Chapter 44

When Katie MacArran finally opened her eyes, she was drenched in sweat that felt like ice-water and shivering like aspen...even though it was at least 85 degrees in the shade today.

She felt better -- not good, but better.  Though her joints still ached and her tongue felt like a used eraser, she wasn’t nearly as bad off as she’d been last few times she’d awakened; the searing pain in her backside had now quieted to a dull burn, and the yammering on her flank had become barely audible.  Still not pleasant, but for now at least, she could live with it.

There was another sensation as well; Katie had been dreaming while she slept, she was sure of that, but for the life of her, she couldn’t recall her dream.

Given the amount of perspiration she had shed during the night, perhaps that was just as well

It was raining again, not one of those fast New Guinea cloudbursts that Katie referred to as ‘five minute water-falls’, but a slower, more somber type of rain, coming down with the steady cadence of an army on the march.  That meant she had better get used to this; it was going to last all day.

Katie sat up in bed, and as the covers fell away, she realized that she was unclothed.  For a moment, she felt her ears flush, hoping it had been Hsing who had undressed her.  Yes, probably, but now she remembered that Father Cork had needed to examine her...back there.  And also treat her wounds.  That got her to thinking about the air-pirates all over again, and for a moment she felt like crying.  She didn’t, she just hugged herself and closed her eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass. 

When it did, it was replaced by another feeling, one that made Katie’s ears lay back and her teeth begin to grind.  Opening her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the war-shield she had acquired on her first visit to the Ayon village.  It was leaf-shaped and decorated with an elaborate, angry face -- fiery, almond eyes, and a mouth spread wide open in a toothy, bone-shaped, snarl.

“I know exactly how you feel, big fella.” she said, then picked up the bell from the bedside table, and rang for the housemaid.

When Katie came out onto the verandah a few moments later, clad in khakis and a bush jacket, Drake Hackett and Shang Li-Sung rose at once from the wicker chairs in which they had been seated... the Queensland Heeler’s bush hat moving instantly from his head to his paws.

“Hullo, Y’ Grace.”

“Hello, Your Grace.”

“Are you feeling any better today?” asked Drake, seemingly at a loss for any better words.

Katie brushed a tuft of forelock from her eyes.  Dammit, the last thing she wanted right now was for EVERYONE to treat her like an infant they’d just found on the doorstep.

“Better, Drake.” she said, trying to sound as confident as possible under the circumstances, “Not my old self just yet, but better.”

Shang Li-Sung responded to this with a smile and a nod, but unlike Drake, he knew the truth...or at least had accepted it.  And Katie knew that he knew; she would never be the OLD Katie MacArran again, not completely.

Not hardly.

“How...long was I out?” she asked, realizing for the first time she didn’t know what day it was.   Hell’s bells, she didn’t even know... “and what time is it?”

“It’s been two days,” said Shang, then looked at his watch and added, “And it’s just before noon.”

“Any sign of...?” she queried, elaborating no further.

“Not yet,” said the red panda, knowing full well what, or rather who she was talking about. “But Le will be caught, don’t worry.  He has nowhere to go now.”  Before Katie could respond to this, he added, quickly, “A Guinea Airways pilot flew up the canyon where you were forced down yesterday and found the air-pirates' main camp.  It was on a small lake about ten miles upriver from the crash.  No sign of that duck-billed biplane you were talking about, and when Pard Mustar sent some of his boys in aboard one of Guinea’s floatplanes, they found the place completely stripped and abandoned.  Pard estimates they cleared out the same morning we found you.”

Katie’s ear went back and she nickered angrily.  She’d wanted those bastards for herself.

“It was a big encampment,” Shang was saying, “At least twenty of them, all told, not counting the ones who ambushed you.”

Katie’s eyes screwed shut, and she looked away for a second.  There’d been THAT many of them?  And why...Why...WHY?

“Why, Shang?” she said, giving voice to the question at last, “What did they want with me?  I didn’t have anything of value on board the autogyro.  Not even any mail.”

“I am truly sorry, Your Grace,” the red panda answered, with a sigh so heavy it could have gone right through the floor, “but I really can’t say.”

Katie normally would have told him SHE was sorry, but that wasn’t good enough...except she noticed the red panda’s eyes subtly shifting towards the dog beside him as he spoke.  Yes,  actually he COULD say...just not until they were alone.

A growl and tightening in her stomach suddenly reminded her that two days of sleeping had also meant two days of not eating.

She had to seat herself gingerly at the table, as if the chair might be booby-trapped, but at least now she was able to sit down for more than seconds at a time.

