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Page 6.
 Traffic whirled around the major traffic circle below Jack’s balcony. The intersection formed a central square in Baotou. Over it loomed China’s future, a modern glass and steel building in the best traditions of free enterprise, including the convention center.
Jack held a gin and tonic in one hand, while he enjoyed a warm, dry summer breeze smelling of hay and rare earths blowing down from the north.
Down at the traffic island, that female traffic cop in dark green uniform directed traffic from her elevated platform, which was a round tower painted in red and white zebra stripes. She waved a baton with a neon circle glowing on its top end—green on one side, red on the other. Her moves flowed in smooth, bored sequences, with a certain subtle flair, as in some form of tai chi. She had nice legs, too, Jack noted, watching as she made energetic turning steps, visible in the opening above the steps leading to her traffic tower. That olive-green military skirt over her pert behind came down to a point halfway at her pale knee caps. She would turn like a ballerina, with her upper body erect and that glowing baton curving in the air. She would pivot on one loafer-clad foot, while her other leg rose provocatively, at right angles, for balance. Jack had already, briefly, studied her fine legs and slim figure through his binoculars, as a momentary appreciation of fine art. This was a necessary diversion. His interest tonight lay in Xue Siquin, who possessed brains, beauty, and poise enough to be his traffic stop for the night—assuming everyone got through the next hour or so alive.
Traffic flowed like a dully glowing steel herd around the traffic island, where the flower of Chinese traffic policewomen practiced her butterfly dance. The illusion of law and order was hypnotic. Just a short distance beyond her lay the dark fortress of Sunrise Engine Corp. If he raised and looked through his clear gin and tonic glass, he could see her fine limbs moving, along with the glowing dot. The light was red, not green. Go figure.
There! Jack almost missed the obvious signal.
He instantly set his drink aside, and stepped close to the balcony to peer down over the travertine railing and reached for the high-powered, night-capable binoculars.
Jack snapped the compact binoculars to his eyes.
At the traffic island in the square below, it was not time for shift change. And yet—his uniformed female traffic cop—looking very strack in her dark green skirt-suit, white cross-belts, and white hat—quickly stepped down the ladder from her round, elevated island. She had nice legs under the knee-length green uniform skirt; softly muscled thighs that gleamed pale under traffic lights. Something was up, all of a sudden. Her dance was over. She was running for her life, without making it look as if she were doing anything more than sauntering in rapid little steps.
The female cop hurried across the pedestrian zone, swinging her traffic baton from one hand. Her other hand was up at her ear piece—she must just have gotten word to evacuate. She was talking to unseen superiors. The show was about to begin. She scurried on sensible shoes. Now she held on to her cap with her free hand. Her pale, pretty legs made urgent, blurry motions. Her lovely knee caps and firm, trim calves, and mahogany uniform shoes made her look school-girlish…
Suddenly, the square filled with lights—white headlights behind military steel grids, and red taillights as columns of large, olive-drab mechanized infantry vehicles drove in from all sides.
Men in helmets, porting assault rifles, jumped from several lines of PRC army and Mongolian state police troop carriers. The air filled with heavy engine roaring and diesel exhaust, as well as the clatter of dropped chains. This came amid a clanking of heavy steel ramps dropping. Tanks charged down on rapidly churning treads, turbine engines whining, while their heavy bodies swiveled with surprising agility ahead of billowing black smoke.
Officers and NCOs hoarsely shouted orders as the men surrounded the Sunrise Engine Corp building.
Flash-bang grenades exploded with teeth-jarring noise and blinding lights.
Small packet charges imploded the heavy glass doors.
Assault choppers clattered overhead, aiming down darting spotlights.
Laser-like search beams darted back and forth into the sky. Muzzle flashes erupted from suicidal lobby guards a.k.a. Tong thugs in cheap, flashy suits. Raking fire of invading PRC commandos overmatched the lobby guards tenfold.
Silence ensued as Chinese commandos took the building in quick order, all floors simultaneously, one room at a time, kicking in doors as they went. They took pockets of fatigue-clad mercenaries prisoner, as they surprised them in their ready rooms before they could take up arms and fight back.
Jack's ear piece hummed, and he tapped it. "Yes?"
The cold, hard voice of Zhang Mei sounded: "Mr. Gray, I am displeased that you stayed."
"Do you have Yang Jun in custody?"
"Confidential, Mr. Gray." Her voice wavered on the last word, as if she were suddenly sloshing some new ideas around in the nutrient broth of her scheming mind.
"Don't play games with me," Jack said. "I've been here, risking my life to help you."
"You were paid to do a job. It’s finished. You were told to leave the country.”
“I’m just making a little detour on my way home.”
She seemed to consider, pausing a moment. “There is one last detail."
"What?" Her tone made him suspicious.
She sounded velvety, false. "Yang Jun is in this building where you and I are. Meet me on the next floor up from your balcony. I have two men with me, and we'll take him."
"All right. I’ll be there in two minutes."
A crowd hurried to the balcony—gaping diplomats, tractor sales persons, spouses, and waiters and waitresses—to watch the noisy, violent chaos in the square. None had a clue that, if the thugs won, all the dancers would be hostages within less than an hour. Some might die. Yang rarely took prisoners, unless for torture or ransom, maybe both depending on his whims.
Jack sidled among them.
