Lethal Circuit (2 page)

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

The woman simply eyed the bathroom window. There were voices up there. Movement. Then a beam of light swept the roof.

“Get down.”

Michael ducked under a wet cardboard box, but he wasn’t quick enough. The flashlight beam hit his back and a shrill scream rang out in Cantonese. The woman didn’t bother waiting. Michael looked up to see that she had already disappeared into the crack between the buildings. Then, without further warning, the report of a pistol cracked through the night air. Michael rolled toward the roof’s edge. Though he was loathe to do so, he saw little choice but to descend. Pulling the backpack from his back, he tossed it between the buildings. The pack was too wide at first, but with a good shove he was able to get it to fall. The beam of light bounced back and forth across the roof. There were more shots now, but they were scattered. Obviously the shooters didn’t have a bead on him yet, but Michael didn’t want to stick around until they did. He pulled his lanky frame up and over, grasping the cast iron drainpipe as he slipped his body into the crack. A natural athleticism had always been a part of Michael’s life, but the bullets were something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. They added an element of urgency to the proceedings he could happily do without.

The drainpipe was wet, water overflowing from the gutter above. He had heard his backpack hit the ground, the four or five seconds it had taken it only emphasizing the length of the descent ahead of him. He could no longer hear the shouting above, but now, as Michael crept down the crack foot by foot, gray water streaming down the walls, he felt like a river was closing in around him. Michael had an issue with tight spaces. He didn’t like the label claustrophobic, but it didn’t make it any less true. Nine years ago now, Michael had endured an experience that had changed him. That event still haunted him and even though he knew rationally speaking that the walls on either side of him were fourteen inches apart and barring any unexpected earth movement, they would stay that way, it didn’t matter. What would happen if the walls narrowed to the point that he was no longer be able to move down? Working against gravity, he’d no longer be able to climb up either. He would be stuck there, caught between two slabs of wet concrete twelve stories high, and the feeling chilled him to the bone.

But Michael also knew that he had to get to the bottom before the men with guns. Add to that, the woman was nowhere to be seen. He had to assume she had made it to the street below. It couldn’t be far now. So, taking hold of the drainpipe with both hands, he retired the downward stepping motion he had been using and simply hung in the crack, lowering himself down the drainpipe hand over hand. It was quicker this way. Much quicker. And just when Michael began to fall into a rhythm he felt the world open up around him. The rear wall of the crack fell away and Michael found himself in a covered alley. He slid down the last few feet of the drainpipe landing next to the woman who stood immobile, the noise of the street audible from the end of the alley.

But it wasn’t over yet. Because the woman didn’t stir. Didn’t even flinch. And when Michael followed her gaze to the end of the passageway he saw why. They had been quick, but not quick enough. Somehow Zebra, sporting a nasty gash above his left eye, had gotten down before them. Michael suspected he had found a fire escape, but it didn’t much matter now. He was there. And he had put away the butterfly knife in favor of an automatic weapon.

Michael knew his way around a gun. Not just because he was a red-blooded American, but because his father had taught him how to shoot and more importantly how to respect firearms. It was something he had always been thankful for, regardless of what side of the debate was popular amongst the company he found himself in. Right now though, the debate had gone from the academic to the visceral. He was facing down what looked like a machine pistol, probably a fully automatic TEC-9 capable of spraying lead from one side of the alley to the other. It wasn’t a terribly accurate weapon, but it was vicious, and Michael knew that it packed enough of a punch to leave both him and the woman dead before they hit the ground.

Michael considered their options. Running was always a good one, but with a brick wall behind them it meant sprinting headlong into a spray of bullets. The other choice was to fight. Fight or flight, he thought. It always came down to one or the other. Except on those odd occasions when another predator entered the fray.

A set of powerful xenon headlights lit up the alley. They were closely followed by the low growl of a big block engine as a vehicle bore down on Zebra from behind. Michael and the woman took to either side of the alley wall, but strangely Zebra didn’t flinch. He simply glanced back at the speeding car as if he expected it, as if he were counting on it. He then turned his attention forward and fired the gun.

