Chasing the White Lion

by James R. Hannibal

THE ARCHITECTS HAD BENT the aerial bridge into a gentle S to meet the twisting profile of the adjoining tower. Talia kept to the center. Walking close to either side made her feel as if nothing separated her from the five-hundred-meter drop to the city below. Looking back at the exterior, she could see lights in the windows of the Frenzy-level rooms. Otherwise, the building’s one-way glass kept the maze within a secret.

  There were lights aglow in the mid-to-upper levels of the eastern tower as well. “Eddie, the White Lion mentioned inviting whales to the Grand Bazaar.”

  “Tyler noticed. He’s got Darcy and Pell looking into it for us. They think Boyd’s using the tech convention in the plaza as a cover to bring in buyers for the players.”

  “Have you accounted for these whales in the plan?”

  She heard Tyler jump in on Eddie’s microphone. “It’s covered. You stay focused on the game.”

  Talia stopped talking as she left the bridge, too stunned to speak. Boyd had created an over-the-top Turkish bazaar atmosphere—without the accompanying claustrophobia.

  An arched mosaic ceiling hung four stories over the promenade. A bubbling tile fountain marked the center. Along the edges, workers stocked wrought-iron shelving with all manner of tchotchkes. Others set up tables and chairs. Catering carts sat dormant, waiting to be fired up to serve the guests.

  “This is surreal.” Once she found her voice again, Talia did her best to keep her lips from moving. Armed guards watched from every corner. “He’s setting up for a party.”

  Tyler echoed her thoughts. “A party where drugs, weapons, and children will be sold.”

  “Do you think these workers know what will happen here in a few hours?”

  “Unlikely, but they have some inkling this is a shady job. Guards with submachine guns and whatever premium Boyd is paying them ought to be clue enough. Ignorance is no excuse.”

  A scoreboard hung over the fountain. As Talia drew near, the screen switched from the tallies to a silent replay of Bi Fan trying to stab her way through the glass. Several workers stopped to watch.

  She swallowed and whispered through clenched teeth. “Yep. Surreal.”

  Two bays opened like caves in the northern wall of the promenade, and one in the southern, adjacent to the fountain. The closest one to Talia on the northern side had a picture of a Hyena on the screen over the opening. The southern bay had a picture of a Snow Leopard. The screen over the second bay in the northern wall remained blank.

  “Do you see the pedestals near the mouth of each bay?” Eddie asked, highlighting each one in her augmented reality vision. “They have screens and keypads. It looks like you need to get to the pedestal of the far northern bay and enter your code. I can send it to your glasses.”

  “No need. I—”

  The patter of running feet behind told Talia she shouldn’t have spoken so soon. She glanced over her shoulder and heard Eddie slap the table beside his microphone.

  “That’s Bi Fan! Get going!”

  Talia took off, but Bi Fan was already at a full sprint, and it gave her an advantage. She caught up and grabbed Talia’s hair, jerking her back.

  “Ow!” Talia threw an elbow.

  The hacker stumbled back, holding her nose.

  The move gave Talia the edge she needed. She reached the pedestal first and typed in her number, which was flashing in her lenses despite her rejection of Eddie’s offer. A black panther appeared on both screens—on the pedestal and over the bay—with the number Eight Two in front of it like the number on a sports jersey.

  Bi Fan skidded to a stop a few feet away, stiletto up and ready.

  The nearest guards raised their machine guns.

  Talia gave the hacker a lift of her chin. “I guess this is a no-kill zone.”

  “Then you had better watch your back in the maze.” Bi Fan’s English was pretty good. She backed off, signaling her deference to the guards. “You cannot hide here forever.”

  The knife disappeared. Talia never saw where it went.

  As soon as Bi Fan had moved out of range, Talia returned her attention to the pedestal. She selected her language, as if she were standing at an ATM, and a list of instructions appeared. The bay gave her a million-dollar bonus, which immediately split into a half-million each for her and Val on the scoreboard. The money was a staging budget—bay supplies, decorations, and the like. The Frenzy workers would take care of everything.

