April 13, 2008: Hong Kong
The men were waiting for them at the train station.
Hei noticed a man in sunglasses and a rough leather jacket moving their way almost immediately after they'd stepped off the train and onto the platform. Ducking his head slightly to avoid notice from the security cameras that were ranged across the open terminal, he slung his gear bag over his shoulder and with his other hand guided Yin into the thick of the crowd heading for the escalators that led up to the main concourse.
That was when he spotted the second man pushing through the crowd on a course to intersect with theirs.
Hei gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Yin's hand. They just needed an exit, then they could lose the men on the street. He glanced over his shoulder at the first man. Neither would try anything with this many -
The man had pulled a handgun and was aiming directly at Hei.
Hei was so shocked by the conventional weapon that he almost didn't react. "Upstairs!" he ordered, giving Yin a push in the direction of the nearest escalator; then he dove towards the second man.
An echoing shot rang out in the terminal; people screamed and the crowd heaved in one confused mob. Hei felt the sharp impact of the bullet nicking the flesh of his shoulder and embedding itself in his gear bag. He cursed to himself; his coat was currently packed away and useless.
Another shot, this one striking a middle-aged man just to Hei's right. The man went down; there was nothing Hei could do. His second foe, seeing Hei coming his way, had drawn a wicked-looking knife. The crowd between them parted. The man lunged, blade slashing at neck-height.
Hei planted his feet and leaned back, using the momentum of his sudden stop to swing his bag in an upward arc. It connected with the man's elbow, sending the knife spinning from grip. Before the man could recover, Hei spun a roundhouse kick directly into his jaw. Even over the shouts and screams of the crowd, he heard the bone crack.
The man went down, stunned. Hei let go of his bag and dropped to the concrete floor with a roll just as another shot echoed over his head. He snatched up the fallen knife and rose into a crouch, eyes narrowed. The crowd had mostly managed to push their way off the platform by now; there was no one between him and the gunman.
The man smiled behind his sunglasses and took aim with both hands.
Hei threw the knife.
It wasn't balanced for throwing, and in his hurry Hei's aim was off; but it did what he'd intended it to do and distracted the gunman. The man flinched, bringing his elbow up to block the spinning blade.
That was all the time Hei needed to close the distance. He grabbed the gun's muzzle and forced it down and away even as he sent a killing current through the metal. The man squeezed the trigger reflexively; the bullet buried itself harmlessly into the concrete as he collapsed at Hei's feet.
Whistles sounded in the distance. Police.
Hei paused just long enough to finish off the man with the broken jaw - he couldn't afford to leave even a disabled enemy at his back - and grab his bag, then darted through a service door as uniformed officers poured down both escalators, revolvers drawn. He short-circuited the door's locking mechanism behind him, then ran headlong down the stark concrete corridor.
He had to get back to Yin. He could only hope that she was alright; that there had only been two of them.
There were no cameras in the corridor that he could see. No people, either. Ducking around a corner, he dropped his bag and fished until he came up with his bulletproof jacket. This would change his appearance enough that an observation on the security network probably wouldn't recognize him. It would also hide the trail of blood seeping down his sleeve from the gunshot, and the splatter - from where, he had no idea - across his right side.
He allowed himself the smallest sigh of relief; but only the smallest. He had to get to water.
The bowels of the train station were a maze of bare corridors, access tunnels, and cluttered equipment closets. The access tunnels gave him an idea, but he had to contact Yin first.
He eventually found a stairwell leading up to the main level. Cracking the door at the top just wide enough to see out, he waited until a clump of people surged past, then slipped out among them. With his black jacket instead of white button-down shirt, he looked nothing like the man who'd just killed two people on the platform below.
He hoped.
The police had the escalators leading down to the terminal blocked off, he saw, as well as the main exit. A lot of police. And, now that he had a moment to think about it, they'd responded to the gunfire awfully quickly.
No point in worrying about that now, though. Instead, he milled around with the other hushed, worried looking travelers and scanned the concourse for Yin's specter.
Nothing. No mop buckets, no bottled water on display at any of the little food stands, not even a drinking fountain. Panic started to rise. He shouldn't have separated himself from her; he shouldn't -
"Hei."
