Definitely not the Macau she remembered.
The only semblance of those sleepier times was the thousands of glowing lanterns floating in the neighboring Nam Van Lake. Incense burned on the shores, too, and perfumed the gentle sea breeze with the scents of cloves, star anise, and sandalwood. It was a tradition that went back millennia to honor the dead.
Over the years, Seichan had cast afloat many such lanterns in memory of her mother.
But maybe no longer.
Gray checked his watch and urged her onward. “We’ve only got five minutes. We’re going to be late.”
He led the way with Kowalski, while she trailed back a step behind—not like some subservient wife, but to watch their backs. Macau may have hidden its face behind the glare of neon and flashing lights, but she knew that whenever so much wealth flowed into such a small space, especially a region of the world not known for such riches, crime and corruption took deep root. She knew old Macau—a place of gangland wars, human trafficking, and murder—still thrived in its shadows.
She spotted a clutch of Thai prostitutes idling near the entrance, an example of the web of corruption stretching from Macau across the entire region. One of them moved toward Gray, likely drawn by his rugged handsomeness and the promise of American wealth—but Seichan caught her painted eyes, and she retreated quickly.
Unmolested, they crossed under the flashing neon ribbons of Casino Lisboa and through its front doors. The overpowering reek of cigarette smoke struck her immediately, stinging her eyes and throat. A pall hung in the air, adding to the dark, sinister quality of the main casino floor ahead.
She continued to follow Gray into that heart of darkness.
Here was none of the over-the-top dazzle of a big Las Vegas casino. This was old-school gaming, a throwback to the Rat Pack era. The ceilings were low, the lighting dim. Slots rang and flashed, but the machines were restricted to a neighboring separate hall. Only tables occupied the central floor: baccarat, pai gow, sic bo, fan tan. Crowds of pockmarked men and sullen-looking women filled the tables, chain-smoking, rubbing talismans of good luck, trapped here as much by addiction as hope. Twelve stylized dragons hung overhead, clutching glowing balls of changing colors. Sadly, two globes had gone dark, speaking to the lack of maintenance.
Still, Seichan found herself relaxing, enjoying the cutthroat nature of the place, appreciating the lack of pretense. She felt a black camaraderie with this space.
“The elevators are over there,” Gray said and pointed to a bank of cages along the wall to the left.
Their destination lay above this floor, deeper into the shadowy fringes of the complex, into its maze of VIP rooms, where the true wealth flowed through Macau. The quantity of tables hidden away in those private spaces outnumbered those on the main floor.
Inside the elevator cage, Gray hit the button for the fourth floor. The upper-level VIP rooms were run exclusively by junket operators, private companies who would fly in high rollers from mainland China or elsewhere and lavish their customers with every extravagance, meeting any desire. Even the basement shopping arcade of the casino doubled as a prostitutes’ mall, where a young woman could be ordered on a whim.
Twenty different companies did business among those rooms, including several run by organized crime syndicates, where money laundering was commonplace. Such anonymity and discretion suited Gray and Seichan’s objective. They had come here posing as two high-stakes gamblers. The payment to their informant would be washed away by the junket operator, keeping their hands clean. Their goal was a simple one: get the information, pay the man, and leave.
The elevator cage opened into a hallway decorated in a faded attempt at opulence, all in reds and golds. Doors lined the halls, many with burly men standing guard.
Kowalski eyed them like a testy bull.
“This way,” Seichan said, taking the lead.
With the end in sight, she hurried now. This was her last chance to discover her mother’s fate; all other leads—one after the other—had dried up. Seichan struggled to keep her anxiety at bay. For the past four months, she had leaned on her training, staying hypervigilant, keeping her focus away from that knot in her gut, that tangle of hope, despair, and fear. It was why she had held Gray off at arm’s length, despite his plain desire to explore something deeper with her.
She dared not lose control.
