by Mike Brooks
He ignored the mewling Triax enforcer and dodged between two parked cars to get onto the pavement, then nearly stopped in his tracks at what he saw. Beyond where Han Xiuying was on her hands and knees, one black-uniformed shape was bent desperately over another that laid on its back on blood-soaked paving slabs. It was a sight he’d seen too many times in his previous career, and it filled him with dread automatically. Now, though, in this place . . .
“Jia?” He was disgusted with himself, but he was relieved to see that the girl appeared unhurt. A well-maintained shuttle could surely fly for a while without attention, but without a pilot it was essentially useless. He picked up his pace again, dashing the last few steps past Han to end in a crouch beside her.
He opened his mouth to ask how bad it was, but the words dried up as his eyes met the blank, glassy stare of the body that used to be Kuai Chang.
His experienced gaze took in the damage automatically, without any prompting on his part or any desire to truly see what had happened. The chest shot had at least clipped the heart, but that wouldn’t have killed the little mechanic so quickly on its own. The bullet that had hit his neck, though: That had torn the carotid artery wide open.
“Where were you?” Jia screamed at Alim, rounding on him. She grabbed for his shoulders, and he knocked her hands aside with self-defence moves so ingrained he didn’t even have to think about them. “Where the fuck were you?!” Her burst of frenzied action lasted only a second before she collapsed back onto her knees, sobbing as though she intended to drown herself in her own tears.
The front of her tac vest was undone, Alim saw, and tugged partially apart. He guessed that she’d been trying to remove her shirt to apply pressure to the wound, but her haste and the unfamiliar fastenings had foiled her. She’d tried to use her hands instead, unsuccessfully.
“Jia,” he said urgently, “we need to go.” She didn’t respond—he hadn’t really expected her to—but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chief Han rise unsteadily to her feet, still clutching her bag.
Something snapped inside Alim Muradov. This was supposed to be an officer of the law, but instead she’d allowed a culture where gangs ran riot and controlled entire cities. Now one of Alim’s new crew was dead because of her greed, because of her actions that had led the Triax to believe that they could order the killing of a high-ranking public servant and two uniformed security officers with minimal consequences. The fact that they were right, that there would be no consequences, just tasted even more bitter to him.
It would be very, very easy to put a bullet into Han Xiuying and be done with it. If anything, she deserved it more than the men Alim had just shot down in the street. They were street thugs, probably poor as such things were measured here, maybe drawn into the gang by family or by connections through friends. Their actions might have immediate and drastic impacts on those they encountered, but they weren’t big-picture criminals. Han Xiuying, on the other hand, had made choices that made life more miserable for an entire city and had done so while being paid to do the opposite.
Alim took his hand off his gun and gripped his Taser instead. He still had morals, damn it all, even if others didn’t.
He stepped up behind Han and blasted her in the back. She let out a strangled gasp and fell: Alim grabbed her bag from her hand as she collapsed and opened it hurriedly. Roll after roll of tightly wadded, high-denomination currency met his gaze. He had no time to count it, and didn’t really have any options if it wasn’t the amount they were hoping for, but it seemed that at least this part of their plan had worked out. The bitterest pill of all would have been if Han had taken a credit chip, leaving the money untouchable, but it seemed that she didn’t want it to be traced at all. Had Alim Muradov been a betting man, he would have placed a wager that Zhuchengshi’s security chief had been planning to take her money and run, leaving her corrupt dealings with the Triax as far behind her as she could.
He saw his chance. He’d hoped to be able to do this when the Changs had picked him up in the aircar and they dumped Chief Han, but he hadn’t discussed it with Drift. Now, his anger removed any remaining doubts about the wisdom of it. He dropped to one knee beside Han and leaned down until his mouth was nearly level with her ear, then whispered into it in Russian.
“Tell the Dragon Sons that Sergei Orlov sends his regards.”
