Near twilight, he stepped into a doorway and let himself in by picking the lock. No alarm was triggered that he was aware of but he entered with a sense of prickling unease, almost of dread. He tried to shake it off but he felt that he was in danger. He leaned against the wall beside the door and centered his thoughts on the task at hand. Should he close or lock the door?

  This was a question that presented itself on every assignment over the last ten years and he had never any firm conviction regarding the answer. If any threat was already inside, he would trap himself by locking the door. If the danger was outside, he should obviously close and lock the door. He simply had to, as always, roll the dice. On this occasion, Wong decided he would leave the door unlocked but shut. His backup was supposed to sound the alarm and arrive in fifteen minutes. Wong estimated he would get all that he needed done before that despite the nagging feeling he had.

  He ascended the stairs quickly to the offices and found nothing in any of the four rooms other than old wooden tables with empty drawers. There was not a scrap of paper within sight and a quick inspection of each desk revealed no marks other than random ink stains and scratches. Nothing indicated where the shipment of weapons to the Filipino had been sent.

  The surveillance team covering the arms deal between Kim and Hashim had traced the twelve MANPADS, packed in two crates, from the empty parking lot in which the transaction had taken place to a busy structure connected to a mall. The large pick-up truck, almost big enough to be called a ‘lorry’ in Hong Kong, was left with only a sheet of canvas to cover the crates. The spotters transferred their surveillance from physical observation to closed circuit monitoring of the truck, the floor and all the possible exits. Early in the morning, two days later, a van had stopped in the lane behind the pickup truck and four men transferred the crates in less than two minutes before driving to this warehouse.

  The van and crates, however, had disappeared from the warehouse. Wong now had the unenviable duty of checking the premises while customs and coast guard units scoured their surveillance tapes to see if they could find the trail of the crates. Wong went back down the stairs to see what he could find and to determine if it would be necessary to send in the crime scene specialists. He sensed the presence of a man detaching himself from the shadows of the large cargo space.

  As Wong prepared for a fight he sized up his adversary. They were about as tall as each other, about five feet eight inches tall. He thought he was probably ten pounds heavier than the stranger, and wondered if that would be an advantage. The policeman had worked undercover for over ten years, four for the vice squad and the rest for drug enforcement.

  His opponent exuded confidence such as to be expected from a lifetime of practice. He had a typically fair East Asian face. His features were more angular than most and his eyes were a very dark brown, intense but revealing no emotion. Around him wafted a light scent of incense as if his daily routine included time spent at a personal shrine. Here was someone who had, without a doubt, driven himself relentlessly. Wong had won more than his share of fights in ten years but now a sense of foreboding sped like a virus through his veins as he reflected upon his own neglect of the sparring mats. He knew he had been cruising by with one or two hours a day instead of the four or five he should have spent drilling himself. Would his luck run out today?

  The two men approached each other warily. Wong lashed out with a jab at the intruder’s face and his heart sank as his opponent simply swatted the blow away. He dropped reflexively to avoid a counter attack but none came. He performed a vigorous leg sweep and was stunned to find his opponent standing steady as a rock. Wong rolled away quickly. His life flashed before his eyes. At the same time, however, he felt a sense of clarity. He would do whatever he needed to and, if that was not enough, he determined that no amount of fear or trembling would tip the scales. The professional in him accepted life as it was dealt to him and he grew calm.

  The gap between the two men closed and the undercover detective felt as if his kicks and punches bounced off wooden beams tightly wrapped with thick ropes while his opponent seemed to explode into action, hitting him four or five times for each time that he himself connected. He rolled, jerked, or dodged whenever he could but the battle was quickly slipping from him. In desperation he threw a punch with all the force he could muster, knowing he had done so with perfect form. His opponent dodged it with laughing ease and encased Wong’s outstretched arm in an arm lock, enabling him to pitch the detective across the room.

  All the undercover agent could do was to protect his head as he hit the wall. He was utterly spent while he sensed his opponent had barely broken a sweat. With relief, he heard the wail of sirens. Police cars approached and the door to the warehouse rattled open. His attacker reached into a pocket and swung his arm launching a throwing star at the throat of Wong’s back-up as he rushed in with his firearm blazing. He managed to get off three shots that hit nothing in particular before collapsing. Wong now recognized the style of fighting against which he had fought and lost miserably.

  The ninja turned and hissed, “Train!” Then he disappeared.

  ***

  Wong regained consciousness to find himself in a hospital bed with a policeman guarding the door on the inside. He guessed that another was stationed on the outside. The guard inside nodded at him and proceeded to dial a cell phone. “The captain wants a word with you as soon as you are up.” He handed the phone to the bruised and battered agent.

  “So you are up? About time,” snapped the captain without pleasantries.

  “Is it still night?”

  “About midnight. So what game are you playing or did my best agent really get beaten up?”

  “Oh please. He wiped the floor with me. I think he was just amusing himself. This was lucky for me. Otherwise I would not have escaped with my life. Did you really suspect me of having sold out to his bosses? Who are they anyway?”