  Tyler coached her over the comms. “Enter a request for twelve eight-foot-by-eight-foot cages. We want to telegraph an intent to sell live products. Maybe the real human traffickers will seek you out.”

  “Copy.” She knew the order was all for show, but every button-push left a bitter taste in Talia’s mouth.

  A buzzer sounded through the promenade. On the scoreboard, a message flashed.

  ALL BAYS CLAIMED

  FRENZY ROUND TWO INITIATED

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Eddie asked.

  Talia shook her head. “Nothing good.”

  The no-kill zone status made the Grand Bazaar an attractive place to hang out and observe. Talia wandered the promenade. The Snow Leopard, Rudenko, had returned to his bay to direct a crew of locals in gray jumpsuits as they installed a large rotating platform—perhaps for his antiquities. He gave Talia a nod.

  She gave one back.

  Workers in the same gray jumpsuits bustled about in Atan’s bay, but Atan wasn’t there.

  “Are those refrigerators?” Eddie asked. “What’s Atan selling?”

  “Not stocks and bonds.”

  “Pharmaceuticals, remember?” Tyler interrupted them, using Eddie’s mic, by the extra distance in his voice.

  Talia could see him standing over the geek’s shoulder—hovering. She had decided to lean on him and be grateful, but that didn’t change the helicopter-mom feel.

  “Atan has his fingers in a few extra pies. Unless he’s selling black-market Kobe beef, those refrigerators mean drugs. The annual market for illicit pharmaceuticals is around seventy billion dollars.”

  “We have a real pack of winners here,” Talia said, watching Atan’s workers push another refrigerator into place.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Talia staked out the bazaar for two more hours, but Atan never showed. Either she or Val needed to make contact. He had a part to play in the con. Talia wanted to send him a private message, but Tyler warned her off. “He has to come to us, not the other way around. Otherwise the play won’t stick.”

  By the time she left, the scoreboard hanging over the exit showed her and Val at seventeen million each. The grifter had been too successful for Talia’s own good. The others now had a seven-million-dollar motive to kill her, not to mention gain the coveted bay.

  She needed to get to the room and stay awhile.

  The maze ahead looked darker than before as Talia crossed the bridge. The city lights no longer penetrated the outer walls. And there were colors—pale reds and oranges.

  “Something’s changed, Eddie. What’s happening?”

  “The board did say you’d entered Round Two. I’m guessing Boyd polarized the windows. And with the clear walls and floors, adding colors makes the maze look totally different. No big deal. Use your slate.”

  She tried. The message board was still running on the glass screen. Bi Fan was in the open chat room as the Clouded Leopard, offering to split a bay with anyone who would help her kill Panther Eight Two and take it. “Thanks, Bi Fan.” Talia tapped the arrow icon for directions to her room.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried again.

  ROOM DIRECTIONS ARE CURRENTLY DISABLED

  PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER

  Eddie must have read the message through her glasses-cam. “More changes for Round Two,” he said. “Boyd is raising the difficulty level. Not to wor . . . We hav . . . y ma . . . After the stairw . . . ake your fir . . .”

  “Eddie?”

  The geek made no response.

  “Val?” Talia touched her ear. “An
yone, come in.”

  No one answered. The maze no longer registered with Talia’s eidetic memory, and now she had lost comms. She was on her own.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTY-

  SEVEN

  WESTERN TOWER

  TWIN TIGERS COMPLEX

  BANGKOK, THAILAND

  WANDERING IN THE MAZE was a death sentence. Without directions, Talia couldn’t get back to the room. “I can’t do it,” she said out loud.

  A voice answered from deep inside. Trust.

  “Right. Okay.” Dear God, show me the way.

  Talia closed her eyes. Without the distraction of the red and orange lights, she could remember the path. Once she felt she had a handle on it, she opened her eyes again and pushed herself out of the corner. Patience was the key. One step at a time. She reached the first corridor and took a right. A long passage followed. At the dead end she expected to squeeze her way around the false wall Eddie had shown her.

