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Holding Lok in a bear hug, Quinn glanced over his shoulder to see Song in a chest-to-chest embrace with Goatee. Her body blocked the man from accessing his shoulder holster. She kept her hands low, between them, out of sight. Lips almost brushing the young bodyguard’s face, she whispered something in his ear. Quinn remembered the thin ripping dagger hidden in her garter. He could imagine what she was saying.

Big Uncle stepped forward, shaking his head. He patted an unconscious Lok on the shoulder.

“I wish you would not kill my men,” he said, deadpan. “I have more, but there are so many people at the party. The fight would be terribly messy.”

* * *

The triad boss recognized Song as an MSS agent and agreed to meet in a private room at the back of the main exhibit hall. Agile for a man of his age, Big Uncle hopped up to sit on the edge of the wooden desk, letting his feet dangle. He motioned for Quinn and Song to take two of the half dozen soft leather seats along the glass wall. A stunned Lok and Goatee took up a position behind their boss, their egos damaged far more than anything else.

“How can I help my esteemed colleagues with the Ministry of State Security?” Big Uncle asked in Mandarin, ignoring Quinn as if he wasn’t even in the room.

Song nodded meekly, then explained that they were looking for the Feng brothers. She was hesitant in the telling as if she did not want to offend such a powerful man and noted apologetically in her explanation that witnesses had overheard the Fengs talking about their connection to the crime boss.

“It would seem to me,” Big Uncle said, “that the MSS would be pleased if men such as this spread a little mayhem in the United States.”

“That is incorrect,” Song said, throwing Quinn a glance he couldn’t quite read. “But the Fengs must be arrested before they cause irreparable damage.”

“Please understand,” Big Uncle said, “a business such as mine depends on a certain amount of… discretion. Even the stupid American would understand that.”

“I understand plenty,” Quinn said in Mandarin.

“Big Uncle,” Song growled, rising from her seat. Her face went from meek to malignant in a flash. This was the same Song who had threatened to cut off Habibullah’s balls and Quinn was happy to see her reappearance. “Allow me to be blunt. The MSS has allowed you a great deal of latitude in your business transactions in Europe. If you wish that policy to continue, then you must cooperate.”

Big Uncle stared at her for a long moment, then gave a great belly laugh. “I like you,” he said. “You are brave. Foolish… but very brave.”

Song took a step forward, looking amazingly authoritative for someone in a tiny purple dress. “I will require the location of the Fengs — now.”

“I will tell you what you need to know.” Big Uncle waved her off with a thick hand. “You really are a bright young thing. But I suggest you wear your glasses more. They keep you from squinting.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Big Uncle watched the flippant MSS bitch and her American friend hurry toward the elevators. Clenching a beefy fist until it shook, he sent the nearest glass vase crashing against the floor as soon as the elevator door slid shut. Even destroying the five-thousand-dollar vase didn’t make him feel any better.

The guests mingling just outside the office peered through the window at the noise, but the look on the crime boss’s face told them a broken glass was something they should ignore.

“You let him take your guns?” Big Uncle turned to Lok, cuffing him on the back of the head and sending his ponytail swinging. “Why do I even keep you around?”

“Forgive me, boss,” Lok said. He knew better than to make excuses.

Big Uncle folded his arms across his belly, still sitting on the edge of the desk. He raised thick eyebrows and looked from one bodyguard to another. “Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for? The Feng brothers will be waiting to kill these fools. Go and help them. I’ll decide what to do with you when you return.” He glared at the kid with the goatee. “That is, if that little MSS girl does not beat you up and take your gun again.”

Chapter 55

6:05 PM

“I don’t like this,” Quinn said, standing at the top of the Harbor Steps and looking down the broad gray stairs that tumbled from First to Alaska Way, ending across from the waterfront. A low sun peeked under the ragged cloudbank across Puget Sound, casting a pink glow on the wet sidewalks and pavement above, but darkness already gathered under the Alaska Way viaduct at the bottom of the steps. Pockets of aimless youth and a handful of lost tourists moved up and down the broad terraced steps.

Big Uncle had given them the address to an apartment building located below Seattle’s lively Pike Place Market. It was a high-rent district for a terrorist flophouse, but the building was supposed to be under construction. There was a better than average chance the triad boss was sending them into a trap, so Quinn and Song ignored his suggested route directly below the market and decided to take the Harbor Steps and approach from what they hoped would be an unexpected route.

Like Quinn, Song had worn stylish but sensible enough shoes that she’d be able to run in them if the need arose. The tight dress might pose a problem, but that’s where the spandex shorts would come in. She stood directly beside Quinn, close enough he could feel her shiver.

“I do not believe Big Uncle would lie to us outright for fear of retaliation by my government,” she said. “I don’t think he knows we are essentially operating on our own.”

“He doesn’t have to lie,” Quinn said. “He can just tell the Fengs we’re coming. He wins either way.”

Song’s face grew dark, her mouth pinched. “If I find that he has betrayed me, I will kill him myself. I do not care if he has toes.”

“Come on,” Quinn said, starting down the stairs. “We can worry about Big Uncle later. If we don’t locate the Fengs tonight, my boss will have to warn the Secret Service of the threat. They would call off the President’s meeting with Prime Minister Nabe tomorrow morning.”

“And the Fengs would know we are closing in,” Song said, thinking it through. “They would simply readjust their plans to utilize the Black Dragon somewhere we do not expect.”

“Yep,” Quinn said, already moving down the stairs.

He pulled up short a few steps before the bottom. A steady thump of even traffic pounded down from the Alaska Way viaduct above, echoing off dusty concrete pillars and puzzle-piece stacks of orange construction barriers along a paved jogging trail.

It didn’t take long to locate the apartment building, six stories of dark red brick. Sections of eight-foot chain link lapped against concrete Jersey barriers to form a semblance of a security fence around the construction zone. Scaffolding ran up the south wall where the renovation project had been started. At the north end, a dim light flickered in a fifth-floor window, behind dusty panes of cracked glass.

“You think that’s them?” Song nodded at the light.

“Maybe,” Quinn said. He checked his watch. Jacques and Emiko would land in less than an hour. The first rule of a gunfight was to bring a gun. The second was to bring a bunch of friends with guns, so the wisest course of action would be to watch and wait. A low building that looked like some kind of small warehouse ran off the end of the brick apartments, back to the south. Heavy foliage covered the hillside along the active train tracks, providing a likely spot to set up a hide until reinforcements arrived.

Two homeless men sat hunched on their blankets outside the fence panels. The shopping cart beside them overflowed with plastic bags and other bits of tattered treasure. The hulking shadow of a yellow backhoe loomed above them, heavy arm and bucket drawn up and back, throwing the men in even darker shadows. Both met Quinn’s gaze, their dark faces shining with the shellac of open-air life, with no bath for weeks on end. He stared back, sizing them up as threats.