The Chronos Plague (Book 1): No Time Left Page 8

  I didn’t wait for an invitation. I feinted with the knife then lashed out with my heel, striking the man in the thigh. He stumbled back, swinging his blade wildly as he fell. He hit the closet and bounced off like he was a superball and literally flew through the air, his thin knife extended like a spear. I twisted to the side but not before his knife scored a hit along my ribcage, searing a hot line of pain in my side. I slashed back, more out of anger than technique, and somehow caught him on his forearm. My blade opened up an eight-inch gash from his wrist to his elbow. He gritted his teeth and sucked in his breath in pain as he spun around for another attack. I backed off and we stared at each other for a second, each of us holding our wounds.

  He reversed his grip and held the knife blade down, moving his hands in a kali fighting style. I waited a second then struck fast, causing the man to draw back his other hand with a new cut across the back. I wasn’t trained in many different combat styles, but I was quick, and I had been trained that when you are fighting with knives, any blood loss on your opponent’s side is good for you.

  The man darted forward and I kept my eye on his knife, which slashed the air in a glittering pattern. I caught his knife wrist with my own, neither of us having the advantage and I used my other elbow to smash him in the head and knock him back. He fell against the desk and came up again, this time throwing stationary up at my head to distract me.

  Anyone who tells you knife fights are elaborate dances where the combatants slash and miss and one winner emerges unscathed is a big fat liar. Knife fights are messy and everyone gets cut. The winner is the one who is cut the least.

  The man came at me again and I dodged his stab, elbowing him in the face and burying my knife in his solar plexus as he tried to recover. The man collapsed slowly, trying to pull the knife out of his chest. I waited until he stopped breathing before I relaxed. I left my knife where it was; the man would bleed out less.

  Now that he was dead, I took a much closer look at my attacker. He was Asian, although he didn’t look Vietnamese. He was about thirty, but that could be off by five years either way. I checked him for any ID, and came up empty. I checked his arms for any tattoos, but found none. I didn’t expect any, but I had to be sure.

  I cleaned up and patched my side, using the tiny first-aid kit in the bathroom. It wasn’t easy to do with small band-aids, but I wasn’t bleeding anymore. I grabbed my phone and called Tran back.

  He didn’t bother with hello. “That was fast,” he said. “What do you have for me?”

  “Did you send an assassin?” I asked.

  Tran was quiet for a moment before he spoke. “We’ve been friends a long time, Mac. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I have a dead body in my hotel room, and he showed up after I spoke to you. Did you tell anyone you spoke to me?” I said.

  Tran was quiet again. “Shit. Hold tight. I have to take care of something then I’ll be there.”

  “Okay. One last question. Teams?” I asked.

  “Not from us,” Tran said. He hung up and I had nothing much to do but wait. That was a small relief. I didn’t need any more excitement right now.

  Just as I thought that, there was a knock on the door. I picked up my gun and went over to the door. Looking through the keyhole, I could see Conner standing there. I opened the door and let him in.

  “Hey Mac, did you see the size of the…?” Conner’s voice dropped off as he saw the body on the floor. “What the…?”

  “You know, if you can’t even finish your sentences, you can go back to school,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for unprofessionalism.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Thanks for asking second. I’m vertical, he isn’t.”

  “What are we going to do? We just can’t leave a body in the hotel room.”

  “Yeah, the maid might complain. Relax, the cavalry’s coming,” I said. I pulled on some clothes and lay down, forgetting that a dead man lay at my feet and my side was bleeding.

  An hour later, my cell phone rang.

  “Mac, we’re here,” Tran said.

  “Good. My partner will open the door,” I said. I put away my gun. I was friends with an officer in the Intelligence, but even he couldn’t overlook certain things like foreigners with guns.

  Conner walked over to the door and then stepped aside as five men rolled into the room with a maid’s cart. They were wearing Windsor Plaza Hotel uniforms and didn’t say a word. They pulled the knife out of the man on the floor, took his picture, and then put him in a body bag. They managed to get him into the cabinet and then they cleaned up the carpet. One of them looked at my wound with the expertise of a medic, and replaced the little band-aids I had put on with a larger bandage after a spray of antibiotic.

  A sixth man walked into the room. Phuc Tran wasn’t physically imposing, but he had presence. His eyes took in everything, while his face remained impassive. He came over to me and offered his hand with a small bow.

  “My sincere apologies, my friend. In my excitement at seeing you again, I mentioned you to a colleague who is desperate to show his uncle that he is a man of action,” Tran said. “One thing led to another as you like to say.” One of the men showed Tran the picture of the dead man. “Yes, this man has been used before. Looks like you retired him rather well.”

  I had sufficiently cooled down, and I knew Tran wasn’t wholly responsible. But there was a question we hadn’t looked at yet.

  “The man you talked to, might he be affiliated with Jester?’”

  Tran looked thoughtful. “Good question. I’ll get to that as soon as I can. I’m glad you’re none the worse for wear.”

  I glanced down at my wound and then pulled a shirt on. It wasn’t worth getting into an argument over and I never won those with Tran anyway. But I had plenty of time to think and none of my conclusions were any good.

