"Van Lustbader, Eric - Jake Maroc 02 Shan(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

SAMVARTA

Winter-Spring Present
Hong Kong/Beijing/Washington/Moscow


Jake and Bliss were down in the Hole. In the night, the sounds of Hong Kong came to them as through a mist. They were so near the harbor they could hear the lap-lap, lap-lap of water against pilings. The high-pitched squeal of rats came to them now and again through walls of packed earth and rotting timbers.
The sounds of gambling took precedence over everything else. That was the essence of the Hole, a warren of underground chambers linked by low tunnels: gambling. The only legal gambling allowed in Hong Kong was the horse races at Happy Valley. But the Chinese were insatiable gamblers.
It was very dark down in the Hole. Jake had no love for it but it was the spot insisted upon for the rendezvous.
"How well do you know this man?" Bliss asked him.
Jake stared at her. "He is one of the half-dozen I have been running for the past six months." He caught her tone. "I trust him."
Bliss shivered a little. "I don't like this place," she said, echoing Jake's own thoughts.
"He must have a reason for meeting us here," Jake said.
Bliss looked around. "Easy to get trapped down here."
"Just as easy to get lost," Jake said. "Don't worry."
She gave him a little smile. "Just nerves." He could see the long sweep of her beautiful neck. "I don't like to be underground."
"You could have stayed home. I told you."
'Not after what your contact hinted at." She moved and the hollow of her throat filled with shadow. "Jake. Do you really think he's that close to the spy who has infiltrated our inner circle?"
Jake was watching the low-ceilinged corridor. There had been some movement there. "Like I said." Click-clack-click of the ivory mah-jongg tiles. "I vetted him himself." Cigarette smoke, blued in the bare bulb light, thick as fog. "As I do all my operatives." Jumble of Cantonese, rising, as the bidding became more heated. "I trust him." Shadow and light, moving. "I wouldn't be down here otherwise."
Bliss turned her head. Jake could feel the tension come into her frame. "Is that him?"
Jake looked at the thin Chinese with slicked-back hair. He was young to be down here. The Hole was generally the province of the older men, who remembered when smugglers used these tunnels. "No," Jake said, watching the thin Chinese stand there, observing the mah-jongg game. When he began to joke with the participants, Jake turned his attention elsewhere.
"He's late," Bliss said, "your contact." "He'll be here."
"You've had leads before," Bliss said.
"They've all been dead ends," Jake said. He was looking beyond the gamblers. "My operatives get so far, then it's as if a door gets slammed in their faces."
"Time to take another tack."
Jake considered this. He knew how smart Bliss was; that was part of what he loved about her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he should- He began to move forward. "He's here."
Jake was in the light, and the stocky, mustachioed Chinese saw him. He motioned for Jake to stay where he was. Movement at the mah-jongg game was furious, as the last of the tiles were laid out.
The contact made his way past the gesticulating gamblers. His movements were quick, darting. Then he seemed to stumble, and with a cry, he fell forward, into the midst of the gamblers. The ancient wooden table collapsed beneath his weight, tiles scattered, and the old men shouted, lurched out of their chairs.
Then Jake saw the young Chinese with the slicked-back hair; he was racing back along the tunnel down which the contact had just come.
Jake sprang toward the jumble of the gamblers and their ruined game. Bliss shot past him as he bent over the stocky Chinese, his contact, and turned him over. There was blood everywhere. Jake saw the knife and thought, He got the heart; he's a professional-a good one.
There was nothing in the stocky man's eyes: no recognition, no intelligence; the spark had been extinguished in a second. Life to death, without warning.
Ignoring the shouts of the gamblers, Jake took off after Bliss and the assassin. I should have kept my eye on him, Jake thought. I should have known. Why didn't ba-mahk alert me?
Instead he had put Bliss into great danger.

She slammed around a corner and, catching sight of the Chinese with the slicked-back hair, she raced after him. The cloying scent of opium was strong in the air, almost masking the acrid odors. The sweat of feverish gambling was as dense as mist in the subterranean air.
Through a clot of thin old men playing fan-tan. They turned, cursing at her: What was a woman doing down in the Hole anyway? Get back to shelling shrimp where you belong, they shouted. Leave men to their important business.
She ignored them as she had ignored similar poison all her life. She had seen the man with the slicked-back hair dart around to the left and, pushing aside several gamblers adrift on opium currents, she ran into shadows at top speed.
He was waiting for her; a curled arm like steel smashed downward, and Bliss gasped as she felt the pain sweep through her collarbone and neck. Her legs went out from under her and she slid onto the corridor's earthen floor.
Half stunned, she felt herself being dragged into a small, evil-smelling room. The soft stirring of the opium addicts came from all around her. She could barely make out supine shapes in the darkness. Here and there miniature fires were lit; the tears of the poppy was burning in the tiny bowls of long-stemmed pipes.
She felt his presence like a heat above her. She knew he would kill her, just as efficiently as he had killed the contact.
As he stood over her, she knew what she must do. In her mind she could hear the ancient gamblers screaming at her: What's a woman doing down in the Hole anyway? This man was no different from the rest. She would use it against him.
She could hear his panting; it contrasted with the slow, deep exhalations of the addicts among whom she lay.
Bliss lifted a hand, curled it around his neck, brought him down against her face. She could see slivers of yellow light reflecting in his eyes. She could scent his arousal. Killing sometimes did that to people, she had heard.
She needed time: to recover, to fix on a strategy. Bliss opened her legs, thrust her breasts up. All the while the hand she had placed behind his head was moving, ever so slowly. She twisted her breasts beneath his hands. Now the pad of her thumb was just over the right side of his neck. She must give no pressure, no warning.
Bliss knew that she would only get one chance. If she did not get it dead on, he would kill her. She had absolutely no doubt of that.
She concentrated on what she had to do. The carotid. She knew the nerve meridian well. Still she hesitated. So much was riding on the split second of her commitment. Death was waiting for her.
She felt him against her soft flesh and she had had enough. She summoned all her inner strength; she concentrated her qi down to this one point on his anatomy. The carotid meridian.
Opened her mouth wide and shouted, as Jake had taught her; simultaneously, she pressed inward at the meridian juncture.
The effect on the assassin was astounding. He jumped, a fish on a line. His eyes flew open; she could see the whites all around. They began to bug out as the color drained from his cheeks.
Realizing what she was doing, he responded instinctually; he hit out. His fists were like blocks of iron. They struck Bliss; tears of pain welled up in her eyes.