It was odd, Katie thought as Hsing poured the first cup of tea.  Ever since she’d crashed...no, even before that, she had burned to know the reason for the air-pirates attack on her.  And now here she was on the cusp of the answer, and instead she was taking time off to eat first.

Maybe, she reflected, maybe it was because in her heart of hearts she knew the answer was going to be a hard one to accept.

She looked at Drake Hackett, sitting on her right.

“How come I didn’t see you in the crowd when I arrived back in camp, Drake?”

“Oh, I was there, Y’ Grace.” said the Queensland Heeler, picking up his own cup of tea, “But after the Battler went runnin’ to yer...well, who was gonna do anything but stay the bloody Hell out o’ the way?”

Ray Parer.  His memory came upon Katie like a wave.  Where was he?

“Where is he, Drake?” she asked.

“Somewhere between Lae and Wewak, I reckon.” said the canine, taking a sip.  Seeing her expression, he added quickly. “He didn’t want to leave yer, Y’ Grace, but he’d made commitment to ferry some generators up the coast for these blokes, an’ was supposed to have done it a day earlier...and you know the Battler.  Once he give his word, he sticks to it.”

Katie, who did know Battling Ray, nodded her understanding.  She desperately wanted him here, but if he hadn’t been the kind of stallion who always kept his promises, would she be feeling that yearning for him in the first place?

They ate in silence for the next twenty minutes, with Katie managing not to wolf her food only by dint of the fact that she was eating with chopsticks.

Finally, and only after she had finished her first bowl. Shang Li-Sung spoke.

“Now that you are safely back with us, Your Grace, I have been able to send out search parties, dedicated solely to the task of locating and bringing back Le Ho-Chang.”

Katie nodded, tried to respond, then swallowed her food and tried again, this time with more success.

“Just so they understand one thing, Shang.” she said, driving the point home by way of tapping on the table with her chopsticks, “I want that little Judas brought back alive, and in once piece.  Got that?”

There was something about the way she said this that caused Drake Hackett to become greatly interested in his own lunch.  Shang, for his part, simply nodded.

“I have already made that quite clear, Your Grace.  And I have furs waiting to intercept Le in Wau, Lae, and Buna, if he shows in any of those places.”

“Not Bulolo?” asked Katie, raising an eyebrow.

“Not necessary,” the red panda responded, with a caustic smile, “If Le turns up in Bulolo, he’ll have EVERY miner in the place waiting to grab him.  They’re mad as the Devil about what happened to you over there...and even if they weren’t, Bulolo Gold’s offered a five hundred dollar reward to any miner who turns Le in.”

Katie nodded over her food, satisfied...almost.

“What about Port Moresby?” she said, “Le Ho-Chang might have been a troublemaker, but he wasn’t that stupid.  He’d have to know you could have sent some of your guys ahead by air to wait for him in the northern ports, so what about going south instead?”

“Yeah,” said Drake, nodding first at her, and then at Shang. “Helluva a long chalk to be sure, mate...but if I were Le, I might well have figured that it’s better to take me chances in the jungle, rather than run the risk of YOU gettin’ yer paws on me.”

 “Yes, I thought of that,” Shang told him, smiling, taking it as a compliment “And Port Moresby’s covered too.” His smile stretched into a wicked smirk that Katie had never seen before, “Though, I must tell you, Le would have to be the luckiest rat in the world to make it all the way there.  I offered the Ayon a reward of fifty pounds of tobacco if they bring him in, and now they have every warrior in the tribe out searching for him.”

Katie started to nod her approval again, but then stopped, eyes flaring in horrified realization.

“Oh Hell, what was I think...? Now they’ll HELP the bastard!” She looked at her chief of security with anguished, contrite features, “Shang?  Oh, Christmas, what have I done?  Shang, I need you to send a runner to the Gimi and tell them we’re sorry for the misunderstanding and that to make up for it, they can have double the promised reward.”

To her great bewilderment, Shang Li-Sung just smiled again, and Drake Hackett looked hugely relieved.

“I paid them their reward after the Battler took you home, Your Grace.” the red panda told her, “and they were very, very happy with it.”  His face became the mask of a sphinx, as he added, clearly unable to resist,  “I know you instructed me not to, but you were absolutely right just now.  The Gimi WOULD have helped Le make his escape had we reneged on our promise to compensate them.”

Drake Hackett would later tell Striper McKenna, “Oi, mate!  For a moment there, I thought she was gonna KISS him.”

