Текст книги "The Survivor"
Автор книги: Sean Slater
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
Sixty-Four
The Man with the Bamboo Spine remained standing behind the closed door until Sheung Fa told him to enter the office. He opened the door and stepped inside. The air was warm and smelled of black tea. Behind the large teak desk, Sheung Fa sat with his hands folded on the blotter.
The Man with the Bamboo Spine approached the desk, stood there silently, waited. He felt the draught of the air conditioner on his back, heard the ruckus of the patrons in the lounge, and smelled the tea and the sage scent of burned incense.
And still, he waited.
It wasn’t until almost five minutes had passed – a total of ten since Red Mask had departed – that Sheung Fa finally spoke in his native tongue of Cantonese, a language the Man with the Bamboo Spine fully understood.
‘Be his shadow,’ Sheung Fa said.
‘Yes.’
‘Assist him.’
‘Assist?’
‘Assist. But be discreet.’
‘Until?’
‘Until instructed otherwise.’
The Man with the Bamboo Spine nodded, signalling his understanding of the instructions, as confusing and unexpected as they were. He left Sheung Fa’s office, closed the door behind him and lumbered through the smoky darkness of Golden Dragon Lounge into the grey light of the outside world.
Assist. It was exactly what he would do.
Until instructed otherwise.
Sixty-Five
Striker and Felicia reconnected back at 312 Headquarters, got into their cruiser, then drove down Gore Street in one car. They parked a block away from the Fortune Happy Restaurant, at the corner of Gore and Pender – the crime scene of the van and three bodies.
Ident had already been on scene and left. The yellow tape had been taken down. The van had been towed to the police garage with the bodies still inside. Soon they would be transported to the morgue for autopsy.
Now it was just an empty intersection.
Felicia ran the name Kim Pham in the computer. To Striker’s surprise, the guy was a no-hit, meaning he had no history, criminal or otherwise.
‘Play with the dates of birth,’ he told Felicia, and she did.
When something came back, she said, sounding displeased, ‘Just a driver’s licence. Maybe the name is an alias.’
Striker doubted that. Kim Pham owned a BC Drivers Licence, his name was listed as the primary operator on the insurance papers, and Chinese Tony had been terrified of the man because he was leader of the Shadow Dragons – a gang Striker had never heard of. He turned in his seat to look at Felicia.
‘You ever hear of the Shadow Dragons?’
‘They a Chinese version of the Jonas Brothers?’
Striker smiled. ‘Not quite.’ He filled her in on his dealings with Chinese Tony and told her what he’d learned about the existence of a Shadow Dragons gang as they headed for the Fortune Happy restaurant.
Once on scene, it didn’t take long for them to get the run-around. A Chinese lady in a black silky dress with red Chinese characters sewn into it, who looked part dragon herself, used her small, lithe body to block Striker’s way. The boldness of her stance gave him little doubt she held power of some kind among her peers.
Striker flashed the badge. ‘Where is Kim Pham?’
‘Kim Pham out. He away. Long time.’
‘Where?’
‘He go to Hong Kong. Father very sick. Very ill. Might die.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Not know. He not work for very long time. On holiday. Holiday very much.’
Striker was getting tired of the run-around. ‘Then who are you? What do you do here exactly?’
‘I hostess. I restaurant hostess.’
‘But who are you?’
‘I hostess. I fill in.’
Striker had had enough of the charade. ‘I want ID,’ he told her.
She gave him a stubborn look, then returned to the hostess podium and came back with her wallet. She handed him several documents, including her immigration papers.
Striker sorted through it all. ‘Annie Ting,’ he said.
‘I return to work,’ she said.
‘No, you stay with us. We’ll be needing you for a while. But you can put your wallet back.’
She appeared less than happy, but did as told.
While she was gone, Striker turned to Felicia and smiled. ‘I bet if you ask for the special menu you can order Annie-Ting.’
She grinned, and the hostess soon returned. Striker told her to take them around the restaurant. She did so, making no attempt to hide her reluctance.
The tour was brief. Three large dining areas all coloured in gold and red, with white-clothed round tables and black high-backed chairs. A fourth dining area was closed off for private parties, though it looked very much the same as the previous three.
Annie Ting led them on. ‘The kitchen,’ she said, and gave a half-hearted swing of her hand to show them.
