When Minister Ouyang was angry or at a crossroads in his life, he inevitably withdrew to the Kunlun Mountain Fist training facility in Beijing. As he traveled by car to the facility, Ouyang could not remember a moment in his life when he had been as enraged as he was now.
Being told that he had to form an alliance with his nemesis was bad enough, but that this order came from the mouth of Deng Tsu—his mentor and, in the parlance of the West, his rabbi—was a humiliation not to be borne.
He needed to clear his mind, and the only way he knew to do that was to fight.
The Kunlun Mountain Fist training facility was located within sight of the Great Wall. This site was deliberate, as the elders were quick to point out to their novitiates. The Great Wall was a symbol, they preached, of the walls we built inside our minds to keep us from seeing the Truth—a Truth that practicing Kunlun Mountain Fist wushun would in due course illumine.
Ouyang was welcomed within the complex as the first-draft master he was. With great deliberation, he changed into the loose-fitting uniform reserved for all wushun practitioners. He chose a jian—the slender double-edged gentleman’s sword he had wielded to such fine effect in the Kunlun Mountain Fist training facility in Shanghai.
Assigned an opponent, he moved out onto the mats. He began, as he almost always did, with Sacred Stone Form, standing immobile and steadfast while the opponent attacked, employing the White Snake Form, an advanced method often favored by Ouyang himself.
At first it was interesting to counter the moves he knew so well. But it wasn’t long before his opponent’s blade started slipping through his defenses. He was half a step faster than Ouyang, and at the four-minute mark his weapon slapped Ouyang hard on the chest.
Rocked back a pace, Ouyang felt himself overcome with a blind rage. Out the window went no-mind, the sense of calm and order in a world filled with disharmony. A whirlwind of chaos devoured it all in a heartbeat. Without another thought, he switched to the little-used Fire Ghost Form, performed a vicious lunge as his opponent withdrew his sword.
Ouyang’s jian passed through his unprepared opponent’s defenses. The point of the sword pierced the man’s chest. Instead of withdrawing it, Ouyang completed the lunge, skewering his opponent upon the jian’s blade.
The man cried out, blood bloomed like a field of poppies, and soundless footsteps came running.
Juan Ruiz had just worked out that something was wrong. Then Bourne was on him. He reacted by reversing his bloodless gravity knife and stabbing backward with it. He almost caught Bourne—the blade pierced his jacket, but not his flesh. Bourne delivered a vicious blow to Juan Ruiz’s kidney, which would have felled anyone else. Juan Ruiz was unfazed. He withdrew the knife and slashed backward a second time.
Bourne was prepared. He twisted Juan Ruiz’s forefinger at the apex of the strike, when his hand was farthest from his body. Jamming it backward, he broke the finger, then the one next to it.
Ignoring the pain, Juan Ruiz turned and delivered a massive blow to Bourne’s shoulder, almost spinning him completely around. Juan Ruiz, a street fighter by nature, grinned as he smashed his fist into Bourne’s side. Bourne staggered, the breath fairly knocked out of him. He felt like he broke his hand on the next blow to Juan Ruiz’s ribs. A sharp stab of pain shot through his wrist, all the way to his shoulder.
Juan Ruiz clamped a hand as large as a meat hook onto Bourne’s throbbing shoulder and squeezed so hard the bones beneath his fingers ground together. Blackness formed around the edges of Bourne’s vision, the center of which was ablaze with showers of sparks, each one accompanied by pinpricks of electric agony.
Determined to crush Bourne’s shoulder, Juan Ruiz became convinced he was on the verge of victory. He was unconcerned when Bourne twisted, assuming he was continuing to writhe in pain. He never saw the blow that felled him: a hand-edge kite to the place on his neck protecting the carotid artery.
Bourne caught him before he could fall to the ground. Diego de la Luna stared from Bourne to Maricruz, his mouth half open in shock.
“How,” he stammered. “How?”
“Show him,” Bourne said.
Maricruz opened her coat, revealing one of the Kevlar vests Bourne had gotten from the armorer.
“You were going to fuck me over, Diego.” She stepped up to him. “Now I’m going to have to hurt you.”
She took her right hand out of her pocket. A small blade in the shape of a beech leaf protruded from between her forefinger and her middle finger—a gleaming push-dagger that Bourne had also requested.
De la Luna, staring fixedly at the blade approaching his nether regions, swallowed convulsively.
“There’s only one punishment for a traitor,” Maricruz said in a soft tonal burr.
“Wait, Maricruz. Think of where we are,” Bourne said, still holding Juan Ruiz’s bulk.
“I don’t care.” Maricruz grabbed hold of de la Luna. “This fucker deserves a radically altered life.”
“She has a point there, Diego.”
“She’s crazy. Do something,” de la Luna implored.
“Sorry,” Bourne said, continuing their play-acting. “At the moment, my hands are full.”
“There must be something—”
“Give me Matamoros.”
De la Luna was clearly terrified. “What?”
“You give me Matamoros and I’ll see what I can do about changing Maricruz’s mind.”
“Fuck that.” Maricruz pressed the point of the push-dagger against de la Luna’s trousers.
“Oh, Jesus God,” he breathed. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I don’t care now,” Maricruz said.
De la Luna looked as if he was about to vomit.
“Maricruz,” Bourne said soothingly. “Keep your eye on the prize. We came for Matamoros.”
“This cocksucker already lied to us once, what’s to stop him from lying again?”
“She’s got a point, Diego. I guess there’s no recourse. She’s going to carve out a part of you—”
“Stop!” De la Luna was trembling like a newborn lamb. “I’ll do whatever you want. I swear it.”
“He swears it, Maricruz,” Bourne said. “Can you accept that?”
Maricruz moved the tip of the blade so that it pierced the fabric. “He’s full of shit.”
“Please!” De la Luna looked ready to jump out of his skin. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
Bourne waited a moment. “Let him use his mobile, Maricruz.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “But keep the push-dagger where it is.”
De la Luna closed his eyes, licked his dry lips. His hand was shaking when he took the phone out.
“Call Matamoros,” Bourne said. “Tell him you and Juan Ruiz have Maricruz.”
“And?”
“Come on,” Bourne said. “You know he’s going to want to get the hell out of Mexico City the moment he has her. Tell him you’ll meet him at the airfield where his plane is located.”
De la Luna nodded. “Anything else?”
“If you tell him anything else,” Maricruz said, “you’ll be singing a permanent high C.”
In the moments before his mobile rang, Felipe Matamoros was contemplating completely wrecking the hotel room. He had to do something; the waiting was driving him out of his mind. He had started drinking—the bottle of mescal he had ordered from room service was already nearly empty, but such was his distress he scarcely felt the effects of the alcohol.
Then his mobile buzzed, he saw it was de la Luna, and he accepted the call.
“This had better be good news.”
“It is, jefe. Juan Ruiz and I have found the Encarnación bitch.”
“You have her?”
“We do, jefe. Tied up as neatly as a Christmas present.”
A wave of relief washed over Matamoros so profound he nearly staggered. “Excellent work, Diego. Bring her to the airfield. I can’t bear another moment in this accursed city.”
Before leaving, he took the bottle of mescal, unzipped his trousers, and urinated into it. He had drunk a lot, so the stream went on and on, steaming like that of a racehorse. When he was finished, he zipped up, screwed the top back on the bottle, and replaced it in the bar.
Then he went out of the room, and never looked back.