I was spurred on by the sight of him. He’d got the better of me twice. Not this time. I raced through the container yard, bouncing off the high metal stacks as I sprinted further into the maze. It was a hot and humid evening and I was sweating by the time I got a clear line of sight on the container Liu Bao had entered.
Two of his men stood by the doors, guns raised. I shot them before they could open fire, rapid burst for each. The first went down yelling, caught in the leg, and the second was hit in the chest and fell silently.
I saw Liu Bao come racing out. He shot wildly in my direction before trying to close the doors.
Fortune had smiled on me. The men I’d shot had both fallen in front of the container, blocking the doors and preventing Liu from sealing himself inside.
Zhang Daiyu and her two captors were about thirty yards to my right, but I was going to beat them to the container. I opened fire on Liu and hit the door nearest to me. The barrage of sparking, ricocheting bullets had the desired effect and forced him inside.
The assassin shot at me from my right, but I couldn’t return fire for fear of hitting Zhang Daiyu. I was almost at my target. Ignoring the volley of shots chasing my heels, I rounded the nearest door and found Liu Bao waiting for me, gun raised. Behind him I saw Shang Li tied to a chair.
Liu hadn’t counted on my momentum or the fury I felt. I kept sprinting forward and barreled into him, knocking him flat.
His weapon fell to the ground and discharged. The bullet ricocheted off the roof of the steel container and hit Liu in the right thigh, which set him crying out in agony.
I aimed the barrel of my gun at his head and turned to see the assassin and his accomplice dragging Zhang Daiyu into view.
“Any false move and your boss dies,” I told them, and meant every word of it.
Chapter 71
We stayed there, me panting heavily, the assassin and his accomplice gauging me, trying to figure out if they could take me down before I killed Liu. He lay with his hands clamped above the hole in his thigh, eyeing me with hatred. Zhang Daiyu looked defiant. I glanced over my shoulder to see Shang Li, disheveled, dirty, and slick with sweat. I felt immense relief to be reunited with the friend I’d feared dead. He looked as though he’d been beaten and battered by days of captivity, but he was alive.
I kept my gun on Liu. The assassin who’d bested me twice was alternating between targeting me and menacing Zhang Daiyu, while his accomplice kept his gun trained solely on me. Their wounded colleague in the doorway was still crying out in agony, adding to an extremely tense situation.
Time seemed to slow as we faced down each other. My perception became heightened as adrenaline surged through my body. The assassin’s fingers curled around the trigger, and his accomplice developed a tic in his right eyelid. I noticed Liu Bao looking pointedly at his men, doubtless trying to communicate something. The longer this went on, the worse my odds.
I needed to break the deadlock.
I waited until the assassin swung his gun on me then brought my own round to shoot his accomplice. The man went down as a volley of bullets hit him in the gut.
Zhang Daiyu used the sudden violence to turn on the startled assassin and wrestle him for possession of his weapon.
I yelled, “Zhang Daiyu!”
She glanced back and understood my intent instantly. She let go of the man and stepped back.
He realized he was exposed and tried to bring his gun round to shoot me, but I already had him in my sights and squeezed the trigger, unleashing a short burst that caught him in the chest.
He staggered back, dropped his gun, clutched at his heart, and fell to his knees. An instant later, he collapsed face-forward and there was a sickening crack as his skull hit the concrete base outside the container.
I rounded on Liu Bao, who was fighting the pain to try and pull himself toward his weapon. He stopped and raised his hands.
Zhang Daiyu grabbed the assassin’s gun, ran over to Shang Li, and removed his gag.
“Jack, Zhang Daiyu,” he croaked. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
His voice was dry and rough like sandpaper. I dreaded to think how he’d been treated by these people.
Their cruelty only fueled my anger.
“Why did you target us?” I asked Liu, closing on him. He forced himself to his knees, and I raised my gun and pointed the barrel directly at his head. “Answer me!”
He glanced at his dead henchmen and fear filled his eyes.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “Don’t kill me and I will tell you everything.”
Chapter 72
“Your life isn’t in my hands,” I replied. I looked pointedly at Shang Li, who took what were likely to have been his first steps in days. It was his team who’d been killed, and he’d been the one taken hostage.
“I couldn’t save them,” Li said, tears glistening in his eyes. “Kha Delun, Ling Kang, and Jiang Jinhai. Those were their names. They were my friends. And you killed them.” He grimaced as though fighting an inner demon, then wheeled round suddenly and punched Liu in the face.
The gangster reeled backward and almost lost consciousness. He cracked a bloody smile as he regained his senses.
“Their deaths were necessary. As necessary as breathing. I ordered them gone with a single breath.”
Li seethed in the face of these cruel taunts.
“Will you do what’s necessary?” Liu asked. “Will you breathe?”
I saw the conflict on my friend’s face. He wanted vengeance so desperately, but he was fundamentally a good man. In the end his anger subsided and he sighed in resignation.
“I’m not like you,” he said. “I’m not a killer.”
Shang Li was a good, moral man. One of the many reasons I had chosen him to be my business partner in Private Beijing.
“Use him. Get what you need from him,” said Li, heading for the world beyond the container.
“Looks like we have a deal,” I told Liu Bao, who wiped his bloody mouth. “Your life for what you know.” He struggled painfully to stand on his wounded leg, but I gestured with the gun. “Stay down.”
He nodded slowly, eyes full of hatred, but he knew it was over for him.
“Start talking,” I said, as Zhang Daiyu came to stand beside me. I glanced out of the doorway at Li, who was squatting on his haunches, head in his hands. “We should call his wife,” I said to Zhang Daiyu.
She shook her head, glancing at the traumatized man. “Not yet.”
She turned to Liu then and said something to him in the most derisive, hostile tone I’d ever heard from her.
He grunted and turned to me as he said, “I am a member of the Three Dragons. It is a network that reaches from the street to the government. People like me, people in government, politicians, news media. Those with power. True power for change.”
He pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal the insignia of the three dragons emblazoned near his heart, denoting membership of this secret society.
“We are going to build a new China,” he went on, “powerful enough to reshape the world. We have forged an alliance with a faction in Moscow.”
My heart skipped a beat when he said that word. I already suspected what was coming.
“Our new friends in Russia demanded the destruction of Private as a demonstration of our power and loyalty,” he revealed.
So this had been revenge for the interventions I’d made in Moscow, and likely also in Afghanistan. I had been warned I’d angered some powerful people in the Kremlin, but this went beyond anger. This was pure vindictiveness, and innocent and blameless colleagues of mine had suffered as a result
“You failed,” Zhang Daiyu countered.