Michael could tell by the muzzle flash that the shots went high. Way high, because what Zebra obviously hadn’t anticipated was the fact that the vehicle would run him squarely over. The car, now clearly visible as a black Mercedes S-Class sedan hit him with such force that Michael was sure he heard the crack of bones. Zebra rolled up over the front bumper and down the right fender, taking the hood ornament along with him for good measure. Then a strange thing happened. The car didn’t lurch forward or away, it didn’t spin its tires, or rev its engine menacingly. It simply crawled ahead, giving them ample berth, the rear passenger window rolling a smooth three inches down. There was a silence before a cracked voice spoke from the darkness within.

“You owe me a favor, Mr. Chase.”

Michael peered through the gap in the glass, but could make out no more than the shadowy outline of an old man.

“How do you know my name?”

Michael’s only response was the sound of heavy boots on the tin roof above, flashlight beams scouring the edges of the covered alley. Then, the window closed and the sedan reversed away.

“Friend of yours?” the woman asked.

“I never saw him before in my life.”

“He seemed to know you.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

The woman seemed to think about it. “We’ll worry about that later,” she said. “For now, you stick with me.”

The way she said it, like they were already old friends, Michael couldn’t help but cast his mind back on how the evening had begun.

3

CHUNGKING MANSION - TWO HOURS EARLIER

T
HE
REASONS
FOR
Michael’s trip to Hong Kong were complicated, but they boiled down to this. His father had disappeared unexpectedly while on a business trip to China just over six months earlier. The official investigation into his father’s disappearance had been short but sweet, netting nothing but a one-line explanation and a death certificate. Per the official report, his dad’s speeding vehicle had plunged into a river gorge, and though the body was never recovered, it was determined that no one could have survived the fall. That was it. It was all Michael and his family got. When it became evident that no remains would be found, they had held the funeral just over a month later. To say it had been a difficult time for Michael would be to miss the point entirely. It had been devastating.

The news had come one night while Michael was cloistered in his garage apartment in Seattle’s old Belltown neighborhood. He had just gotten off his shift at Starbucks, the original store down by Pike Place Market, and was now at work on a proprietary piece of computer code. Michael had been floundering, just treading water for awhile now. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and it showed. His apartment, like his plan for the future, was a mess. He had done a double major in computer science and history at college, but instead of going to work for the Facebooks of this world he had decided to try life on his own terms for awhile. His own terms meant a variety of jobs and locales. No commitment, but no real progress either. With the code he was working on, he hoped to break free from the cycle of twenty-something malaise he found himself in. He knew it himself. If he could just commit to something, anything, things would work out for him. With this little piece of code, Michael thought he might just get on track. It could be something big. Maybe not Google big, but big nevertheless. If he could just get the application up and running, he had planned to present to venture capitalists in the coming weeks. Instead he had found himself picking out caskets.

Michael was fairly certain his father would have rather burned, but the lack of remains made the choice of cremation problematic. Both his younger sister and mother wanted a symbol, a coffin to lay to rest, even if it was empty. So as the eldest son, Michael had dutifully obliged. He picked out a coffin, he picked out a headstone, he even picked out the flowers, all while his mother sat lost in her La-Z-Boy, staring at the rain. The funeral had come and gone and Michael decided that the quickest way to get back to normal would be to act as though everything was normal. He rang up customers, he frothed cappuccino, he even presented to the venture capitalists, but as much as he wanted it to be, his heart wasn’t in it. They passed on the project. And that’s when Michael got the call.

It wasn’t a call really, it was a text, but its meaning was clear. His father’s death hadn’t been an accident. There was foul play involved. The message had come from a guy named Ted Fairfield, an old family friend and business associate of his dad’s. The text didn’t say much else other than the fact that Ted would contact him again. Six months later and here he was, half a world away in the back room of a broken down Indian restaurant about to come face to face with the person who would change his life.

“Come here.”