She moved on, Striker did not. He stood at the entranceway to the kitchen, which was covered by nothing but a red hanging sash, and breathed in the smell of lemon and chicken and garlic and green onions. It smelled good. Made his stomach rumble. He realised how long it had been since they’d eaten.
‘Over here is office,’ Annie Ting said. ‘This way, this way here.’
But Striker still did not move. He was looking at an unmarked door that sat just between the kitchen and pantry. It was painted black and had scuff marks in the bottom.
‘What’s in there?’
‘Pantry. Office this way, this way here.’
‘I thought that was the pantry,’ Striker said, and pointed to the other side of the kitchen.
‘Have two. Need much. Very busy restaurant. Office this way.’
Striker paid her no heed. He glanced at Felicia, and when she gave him a nod, he stepped up to the door and turned the knob. It was locked, didn’t budge. He listened, and could hear clatter on the other side. He turned back to Annie Ting, saw the hardness of her stare, and knew they had found something.
‘Always lock the pantry?’
‘Door is broken, we never use.’
‘Well, you can either fix the broken door and let us in there, or we can use other methods.’
‘Door broken,’ she said again.
Striker stepped forward and landed one hard kick alongside the door knob. The door burst inwards, taking a chunk of frame with it and filling the kitchen with the sound of snapping wood. On the other side of the door was a short hallway, leading back to another series of rooms.
‘Stop, stop!’ the hostess said.
‘Big pantry.’
‘You need warrant!’
Striker heard Felicia tell the woman to shut up as they walked down the hall. They’d barely gotten ten feet when the air thickened with smoke, and the smell of whisky and other liquor filled the air. At the end of the hallway was another sash. When Striker neared it, he could hear chatter and a clattering noise, like pebbles being dropped on hardwood. He knew what it was immediately.
Pai Gow tiles.
They’d walked into a backdoor gambling ring. Nothing out of the ordinary for Chinatown.
He pushed through the red sash and stepped into a large room with many tables full of gamblers. Some were older, most were middle-aged, but all were Asian. Looked fresh off the boat. Cantonese filled the air, loud and excited tones. Serving boys scurried from table to table, and a few older gentlemen in tuxedos served whiskys and cognacs. At the far end, two large men in golden suits eyed him warily but did not approach.
Striker turned to Felicia. ‘Those suits look familiar?’ he asked.
‘Same as the men in the back of the van.’
He nodded. ‘Keep an eye on them and the dragon lady while I look around.’
The hostess, Annie Ting, narrowed her eyes at the comment.
‘You need warrant!’ she said again.
Striker ignored her. He walked in between the tables, and some of the guests stopped gambling and looked at him suspiciously, as if they had just realised that a white guy had invaded their Chinese gambling den. Others gave him indifferent glances and made more bets.
At the right end of the room, a narrow stairway descended. Striker approached it, stared down. At the bottom was a closed door. He motioned to Felicia that he was going to check it out.
The stairs were wood and they creaked under the weight of his boots. When he reached the alcove, it was dark, the only light bulb in the hall being burned out. The sign on the door was readable and in English.
KEEP OUT.
Simple, but effective – for those who weren’t police.
Striker opened the door, stepped inside the room, and was bathed by fluorescent light. The room was long and rectangular. It might have once been an office, or a meeting room. It was difficult to tell because it had been completely gutted, and recently. The carpet was torn up, and the walls were painted, though not with paint but grey primer. Striker rubbed his hand across the wall and felt a few rough areas where the filler had not been properly sanded.
A rush remodelling job. There had to be a reason.
He walked through the room, studying the floors and walls, and finding nothing of interest. When he turned back to the doorway and was about to exit, something caught his eye.
He looked up at the hard-foam ceiling tiles. Each square was a perfect twelve-by-twelve inches and mottled with black specks. The nearest tile had a small hole in it, at the far edge, near the doorframe. At first glance it looked to be part of the design, but this hole was larger than the others, and it went in at an angle.
Striker pulled over a pair of paint cans, stood on them, took a better look, and knew what he had found. It was a bullet-hole. And given the connection of the dead men in the van and the information he’d gotten from Chinese Tony, there was little doubt what this place had been.
A murder room.
