, it’s el presidente who protects him. He’s the only one who can. Carlos was happy to take his skim off the Sinaloa top line, but when things threaten to get complicated you can count on him to cut and run.”
“If that’s the case, why the hell didn’t you tell me this last night?”
“Would you have believed me, after you played kissy-face with him out on the veranda?” He studied her face. “So now here we are faced with a new reality—change, but not precisely the change you envisioned.”
“Since your compadres have taken care of Giron and his lieutenants it seems to me Los Zetas will have little difficulty overcoming the Sinaloa now.”
“I can’t disagree, mi princesa.”
But he did not look happy, and Maricruz knew why.
“Carlos has become the problem, which is both good and bad,” he said. “Instead of going to war with a rival cartel, the war has been reduced to one man. But because Carlos cannot tolerate change, he will surely bring to bear on you, me, and Los Zetas the considerable resources of the Mexican government. And though in the past we have fairly easily fended off the Federales, for Carlos this war has become personal. The most perilous times lie ahead.”
“Then there’s only one thing to do,” Maricruz said. “We have to kill him before he kills us.”
Felipe Matamoros threw his head back and laughed. “I see I was right in trusting you.”
He thrust up one hand, signaling. Maricruz, turning, saw his compadres, the rest of the ruling Los Zetas cadre, appear, striding toward her, dressed in camo fatigues, as heavily jawed as they were armed, glowering darkly, broad shoulder to broad shoulder, as if they were part of the Magnificent Seven.
When Jin slammed the door open and rushed into the hotel suite, he aimed his handgun at Zhang and Yue. He ignored the figure lying inert on the floor between them. That was a mistake.
Erupting into violent motion, Bourne twisted the knife out of Yue’s hand and threw it the short distance to where Jin stood in the classic shooter’s stance, finger about to squeeze the trigger. The knife blade buried itself to the hilt in Jin’s chest.
He looked down, staring in disbelief at the first spurt of blood, and he began to keel over. As he did so, Bourne snatched the gun out of his hand, rolled over, and aimed it at Yue.
“Now we’ve reached the heart of the matter,” he said. “Where are Colonel Sun and Minister Ouyang?”
Yue looked at him blandly. If she was impressed by his maneuvers, she refused to show it. “Sun and his toady Lim, along with a fistful of heavily armed soldiers, are most likely on their way up as we speak.” She plastered an enigmatic smile on her face. “We should leave now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Bourne said.
“If you want to find Ouyang,” she insisted, her smile turning wolfish, “you will.”
When she reached over to help Bourne up, he slapped her hand away. “You’ve already done enough.”
Zhang heaved his bulk out of the Mandarin chair. “You might find it in your heart to forgive her. She has a reptilian brain and a feral heart.”
Bourne, shaking off the last effects of the drug, directed them out into the hallway, which was eerily quiet.
“They’ve evacuated the floor,” Bourne said.
Hue nodded. “See? What did I tell you?”
As he headed for the elevator bank, she said, “What are you doing? They’ll already have had the elevators under their control.”
Shooting her a murderous look, Bourne went past the farthest elevator in the bank and stopped in front of a narrow door set flush with the wall. He picked the lock, then swung open the door. Beyond, the four elevator shafts loomed.
“You’re joking,” Zhang said, peering into the gloom. He was sweating like a faulty generator. “We can’t go in there.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Bourne said.
“Sam,” Yue said urgently, “all the elevator cars are frozen, except one, which is full of police. In a moment, it’s going to open on this floor.”
Bourne stepped into the interior, picking his way to a concrete ledge on one side of the right-most shaft.
“Come on, Sam.” Yue, standing behind Zhang, fairly pushed him sideways through the narrow opening.
He screamed softly as he tottered, until Bourne caught him, hauled him onto the ledge beside him. Zhang wobbled like Humpty Dumpty on the wall. Behind him, Yue entered the shafts, shut the door behind her. Bourne pulled Zhang along to make room for her on the ledge.
“Sam,” Yue warned, “don’t look down.”
