“You’re giving up,” Mitch said vacantly. She winced at a sudden spike of pain in her forehead. The last dose of the drug he’d given her had obviously almost worn off. It was why she was as lucid as she was—but it also meant she was just minutes away from suffering serious withdrawal.
He held her face and snapped his fingers to focus her. “I’m going to surrender to them, yes—but no way am I giving up. You have to trust me. I haven’t lost my mind. I do have a plan. But if you two don’t get out of sight, pronto, none of it’ll work—understand?”
“No,” she said—but Qi took her by the arm and began pulling Mitch away.
Mitch wrested free and grabbed Gabriel’s jacket, turning him around, holding his torso between her hands, staring directly into his eyes.
“You be careful, goddamn it, or I’ll come back and kick your ass,” she said. “Lucy’d never forgive me if I got you killed.”
He nodded and she let go. Qi led her back into the pagoda, toward the rear archway.
“Dinanath!” Gabriel shouted. “Hold your fire! I’m coming down!”
Gabriel left the Colt behind one of the stone lions as he walked into the open, hands raised, to meet his captors.
“I think you are lying,” said Dinanath as he circled Gabriel…
…who was lying on the ground of the shrine room, trussed up with rope. Before they’d tied him up, Cheung’s thugs had gotten in some good punches, but when Gabriel hadn’t either resisted or spilled any useful information, their hearts went out of the procedure rather quickly.
Gabriel quickly used his tongue to take inventory of his teeth. One wobbler; all still present in his mouth. His right eye was threatening to swell shut and his internals felt kicked down a stairwell—but this was all (he reminded himself) a necessary part of the plan.
“Don’t believe me then,” Gabriel said, his voice a little slurred. “Ignore what I say. That’s your privilege. But if it later turns out I was telling the truth, Cheung will have your liver and heart for breakfast.”
Dinanath wished Ivory were here to offer counsel. Hell, he wished Ivory were still in Cheung’s favor at all, rather than precariously teetering on the edge of a particularly fatal variety of disfavor. Perhaps victory today would enable Ivory to return from disgrace—he had, after all, provided the tin can for the dog’s tail and thus allowed them to discover the location of Qingzhao’s hideout. Perhaps Dinanath himself would be able to offer testimony that would restore Cheung’s faith in Ivory, whom he counted as a good colleague, if not a friend.
But that would be sometime down the line, at best; in the meantime, Dinanath was on his own and had to figure out what to do about this American and his claims.
“Put it another way,” said Gabriel. “All you have to do is check it out. I’ll show you myself.”
“A trap,” said Dinanath. “You would lead us into an ambush.”
“Why? So I can knock off or incapacitate a few of your men? When Cheung still has my brother? That would be crazy. I’m offering a trade because I have something Cheung wants and he has something I want.”
The other men on Dinanath’s squad were starting to debate among themselves. Gabriel had uttered the magic words, in English and Chinese both: Favored Son, Kangxi Shih-k’ai, Killers of Men. Looking from man to man around him, he knew each of them had to be weighing how he might put the knowledge Gabriel was offering to use to advance his position with Cheung—maybe even to claim the ten million dollar reward, if they could turn up the big guy’s bones.
They had carried Gabriel into the room with the idol, deposited him roughly at its base. It glowered down at them (eyeless now; Gabriel had dislodged the red crystal and stowed it back in the trench before they raced out to spot the helicopter); the statue’s tarnished metal surface shone dully in the firelight and the strobe-sweep of the high-powered lamps each man carried as part of a basic assault kit. They were dressed for night-fighting, black-on-black.
“If you think it’s a trap,” Gabriel said, “just make me walk in first. You can walk me in at gunpoint. Or I’ll go in alone. Whatever you say—unless you’re not the man in charge and I should speak to someone else who can actually get things done.”
Anger flared in Dinanath’s sculpted face, so much like the idol itself—rough-hewn, broad-planed, admitting of no subtlety. This was, Gabriel had decided, a man who would not want his authority challenged. Third in line in Cheung’s pecking order, his rank made him answerable here. He had been granted this responsibility. He would want neither to lose face nor gain demotion.
Dinanath squatted beside Gabriel and cracked him in the mouth again just to reassert his superiority.
Gabriel spat a small gob of blood onto the ground. “If I’m telling the truth,” he said, “you get to bring the Killers of Men back to Cheung and Cheung will be all smiles. That’s what I want for my brother. If I’m lying, you can kill me then just as easily as now.”
“You do not dictate terms for Kuan-Ku Tak Cheung,” Dinanath said, making sure the men heard him proclaim the chain of command.
“Then let me talk to Ivory,” Gabriel said.
Dinanath let a tiny snort escape him. “Longwei Sze Xie is dangerously close to becoming a Nameless One.”
“Fine. Then it’s up to you. Untie me now and let me open it my way—or you can figure out the secret of the idol for yourself,” said Gabriel.
“You will tell us.” Dinanath reconsidered his inflection. “You will tell us.”
“I’ll tell you nothing. You can knock me around all you want, if you try hard enough you can kill me, but believe me, you won’t make me talk that way. Better men than you have tried it, and it’s never worked.” Gabriel prayed his sincere, self-confident tone was convincing them; he hoped like hell they wouldn’t test his claim, just to see. “Meanwhile,” he said, “how long do you have? Cheung’s a man who wants answers swers now. He won’t give you days or weeks to figure this out for yourselves. But I can show you. I’m unarmed, for god’s sake. You have nearly twenty men.”
“The two women,” said Dinanath. “They are armed. Perhaps they are the ambush.”
“The women are gone. They ran away. I don’t know where they are and that’s the truth. Anyway, do you really think two women can pick off twenty armed men? If they could, wouldn’t we just have done that when you were coming up the hill? What you’re saying makes no sense.” Gabriel shook his head. “I’m offering you a good deal.”
“How American,” Dinanath sneered. “A deal.” He pressed his gun to Gabriel’s forehead. To one of his men he said, curtly, “Untie him.” Gabriel felt someone go to work on the knots at his wrists. They sprang free a moment later.
“Very well,” Dinanath said. “I will trust you—but only so far.” He let Gabriel get up on his knees, and then unsteadily stand. “You will instruct us now as to what needs to be done.”
“I’ll show you. Keep all the guns on me you want.”
Dinanath’s cell phone trilled then, echoing in the chamber.
“That’ll be Daddy,” Gabriel said. “Better answer it.”
“Silence!” Dinanath dealt another backhand to Gabriel’s face.
Gabriel felt his jaw swing and heard his neck tendons pop. His dentist was going to be overjoyed if he ever got out of this alive.
Dinanath stepped away for a hushed cell phone conference out of earshot. As he spoke, Dinanath’s body seemed to shrink in on itself, diminishing. Awkwardly he returned and held the cell phone to Gabriel’s ear.
“Mr. Hunt?” came Cheung’s voice. The man might have been excited or he might have been furious, but you couldn’t tell—he sounded as calm as still water. “My man has sketched the situation for me. If you would be so kind as to lend my group the benefit of your expertise, your trained eye, I would be greatly in your debt, and I am certain your brother would find any possible discovery to be of immeasurable value both to me and to your Foundation. Find me the Killers of Men and all debts are paid in full.”