Dragon Head

by James Houston Turner

  And what Charlie saw next made her smile.

  When the lights came on, Chao turned to see Talanov and Straw Sandal standing in the doorway. Talanov was not armed although Straw Sandal was, and Straw Sandal’s pistol was aimed straight at his chest.

  “Old guard, did you kill him?” asked Straw Sandal in English, obviously for Talanov’s benefit while the Shí bèi fighters entered the room and fanned out on each side of Talanov and Straw Sandal.

  “It wasn’t me,” Chao replied, laying his gun carefully on the table and holding up his hands. “He was already dead when I found him.”

  “And girl?”

  “Gone. It looks like she escaped and Sofia went after her.”

  “If Sofia harms her,” Talanov said quietly to Straw Sandal.

  “Go,” Straw Sandal said.

  Talanov ran from the room just as another Shí bèi fighter arrived and whispered in Straw Sandal’s ear. Chao and Charlie both watched Straw Sandal’s face morph from disbelief to an angry glare directed at Chao. She stepped forward and pointed her gun at Chao’s face.

  “Your pistol, has it been fired?” Straw Sandal asked in Chinese.

  Charlie activated a program that translated the conversation into English.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Chao replied.

  “It’s a simple question, Chao. Has your weapon been fired? Shall we go ask my father?”

  Chao stiffened.

  “We cannot ask him, can we?” Straw Sandal continued. “Because he is dead on his bathroom floor. I wonder whose bullets we will find in his body.”

  Chao and Straw Sandal locked eyes, neither one blinking until Chao finally lowered his head with a sigh.

  Such a response can mean two things. It can indicate capitulation and surrender. But it can also be a gesture designed to masquerade a preemptive blow. In Chao’s case, Straw Sandal knew which it was, and she was ready when Chao unexpectedly ducked right and grabbed for his gun.

  In her monitor, Charlie saw Straw Sandal’s pistol kick smartly. Saw the spent cartridges tumble through the air. Saw Chao jerk like he’d been shocked by high voltage before collapsing to the floor.

  “Holy shit,” Charlie whispered, sitting back, stunned. She grabbed her phone and dialed Wilcox. “Where are you?” she asked once Wilcox answered.

  Wilcox told her.

  “So you’re in the middle of this?”

  “In the middle of what?”

  “So you’re not in the middle of it?”

  “In the middle of what?”

  “The attempted coup. Dragon Head’s dead and so is his rival, some guy named Chao. Straw Sandal just shot him and I saw the whole thing.”

  “What? How do you know this and I don’t?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. I thought you’d be right behind Alex.”

  “Where’s Alex?”

  “He ran after Sofia, who’s chasing Su Yin, who apparently escaped.”

  “How did she manage that?”

  “Why don’t you know any of this? You’re not just standing around outside, are you?”

  “We were waiting for Talanov! He went inside to make the trade. To get Su Yin.”

  “They’re gone – both of them – along with Sofia, who’s no doubt trying to kill her.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know, Bill, I’m not there. But you are and you’ve got to find them. Before Sofia kills them!”

  “What about the money?” asked Wilcox.

  “Go!” shouted Charlie. “I’ll finish things up from my end.”

  Straw Sandal was standing over Chao’s body when the monitors on AK’s worktable suddenly began flashing and buzzing. She stepped over to the worktable, her eyes darting back and forth, wondering what was happening and what she should do. She yelled for AK but none of the Shí bèi fighters knew where he was. Straw Sandal reached for a keyboard, then withdrew, not knowing what to do while the buzzing grew louder and the flashing grew more intense.

  “Does anybody know what to do?” Straw Sandal screamed in Chinese, with Charlie’s translation program giving her an instantaneous translation.

  Within seconds, Jiàntóu ran into the room.

  “Who are you?” shouted Straw Sandal.

  “One of AK’s recruits.”

  “Where is he?” demanded Straw Sandal.

  “I passed him in the corridor twenty minutes ago. He said he needed some sun.”

