“According to the law, I am a member,” she continued. “I could be arrested and jailed for simply being a Blue Lantern.”
“I wouldn’t have thought they would allow women in Triads?”
“It was once all-male, but in the last few years they’ve begun to admit women. Most of them stay Blue Lanterns and are never initiated.”
“Then that should tell you what they think of you,” Bond said. “Leave them.”
She removed the towel and poured antiseptic on to the wound, which was still bleeding badly. Bond winced at the sting.
“Don’t you see? I can’t do anything! If I run, they’ll eventually find me and kill me, or I’ll be arrested and go to jail. My only way out of this is to kill you. Believe me, there are some other girls you could have met tonight who would have cut your hands off if you’d spoken to them about Triads.”
“You’re not going to try and kill me, are you, Sunni?”
She didn’t answer. “You need stitches.”
“Look,” he said, “you need help, and I can help you. Come with me to a safe house. I can get medical treatment, and they won’t find you there. I need to make a phone call then we could be on our way in minutes.”
She wrapped some gauze around his arm very tightly, then covered it with the towel again. “There, that should hold you for a while. It’s a good thing you had all that stuff in your shoe.”
Bond stood up and put on his shirt. He slipped the shoulder holster back on. Extending or raising his left arm hurt like hell. He took two of the acetaminophen tablets and one antibiotic, swallowing them with water from the sink in his cupped right hand. He replaced the contents of the shoe and put it back on. Finally, he managed to put the bloody jacket back on, then walked into the living room and reached for the phone near the kitchen.
“I’m making that call. You can come with me or you can stay behind,” he said. “If you’re coming, you’d better pack a bag. You probably won’t be coming back here.”
“I can’t leave my mother!”
He was dialling the number. “There’s nothing you can do for her now, Sunni. You have to think of yourself. Do you want to come or not?”
He got a recording at the other end. He spoke into the phone: “Ling Ling Chat, need taxi immediately, repeat immediately, at …” He turned to her. “What’s the address?”
“One forty-seven Hong Ning Road, Kwun Tong.”
Bond repeated it into the phone, then hung up. “You have five minutes to pack,” he said. He understood what the poor girl was going through. In the space of one hour, she had suddenly been confronted with a life-or-death decision and the frightening prospect of abandoning the life she had been living.
Finally she asked, “Can you get me out of Hong Kong?”
He said truthfully, “I can try.”
“Legally?”
“I can try.”
She hesitated another moment, then pulled out a flight bag, began to rummage through her bedroom, and threw clothing into the bag. She spent some time in the bathroom, dumping in supplies. Finally, she went to a bulletin board in the kitchen removed some snapshots that captured moments in her life. The last thing she did was to take a child’s toy from the kitchen window. It was one of those petalshaped pinwheels on a stick. She shoved it into the bag.
“It’s for good luck,” she said. She zipped up the bag and threw it on her shoulder. “I’m ready.”
“Good girl,” he said, then drew his gun. He moved to the front door and listened. He motioned her to follow him as he unlatched the bolt and slid the door open. The hallway was empty. They walked to the lift, and Bond noticed that it was moving up towards their floor.
“Let’s take the stairs,” he said.
With gun in hand, Bond led the way down, a flight at a time. At the twelfth floor, he heard footsteps hurrying up below them. He pressed Sunni back against the wall and waited. Sure enough, two more Chinese youths brandishing choppers appeared. Bond shouted “Freeze!” in Cantonese, but the thugs ignored him and charged. It left him no choice but to shoot. The gunfire reverberated loudly in the stairwell. The two Triads slammed back against the wall, then rolled down a flight of steps.
It wouldn’t be long before the police arrived, he thought. They needed to get to the street and find Woo before that happened. His wounded arm felt as if it was on fire. Sunni was frozen in fear in a corner of the stairwell. He gestured for her to keep following him, and continued down the stairs.
At the seventh floor they encountered four men. They rushed at Bond, attempting to overpower him. Bond got off one shot at point blank range, but had to duck to avoid the swings of the choppers. He rolled forward, through the three standing men, but couldn’t avoid losing his balance and falling down the steps. The Walther flew out of his hand and fell to the landing below. One of the men charged at Sunni, his chopper raised. Instead of screaming and cowering, however, Sunni surprised Bond by performing an expert martial arts manoeuvre. She bent forward as the man swung, blocked his arm and threw him over her back—a perfect Yaridama. The man crashed into the wall behind her. She immediately turned and delivered a crescent moon kick to the man’s chest and fast one-two spear-handed chops to his neck, breaking it.
By now, Bond was on his feet, jumping towards the other two. They tried to swing the choppers at him, but he ducked, put his hands on the landing, and shot his legs straight out at them. The kick hit one man in the abdomen, knocking him into his partner. Sunni was behind them, and she grabbed one in a head lock, then brutally rammed him into the wall. In less than a second she was lashing out with a roundhouse kick to the other man’s kidneys, sending him flying back towards Bond who simply grabbed his shoulders as the man fell into him, then sent him sailing down the stairs. All four men were now down.
Bond looked up at her with respect and smiled. “Nice work, Sunni.”
She shrugged. “I grew up on the streets of Hong Kong before going to the States. I’m not totally helpless.”
He retrieved the Walther as they continued down the stairs. Eventually they reached the ground floor and Bond stopped. “They probably have a car down here somewhere. There’ll be at least a couple more of them.”
He peered out into the covered parking area and saw the black sedan idling near the exit. There was only a driver, and he was peering over his shoulder at the lift door, waiting for the men to return. Bond realized that he would certainly see them when they came out of the stairwell.
“Stay here,” Bond said. He took a breath, then bolted out of the stairwell. He performed an agile body roll and ended up behind a stone column. The driver of the car shouted something in Chinese. A shot rang out and a bullet broke away a chunk of the column.
Bond heard the car back up and turn towards him. Another shot demolished a chunk of the concrete dangerously close to his head. His left arm was throbbing with pain now, especially after the fight on the stairwell. He was thankful it wasn’t his gun-arm.
He carefully leaned out and shot towards the car, shattering the windscreen, but the driver had opened the door and was squatting behind it for cover. It was going to be a standoff unless Bond could gain a better vantage point from which to fire.
He could hear police sirens in the distance. They’d arrive any minute. He was about to run back to the stairwell when he heard the screeching of tyres from the parking area entrance. A red taxi zoomed in and slammed into the driver’s side of the black sedan. The driver was sandwiched between the vehicles, his body mangled like a broken doll. Chen Chen was driving the taxi, and his father was sitting beside him.
Bond called to Sunni, and they ran to the cab and got into the back seat. The taxi’s only damage was a bent front bumper, so it manoeuvred around the smashed car and out of the parking area just as a police car entered from the other side.