Sixty-Six
Over an hour later, at just past one o’clock, Striker and Felicia dropped by Forensic Audio, obtained a hard-disc copy of the audio feed from Ich, and headed for Worldwide Translation Services. Translating the feed was their next best bet because things at the Fortune Happy Restaurant weren’t going so well.
Annie Ting wasn’t saying anything, and neither were any of the people who worked there. Striker had expected as much. He lodged everyone in jail while Ident processed the scene.
It was the best strategy possible. Sometimes a few hours in jail made people talk. And when it didn’t, some hard forensic evidence often did the trick. Regardless, they were stuck in another waiting game, and that was a game Striker didn’t want to play.
They reached the corner of Grant and Commercial, where Worldwide Translation Services was located. It was a place Striker was familiar with, having been here a dozen or so times over the years, when the clumsy and inadequate translation people of the police departments failed them – which was too damn often.
Striker sat in the waiting room, the latest disturbing events circulating in his head. He turned to Felicia. ‘You call the hospital again?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, no change with Patricia Kwan. Dr Aussie’s gonna call us back when he has any information.’ She pulled a Caramilk bar from her jacket pocket.
Striker stared at the chocolate bar. ‘Jesus, do you eat anything else?’
‘Yeah, Snickers.’ She broke off a piece and dropped it in his hand. ‘Have some. If things keep going the way they are now, it might be the only nourishment you’re going to get today. Besides,’ she smiled wryly. ‘I’ve kept it close to my heart for you.’
Striker smiled back at the comment, and popped a Caramilk square into his mouth. He wasn’t the chocolate fiend Felicia was, but it was the only thing he’d eaten today since whatever it was he’d had for breakfast. He let the chocolate melt in his mouth and scratched at his face. He hadn’t shaved for two days now and the growth was bugging him. He let out a frustrated sound and muttered, ‘Any news on the Amber Alert?’
‘No, the Kwan girl is still missing. But we’ve called every relative she’s got, and have every jurisdiction looking for her.’
‘We find a cell number for her?’
Felicia made a face. ‘She’s on a prepaid and it’s run out. Found the phone in her bedroom.’
Striker said nothing, just groaned.
‘Relax, Jacob. This is what kills you – stressing about what you can’t control. We’re here to translate the disc. Focus on that until we can do better.’ She offered him another piece of chocolate. When he declined, she grinned. ‘It’s a substitute for sex, you know.’
‘If I used it for that, I’d be three hundred pounds.’
Magui Yagata opened the office door and entered the waiting room. Striker looked her over: she was in her late fifties, and the lines around her eyes and lips showed it. She was a hard-looking woman, and her mannerisms were no different. Before Striker could even say hi, she reached out and grabbed the disc from his hands.
‘Blu-ray, huh?’ She snorted. ‘You’re a lucky man, we just got a new reader for this type of media; some asshole broke the last one.’
‘Nice to see you too, Magui. How’s life treating you?’
‘Like a used condom. Follow me, both of you.’
Magui turned and left the room, expecting them to follow. Felicia gave Striker a look as if to say, What’s up her ass? and he just shrugged.
That was Magui for you.
They followed her into the adjoining room. It was another featureless office – tables, chairs, a video unit. Striker and Felicia took a seat at the table and waited as Magui looked at her watch and frowned, as if she had other pressing matters to attend to, matters much more important than this one. She turned on the television, loaded the disc, hit play.
And all at once, Striker was watching the shooting again.
What struck him as odd this time was his own reaction – it was no different from any of the other times he’d seen the footage. By now, after seeing it so many times, he’d expected its impact to have lessened, at least a little.
But no, it was just as devastating.
When the video was finally over, he unclenched his fingers and looked at Magui. The scorn on her face had been wiped away, but it was not replaced by shock or pity or even terror. A look of dark intrigue covered her face, ugly as a birthmark. Without saying a word, she got up and fiddled with the Blu-ray player.
Felicia leaned into him and whispered, ‘This bitch gives me the creeps.’
Striker nodded. ‘Maybe so, but we need her – she speaks eleven languages, for Christ’s sake.’ He looked back at Magui, and got down to business.
‘Can you tell me what they’re saying, or not?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be absurd. Of course I can.’ Magui reset the disc and replayed the feed. When they reached the point where the gunmen came face to face, just prior to dragging out and killing the boy dressed as the Joker, they began to talk. Magui translated.
‘Target One and Target Two eliminated. Target Four not located.’