As he entered the now-empty ballroom, all pretense about Herr Kutt was over. Jack brandished the small black Kimber. Until minutes ago, the Dragon Lady had strictly ordered him to leave the city, not to get involved in the raid on Yang's company. Now she wanted his help? He smelled a bigger rat than before. But he quickly formed an idea about the missing puzzle piece. He would move very cautiously from here on. Whatever happened, Yang must be taken down. That was a priority bigger than Jack's own safety, or—his eyes dilated with worry—Xue!
The hallway outside the ballroom was dark and quiet. Soft elevator music still played from the day's conferences and shows. Jack banged on the elevator buttons, but the machine seemed stuck somewhere.
His ear piece buzzed. It was Xue. "Jack, something is not kosher."
"Yeah—something is rotten in Inner Denmark."
"Don't joke now. I am watching Yang Jun cross the street. He's hurrying into our building."
"Is he alone?"
"Looks like it. I think he escaped into a tunnel, under the square, and came up on this side."
"I'll be careful."
"Shake that noise," she said. "Come down to the patio where I can keep an eye on you."
"Nothing would suit me better right now. Stay hidden! I’ll be down there for you in a few minutes."
Tapping the connection off, he found a stairway and ran up two steps at a time. If Zhang Mei said the industrialist was already in the building, why did Xue after that see him entering? Jack had been expecting this. The big man had a back door escape plan, which he was now executing. With any luck, Zhang Mei and her government police agents from Beijing would collar him before Jack arrived.
Or—? The shadowy, lurking realization came into the open in Jack's mind. Of course. Zhang was in it with Big Yang. This was a death trap for Jack. Yang had a score to settle, and its name was Gray. Somewhere, in the back corridors of his mind, he’d expected this as well.
Silence.
Jack shoved pushed open a door and stepped cautiously onto the hallway one floor up.
No elevator music.
No lights, just a dim reddish glow from scattered emergency exit lights.
The door slipped shut behind him as he stood cautiously pointing his gun.
An emergency light slammed on directly overhead, blinding him.
"Mr. Gray, you are a real nuisance," said the matronly voice of Zhang Mei. She walked into the hallway from a side lobby, holding a gun on him as she approached.
Walking beside her was Yang Jun, crime boss and CEO of Sunrise Engine Corp. He said something in Mandarin, which Jack took to mean "So this is that pain in the ass. Kill him. Then we'll get out of here together, Sugar Pie." Yang wore a maroon jogging suit, whose athletic implication was belied by his ample gut. The jacket zipper was open to his diaphragm, revealing an oily looking chest and a gold medallion on a golden chain. If the Dragon Lady was Sugar Pie, Jack hated to think what this beached walrus might be called on a dessert menu.
Jack could almost hear the saucy retort from Xue: Howzabout Peaches in Lard?
Seeing spots before his eyes, Jack made out the muzzle of her gun as it swung toward him. So the chief of the MSS operation had been sent to arrest Yang Jun and his minions—but, instead, was in bed with Yang. It made instant sense, in the picosecond before that muzzle could flash. As with many bureaucrats, this woman's salary was modest as she moved about in a world of money, power, and influence. Yang was her one chance to throw her lot in with a billionaire, and live like an old-fashioned dowager empress, while she still clung to the last of her arachnid sex appeal.
Jack stepped back as her muzzle flashed. The gun barked, and a bullet nicked the steel frame of the door that hung locked behind him.
Jack loosed two shots upward into the emergency light.
The lights all around went dark.
"Kill this prick!" shouted Yang in mangled and marinated English.
Dragon Lady snarled like an enraged debutante in the rain without a taxi. Two more rounds escaped her popping gun, while Jack threw himself to the ground. Her shots clanked holes into the door frame where his head had been a second ago. Jack shot in the direction of her muzzle flashes.
She laughed contemptuously, as if Jack were dirt.
Jack spotted a faint glow from Yang's medallion and pumped three shots into that direction.
Yang collapsed quietly. His lard hit the ground with a heavy plop.
Zhang's laughs and snarls turned into bellowing. From her motion, as Jack’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she must be bending over Yang. She was trying to revive him. Jack pumped out his last round, but missed in the gloom. He shook out the empty clip, letting it drop with a hollow, metallic bouncing sound. and clicked a new one into the grip.
"You die for this!" Zhang bellowed hoarsely. "I will send someone to cut your balls off with a rusty razor!" She emptied the gun in Jack's direction. He pressed himself into an alcove. When she was out of ammo, he leaned around the corner and poured out half his fresh clip. Firing on automatic, he heard gas-pops by his ear, and the clatter of expelled shells on the hard carpet, as his rounds blasted after her.
No luck. He heard the soft soles of her sport shoes running away.
One day, somewhere, he knew he would be forced to think of her again.
Or she would send someone after him with murder in his eyes, as promised.
Jack would be looking over his back again for a while. Sigh.
Jack listened for a minute or two. Boots came piling up steel stairways, and doors burst open.
"Don't shoot," Jack cried out. "InterWurst!" He waved his Germanic Herr Kutt I.D. card.
The officers in charge recognized Jack from earlier contact. They ordered their men to run in the direction Jack indicated.
Emergency lights came on, and there lay Big Yang, dead as a beached sea cow after trying to mate with churning propellers in a Miami boat canal.
Now utterly ignored, Jack quietly opened the door. He holstered his still-hot gun on his way down the stairs.
In the main ballroom, he grabbed a wine bottle, two glasses, and a small box of finger foods along his way. Not to mention chocolates. Women liked chocolates. Jack liked women. Jack and women and chocolates were the perfect combination for an all-star evening, anywhere in the world, so why not Inner Mongolia?
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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