The Wolves (17 page)

He decided to arrive at the track after the
second
race, about a half hour late. Standard operating procedure would be to come early, scope the site. But Roberts had proven on Tanner Road that he knew the usual tricks. Instead, Wells would make Roberts wait. Roberts wouldn’t leave immediately after the deadline. He would wonder if Wells had made a mistake with the schedule. His watchers, if there were any, would be tense and irritable after an hour or more of looking for a man who wasn’t there.

Of course they’d still have the numbers. The positions. And the advantage of knowing where he’d be and who he was.

Good.
Then he shouldn’t have any qualms about shooting them.

That night Wells slept easily. In the morning, he showered, shaved, pulled on a clean white T-shirt and a pair of baggy khakis, plenty of room for his concealed-carry holster. He made sure his pistol had a full mag and a round in the chamber and then tucked it away.

He called Shafer, hoping to talk over what had happened on Wellington, what might happen today. Half therapy, half tactical rundown. But Shafer didn’t answer. Morning in Hong Kong, night in D.C. Shafer was probably having dinner with his wife. Good for him. Anyway, Wells knew what he’d say:

Sure you want to walk into this?

I trust Roberts.

You met him
once
.

Yeah, and he could have given me to Duberman then if he wanted.

Wells hung up the imaginary phone. Maybe he wouldn’t have convinced Shafer, but he’d convinced himself. As for his near-miss yesterday, he just needed to get back on the horse. And what better place to do that than a track? Ha.

Sha Tin’s first race started around 12:45 p.m. At 1:15, Wells stepped off the MTR at the station directly across from the track. Conveniently enough, it was called “Racecourse.” Not many people came with him. Only dilettantes showed up late.

Though it housed a thousand horses, Sha Tin was hardly pastoral. The opposite, in fact. Elevated walkways over Highway 9 connected the station with a wide concrete concourse outside the grandstand. A complex of fifty-story apartment buildings behind the MTR station loomed over the track. The grandstand itself stretched nearly a quarter mile, with room for eighty-five thousand spectators.

An oversized yellow horseshoe, the track’s symbol, and brightly colored statues of horses marked the main entrance. As Wells came to
it, he heard a muted roar, the crowd inside cheering. The cheer grew and grew and then abruptly cut out. The second race must be done. Wells fished in his pocket for a $10 HK coin, the grandstand admission charge, and hurried through the turnstiles. He was certain that Roberts would wait at least one race, but he didn’t want to press the point.

Inside, Wells found the amalgam of carnival and desperation peculiar to racetracks. A disappointed hum, punctuated by a few joyous shouts, had replaced the cheers. A big favorite must have lost. A stick-thin Chinese man, body hunched by age, tore a ticket into pieces almost too small to be seen, then flicked his hands three times to scatter them and their bad luck, a ritual he had surely practiced before. Racing called itself the sport of kings. But at heart the tracks were just casinos, making paupers of their most fervent followers.
I’m having a great time, such a beautiful day at the races . . . and please please please
let me win.

Wells watched for Duberman’s guards as he neared the betting windows, but he didn’t see any. Nor anyone who matched their profile, no olive-skinned curly-haired men of fighting age. The crowd was heavily Chinese, a few white guys mixed in, so the Israelis would have stood out. A good sign, though proof of precisely nothing.

And there was Roberts, standing where he’d promised, hands in his pockets, relaxed.

Wrong.
Wells was a half hour late. Roberts should have been tense. He wasn’t, because he knew Wells was coming. He knew because a watcher had told him. Wells turned away just as Roberts spotted him. “John!”

Wells ran toward the entrance turnstiles, heard footsteps, Roberts and others angling from the front of the grandstand. Ahead of him, by the turnstiles, two more guys waited, one tall and beefy, the other small, wiry, his hand on his hip. Both white. Wells had never seen them before.

“Stop! Let’s talk!” Roberts yelled behind him.

Wells had nowhere to go. If he drew, they’d shoot. Even if he killed them all and escaped, the police would run him down within the hour. And so he stopped. Turned. Raised his hands and knitted his fingers together on his head, a mute gesture of surrender.