Striker listened to the words. ‘Target?’
‘This is the most correct translation.’
Striker retreated into himself, let the words sink in. Target. The word disturbed him, not because of the meaning, but because of the context; it had been used with purpose, instead of ‘she’ or ‘he’ or any real names. There was only one reason to do this, and that was to dehumanize the victims and desensitise the gunmen. Even worse, it wasn’t the language of some socio-pathic students or crazed murderers. It was the language of mercenaries. Soldiers of Fortune. Pros.
It was goddam military speak.
Striker looked at Felicia, who had stopped eating her Caramilk bar. She caught his stare, bit her lip.
‘This is not good,’ she said.
‘Couldn’t be much worse.’
Magui spoke loudly, cutting them both off. ‘The greater concern,’ she said, ‘is not what they are saying, but how they are saying it.’ When Striker didn’t respond and just waited for more information, she continued: ‘They’re speaking Khmer.’
Felicia shrugged. ‘Which is?’
‘Well, essentially, it’s Cambodian. But the words are more clipped and more formal than that of the modern-day society. Which would suggest that these two men grew up in the seventies – a very bad time for that country. Mass murder. A full-out genocide.’ She sat down in one of the office chairs, swivelled to face them. ‘You ever hear of the Killing Fields?’
Striker nodded. ‘You’re talking about Pol Pot’s regime.’
‘That is exactly what I mean.’ She gestured towards the two masked gunmen on the feed. ‘You may well have uncovered someone who was a part of that regime – or even worse, a survivor of it.’
Felicia, who had remained patiently holding her tongue, finally leaned closer to Striker and spoke up. ‘Okay, forgive my ignorance here and fill me in – who the hell is Pol Pot?’
Striker looked at her like she was crazy. ‘He was a dictator, Felicia. One of the worst the world has ever seen. Killed three million people.’ Striker gave a deep sigh then continued, ‘Pol Pot turned children into soldiers. Made them kill their parents. Ordinary women and children were starved and raped and tortured into giving false confessions. Almost a quarter of Cambodia’s entire population died because of his regime.’
Striker looked back at the image of Red Mask displayed on the monitor and recalled the eyes of the gunman. So dark. So cold. So dead. When he saw the morbid curiosity in Felicia’s eyes, he didn’t want to say the words, as if speaking them might make it true.
But she had to know it.
‘We’re talking about the Khmer Rouge.’
Sixty-Seven
The midday sun ruled the sky, one giant ball of white flame. It gleamed off the steel gates of St Paul’s Hospital and glinted off the damp red brick of the building.
Red Mask saw this spectacle, and all at once, he reared at the memories the image brought back. Reared so hard, he almost dropped the jar he was holding, and that most certainly would have been a great – perhaps deadly – mistake.
His body trembled. He wavered on the hospital steps, recollecting the images of Section 21. They were horrific. And he could not understand why they preoccupied his mind. He had not thought of that dark place in years. In most ways, the two buildings were entirely different. Style, size, even colour.
But something took him back to the time when he was eight years old. The worst time of his life. And then, without searching, he found the answer. It was the sun, beating down upon him with the same blinding white intensity it had every single day of the Angkors’ occupation of Cambodia.
Beating down upon his father as he toiled in the Killing Fields fourteen hours a day, his frail accountant’s hands cracked and bleeding, under the watchful eye of machine-gun guards.
Beating down upon his mother as she was hog-tied and raped for eleven days before the guards got bored and slit her throat.
Beating down on him and the other children as they were thrown together into that dusty pit where there was no food or water or safety from the guards.
Beating down upon them all with as much mercy as the Angkor offered.
Which was none.
Red Mask felt his body wilting from the cruelty of his thoughts. Where were these memories coming from? He was a man now, not some eight-year-old child – not Child 157. That boy had died long ago.
‘The spirits,’ he found himself saying. For there could be no other reason.
He closed his mind and willed his feet to move. And though his body listened, his mind was not as obedient. With every step, the memories of that time became clearer. The images more vivid.
Until he relived the nightmare all over again.
And Mother was screaming.
Screaming.
Screaming . . .
Her ungodly cries filled the camp all night. Like the other nights, there was much laughter from the guards – cruel reptilian sounds – as Mother cried out for her ancestors to save her, or at the very least deliver her quickly into death. But the hours passed and her cries went unanswered.
