Rising Tiger

by Trevor Scott

  She aimed and fired twice down the hallway. “I don’t think so. It’s that Asian woman.”

  “Jesus, I thought she worked for Remington,” he said. “Why is she still coming?” Jake found a pitcher of water and brought it to the man he had knocked out.

  “Because I think she might be the female version of you. She’s a relentless bitch.” Alexandra shot two more times and then checked on her bullets in the magazine. “What kind of guns were those guards using?”

  Jake checked the man’s pockets and found two extra magazines. “Glocks like ours. We’re flush. Fire away, my dear.”

  “What about the cops?”

  “I have a feeling they’ll hold back a bit. They’re probably not used to this kind of gun fight.”

  Alexandra shrugged and fired in both directions until her slide stuck back, indicating she was out. She dropped one magazine and jammed another into the handle. Then she hit the mag release and cycled another round into the chamber.

  Jake found the pitcher of water again and emptied it onto the guard’s face, waking the man in a rush of flailing arms and legs. Now Jake had his gun trained on the man’s face.

  “You speak English, dirtbag?” Jake asked.

  The man said nothing. His jaw tightened, though, and Jake took that as a sign of understanding.

  Alexandra continued holding off the bad guys with shots in both directions. She did this with casual indifference, like an inattentive mother checking on a child at the park monkey bars.

  Jake asked the Chinese man a couple more times in English if the man understood him. But he wasn’t saying a thing.

  “I don’t have time for this crap.” Jake quickly turned the gun from the man’s head and shot the guy in the right knee.

  Now the guard screamed like a little baby. First in Chinese and then in English.

  “Okay, so now we’ve established your language skills,” Jake said, his gun aimed again at the guy’s head. “Now, tell me where your boss went.”

  “You are dead mother fucker,” the guard said, holding his shot knee.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve been told that before. Now, where is General Wu Tang?”

  The Chinese guy laughed. “Wu-Tang Clan is American rap group.”

  Jake stepped on the man’s wounded right knee, bringing instant pain and screaming. “You know who I mean.”

  “More sirens, dude,” Alexandra yelled, and then shot a few more times.

  “Where is Wu Gang?” Jake asked through clenched teeth.

  The guard finally showed an appropriate level of fear. “If I tell you, I’m dead.”

  “Sounds like you have a bit of a problem. You tell me and I’ll let you go. Then you can tell your boss I’m coming for him.”

  “You can’t do that,” Alexandra said in German.

  Jake turned to her and answered in German, “He doesn’t know that. Besides, the locals will have this guy hauled off to jail and throw away the key.”

  Alexandra nodded and then shot a few more times.

  “What you say?” the guard asked frantically.

  “I told her it was same same but different.”

  “What? I am not same same but different. I’m Chinese. I work for legitimate businessman.”

  “General Wu Gang is more than that and you know it,” Jake taunted. “Now, where is he?”

  The man seemed to be considering his options. But he wasn’t coming up with anything good, Jake could tell.

  “He left this afternoon to check on his business in Saigon,” the Chinese guard said.

  “Then why didn’t you go with him?” Jake wanted to know.

  “He has many men and many assets. We protect this place.”

  The man had just made a major tactical error. Now Jake would have to find out about General Wu Gang’s other locations. The man was softened to comply. The problem? Jake was running out of time. They were up against two sets of shooters, and the local police were closing in on them as well. Jake couldn’t help feeling trapped with no chance of escape. His ears were ringing like the constant drone of a fire alarm.

  22

  The police sirens had silenced, but as Jake looked out the window he could see the cars still flashed their lights outside the front of the building. He had to believe they would have the building surrounded. How could they escape? They needed more confusion, at least on the part of the police.