Shang, meanwhile was smiling that diabolical little smile again.

“This is not so say, of course, that the Gimi should not be properly chastised for abandoning you the way they did...AFTER we have finished with the air-pirates, of course.”

“You really think there’s any more of those thieving bludgers out there mate?” said Drake, clearly eager to change the subject, “From what I hear, there’s been no sign of ‘em anywhere since Pard Mustar’s lads found their camp.”

“I have to assume they’re still out there, Drake.” Shang replied, waving his chopsticks for emphasis, “I can’t afford not to...not until I’m absolutely certain they’re gone.”

“Then let’s just hope we find Le before he finds them.” said the canine, and Katie just shook her head.

“IIII...don’t that’s going to happen, Drake.” she said, “The way I see it, Le became expendable the moment he was done sabotaging the Fortuna.  I doubt very seriously that anyone’s going to wait around on HIS behalf.”

“Yes, that’s absolutely right, Your Grace.” said Shang, highly impressed with her grasp of the situation, “In fact, if Le should somehow managed to catch up with the air-pirates, he’ll probably get a bullet in the head for his troubles.  Having served his purpose, he’s nothing but excess baggage now.”

Drake Hackett lifted an ear and an eyebrow.

“Yeah, right...never thought o’ that.  An’ also, dead rats tell no tales, right?”

“Exactly!” said Shang, looking even more pleased.

“Which means you were right after all, Drake.” said Katie, “We SHOULD hope that we find Le before he finds the air-pirates.”

She added no more to this.

She didn’t need to.

When they finished the meal, Shang told Drake that he needed to speak to Katie in private for a while.  Nodding his affirmation, the Queensland Heeler donned his oilskins and headed off in the direction of the hangar.  It was only when he was certain Drake was well out of earshot that the red panda spoke to Katie again.

“If you don’t mind, Your Grace....it would be better if we discussed this somewhere else.  Say, the number two storage shed?”

At this suggestion, Katie’s ears should have colored, and her face should have begun to feel as if she’d caught a nasty sunburn.

That WAS what would have happened, except at the time the hides were being put away, the pinto mare had been inside her house, under sedation; she had no idea where the skins had gone. In fact, she had completely forgotten about them.  So it was that she simply assumed Shang wanted to talk in there because the cacophony of rain on the corrugated roof would foil any attempt to listen at the walls.  It a was trick the red-panda had utilized several times before.

When Katie entered the storage shed, the first thing she saw was something resembling a crude bed-roll, laying in the center of the cement floor.  At first she didn’t realize what it was; there was no stench...only a few notes of decay, drifting through the air.  It was only when the first of these touched the pinto mare’s nostrils that she knew what she was looking at.  And though the only skin visible was the crocodile’s, she was all too cognizant of what lay tucked within.

And now she knew that Shang was also aware; the grass ropes that had originally lashed the hides together were gone, replaced by taut strands of jute twine -- and that croc hide hadn’t placed ITSELF in the center of the room.  Turning partially to the left, Katie noted with a shaft of dread that Shang had both closed and locked the door...and had also placed himself squarely in front of it.

For the first time since she had known him, Katie actually felt afraid of the red panda.  She would be no match for him, he would handle her easily.  He was armed and she was not.  And even if she had been, the red panda had taught her practically everything she knew about how to use both edged weapons and firearms.  As for crying out for help, no one would hear her over the rain.   Her body tensed, and she began to tremble.

But then Shang Li Sung did something else Katie had never seen before.  He dropped to his knees, placed his palms against the floor, and knelt forward until his forehead was touching the surface of the cement.

He was KOWTOWING to her.

“Forgive me this act of impudence, Mistress.” he told her, humbly,and in Mandarin, “But it is absolutely vital that we talk, and talk immediately.  And please understand that I do not hold it against you what you did to Chu Lung-Kuo.  Rather, I only pray that it was done to him while he still lived.”

Katie MacArran felt her eyes widening...so hugely, it felt that they must surely drop from their sockets.

“You...KNEW that bastard?” she gasped.

“Once, many years ago.” the red panda told her, his forehead still pressed against the ground, “I recognized him from one of his tattoos.”  His voice took on an edge that no posture of obeisance could conceal, “And I must tell you Mistress, even if Chu had come to Papua with the most benign of intentions, I would have killed him on sight, had I encountered him.”

Katie’s eyes darted around the shed, then upwards to the ceiling, as if she’d arrived here by way of falling down a rabbit-hole.

“But Shang, how...uh, why...? Oh, for Chrissakes, get up before someone sees you.”