He got back to his feet and turned away from the incapacitated woman who would have been his peer only a few weeks ago. The notion faintly disgusted him now, but he needed to focus. He could hear sirens, still far away at the moment but getting inexorably closer. They weren’t going to have as much time as he’d hoped.
“Jia!” He grabbed the pilot by the back of her tac vest and shook her. He didn’t have time to be gentle, so he fell back on his military training. Get them up; keep them moving. “Jia! We need to go, now!”
“I’m not leaving him!” Jia bawled. Every inch of the young woman’s blustering shell had cracked and fallen away; at exactly the wrong moment, Alim couldn’t help but note.
“Then we take him with us!” He grabbed Jia’s tear-streaked face and turned it towards him. “Do you have the car keys?” She stared blankly, so he slapped her. He’d apologise later. “The keys! Do you have them?”
She shook her head unsteadily. “Kuai . . .”
Of course, the brother had been driving: He’d claimed that Jia couldn’t drive an aircar in a way that wouldn’t have garnered attention, and after seeing her piloting, Alim was inclined to agree. He plunged his hand into Kuai’s right pants pocket and was rewarded with the fob that would activate the aircar.
One task at a time. No reasoning, no cajoling, just instructions. “Jia, get his legs.”
Shakily, the girl took her brother’s ankles. Alim grabbed the body under its shoulders, trying to ignore how the blood-soaked uniform felt under his fingers. “To the car. Lift!”
They hoisted Kuai up and carried him the thirty yards or so to the rental car. He wasn’t a heavy man, thankfully. Other people were now clustering around the bottom of the street, coming to gawk now the shooting had stopped. Alim hoped they stayed away, but he suspected that two security officers carrying an apparently dead third one to an unmarked car and leaving was likely to cause comment, especially when sirens were on the way.
Nothing for it.
He pulled the rear door open with one hand and hoisted Kuai onto the back seat, then took his legs from Jia and swung the body into what was broadly a sitting position. Jia stood there dumbly, so he grabbed her shoulder and pointed towards the other side of the car.
“Get in the back, and strap yourself in.”
She didn’t nod, but moved to do as he’d said. She was in shock, but responding to clear instructions: something to be thankful for, at any rate. He opened the driver’s door and dropped into the seat, then slotted the fob into place and fired up the engine. He had always been much more used to wheeled vehicles than aircars, but he’d flown a few times, and he managed to lift up out of the parking spot at the second try.
“Jenna,” he said in English, activating his comm. “Jenna, are you there?”
+Chief? What’s been going on? Is everyone okay?+
“No,” Alim said grimly, lowering his window. He’d have to do his best to evade the sirens based on sound and direction, which wasn’t an attractive prospect, but at least they hopefully weren’t actively looking for this vehicle. Yet. “Kuai is dead.”
+Oh my God. Oh my God. How?+
“It seems the Triax were planning a hit all along,” Alim said. “But I do not have time for explanations. We have the money, but I could not get Jia to leave her brother, so I have a dead body in the back of this car. I believe the Two Trees Arena is practically on the way back to the spaceport. Should I attempt to pick up Apirana and the Captain and risk discovery, or are we leaving them here and taking off without them?”
He didn’t add that he had no idea if Jia would even be able or willing to fly the Jonah out of the atmosphere. M
cIlroy was an intelligent woman, and would be able to work that much out for herself.
There was a pause.
“Jenna?”
+I was watching the fight broadcast,+ McIlroy said, her voice flat and drained. +The entire thing has been busted by the cops for match-fixing. And then the feed was cut, and the show went back to the studio or whatever. But the last thing I saw, there were police all around the ring when A was fighting.
+Chief, I think they’ve been arrested.+
SITTING TIGHT
“Are we under arrest?” Drift demanded, mustering his best Russian since he had no idea if the security officer he was talking to spoke English or had a translation program running.
“No, just don’t try to leave the building,” the officer told him in Mandarin, barely even glancing up from her pad. Drift’s own pad provided its coolly neutral translation, but he didn’t need it to hear the boredom in the woman’s voice. “The detective will get to you.”
