Gray grimaced, clearly picturing that brutal handiwork.
Seichan was having no easier time of it. Her breathing grew harder, trying to balance this act with the mother who had once nursed a broken-winged dove back to health. But she knew the man wasn’t lying.
Gray was less convinced. “And how are we to know that this Triad boss is the woman we came looking for? What proof do you offer? Do you have a photograph of you with her?”
Inside the intelligence inquiry sent out broadly, Sigma had included a picture of her mother, one taken from the records of the Vietnamese prison where she had been incarcerated. They’d also posted possible locations, which unfortunately covered a large swath of Southeast Asia, along with a computer-enhanced image of how she might look now, twenty years later.
Dr. Pak had been the only promising fish to bite on that line.
“A photograph?” The North Korean scientist shook his head. He lit another cigarette, plainly a chain-smoker. “She keeps herself covered in public. Only those high in her Triad have seen her face. If anyone else sees her, they don’t live long enough to speak of it.”
“Then how do you—?”
Pak touched his throat. “The dragon. I saw it when she wielded the hammer . . . dangling from her neck, the silver shining, as merciless as its owner.”
“Like this?” Seichan slipped a finger to her collar and pulled out her own coiled dragon pendant. The intelligence dossier had included a picture of it. Seichan’s charm was a copy of another. The memory of the original remained etched in her bones, often rising up in dreams
. . . of being curled in her mother’s arms on the small cot under an open window, night birds singing, moonlight reflecting off the silver dragon resting at her mother’s throat, shimmering like water with each breath . . .
Hwan Pak had a different memory. He cringed back from her pendant, as if trying to escape the sight.
“There must be many dragon pendants of a similar design,” Gray said. “What you offer is no proof. Only your word about a piece of jewelry you saw eight years ago.”
“If you want real proof—”
Seichan cut him off, standing and tucking the silver dragon away. She motioned for Gray to move aside for a private conversation.
Once they retreated to beyond the baccarat table, she spoke in his ear. Kowalski’s bulk helped shield them further.
“He’s telling the truth,” Seichan said. “We must move beyond this line of questioning and find out where my mother is in Kowloon.”
“Seichan, I know you want to believe him, but let me—”
She gripped his bicep to shut him up. “The name of the Triad. Duàn zhī.”
He went silent, letting her speak, plainly seeing something in her face.
She felt tears rising, coming from a place of happiness and grief, a place where night birds still sang in the jungle.
“The name . . . Broken Twig,” she said. Even speaking it, she felt something break inside her.
He waited, not understanding, but he allowed her the space to explain at her own pace.
“My name,” she said haltingly, feeling suddenly exposed, “the one given to me by my mother . . . the one I abandoned, a necessity to bury my childhood behind me . . . it was Chi.”
A new name allowed a new life.
Gray’s eyes widened. “Your real name is Chi.”
“Was,” she still insisted.
That girl had died long ago.
Seichan took a steadying breath. “In Vietnamese, Chi means twig.”
She read the understanding in Gray’s face.
Her mother had named the Triad after her lost daughter.
Before Gray could respond, a sharp coughing sounded from beyond the door—but the noise came from no human throat. Bodies thudded out in the hallway, felled by the barrage of noise-suppressed gunfire.
Gray was already swinging to face that threat, drawing Kowalski with him.
Pak called from across the room. “You asked for proof!” He pointed his smoldering cigarette at the door. “Here it comes!”
Seichan immediately realized what Pak had done. She should have suspected it sooner, considering what they had just learned. She cursed herself. In the past, she never would have been blindsided like this. Her time with Sigma had softened her.
Pak backed away from the door, but he did not look scared. This was his play, a path to a far bigger payoff than Gray had offered, a possible way to clear all his debts. In a clever act of betrayal, the bastard had turned the tables on them, sold them out to her mother’s Triad, passing on a warning to a woman who had gone to great lengths to keep her face hidden from the world.
Such a woman would destroy anyone who got too close to the truth.
Seichan understood that.
She would have done the same.
You did what you must to survive.
1:44 A.M.
Ju-long Delgado was not as understanding about the sudden turn of events at Casino Lisboa. He stood up and grabbed his cell phone.
On the plasma screen, he watched the three foreigners react to some commotion beyond the VIP room door. The two men flipped the baccarat table on its side, placing it between them and the door to act as a shield. On the other side of the room, the North Korean scientist seemed less perturbed, but even he retreated into a far corner, placing himself out of harm’s way.
With one thumb, Ju-long speed-dialed Tomaz out at the Lisboa. Earlier, Ju-long had specifically ordered his team not to pursue the targets until Dr. Pak left. He didn’t want any trouble with the North Koreans. He had many lucrative ties with their government, helping shuttle prominent members, like Hwan Pak, to and from Macau. In fact, he had visited Pyongyang himself, grooming and securing those connections.
As soon as the line was picked up, Tomaz reported in, panting heavily as if running. “We saw it, too, on the security feed, senhor. A firefight. I’m heading up there now. Someone is assaulting the same VIP room.”
A lance of righteous indignation stabbed through Ju-long. Was someone trying to steal his merchandise? Had a disgruntled bidder decided to circumvent the auction and take a direct approach?
Tomaz corrected him. “We believe it’s one of the Triads.”
He balled a fist.
Damned Chinese dogs . . .
His plan must have leaked to the wrong ears.
“How do you wish us to proceed, senhor? Back off or continue as planned?”
Ju-long had no choice. If he didn’t retaliate in full force, the Triads would take it as a sign of weakness, and he’d be fighting turf wars for years. The cost to his organization, along with the weakening of his position in the eyes of the Chinese officials who ran Macau, could not be tolerated.