“Thank you,” Roberts said.

“Liar.”

Roberts shrugged:
What’d you expect?
Another man joined him, a Chinese guy, face half hidden under a baseball cap. Wells recognized him, one of the men who’d tracked him from the airport. Wells didn’t understand. If these were Duberman’s guys, how come Roberts had insisted before that Duberman hadn’t followed him that first day?

“Holding?” Roberts said.

Wells nodded.

“Mind if Kevin here relieves you of that burden?”

“I’d prefer he didn’t.”

Roberts looked to Kevin, deferring,
Your call, you’re in charge.
A surprise.

“Long as you keep your hands where they are,” Kevin said. “I’m confident that after you hear what we have to say, you’ll come on your own.”

“Are you, now?”

“Come on, let’s talk on the grandstand. It’s a beautiful day.”

Roberts led the way as Kevin and another Brit fell in beside Wells. They were giving him a lot of credit. Or maybe the credit was going to the shooter behind him. The brief chase had attracted almost no attention. As they walked out of the concourse to the grandstand, Wells saw why. The third race was approaching. The crowd focused on the jockeys loading their horses into the starting gate, across the track on the backstretch. One of the horses, a big roan, didn’t want to enter. He
was rearing, near panic, as two track workers pushed him into the gate. The crowd hummed at the spectacle.

I hear ya, buddy.

Sha Tin actually had two tracks, the outer turf, the inner hard-packed dirt. Behind the backstretch was the Shing Mun, the river straightened and narrowed, its sides hemmed by concrete, natural as a bathtub. The Army Corps of Engineers would have been proud. Across the river, more apartment towers, verdant hills behind them.

The track’s finish line lay at the northern end of the grandstand and attracted the meat of the crowd. Roberts led Wells to the southern end, which was nearly empty. Wells wondered if they would risk shooting him out here. Maybe. A suppressed pistol, the crowd screaming as the horses came down the stretch. A small-caliber round that rattled inside his skull, leaving no exit wound as it turned his brain to oatmeal. The men would lay Wells on a bench like he was sleeping, mourning another losing bet. They would need only a minute to disappear.

But if they’d planned to kill him, they could have done so with less risk as Wells entered the track,
before
he knew who they were. No. Wells couldn’t see it. Anyway, he’d given up his chance to shoot his way out. He would have to trust his instincts, which said that Roberts wasn’t an enemy, even if he wasn’t a friend, and that these men didn’t work for Duberman.

On the backstretch, the jockey and trainers succeeded in steering the big roan into the gate. The crowd held its collective breath as the doors behind the horses clanged shut. The starting bell rang. The front gates flew open and the horses took off, galloping over the lush green turf, beautiful half-ton beasts who levitated with each stride. The crowd hollered as they circled the turf left to right, clockwise, the opposite of American races.

This end of the grandstand had narrow wooden benches, nothing fancy, a place for two-dollar bettors, the men whom luck never touched. They clustered in clumps of three and four, muttering as the horses began their sweep around the turn. Roberts found an open patch, no one within thirty feet, and sat. Wells and the others followed.

“Can I take my hands off my head now?”

“Not a good idea.”

The horses were halfway around the turn, the pack spreading out. The crowd at the other end of the grandstand screamed encouragement, and even the men around them perked up. As the horses came around the corner, Wells was not surprised that the big roan was galloping away from the field, his lead lengthening with every stride. He must have been the favorite, because his appearance in the homestretch produced a giant roar of approval.

If it’s going to happen, it’ll be now—

Now—

Now—

Twenty-five seconds later, the race was over. Wells was still alive.

“Thought we might do you?” Kevin said.

“Crossed my mind.”

“Not our style. Not in a former colony, anyway.”

Suddenly the pieces locked together. “MI6?” Wells said.

Kevin nodded. “Been asked to find you. Or, as Americans like to say,
tasked
.”

“Not exactly giving it your all. Lose me the first day, haven’t sniffed me since.”

“We may have underestimated the difficulty. Anyway, these orders came from out of nowhere, a favor for the cousins, not that anyone really calls you that anymore.”