  “AK hates the sun!” shouted Straw Sandal, kicking AK’s chair and sending it across the floor.

  Jiàntóu recoiled at the outburst and turned to leave.

  “Can you fix this?” Straw Sandal demanded while pointing at the flashing monitors.

  “I do not know,” Jiàntóu replied.

  Straw Sandal commanded her to try, so Jiàntóu rolled AK’s chair over to the worktable and began entering commands, while large red letters flashed VIRUS WARNING on each of the screens.

  In her cubicle in the Naval Intelligence building, Charlie saw the young woman furiously entering commands on AK’s keyboard. “Time to turn up the volume,” she said with a mischievous smile, her fingers flying across her keyboard. Seconds later, she tapped Enter, which triggered an electronic siren on AK’s sound system. It was an escalating siren, beginning low and climbing to an ear-piercing crescendo before repeating itself again and again.

  “Do something!” shouted Straw Sandal while the Shí bèi fighters watched.

  Jiàntóu was trying, and wanting to state the obvious, that there was nothing anyone could do, but knew better than to infuriate Straw Sandal more than she already was.

  Charlie watched Straw Sandal pacing angrily back and forth behind the young woman, her hands over her ears while the siren blared.

  Finally, exhausted, Jiàntóu slumped back in her chair.

  “Why are you stopping?” Straw Sandal shouted.

  “I’m locked out. Nothing works.”

  “How could this have happened? Where is our money?”

  Jiàntóu shrugged and shook her head.

  And with an angry scream, Straw Sandal stormed out of the room.

  In her cubicle in the Naval Intelligence building, a smiling Charlie took another bite of her apple.

  CHAPTER 80

  Su Yin had no idea where she was running. She just knew she had to keep running and not let the tall woman catch her.

  She had seen the tall woman run out the door after her. That meant the old guard was now dead. She remembered the tall woman shooting people back at the pizza parlor. Never had she seen such a cold and cruel look in anyone’s eyes.

  The sidewalk where she was running was clogged with people, which was good in one way but bad in another. It was good because she was only half as tall as everyone else, which meant the tall woman wouldn’t be able to see her very easily. But it was also bad, because so many people meant she couldn’t run very fast, and if she tried running in the street, she’d get hit by a bicycle or a car. She needed a place to hide.

  Su Yin ran past a store called the East-West Market, and when she did, she saw that it was full of people. Doing a quick U-turn, she ran into the store, which was not only full of people, it was filled with tables full of merchandise.

  Two main aisles stretched the length of the store. On the outside of each aisle were shelves and racks crammed with clothing and colorful goods. In the center, between the aisles, were wide wooden tables stacked with more goods. At regular intervals were crossovers connecting the aisles.

  Su Yin threaded her way along one aisle, ducking and weaving and sidling between shoppers examining jewelry, clothing, handbags, herbal remedies, and dishes.

  Suddenly, she heard people screaming behind her. Looking back, she could see the tall woman pushing shoppers out of her way. Many were falling to the floor. Others were stumbling into shelves and spilling cans and clothing onto the floor.

  Su Yin ran around a cluster of women examining placemats. The tall woman pushed through them and sent hun
dreds of placemats flying in all directions. Pans and dishes crashed to the floor.

  Dropping down onto all fours, Su Yin crawled under one of the center tables. With a diving slide, Sofia reached under the table and caught Su Yin by the ankle. Su Yin kicked Sofia in the face and broke free. Screaming curses, Sofia crawled after Su Yin, who was small enough to move between the legs and over the struts to the other aisle. Sofia was unable to fit through the same tight spaces and backed her way out.

  Sofia and Su Yin jumped to their feet at roughly the same time. Su Yin was in the other main aisle, and Sofia saw her run toward the front door. Sofia did the same, paralleling Su Yin but unable to see her because of the high shelves full of merchandise. Sofia shouted for everyone to get out of her way and people moved aside, giving her a clear path. But when she reached the front door, Su Yin was nowhere to be found. Sofia looked outside. No Su Yin. She looked down the second aisle. No Su Yin. She then looked back down the first aisle. Halfway to the end of the store, she saw Su Yin dash across the aisle into an open corridor.

