“Lingchi,” Lexi said coolly, as she spun Chan around in the chair with her foot for amusement. “Slow dicing. An ancient Chinese form of torturing someone to death. They sliced off tiny parts of your flesh in non-lethal cuts. They made sure not to let you bleed too much so you would live through it all. Often the victim would even live through amputations of whole limbs. It could last for days.”
“Sounds almost as bad as the X Factor,” Scarlet said.
“And worse than that,” Lexi said, “the Chinese believed that those killed by Lingchi would suffer through all eternity because they would not have their whole body after death. It’s how Sheng likes to kill people.”
“He sounds like he might benefit from some professional therapy,” Hawke said.
“He sounds like he might benefit from a hot bullet,” said Scarlet.
“That’s nothing,” Lexi said. “He’s renowned for the pleasure he derives from torturing those who cross him. His torturer is a man named Luk, a former Triad heavyweight from Hong Kong. Not a man to get on the wrong side of. He’s a confirmed psychopath and sociopath — born with no conscience. That’s why Sheng hired him. He will do things to people no one else would ever dream of doing — that no one else would even be able to do even if they wanted to. If he gets hold of any of us then this is what we should expect.”
“That’s me not sleeping tonight…” Scarlet said. “Anyway, Richard said that if Sheng is behind the disappearance of the Tesla device then the lives of millions could be at stake…”
“There’s a but coming, right?” Hawke said.
“But…” continued Scarlet, “he seemed more concerned about the missing portrait. We’re all scrambling to find out what’s going on but clearly the reference to Lei Gong the Thunder God and the missing earthquake machine are linked. What’s bothering Richard is what killing Felix Hoffmann to get the portrait has to do with any of this.”
“Doesn’t he have any idea what’s going on?” Hawke asked.
Scarlet shook her head. “Not really. He thinks maybe Sheng is after more than just an earthquake machine though, but the rest is up to us to work out.”
Hawke cleared his throat. “Lexi — now we know this Sheng guy is involved you can bet your bottom dollar we’re not going to be alone in this mystery for long, especially since we seem to have held up his little art purchase. Go to the back of the house and keep an eye out in case we get the kind of company our man Chan here says we can expect.”
Lexi went to the back of the villa but returned less than two minutes later.
“I hate to tell you guys this,” Lexi said, “but I think we already have a problem.”
“What’s up?” Hawke asked.
“I don't know who they are but a couple of SUVs just pulled up in the lane at the back and unloaded a dozen guys armed to the teeth. They look like they could take out a small army base.”
“I knew this day would come!” Scarlet said, pulling Chan’s Type 93 assault rifle from his desk and loading it up. “Seek and ye shall find, Joe.”
“Sure, but first take photos of the portrait and email them to Ryan right away!”
“Got it.”
Hawke flicked his eyes over Chan’s mini arsenal and selected a shotgun. Lexi opted for the Browning Hi-Power. “Looks like the war is about to begin…if only we knew who we were fighting.”
“Who cares?” said Scarlet. “Let’s just blast their bollocks off so we can get back and have a drink, that way we can…uh-oh.”
Hawke saw the look on Scarlet’s face. “What’s up, Cairo?”
“You’re not going believe this, Joe, but now I know why Chan was so reluctant to talk about how much he was getting paid to knock off the portrait in Hong Kong.”
“How?”
“Because another SUV has just pulled up out the front and the men who are getting out of it are holding Lea.”
“What?” Hawke could hardly believe what he was hearing. He raced forward to the window and saw she was speaking the truth. There, in the street outside Chan’s luxury villa was Lea, sandwiched in between two of Sheng’s goons.
“Looks like he was giving Lea to Chan as payment for stealing the portrait.”
“I don’t believe it,” Hawke said.
“I told you,” Lexi said almost in a whisper. “Human trafficking — it’s what Sheng does. This is how he pays people, with slaves.”
Not on my fucking watch, Hawke thought and pulled a gun from the desk.
CHAPTER TEN
Seconds later, Henshang Road became a war zone. The men assaulting Chan’s villa from the front took up what Hawke assessed as fairly professional positions in the street and front garden so he quickly had everyone take up the best defensive positions he could arrange with so little time.
Without waiting for an invitation, the men unleashed a terrific full-frontal attack on the property. Bullets piled into the stucco and blasted chunks of plaster from the walls onto Chan’s Astroturf. As they fired, groups of two or three men advanced on the house while their colleagues covered them.
“Cover the back, Cairo!” Hawke shouted.
Scarlet took off down to the back of the villa while Hawke and Lexi fired back at the men in the street, pinning a few of them down in an isolated location behind a magnolia tree. The men with Lea dragged her away to the side of the property. Now they heard Scarlet firing at the back of the house.
“Great,” Lexi said. “Looks like we’ve got the bastards on both sides.”
Outside, one of the men primed a grenade and hurled it at the villa’s large double doors.
“This just keeps getting better, Joe! They’ll be inside in seconds.”
The grenade detonated and blasted hand-size fragments of Chan’s oak-paneled door into the hall with savage velocity.
Then Scarlet returned from the back of the house. “As much as it pains me to say it, Joe,” she said, “I think we have to admit defeat on this one. There’s half the PLA out the back. They’re over the back fence and advancing either side of the pool. No way can I hold them off with this thing.” She held the Type 93 in the air. “I know I’m pretty bloody amazing but no one’s that good.”
“What I love about you is your humility, Scarlet,” Lexi said.
Scarlet smirked. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” said Lexi. “You have so much to be humble about, after all.”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Can we just stop the cat-fighting, please? It feels like Charlie’s Angels in here and meanwhile Lea’s down there in the middle of a bloody war zone.”
Now the men were in the house. They could hear them systematically destroying every room, spraying bullets and lobbing grenades as they cleared the building room by room.
“Something tells me these guys are pretty serious about this portrait,’ Lexi said.
“This girl is a genius,” said Scarlet.
“Can it, Ice Queen,” Lexi said.
Scarlet glared at her. “What did you say?”
“Oh, that has to hurt, right?” said Lexi, reloading her Browning. She turned to Scarlet. “I mean with you loving yourself so much and everything.”
“Look, in a minute it’s going to be me shooting you, never mind that lot downstairs!” Hawke said. “We have to focus.”
“I’m always focused, darling,” Scarlet said. “Didn’t the Val Doonicans train you to be focused in stressful situations? Shame…”
Hawke ignored the traditional SAS slur against the SBS and tried to clear his head for a second. “Clearly whoever is behind the murder of Hoffmann and the theft of the Tesla device is also behind this,” he held up the portrait of Xi Shi, the First Beauty. “My money’s on this Sheng character, and it’s pretty obvious he’s found out we’re onto him and he’s not happy about it.”