Читать книгу China White - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

PROLOGUE

Confucius Plaza, New York City

Tommy Mu was starting to get nervous. He was due on Mott Street, at the Lucky Dragon, in ten minutes, and he wasn’t sure that he could make it. Being late was bad, particularly with the product he was carrying. It could mean punishment.

But getting killed along the way was worse.

He had been followed from the pickup, though he hadn’t seen the stalkers on his tail until his taxi had crossed Henry Street and rolled into Chinatown. He had begun to let his guard down, relaxing as he made it back to his home turf, and then he’d spotted it: a jet-black SUV he’d glimpsed before, while he was getting in the cab, and hadn’t thought to watch for on the ride downtown.

Stupid.

He should have paid closer attention, should have known there might be watchers, what with all the other crazy shit that had been going on the past few weeks. The SUV’s windshield was tinted just enough that Mu couldn’t make out who was trailing him, but he felt safe in ruling out the DEA. If they’d been on his case, they would have swooped in at the pickup, grabbing him with the product, his supplier with the cash he’d handed over. Get the whole damn ball of wax.

No. This was someone else.

Which only made it worse.

If he’d been busted, Mu could have called his lawyer, posted bail and started thinking about where to run and hide in lieu of facing trial. But these weren’t cops. And that meant, if they took him in, the odds of him coming back were nil. He might wind up in the East River, or he might just disappear.

Whatever. Dead was dead, and Mu wasn’t ready for it.

So he’d told the cabbie that he’d changed his mind about going to Mott Street. He had the hack stop at Confucius Square, where there were people all around, making a snatch more hazardous.

Back in the old days, Mu understood, New Yorkers might have stood and watched him be slaughtered on the street without lifting a hand or bothering to call for help. These days, post–9/11, things were different. Someone would definitely call the cops, and likely film the snatch squad on his or her cell phone at the same time. Now that he was back in Chinatown, someone might even recognize him and call Jimmy Wen.

Not that his boys could reach the scene in time.

The good news: Mu had his equalizer with him, just as always. He preferred the SIG SAUER Mosquito, light and fast, packing ten .22-caliber Long Rifle rounds, its muzzle threaded for attaching a suppressor if he had a special job to do. It wouldn’t knock a man down from a block away, but it would kill him, hell yeah, if you hit him in the right spots, and it didn’t have the shocking recoil of a larger caliber.

The question: would he have a chance to use it if the stalkers moved on him?

The plan: cross Bowery westbound and walk against Bayard Street’s one-way traffic, so the hunters couldn’t follow him. Make them drop down to Pell and try to keep up with him, wondering the whole time if they’d come this far to lose him altogether.

Psy-war, man, he thought. Just hope it works.

If not...

He made the move; dodged into traffic, barely checking left or right, and made it to the other side intact.

So far, so good.

* * *

“YOU’RE LOSING HIM,” Ahmad Taraki growled.

“What can I do?” Babur Kazimi asked him from the driver’s seat. “You see the one-way sign.”

“Turn that way!” Taraki shouted, then cursed with feeling.

He pointed south, toward Pell Street, one-way westbound. They could track their pigeon that way, farther into Chinatown, and pick him up on Mott Street when he tried to cross.

“You sure?” Daoud Rashad asked from the backseat. “He could go some other way or—”

Furious and nearly shouting now, Taraki told his driver, “Do as you are told!”

Kazimi made the turn, horns blaring at them, and Taraki gave them all the finger. He wished he could have sprayed them with the AK-105 he was carrying and shut them up forever. That would be a satisfying moment, but he couldn’t spare the time, much less risk drawing in police before his job was done.

Pell Street was half the length of Bayard and dead-ended into Mott. Taraki had a fair idea of where his boy was going, and their task would be to cut him off before he got there, thus avoiding any payback from his homeboys. It was meant to be a simple job, decisive, not a running firefight through the streets.

“Hurry!” he snapped at Kazimi. “If you let him get away, it’s your ass.”

“Two more minutes,” the driver answered. “But I can’t stop him from going someplace else.”

“Then pray he doesn’t, for your own sake,” Taraki said.

As if God gave a damn whether they caught the man or not.

But Wasef Kamran cared. And if Taraki failed him, there would certainly be hell to pay.

* * *

TOMMY MU FELT BETTER; thought he might have made it after all. Some of the people he passed on Bayard Street were likely wondering why he’d been running past them, jostling a couple here and there, but no one challenged him. They knew better, could recognize him by his haircut, clothes and haste as someone dangerous. They’d be thinking he wasn’t a person to mess with, and their instincts were correct.

Approaching Mott Street, he slowed to a walking pace, figuring the SUV could still be fighting traffic down on Pell. And if it wasn’t...well, he didn’t want to blunder into anything. The package underneath his arm was worth more than his life to Paul Mei-Lun.

Something to bear in mind.

Mu was cautious as he cleared the last few yards, keeping his right hand underneath his jacket, near the Stinger, ready for a quick draw if he needed it. It would be better for him if he ditched the hunters, rather than start a shooting match on his home turf, but he would do whatever was required to make it back alive.

Mott Street was his salvation, one-way traffic running north to south, so even if the SUV caught up with him, its driver couldn’t turn against the flow and follow him to the Lucky Dragon. He’d be safe then, with his brothers all around him, making the delivery. If he was not on time, at least he would be close and no one would have taken the package away from him.

Arriving at the corner, Mu felt sweet relief—until he saw the SUV parked at the corner to his left, downrange. He was about to flip them off, laugh in their faces, until he focused on the black car’s open windows and the weapons angling toward him from inside. Mu wasn’t sure if he should run or pull the Stinger, and before he had a chance to make his mind up it was already too late.

The bullets hit him like a pelting hailstorm, ripping through his stylish jacket, through his flesh, lifting him off his feet. The package underneath his arm burst open, powder rising in a cloud around him as he fell, no longer snow-white as it had been when he’d taken delivery. It was all red and clotted now, with Mu’s blood. Beyond him, farther down the street, the slugs struck others, killing, wounding.

Mu was dead before he hit the sidewalk.

The SUV turned south and vanished into traffic as the first screams rose in Chinatown. Sirens would take a little longer, and they’d be too late.

The war had already begun.