The red panda obediently rose to his feet.

“That’s better.” said Katie, relaxing a little, “But Shang?   I think you have some explaining to do.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied, then walked over to the hide and drew his knife.  He was about to slash the twine, when he hesitated, noting Katie had her hooves cupped over her muzzle.  “There will be no need for you to cover your nose, Your Grace.” he said reverting to the lesser honorific, “I took the liberty of washing and then salting the hides while you were resting.  It greatly reduces the aroma of decay.”

He swiped at the twine embracing the packaged, then kicked it once.   As by the wave of a magic paw, the hides unrolled themselves across the floor.  Katie felt her stomach turning, and if she had been capable of vomiting, would have wasted her lunch on the cement floor right then and there.   SHE had done THAT?  It looked like...like...Oh Jesus, if it weren’t for the memory unspooling itself inside her head, she would be even deeper into denial right now than the Battler had been.

Shang meanwhile, had dropped to his haunches beside the skin, and was beckoning her over with a crooked finger.  Katie didn’t want to go, she wanted to flee the shed and never, never enter it again.

Instead, she padded over to where the red-panda was crouching and dropped down on her hooves beside him, as powerless to resist as a moth being summoned by a candle-flame.

“There,” he said, pointing to one of the pieces of skin-art, an ornate work showing a dragon curling itself around a tiger in a figure-8 pattern, preparing to devour him head-first. “That is the tattoo that gave away Chu’s identity.  It was done by many years ago by one of Shanghai’s most sought after artists, a cat named Su Li-Ming.  Before he died, he was noted for the uniqueness of his designs.  No two were exactly alike, or even similar in appearance.”

Katie nodded as if in a trance, and Shang pointed to another of the tattoos.  This one Katie recognized.  It was the one the rhino had pointed to before...before she had removed the arrow from his shoulder, the hard way.

It was a far more basic design than the first one had been; except for the quality of the work, it might have passed for a jailhouse tatoo.  It showed a pair of horizontal black almonds, set over a pair of thin, vertical, black wedges, an inverted ‘Y’ set between them.

“That,” said Shang, sounding graver than Katie had ever heard him, “Is why we must talk, Your Grace.  It is the emblem of the Snakehead gang, the most vicious of all the Shanghai triads.”

He paused as if waiting for this to sink in...but the pinto mare just blinked and angled her head.

“Uhhh, 'triads'?  Snakehead gang?  I-I’m sorry Shang, you lost me.”

He did not answer her right away, just continued to crouch for a moment, stroking his muzzle. 

Then, he looked at her.

“The triads are an ancient Chinese criminal society.” he said, “In Cantonese they are known as the tongs.” He gave her a half-hearted look. “I don’t know if this is making any sense, but...”

Actually, he was making sense.  Katie herself had indirect dealings with another such criminal society.

“You mean they’re like the Chinese version of the New York and Chicago gangsters?” 

“Yes!” said, Shang, slapping a chagrined palm against his temple, “I had forgotten who MacArran distilleries largest buyers are, Your Grace.”

Katie looked away for a second, feeling something she had never known before...a pang of guilt for having dealt with ...oh, why lie?  For having dealt with CRIMINALS, for crying out loud.  It was a reaction not lost on Shang Li-Sung.

“Please do not think that I am bothered by that, Your Grace.” he said, “The passage of Prohibition by the Americans was in my opinion, an act of extreme foolishness...and only a fool would have failed to take advantage of it.”

Katie looked at him again, relaxing only slightly, and he went on:

“You will forgive me for being circumspect, Your Grace, but it is important that you know the full background, before I explain to you how it was that I came to know Chu Lung-Kuo.  First of all, where your American gangsters deal in liquor, the Chinese triads deal in opium, and the center of that trade is in the city of Shanghai, where the largest and most powerful of the triads is the Green Gang.”

Katie blinked again.

“Didn’t you just tell me that the Snakeheads are...?”

“No,” said the red-panda, his face beginning to burn with bitterness, “The Snakeheads are not the largest of the Shanghai triads, certainly they are not the most clever...but they ARE the most bloodthirsty.  They are the gang the other triads call upon whenever they require a particularly ugly piece of work to be done, one that cannot be traced back to their own organizations.”

That was another familiar theme to Katie.

“Like 'Murder Incorporated' in America, you mean?” she queried. 

Shang sucked at a corner of his mouth.