  Prudence told her to use the glow of her slate as a light in the dim and strangely lit hallway. But the glow might also confuse her perception of the maze, not to mention make her an instant target. Instead, Talia put a hand out in front to feel for the back wall.

  She stepped into dead air.

  With a gasping scream, Talia teetered forward, flailing for a handhold. Her slate went flying, clattering against artificial outcroppings sure to take her head off if she fell. She caught the glass wall, slipped, and caught it again. Her fingers wrapped the edge. Her body swung sideways toward oblivion. Years of balancing racing shells on the Potomac saved her. Talia used her core muscles to stop her momentum and powered her body back to safety.

  She collapsed on the edge. “What is happening?”

  Her memory flashed through the labyrinth, looking for something new.

  Hinges. Slides. Motors.

  Boyd had changed more than the maze’s lighting. He had changed the maze itself. The walls were movable.

  Not all the walls. Logic precluded it. Talia hadn’t seen enough infrastructure to account for much. But Boyd didn’t need many moving pieces. One or two per floor, leaving glass cliffs in the shadows, gave the maze a whole new level of deadly.

  Talia started again. The missing wall at the back of her current passage meant she had to turn her back to the emptiness to squeeze her way around the false dead end into the next passage over. She moved on, this time keeping her weight on her back foot until she confirmed each step.

  “Eddie? Val?”

  The comm link didn’t return. It had been a jury-rigged system from the start, built from parts scrounged from the Bangkok markets in a half day of searching.

  Twenty excruciating minutes later, Talia heard a blood-freezing cry. She knew the voice. “Atan.” Who had gotten to him? Bi Fan? The White Lion?

  A silhouette hurried through the orange and red light several floors below, but quickly disappeared in the utter black of a darkened hallway. By the speed of the killer’s movement, he—or she—knew the maze. Whoever it was would be coming for Talia next.

  From then on, every turn felt like a guess. Every dark corner looked like a hooded figure wielding a stiletto. Talia turned the last corner into what she hoped was the final passage, and found a black void.

  Thirty meters or so of pure darkness, twisting with the curvature of the building.

  Boyd had engineered the new lighting to make certain hallways look and feel like black holes, like the one that absorbed the silhouette of the killer after Atan’s scream.

  What if the same silhouette, moving with such confidence through the maze, now waited for her in this very hall.

  Talia drew her gun and set off. She crept along at a steady pace, one hand on the wall. Twenty meters in, a shadow barred her path. “I see you,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

  “Don’t!” The figure lunged, knocking the gun aside to spoil her aim. The low-velocity P3Q round smacked against the wall.

  Talia didn’t fight. She lowered her weapon. “Val?”

  The grifter pulled her in close. “I’m so glad to see you. Comms are down.”

  “I know. What are you doing?”

  “I heard you start the journey back before we lost the connection. I came out to help, but—”

  “But you couldn’t get far in this nightmare.” Talia let Val lead her back along the passage. “I understand. Thank you.”

  “What are fake sisters for?”

  IN THE SAFETY OF THE ROOM, Talia collapsed onto her bed. She let her gun and her high-tech glasses lie beside her. “I have to get back out there—figure out who took those kids.” She barely had enough energy to speak the words, let alone put them to action.

  She fought through the exhaustion. “Val,” she called from the bed. “We have to figure out what happened to the comm link.”

  “I think I know. Come see.”

  The grifter had used the edge of a P3Q magazine to pry the top off Eddie’s hockey puck, wisely unplugging the device first. The inside smelled like burned sugar.

  Talia wrinkled her nose. “He did say this thing draws tons of power.”

  “Think we can fix it?”

  “We can try.”

  A few parts were blackened, but only one wire had burned all the way through. Using Val’s magazine, Talia scraped away the charred pieces. “They won’t reach. We’ll have to improvise.”

  They both looked around the room and settled on the same idea, saying it out loud at the same time. “Desk lamp.”

  It took nearly half an hour of hard work to saw through the desk lamp’s cord with a dull knife from the kitchen and strip away the insulation. Talia wound the ends of her extension piece to the damaged wires. Once she was clear, she gave Val a nod. “Give it a go.”