  “Tran, I have a bad feeling about this. Things are moving very fast. I don’t think we have time to wait to visit the doctor,” I said.

  Tran nodded. “Given how fast this happened, we’d better get over there now.” He glanced at the cart as it went by. He said something to the last man out the door, and seemed satisfied by the answer. Tran turned back to me.

  “Ready to go? Then get your gun and follow me.”

  I never said Tran was stupid, and I did exactly as he said. As I left, I gave Conner instructions and told him I would be in touch as soon as we got to where we needed to go.

  I followed Tran downstairs and we walked through the beautiful lobby again, this time I had the experience in the morning light. A window let in a decent amount of sunlight, and a huge piece of quartz situated on a pedestal caught the sunlight and cast unique splashes of light all over the lobby.

  The door was opened by a tall Vietnamese girl dressed in traditional clothing, and I gave her a smile for her trouble. I hoped that wasn’t the only job she had, because I know I’d be bored to death by the third hour.

  Outside, the humidity was high but we were in the cooler months, so it wasn’t as horrible as the rainy season was. Tran had the address so we started over toward the street. Even at a relatively early hour, the streets were filled with scooters, broken up by the occasional car and van. People rode the scooters with a Zen-like ability. They flowed around each other, stopping when needed, using every bit of available space. Street lights were not a common thing, just at the major intersections.

  We got to the crosswalk and I followed Tran’s lead. Essentially, he waited for a small break in the scooters and then headed across. He kept his speed, never once changing his stride, just becoming a rock in a stream, letting the water flow around him.

  The second crosswalk was a little trickier, since we were working against traffic from both directions, but we followed the same procedure. A van got close enough to me that I nearly felt obligated to offer to buy it a drink, but that was the only near miss, and it was gone before I could get its number.

  On the other side of the street, Tran turn
ed to the right and we walked down the sidewalk, skirting around open-air cafes and parked scooters. As we walked, Tran looked at me and I just nodded. I knew he wanted information and I was more than happy to give it to him. It was my way of telling him I forgave his mishap. I knew he was going to deal very permanently with the person who tried to have me killed.

  “I feel like I’m chasing ghosts, Tran. What we thought was a wild goose chase turned out to be a murder, and then we fell right into a nest of vipers. Conner and I managed to grab some intelligence, which brought us here, but I’m hoping we can get some more answers out of Doctor Nhan Bich Hang.”

  “What kind of answers?” Tran asked. He pointed at a tall building and I looked up and nodded, stopping to take a picture with my phone. The minute you do something like that, the locals are no longer interested in you.

  “We know she was working for a corporation that was doing genetic research. Some kind of breakthrough happened and then everything just stopped. This Jester group seems far too interested in the research to be coincidental, and they seem to be much further ahead than anyone else when it comes to finding the people who worked there,” I said.

  Tran thought about that as he rounded a corner and headed down the street, going in exactly the opposite direction we were just heading.

  “Former employee? Looking to settle an old score?” Tran asked.

  “No idea yet. If I could get a handle on what they were trying to do and the supposed breakthrough that shut everything down, I might get to a conclusion that makes sense,” I said. “That’s why I want to talk to Dr. Nhan.”

  “What about Jester?” Tran asked, stopping in front of a modern-looking building. It was ten stories high and full of blue glass. There was a ramp heading down to a parking garage, a veritable luxury in Saigon, and a little lobby at the top of a single flight of stairs that held the building back from being flush with its neighbors.

  “They opened the ball. As far as I’m concerned, they declared war on me and mine. I’ll hunt them down one at a time,” I said.

  Tran smiled. “Good. Let’s go talk to the doctor.”

  Ten minutes later, we were standing in the hallway on the tenth floor. Tran’s credentials opened pathways that would have been impossible for me. The private security guard manning the desk at the front door nearly blew the buttons off his shirt trying to stand at attention and suck in his copious gut. These kinds of guards were all over the city, Tran explained, hired mostly to watch over scooters and harass locals. It was no accident they fashioned their uniforms after the military, in an attempt to intimidate the local populace and tourists. They were bullies and usually thugs, more than willing to take a bribe to either look the other way or do the stealing themselves.

  “Which one?” I asked, sliding my hand back toward my gun.

  “The last one on the right,” Tran said.

  “The one that looks like it’s already open?” I asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Terrific.”

  We approached cautiously, although chances were pretty good things were calm and quiet right now. Tran went in first, nudging the door open and quietly announcing who he was. The apartment was eerily quiet, and the initial impression was no one was home. I went toward the bathroom and second bedroom while Tran went over to the kitchen and master bedroom. This place was one room larger than my hotel room.

  The office and second bedroom were clear, and I didn’t see any signs of trouble. The desk was a little messed up, but nothing looked like there was an attempt to find anything.

  “Mac, in here.”

  That tone, spoken by law enforcement the world over, was never good. I went back to the other bedroom and saw Tran standing over a woman. She was lying on the floor face down, one hand under the bed. In her back was a large knife, likely taken from her own kitchen. The blade went completely through her and pinned her to the floor.