  The captain was not amused and remarked, “Well, the surveillance team lost its trace on the movement of the cargo and you lost the only other lead to the shipments.”

  “Can you tell the guard here to please give me some water?” Wong moaned as he handed the phone to the guard. He sighed and groaned as he tried to find a comfortable position on the bed. As he replayed the fight from that evening in his mind, he knew there was no chance he would have been able to deliver the intruder to his superior officer. Not even if he had a handgun and the other was unarmed could he have defeated that man.

  Without ceremony, when the battered policeman retrieved the phone from his guard, the captain said, “You were beaten up quite badly, I understand. The medical people found all kinds of bruises on your body. They could detect no internal injuries, though, and no broken bones. So I expect you’ll be released from the hospital tomorrow morning. The crime scene team will make its report before lunch and I want you here by that time. Now get some more rest.”

  The next day, the captain convened the meeting with the crime scene analysts and the undercover policeman. The captain had never met those analysts before. Their unit had been set up only five years ago and by then, he had put in twenty years in law enforcement. He had spent five years in Macau and hoped to retire there. It would please his wife, who was from South China and hated the winters in the north where he himself had grown up. She loved him in part for his fair skin and the relative height that distinguished northerners from the natives of Guangdong, but her choice was sorely tested during the eight years they spent in his hometown, a city whose claim to fame was an annual festival featuring extravagant outdoor ice sculptures that lasted a whole month.

  Undercover specialist Wong still ached all over from his fight the evening before, but he no longer felt the despair or complete exhaustion that he did then. Not for the first time, he felt the lure of addiction exerted by drugs that could so easily erase pain and ease a body into refreshing rest. He helped himself to some favorite pastries. Sweetened red bean paste cooked in a shell of glutinous rice flour that the Japanese called mochi, sweetened bean paste in a cakelike pastry crust, a custard tart, and a cup of coffee were offered from a tray wheeled in for the station’s mid-morning snack, the second breakfast, or ‘elevenses.’ Whatever the colonial custom was called, it had been adopted with enthusiasm.

  The crime scene analysts visiting from their own office also helped themselves. They represented a collection of technological developments that neither Wong nor the captain understood, and until this day, had no occasion to use. They were all dressed in well-pressed white shirts and black trousers. Most of them looked local, or at least like southerners, shorter and darker than those from the north. Wong was as tall as the tallest of the southerners although he too would be called swarthy.

  “Do you analysts have useful information for us?” inquired the captain.

  “We were able to determine that the crates had been repacked. The traces we were able to find and analyze suggest the contents came in two crates and remained in two lots. We have sent samples of prints and smudges to the lab and expect to receive the analyses soon.”

  “Where were the crates taken?” demanded the captain.

  The leader of the analysts smiled and responded, “Captain, we are only crime scene analysts. We have not been asked to replace the customs officers or the coast guards or the surveillance unit.”

  “Yes, yes,” grumbled the captain. “I understand the concept of the division of labor. Thank you for your assistance. Please convey my respects to your chief.”

  “We will send you a copy of our report within a day,” announced the lead analyst as they left.

  “Thank you.”

  The captain turned to look over Wong and shook his head. “I find it difficult to believe anyone beat you in a fair fight.”

  “It was a fair fight. The man was easy on me, probably out of curiosity. I got the impression he wanted to find out what training I’ve had. He was like my cat sniffing all over me to see what other animals I had been in contact with that day. Whatever I picked up in those undercover police exchange programs probably intrigued him. I must have shown myself to be a real mongrel, with all the different moves I learned from the Vietnamese or Filipinos or Thais.”

  “What about his own style?”

  “That’s an interesting question. I would have said he had a very good understanding of Chinese and Korean martial arts. Above all, his conditioning was fantastic. Then that single word he spoke. He used the Chinese word for ‘train’ but his accent was very Japanese. I believe he is a ninja but is clearly open to other styles. His knife throwing was brilliant.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got the impression from talking with you yesterday that you were about to give up.”

  “I am not today.”

  “That is good, because I need someone to make sense of all this. You need to stay off the streets anyway so I’d like you to see what the surveillance teams might have forgotten or misremembered. Can I rely on you to coordinate the reports and also talk to Beijing?”

  “Of course. Is something wrong?”

  “I am five years away from retirement and this incident could derail my hopes of a pleasant transition to civilian life.”

  “Is what has happened so bad?”

  “Who knows? I have never dealt with Beijing before. Eight years in my home-town on the beat after graduation from the police academy; my wife really hated it. She still shivers every time she talks about it. Ten years as an inspector in Changsha; lots of tourists there to see Mao’s hometown, but I spent most of my career there dealing with petty theft and domestic disputes. Then I spent five years here as a captain. Headquarters wanted to transfer me; policy they said, but I was able to persuade them that I really wanted to retire in this city.”

  “Is it policy to move police captains around?”

  “The policy applies to captains and all ranks above that and it is not purely arbitrary. It is a wise protocol. Captains have great discretion and could easily misuse our position in society. Moving us from city to city reduces the opportunities for improper relationships.”

