The Black Dragon (12 page)

Danny steadies his own breathing again.

“Just keep that image strong,” he says to Ponytail, but the man needs no encouragement. He's transmitting again. A sensation of rush, a determination to get to wherever they're going. Muscles tensing.

“Easy now,” Danny says. “No rush. Relaxed.”

Past a string of unmarked doors, up half a flight of steps, down another moldering corridor, through a kind of interior bridge to another block, through a door, another dark passageway . . .

“
Madre mia
,” Zamora mutters. “Hope we can find our way back out of this.”

Ponytail is hesitating now. Maybe the fear of revealing the hideout is starting to override everything else. The sensation of movement is dying under Danny's fingertips. It feels like he wants to stop . . . here.

“OK,” Danny says. “Nothing to worry about. Shall we go on?”

But the man has come to a resolute halt outside an opaque glass door.

A plaque on the outside: BLACK DRAGON KUNG FU CLUB. And two characters under the words Black Dragon:

Danny raises his eyebrows. Same characters, surely. He takes Ponytail's lighter from his pocket, studies it for a second and hands it to Zamora. “Don't think Lo translated things properly for us. Do you?”

The major shakes his head. “Scumbag.”

They listen hard at the door. Not a sound from inside.

“Laura's here?” Danny asks quietly.

And Tony nods, as if lost somewhere very, very far away.

14

HOW TO WRITE WITHOUT A PEN

Zamora tries the handle, but it's locked.

There's a security code pad on the door frame, and Danny's just considering whether he can get Ponytail to reveal the number when the major takes matters into his own hands. He charges the door, his left shoulder crunching into it just above the lock. It gives slightly. Zamora furrows his brow, takes another run up and the door wrenches loose, the frame splintering. It swings on one hinge and then crashes to the floor in a cloud of dust.

The noise reverberates in the corridor like a bomb going off—and snaps Ponytail from his trance. He opens his eyes, blinking rapidly as he takes in the situation. Then he's off at speed, around the corner and gone. “Forget him,” Danny says. “Let's see what we've got here.”

They dash through an office and, beyond that, find themselves in a large echoing gymnasium. A row of dusty windows spill opaque light onto the wooden floor. Arrayed along the opposite wall is an arsenal of clubs, sticks, and barbells. In front of those a wooden army of dummy fighting figures stands ready for sparring, stocky arms held up stiffly, while black and white photos of stern kung fu masters stare down at them from the walk.

“Laura?” Zamora calls.

A punching bag twists very slowly on its rope, groaning. Not a soul to be seen, and the silence sings in their ears.

At the far end of the gym there are two frosted glass doors. And one of them is ajar.

Watched by the life-sized dummies, they move across the wooden floor, senses straining. Still not a sound to be heard.
Weird when you think how loud the rest of the city has been
, Danny thinks. He reaches the half-open door—listens hard—then shoves it with his foot.

Inside there are ten or so camp beds crammed together, covered with a tangle of sleeping bags, blankets, and kit bags, unwashed rice bowls, cups, teapots, overflowing ashtrays. Smoke and sweat hangs heavy on the air.

“Smells like the Khaos Klowns trailer after a show, no?” Zamora wrinkles his nose. “Think they were too macho to use deodorant or something.”

Danny picks up a half-emptied cup. The coffee is scummed over, but still lukewarm.

“Can't be long gone. Let's try the other room.”

The second door squeals appallingly on its dry hinges, loud against the silent gym beyond, making them pause and listen. But there's no answering sound.

This room is smaller, almost empty. It contains a single camp bed and—thrust in a corner—Laura's leather shoulder bag! Danny's heart thumps hard in his ears as he goes to pick it up.

“She must be close,” he says. “She's here somewhere!”

“Or was here.”

Something crunches under Danny's foot and he looks down to see the guts of what looks like a laptop. Chips, keys, black casing hacked to bits. Laura's is black.

“She's going to be mad about that,” Zamora says.

“But where is she?” Danny moans. She must be here. It's gone so well, following the clues, reading Ponytail, penetrating this labyrinth. There must be some reward! But apart from the bag and the wreckage of the laptop, there's nothing else to see. Three acupuncture charts in frames hang at uncertain angles on the grubby wall, their bodies pierced by hundreds of black dots.

“Miss Laura!” Zamora shouts suddenly. “Miss Laura, can you hear us?”

His voice booms out into the gym beyond.

Any thrill Danny has felt about the success of the hellstromism is fading—replaced by a growing sense of failure. He bites his lip, thinking hard, the bag still in his hands. It feels lighter than normal, and he peers in. Virtually empty: the usual jumble of reporter pads, cough sweets, pens all gone—along with her wallet. He shakes it upside down, and a packet of tissue and a lipstick go rattling out across the floor. The top's missing from the stick and it leaves a red gash on the boards.

That's unusual. For one thing Laura seldom wears the stuff, and—if she does—she always takes special care of it. “After all,” she would say, “it's only once in a blue moon that I slap it on.” She'd have hardly paused to put on makeup in the midst of being kidnapped, would she?

Zamora has wandered back into the gym and is still bellowing, “Laura! Laura!” Not the best of ideas, Danny thinks. But you can't hold a strongman back forever. He looks at the lipstick mark on the floor and a thought strikes him. Quickly he unzips the bag wide and turns it inside out, but there's nothing to see. No messages. The packet of tissues is still sealed. He glances around the room.

The acupuncture charts stare back at him. One of them shows a narrow slice of clean wall between its frame and the pervading grime. Must have been moved recently. Danny goes over and shoves it with his finger, revealing more clean white wall underneath. A bit more . . .