  The little monster had doubled back!

  Using her pistol to wave people out of the way, Sofia raced along the aisle to the corridor where Su Yin had disappeared, which was a walk-through into a neighboring department store, which was densely packed with racks of clothes and glass cases filled with cosmetics. Punctuating these displays were small stages featuring sleek mannequins dressed in the latest fashion. Above were banners portraying chic models in designer labels. Aisles zigzagged all over the place, with the front entry of the store like an airport duty-free zone of brightly lit fragrance counters. In the center of the floor was an escalator leading to the floors above.

  Sofia cursed to herself. Where was that wretched girl?

  Crouching while she ran, Su Yin threaded her way among the racks of clothing toward the front door, which was a soaring opening with overhead banners and floodlights. She made a point of avoiding the larger aisles, but wherever she ran, people were pausing to stare. What was wrong? Why were they looking at her?

  Near a circular rack of jeans, Su Yin saw herself in a mirror. Her arm was bleeding.

  “Are you all right?” an old woman asked, handing her a tissue.

  Su Yin took the tissue and hurried on.

  With her pistol held discreetly at her side, Sofia stood on her tiptoes and scanned the busy store. A normal kid would be running for the door. But this kid was not normal. She was clever, and she had already doubled back on her once.

  To her right was a small platform. On the platform were two fashionably dressed mannequins. Sofia stepped up on the platform, which gave her another twelve inches of elevation. She looked left. No kid there. She looked straight ahead, toward the escalator. No kid there. She looked right and saw an old woman staring . . . at a small girl moving among the racks.

  Got you, Sofia thought just as Talanov entered the East-West Market, where a small crowd of spectators had gathered

  inside the door. Beyond, he could see merchandise littering the aisles and people climbing slowly to their feet.

  “What happened?” asked Talanov, hoping someone spoke English.

  “Tall woman chasing girl, hurt people, cause much trouble,” answered a college student with long black hair. She was dressed in frayed jeans and had been texting her friends about the incident.

  “Where did she go?” asked Talanov.

  “There,” the student replied, pointing down the aisle and to the right.

  CHAPTER 81

  Su Yin saw the tall woman jump off the platform and start running toward her. Dashing between several racks of glittery T-shirts, Su Yin pushed past a group of shoppers and out the front door, where she turned left and began running as fast as her legs would take her, wishing – praying – she could somehow get away from the tall woman.

  Ahead, an old woman had just placed her bicycle in a rack. Su Yin ran up to the old woman, grabbed her bicycle and raced away. Waving her hands, the old woman shouted after her.

  Sofia backhanded a passing cyclist with her pistol. The young man fell and skidded off his bicycle. Sofia jumped on the bicycle and raced after Su Yin.

  The lane was full of cyclists coming and going in both directions, sometimes two abreast, which made the bicycle lane a moving obstacle course. The only clear riding area was in the dangerous narrow strip of space between the clogged bicycle lane and the lanes of moving traffic. It was dangerous there, but Su Yin knew it would allow her to faster.

  But it would also allow the tall woman to go faster, and because the tall woman was faster and stronger, sooner or later she would catch up.

  But faster and stronger did not always win the race, at least not in BMX.

  Increasing her speed to that of the traffic, Su Yin slid between two cars, then cut between two other cars to the median, which was a low barricade made of concrete, where she sprang upward with her legs and jumped the median. Landing at full speed to the honking horns of oncoming traffic, Su Yin hit the brakes, skidded her rear tire a quarter turn to the left, then began pedaling again on the inside lane, near the median. When she reached full speed, she merged between two moving cars, then through two others to the other side of the street, where she began pedaling furiously.

  Su Yin glanced back and saw the tall woman scream. She couldn’t hear what she said because of traffic noise, but she saw the tall woman pound a fist on her handlebars before cutting out into traffic.

