Chapter 8

Before she had legally changed her name to Kelly Swan then buried that under a number of aliases, she had first been Kelly Suen. Her father had given her an English name at her mother's request, and he had sent her off to be educated at American schools because her mother had believed that was where her daughter would thrive.

Kelly had blossomed in the United States, becoming much more than she would have if she'd remained in Shanghai. Her mother had lived to see her graduate college, but not to see that she hadn't chosen to become a teacher as her mother had hoped. Kelly's life, as the old Chinese curse went, had been interesting, to say the least.

She had graduated six years earlier. Her life had changed several times during those intervening years.

But this morning she'd returned to Shanghai on a redeye flight into PudongInternationalAirport. The rental car was an extravagance. She knew when her father saw the car he would roll his eyes and complain about the needless expenditure of money when she could have taken the bus into the Bund and a taxi from there.

It didn't matter that she had the money. Only that she had spent it foolishly. He prided himself on his own thriftiness, and any time she told him he was being too tight-fisted, he only pointed out that it was his thriftiness that had allowed her to go to college in a foreign country. He always conveniently forgot about the grants she'd qualified for and the work she'd undertaken on her own behalf to make ends meet.

Still, she longed to see her father. It had been three years since she'd last seen him. The time had slipped away. As she got closer, the guilt seemed overwhelming.

****

Kelly had to make one stop before driving to her father's house. The stop was downtown, only a few blocks off

Nanjing Road

. During business hours, the shops burgeoned with tourists and buyers, and the sidewalks were filled with a constant stream of pedestrians.

She left the car in a parking lot and went to a fourth-floor walkup. The building housed small businesses and criminal enterprises. She was more familiar with criminals than she'd ever have believed possible. In her line of work, they were known as assets. She'd gotten the name of this particular asset from one of the few contacts she still trusted.

Kelly knocked on the door as she'd been told – three times, then twice, then four. The effort seemed simple and ridiculous to someone used to working with cutting-edge technology, but it was effective in circles where buyer and seller never met before an arrangement was made. The man she was meeting ran a strict cash-and-carry business.

A young man in American-style gangbanger clothes opened the door. His baseball cap was pointed to the side. He wore a cocky grin, and Kelly knew that was because he didn't feel threatened.

"Are you lost?" the man asked.

Kelly didn't react well to the insolence in the man's tone. For three days, she'd dodged men who had dogged her trail from Brazil to the Cayman Islands. Less than thirty hours ago, she'd surprised them on the boat they'd rented to follow her, then dropped their bodies into the Caribbean Sea. It had been the last bit of bad business, and one of the reasons she'd wanted to return to her father's house. She didn't know what kind of fallout she was going to face. It was possible she wouldn't live another week. She wouldn't have come home at all if she'd believed that her father would be safe from her enemies.

At five feet seven inches tall and slender, Kelly knew she didn't look imposing. She'd learned to make that work for her. Furthermore, the man probably expected her to be docile and slightly cowed simply because he was male.

Reacting to him with anger, Kelly snap-kicked the man in the crotch and shoved him back into the room. Outraged, trying desperately to not drop to his knees or be sick, the young man reached under the windbreaker he wore.

Kelly blocked his right hand with her left, then reached inside his jacket with her right and pulled the Sig-Sauer P220 from his shoulder holster. The pistol was double-action, so it would fire as soon as she pulled the trigger. She doubted that the chamber under the hammer was empty.

The man flailed, trying for the pistol. She kicked him again, harder this time. The man would have fallen, but Kelly grabbed his shirt at the throat and shoved him backward. He fell, sprawling and cringing in pain.

Three other men were in the room. Two of them played video games in the corner. The other man sat barefoot on a couch with a cell phone to his ear. He was the one Kelly had come to see. She recognized his voice from when they had spoken over the phone.

The two men playing the video game reached for machine pistols lying on the floor.

"No." Kelly kept her voice sharp. She pointed the Sig-Sauer at the men to underscore the command.

Unhappily, the men drew back from their weapons.

"Hands on your heads." Kelly reached back and closed the door behind her.

The men complied.

"Keep them there or I will kill you," Kelly said. She managed to find two of the locks by feel and locked them. She wasn't sure if there would be other guards. If she'd set up the operation, there would have been.

The man on the phone looked at her. Calmly, he closed the phone and put it away, but continued to sit on the couch as if he didn't have care in the world.

"You are Guo Teng?" Kelly kept her voice firm but even, as if she did this every day.

"Yes." The man was barely into his twenties, a handful of years younger than Kelly. His platinum hair jarred against his skin tone. Hoop earrings dangled from both ears. He wore jeans and a T-shirt featuring a band Kelly had never heard of. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Your six-thirty appointment," Kelly replied.

Guo Teng grinned. "I knew you would be interesting. You speak very good English."

Kelly didn't respond.

"I wasn't expecting a Chinese woman," Guo said. "Are you still going to pay in American money?"

"Yes."

Guo started to get up, then caught himself. "May I get up to get your merchandise?"

"Yes. But move slowly. If your door greeter had better manners, perhaps I wouldn't be so wary."

"Oh," Guo said, smiling, "I don't think you know any other way."

