“You will pay or you will die.”
“I hope your skills as a hitman are better than your lines. You sound ridiculous.”
She was laughing, but Teddy leaned in closer so he could make sure she heard every word, even with the loud bar noise around them.
“You will pay,” he said, slowly, in his regular voice. “Or you will die.”
60
When Teddy and Dale were sure that Li Feng was gone, they left their table at the karaoke bar and went outside where they checked again to make sure Li Feng wasn’t hanging around to try and follow them. Teddy thought Dale was being overly paranoid, but she knew this area and the people better than Teddy, so he deferred to her expertise. While Teddy was agreeing with her, Dale motioned for a passing car to stop for them. It was a private car, not a taxi.
“You already arranged this, didn’t you?” Teddy asked.
She shrugged and got into the back seat of the car. Teddy hated sitting in the front seat for security and personality reasons, so he squeezed into the small back seat next to Dale. Their legs were touching and as they shifted into positions as comfortable as they were able to find, their pants legs shimmied up and there was a moment where they were touching each other ankle to ankle and skin to skin and Teddy felt an electric burst in his chest.
He could tell Dale felt it, too, and he simultaneously wanted to sink further into the seat and get closer to her while also jumping out of the car and getting as far away from her as possible. This certainly wasn’t the first time Teddy had gone from suspicion to fireworks with a woman, but it was the first time since his wife that it felt that way.
Dale was still making small talk with the driver when they arrived at Macau Tower. Teddy was grateful she didn’t seem to care that he was oblivious to the conversation. The Tower was striking in its height and gloss. It didn’t have the old-world charm of some of the other buildings, but it wasn’t as garish as the casino towers and the newer additions to the skyline. The concrete tower was topped with a glistening orb of chrome and emerald green glass that looked like the prime jewel on top of a massive scepter.
“The cinema has three screens. The premiere will be held at the top of the Tower, on the largest movie screen in all of China,” Dale said, when it seemed like she was certain Teddy was actually listening again.
Dale led the way from the car through the small luxury shopping center at the base of the Tower and then up the elevator to the top of the Tower. Each step, and each new aspect of the environment Teddy saw made him more and more nervous about how he would be able to pull this off. He never doubted that he would be able to make it work, and having someone of Dale Gai’s skill and passion working with him made him even more certain. But the margin of error was going to be even slimmer than it normally was and the price of failure would be even more catastrophic than normal.
If this went sideways, not only would Teddy and Dale both likely die but also the relationship between the United States and China would explode. The best-case scenario under those circumstances would be a return to another Cold War. Worst-case scenario was another world war.
“Did you see the glass bridge and the bungee jumping setup?” Dale asked as Teddy looked around.
“I don’t like anything about this,” Teddy said.
“The fates wouldn’t bring the two of us together for any ordinary fake murder-for-hire plot, now would they?” she said with a wry smile. “Two people like us require an exceptional intervention.”
“The exceptional part will be if we manage to get out of this alive.”
61
As she left the karaoke bar after paying the hitman with the ridiculous Russian name to kill Sonny Ma, Li Feng was regretting her choice to hire out the death of Sonny Ma. As she wandered the street, thinking back to her assault and wishing she would have been more aggressive, Li Feng decided she would keep the ridiculous Russian hitman as a backup. But this was a mission she wanted to do herself.
Li Feng went back to the pawnshop, since the owner there had already seen her. She wanted to keep her footprint in the area as small as possible until Sonny Ma was dead. Her plan was to buy a small pistol, but when she entered the store, the man behind the counter was polishing a small ornate sword. The only swords Li Feng had ever seen had been gaudy and impractical, like the ones Sonny Ma favored in his movies and as decoration in his offices. But this sword was small, slightly larger than a large kitchen knife, and had a plush red leather case and glittering bloodred hilt. This was going to be the weapon she used to kill the man who killed her dreams.
She gave the man her only remaining credit card, hoping it would still work, then walked out of the pawnshop with her new weapon. With the sword in her hand, she felt powerful, vindicated in her entire endeavor. There would be any number of guests at the event wearing swords to dress like Sonny Ma, so she didn’t worry much about it being confiscated. She looked at her phone and the text from Arrow’s driver that she’d been ignoring, and sent him a message back.
Bring the nicest car you have access to, and an outfit appropriate for the film premiere.
She gave him a list of boutiques in the area that had her measurements and preferences on file, then hung up.
Arrow left Hollywood City Casino in a foul mood and sat in his car outside of the bunker contemplating his next move. He hadn’t contemplated much when his driver called.
“She just got back to me. Wants me to go get a dress for her and then pick her up for the premiere,” he said.
This perked Arrow up greatly. He’d been stewing over the driver’s comments about Bingo wanting to kill Li Feng. If he could find her out in a public place where she felt at ease, it might be easier to convince her to return to his protection.
“I’m out front with the car,” Arrow said. “Tell her you’re on your way.”
While he waited for the driver, Arrow called Bingo.
“I don’t need you on Li Feng anymore. I’ve got it covered. Meet me back at my suite and I’ll take care of you.”
When Dale was finished with the tour of the Macau Tower complex, she and Teddy found Sonny Ma in the film festival’s green room that looked out over the bungee jumping deck and the city below. It was a magnificent vista. Teddy rolled out all the luggage he’d brought from the hotel, and along with the extensive makeup and visual effects kits, he had a bulletproof Kevlar vest that he’d fitted with blood squibs. It was one of his own many inventions when he needed something that wasn’t commercially available.
As Dale fit Sonny with the vest, Teddy hooked up the blood splatter mechanisms and explained to Sonny what exactly was going to happen. During the premiere, when Sonny Ma was introduced and brought to the front of the theater, Teddy would stand up and shoot him. The gun would be loaded with blanks, but while pulling the trigger Teddy would also activate the blood squibs. The resulting explosion of blood would make it appear that Sonny was really shot.
Before they could finish the briefing, they heard chatter from the others in the room that Li Feng had arrived in the lobby.
62
After her run-in with Li Feng, Millie was more cautious with her surveillance. It didn’t matter where Li Feng was right then: Millie knew she would be at the movie premiere that evening. Millie’s first idea was to gather the U.S. delegates and put them on a bus to the movie premiere so they could grab Li Feng and have her tell them everything she knew about Arrow’s plans and what he had asked her to do. Millie had a lot of circumstantial evidence gathered from her sources in Macau and within Arrow’s operation, but the last piece she needed was Li Feng, on the record, saying that Arrow was bribing her to lie to Congress about her family’s company.