“And if we try to leave?” Drift asked, figuring he may as well find out.
“Then we’ll arrest you,” the cop replied with a shrug. “Just wait where you are, and the detective will work out whether we need to question you further at the station or whether we can let you go. It’s not hard, is it?”
Drift didn’t trust himself to answer as civilly as would be wise in the circumstances, so he settled for a grunt and turned away. Apirana looked up as he approached. The big man was swaddled in his warm-up robe, since now that the Two Trees Arena had largely emptied of people, the ambient temperature was dropping noticeably.
“We’re staying put?” the Māori asked, his resigned tone indicating he already knew the answer.
“Sì,” Drift muttered, slumping down into a seat beside the big man. He looked around, trying not to appear too furtive, but the security officers were all busy elsewhere. So far as they seemed to be concerned, none of the various fighters, coaches, and officials gathered in the hall was going anywhere, so it wasn’t necessary to eavesdrop on every word. “The local feds picked a fine time to get efficient,” he said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his tone. “Why couldn’t they have just continued to look the other way?”
“Easy, bro,” Apirana said softly. “Remember, we don’t know anything was crooked. I mean, I sure wouldn’t have fought in this arena if I knew anyone was fixin’ fights.”
Drift glanced sideways at the big man, then nodded. Apirana was right: To play the role convincingly, he needed to be playing it at all times, not just when confronted with a cop asking him questions. Of course, that didn’t mean that Rodrigo Pérez wouldn’t be annoyed that his client’s fight had been stopped prematurely—especially when said client had been pummelling his opponent—but motivation was vital: It would dictate which way the performance went.
“We got a bigger problem, though,” Apirana continued in that same soft tone. “That detective: I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but I think that’s the Chief’s old friend.”
Drift bit the inside of his cheek in lieu of swearing out loud. “Her name was Li, wasn’t it?”
“Yup,” Apirana confirmed, nodding. “Li ain’t exactly an uncommon name, and the Chief didn’t mention her rank. But she looks about the same. O’course, I only really saw her from behind.”
“And if she’s not on the take, it would make sense to send her as part of a team to arrest a Triax member,” Drift muttered. “Please tell me she didn’t get a good look at you when you grabbed her in the market.”
“I ain’t a fool, bro,” Apirana said reproachfully. “I know I’m distinctive. Had the mask on and my hood up, an’ we were in the shadows. Nothing to be done about my size, o’course, but we got a few big men in here. If she’d seen me on my own, I wouldn’t fancy our chances. As it is, I might have a bit of camouflage. Plus, it was a month ago, or whatever.”
“Fingers crossed,” Drift said. He was desperate to know what had gone on with the rest of the crew, but the Jonah’s transmitters couldn’t penetrate the Two Trees’ walls, and the security forces had disabled the internal routers to prevent anyone from calling out on Zhuchengshi’s network. He’d rarely felt so cut off and isolated. Had the heist gone ahead? Had they got the money? Was everyone okay? He couldn’t shake the feeling that trusting such an important piece of deception to Jia and Kuai was tantamount to foolishness, but they’d apparently bluffed the kid in the laundrette well enough. Besides, there weren’t any other options: Even if Muradov hadn’t been at risk of recognition, he was the only logical choice for the sort of sharpshooting the plan had required.
He really, really hoped that Jenna wouldn’t call time and take off without Apirana and him onboard, but at the same time they couldn’t afford for the ransom to be delayed. If that meant that the pair of them had to help the police with their enquiries and stick around, then that was a price he supposed they would have to pay, but it was an absolutely last-ditch option.
A movement on the far side of the fighting cage caught his eye, and he nudged Apirana. “Eyes front, amigo. We’ve got incoming.”
Detective Li was skirting around the raised structure with two uniformed officers trailing behind her. She was heading straight for them with a brisk stride, and didn’t look to be in a particularly good mood. He studied her as intently as he dared: She had an athletic build and the sort of brisk step he’d expect from an ex-military type. He was almost certain this was the same woman Apirana had grabbed in the street market after she’d pulled a gun on Muradov, and that was bad news however you painted it.
