April 14, 2008
He was in a strange room, and Yin was gone.
Hei's mind registered those two things before he was even halfway awake. He sat up, reaching for his nearest knife - then a small blue specter appeared in a glass of water by the sliding panel, and his memory caught up with him.
The specter flickered in a subtle but distinct pattern: all clear.
Hei let himself exhale, and regretted it immediately - he'd apparently bruised a rib at some point yesterday. Rising gingerly, he headed to the bathroom to clean up and finally properly bandage his arm.
When he eventually made his way downstairs to the kitchen, he found Yin sitting on the same stool as before, one foot in a pan of water and a bowl of steaming congee in her lap. She hadn't woken him for a watch even once last night. He was tempted to chide her for it, but had a feeling it would be useless. Her stubborn streak was growing by the day.
Qin sat at a tiny table in the corner, a lockbox and several sheets of expensive-looking paper spread out in front of him and an unlit cigarette pinched in the corner of his mouth. He didn't look up when Hei entered, but continued muttering to himself, comparing two of the blank sheets side by side.
"Where's the kid?" Hei asked. There was a huge pot of congee simmering on the stove. He took down a bowl and filled it to the brim. It felt like he hadn't eaten in weeks.
"School," Qin said. "It's Monday," he added at Hei's blank look.
Hei glanced at Yin; she nodded.
"Doesn't say much, does she? What's with the foot bath - she can see through her foot somehow, or what? I've never seen a doll up close before, I stay away from anything to do with contractors. Are they all like this?"
"Not really."
Qin snorted. "Not that you were ever much of a talker either."
He gestured at the monitor on the wall; one of the six screens was tuned into a news broadcast rather than a security camera. "No updates on that shooting from yesterday. In case you were interested. Not to change the subject, totally unrelated question - you got a gun needs getting rid of?"
"No."
"You sure? Only I know a good bridge -"
"I didn't shoot anyone yesterday."
Qin eyed him; Hei wasn't sure whether the older man believed him or not, but he didn't comment on the obvious: that Hei hadn't claimed to be uninvolved in the shooting.
Instead Qin continued, as if there had already been a natural change in the subject of the conversation, "American okay? I have the best stamps for China, but then you'd need visas to get into almost anywhere else, and I'm not spending a week making a dozen visas. I don't suppose you know where you're headed next? Save me some trouble if you did. Wasn't that what we did for you and your sister last time, Chinese? Less complicated trouble you were in then, eh? Well that was fine, you were both Chinese, but the doll could pass only if they don't look close enough. I'm guessing you expect them to look close. Do you know any English?"
"I can't do an American accent."
"Who the hell cares about an accent? American then, more versatile anyway. What am I going to serve my customers, you keep filling your bowl like that?"
"You don't serve breakfast, Qin."
"How can I, useless kids like you eating me out of house and home?"
For a moment, Hei had the strangest sense of deja vu. Then he realized what he was reminded of: working with his old team back in Tokyo. Mao and Huang. He gazed into his bowl, appetite suddenly gone.
"Where is your sister, anyway? Even stranger than you, that girl - fine, fine, don't give me that look, I'm not asking." Qin cast him a sideways glance, then returned to his box of papers. "Eighteen months' travel history, that should be enough," he muttered to himself. "Work history though…maybe ten years. You got any skill set you want played up? Though menial labor is usually best in these cases."
"No. Menial jobs are fine."
Hei forced his mind to turn to more pragmatic matters - namely, how he was going to pay Qin for the documents. With the workup that Qin was doing, Hei and Yin would be able to cross into just about any country, rent a decent place (assuming they had the money), maybe even find legal jobs.
First, though, they had to avoid being tracked down by any more bounty hunters. Or cops. It was lucky that the police's photo of him wasn't being broadcast, but the fact that they had it at all was worrying. Had he actually killed any of them yesterday? He didn't think so.
"Who are the major players in town?" he asked.
Qin blinked. "What? Why?"
"I need to know what to expect if there's going to be local trouble aside from the police. And you want to get paid, right?"