Ted Fairfield rose from the table. As always, Ted’s smile was as wide as an airplane hangar, his thinning gray hair tied back into a sparse ponytail. Ted opened his arms and Michael reciprocated with a hug. Ted had not only been a business associate of his father’s but was also his dad’s closet confidant. He was in his late fifties and lean and fit, his enormous toothy grin belying the fine lines on his face. Ted had always been there for Michael. When the news of his father’s death had come, it had been Ted who had brought it. Ted had been a pallbearer. Ted had spoken at the funeral. And Ted, of course, had arranged for tonight’s dinner. Seeing him now, in this strange place, caused Michael to feel a warmth he wouldn’t have thought possible under the circumstances, the warmth of family. Ted released Michael from his bear hug grasp, allowing a second man to speak.

“You’re late, Sport.”

The man was in his mid-forties, and though Michael hadn’t actually met him before, he knew this had to be his father’s business associate, Larry Wu — or as just about everybody knew him — Shanghai Larry. Larry worked for a multinational company that manufactured in the region and had also been a colleague of his dad’s.

“Take a load off,” Larry purred, rising from his seat unsteadily to shake Michael’s hand. “You’re your father’s son all right. Your father’s son all over.”

Larry released Michael’s hand, giving Michael the opportunity to drop his pack and cast his glance down the length of the rickety table. Larry was without a doubt the most formally dressed of the bunch that sat there, and judging from appearances, the least able to hold his liquor. In fact, Michael thought, if one of these things was not like the other, it was definitely Larry with his thousand dollar pin-striped suit and perfectly clipped salt-and-pepper hair.

As Ted made introductions around the table, it didn’t take long to realize that the rest of the group screamed of a wholly different aesthetic. They were younger, of course, but that was far from all of it. They seemed somehow connected. As though they belonged to some kind of secret club Michael could never join. There was a lanky Scotsman sporting dreadlocks and a pork pie hat who went by the name of Crust; a bubbly tanned Australian girl by the name of Song; a shorter guy with some serious facial hair and a French accent whose name Michael didn’t quite catch; and last of all, a low-key brunette who was introduced as Kate. It was Kate who sparked Michael’s interest.

About five-ten with a clear complexion and an aquiline nose, she was somewhere in her mid-twenties, her wide almond eyes lending her an air of sophistication that Michael couldn’t quite put his finger on. When she spoke, her accent was to Michael’s ear completely neutral, suggesting a solid Midwestern lineage, but something about the way she held herself told Michael that though her accent might be American, she wasn’t. She wore a rough cut white linen blouse, a long skirt, and a copper bracelet which seemed to be, as near as Michael could make out, yoga hiker chic. It was the kind of ensemble that would be just at home at work as it would be at play, but Michael knew he was applying Seattle standards to what was undoubtedly a very different kind of woman. Fortunately, Larry interrupted before he could gawk any longer.

“So, Michael. Fresh out of Chek Lap Kok, I hear?” Chek Lap Kok was Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport and, given its ease of use, a preferred gateway to the East.

Michael checked his watch. “Ninety minutes and counting.”

“Well you couldn’t have picked a better place to land.” Larry pushed a big plate of curry Michael’s way and signaled the waiter for another bottle of beer. “When Teddy said I should come out and say hi, I didn’t know he’d have a whole table of fresh faces for me to meet.” He looked around the table, eyes glazed over. “Now where in the world were we?”

“Malaysia,” Kate said.

“Ahh, yes. Malaysia.”

“I wouldn’t be caught with a lone spliff in that God forsaken country,” Crust said. “Those buggers will hang you for humming along with Bob Marley.” Crust must have read the incredulity on Michael’s face because he went on. “But the good news is, your gruel, the months of imprisonment during your trial, even the length of rope they use to string you up, none of it will cost you a penny.” Crust took a swig of his beer. “If, however, you were to step out of this fine city of Hong Kong, into China proper, you’d be looking at a whole new cricket match. You do the crime, they throw you in prison, and not only do you have to work twenty-one hour days vulcanizing rubber to pay your way, your family gets the bill for the bullet after the firing squad.”