“Perhaps I have more faith in Hu Chang than you do.”
No one had more faith than Catherine, and no one knew how brilliant Hu Chang was more than she did. He was always evolving, making advances, turning curiosities into miracles.
Oh, Hu Chang, what have you done now?
“Is that what your informant was saying?”
“He said there were rumors.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Hu Chang wouldn’t talk about any of his drugs. Maybe it was somebody’s pipe dream.”
“Maybe. You’ll have to ask Hu Chang.”
“You ask him.”
“I leaned on him pretty heavily after my agent was killed. He won’t talk to me.” He paused. “As a matter of fact, I guess I’d better confess that he’s disappeared.”
“What?”
“Calm down. I believe it was purely voluntary. He probably realized that I wouldn’t keep on trying to get him to talk without you as a backup. I’m turning Hong Kong upside down trying to locate him.”
Which wouldn’t do any good, she thought. Hong Kong was Hu Chang’s city, and he could slip away without a trace. He had too many friends, too many bolt-holes he’d used through the years. “Okay, let me try calling him.”
“Not a good idea if you don’t want him to just dig in deeper. The one thing he told me was to not tell Catherine Ling about all this.”
“Shit.”
“Of course, you could forget about him, let me try to handle it. He’s proving very troublesome, and you don’t want to leave your son.”
“You’re damn right I don’t.” She was silent. “He almost died?”
“If he hadn’t had his magic elixir, he’d be a dead man. Next time, he may not be so close to his supply. They didn’t mean to kill him until they got what they wanted from him. But accidents happen.”
And Hu Chang wouldn’t give them what they wanted no matter how much they tortured him. She had seen his stamina and endurance in a dozen different situations.
“I’ll come.” Her hand tightened on the phone. “You keep searching for Hu Chang. I’ll come.”
“Good. I’ll do my best. There’s a Delta flight to L.A. out of Louisville in two hours that will connect to Hong Kong. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“No, stay and keep looking for him.” She tried to think. “But I want this over as quickly as I can do it. I want help. I don’t know anything about Nardik. Get me an agent who has dealt with him before.”
“That may not be easy. We haven’t been able to get an agent close enough to Nardik to claim to be an expert.”
“Find somebody.” She closed her eyes. “And you make sure Hu Chang is alive when I get there, or I’ll come after you, Venable.”
“You don’t need to threaten me. When I’m not pissed off at him, I like the guy.” He hung up the phone.
That was a concession from Venable. Hu Chang was arrogant, difficult, enigmatic, and completely his own person. He never tried to make anyone care about him.
And she loved him more than anyone in the world except Luke.
“Hu Chang is in trouble?”
She turned to see Luke standing behind her. She forced a smile as she hung up the phone. “Have you been eavesdropping? Didn’t Sam tell you that isn’t polite?”
“Yes, but I heard you say his name, and I wanted to know what you were talking about.”
And politeness went down for the count. Luke was seldom bound by rules he didn’t understand. “Hu Chang has been hurt. I have to go to him.”
He shook his head. “Something bad happened to him. Someone hurt him?”
“Yes, I don’t know who or why yet. I have to go and ask him.”
He frowned. “And then you’ll kill whoever did it?”
What was she supposed to answer? To hell with being anything but honest with him. “It may come to that. If he tries to attack Hu Chang again. I won’t let my friend be hurt.”
“I … wouldn’t like that to happen.” He was silent a moment. “I could help you.”
She felt a ripple of shock. “To kill someone? No, I don’t think so, Luke.”
“It wouldn’t be that different for me. I probably killed people when I went on those raids with Rakovac. I aimed, I pulled the trigger, just as he told me to do.”
Yes, he probably had killed before. One of the cruelest aspects for her of Luke’s captivity had been Rakovac’s hideous determination to twist her son’s character out of all semblance to the loving boy she had known. Rakovac had been involved in the final remnants of the Georgian-Russian conflict and from early childhood had exposed him to the blood and death of that war. She smothered the fury that memory always brought. “But that’s over now.”
“Is it?” he asked. “Once he tried to get me to kill one of his men who had betrayed him. He wanted me to press the gun to his head and pull the trigger. I wouldn’t do it. It seemed different than the raids. That was sort of like war. But I didn’t like the idea of shooting a man who couldn’t shoot back.”
“Thank God.” The idea of forcing a child to commit cold-blooded murder made her want to have Rakovac here before her so that she could kill him again. “It would have been wrong.”
“But it’s not wrong to kill someone to save your friend. In all the books I’ve read, that seems to be okay.”
Right and wrong. Do as I say, not as I do. “There are differing opinions. When you get older, then you can make decisions like that. But give yourself time, Luke. It may not be necessary for you to hurt anyone ever again.”
He shook his head. “I think I should go help you.”
She drew a deep breath. “And I think you should stay with Sam and let me go protect my friend. Will you do that for me?”
“Why?”
“Because I would worry if you came along. It would make me feel bad.”
He tilted his head. “You worry a lot, Catherine. I noticed that.”