Their VIP room lay at the end of the hall. A pair of large men with bulges under their jackets flanked its door, bodyguards supplied by the company who had booked this space.
Reaching them, she showed her false I.D.
Gray and Kowalski did the same.
Only then did one of the guards knock on the door and open it for them. Seichan stepped through first and quickly sized up the space. The walls had been painted gold, and the carpet was woven in a pattern of crimson and black. A lone green baize baccarat table stood to her left, a nest of red-silk chairs and lounges to her right. The room was empty, except for a single occupant.
Dr. Hwan Pak.
His presence was the reason for so much precaution and subterfuge. He served as the lead scientist at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in North Korea—a facility known for enriching uranium used by the country’s atomic program. He also had a severe gambling addiction, though that was known only to a few intelligence agencies.
Stubbing out a cigarette, Hwan Pak rose from a couch, standing only a few inches over five feet and thin as a cane. He bowed slightly in greeting, his eyes on Gray, as if sensing the one in charge, already dismissing her, a mere woman.
“You are late,” he said politely but firmly, his accent barely evident. He reached to a pocket and removed a cell phone. “You have purchased one hour of my time. For eight hundred thousand as agreed.”
Seichan folded her arms, letting Gray type in the transfer code arranged by the junket organizer.
“Four hundred thousand now,” Gray said. “The rest only if I’m satisfied with your information.”
The price was in Hong Kong dollars, which exchanged to about eighty thousand in U.S. currency. Seichan would have gladly paid ten times that amount if the man truly had any knowledge of her mother. And from the tinge of desperation in Pak’s eyes, the scientist would likely have settled for far less than they’d offered. He had large debts to settle with unsavory sorts, debts that even this transaction would not settle completely.
“You will not be disappointed,” Pak said.
1:14 A.M.
From his offices halfway across Macau, Ju-long Delgado smiled as he watched Hwan Pak wave his new guests to the nest of red-silk lounges. The brutish one hung back, moving instead to the baccarat table, leaning his rear against it, absently picking at the felt surface.
The two high-value targets—the assassin and the former soldier—followed Pak and sat down.
Ju-long wished he could have eavesdropped on their conversation, but the security feed from the Lisboa was video only.
A shame.
But it was a minor quibble compared to the rewards to come.
And as he well knew: All good things come to those who wait.
1:17 A.M.
Seichan let Gray take the lead on the interrogation of Hwan Pak, sensing the North Korean scientist would respond more fully to another man.
Chauvinist bastard . . .
“So you know the woman we seek?” Gray started.
“Ye,” Pak answered with a swift nod. He had lit a fresh cigarette and puffed out a stream of smoke, plainly nervous. “Her name is Guan-yin. Though I doubt that is her real name.”
It isn’t, Seichan thought. Or at least it wasn’t.
Her mother’s real name had been Mai Phuong Ly.
A flash of memory suddenly struck her, unbidden, unwelcome at the moment. As a girl, Seichan had been on her belly beside a small garden pond, tracing a finger in the water, trying to lure up a golden carp—then her mother’s face reflected next to her, wavering in the rippled surface, surrounded by a floating scat
ter of fallen cherry blossoms.
They were her mother’s namesake.
Cherry blossoms.
Seichan blinked, drawing herself fully back to the moment at hand. She was not surprised that her mother had adopted a new name. She had been on the run, needing to keep hidden. And a new name allowed a new life.
Utilizing all of Sigma’s resources, Seichan had discovered the identity of the armed men who had taken her mother. They had been members of the Vietnamese secret police, euphemistically called the Ministry of Public Security. They had learned of her mother’s dalliance with an American diplomat, her father, and of the love that grew from there. They had sought to pry U.S. secrets out of her.
Her mother had been held at a prison outside Ho Chi Minh City—until she escaped during a prison riot a year later. For a short period of time, due to a clerical error, she had been declared dead, killed during that uprising. It was that lucky mistake that gave her enough of a head start to flee Vietnam and vanish into the world.