He forced himself not to spin around at the sound of her voice. With a feigned casualness, he took a few steps to the side, out of the main crowd, then turned. Yin was standing next to a large column, her back pressed up against it, just out of frame of the nearest security camera. He'd stolen her a pair of capri pants and some loose-fitting blouses in Shanghai; with her black-dyed hair, she blended in perfectly with the other women in the station. Her face was pale, but otherwise she looked unhurt.
Hei positioned himself near enough that it wasn't obvious they were speaking together. "Are you alright?"
She nodded once. "How do we leave?"
"Access door to your right, fifteen meters behind. I'll go through first; you follow in two minutes."
She nodded again. Hei slowly made his way back to the door, moving with the milling flow of the crowd as best he could. A squad of four police officers hustled past, between him and Yin.
Hei tensed; those were Glocks on their hips. Special forces. It had been many years since he was last in Hong Kong, but that hadn't been a usual sight then. He didn't think things had changed this much in the intervening time.
The squad passed without glancing in his direction. Hei waited for another clump of people to provide cover, then slipped back into the stairwell. He left the door open a crack and counted out two minutes in his head.
Yin had trouble with casual, natural movements, and navigating in a large crowd was never easy for her. While Hei could slide between passersby like a fish through a bed of kelp, Yin was jostled by each person who walked past. They never even seemed to notice her until they actually bumped into her.
She made it across the concourse at last, and came to lean against the wall directly next to the access door. Hei waited one minute…two minutes…he held his breath as two more police officers walked past. Fortunately they were both looking away from the door.
"Now," he said quietly, pushing the door open half a foot. Yin slipped in beside him.
They made it to the lowest level without incident; just as he opened the door to the main corridor, however, another squad of four officers rounded the corner. The police stared at him in surprise; then raised their weapons. Hei set himself between them and Yin, and charged.
It was over quickly. The police had been prepared for a firefight, not a foe with a bulletproof coat and deadly hand-to-hand skills.
He tried his best not to kill them, though that would have been the safest choice for him and Yin.
"Yin. Let's go."
She glanced down at the unconscious bodies as she stepped carefully over them, her expression unreadable as always. Hei reached for her hand, then led her down two hallways to the nearest tunnel access door. Behind them, shouts arose as his handiwork was discovered.
"Why so many police?" he muttered to himself, shutting the door behind them. Yellow fluorescent bulbs flickered high overhead, barely illuminating the train tracks before they disappeared into the darkness. He felt safer in the shadows, though he still couldn't afford to relax.
"They knew we'd be here."
Hei shook his head. "That's not possible."
Contractors and bounty hunters would be staking out all the major ports and transportation hubs, hoping to catch them by chance. An organized national police response was something completely different. Hei didn't think the Syndicate could have managed that even in Tokyo, the seat of their power.
Yin didn't answer. Hei handed her down onto the tracks, then slung his duffel over his shoulder, wincing as the movement aggravated the gash in his arm. He'd have to take care of that once they found a safe place to stop for the night. He dropped down beside Yin, and together they followed the railway into the blackness.
~~~~o~~~~
Qin ran a tiny restaurant in the heart of Yau Ma Tei neighborhood. The metro station Hei and Yin ended up exiting from was only a few blocks away. There hadn't been any signs of pursuit in the tunnels; reluctantly Hei stowed his jacket back in the gear bag. It was a sunny day on the surface and he'd only stand out wearing it. They paused only long enough to bandage the gash on his shoulder and change his shirt for one not stained with blood. The wound wasn't bad, but it would need a proper dressing once they were someplace safe.
Emerging from the station onto the street, Hei scanned their surroundings carefully. He didn't see anyone suspicious, police or otherwise. They could only hope that they hadn't been followed.
Hei gripped Yin's hand tightly as they wove their way through the pedestrian traffic, his nerves jangling. He recognized the area easily enough; many of the storefronts had changed, but otherwise the crowded streets packed with shops and tenements looked exactly the same. Including, he noticed with a constricting of his chest, the room over a laundromat where he and Bai had once stayed for three months. Qin might still have moved in the past few years; if he had, they would be starting back at square one.
A movement to his left caught his eye; he dropped Yin's hand and prepared to seize his power - but then he took a second look. It was only a plastic bag caught on an updraft from a sidewalk grating. Harmless.
He told himself that it was just leftover adrenaline from the ambush in the train station. In reality, he knew it was probably due to being back in the city.
