Hunt Among the Killers of Men by Gabriel Hunt Page B

fire.
    Gabriel pushed his way through hanging skinned fowl and fish dangling from cleaning hooks. The cooks were all yelling and taking cover. Steps ahead of him, Qingzhao appropriated a gigantic silver meat cleaver from a bracket on the wall.
    Cheung’s men would be gathering outside the kitchen door about now, massing an assault.
    Gabriel and Qingzhao went out the back, shot glances in every direction. At the southern end of the floating restaurant was a loading spur as crowded as a parking lot with assorted boats that arrived hourly to meet the needs of a business that advertised fresh-fresh-fresh. Gabriel took Qingzhao’s arm, careful to avoid getting within striking distance of that cleaver, and aimed her in the direction of one particular vessel that had what seemed, from this distance, to be an empty hold. She searched his face for an instant, apparently didn’t find whatever signs of incipient betrayal she was looking for, and followed his lead.
    The gunners stood down when Ivory cut through the destruction in the restaurant. He stopped and stood staring out at the water for a moment.
    “Did you know who that was?” said Dinanath breathlessly, trundling up behind Ivory.
    “My responsibility,” said Ivory, more to himself than to his coworker.
    “Stop the traffic and search these boats.”
    The junk was captained by an old-school river rat named Lao, whose grin revealed he had had all his teeth replaced with steel substitutes decades ago. Hewas the first to be allowed to leave the supply berth at the Floating Feast Superior Restaurant, since all he carried was a hold full of tuna that could not be delayed, for spoilage.
    When he put a little distance between himself and the Floating Feast, he saw the tuna piled in his hold begin to move.
    Gradually, as though surfacing through a muck of cloudy fish jelly, Gabriel and Qingzhao materialized amidst the odiferous cargo. They had jumped into the belly of the empty hold and Qingzhao had used the cleaver to cut the net holding the fish overhead, burying them summarily.
    The smell was…memorable.
    Lao extended a courtly hand to help Qingzhao up to the deck first. He jabbered at her in reedy, mutated Mandarin.
    “What did he say?” said Gabriel.
    “He thanks us for the marvelous new knife,” said Qingzhao, indicating the cleaver, which Lao was turning over in his hands like a rare jewel.
    His smile matched the metal cutting edge.
    Gabriel wanted to say something ironic, tough and competent. But he raised one hand to his temple instead, where the bullet had stung him earlier and where he now was suddenly conscious of wetness welling. Instead of fish oil or the dank, frigid bilge water of the hold, his fingertips were smeared, he saw, with blood. The last thing he thought before he lost consciousness was: Well, I guess the whole lecture thing is pretty much blown.

Chapter 6
    When Gabriel opened his eyes, he was staring at a parked motorcycle.
    Which was odd, because he seemed to be indoors.
    A series of smells hit his nose—smoke, burning wood, incense, packed dirt, pine-scented air, charred paper, and beneath all that a subtle tang of gasoline, gun oil and engine lubricant.
    Most enticing of all was the smell of coffee.
    The bike appeared to be a vintage German BMW R-71 from 1938. Four-stroke, 750cc, with a sidecar, just like dozens seen in every World War II movie ever made. This one looked newer, and was more likely one of the painstaking Chinese rebuilds called Changjiangs, very popular with motorcycle clubs in this part of the world.
    He heard light rain pattering down into what sounded like a Japanese water garden.
    He tried to rise and found he was lying on a rawhewn wooden pallet and facing a huge rope candle on a rusted bronze stand. The candle was fashioned on the same principle as the gigantic coils of incense Gabriel had seen in assorted Eastern houses of worship.It could burn for hundreds of hours if fed through the windproof receiver