“No.”

“So we imagined you’d turn up. As you have. Meantime, we had our own ops to run.”

“I see.”

Wells did, too. The President or Donna Green had asked the British government to help find Wells after his name showed up on the LAX-HKG flight. Since the White House couldn’t tell the truth, it would have offered some lame cover story that the Brits would immediately have seen through.

But the Prime Minister wouldn’t want to miss the chance to bank a favor. So he agreed, and tossed this particular hot potato to Vauxhall Cross, the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, a/k/a MI6. In turn, Vauxhall catapulted it into low Earth orbit to Hong Kong. The officers here would have viewed it with distaste. Some would have heard of Wells, even if they didn’t know him. Plus they knew that the CIA should be dealing with this mess, whatever it was. Instead, they weren’t even allowed to ask their counterparts about it.

But a job from Vauxhall was a job from Vauxhall. They couldn’t reject it. Thus, like all good spies, they played both sides. They had no excuse to miss Wells at the airport, so they didn’t. They made sure he saw them, and they got pictures. Then they let him run while they went back to real work.
No, sir, nothing new today . . . still looking . . . Of course, sir. Doing all we can.
Their bosses in London understood the game, but didn’t interfere. Vauxhall didn’t want the hassle of catching Wells, either.

Until Wells killed two guys in the street. Suddenly the station had no choice but to make a serious effort. Its officers knew that Roberts was ex-SAS, so they called him, found him willing to talk. Or maybe Roberts called them, figuring he needed every bit of help from London he could muster if he was about to quit his well-paying job and move
home. Either way, they found each other. And once Roberts dangled the cheese, Wells came out of his hole.

“So when you were figuring out how best to trap me, did Roberts tell you the real story, why I’m after Duberman? He tell you that the CIA station here is
helping
me?”

“He told us the story you gave him,” Kevin said. “I must say I believe it.”

The British. “Must you?”

“Alas, my opinion doesn’t matter. We’ve been asked to find you, we
have
found you, and now we’re going to deliver you. Deliver you where, you ask? This very night we’re putting you on a ship that will link with an American carrier group in the Pacific. I’ve been told the journey—”

“You sound like a high-end travel agent—”

“I’ve been told the journey will take about a week. What your people have planned for you after we hand you over, I have no idea.”

“Suppose I say no? You shoot me?”

“I’ve already told you that’s not how we operate. But we will be compelled to hand you to the Hong Kong police and explain your role in that atrocity yesterday. Even if they don’t believe us, I’d wager that pistol in your waistband is a perfect ballistics match.”

“Kuss ummak,”
Wells said, a filthy Arabic curse.

“No, your mother’s,” Kevin said, in English.

“Full of surprises.”

“I was in Basra for three years. I may have learned a few expletives.”

“Never use a little word when a big one will do, that your motto?”

“Our motto is
semper occultus
. Latin. Translates as ‘always secret.’”

This guy.

Wells had three choices but no choice at all. He could try to kill them, but he wouldn’t even reach his pistol before they gunned him
down. He could call their bluff, but they weren’t bluffing. They would turn him over to the Hong Kong police. He didn’t have diplomatic immunity. He’d spend the rest of his life in prison here.

Or he could take the deal, figure that Shafer or Duto or even Wright would find him sooner or later. Assuming these guys weren’t planning to kill him once they got offshore, dump his body for the sharks. They’d pruned his decision tree to a single branch. What Wells had claimed to want. He didn’t feel grateful.

“Don’t suppose I get to tell anyone where I’m going.”

“You do not.”

“Adventure travel on the South China Sea. Let’s do it.”

(One month
later)

MACAO

C
heung Han hadn’t expected to come back so quickly. Not after the way the last trip ended.

He had woken up with the worst hangover of his life, nearly as punishing as the fighter crash that ruined his legs. This time, the pain was focused above his neck, as though a malicious surgeon had sliced off his head, wrapped it in plastic, microwaved it, and crudely sewn it on again. Nausea overcame him when he tried to sit against the headboard, sour liquid bubbling up his throat into his mouth. He swallowed the bile, made himself be still.