  He returned to the guard on the floor, who seemed to be on the verge of passing out from pain. With the elevator stuck on the penthouse floor with two shooters and the crazy Asian woman in the stairwell, the police had no real way to get to the shooting scene. Maybe they really didn’t want to get here anyway, Jake thought. Regardless, their best chance was to go through the Asian woman in the stairway. She had to be running low on bullets by now anyway. But there was no good way to get past her. They would be retreating with two men shooting at their flank and one woman sending cross fire at them. Bullets from both directions was not a great plan. Yet, what other choice did they have?

  “What’s the plan, Jake?” Alexandra asked. “We’re going to have fire coming from three directions in a few minutes.”

  “Assuming the cops come up with a plan,” Jake said. “They might just hold back to see if we kill each other.”

  Then Jake heard the helo for the first time. It was coming in slow from the west. He glanced at the injured man on the floor and came up with a plan.

  “You want to get out of here?” Jake asked the guard.

  The man nodded.

  “All right. Here’s what you do.” Jake explained the plan, and it seemed to resonate with the man. Then he told Alexandra what they would do. The both of them made sure they had full magazines in all guns.

  The distance from the penthouse door to the elevator was a little closer than the distance from the door to the stairwell. But Jake thought it would still work.

  He helped the wounded man to his feet and toward the door. Then the guard yelled in Chinese that he was coming out and not to shoot. As the man walked out, the Asian woman was about to shoot, but Alexandra and Jake shot first, forcing the woman to retreat. Then the two of them continued a slow and steady salvo of firing as they ran at full speed toward the staircase exit. With the wounded man making his way slowly toward the elevator, the men inside could not fire at Jake and Alexandra out of fear that they would hit their own man.

  As Jake reached the exit door first, he saw that the Asian woman had placed an empty magazine in the gap to keep it from closing. He turned back to see that the man had hit the floor and two men were now out in the open for the first time, their guns aimed and ready to shoot.

  Jake had just a second to respond. Instead of shooting at the elevator crew, he slammed his shoulder against the door and rushed out into the stairway, his gun in search of a target.

  But the Asian woman was gone. The concrete floor was littered with empty brass.

  The two of them cautiously made their way down the stairs, Jake knowing that the elevator men might be coming at any second. They had to get to their room.

  As they rounded the corner, Jake saw a flash of movement below. He aimed but didn’t shoot. Good thing. It was an older Asian woman peering her head out the door of their floor. Luckily she didn’t see Jake or his gun.

  Jake heard yelling down below just as he heard the sound of the door above opening. He turned and shot three times at the exit door above. Then he rushed down the stairs to their floor. This door opened without a problem.

  Peeking around the corner, Jake saw a few nervous guests curious and glancing out their room doors.

  “We have to dump these guns,” Jake whispered to Alexandra in German.

  “I know. That was my thought also.”

  But the problem was they didn’t know if the shooting was over, or if they still needed the protection more than the possible incrimination. After all, they had each shot someone and the ballistics would prove that. For now, though, Jake shoved his gun into the back of his pants
and covered it with his shirt. Alexandra did the same. Then they casually went out into their hallway and wandered to their room, looking like scared hotel patrons. Just like their neighbors.

  Once inside their room, Jake let out a deep breath. “Wow. That was intense.”

  “It’s not over yet, cowboy,” Alexandra said. “Now what?”

  Jake thought about that for a moment. He knew they had to get the hell out of this hotel. But how? The chaos of uncertainty.

  “Let’s go,” Jake said. “I have a plan.”

  “Of course you do,” she said. “That’s what I love about you.”

  Getting back out into the hallway, Jake looked around and saw that the curious hotel guests didn’t seem to be too inquisitive anymore. He found the fire alarm and pulled it down, sending a piercing siren throughout the building. As people started to come out of their rooms, Jake and Alexandra gathered more than a dozen guests and escorted them out of the stairwell exit. This only worked, of course, if the bad guys cared who they shot.

  Everything worked as planned until it didn’t.

