The Death and Life of Nicholas Linnear Read Online Free PDF

edge of the old hutong he’d been to last night. Now he knew their destination. He parked his car while the SUV up ahead was still slowing and installed himself at a convenient observation post, amid deep shadows, across from the restaurant from which he had rescued Anna Song.
    The two sharkskins arrived soon enough, looking both disgruntled and fearful, which meant that it was more than likely they were about to confront Baron Po with their failure. It would not go well for them.
    They went into the restaurant’s front door. Nicholas got a partial view of the waiter he had seen last night, only now he was dressed as the others were. He nodded to the newcomers, and the door closed behind them, a blackout screen pulled down over the glass panel.
    Nicholas was about to move out of the shadows when he saw a light flick on at ground floor level in the building just to the left of the restaurant. It contained what appeared to be a pearl merchant’s storefront, but the windows were oddly high up off of the ground so that passersby could not see in. Shadows of the two men passed across the ceiling, then vanished. Clearly, there must be a hidden passageway between the two buildings. Lights came on upstairs.
    Moving to the end of the block, Nicholas headed down a side street so narrow that two people abreast would be rubbing shoulders. To his right was the alley behind the buildings—an even narrower space. He found the rear of the building that the two men had gone into.
    He grasped the end of the iron fire escape, lifted himself off of the ground until he was level with the ground floor windows. The nearest one was, like its brothers, banded with a wire that must surely be attached to a security system. It took Nicholas only minutes to detach the wire from two sides of the window, whose lock was so old he had it open within seconds.
    He slid feet first into the ground floor room. He found himself in a compact workroom of modest size, only half-painted, as if the painter had changed his mind midstream. Brushes, pans, metal rods, cans of paint and thinner were neatly stacked in one corner, patiently waiting for the painter to return to his original purpose.
    But this wasn’t the shop of a jeweler. Canvas vests hung from a dowel running from wall to wall, like humble washing on a line. Directly below the vests a wide wooden trough containing open compartments filled with nails, ball bearings, screws, and the like hunkered on sturdy wooden legs. To one side was a countertop where the timing mechanisms were assembled. Though there were no explosives evident, this was most certainly a bomb-maker’s lab.
    Selecting one of the metal poles, he crept cautiously out of the lab, into a large open area that appeared to take up all the remaining ground floor space. There was nothing in it—no furniture, no fixtures: rug, painting, or photograph. Apart from a single floor lamp throwing a pool of light onto the walls, floor, and ceiling, it was completely empty.
    He stood in the center, turning slowly. Then he heard the voice: electronic, disembodied, emotionless: “Why have you invaded my territory?”
    Baron Po.
    “You know why,” Nicholas said.
    There came a harsh sound, like the bark of a dog. Perhaps it was laughter. “What have you become after all these years since you left the Golden Triangle? Are you a businessman? If you are nothing more than a bureaucrat, that would be shameful enough. But you have become something far, far worse. You have strayed so very far from kokoro —the heart of the universe. Do you even still know what kokoro is? Perhaps not. Well, we will find out.”
    At that, four men in sharkskin suits appeared at the four corners of the room. Each was armed with a SIG-Sauer handgun. Combat power, shi , in Sun Tzu’s estimation, was synonymous with the setting of a crossbow. Without thought, without intent, Nicholas emptied his mind, allowing his shi to rise. Setting himself, he swung the metal rod in a horizontal