“Right, it goes with the territory when you care about someone as I do you. Then don’t make me worry any more than I do right now.” She met his eyes. “I don’t want to leave you, Luke. I know it seems as if I drop in, then take off in the blink of an eye. But I really have to do this. Will you forgive me?”
“Why?” He was looking at her in bewilderment. “It doesn’t matter.”
Pain shot through her. She smiled with an effort. “That’s right, how foolish of me. I thought you might be disappointed.” She started up the stairs. “Now you go make yourself some breakfast while I throw some things into a suitcase and call Sam and tell him that you’re going to be free today after I leave for the airport.”
“Catherine.”
She looked back over her shoulder.
Luke was still standing in the doorway, gazing up at her. “Is it all right if I go to the airport with you?”
It could mean nothing at all. Still, she felt a warm surge of hope. “I’d like that very, very much, Luke.”
* * *
CATHERINE GAZED AT THE CRAZY QUILT OF FIELDS below her as the plane gained altitude.
Good-bye, Luke.
Sam and Luke were probably still down there at the terminal. She’d been late getting to the airport, and Sam had said that he and Luke would watch her plane take off, and then go to one of the restaurants and have lunch.
I’ll be back as soon as I can. Think about me. I’ll be thinking of you …
But now she should be thinking about Hu Chang, trying to think of a way to persuade him to stop whatever stubborn mischief he was creating.
Providing she could find him.
And providing that Nardik had not found and killed Hu Chang already.
Don’t think about that possibility. Hu Chang was incredibly intelligent and had survived wars and archcriminals and governments who wanted to use him or destroy him. He wouldn’t have permitted himself to be killed by a sleazebag like Nardik. As he had told her many times, it was his duty to make his death as glorious as his life.
She found her lips curvin
g involuntarily at the memory of those words.
Arrogant. So damn arrogant.
She couldn’t believe how arrogant when she’d first met him.
She leaned back in the seat, staring blindly at the clouds outside the window.
But then, she’d been arrogant, too. Fourteen years old going on fifty with a ferocity and confidence born from living on the streets and surviving everything that existence had thrown at her. She’d had that sense of immortality that youth always possessed and the recklessness that went along with it. Hu Chang had always shaken his head and cautioned her against that recklessness.
She had been so different from Hu Chang in many ways and yet so alike in others …
Hong Kong
Fifteen Years Earlier
“IT’S NOT ENOUGH.” CHOI MENG LOOKED at the coin Catherine was holding up. “Aren’t I one of your best informants? I watch and listen all the time for you.”
“It’s all you’re getting,” Catherine said flatly. “The last time I followed up on one of your tips, it turned out to be nothing.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“Yes or no?”
He nibbled at his lower lip, gazing at the money. “Yes.” He snatched the coin and shoved it into his pocket. “The apothecary. Hu Chang, the Master of Medicine, who has a shop on the next block. Bruce Wong and his gang are going to rob him tonight when he closes up his shop.”
“And that’s all you have?” Catherine frowned. “That’s of no use to me. How can I sell that? Give me my money back.”
“No.” Choi Meng hurriedly backed away from her. “It has worth. You can either offer the information to Hu Chang to save himself. Or to Bruce Wong to prevent you from telling the police.”
“And you think that’s a threat? You know the police won’t come down to this neighborhood unless there’s a bribe. And apothecaries don’t make enough money to pay me to make it worthwhile for me to risk going against Bruce Wong and his gang.”
“Are you frightened?”
“No, I’m cautious.” And Choi Meng had known that she’d be crazy to get involved with Bruce Wong when he’d offered her the information. Wong was the head of the neighborhood triad gang and as vicious as a striking cobra. There were over fifty triad gangs in Hong Kong, ranging from neighborhood street gangs to sophisticated syndicates that resembled the powerful Mafia. Wong was small stuff, but he had ambitions, and she had run into him several times on the docks when he had been trying to get the whores to accept his triad to pimp for them. She’d decided the smartest thing to do was just stay out of his way.
“Of course, you’re only cautious.” Choi Meng smiled slyly. “I understand. Even though I hear Hu Chang is soon going to be a rich man with his fine potions, you wouldn’t want to take the chance. You are only a woman, really little more than a child. You’re right to be afraid to go up against Bruce Wong.” He grimaced. “Bruce. I knew him before he took that name. He was Shim Wong when we were growing up here. But then he began seeing all those Bruce Lee movies and thought everyone would think he was as tough as Bruce Lee when he joined the triad.”
“Then he was even more thickheaded than I thought,” Catherine said dryly. “I heard the reason Bruce Lee ran away to America was that he got in trouble with the triads who controlled the film industry. None of the big crime triads would be impressed.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps he did not hear that story. You know things many others do not.”
“Information is my business.”
He smiled. “Because you have loyal people like me trying to help you make your living. You are right to be afraid. His triad would probably rape you, then kill you. I hear Bruce Wong murdered a prostitute last night.”
She stiffened. “What? Where?”
“The docks. You didn’t know?”
“I wasn’t at the docks. I was at Kowloon last night. Who?”
“Lucy Tain. He beat her to death. You know her?”
She felt as if she she’d been punched in the stomach. Oh God, not Lucy.
