The Killing Hands by P.D. Martin Page B

him like that. It’d keep me on my toes.”
    Marcus is probably the best in our class. He’s fast, strong and efficient—all the hallmarks of a good kung fu fighter. He doesn’t really need the extra training, but at least he’s modest about it.
    Lee takes us through a quick warm-up before dividingus into groups of two. The first group starts on forms with his assistant, while Lee takes the rest of us over to an area that’s set up with mats and punching bags. My group works on punches, kicks, throws and techniques to break falls, before swapping with the other group to focus on our kung fu forms. With half an hour to go, we break into our levels, creating four groups—black belts, first-dan black belts, second-dan black belts and third-dan black belts. Tonight, we focus on punches, with Lee and Steve supervising and teaching us new moves as necessary.
    At 8:55 p.m. Lee brings the whole group together again for a five-minute cooldown, and while my body starts to relent, my mind doesn’t. When I leave just after 9:00 p.m., my adrenaline’s still pumping. It’s going to take me a good couple of hours before I can even think about sleep.

Five
    I arrive at the office at 7:30 a.m. the next morning, after completing my three-hundred-meter sprint at Westwood Park in sixty seconds. It wasn’t as fast as I was hoping, but I still got a total of twenty-one points across all the tests, enough to put me in the same league physically as the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. Mission accomplished.
    The white, twenty-story federal building looms less than a quarter mile from I–405, and the hum of the traffic is always audible from outside. The first nine floors of the building are taken up by Veterans Affairs and a few other smaller departments, with the FBI housed on floors ten to twenty. Level ten is accessible to the public and serves as our official reception point, but the rest of the FBI area is secured. Direct elevator access to floors eleven to twenty is via three clear portals in the building’s belly. The portals have two security doors—you step in and the door behind you closes, trapping you in the small space, the other door only opening after you’ve scanned your security card and entered the five-digit pin. Great security, but a pain in the ass at peak hours when the employees are siphoned into only three units. Still, the people-jam is in step with L.A.’s traffic jams.
    When I get to my desk, I notice there’s already a messageon my phone, so while my computer’s booting up I dial voice mail. The computerized recording tells me the call was received at 7:15 a.m., and then Ramos’s voice comes on.
    â€œHi, Agent Anderson. It’s Detective Ramos.” He sounds extra cheerful, and I know instantly that he’s got news of some description. Maybe a bullet was found last night. Or maybe the lab came through with a fingerprint match.
    â€œGot a call from the DEA this morning. One of their guys recognized the picture we e-mailed out yesterday. Give me a call.”
    That’s way better than a bullet…our victim’s name. I punch Ramos’s number into my phone straightaway. “Morning, it’s Anderson. I just got your message. That’s fantastic news!”
    â€œDon’t get too excited. It’s only a visual ID. DEA’s been trying to work out who this guy is for three weeks. He just suddenly showed up in their surveillance shots.”
    Damn. Just when I thought we had a name. “Where were the photos taken?”
    â€œA house in Long Beach that the DEA’s got under surveillance. Suspected meth lab, and it looks like the Asian Boyz are running it.”
    â€œShit.” The Bureau estimates that L.A. has over four hundred gangs, with combined numbers of around forty thousand members. The Asian Boyz is one of the biggest. “So Long Beach is their territory?”
    â€œYeah. Asian Boyz originated