"Don't ask stupid questions, of course I want to get paid." Qin plucked the cigarette from his mouth to gesture emphatically with it. "But what are you thinking - you want to rip off one of the gangs? Piss off a crime boss, take his money? Maybe you've picked up some useful skills in the past few years, though sure, you did manage to navigate the underground pretty well back then, pretty well for a scrawny, sullen teenager. But don't think you'll be able to get away with screwing over one of the local big fish. Even if you do manage it, then what, leave town and leave me with trouble? What good is payment to me if I'm floating in the harbor, eh?" He popped the cigarette back between his lips as if that closed the matter.
"You didn't complain about the money I paid you last time."
"Last time? Last time you stole from the third-rate gangster who killed your father and made you work off his debt - that's why you needed the papers, right? To get back to your mother's family on the mainland? Those third-rates, they leave me alone, they're my customers too, what do I care if you rip themoff. Plenty of business still. You telling me that's not what happened?"
"That's not what happened."
"Then what did happen, eh?" Qin demanded.
Hei hesitated. Telling the truth wasn't exactly something he was good at. Confiding in someone, anyone, even less so. He hadn't been able to even tell Misaki everything about the things that he'd done. Being honest wasn't in his self-interest.
The justification of a contractor.
How many of his actions in the last five years had been true pragmatism, and how many simply the fear of being found out as human - and reviled even more for it?
"I robbed Lau Cheung's headquarters."
The cigarette dropped from Qin's mouth. "Lau Cheung? The real estate mogul? He ran the biggest money laundering operation in all Hong Kong and China - probably all of East Asia. Not even the Kwok family would dare touch him! You stole from him, and walked out alive? Bullshit, kid, bullshit. Maybe if you'd managed to get in around the time he was assassinated, maybe you could've snuck something valuable out while the organization was in chaos. When was that again, was that after you'd left town? No, I remember, it was right be-"
Qin cut off abruptly, eying Hei with a sudden, confused suspicion. "No, you didn't have anything to do with that - even idiot kids like you aren't dumb enough to try, let alone pull it off."
Hei folded his arms. "I didn't kill him."
The other man looked faintly relieved. "I knew that, of course, you couldn't -"
"My sister did."
Hei didn't think Qin had ever been truly speechless before in his life. Qin's mouth opened and closed a few times, as if he was fishing for words and coming up with water instead. At last he said, "Bullshit. She was just a kid. Younger than you, even."
"She was a contractor."
"She…what? No kidding?" Qin fiddled with his cigarette, still unlit. "Poor kid. And…" He eyed Hei again, this time with clear apprehension.
Hei shook his head. "I'm not."
It was the first time since finding out the truth about himself that he'd admitted it to anyone. Not that he'd had anyone in the past couple of months to talk to except Yin, but still. Saying it out loud, knowing it was the truth and meaning it to be the truth, was like a dousing of cold water. He watched Qin out of the corner of his eye; would the forger still agree to help him out, knowing that Hei was associated with contractors, not just the Syndicate?
"Hei. The Syndicate."
Hei snapped his gaze to the monitor, hand reaching to the small of his back for a knife. "Where?"
"The waterfront. There's an industrial complex."
"The waterfront?" The cameras were clear; he relaxed minutely. "I know - that's their training facility for the Asian sector. Yin, you didn't send a specter there, did you?"
"That place?" Qin cut in, squinting at Yin. "That's Syndicate? Huh, that makes sense."
"What do you mean?"
Qin waved his cigarette. "Always had pretty tight security there. I stay away from all those outfits, you understand, I want nothing to do with contractors - but word was always that it was some sort of top secret government project, weapons development maybe, no one knew, because anyone who got close enough to find out never made it back in one piece. Everyone stays away from there, like it doesn't exist. Except lately, oh, maybe the past month or so, ever since that news conference - you know the one, where that Japanese cop told the whole world that contractors exist, that the Syndicate exists - since then, security's gotten even tighter. No one goes there, but people still notice these things. And I hear about it. If it's Syndicate, well, stands to reason they'd be arming up. Now that all the national police agencies know about them."
Hei stared down at the floor, considering. "That's wrong," he said after a long moment.