  When they got to the ground floor, the scene outside was chaotic, with a cluster of people going in all directions. The police had obviously lost all control of the scene. They were trying their best to check everyone who came out, but it looked like a man trying to drink from a fire hose. Finally, back in an outer perimeter, Jake caught a glimpse of the Asian woman. She was talking with a police officer, who seemed more interested in undressing her with his eyes than checking her for weapons. The problem was, she also saw Jake and Alexandra, cutting her chat with the policeman short and heading in their direction.

  “This way,” Jake said, pulling on Alexandra’s arm.

  He saw a way out of there. The ubiquitous tuk tuk machines, the modified motorcycles with the cart behind for two or three passengers, were already lined up on the street beyond the police cars. If the tuk tuk driver thought a fare was in the area, they would be there ready and waiting.

  Jake found one that looked like the motorcycle was newer and might be fast. The two of them hopped aboard and told the driver to go.

  “Where do we go?” the driver asked.

  “Khmer Now Bar,” Jake said.

  The driver smiled and said, “Same same but different. Nice place. Best lady boys in Siem Reap.” With that he drove off, the engine whining and sending smoke behind them.

  Jake looked back and saw that the Asian woman had also gotten a tuk tuk. Great.

  “Why are we going back there?” Alexandra asked in German.

  “We aren’t. But it’s on the way to the airport. I didn’t want this guy saying he picked us up at the shooting hotel and drove us to the airport. But we have a problem. That Asian woman is on our tail.”

  Alexandra looked behind them. “Outstanding.” She drew her gun and held it between the two of them aimed behind them.

  The tuk tuk crossed the Siem Reap River and left the relatively remote area of the five-star hotel toward the downtown of Siem Reap. They were more than a mile from the hotel when the first gunfire broke the relative silence of the night.

  Jake started to draw his gun, but he stopped when he saw where the bullet had struck—right in the back of their tuk tuk driver, which slumped the man over the gas tank of the motorcycle and brought them to a quick stop.

  Without thinking, Jake jumped from the back and pulled the driver to the ground. As he jumped onto the motorcycle, Alexandra turned and shot behind them at the Asian woman.

  Looking in the rearview mirror, Jake could see the other tuk tuk had also stopped. Why? Because the Asian woman had shoved her gun in her driver’s back and pistol-whipped the man, before getting behind the motorcycle on her own tuk tuk.

  Jake gunned the throttle and the tuk tuk lurched forward as fast as it could go, the engine whining at the red line, knocking Alexandra into her seat. “Sorry,” Jake yelled.

  He weaved his tuk tuk through traffic like a local as they entered Sivutha Boulevard, the main drive in the downtown area. But Jake and Alexandra had the advantage, since the Asian woman had to control the motorcycle with her right hand while she shot with her left. Alexandra could simply shoot while Jake drove. However, with the pot holes and weaving through traffic and avoiding pedestrians and bicyclists, Alexandra had not gotten many good shots in either. For a city in the hundreds of thousands, Siem Reap resembled an old town from America in the early twenties, with telephone lines and power cables running right over the top of the streets. And the law of this land on the highway was bigger went first, regardless of right-of-way.

  Despite the traffic and the disorganized nature of the downtown region, nobody seemed to understand that a shoot-out was happening right now.

  Jake felt something rubbing against his butt, so he looked back for a second and saw the structure that held the back cart to the motorcycle. He weaved around another tuk tuk and nearly hit an SUV. Then he looked back again and saw what he had to do.

  “Get up here with me,” Jake yelled to Alexandra.

  “What? Are you crazy?”

  “Just do it,” he said.

  She shot a couple more times and then climbed over the front end, straddled the bars that led to the motorcycle, and then nearly fell through to the street, catching her fall. Then with one swing of her legs, she thrust herself forward and landed on the back seat of the motorcycle.

  Jake stood up on the pegs and said, “Get up here for a second and pull the pin, releasing the cart.”

  She smiled and did as he said, getting herself scrunched behind Jake, her face right in his butt. Then she reached behind her and worked on the release pin.

