“Do you find it difficult accepting help from other people?” Monahan asked.
“Not if it involves sheetrock.”
“Do you think Bill misled you?”
Talanov paused with one foot on a rung. “I appreciate what Bill’s trying to do. He’s a good friend who’s concerned about my well-being.”
“He said you took quite a hammering in yesterday’s hearing.”
“He told you about that?”
“Only in passing. He said both of you were involved in a congressional hearing and that he was giving testimony today – which is why he had to leave early – and that you addressed the committee yesterday, but that it was a hard day, although he didn’t say why.”
“And he thought I might want to talk about it?”
“That and other things.”
“What kind of other things?”
Monahan shrugged and took another sip of her coffee.
Talanov scrutinized Monahan’s expression but she remained noncommittal. “Are you referring to my wife or Larisa?”
“Is that something you want to talk about?”
“I don’t want to talk about anything, Pam. I want to finish this job.”
“Then why did you bring them up?”
Talanov growled and shook his head.
“Are you certain you don’t want to talk?” asked Monahan.
“I’m certain,” answered Talanov.
“Are you certain, I mean, really certain? Sometimes, we think we’re certain but we really aren’t.”
“You like using that word, don’t you? Yes, I’m certain.”
“You don’t have to talk about anything you genuinely don’t want to talk about. If, however, you do want to talk, then whatever you tell me is private and protected.”
“Like a priest in a confessional? Or a lawyer?”
“I prefer doctor-patient, and, yes, if we’re being honest, Bill did send me instead of a construction hand because he cares more about you than he does his floor. He says you’re the best friend he’s ever had – his only friend, he’s joked on several occasions – and, yes, he did brief me on the tragedy of your wife getting killed.”
“She wasn’t just killed, Pam, she was assassinated, on stage, standing by my side, and then died in my arms, with her blood squirting through my fingers from a bullet that ripped through her neck.”
Monahan winced then nodded somberly.
“And that’s after dozens of people were murdered at our home in Sydney and we were hunted mercilessly across Australia, Vanuatu, and Switzerland. And for what? An old KGB bank account opened in my name years ago.”
“By the same people who murdered your wife?”
“No. A different mob, which was, literally, the mob – the Russian mob – who also tried killing Bill. They gunned him down, Pam, and I was in the room when it happened, and he would have died had Larisa not stopped the bleeding and helped me get him to the hospital. I take it Bill mentioned Larisa?”
“He said the two of you became . . . involved.”
“Which Bill thought was a good thing.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why do you think that is? You were a widower. She had affection for you, and, according to Bill, you felt the same.”
“Because death and violence follow me, and the same people who killed my wife and tried killing Bill would one day come for her. I couldn’t let that happen. That’s why I got her a job in Australia.”
“Figuring she’d be safe on the other side of the world?”
“Safer than she would be around me. Look, I realize I can’t keep living in fear of what might happen. That’s what Bill keeps saying. He thinks the danger has passed. I know it hasn’t, which is why I won’t risk the safety of people I love.”
“Are you saying you love Larisa?”
“I’m saying I won’t allow a target to be placed on her back.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
With another growl of frustration, Talanov climbed the ladder and began nailing the bracket in place.
“Did Larisa have a say in that decision?”
Talanov looked down at Monahan. “Ever had someone die in your arms?”
Monahan shook her head.
“I did what had to be done,” Talanov said.
Monahan did not reply. The seconds stretched.
“Okay, yes, I was probably too hard on her,” Talanov admitted, feeling the need to explain further, “and maybe I shouldn’t have pressured her into taking that job, but I absolutely could not bear something happening to her, okay? She deserves a good life and happiness, not . . . this.”
“This?”
“The kind of life that Bill and I lead.”
“Again, wasn’t that a decision Larisa should have made? From what I hear, she’s tough and resilient.”
Talanov did not reply.
“Does Bill agree with your decision?”