Had she looked for me? Seichan wondered. Or did she think I was already dead?
Seichan had a thousand unanswered questions.
“Guan-yin,” Pak continued. A faint smile traced his lips, mocking and bitter. “Such a beautiful name certainly did not fit her . . . certainly not when I met her eight years ago.”
“What do you mean?” Gray asked.
“Guan-yin means goddess of mercy.” Pak lifted his left hand, revealing only four fingers. “This is the quality of her mercy.”
Seichan shifted closer, speaking for the first time. “How did you know her?” she asked coldly.
Pak initially looked ready to ignore her, but then his eyes slightly crinkled. He stared harder at Seichan, possibly truly seeing her for the first time. Suspicion trickled into his gaze.
“You sound . . .” he stammered. “Just then . . . but that’s not possible.”
Gray leaned forward, catching the man’s eye. “This is an expensive hour, Dr. Pak. Like the lady asked . . . how did you know Guan-yin? In what capacity?”
He flattened the lapels of his suit coat, visibly collecting himself. Only then did he speak. “She once ran this very room,” he said with a small nod to indicate the VIP lounge. “As the dragonhead of a gang out of Kowloon, the Duàn zhī Triad.”
Seichan flinched at that name, unable to stop herself.
Gray made a scoffing noise. “So you’re saying Guan-yin was a boss of this Chinese Triad?”
“Ye,” he said sharply. “She is the only woman to ever become a dragonhead. To accomplish this, she had to be extremely ruthless. I should have known better than to take a loan from her.”
Pak rubbed the stump of his missing finger.
Gray noted the motion. “She had your finger cut off?”
“Aniyo,” he disagreed. “She did it herself. She came from Kowloon with a hammer and a chisel. The name of her Triad means Broken Twig. It is also her signature means of encouraging the prompt payment of a debt.”
Gray grimaced, clearly picturing that brutal handiwork.
Seichan was having no easier time of it. Her breathing grew harder, trying to balance this act with the mother who had once nursed a broken-winged dove back to health. But she knew the man wasn’t lying.
Gray was less convinced. “And how are we to know that this Triad boss is the woman we came looking for? What proof do you offer? Do you have a photograph of you with her?”
Inside the intelligence inquiry sent out broadly, Sigma had included a picture of her mother, one taken from the records of the Vietnamese prison where she had been incarcerated. They’d also posted possible locations, which unfortunately covered a large swath of Southeast Asia, along with a computer-enhanced image of how she might look now, twenty years later.
Dr. Pak had been the only promising fish to bite on that line.
“A photograph?” The North Korean scientist shook his head. He lit another cigarette, plainly a chain-smoker. “She keeps herself covered in public. Only those high in her Triad have seen her face. If anyone else sees her, they don’t live long enough to speak of it.”
“Then how do you—?”
Pak touched his throat. “The dragon. I saw it when she wielded the hammer . . . dangling from her neck, the silver shining, as merciless as its owner.”
“Like this?” Seichan slipped a finger to her collar and pulled out her own coiled dragon pendant. The intelligence dossier had included a picture of it. Seichan’s charm was a copy of another. The memory of the original remained etched in her bones, often rising up in dreams
. . . of being curled in her mother’s arms on the small cot under an open window, night birds singing, moonlight reflecting off the silver dragon resting at her mother’s throat, shimmering like water with each breath . . .
Hwan Pak had a different memory. He cringed back from her pendant, as if trying to escape the sight.
“There must be many dragon pendants of a similar design,” Gray said. “What you offer is no proof. Only your word about a piece of jewelry you saw eight years ago.”
“If you want real proof—”
Seichan cut him off, standing and tucking the silver dragon away. She motioned for Gray to move aside for a private conversation.
Once they retreated to beyond the baccarat table, she spoke in his ear. Kowalski’s bulk helped shield them further.
“He’s telling the truth,” Seichan said. “We must move beyond this line of questioning and find out where my mother is in Kowloon.”