Around him, a darkness so total that for a few terrifying moments he wondered if he had been buried alive. Or died from the drink, become a hungry ghost, doomed to feed himself for eternity on charred corpses. Then his eyes adjusted, and he recognized the bedroom around him, the forty-second-floor suite reserved for the highest of high rollers. The blackout curtains were drawn, accounting for the darkness. The digital clock beside the bed turned from 6:37 to 6:38. Morning or night? Cheung wasn’t sure.

His hand shook as he reached for the light switch beside the bed.
He slapped it on, wished he hadn’t. He wanted nothing more than to duck beneath a pillow. But he forced himself to stay awake, reconstruct the night. He’d flown to Macao, as he always did. Met Xiao and Jian in the casino basement, the VIP entrance, as he always did.

Then—

Nothing. A blank page where the hours should be. Not blank. Redacted, as the Americans said, blackened with marker, the words there but hidden.

What had happened? Chueng surveyed the gigantic suite. Aside from his suitcase, left at the foot of the bed, it was untouched. He raised the covers, found he still wore the clothes he’d had on the night before.

But someone from 88 Gamma had anticipated his pain. Water bottles and packets of aspirin sat atop the nightstand. He reached for a bottle. It seemed to dance away from his hand. Finally, he speared it, but his fingers trembled too much for him to grip the cap. He twisted it with his teeth, poured cool liquid down his throat. Another swallow, another, another until the bottle was empty. Then a second. Next, two aspirin tablets, and two more. The effort exhausted him. He closed his eyes, dropped instantly into the black hole of an alcohol coma.

When he woke, the clock read 10:15. His headache had dulled, but now every bone and joint ached. His skin felt like it had been slathered in wax. He stank, too, a whiskey sweat. The ash of fifty cigarettes filled his mouth. His bladder ached like it was stuffed with stone. He was sorely tempted to let loose then and there.

Instead he forced himself up, staggered toward the master bathroom. The suite’s size was an absurd luxury when all he wanted was to relieve himself, wash his stench away. The shower proved another ordeal, a dozen showerheads and a touch-screen control. He jabbed at
the screen until the water flowed and he could close his eyes and turn over the night in his head. A single link would unlock the memory. Nothing. Nothing. Then he saw the cat on the Beijing airport road, risking his hide for a piece of chicken.

He’d
won
. Won and drunk and drunk and won. Fifty million dollars? More. And at the end asked for . . . a flower. A fruit still unripe. A girl. Not too young, eleven or twelve. Ten. The thought dried his mouth, sent blood rushing to the little man between his legs. The only part of his body working properly at this moment.

The desire had been in him all along. He’d danced with it for years, pushing the limits further each trip. The whiskey had freed his tongue, nothing more. He’d asked. But what had they said?
Yes, maybe, no, never?
His memories ended like a film cut off too soon. He had a blurry recollection of being steered into the elevator. Then nothing.

But he didn’t think anything had happened. He didn’t feel like he’d had sex.
A flower.
Part of him believed that he had asked only to see how his hosts would respond. That he wouldn’t have gone ahead. His erection said otherwise. And as it drooped, he felt not relief but disappointment.

—

I
N THE BEDROOM
, Cheung pulled the shades. Night. The casinos of Cotai glimmered outside his windows, a million ways to win and lose. He pulled on a fresh shirt and pants. Upstairs, his shining plaques awaited. Something more, too. The men who knew his needs. He wasn’t ashamed of his desire. Something he wanted, a need as normal as breathing. He had the right. The real mistake had been bottling it.

Nonetheless. He knew very well that his desires were illegal, punishable by prison or even death. His rank wouldn’t protect him. The
opposite. Xi Jinping, China’s president, was making examples at the top of the party. Anyway, Cheung wasn’t sure what Xiao would say to him now. Much less Jian and the other hostesses.

Maybe he should bank his winnings, go home. He didn’t feel like baccarat, anyway. He had drunk so much that some of the alcohol was still in his system. Experience had taught him that as his liver broke down what was left, depression would overtake him for a day or two, a psychic counterpart to his physical misery. No. Time for him to go back to his work. The vital work that would give China the world’s strongest air force.