He hadn't been to Hong Kong since the last months of his formal training, just before the Syndicate shipped him and his sister out to join the front lines of the Heaven's Gate conflict. Their training facility had been on the waterfront; many of their early field exercises had been conducted both on the island and the mainland. Their final exam - as their handler had called it - had happened here in this very neighborhood.
The Syndicate wanted to be sure that Hei and Bai would be able to survive on their own, without their handler or the full support system offered by the facility; no sense in sending their two potentially most valuable assets all the way to the other side of the world, only to be killed the first day. So Mr. Weilan had proposed a test of sorts, almost a scavenger hunt. They had a scant pocketful of cash, a list of items to procure or accomplish, and three months in which to do it. All without the Syndicate's help.
The teenaged Hei had thrown himself into the challenge; in other circumstances, he might have enjoyed it. It was, at the very least, a way to distract himself from the items on the list that his sister would be taking care of - and what he would have to do to help.
For his own part, he'd taken on the tasks of securing a set of false identities for themselves, and the money to pay for them. That had led him to Qin.
A woman ahead of them was giving him an odd look. Hei stared back, challenging. Her expression turned worried, and she hurried across the street. He watched her go; it could be feint, a way to throw him off guard and -
Yin squeezed his hand. Giving himself a mental shake, Hei started off down the street again, Yin at his side.
There was indeed a restaurant exactly where Hei remembered; instead of The Golden Pig, however, the marquee across the front read The Lucky Chicken. That didn't necessary bode ill; Qin had once told Hei that he occasionally had a reason to change the name of his businesses. For tax purposes.
"Keep an eye out," Hei said quietly, then pushed open the door.
It was just like he remembered: a small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant with heavy vinyl table cloths and the menu items posted in large plastic photos on the walls. His stomach growled at the scent of beef frying somewhere in the back kitchen. The place was empty of patrons, but it was still a couple of hours before the dinner rush.
"Table for two?" a bored-sounding youth in a grubby apron asked.
"Is -" Hei began; then the boy's gaze flicked over Hei's shoulder and his eyes widened.
Hei threw himself at the boy in a full-body tackle, somehow managing to pull Yin down with them as well.
"Hey, what - get off!" the boy shouted, shoving ineffectually at Hei's wounded shoulder. "What kind of crazy are you?!"
Cautiously, Hei rolled to his feet and faced the window. There was no sign of any danger; just normal foot traffic passing by on the street outside.
"The hell is wrong with you?" the boy grumbled from the floor, rubbing his head.
"What did you see?" Hei demanded.
"What did I…"
Hei stood, looming over the kid with a glower. "When you glanced out the window. What did you see?"
The boy cringed back. "Just - just Miriam Choi, this girl from my class…she walks by, sometimes?"
Hei suppressed a sigh, though he wasn't sure if it was relief or exasperation he felt more right now. He helped Yin to her feet - then tensed again when the kitchen door slammed open.
"What the hell's going on out here?" A small man with a wispy mustache and an apron even grubbier than the boy's stalked out of the kitchen. He waved a meat cleaver in one hand. "What are you doing on the floor, lazy oaf? I know you're not cleaning!"
Smoothly the man turned to Hei and Yin and gave a polite bow. "Please excuse the boy. Welcome to The Lucky Chicken. Table for two? Get up and help our customers! If that beef burns, it's coming out of your pay!" this with a kick in the scowling boy's direction.
This time, Hei did let out a sigh of relief. "Qin," he said.
Qin stared at him, eyes narrowed for a brief moment before widening in surprise. "Li? That is you! I almost didn't - " he cut off, glancing from side to side. "In the kitchen, quick. The girl too - she's with you? Yuen, go sweep up outside!"
"Outside? But -"
"Maybe that girl you can't stop mooning over will walk by. Go on!"
Sullenly, the boy - Yuen - fetched a broom and trudged out the door.
Hei let Qin herd him and Yin into the cramped, steam-filled kitchen. It was the same as he remembered: the haphazard stacks of dishes, the radio in the corner playing Hong Kong's latest hits over the noise of the stove and subzero refrigerator, and the monitor high on the wall displaying feeds from six different security cameras. The cameras were much better quality than they previously had been, he noted.
Qin shut the door behind them, then tossed the cleaver on the counter and picked up a spatula instead, stirring the beef that was frying in a wok on the fire.
"Not too burned," he muttered to himself. "Overcooked, though. Useless kid." He tipped the beef onto a plate and replaced it with a bowl of chopped vegetables.