“I have never heard of Murder Incorporated,” he said, “but yes, that fairly describes the activities of the Snakeheads...except that you could also describe them as Arson and Maiming Incorporated.  But that is not to say they work exclusively for the other triads; they also run a number of criminal enterprises of their own.”

Here, the red panda hesitated again, only this time it was a pregnant pause, the air in the room becoming even thicker with tension than it was with humidity.

Then, he looked directly into Katie’s eyes...and dropped it.

“One of their fortes.” he told her flatly, “is kidnaping for ransom.”

Katie gasped so loudly, the door seemed to shudder from the intake of air.  She felt her knees weakening, and her brain felt as if it were sloshing around inside her skull.  Right there.  It had been right there in front of her all along; there HAD been something of value on board the autogyro... HER!

“Is that why Le didn’t run for it right after sabotaging the Fortuna?” she asked, “because they needed him to deliver the ransom note?”

To her surprise, the panda shook his head. “No, Your Grace.  That task would have been entrusted to one of the others.”

Katie almost fainted again.

“O-Others?” she said, her voice trembling as though she were riding over a corduroy road, “You...you think there are others besides Le.”

“I don’t think,” said the panda, looking very grim, “I know.  If the Snakeheads are involved in what happened to you, there will be two other spies inside the Iso mine besides Le.  Triad cells always operate in groups of three; it is how they get their name.  There will one spy of equal rank to Le, and another of higher standing, the master spy.”

Katie folded her arms, scratching at an elbow and  looking toward the skin laying on the floor.  Two others...two other traitors besides Le Ho-Chang?  And the Murder Incorporated of Shanghai had been behind her aborted abduction?

Somewhere in Hell, her late brother Colin was laughing his ass off.  Katie had set him up to die at the hooves of Murder Incorporated, (why deny it now?) and now their Chinese counterparts were gunning for her.  Once mere, she felt that gnawing urge... run outside, climb aboard the Fortuna and fly away, never to return to this hell-hole.

She focused on Shang Li-Sung once more, speaking slowly and carefully, but with a stammer in her voice as if she were talking herself through defusing a bomb.

“Shang?  There’s something I...have to know.  If I hadn’t resisted.  If...If I had surrendered to the Snakeheads without a fight...w-would they...?  Would they s-still...?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” the red panda told her without hesitation, “Yes, they would have raped you.”  He hawked and spat on the rhinoceros hide.

The words were spoken with such flat matter-of-factness, that Katie felt as if she had been slapped.  More than anything now, she wanted to fly away from Iso forever... but knew that she would not.

“It would not have happened right away,” Shang was saying, “At first you would have been treated with great deference and courtesy, but then on the third, perhaps the fourth day, Chu would have burst into the hut where you were being kept, shouting that I had betrayed him and that YOU were going pay for it.”

To punctuate this, he spat on the rhinoceros hide again, saying nothing more.  Katie didn’t have to be told what would have happened next.

At this thought, Katie felt the tears welling up once more, but this time they were as much from relief as from pain.  She had been right to fight back, she had done what she SHOULD have done.

But this also left her with two big questions.

“Why, Shang?  Why would they have wanted to drive a wedge between you and I?  And how WOULD that have driven a wedge between us?”

“If you will permit me, Your Grace,” the red panda replied, “I will answer the second question first.  Just a moment ago you were unsure as to whether or not you would have been assaulted anyway, had you given up without a fight.  Because of this, you were at least partially blaming yourself for what they did to you.  Is that right?”

Katie looked into the corner for a second, then made a dry, little croak -- “Yes.”

Shang nodded, not unsympathetically.

“Yes,” he said, “And so, if the same thing had happened and Chu had told you that it was because I had attempted to double-cross him, you would have held me at least partially responsible.  And then what would have happened if I told you that Chu had been lying, that I had not betrayed him?  Would you have believed me?”

“I...I don’t know.” said the pinto mare, still looking away.

“And that is exactly what the Snakeheads would have wanted, Your Grace.” said Shang.   He moved around in front of her once more, lowering himself on his haunches, so that she could not avoid his gaze,  “And that is also why it is absolutely vital that we have this discussion.  You see, what they did to you was no mere kidnaping for ransom; the number of furs in that pirate-camp confirms it.”

Katie looked at him and blinked.

“It...It wasn’t?  Th-Then what WERE they up to?”

Shang Li-Sung said nothing for a moment.  When he finally spoke, it was with far more gravity than anything he’d told her so far.

“It was the opening move in a bid by the Snakeheads to seize the Iso Valley Mine for themselves.”

Another pause followed....shorter, but far more ominous.

“And they are not done with us yet.”


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