  The grifter plugged in the device.

  Talia flipped the switch and raised the antenna. Her earpiece crackled.

  “Talia? Val? Come in. Do you read?”

  “Eddie.” Talia pushed out a fist for Val and received a knuckle bump.

  The grifter dropped the kitchen knife on the desk. “Your dumb hockey puck died. Nice work.”

  Continuous static masked Eddie’s voice. “It’s not a hockey puck. It’s an improvised VHF burn-through transmitter-receiver.”

  “Well, it burned through, all right.”

  Talia tried not to laugh as she waved her off. “Eddie, the wiring couldn’t handle the power draw. We fried one. Do you have a work-around?”

  “Figured as much. I came up with a plan. I’ll talk you through it.”

  The kitchen knife and the spare wire from the lamp helped, along with a resistor they dug out of the lamp’s base, common in LED lighting, according to Eddie. Soon, they had a solution, and the static vanished.

  “The signal’s clear,” Eddie said, a caution in his tone, “but we’ve lost range.”

  Talia didn’t like the sound of that. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you won’t be able to hear us if you make it to the Atrium, or in the Grand Bazaar.”

  Val stood above her, arms folded. “That’s going to be a problem.”

  Tyler stepped in on Eddie’s end. “Fluid plan, remember? We’ll be okay. You two get back to work.” There was a long pause, then he added, “Finn and Mac wanted to send in the cavalry, you know.”

  Talia let out a quiet laugh. “We’re not quite there yet.”

  “That’s what I said. I told them to have faith.”

  “Of course you did.”

  CHAPTER

  SIXTY-

  EIGHT

  WESTERN TOWER

  TWIN TIGERS COMPLEX

  BANGKOK, THAILAND

  WITH THE COMMS FIXED, Val returned to her deal panels.

  Talia went to a snack basket in the kitchen and found a granola bar—a sliver of the mundane in what was rapidly becoming the weirdest night of her life. She took a bite and nodded at the grifter. “What are you working on?”

  “Something I started before this little interruption. Ever hear of a flash
mob?”

  “Sure. Pretend crowds suddenly breaking into performance art.”

  “Now imagine the performance art they’re engaging in is purse snatching. I have field mice and jackrabbits hitting cities across Europe. A five-thousand-dollar buy-in gets them a time and place. We’ve picked up more than two thousand takers.”

  Talia dropped her forehead into her palm “Val, we’re the good guys. You can’t—”

  “She’s okay,” Tyler said. “Val is rallying the snatchers. I’m rallying a counter flash mob of my own, of the constabulary persuasion. Cuffs will hit wrists before any purses go missing.”

  “Great. But all those arrests will make the news.”

  “By then this will all be over. Your cover is safe. For the moment. How are you holding up?”

  Talia didn’t want to say, but she was too tired to lie. “I’m worn out, Tyler. Death mazes are exhausting.”

  “Exhaustion will get you killed. Get some rest.”

  “But the kids—”

  “You can’t help them if we don’t win this. Get some rest. That’s an order.”

  “Fine. A few minutes. No more.” She sank into the couch and watched Val work while she finished her granola bar, and then leaned back into the cushions and closed her eyes.

  For only an instant.

  WHEN TALIA OPENED HER EYES AGAIN, light streamed in through the window. The day outside had progressed well beyond the morning hours. How long had she slept? Something buzzed in her lap. “What on earth?”

  “Oh good. You’re up.” Val sat at the kitchen counter, sipping coffee. “I got a couple of hours, but darling, you snore. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  Talia rubbed her eyes and glanced down to find a new glass-and-gold slate in her lap.

  “A porter dropped that by. Creepy, huh? But you can’t argue with the service.”

  The slate buzzed again. Talia squinted at Val, then checked the screen.

  PRIVATE MESSAGE ALERT

  THE HYENA

  CLICK TO READ

  The Hyena. Atan. But Atan was dead.

  Talia checked the scoreboard on the TV. By the look of the numbers, Val had been busy. She had run them up to more than twenty-six million each.