Hei pulled a stool out from under the counter for Yin, then leaned against the door where he could keep an eye on both Qin and the monitor.
"That boy," he said. "How long has he worked for you?"
"Yuen? A few months now. Lazy oaf. Eats more than he saves me in labor - not as bad as you, never in my life seen a skinny kid eat so much as you - but his parents died in a car accident, well, what was I supposed to do? He can carry out a plate, occasionally picks up a broom. Not like I could leave him out on the street. Be even more useless there."
For a criminal, Qin could be altogether too trusting. Wordlessly Yin slid from her stool, fetched a glass from the shelf, and filled it with water from the sink. Yuen was perfectly visible on two of the security cameras, sweeping half-heartedly, but Yin could monitor the surrounding area as well.
"Didn't think you'd ever show up here again," Qin said, glancing between the cooktop, Hei, Yin, and back to the cooktop. "What sort of trouble you in this time, kid?"
"What do you mean?" Hei asked cautiously.
"Oh, nothing - just that yesterday I made my weekly goodwill visit to the local precinct - you remember how it is, gotta remind our fine uniformed troops of the generous discounts I offer on my world-famous sweet and sour pork, with a special consideration for delivery, untraceable bills as always - and whose face do you think I saw staring up at me from a stack of leaflets, with some dangerous-sounding words beneath it? Not a face I've seen around here in years, that's for sure. Been so long I thought for sure it must be some other idiot, just a passing resemblance. Now here you are, and I believe in a lot of things, but coincidences aren't on that list."
It took Hei a long second to parse the rapid-fire Cantonese. Then he ran his hand through his hair. The police had gotten warning that he and Yin were coming. And there was only one place they could have gotten his photo.
"The hell did you do, kid?" Qin continued. He added a splash of oil to the pan, releasing a violent hiss of smoke. "Didn't I tell you not to get mixed up in trouble? Keep your head down? No one ever listens to me, least of all teenaged punks who think they got the world figured out already. And who's the girl? You get her in trouble too? Hang on…" he trailed off, studying Yin's face. "She's - she's not a doll, is she? Did you steal her? Is that -"
"I stole myself," Yin said, surprising them both. There was a hint of defiance in her quiet voice; Hei wasn't sure whether to be alarmed or proud.
Qin blinked; Hei took advantage of his momentarily silence and said, "It's been a few years since we last saw each other, Qin. I could use your help, but I have to know if I can trust you."
The shorter man scowled, shaking his spatula at Hei. "You think I would last long in this business if my customers couldn't trust me? And after all I did to help you out before, keep you out of trouble?"
"And have you ever done any work for the Syndicate?"
Qin blanched. "I'm an independent contractor - not that kind of contractor, you know what I mean - I don't want their business, I don't take - wait, why do you ask? Li, you're not mixed up with the Syndicate? After all I -"
"I was mixed up with them years before you ever knew me," Hei said quietly, folding his arms. "I quit, and now they're after me. And Yin. That's the short version."
Qin was staring at him as if he'd never seen him before. The vegetables in the wok started to smoke.
"New updates from the shooting that occurred an hour ago at Hong Kong West Kowloon Railway Station," a woman's voice on the radio broke in. "The shooter is believed to have escaped into the city on foot and may be wounded. The public is advised to take caution and report any suspicious activity to the authorities."
Qin frowned, still looking at Hei. Then he shook his head and gave the wok a quick stir. "You'll need the deluxe package, then," he muttered to the stove. "Not cheap. Even with the friends and family discount."
"I can get the money." He had no idea where, but he'd figure that out later.
"It'll take a couple days. Deluxe package comes with accommodations, same as always. Room enough for two. Should be a first aid kit in the bathroom too, get your arm fixed up."
Hei glanced down in surprise; blood was once again seeping into his sleeve. "Thank you, Qin," he said quietly.
"Upstairs, then. You remember where the panel is? Things I do for you useless kids…"
Qin's voice faded into the general noise of the kitchen as Hei and Yin made their way up the back staircase. There was a small apartment at the top, and a sliding panel in the wall that opened into a hidden closet. It was dank and musty, with only a small electric fan for ventilation. Two bedrolls fit side-by-side, but only just.
Hei barely registered Yin saying that she would take first watch before he was sound asleep on the floor.