  “It won’t come,” Alexandra screamed.

  There had to be too much tension on it. “Hang on. When I hit the brakes, you pull the pin.”

  She nodded acknowledgement.

  Jake let up on the gas and tapped the brakes. As the motorcycle and the trailing cart pulled closer together, Alexandra pulled the pin just at the right moment. The cart stopped behind them, and Jake immediately hit the gas. Without the cart, the motorcycle rushed forward much faster.

  Alexandra pushed herself back over the bracket to the back seat and Jake sat down again.

  By now they had gotten through the main downtown area, past Pub Street, and picked up more speed as they turned the corner to the road that led to the airport.

  “Is she still following?” Jake asked over his shoulder.

  She squeezed both arms around his waist. “No. We’re losing her. She almost ran into our cart. But there’s no way she can keep up with us now.”

  They passed the Khmer Now Bar and Jake looked ahead on the highway. Damn it! There was a police road block ahead. They wouldn’t be leaving Siem Reap by air, he knew. Now what?

  “You see that?” Jake said, as he slowed the motorcycle to find another way.

  “That’s not good,” she said. “Now what?”

  Jake turned the motorcycle down a side road, which was little more than a dirt trail. The road eventually ran along a narrow river, which seemed to seep out into massive rice patties. But with almost no lights out here, Jake had no real idea what lay ahead.

  He pulled over and turned off the head light, but kept the engine at a sputtering idle.

  Jake turned to Alexandra and said, “Have you ever taken a bus from Cambodia to Vietnam?”

  “No way.”

  “It’s the only thing that might not be checked by the police. But it would be better if we caught the bus in another town. We’ll have to take the motorcycle.”

  She shook her head, but had to know he was right.

  Jake pulled his gun from the small of his back and threw it into the river. Then he did the same with the extra magazines.

  Alexandra reluctantly did the same thing.

  Now that they were clean, with no weapons, Jake turned the motorcycle and headed back toward town. He would try to avoid the main street and then head south.

  23

  Saigon, Vietnam
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  Other than by air, there was no good way to get from Siem Reap, Cambodia, to Saigon, Vietnam. Jake refused to call the city by its official communist name, Ho Chi Minh City. Why bring any recognition to that brutal dictator?

  Jake and Alexandra had driven into the night on the motorcycle, stopping once for gas, along the lonely road from Siem Reap to the capital of Phnom Penh. From there they had ditched the motorcycle, gotten something to eat and some new clothes, stuffed into duffle bags, and caught the noon bus to Saigon. It would have looked really bad crossing into Vietnam without some sort of baggage. They had switched from Austrian to Canadian citizens, just in case the authorities had linked them in the five-star Siem Reap hotel to the shooting that had taken place. After all, every time they checked into a hotel, they were required to hand over their passport, where a clerk invariably made a copy.

  Now, closing in on 8 p.m., the Canadian couple checked into a nice hotel in a rough-looking neighborhood about a mile from the newer downtown area of Saigon. Neither of them had ever been to Vietnam, so this place was new to Jake and Alexandra.

  After riding on the uncomfortable motorcycle for almost two hundred miles and then sitting among coughing strangers on the six-hour bus ride from the capital of Cambodia to Saigon, Jake had to admit he was beat. He sat on the hard bed and lay down, closing his eyes.

  “No, no, no,” Alexandra said. “You should have slept on the bus.”

  Jake sighed. “I tried. But I couldn’t get this case out of my mind.”

  She sat on the bed next to him. “Maybe we should just catch a flight home.”

  He opened his eyes and gazed at her. “And where would that be?”

  Flipping open her most recent passport, she said, “Somewhere in Canada.”

  “It’s too damn cold up there this time of year.”

  “Innsbruck?”

  “Same thing.”

  “Munich?”

  “Do you really want to go back there right now?”

  She lowered her chin. “Not really. My Service probably thinks I’m dead. But I should let them know I’m alive so at least they will pay out my pension.”