Vengeance. This man is going to pay.
In a back street lock-up in So Uk, he turned over crates of old engine parts and cartons of fake Peacefuls cigarettes, dragging an oily toolbox from a shadowed corner. Inside there were two Beretta automatics and fistfuls of hollowpoint bullets rolling loose. Generally, guns were a last-ditch tool for go-gangers, the street punk code short on firearms and long on bare-hand fighting or bladed weapons. It was a holdover from when the gun was seen as a badge, something you earned the right to carry only when you stepped up to join the Bamboo Union or the 14K as a Red Pole. The triads and the cops didn’t like the gangers having guns; those were toys for the big boys. Ko loaded all the clips he had and weighed the weapons in his grip. The gun oil smell reminded him of his father, but he forced away any thought of that before the man’s face could fully form in his mind’s eye. In the back of the truck, he took out the guns again and looked at them. They hadn’t been fired for months, lying there in the dark wrapped in greasy rags, and now it was too late to test them.
Ko raised the weapons to shoulder height and sighted down the barrels. He had seen a picture of Tze, just once, on the cover of the HK Herald. He remembered it clearly because it was such a rarity, some photographer catching a split-second glimpse of the man. There had been a story that the guy who took the still vanished off the street the following day; so it went, the Herald had been sent more pictures, this time of the photographer, but not in the kind of state they could print in a national newspaper.
Ko’s face was a mask of concentration. He drew his focus inward, waiting. Now he lived on a clock from second to second, his mind framed on that face and nothing else. The robot truck rumbled through the security gate of the Yuk Lung tower and rolled down the incline to the lower levels.
“Tze!” Ko burst from the shadows of a concrete stanchion close to the CEO’s idling limo and opened fire, the pistols slamming out shots.
Deer Child reacted instantly, dragging Tze behind him and stepping into the line of the fire. Many of Ko’s bullets went wide, smashing into the walls and skipping off the limo, but a handful of rounds struck the chest of the bodyguard and a single shot fractured the perfect sheen of Deer Child’s porcelain opera mask. The guardian stumbled backwards, bleeding heavily.
One of the Berettas made a high-pitched noise and jammed. Ko let it drop and kept on firing, brass casings glinting as they ejected into the air.
Blue Snake produced a series of throwing knives from concealed wrist holsters and threw them at Ko. The kid was quick enough to dodge one, but not enough to avoid the second. The lightweight stiletto hit Ko in the sternum and threw him to the ground with the force of a freight train. Ko lost the other gun and lay there, wheezing.
Seconds had elapsed. Tze disentangled himself from Deer Child’s twitching form and found the duty security officer; neither he nor his men had got off a shot.
“Sir, I-” he began, his face flushed. Blue Snake had another knife, and she slit the man’s throat with it. Tze walked on to where Ko had fallen. He paused to brush a speck of lint off his suit as Blue Snake hauled the youth off the ground.
Tze examined him. “Ah, the folly of youth.” He leaned closer. “Do you know why no one ever tries to take me out, boy?” He smiled. “Because no one is that stupid. Except you, of course.”
“Go,” Ko managed. “Fuck yourself.” He spat a mouthful of blood and spittle into Tze s face.
The older man carefully wiped it away, and then licked his fingers, smiling. “That fat fool running the 14K… I think perhaps he can earn his way back into my good graces with this little urchin.”
“Sir?” said Blue Snake.
“Take this interloper to the docks and tell Hung I want an example made of him.”
Frankie started as his car rolled to a halt. He saw someone being bundled into a vehicle, bodies under sheets, and blood on the tarmac. “What the hell?”
Tze approached, smiling. “Don’t be concerned, Francis. Just a small security incident. A trespasser.”
He saw a face, just in the instant before the car door slammed, heard a string of gutter swearing. Oh shit. I know that voice. The car thief.
Tze patted him on the shoulder. “Take care of things here, will you? I have some business to attend to in the city.”
Frankie watched them go, the stink of fresh cordite and violence in his nostrils.
The distinctive colourations of Chinese Opera masks have a series of layered significances that go beyond the mere portrayal of a given character. A blue face (such as that seen on Xia Houdun) is indicative of someone possessing the traits of dedication, ferocity and shrewdness; a green face (like Zheng Wun) means the character is reckless, likely prone to sudden violence and a surly nature; figures like Guan Yu (a noted Chinese warrior) bear a red mask, which highlights the soldierly traits of fidelity, valour, heroism and decency; yellow (such as Tu Xingsun) indicates a level-headed person but also someone with the qualities of ferocity and determination; black masks like that of Judge Bao Gong indicate selflessness as well as a coarse, aggressive manner; white (traditionally a colour associated with death in the Far East) marks the villain of the piece, highlighting the sly and the wily, the underhand and treacherous (such as the fiendish Qin Hui); finally, the special colourations of gold and silver are employed only on characters who come from beyond the human realm, such as gods and ghosts. The function of the mask in these plays is not only to provide cultural cues to the audience but also to establish a palette of known archetypes, in stories that form a key part of the myths of the Chinese people. On some level, the masks create an aura of power for the performer wearing them, a way in which they can subsume themselves into the role and tap into the pure strengths of the character.
Excerpt from Painted Faces, Swords and Gods: The Mythology of Chinese Opera by Georgina Golightly
10. Warriors Two
The executive operations suite was decorated in the style of a stately English library, heavy with polished teak and mahogany, rich with deep oxblood leather chairs and brass lamps. Ornate desks lined the walls between subtle privacy dividers. Only the screens seemed out of place, and even those had been disguised in wood mounts similar to portrait frames. The keyboards were hidden in the leather blotters on the surface of the desks, illuminating from below when Frankie took his seat. The other men in the room were subvocalising into hidden microphones, but Frankie disabled the voice circuit and got to work typing.
Under his cuff he had a piece of tissue on which he had scribbled a dozen strings of numbers. Code keys copied from the data spike that Alan had left concealed for him, these were permissions that allowed entry into parts of the Yuk Lung mainframe that would normally be far outside of his sphere of influence. Frankie had not dared to bring the precious needle with him, or even to upload the smallest part of its contents to another computer. He was afraid to contaminate himself with the material, at least until he had a clearer idea of what his brother had been doing with it. It seemed quaintly low-tech of him to actually jot the codes down on a scrap of paper instead of entering them on his PDA.