“You’re pale. You did know her.”
“Yes.” She swallowed to ease the tightness of her throat. “She was only thirteen.” Small and delicate and scared of everyone and everything. Except Catherine. When Lucy had first been brought to the docks, she had trailed around behind Catherine like a lost puppy. Catherine could only guess that it was because they were close to the same age. At first, Catherine had been impatient. She’d had no time to spend explaining things and trying to comfort her. It was a hard life, and everyone had to pull their own weight. Catherine had never had a childhood, and she couldn’t understand why Lucy was clinging to hers. Then something had happened.
Lucy had … touched her. Catherine had grown used to seeing her, indulgently listening to her chatter, trying to rid her of the fear that was always with her.
“She was so scared.” Catherine could remember Lucy’s eyes wide with panic as she’d huddled close to her, afraid to come out when her father had called her. “Her father was acting as her pimp and wouldn’t let her give Wong’s triad a percentage. I told her to run away to Macau and try to get work in the fields.”
“She would probably have ended up as a whore in Macau, too.”
Damn him. Damn all of them.
“Why?” Her eyes were blazing. “She would have had a chance. She didn’t have to stay a whore. She could have been anything she wanted to be if she worked at it hard enough. Wong should have left her alone. She was only thirteen.”
“And you’re what, fourteen? Only a year older.”
That was different. She didn’t feel fourteen or any particular age. The years passed and were marked only by what she learned and how far she had come from the last year. Lucy Tain had been a scared child, not understanding that she was only a pawn. A child who had been caught between a greedy father and a brutal gang leader. “I don’t suppose anyone called the police.”
He shrugged.
Of course they hadn’t. No one in this neighborhood would risk being a target of a triad gang.
“I can see that you’re upset,” Choi Meng said. “It’s a good thing that I told you about the apothecary. You’ll want to run down to his shop and warn him about Bruce Wong.”
She drew a deep breath and tried to smother the anger and sadness. This was life and had to be accepted.
And so did the fact that Choi Meng was trying to manipulate the situation to his own advantage.
“Don’t try to play me,” she said coolly. “Give me back my money, or I’ll break both your arms and remove your testicles.”
Choi Meng said quickly, “Everything I’ve told you is true. All right, stay away from Bruce Wong. Hu Chang gets fine prices for his potions. He can afford—” He broke off. “I need the money, Catherine. I haven’t eaten in two days.”
“And that’s a reason for me to feed you?”
“I’ve given you good information for the last year.”
“Not last time.” She hesitated. Choi Meng did look emaciated, and she knew what it was to have hunger gnawing at you. What was she thinking? He was probably back on the opium. If you were soft, you ended up in the gutter like Choi Meng, to be used and manipulated. Everyone had to take care of themselves.
“Hu Chang will pay you a fine fee for saving him from being robbed,” he wheedled. “I give you my word.”
The man would probably swear his way into heaven for the food that coin would buy. Swear and lie and cheat. It’s what people did when they were hungry and cold and without hope. She had lied and stolen fish from the market when she was younger just to keep her belly full.
The memory was suddenly before her: all the fear, the hunger. Catherine at five years slipping closer to the booth and waiting with heart pounding for the crowd to get big enough so that no one would notice one small girl moving near enough to snatch a bit of raw fish, then tear away through the market.
Oh, dammit, what difference did it make whether he was playing her for a fool? She had mone
y to live for the next few weeks, and she could always make more. She was not a weak fool like Choi Meng. “If he doesn’t, I’ll come after you.” She turned away. “And if you’ve already spent the money, you’ll owe me. And you know I always collect.”
“I know.” His voice was eager. “You won’t be sorry. Thank you, Catherine.” She heard his footsteps running on the cobblestones, and, when she glanced over his shoulder, he’d disappeared from view.
With her money. She probably would be sorry.
No, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to regret a decision. It was done. Perhaps if she hadn’t been upset about Lucy’s death, she wouldn’t have been so soft, but she had to accept her moments of weakness as she did her moments of strength. There was a possibility she could get something out of this. Now she had to explore the situation and see if she’d been cheated only just a little or a great deal. But she’d better get moving, or there would be no chance to bargain with this Hu Chang.
She checked her watch. Choi Meng had said that Bruce Wong and his gang were going to attack Hu Chang when he closed up shop in the next hour, and she’d already wasted time arguing with Choi Meng.
Move.
She ran down the alley, up the street, and turned left. Hu Chang’s shop should be the third house on the left …
Yes, there it was. A small hole-in-the-wall shop with a bamboo door.
A door that was flung wide with such force it had been torn off one of its hinges.
She skidded to a stop. Dammit, it appeared Choi Meng’s information about Wong waiting until the store closed to rob the apothecary was not correct. She could hear the sound of glass breaking and laughter inside the shop.
And the sound of harsh breathing and flesh on flesh.
Bruce Wong was clearly enjoying one of his favorite pastimes. Evidently Hu Chang had not been cooperative about giving up his money.
Should she walk on by?
It was obviously too late for her to bargain with either Hu Chang or Bruce Wong. It would be smart of her to forget about both of them and let fate decide who was going to survive.