“Seichan, I know you want to believe him, but let me—”
She gripped his bicep to shut him up. “The name of the Triad. Duàn zhī.”
He went silent, letting her speak, plainly seeing something in her face.
She felt tears rising, coming from a place of happiness and grief, a place where night birds still sang in the jungle.
“The name . . . Broken Twig,” she said. Even speaking it, she felt something break inside her.
He waited, not understanding, but he allowed her the space to explain at her own pace.
“My name,” she said haltingly, feeling suddenly exposed, “the one given to me by my mother . . . the one I abandoned, a necessity to bury my childhood behind me . . . it was Chi.”
A new name allowed a new life.
Gray’s eyes widened. “Your real name is Chi.”
“Was,” she still insisted.
That girl had died long ago.
Seichan took a steadying breath. “In Vietnamese, Chi means twig.”
She read the understanding in Gray’s face.
Her mother had named the Triad after her lost daughter.
Before Gray could respond, a sharp coughing sounded from beyond the door—but the noise came from no human throat. Bodies thudded out in the hallway, felled by the barrage of noise-suppressed gunfire.
Gray was already swinging to face that threat, drawing Kowalski with him.
Pak called from across the room. “You asked for proof!” He pointed his smoldering cigarette at the door. “Here it comes!”
Seichan immediately realized what Pak had done. She should have suspected it sooner, considering what they had just learned. She cursed herself. In the past, she never would have been blindsided like this. Her time with Sigma had softened her.
Pak backed away from the door, but he did not look scared. This was his play, a path to a far bigger payoff than Gray had offered, a possible way to clear all his debts. In a clever act of betrayal, the bastard had turned the tables on them, sold them out to her mother’s Triad, passing on a warning to a woman who had gone to great lengths to keep her face hidden from the world.
Such a woman would destroy anyone who got too close to the truth.
Seichan understood that.
She would have done the same.
You did what you must to survive.
1:44 A.M.
Ju-long Delgado was not as understanding about the sudden turn of events at Casino Lisboa. He stood up and grabbed hi
s cell phone.
On the plasma screen, he watched the three foreigners react to some commotion beyond the VIP room door. The two men flipped the baccarat table on its side, placing it between them and the door to act as a shield. On the other side of the room, the North Korean scientist seemed less perturbed, but even he retreated into a far corner, placing himself out of harm’s way.
With one thumb, Ju-long speed-dialed Tomaz out at the Lisboa. Earlier, Ju-long had specifically ordered his team not to pursue the targets until Dr. Pak left. He didn’t want any trouble with the North Koreans. He had many lucrative ties with their government, helping shuttle prominent members, like Hwan Pak, to and from Macau. In fact, he had visited Pyongyang himself, grooming and securing those connections.
As soon as the line was picked up, Tomaz reported in, panting heavily as if running. “We saw it, too, on the security feed, senhor. A firefight. I’m heading up there now. Someone is assaulting the same VIP room.”
A lance of righteous indignation stabbed through Ju-long. Was someone trying to steal his merchandise? Had a disgruntled bidder decided to circumvent the auction and take a direct approach?
Tomaz corrected him. “We believe it’s one of the Triads.”
He balled a fist.
Damned Chinese dogs . . .
His plan must have leaked to the wrong ears.
“How do you wish us to proceed, senhor? Back off or continue as planned?”
Ju-long had no choice. If he didn’t retaliate in full force, the Triads would take it as a sign of weakness, and he’d be fighting turf wars for years. The cost to his organization, along with the weakening of his position in the eyes of the Chinese officials who ran Macau, could not be tolerated.
Extreme measures were needed.
“Lock down the Lisboa,” he ordered, intending to make an example of the trespassers. “Bring in more men. Any known Triad on the property, whether involved or not, I want killed on sight. Any suspected ally, anyone who might have helped facilitate or knew about this strike, I want dead.”