"What? Why?"
"I know the Syndicate. They work from the shadows. They don't make a show of force when threatened; they cut and run."
This training facility was the only physical Syndicate-run complex Hei had ever even heard about. If they were worried about someone finding out what was inside, why not move it? Destroy all evidence and wipe the facility completely clean. After all, what better way to fight Misaki's accusations than by simply refusing to exist?
Unless there was something there they couldn't move.
"I can check it out," Yin said softly.
Hei hesitated. "Yin, there could be a dozen contractors in there. And who knows how many surveillance specters."
"I can be careful."
He sighed. She'd probably already sent a specter inside. "Only if you feel comfortable with the risk."
She nodded once. Her foot remained dipped delicately in the bowl of water, but a subtle shift in her expression told Hei that she was focused more intently now.
Qin looked back and forth between the two of them, his eyes wide. "Don't tell me you're actually thinking of breaking into this place? Look, I'll give you a bigger discount. Just rob a bank, alright, it'll be easier."
"It would," Hei agreed with a shrug.
Qin snorted and swept his papers back into the lockbox. "Idiot kids, you want to get yourselves killed, fine, not my problem. Time to start prepping for the lunch sitting; you remember what I taught you about chopping lettuce? Got ten heads in the crisper, all need chopping. Thin strips, you hear me, thin strips."
~~~~o~~~~
Some time later, Hei was still chopping vegetables. Qin worked at the sink, his rambling chatter providing an old familiar backdrop to Hei's thoughts.
"Three weeks in a row, all rotten," Qin was saying over the soft shushing sound of rice being washed. "See if I ever buy from them again. And that lazy oaf, brought them back without even looking through the boxes first. Useless kid. Come to think of it, you did that once too. Only once, though - you may be an idiot, but at least you learn. Though maybe not as well as you should, what with you still thinking of breaking into the Syndicate's place and all."
Hei let his task occupy his hands, the methodical motions freeing his mind to think through the scant pieces of information Yin was able to deliver - personnel numbers and movements, possible contractors she'd noted - each one sending Hei's heart into his throat at the risk that they'd spot her specter. So far, no kind of goal or plan had occurred to him.
The most concrete information they'd gotten so far was that several people were being told to transfer something; and in a hurry. But neither Hei or Yin had any idea what was being transferred, or why.
"Oh right, I almost forgot," Qin continued. "There's an order going around all the local gangs, telling their guys on the street to keep their heads low, because this heavy hitter is heading into the city soon. Some rumors say he's a government ghoul, cleaning up their messes, that sort of thing, others say no, he's some lone contractor, gone crazy in South America and working off his own agenda now, whatever's rational to him; whether it makes sense to anyone else, that's a different question. I don't know how contractors think, who does - well, maybe you, come to think of it, with that sister of yours. I can still hardly believe it; just a little girl. Poor kid.
"Anyway, those are old rumors, right, been hearing them for years, but always 'oh he's in Beijing, he's in Seoul,' wherever. This one though, this one just started a week or two ago: that he's got business in Hong Kong now. Business, and a price on his head.
"So whoever wants to try their luck, well they can go ahead and try it. Everyone else, better keep our heads down. Which I intend to do, as I am not an idiot. Seeing as how you are an idiot, and still not giving up on this ridiculous idea of yours, I figure you should know. And seeing as how you aren't immediately changing your mind - thank you, Qin, what good advice, Qin - and are instead ignoring every word I say, it seems either you haven't heard of this guy before - the Black Reaper, he's called - or you are in fact an even bigger idiot than I've been thinking."
Hei froze mid-chop, the knife blade buried in a pile of lettuce.
"Ah, so you have heard of him - good. Now tell me this stupid idea of yours is stupid; I'll help you find a nice quiet bank to rob -"
"A week ago?"
"Or two, I don't remember. What difference does that make?"
A week ago, he and Yin had still been on the ship, in the middle of the East China Sea. A week before that, they'd been in the islands with no clear idea of where to go from there. How could the Syndicate have possibly predicted that Hei would make for Hong Kong?