  “What about people like me?”

  “Your level is considered unlikely to have the opportunity to give or receive great favors.”

  “I see,” murmured Wong. “I’ll try not to be offended.”

  “In your particular case,” advised the captain in a fatherly tone, “you must decide if you want to continue fighting. If you do, you should know that time will run out on you. In ten years, you will slow down and grow soft. That is assuming you take the trouble now to get into proper condition. The ninja gave you valuable advice. You must put more time into your skills and conditioning.”

  Wong nodded. “I have decided that, beginning today, my routine will include an extra hour of conditioning every day. As for my skills, I will ask the coaches for their guidance. I appreciate your taking an interest in this.”

  The captain smiled and nodded. “You have so many options, but you have to decide what it is you really want to do, where you want to do it, and that sort of thing.”

  “You mean to say I have to leave Macau?”

  “You have to decide whether you want to or not. After ten years undercover in this city, you can expect your career to develop further here, but you will have more opportunities if you are willing to move to another city.”

  Towards the end of the day, the captain called Wong into his office and said, “We have to go to the local police headquarters.”

  “Beijing calling?”

  “They have expressed concern.”

  When the two men arrived, they were ushered to a room with large flat-screen panels and several discreet video cameras, speakers, and microphones.

  The superintendent of police in Macau entered the room and greeted them. He was nervous as he explained, “The head of crime scene analysis called and told me that he had their report ready but he felt Beijing would be interested also and suggested a video conference.”

  In a moment, one screen showed Deputy Commissioner of Police Wen and his aide, Inspector Chen, while another showed the head of crime scene analysis in South China together with the captain in charge of the team that investigated the warehouse where Wong had fought.

  Wong and his captain practiced deep cleansing breaths as the conference began with the crime scene analyst.

  “Our report failed to yield information regarding how or where the crates were moved but we found something else that makes it urgent for our colleagues in Macau to follow up on the ground.”

  “Please spare us the suspense,” interjected Wen.

  “We discovered traces of radioactive material in the warehouse. This suggests that the crates either contained or had come into contact with materials from a nuclear device. The evidence indicates that a very small amount of nuclear material was leaked. It is urgent that we learn how much there actually was and how many devices there were as well as the type.”

  There was a brief and tense pause before Wen assumed leadership of the conference and asserted, “I believe that the main focus of this investigation must shift to Beijing.” Neither Wong and his captain nor the crime scene analysts offered any argument, relieved that they did not have to make decisions. If the superintendent of police in Macau was in any way inconvenienced, he too gave no sign.

  Wen continued, “May I request full reports from both of you? In fact, you should expect to be called on over the next week or so. Captain, I assume you and Wong are continuing your efforts to trace the crates and their destination. Please keep me informed through my aide Inspector Chen.”

  In Wen’s office, Wang the former spymaster stepped from the shadows, where he had stood during the video conference, observing the other parties. The two elders looked at each other as Chen excused himself. Wen noted, “This changes the whole complexion of the matter. We are no longer dealing with the theft and sale of small arms but with nuclear devices.”

  Wang nodded. “Yesterday, we had twelve stinger-type missiles constituting a possible threat to the martial pride of a Southeast Asian country, a neighbor. Today, we have nuclear devices involved. It sounds like these are what they call ‘tactical’ weapons, capable of bringing down a skyscraper or two but not a whole city. How many were involved in this action? Where are they headed? Are they related to the arms deal Kim told us about? I don’t see how but the physical evidence seems to indicate so.”

  “This is a game-changer,” affirmed Wen.

  “Above all,” added Wang, “we must discover who intends to use the nuclear devices and to what end.”

  Contents

  CHAPTER 5

  It was early Wednesday morning in Macau and the ninja was breathing heavily while a light sheen of sweat covered his body. No one had ever seen the ninja sweat. This was because no one ever witnessed the full four-hour drill he performed every day to maintain his form and conditioning. He had long outgrown sparring partners and had to craft various routines depending on the space he had and whether he had the luxury of equipment or not.

  He made do with whatever he had. In a small, cramped room, his exercises might include springing from one wall to another, practically running round the room on its walls. He did push-ups while standing on his hands and often did them one-handed. In open space, he ran parkour routes of stunning ingenuity, including twirling leaps and springs. Wherever he was, there was shadowboxing of aching intensity, with fists, elbows, feet, and knees.

  Each time, he spent nearly an hour honing his mastery of throwing knives, visualizing his targets at stationary defensive positions as well as on the run, twisting and dodging. When he had the luxury of sketching a human figure on a piece of paper or wood, it would become clear that he aimed particularly at the carotid arteries, the biceps tendons at the shoulders, the patella tendons, the achilles tendons, and the femoral arteries.

  Pimple-like sweat decorated the face of the ninja. He had found a gym and broken into it long before the sun rose over Macau. It smelled of cedar and had the feel of an exclusive, possibly private, gym. His phone buzzed discreetly.

 

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