LITMIR.BIZ

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not want the handiwork traced back to them. That didn’t make sense, even for the Ministry of State Security, who would have no problem shooting someone for the crime of treason.

      No, crushing someone’s skull with a boot stomp was the act of their enemy, killing without leaving signs of weapons or nationality.

      So Blancanales and McCarter traded discussion. The Phoenix Force leader had been seen leaving the contact of the murdered man: Mei Anna. They were hoping that someone would be on his scent, listening to his phone calls, something that could be done with a phone-cloner unit, a device small enough to slide into a pocket.

      Right now McCarter was approximately ten blocks away, walking in Blancanales’s direction.

      And Blancanales, despite his salt-and-pepper hair and the cane he leaned on, looked good playing the part of an old man. The cane was a martial arts weapon. Blancanales was an experienced practitioner of bojutsu—not jitsu but jutsu—the practice of the use of the short staff or cane in actual combat, not the art.

      To be certain, Blancanales did have a firearm on his person, but a very flat, concealed weapon. He didn’t relish getting into a gunfight in Hong Kong, not when the police would fall upon him armed to the teeth.

      They kept talking, trading vague references about missile technology and the weather manipulation systems, going for length of call, making certain their opposition could home in on them.

      It was a risky gambit. Blancanales kept tensing at the sight of official-looking cars, glad that they were mostly the same Hong Kong park maintenance vehicle, and the occasional passing police car. This kind of loose talk could drop a lot of heat on them.

      Blancanales recalled the motto of David McCarter’s old unit, the British Special Air Service: Who Dares, Wins.

      That’s when Blancanales noticed a van pull to a stop and disgorge two tall men dressed in black. They didn’t appear to be armed, but they didn’t need to be. They were both taller than Blancanales, and the leather gloves they wore over their ham-size fists were quiet proof that this dare had drawn a response.

      Blancanales leaned a little harder against his cane.

      Let the hunt begin.

CHAPTER FIVE

      David McCarter walked at a brisk pace, the disposable cell phone to his ear, continuing his conversation with Rosario Blancanales, letting the words come out as something only slightly above gibberish. Luckily, he and the other man were working from a script they’d memorized. They needed only to hit proper keywords to attract attention, and the use of a prepared script allowed them to concentrate on their surroundings. The trouble with playing bait was not that they were consciously in the line of fire, but that they had to be aware where that line started. He heard Blancanales’s tone change.

      “Hunt,” the Able Team veteran said, and the phone clicked off.

      The word “hunt” was not in reference to Huntington Wethers back at Stony Man Farm, but that their objective as bait had succeeded. Someone had showed up. McCarter’s eyes kept sweeping the street and sidewalk around him. No one had come toward him yet, though he had an itch at the base of his neck, a tingle of danger that wasn’t exactly on a conscious level. McCarter had survived enough operations to realize that the unfocused discomfort was not a sign of his instincts misfiring, but actually picking up on some subtle hints that he was being stalked.

      McCarter had his hands in his jacket pockets, his right hand’s fingers wrapped around the handle of a .22 Magnum Taurus. Even out of a short barrel like the snubby, it had nearly the energy of a 9 mm bullet, and there were eight of them in the cylinder. McCarter also had his knuckle load, the deadly spike capable of killing, though in this instance, he was more interested in stunning his foe.

      Questioning a corpse would not be the easiest of things, but if worse came to worst, McCarter could at least rifle through a dead man’s pockets and make observations about the state of his body. He’d also get photographs and fingerprints of the dead man, but right now, he wanted someone who could speak.

      Even as he dangled himself as bait, there was also a section of him worried about Mei Anna and her people back at the bar. That tingle of warning at the base of his skull told him that it was likely he had drawn the wolves away from her door. As it was, the bar was on a tight lockdown, to the point where Mei had literally stuffed the revolver into McCarter’s pocket the minute they saw each other. Attacking her now to cut off the seep of information would be too risky and foolhardy. Even if they somehow succeeded in attacking her in her own headquarters, the cost in manpower and the attention the violence would bring would undo any efforts at cover-up.

      There. McCarter’s instincts rose in reaction to a sight out of the corner of his eye. As was the case with most instinctual responses, McCarter’s conscious mind wasn’t quite certain of what had popped up on his radar, but he knew where the threat was. He knew the distance to what triggered his surge of fight or flight. The sidewalks around him were packed with people, all of varying heights, even though the six-foot McCarter loomed over many of the Chinese in the crowds.

      There were other six-footers sprinkled here and there, but none of them appeared to be trailing him nor showing aggression. Then again, McCarter was keener to stay low profile when trailing someone, and if their enemy was assassins out to protect their conspiracy, they would not make a lot of noise, not until they were within striking distance.

      No, McCarter’s opponent was quiet and had only betrayed something small that tripped his instincts, but had kept him from actually noticing the attacker. He fought against the urge to concentrate on memories and input. The best result he had in reaction to ambush was not to concentrate on what could be wrong; instead, he should just look for the whole picture. His reflexes worked finely because he didn’t distract himself from the totality of input being picked up by sight, sound and touch.

      And that was when McCarter saw the person shoved out of the way, just out of the corner of his eye, an instant before he whirled in swift, certain response. McCarter folded his arm and brought the “chicken wing” down tight against his side, suddenly blocking the punch that swung at him, low and aiming at his kidney. Britain’s Special Air Service taught that an attack on an opponent’s kidneys was the surest path to incapacitating them with a minimum of fuss. A knife would cause instantly lethal renal shock, but a punch would crumple a man like a discarded newspaper.

      McCarter’s elbow took the force of the stunning punch, pain jolting up through his shoulder. But the pain was not indicative of broken bone or dislocated joint because his fist still remained clenched and ready. McCarter extended his arm, snapping his fist at the foe who struck at him, but the enemy was swift. Knuckles scraped the nearly bald head of the compact fireplug of a man, but the brunt of his punch was slipped by a quick movement of his head.

      The bald attacker whipped out his other fist, a punch that should have hooked around to strike McCarter at the base of his spine, but the Briton was also moving, turning to bring his other arm in front of him as a means of shielding himself. That left hook from the bulldoglike man snapped into McCarter’s own arm, blunting that strike. The ex-SAS commando lashed out with his left boot, striking toward the ambusher’s knees, but the enemy’s footwork was swift and he seemingly danced away from the initial assault.

      Now that they were face-to-face, McCarter could see that this guy was some form of European, though matching the diminutive height of the rest of the Chinese populace average around him. What he lacked in height, he made up for in bulk, arms sausaged into windbreaker sleeves with big fists poking out. The Phoenix Force commander could see the deformation of his foe’s knuckles, showing that this guy had trained long and laboriously to make his hands hardened clubs devoted to pain.

      The squat killer moved in again, and McCarter switched feet, stabbing out with his right to try to catch the man under his sternum. Those meaty cudgels crossed, blocking the attack, and the Briton retracted his kick even as blunt fingertips clawed at the slack around his shin. That didn’t slow the bald assassin’s onrush. McCarter kept his feet at right angles to

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