  “Looks like she was trying to get to her bathroom after they broke in. Her cell phone is in there,” Tran said.

  I looked under the bed and saw her hand was reaching toward a small box. I pulled the box out and opened it. Inside was a small notebook, a jade necklace, and a small semi-automatic .22 pistol. I showed the contents to Tran.

  “A couple seconds more and we might have had a very big break in this,” I said.

  Tran nodded and took the box. “This is a crime scene now. I need you out of here.” He opened his phone and started dialing then looked back at me. “Seriously, no one can see you in here, and there are eyes everywhere in this city, you know that.”

  “Fastest way back to the hotel?” I asked.

  “Leave here, go up the alley. Turn left when you can’t do anything else, then right. You’ll come out on the street. Look up and you’ll see your hotel,” Tran said.

  I held out my hand. “Let me know what you find?” I asked.

  Tran nodded. “They’ve killed in my country now. I’m all about finding them.”

  “You owe me lunch sometime,” I said as I stepped out the door. The hallway was silent.

  “Next time I will buy you dinner, anywhere you want,” Tran said smiling.

  “Deal.”

  I went back downstairs and waited until the security guard stood up and walked outside. I followed him out, and as luck would have it, he went left while I went right. I reached the end of the building and turned into the alleyway.

  Most people who see pictures of Ho Chi Minh City only see shops, streets, and scooters. What they don’t see is a maze of alleys and pathways that allow the residents to move from one part of the city to another nearly unseen. This is where the civilians live, above the shops and behind them. Many of the families that live back here have a single room to live in, with no toilet and a single electric stove. Many of the kids that grow up back here don’t even see the streets for years.

  One thing they all had in common was they were spotless. You would find garbage on the main streets, but back here, everything was clean. I walked until the way was blocked, and took the left Tran told me to. At the chicken coop I turned right and headed up a large alleyway, stepping out of the way of scooter coming in. As I walked up, there was a voice behind me.

  “Hey! nNgười đàn ông lớn!” The speaker was a medium-sized man standing in front of two others. They were wearing what I liked to call Ho Chi Minh casual. Tank tops, loose pants, and sandals.

  I had heard plenty of insults in Vietnamese from my father, and this one didn’t catch up with any of them. I pieced it out and realized he just called me what I was. A big man. I waved and thanked him.

  “Cảm ơn bạn!” I said.

  I must have pronounced it wrong, because suddenly the three men tensed and the one talking to me got a weird look in his eyes. He stepped forward with his fists clenched, looking like he was going to start something,

  I didn’t have time to wait, so I just brought my fist forward from behind me, adding power with my shoulder and hip. The punch hit him square in the face, mashing his nose and driving him backwards into the shocked arms of his partners. I didn’t wait to finish off the others, I just turned and ran up the alley.

  At the street, I looked up like Tran asked and saw the hotel. I made it over to the street and crossed, heading into the hotel. I smiled at the girl by the door and went up to Conner’s room.

  Conner was on the bed looking at his computer. “Did you talk to the doctor?” he asked.

  “She was dead. Jester got there before us. Tran’s treating as a homicide. He’s got leads and few asses to kick at his office,” I said.

  “Dead? Damn. We can’t catch a break,” Conner said.

  “Maybe. Take a look at this.” I tossed Conner a thumb drive.

  “What is it?”

  “No idea. I took it from Dr. Nhun’s apartment. It was in a box she was trying to reach under her bed,” I said.

  “Does your friend know?” Conner asked, looking at the small drive.

  “Nope, and you aren’t goi
ng to tell him. Get to work,” I said.

  I went back to my room and everything was exactly as it was when I checked in. The floor was spotless, and there was no sign that anyone had even messed the bed, let alone killed a man. I took the time to repack my bag, since I knew we would probably be leaving soon.

  An hour later, Conner called me over to his room.

  “I took a look at what you had brought me, and there wasn’t much. It was a lot of personal stuff, things she had scanned to the drive like her will, some deeds, pictures and such,” he said.

  “So nothing of value,” I concluded.

  “Not so fast. There were some copies of emails in there and they referenced a site in Canada,” Conner said.

  “So what? You said yourself that the sites had been shut down and inspected,” I said.

  “I did say that. But nowhere in the docs I referenced from Langley said anything about a site in Canada.”

  I thought about that one for a minute. Then another thought occurred to me. “Who was the next person on the list?”

  “Doctor Julius Renault.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Canada.”

  “You packed yet?”

  “Will be in twenty minutes.”

  “Okay. Do we know where he’s located?”

  Conner checked the list. “Yep.”

  “Good. Call the locals to do a wellness check. We can’t wait for much longer.” I said, heading back to my room.

  “Will do.”

  Something was wrong with this whole setup. What started out as a kind of babysitting job was starting to look like an international conspiracy. It made no sense. The company was out of business, the scientists had gone their own way. Who stood to gain from their deaths?

  There was a knock on the door. Owing to my recent experience, I brought my gun with me.

  It was Conner. He came in and leaned against the dresser.

  “Dr. Renault is dead,” he said without preamble.

  I felt the energy just flow out of me like a pinhole in a balloon. “When?” I asked.