What did they know about Qin and his business? Hei's handler back then had probably guessed where Hei had gotten the papers - Qin's work was well known in the underground, but he was also known for his neutrality. There were plenty of other forgers across China who Hei could find to go to for papers now, without adding the risk of coming to Hong Kong and one of the Syndicate's nodes of influence. Finding those forgers would take time - time that Hei and Yin didn't have - but they were out there.
Did they know that Qin had given Hei a job for those three months, making him someone Hei slightly trusted? He and Bai hadn't reported on their activities at the end of their test, and as far as Hei knew, they hadn't been observed closely.
There had been one instance in the first week when he'd spotted a man watching them; Hei had guessed he was with the Syndicate, sent to observe their progress. He'd never found out; Bai had seen the man too. They shouldn't have sent him if it wasn't part of the test, his sister had explained matter of factly. Which, Hei had had to admit, was true.
Whether it had been part of the test or not, they'd never caught anyone else watching.
No, he decided, as far as the Syndicate knew, the risk of coming to Hong Kong for papers would far outweigh the gain. So how could they have predicted his arrival over a week in advance? The Syndicate should have expected the opposite, more self-interested decision; they knew him too well.
They did know him well, he realized - they knew that in the past year he had frequently gone off mission in order to settle irrational, personal scores.
And after their betrayal in Tokyo, there was only one score left to settle.
"There were twelve trains leaving Shanghai for Hong Kong yesterday morning," he said. "Is that normal?"
Qin shrugged. "I look like the Transportation and Housing Bureau to you? How should I know? Does seem like a lot, but there's a lot of people in China and Hong Kong, eh?"
Hei wished Misaki was there to talk it over with him; she would have spotted the connection that was eluding him immediately. He stared down at the half-chopped cabbage, thinking. In his mind he could see Misaki's puzzled frown, her eyes focused intently on her notepad while she tapped her pen absently.
"The police had a photo of me - just me, not Yin?"
"I didn't see any other photos. What's that got to do with trains? For that matter, what's that got to do with the Black Reaper? I don't hear you deciding to leave this Syndicate facility alone and keep your head down."
"They didn't know for sure what train we were on; or if we'd be on one at all, or there would have been more than two men waiting. Those two weren't Syndicate, anyway. And the police response was quick, but they weren't waiting," he said slowly. "They expected me to come, but didn't know if I would, or when. The trains…they were making it easy."
What do you do when you know your enemy is planning to ambush you - you lure him onto a battleground of your choosing, instead. It was a tactic that Hei had honed and perfected in Brazil; but he'd learned it from the Syndicate.
"What's with that look?" Qin said. "And let go of that knife, kid, you'll break a finger before you crack a steel-cored handle."
"Coming here was an even worse idea than I thought," Hei said tiredly, forcing his hand to relax. He set the knife on the chopping board and braced both hands on the counter. "They're always a step ahead."
"The Gate," Yin said.
He shook his head. "That was Amber's plan; she set it all up so that all I had to do was make the choice. She was the one they didn't predict."
"Misaki?"
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Yeah. Her too."
Amber's ruthlessness and power to change events; Misaki's drive and ability to think abstractly. They were the real threats to the Syndicate. Hei was a weapon, yes, but without someone to aim him he was as useless as this chopped lettuce. He needed time, resources, a base of safety from which to plan.
And a better mind than his.
"If you're done talking nonsense, there's still half a lettuce head needs chopping," Qin said, jabbing a wooden spoon in Hei's direction. "Not to mention a full crate of peppers."
He turned back to stirring the rice, then paused. "The Syndicate really wants you bad, huh? All because you quit? What'd you do, turn in your resignation letter then set the office on fire?"
"Well…yeah. Pretty much."
Qin shook his head. "Idiot. Look, do what I tell you - keep your head down, and get out as soon as the papers are ready. The Syndicate thinks you'll try to break in? Then don't. Easy as that. You got a grudge against them, sure, that's obvious, but is it really worth it? That place must be swarming with contractors, you really want to set yourself up against that? Nobody's that crazy, not even you."
"They want me dead, Qin. They know I'm in the city. If I don't hit the facility like they expect me to, they'll come looking for me. Here. A day or two at most is all I have."