Back in Beijing, he could keep his wants in check. The state’s power hung heavy there. The risks were too obvious. He would wait for another invitation from 88 Gamma. If it came, Cheung would know that the casino accepted him and his wishes. And if not . . . he supposed that in a few months, when the need built up inside him, he’d find a new place to play.

—

T
HREE WEEKS PASSED
in Beijing before his phone lit up with the number he’d been waiting to see. “General. It’s Xiao.” The voice quiet, deferential. “If you have a moment—”

“Speak.”

“I wanted to apologize. I missed the chance to say good-bye on your last trip.”

“I had to get back to my work, Xiao. The people’s work.”

“I don’t presume to understand, General.”

“Which you’re interrupting.”

“I’m sorry, sir. You know our Sky Tower opens soon. A month or so.”

“I hadn’t heard.” In fact, Cheung was counting the days. The opening would be a natural chance for 88 Gamma to invite him.

“We’d be honored if you’d choose to spend that night with us.”

“You want the money you’ve lost, that’s all.”

“With your spirit, we’re happy to break even going against you. But there’s something more. Aaron Duberman invites you to see the Tower
before
the opening.”

“For a tour.”

“Not only that. You’ll be the first person to play in the VIP room. What we call the Sky Casino. The very first. Mr. Duberman himself will watch. A chance to give us a test run.”

An honor, truly. To be the first gambler at the world’s most lavish casino. Cheung supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. They wanted him to give back the money he’d taken. Maybe they figured that the new casino would swallow his luck. Wrong. His heart fluttered. And not only his heart. “I’ll check my schedule.” Words that meant “yes.”

“Of course, sir. Let me know when you’re ready.”

“As long as you’re sure you want to open this way.”

“How do you mean, sir?” Xiao’s voice quieter than ever.

“With a loss.”

—

A
WEEK LATER
, Cheung found himself outside the main entrance of the Sky Tower. The building loomed over him, more than five hundred meters high. Only a few lights shone inside, and the shape was almost negative, a black space blotting out the sky. Cheung leaned his head back, gazed up at the top floor, lit now. The Sky Casino. Waiting for him.

“I’m truly the first.”

“Yes, sir. This way, please.”

Xiao led him to the front doors, the dark space behind them—

And the lights inside flared, revealing a vast lobby, twenty meters high, its walls made of a lustrous metal that changed color by the
second, now a swirling red, now blue, now green, a trick that seemed almost magical. Its ceiling was glass, an aquarium overhead, sharks and rays swimming tirelessly. One traditional touch, a huge red dragon in the center. As Cheung walked inside, Aaron Duberman strode from the dragon’s open mouth. Duberman wore a black suit, a collarless white shirt, and alligator leather boots that must have cost as much as a car.

“Welcome to the Saloon!” he shouted, with Xiao translating.

“I thought the name was Sky?”

“Yes. Saloon was my first casino, back in Nevada. I used to work the floors just like this. It’s good to be back.”

“I see.” Though Cheung didn’t, really.

“So what do you think, General?”

“I won’t pretend I’m not impressed.”

“The most expensive casino we’ve ever built. Or anyone else. Twenty-eight billion yuan. My executives told me it was too much, I told them I didn’t care, it had to be the best, like nothing else. To make the engineering work, we anchored it with steel cables that run through the Cotai landfill to the seabed. A hundred cables, two hundred meters long each, a meter in diameter. It can withstand a once-in-a-century typhoon, and it hardly sways up top.”

“Chinese engineering.”

“I’m glad you came, General. The way you left us so fast last time, I worried someone on my staff had offended you.”

“Not at all.”

“Good. Because nothing matters more to me than the way we treat our clients. Especially men like you. You aren’t just players. You’re my friends.”

If Cheung had been more self-aware, he might have questioned why he merited so much attention from one of the world’s richest
men. Or the crazy notion that 88 Gamma would open this casino for him and him alone. He was a big player, sure, but not the biggest. If he were more self-aware, he might have recognized where his true value lay.