“I think you know the answer to that. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked you to stop by for this little chat that we’ve been having.”
Monahan smiled.
“Bill is stubborn,” Talanov continued. “And refuses to listen to reason.”
“Remind you of someone else?”
“He knows I’m right, and I told him so – numerous times – but of course he didn’t want to hear it, which is typical. And, no, he hasn’t forgiven me for sending her away. He keeps telling me how rare it is to find someone who truly—”
Talanov hammered in another nail to avoid finishing his sentence.
“Who truly what?” asked Monahan.
Talanov drove in another nail.
Monahan repeated her question, but Talanov avoided answering it by driving in two more nails, and once he had climbed back down, Monahan repeated her question.
“As much as I’ve enjoyed our talk,” Talanov said, “I think our session is over. I have a water line to reconnect before I can take a shower.”
“You’re not going to answer me, are you?”
“Like I said.”
“Okay, well, is there anything I can do to help?” asked Monahan, then stammering momentarily before quickly adding, “As in helping you reconnect the water line, not helping you take a shower. I mean, you certainly don’t need help taking a shower – obviously – so I wasn’t referring to that, which would be totally weird and creepy – so I wanted to be clear on that. Are we clear?”
Talanov responded with a look of amusement.
“Okay, yes, I talk too much when I get rattled,” said Monahan, “and you rattled me – okay? – so I wanted you to be clear on what I meant so there would be no misunderstanding.”
Talanov grinned. “Okay.”
“Stop it, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Stop it!” said Monahan, waving Talanov away. “Go do whatever it is you need to do before you do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll wait in my car, then drive you to the hearing.”
“So you’re my chauffeur as well?”
“Bill asked me to help with that, too. In case you needed to talk.”
And this time, Talanov laughed.
CHAPTER 3
Across the street from Wu Chee Ming’s apartment in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong, a woman named Xin Li stood in the shadows of a recessed doorway. Standing six feet tall, Xin Li was lean and muscular, with short black hair streaked with gray. Although she looked unmistakably Chinese, many of her features were sturdier, including her height, which she inherited from her Russian father, Valentin, a dashing naval officer who had been stationed at the Soviet Union’s torpedo testing facility at Lake Issyk-Kul, which was a remote saline lake in northern Kyrgyzstan, near the Chinese border. Xin Li’s mother, Xin Hualing, had been a strikingly beautiful Chinese girl of sixteen who had hiked across the border with a stream of other illegal immigrants, where she began waitressing in a nightclub near the facility. After meeting Valentin, who had
just defeated six challengers in arm-wrestling contests for drinks, Xin Hualing seduced him with the single purpose of bearing the child of a Soviet military officer, which she figured would give her a much better life than the poverty-to-waitress existence she had been living. At least that was the story told to Xin Li by the owner of the nightclub, where her mother had worked. The owner was an old woman with a face like a tortoise, with whom Xin Li ended up living after her mother died during childbirth, and her father a few years later from radiation poisoning.
The tenacity of her mother and the strength of her father. Those were the only two personality traits she knew about her parents, which, in truth, was all she needed to know. Tenacity and strength had brought her to this moment. That and instinct, which Dragon Head seemed to lack. Otherwise, he would not have ordered her to stop following Wu Chee Ming.
“He knows something. I’m certain of it,” Xin Li remembered telling Dragon Head after being given the order to quit following Wu Chee Ming.
“A guilty man wears his guilt,” Dragon Head responded. “This man wears nothing.”
“Which is why I think he knows something,” Xin Li replied. “His behavior is too routine, too contrived, too absent of variation.”
Xin Li had come to this conclusion after the death of Wu Chee Ming’s boss, Ling Soo, at Sun Cheng Financial Group Limited. Authorities investigating the death, which occurred over a year ago, had ruled it a suicide based on Ling Soo’s written confession. Xin Li was not so sure. Ling Soo was a thief and a womanizing pig who would steal from his mother, so a suicide note apologizing for the shame he had brought on his family made no sense. Which was why she began following his associate, Wu Chee Ming. Something about him did not smell right.