But it was already too late. Zhang’s gaze was drawn down the shaft as if watching a multi-car accident. He seemed powerless to look away until Bourne slapped his face.
“Look at me, Zhang,” he said. “Keep your eyes on me and you’ll be okay.”
“Why shouldn’t I be okay?” Zhang asked shakily.
“Because we’re going down the ladder.”
Seeing he was about to howl, Bourne clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Shut the fuck up, Sam!” Yue hissed. “Unless you want to be interrogated by Colonel Sun.”
Zhang shuddered, but seemed to calm down somewhat. Bourne took his hand away.
“What ladder?” Zhang whispered. He was clearly terrified.
“The one the maintenance workers use to move from floor to floor. Yue will go first. You follow, then me. Don’t worry. We’ll guide you onto the rungs. Once you’re on, stare straight ahead at the wall and keep descending until I tell you to stop. That’s all there is to it.”
Zhang gave a stifled sob. “Listen,” he said. “I’m not going to make it. Just leave me here and go on. I’ll take care of myself.”
“Like hell you will,” Yue said as she and Bourne manhandled him to the iron bars of the vertical ladder that paralleled the shaft they were in. “How will you take care of yourself in here?”
Zhang didn’t bother to answer her. Instead he mournfully watched Yue start down the ladder. They all stopped as the elevator car closest to them rose into view and stopped at the floor they were attempting to leave. They could hear the doors open, a man’s muffled voice, probably giving orders to regroup around the doors to the suite.
“All they’re going to find is that idiot I came with,” Yue said under her breath. “He almost got us flagged at the airport. Whatever they’re going to do with him, he deserves it.”
“Let’s go,” Bourne said to Zhang, now that the car was stationary.
Yue descended while Bourne placed the fat man’s hands onto the rungs of the ladder, swung him onto it. Zhang clung there, paralyzed, until Bourne crowded on, forcing him to descend.
“Remember what I told you,” Bourne said. He despised having to deal with other people, and this was one of the reasons why. He operated best on his own, but there were exigencies in the field that could be neither anticipated nor avoided. Unfortunately, this was one of them. On the other hand, he was convinced that both Zhang and Yue would prove invaluable sources. If
he could keep them alive.
The next moment rapid-fire shooting broke out on the floor they had left behind, and Zhang, his nerves already shredded, lost his hold on the rung and began to topple into the space between the ladder and the elevator car.
19
Reaching up, Yue slammed the flat of her hand against the center of Zhang’s back, preventing him from falling backward. An instant later Bourne grabbed Zhang, righted him fully, and pulled him inch by inch back to his perch on the ladder.
“Everything’s fine, Sam,” Yue said soothingly. “We’re away from the guns. You’re safe now.”
Zhang, whose breathing had mirrored his too-rapid heartbeat, swallowed hard and, resting his forehead against the cool iron of a rung, closed his eyes, regulating his breathing to a more normal rhythm.
“Gods,” he breathed, “if I survive this I’m going to change my ways.”
“We’re witnesses,” Bourne said, looking past him to where Yue stared up at him.
Yue gave him a brief nod, which, Bourne suspected, was as close as she would come to an apology. He returned her nod, and the exchange became that of two soldiers on opposite sides, each one acknowledging the accomplishments of the other. A grudging truce had been called, though whether it was permanent or temporary was still to be determined.
They continued down, past the hanging car, and now the open shaft yawned below them. Then Bourne held up his hand and, as one, they all paused.
“Do you have any idea how to get out of here?” Yue asked. “Sun has undoubtedly got the hotel surrounded.”
“First stop, the kitchens,” Bourne said.
Zhang groaned.
“I have to agree,” Yue said. “That’s a long way down.”
“That depends on how we get there.” He pointed. “Climb.”
“What?” Zhang said. “Up?”
“That’s right. Yue, let’s go. We have no time to lose.”
They went up now, faster than they had descended. When Bourne came level with the car’s roof, he climbed onto it. Crouching down, he held out his hands while Yue held the fat man’s hips in place. Bourne lugged him onto the roof, settling him onto his haunches. Shortly thereafter, Yue joined them.