But then, if Cheung were more self-aware, he wouldn’t have believed that he had the right to have sex with a child.

And he did. His desire had risen like a fever since the call from Xiao. On his flight down, he had barely glanced at a report delivered just the previous day from a Chinese spy in Washington, a translated copy of Lockheed Martin’s top-secret findings on problems with the software in the F-35 jet. Even the thought of sitting at the baccarat table didn’t hold his attention as it usually did. He was already waiting for the end of the night. Yet . . . when the moment came . . . he wondered if he would have the guts to ask for what he wanted. The
courage
. He’d need a few drinks, to steady himself.

“Everything all right, General?” Duberman smiled, and Cheung felt his charm. A gentleman, a man who understood the world. “You seem distracted.” Duberman pointed at the aquarium. “I was just saying, we’ll bring new sharks through every few weeks so that even our regular players will see something new every time. We have a saying in America, variety is the spice of life. I hate to be bored myself. I hate even more when my customers are bored.”

Duberman led Cheung to the check-in desk, empty now, of course. Jian walked out from a door behind the desk, bearing a tray with an unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and two glasses. She wore a stark black dress and looked taller and slimmer and more beautiful than ever. For once, Cheung was genuinely surprised to see her. “Jian.”

“General. A pleasure.”

Cheung went to a knee and kissed her hand, inhaling her scent.
Beside him, Duberman poured two whiskies, big drinks, the tumblers half full. Looking at the golden liquid made Cheung’s throat ache.

“I’ll tell you a secret, General. If you can keep it.”

“Naturally.”

“What would life be without secrets? I understand that, and so do my employees.”

You aren’t just players. You’re my friends . . . I don’t want anyone to get bored . . . What would life be without secrets?

Duberman
knew
. Not only that, he wanted Cheung to know he knew. He must want to be helpful. Maybe he even shared Cheung’s tastes. A pleasant vision filled Cheung’s mind.
I don’t have to . . . and maybe I won’t . . .

But I will.

“What’s your secret?” Cheung said.

“We’re doubling the maximum up there.”

Not what Cheung had expected. “Ten million? A hand?”

“Not just for a hand or two. We’ll play all night that way.”

A staggering number, enough to turn Cheung’s thoughts back to the table. At those stakes, a player could win or lose five hundred million in a night.

“You don’t expect me—”

“No. But I hoped you might take some of what you’d won from us last month and start us off with a maximum bet.” Duberman smiled, his teeth more perfect than any man’s should be. For the first time, Cheung felt uneasy.
Too easy, don’t trust him, something’s wrong . . .

But desire overwhelmed the warning, the instinct for self-preservation. “If the maximum is ten million, I’ll have to bet fifteen.”

Duberman’s smile widened. “Do you know why I asked you to be our first guest? My managers said, not Cheung. He’s too smart. He
won’t be so easily impressed. And such a gambler. After what he did to us last month, you want him
back
? I told them, I don’t want someone I can buy off with a day at the spa, a fancy dinner. A visit to my mansion
.
I want the toughest man we can find. We all agreed it was you.”

The toughest. Yes. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Duberman handed Cheung a tumbler and raised his own.

“To the Sky Casino.”

“To luck, General. Yours and mine.”

“Mine and yours.”

The glasses came together with a clink pure as a church bell. Cheung meant to take only one sip, but before he could help himself, the drink flew down his throat. Liquid courage.
Permission.

“Chou-Lai and I will take good care of you tonight,” Duberman said. “Shall we have dinner? Or may I take you straight to the hundred and eighth floor?”

Cheung held up his glass for a refill. “The hundred and eighth.”

—

T
HE
VIP
SALON
had walls made of the same strange color-shifting metal as the lobby, though the hues changed more slowly and subtly, so as not to distract the players. For now, the room had no sculpture or paintings, no art, just a single baccarat table. Duberman explained that he had commissioned pieces specifically for the space from Zhang Huan and Zeng Fanzhi, two great modern Chinese artists. They hadn’t yet arrived. “The walls will do for now.”