Lethal Circuit by Lars Guignard Page A

into a busy back alley. The narrow corridor was lined twelve feet high with bamboo cages housing live animals of all descriptions. There were turtles and monkeys and pigs and snakes and it smelled, Michael thought, like a low rent pet store, except these animals were more likely to end up on a plate than as somebody’s beloved companion. Kate prodded Michael forward past the woman slicing a bulbous strong smelling yellow fruit on a cart, past the man gutting a meaty corpse, and past the entrails strewn across the stained concrete. Air conditioners moaned, dripping their condensation from the high windows above, laundry fluttering on bowed lines. Kate gave no indication of where they were going or when they would get there. She didn’t speak at all. She merely prodded Michael ever further up the narrow alley until it dead ended at a weathered wooden gate.
    Behind the gate was a temple. Not a monument to capitalism like the theme parks and skyscrapers Michael had encountered so far. But a genuine Buddhist temple, its traditional wooden frame and graceful curving tiled roof a reminder of life in a simpler time. Entering its high wooden door, incense hung thick in the dark air, smoky gold leaf covering the walls. The temple looked very old, but in this city there was no way to be sure. It didn’t matter though, because something about Kate’s stride told Michael they weren’t there for the architecture. She led him past a wall of deities where the faithful wafted their sticks of burning scent into a narrow hallway. Kate bowed her head to a young man with a shaved head and they entered a door on the left.
    Once inside the room, Kate didn’t stop. She continued to the rear wall where a table and a set of chairs sat. There was a microwave here and a teapot as well. The room obviously served as an informal cafeteria for the temple staff. On the wall was a glossy poster of frigid Northern land, snow glistening on pine branches. Beside it was a large white refrigerator. Pistol still firmly planted in Michael’s spine, she rolled the refrigerator forward with her right hand revealing a litter of dust bunnies congregated around the base of a narrow wooden door not more than four feet high.
    “Get in,” Kate said.
    They were the first words she’d spoken for over an hour. Michael would have preferred she’d said something else and he definitely would have preferred that she’d taken the pistol out of his back, but regardless, he still didn’t think she was going to use it. No, Michael believed her when she’d said they needed to talk. He just wasn’t certain he wanted to bet his life on it.
    “You sure you wouldn’t rather go out for beer?”
    Kate opened the narrow door. “I’m sure.”
    Her answer didn’t really matter, because the next thing Michael knew he felt Kate’s foot planted on his ass and he was tumbling forward down a steep set of stairs. He was able to roll through most of it and luckily the floor at the bottom was packed dirt, not concrete, but he was beginning to question his assessment of Kate. Maybe she was going to use the gun. Maybe she was just looking for the right place to do it.
    “Get up.”
    Kate aimed the gun squarely down at him as she descended the stairs. Some light bled in down here, enough to let Michael know that he was in a rock-walled chamber maybe twelve feet long and half as wide. The mortar was cracking around the larger rocks, moisture seeping in and making the hard dirt floor wet. Kate flipped on a bare bulb and Michael saw that the walls were no more than head high. The chamber had been cut into the earth and around it on all sides was the raised foundation of the temple. An old apothecary chest, covered in heavy dust, sat at the far end of the tiny subterranean room, a black folding metal chair open in front of it. Other than that there was nothing. Just rock and dirt. Michael pulled off his pack.
    “Sit,” Kate said.
    Pistol trained between his eyes, Michael sat on the cold