And there's the message he's looking for. In chunky lipsticked writing, it says:

CHEUNG CHAU

And, under it, scribbled in haste,

LOOK FOR WHITE SUIT
BE CAREFUL

He looks down again at the gouge of lipstick on the floorboards. For some reason it holds his attention and makes him think of the dead fish on the floor of the Bat.
And that should link to something else
, he thinks.
Something important that I can't grasp. But what?

It'll have to wait.
Right now we need to get to this Cheung Chau place.

From outside comes the sound of footsteps pounding the wooden floor of the gym, and Zamora's shouting at the top of his lungs: “Mister Danny!
Gran problema!
”

15

HOW TO OVERCOME VERTIGO IN PEOPLE OF SHORT STATURE

The major is waving his pistol to and fro, confronting a semicircle of thugs. They're a mix of builds and ages, but all look like they've come through a lot of bad living to find themselves in the Black Dragon—their eyes are hard, glittering, glaring intently at Zamora and Danny. Ponytail's tucked amongst them, shaking his head as if clearing a bad dream.

“Keep back,” Zamora shouts, “or I'll drop you where you stand.”

The men edge closer, not convinced.

“Mister Danny,” the major whispers, “this pop gun's not loaded. I took the bullets out—to be on the safe side. Make a run for that fire door. I'll hold them off.”

“But—”

“Stay back!” Zamora thunders, backing around the wall with Danny close beside. “Unless you want bullet acupuncture!”

Suddenly he drops the gun, grabbing a huge barbell off the wall. He hurls himself at the gang members, spinning the barbell hard, his tattoos and muscles twitching, flexing.

Danny goes scrambling for the fire door, glancing back over his shoulder. Zamora has already knocked two triads to the floor, and the others are momentarily taken aback by the force of his attack. One of them pulls a gun from his baggy pocket, but Zamora spots it and brings one end of the barbell smacking down on the thug's hand. The man howls, wrist cranked at a horrible angle, and the gun clatters to the floor. Gang members peel off, grabbing sticks and cudgels from the walls.

Danny pushes at the fire door, but it won't budge. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees Zamora retreating slowly, blocking blow after blow, edging toward him. A wooden sword shatters against the barbell.

“
Vamos!
” Zamora grunts, shoving the barbell into a thug's stomach. The man collapses, all the wind driven from his lungs.

Danny takes a deep breath and kicks the bar hard. It still doesn't budge.
Refocus, Danny. Need to imagine the strength. Imagine energy building in your belly, legs like metal. Take a deep breath and then release down through the leg, the foot, through the door right to the other side. Now!

It bursts open, taking out a gang member lurking on the other side. His face is astonished, then blank, as he keels to the floor.

“Come on, Major!”

Zamora parries one more blow, then, with all his strength, hurls the barbell two-handed at his adversaries.

“Let's go!”

They're through the door and slamming it shut before the gang manages to close. “Need to brace it,” the major shouts, looking around frantically.

A fire extinguisher—rust-spotted with age—is leaning against the wall. Zamora grabs it and jams it under the door's external handle, wedging it up and locked.

“It'll buy us a few minutes. Now what?”

“Find a way out.”

“What about your aunt?”

“They've taken her somewhere else. I'll explain later.”

The landing is dark now, choked with cardboard boxes that fill the space and overflow down the stairs. Each one stamped with Chinese characters. Zamora cranks the lighter into flame and peers at them, running his finger along the English underneath. WING LUCK FIREWORK COMPANY. EXPORT. FLAMMABLE.

Angry voices yell on the other side of the door. Then the first thump as the gangsters make an effort to break it open. The door gives slightly, but the extinguisher holds fast.

“This way for the exit then,” Zamora says, holding the lighter over his head.

They hurry down the darkened stairwell, but they haven't gone more than half a flight when they hear voices echoing below them. A second later comes a deafening gunshot, the bullet ripping out a chunk of wall just above Zamora's head, showering them both with plaster.

“
Caramba
, Mister Danny. These jossers mean business!”

“We'll have to climb instead.”

Going back past the gym door they can hear the effort to break it down: a steady
boom, boom
as the door is rammed with something heavy. The fire extinguisher shifts again, making an ominous drawn-out
hissssss
.

“Keep climbing, Major.”

But Zamora pauses, looking at the boxes. He bends to one at the bottom of a stack and holds the lighter's flame steadily against it. It catches, takes hold, sending bigger flames licking up the box's side—glinting on the major's face. He smiles.

“Light at arm's length. Oh boy. Run, Danny! As fast as you can. Don't wait for me!”

Danny climbs swiftly, but pauses at each landing to wait for Zamora. The voices below are climbing faster for sure, closing the gap. There's not much time.

“Come on, Major!”

“It's all right for you, Mister Danny. This is where my build holds me back, you know.”

Smoke is curling up the stairwell, stiffening the air. As Danny arrives at each new landing, he tries the door, but every single one of them is locked tight shut.

“This place is a deathtrap, Mister Danny,” the major says, puffing hard, as yet another refuses to budge. “Somebody ought to close the whole thing down.”

From below comes another gunshot, then another. They're deafening in the confined space, and a bullet ricochets off the metal handrail, setting it ringing.

Then a moment later there's an eruption of sound below—something like machine gun fire: loud, stuttering. The corridor is lit up by flash after flash as the box of firecrackers ignites and detonates. And that sets off a chain reaction: rockets scream and bang in the gloom, Roman candles pump out their flares, brilliant and extraordinarily loud in the echo chamber of the stairwell. Bursts of blue, green, luminous orange. A rocket comes hurtling up out of the chaos and goes fizzing crazily off the walls and the smoke billows blackly toward them.

And then, amidst the chaos, a deeper explosion that rocks the stairs.

“Fire extinguisher, no?” Zamora says, rather proudly.