During the ensuing months, she recorded which routes Wu Chee Ming took to work, how punctual he was, where he drank tea, and with whom. She also recorded which routes he took home, where he ate dinner, when he ate dinner, noting that he never deviated beyond the parameters of this routine. Same way to work. Same way home. Same mealtimes every day. Wu Chee Ming was a creature of habit. Even on weekends, his routine was predictable. Same restaurants. Same grocery store. Same kind of movies, which were cheap martial arts films made somewhere on the mainland. Bad acting. Bad fight sequences. Bad in every way, like the old Godzilla movies.
Two months ago, however, Wu Chee Ming began varying his routine by taking a different way home. At first, it was nothing more than a two-block variation. But it was enough to catch her eye. Then he was back to normal. Then came a three-block variation, then back to normal, then a five-block variation that included Lan Kwai Fong, and from there, an even wider variety of routes. The question was, why? What was going on? Why was he varying a routine that he had worked so hard to establish . . . a routine he’d maintained so fastidiously for many months? Obviously, these eccentricities were to disguise something between Point A – work – and Point B – home, and not on his way to work, which remained consistently the same, but on his way home.
Careful surveillance confirmed he was not meeting anyone for drinks. He was not even drinking by himself. Or visiting prostitutes. Or purchasing drugs, or selling them. Why, then, was he taking different and elaborately circuitous ways home each night?
She soon found out. Wu Chee Ming had rented a second apartment from a shady realtor willing to accept a sack of cash left for him along a walkway in Lan Kwai Fong. The apartment was on the second floor of a rundown block of apartments in Wan Chai, where prostitutes roamed the streets and gaudy neon lit up the night. A quick look inside the apartment, however, generated more questions than answers.
Unlike Wu Chee Ming’s classy residence on the thirty-third floor of an upscale building across town, the Wan Chai apartment was empty except for a small suitcase containing six energy bars, two bottles of water, some toiletries, a paperback novel, and three changes of clothes. Otherwise, the apartment looked uninhabited. No bed, no furniture, no food or utensils. Furthermore, the windows were filthy and so was the floor. Wu Chee Ming’s highrise residence, by contrast, was organized and clean. In his closet was a selection of expensive clothes, on hangars and arranged by color and style. Beneath the hangars were his shoes, all carefully polished and placed neatly on an angled shelf. His bed was fastidiously made, with folded hospital corners and decorative pillows placed symmetrically, almost to the millimeter.
But Wu Chee Ming’s anal tendencies didn’t end there. The living room was likewise an exercise in disciplined order. Near the sliding door were four antique Chinese panels, hinged and tall and standing in a zigzag pattern, with cherry blossom designs inside cream-colored frames. Next to these was a bamboo plant in a ceramic pot. On the walls were expensive pieces of art. In front of a marble fireplace was some Scandinavian furniture, efficient and cold. And clean. Not a speck of dust anywhere. Even the leaves of the plant had been dusted. Same with the kitchen. Tidy pantry. Expensive cookware in compartmentalized drawers. Dishes precisely stacked. Spotless glasses positioned in rows. Yes, indeed, Wu Chee Ming was meticulous.
Unfortunately for him, not meticulous enough, Xin Li thought with a wicked smile just as three black SUVs sped toward her.
CHAPTER 4
Screwing a silencer onto her pistol, Xin Li stepped out of the recessed doorway when Dragon Head’s SUV screeched to a stop in front of her. Wearing a tank top and black cargos, Dragon Head was the first to jump out. Standing several inches shorter than Xin Li, he had intricate patterns of tattoos covering his shoulders and arms. Next to get out was Dragon Head’s daughter, Chin Chi Ho, who went by the title Straw Sandal. In her thirties, petite and strong, she was dressed in a fitted black jumpsuit. She had the white skin of her father but her mother’s delicate Asian features, and coal black hair. Piling out of the second and third cars were twelve of Dragon Head’s Shí bèi martial arts fighters, all lean and strong.