Child 157 balled up in his cell, in uneven rows with the other children. Some of them writhed in hunger, some in pain. Others had not moved for a very long time. He barely noticed them; Mother was all that mattered. Her voice was everything. He tried to drown out her cries, to pretend he had no knowledge of what was happening to her. But he knew. He always knew.
At day’s end, when the guard entered to pour broth, Child 157 was quick to steal the key from the ring the man so lazily left hanging on the wall. The moment the guard finished his duties, Child 157 began prying the thin flesh of his ankle out of the shackle that bound him to the floor.
It was a slow and agonising task.
By the time he freed his leg, it was deep into the night, and even later before the pain subsided enough that he could walk on it. His bloodied foot was now a lump of ragged flesh, yet he limped to the door, unlocked it, and slipped outside.
He had no plan. No training. Not even any knowledge of the camp layout.
But he also had no choice.
Father was gone, for many days now. Too many to count. Taken to the Killing Fields, from which no one returned. Sisters Du and Hoc were dead, their necks broken with steel bars so the guards could save bullets. The only ones left were himself and Tran – Child 158 – and somewhere in the east building with the other infants was baby Loc.
Child 157 knew the truth. He was the eldest. Only he could save Mother.
The night was hot and black. Child 157 limped across the camp, with only the moon as a guide. He was only eight years old, and small for a boy. ‘A field mouse’, as Father often called him. The runt of the litter. He had barely gotten halfway across the camp when One-tooth caught him cutting in between the sacks of rice.
‘Rule-breaker, rule-breaker,’ the guard sang, his voice thick with cruelty. He pounced on Child 157 and dragged him out by his hair. He pulled him close, smiled. ‘You want to see much, then I will show you much, rule-breaker. Show you much, yes.’
Child 157 tried to break free of his grip, but that only angered One-tooth, who rose up and screamed in his face. Beat him down into the dirt. Beat him until he tasted his own blood and could not move. Beat him until One-tooth’s fists grew tired.
One-tooth then called the other guards, and together, they dragged him to the hollowed grounds east of the main building. Where the grass was always red and the earth was soft and mushy.
In the centre of the hollow stood the Nail Tree – a thick-trunked, knobby tree that was almost dead. Its branches had been sawn off and large nails driven into the bark. At the base of the tree were many bones.
The remains of the little ones.
‘We have a show for you,’ One-tooth told him.
And before Child 157 understood the meaning of One-tooth’s words, two of the other guards came out of the nearest building. They carried with them a small sack. At first he thought it rice, or grain – maybe they were going to eat in front of him and laugh at his starvation. But then a tiny arm dangled out, and he realised with horror:
‘Baby Loc!’
Child 157 rose up. He struggled to free himself, desperately, with all the strength he owned, but One-tooth held him in place with little effort.
‘Release me, RELEASE ME!’ He bent his head down and bit One-tooth on the hand as hard as he could, his teeth tearing into the flesh and drawing blood; when the guard screamed and let go of him, he raced for Baby Loc.
But he did not get far.
One of the other guards knocked him down, and before he could stand back up, One-tooth was on him, pinning him down in the grass, holding him firmly – the weight of a grown man’s body on that of an eight-year-old child’s.
He was helpless.
One-tooth yanked his head back, forcing him to look at the Nail Tree.
‘Bye, bye,’ One-tooth sang. ‘Bye bye, Baby Loc.’
He nodded to the two guards. One of them undraped the sack, then grabbed hold of the infant by both his legs. Child 157 screamed and struggled to get up, but One-tooth held him down firmly, laughing at his weakness.
Baby Loc was crying now, reaching out for Mother, but finding nothing. The guard holding Baby Loc’s ankles swung him around like a piece of wood, his head flying towards the Nail Tree. And there was a terrible crunch.
Child 157 screamed for Baby Loc. It did nothing.
The guard holding baby Loc swung him again. And again. And again. Crunch, crunch, CRUNCH.
The sound of Baby Loc hitting the Nail Tree stayed in Child 157’s head like a bad ghost. It would never leave him. When at last One-tooth climbed off of him, something snapped inside Child 157’s mind. Like a twig that could never be whole again. The pain was gone, the fear was gone. Everything was gone – replaced by a complete and total numbness.
It was all he knew.