  What to do? The tall woman would eventually make it to the other side of the street and come after her. Whipping down a side street was certainly an option. She could then look for other side streets to turn down. But she was also growing tired, and her legs were burning, and side streets were always less busy. What she needed was another place to hide.

  Talanov was running along the sidewalk when he saw Su Yin racing in the opposite direction across the street. He yelled and waved his hands frantically, but Su Yin didn’t see him. He then saw Sofia racing after her.

  Increasing his speed to a sprint, Talanov did what Su Yin had just done by cutting between the moving lanes of traffic and leaping the median barrier, where he held up his hands as cars skidded and honked and finally slowed long enough for him to sprint to the other sidewalk, where he began running after Su Yin and Sofia. He, too, was winded, but he could not let Sofia catch Su Yin, not without giving it all he had.

  A block ahead was an intersection, where cross traffic had the right of way. Reaching the intersection, Su Yin turned right, then made a quick left through a gap in the oncoming cross-street traffic into the lane of bicycle traffic coming toward her. Cyclists dinged their bells and shouted, while Su Yin weaved back and forth, avoiding head-on collisions with the river of cyclists coming toward her. She sped past an open arcade of boutique shops, then flipped around in a skidding turn and raced into the arcade. When she did, she saw the tall woman crossing the intersection behind her.

  Dinging her bell as a warning, Su Yin zigzagged from one side of the arcade to the other, avoiding people, benches, and planters filled with palm trees and flowers. She raced past an escalator, then more planters and benches until she shot out the other end of the arcade onto the sidewalk, where she hit her brakes, looked both ways, then pedaled across the street toward an electronics store. And while she could not understand the name of the store, which was in Chinese, she recognized many of the logos. In the store’s front windows were displays of laptops, cell phones, game consoles, cameras, and flat screens of all sizes. Ditching her bike, Su Yin ran into the store.

  The entire length of the store was dotted with display cases and counters. To her right was an escalator leading up to a mezzanine dedicated to video games. It was filled with teenagers trying out the latest consoles to the sounds of roaring monsters and electronic machine gun fire.

  Running past the display cases, Su Yin headed toward the glass door at the other end of the store, where she could see cars and pedestrians moving past in both directions. When she reached the door, she pu
shed it open and turned right, then flattened herself against the wall to catch her breath. After a few seconds, she peeked around the corner in time to see the tall woman stride into the store and pause, her angry eyes sweeping left and right.

  Still panting, Su Yin ducked out of sight. Now where? She had seconds at most until the tall woman came outside.

  Across the street was a grassy park, and beyond this, a construction site where a new highrise apartment building was going up. Separated from the park by a chain link fence, the building was the newest in a complex of highrise apartments being erected along the edge of the waterfront. Beyond the building was an offshore elevated expressway that ran parallel with the north shore of Hong Kong island.

  In its present state, the newest apartment building was little more than a skeleton of thick concrete wafers on giant pylons. The upper floors had metal scaffolding supporting the floors above. The lower floors were full of building materials and pallets of supplies. On the barren earth in front of the site were forklifts and piles of debris. Towering overhead was a giant crane, which was silent, its boom extending out over the top of the construction site toward the harbor.

  Feeling a burst of hope, Su Yin ran across the street to the park, which was crisscrossed with sidewalks and dotted with trees. There were people in the park. Some were holding hands. Others had paused to look up at the new building. Others were focused on their cell phones. A few were walking their dogs.

  To Su Yin’s left was an occupied highrise apartment building, which faced the water. To her right was a similar building. Even if she could reach one of those buildings, the doors would no doubt be locked. But even if someone tried helping her, the tall woman would simply shoot them as she had shot those people at the pizza parlor. The construction site was her only chance.

  Su Yin ran up to the gate of the chain link fence surrounding the site. It was locked. Workers were gone for the day and the building site was empty.

  Sitting on the ground with her feet braced against a metal post, Su Yin tried prying the gate open at the bottom in order to squeeze through. It wouldn’t budge.