The short man visibly paled at that idea. "What? Here? I'm neutral, everybody knows I'm neutral, I don't get mixed up in contractor business!"
Hei fully expected that the next thing words out of Qin's mouth would be a polite but firm notice of eviction; and he wasn't going to argue.
"Well, maybe I can close the dining room early, get to work on those papers sooner. Or would that look too suspicious? Is anyone watching right now? The Syndicate has dolls, right, how would we know if there're any spying here?" He stared into open space, eyes crossing slightly.
"There aren't any specters," Yin said.
"What? Are you sure? You would know, would you?"
She nodded once.
Hei stared. "Qin, you've never closed early."
Qin rinsed the pot of rice, set it aside, then shook his head and poured out a fresh batch to wash. "You're right, you're right, it would definitely look too suspicious. No specters, your doll says, well maybe not, but nothing stopping them from the old-fashioned kind of surveillance. I'll just have to take some shortcuts instead. No travel history, maybe. I usually charge extra for a rush job, you know, so you'll just have to make do with the shortcuts. Two days? Yeah, maybe tomorrow tonight I can get it all tied up. Late tomorrow night, mind you. I'll have to put Yuen on cleaning duty unsupervised; lazy oaf, he'll sit around watching those television shows of his instead of working.
"But kid," Qin continued, his tone growing serious for a change, "you really think there's a trap waiting for you at that facility, you don't go. Maybe contractors are no worse monsters than some of the gangsters around here, but shooting someone, that's normal. Nothing more natural than a knife to the ribs, right? But everything I've heard, some things I've seen?" He shook his head. "They've got contractors waiting for you, you stay the hell away."
Qin was right, Hei knew - charging into that facility would be a massively stupid idea. If Yin didn't know what they were looking for, she couldn't direct him. And he still had no idea what they were looking for.
Maybe he could make it out of the city before the Syndicate's pet contractors got tired of waiting and came looking for him; but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something there that they were trying to protect. They wouldn't have left the place intact just to set a trap that he may or may not spring. Especially with international pressure from Misaki's investigation falling on all the governments across East Asia.
He didn't know if she would ever welcome him back in Tokyo - not after the words they'd said, after the way he'd turned his back and walked away from her, even as she called out for him to wait. But maybe there was still something he could do. A way to apologize. What if there was some sort of intel there that would help her?
"Was all that true, do you think? What that Japanese cop said about the Syndicate and their plans? Wiping out contractors?"
It took Hei a moment to catch back up to the conversation. "Yeah," he said carefully, shoving useless regrets to the side for now. "It was true."
"That one's got her work cut out for her, eh? Contractors aren't all that bad, she says? I don't know anything contractors, mind you, I want nothing to do with them. They don't deserve to wiped out, I guess, no more than any of us criminals deserve to be wiped out. Still, any organization that can plan something that big? Got people in every government? Makes Lau Cheung look like my doddering old grandpa."
There was a lot of truth to that. Hei had as much as declared war on the Syndicate when he'd destroyed their plan at the Gate; he couldn't fight a war on his own. He was losing even his retreat.
Focus on your intel, Hei reminded himself. The photo. The trains.
"I think you're right," he said after a long pause. "The Syndicate facility isn't tactically feasible, not without knowing what I'm looking for."
"Good. Finally. Maybe you're not such a -"
"Where does the Secretary of Transport and Housing live?"
"The - what? Why? Are you still on about those trains? Look, kid, just because a lot of trains are running, doesn't mean there's some kind of government conspiracy going on. Now, if all the trains were on time, that might be a different kettle of onions. Okay, look, whatever - you want to rip off a government official? Fine, fine, have at it. Just so long as you stay away from the Syndicate. Who the hell even is the Secretary of Transport and Housing, anyway? I don't see you chopping any peppers - you gonna to slack off like that lazy oaf, then stop taking up space in my kitchen, eh?"
Hei returned to chopping vegetables, his spirits lifting a little. Finally there was something for him to do, rather than simply react. Maybe this would be a dead end, but at least it something.