“Rodrigo Pérez?” Li asked, coming to a halt in front of them and looking Drift up and down. It was the second time she’d scrutinised him, and she didn’t seem much more impressed than the first, briefer time in the cage.
“Yes, ma’am.” Drift nodded. He’d debated whether to admit that it wasn’t his real name, but then that left the way open for possible allegations of fraudulent business practices. His pad was currently programmed to Rodrigo Pérez thanks to Jenna, so he’d decided to keep up the pretence and hope for the best.
Li shifted her gaze to Apirana. “And . . .” She looked down at her pad, then up at the big man again, and her brow wrinkled.
Apirana just sat and waited, his expression blankly polite. At least, that was how it looked to Drift, who’d long ago learned to see past the moko worked across his features. To those unfamiliar with Apirana, the markings almost certainly gave him a more fearsome aspect.
Li’s patience cracked after about two seconds. “Your name, sir?”
“Apirana Wahawaha,” A replied smoothly, although his expression darkened ever so slightly. Drift knew that the big man found it annoying when people couldn’t pronounce his name, and he couldn’t blame him for it.
“You were contracted to fight this evening?” Li asked him.
“I was.”
“And when did this happen?”
“Seven days ago,” Apirana replied calmly.
Li frowned. “You fought on that evening too, I believe.”
“I did.”
“And you were booked to fight again only seven days later?”
Apirana shrugged. “The fight didn’t really take very long. It seemed a shame to waste the preparation, an’ the arena here seemed to think there was money to be made from me since I’d just beaten the local boy.”
Li tapped something into her pad, then looked up at him again. “Were you offered money to throw this fight?”
Apirana’s eyes narrowed. “I suggest you go ask my opponent tonight how confident he felt that he was gonna win.”
Li folded her arms and glared at him. “I asked whether you’d been offered money, Mr. . . .” She trailed off again, then continued as though she’d never paused. “Not whether you’d accepted.”
“Ma’am,” Drift broke in, “are you accusing my client of being complicit in fight-fixing?”
Li looked at him with what was little short of a glare. “I’ll come to you, Mr. Pérez. But no, as I said,
I’m simply asking your client if he was offered money to throw a fight.”
“And if he was offered it and refused it, but didn’t report it to the authorities, that would make him complicit, would it not?” Drift said. “Because he would have been aware that there were dishonest practices taking place?”
Li glowered at him, and Drift hoped he’d stayed the right side of showing he was no fool without antagonising the detective.
“I never even got offered money to throw a fight,” Apirana said firmly, matching her emphasis. He folded his arms and glared at Li. “Seven to show and then three to win, both nights. So you comin’ in when you did cost me three grand that I won’t be seeing now.”
Drift supposed that, actually, the big man was telling them the truth. Chen had never offered him money to throw a fight: Ze’d just demanded that it happen. However, Drift was fairly sure that Li wouldn’t appreciate the semantics if Chen came clean about zir recent botched attempts and implicated the pair of them.
“Ma’am,” he said respectfully, “we really have nothing to tell you. My client has had two fights; he won one and was on his way to winning the other. We’ll be happy to assist you if you feel it’s necessary, but might we at least make a call first?”
Li’s face immediately took on a suspicious cast. “Someone you need to talk to, Mr. Pérez?”
“I need to call my girlfriend,” Apirana rumbled. “She don’t watch the fights, and she’ll have been expectin’ a call from me to say how I got on. She’ll be gettin’ worried that I’ve been badly hurt or something.” He looked slightly shamefaced, and his next sentence came out slightly mumbled. “I forgot to call her when I should’ve, last time. She went ballistic.”
Drift tried not to smile. The notion that Jenna might go ballistic at Apirana was an amusing one in and of itself, but bless him, the big guy was doing his best to distance himself from any notion that he might be the type to abduct security officers off the street.