The man crossed the room to two large suitcases sitting on the table. He used a key to open the locks of one. When he lifted the lid, an assortment of hand guns and machine pistols were revealed.

"Step away, please," Kelly directed. She'd learned that politeness never hurt. When it was extended, people sometimes accepted it and responded in kind. Other times, when she'd calmly executed someone after being polite, the survivors had been shocked – and even impressed. "Don't touch anything," she said.

Grinning, Guo stepped back. "You aren't going to rob me, are you?"

"No. And you're not going to rob me." Kelly stepped toward the suitcase and looked inside. She found two Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistols in a double shoulder holster. Reaching inside her jacket, she took out a white business envelope thick with cash. "The money we agreed on."

Guo took the envelope and quickly rifled through the bills. He nodded and put the envelope into his pants pocket. "The hundred rounds of ammunition are in the bottom of the suitcase."

Kelly got the boxes and sat them beside the pistols. Pulling up a chair, she put the Sig-Sauer on the table then ejected the magazines from the new weapons.

The two men sitting in front of the video game started to inch slowly toward their weapons.

"In case you're wondering," Kelly said, never pausing in loading the magazines, "I can pick up that pistol and shoot you between the eyes before you get those machine pistols off the ground."

The men hesitated but didn't pull back.

"I won't stop at killing one of you," Kelly promised. "If one of you behaves foolishly, you're sitting far too close together. I'll kill you both."

The two men leaned back.

"Cowards," the doorman snarled. "If I still had my pistol, I'd – "

"Be dead," Guo Teng said. "Shut up and lie there. I'll kill you myself if you do anything stupid."

The fallen man scowled but did as he was told.

When she had the first magazine filled, Kelly shoved it into the first pistol, worked the slide to strip and chamber the first round, then popped the magazine out and replaced the cartridge that had been taken. She repeated her efforts with the second pistol.

Standing, she took a moment to shrug into the double shoulder holsters. She slid one of the pistols into the holster and pulled her jacket on, leaving her other pistol and the one she'd captured on the table. Working quickly, she unloaded the 9 mm and field-stripped it, leaving it in pieces on the table. Taking her other pistol in hand, she walked to the door.

"If you need anything else," Guo said, "give me a call."

"Of course." Kelly let herself out the door and was almost running to the stairs. She moved quickly, knowing bruised egos would tempt the men to follow her.

Seconds later, she was in her car and easing into traffic. No one had managed to tail her.

****

Kelly looked at the familiar little house near the HuangpuRiver. Some of the tension she'd been feeling for the last few weeks – no, months, maybe years – melted away. She was home.

She walked to her father's door, thinking that it looked smaller than it had when she'd been a little girl. Taking a quick breath to steel her nerves, she knocked on the door and waited.

A minute ticked by, then another. There was no sound from inside the house. She checked her watch. It was after seven a.m. Her father always got up at four-thirty to go fishing.

It's possible he's still out fishing, she told herself. Maybe he forgot I was coming today.

Troubled, Kelly banged on the door again, louder this time. When there was still no answer, she went around to the back of the house. If things were still as they were when she was a small girl, she knew there were neighbors who were watching her. It didn't matter. No one would call the police unless something happened. Her father would allay any suspicions among his neighbors.

At the back door, she knocked again and waited. Feeling uneasy, she walked to her father's stone garden and sifted through the raked pebbles. The extra key turned up near the right corner of the garden. Returning to the door, Kelly opened the lock and stepped inside.

The house was small and neat. Her father had kept the curtains her mother had made, and the furniture looked the same.

From the hallway, she looked through the door to the tiny kitchen where she had learned how to cook, then into the small dining room where they had sat on cushions and shared meals.

The living room was immaculate. Her father's collection of vinyl records stood in the corner. He'd never had television in his home, but there had always been music.

She was beginning to think that her father had gone out, perhaps to breakfast. Then she saw the blood.

Kelly's heart hammered, but she steeled herself quickly. Panicking wouldn't do any good.

She drew one of the pistols and held her position, taking the time to calm herself and to listen for breathing. Only street noises and far-off voices from outside reached her ears. Girding herself, guessing what she was going to find, Kelly slid the bedroom door aside and entered the room.

The bedroom was small and neat. Her mother's vanity, her one luxury, occupied a corner of the room. The bed took up most of the space. Her father lay on the bed with a pained expression on his still face. Blood covered his body and the twisted sheets.

Sharp emotions collided within Kelly. She sipped her breath through her mouth, unwilling to take in the scent of her father's death. Walling off the pain and confusion, she relied on her training and experience.

Crossing the room to her father's side, taking care to stand away from the windows even though they were covered, she touched her father's face.

He was cold.

Looking at his neck, Kelly saw that the blood had started to settle. No longer pumping through his heart, the blood pooled and created a definite stripe, separating the pale blood-drained area from the blood-gorged area.

She sensed movement in the other bedroom. She sank back against the wall and raised her weapon just as a shadow moved in the hallway.

Then a hand snaked out from under the bed and yanked her feet from under her. She fell backward, slamming her head against the wall, and sliding down as she fought the encroaching blackness.