Straw Sandal glanced sharply at Xin Li. She had never liked her father’s lover and the feeling was mutual. In fact, Straw Sandal suspected Xin Li of poisoning her mother, who died of a mysterious blood toxin shortly after Xin Li began working for her father. Within a year of her mother’s death, Xin Li and her father had become lovers.
After a dismissive sneer at Straw Sandal, Xin Li led the way up the darkened stairwell. The entire group moved as one, like shadows, barely making a sound. At the top of the stairs, Xin Li nodded toward the door on their left.
“I want him alive,” instructed Dragon Head, and taking a leaping hop, he kicked open the door.
The apartment was empty.
Xin Li ran to an open bedroom window and looked out. The adjoining flat rooftop, the size of a small parking lot, had been recently tarred, and a trail of footprints was visible on the tacky surface. “He’s onto us,” she said as Dragon Head came to her side. She pointed to a rusting fire escape on the far side of the rooftop.
Dragon Head commanded one of the Shí bèi fighters to follow the footprints.
The fighter sprang nimbly from the window.
Dragon Head led the way back downstairs and was just sliding behind the wheel of his SUV when his cell phone rang.
“Red taxi, end of the block,” the Shí bèi fighter reported.
“Which way did they go?” asked Dragon Head.
“North.”
“Toward Hennessy Road,” said Dragon Head, his implication clear. An MTR station was on Hennessy Road.
The MTR – Mass Transit Railway – could transport Wu Chee Ming to any of thirteen other stations spread across the densely populated heart of Hong Kong. If Wu Chee Ming reached one of those stations, he would vanish forever.
“Text his photo to our men,” Dragon Head instructed his daughter. “I want that station covered.”
“He will not go to there,” Xin Li remarked while Straw Sandal began working her phone.
“Why else would the taxi go north?”
“To divert us into thinking he is heading to that station.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“And if you’re wrong?” demanded Straw Sandal.
“I am not.”
“He has already escaped you once – just now – so he obviously knew you were following him.”
“Impossible. I was here waiting when he arrived.”
“Then he saw you across the street. If he escapes, the fault will be yours.”
“Enough!” snapped Dragon Head.
“Wu Chee Ming has been anticipating this moment,” Xin Li explained. “He is devious and methodical. He would not do something so obvious.”
Dragon Head scrutinized Xin Li. Since appearing on his doorstep many years ago, Xin Li had demonstrated a prowess that both impressed and worried him. She barely slept and possessed impressive speed and alarming strength. In the middle of the night, he would sometimes hear her practicing sparring techniques on one of the muk yan jongs, or wooden dummies, stationed in his gym. Her aggressive cries would awaken him, even though their penthouse bedroom was on the floor above.
He was aware of Xin Li’s violent past by the scars on her face and back, of which she rarely spoke and he had learned not to ask about, for asking only provoked a glare of bitterness about some distant memory. He had tried discovering what had happened, but each time he asked, she steadfastly refused. And while her flesh had long since healed, her emotional wounds were still as raw as ever. Thus, while he had come to trust her instincts, he was still wary of her dark side, which, admittedly, added to her sexual attraction.
“Then where, if not the Hennessey Road station?” Dragon Head asked.
“Kowloon,” Xin Li replied.
Dragon Head understood the implications of Wu Chee Ming reaching Kowloon. Hong Kong was an island, and if Wu Chee Ming wished to truly disappear, he needed to get off the island. That left him with one choice, Kowloon, which lay across a narrow stretch of water known as Victoria Harbor. Unlike Hong Kong, Kowloon was attached to mainland China by way of a sprawling peninsula known as the New Territories. If Wu Chee Ming made it to Kowloon, a larger variety of escape routes became available.
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