Chapter 52

Shang Li-Sung turned out to be dead wrong; her Grace did NOT dislike his plan.

She flat out hated it.

“After all that little shit set me up for, you want me to do WHEEE-A-A-A-AAAT?!”  The outcry ended in a whinny that could have cracked a picture window.

“I realize that this is distasteful for you...” the red panda replied in that same, serene, Zen voice.  (Drake Hackett was standing deep in the shadows and remaining prudently silent.)

“Dis-TEEE-A-A-A-AAAASTE-ful?!” Katie whinnied again, “I’d rather have my tail docked!”

“...but if we are going to flush out the ring leader...”

“Find another way!  No!”

“...it is absolutely necessary...”

“Absolutely not!”

“...that Le not be...”

“Godammit, did you go deaf or did you just stop speaking Goddam English?  I...said...NO!”

At that moment the door to Brian Lu’s shack flew open and Drigo Chavez came hurrying in out of the rain, a grimace of dismay wrapped around his narrow muzzle.

“‘Scuse me, guys, but what the YIFF?  They can here you clear up top a’ Clarinet Rock.”

The furious mare instantly rounded on him.

“This....IDIOT,” Katie spat, jabbing an accusing finger in the direction of Shang Li-Sung. “Wants me to go easy on that little rat-turd, Le.”

“If I may be allowed to explain.” said the red panda quickly, before the dripping coatimundi could launch his own inevitable diatribe, “In order to flush out the Snakehead cell’s leader, we need for it to appear as though Le Ho-Chang is co-operating with us willingly -- and for that purpose, he cannot be seen by the miners to have suffered any abuse...”

“Over my dead carcass!”  Katie snapped, interrupting him again.

That was when Shang’s placid composure finally cracked, just a hairline crack, but there it was.  He wheeled on her so quickly, it might have been a wu-shu move.

“What is that you want, Your Grace?” he hissed, “Revenge...or to protect your mine from the Snakeheads?”

“I want that Le Ho-Chang to get a taste of what I went through.” the pinto mare shot back.

Shang’s eyebrows became a single, hard, horizontal line

“Yes?  Well keep in mind that when Le sabotaged the Fortuna he was following the spy-master’s orders.  This is our best chance to catch him and you want to throw it away for some petty...?”

“Petty?  Petty!  Why you Goddam, insubordinate bastard!  One more word out of you...!”

“PHWEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAT!”

Katie’s words were cut off as Drigo Chavez stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled, not the cheerful trilling of a kit at play, but the loud, piercing shriek of policefur’s whistle.  She turned to stare at him openmouthed, and so did Shang Li-Sung.

“Sorry kids,” he said, folding his arms and looking insouciantly from one to the other, “But it’s gettin’ a little loud in here you know?  An’ anyway, I think I know something that’ll satisfy the both of you.”

As he explained his proposal, Katie’s ire quickly morphed into stark bewilderment.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, Drigo,” she said, nose wrinkling in disbelief.

“I know it don’t sound like much.” said the coati, “But ask any Mexican cop; it gets confessions fastern’ anything.  I gotta cousin who’s a Judiciale, and he once told me, ‘Put a guy through this shit even one time and all you gotta do is HINT that he’s gonna get more to break him again’.” He looked at Shang, “An’ no, it don’t leave one yiffin’ mark.  That’s the other reason Los Judiciales use it so much.”

Katie pursed her lips and looked away for a second, “Welllll, it still seems like a pretty measly payback for what happened to me because of Le.” Her gaze met the others’ once more, “But I have to admit...this, I’ve GOT to see.”

By the time they reached the guardhouse, the rain had dissipated to only a few, intermittent drops.  As a rule Katie rarely, if ever, visited this location, and with good reason; it was a singularly cheerless place; a low, stone structure in nimbus gray that resembled nothing so much as a pillbox from the Great War.  And set up in full view of the left-side cell window was a stout bamboo frame in the shape of a truncated obelisk, still under construction, and also under discussion by the small group of miners milling around the yard.  At the approach of Katie, Shang, Drake, and Drigo, they began to shift about uneasily as if awaiting the order to disperse, but the quartet passed them by with hardly a sidelong glance.

They were about five feet from the door when it opened and Striper McKenna stepped out, accompanied by a lanky, Amur leopard in gray khakis, whom Katie recognized at once as Fan Wong, Shang Li-Sung’s second-in-command.

“Fan, bring out Le Ho-Chang.” said the red panda, by way of greeting.

“At once, commander.” said the leopard, snapping smartly to attention, then turned and barked an order through the open door in Cantonese.

“How’s our ‘guest’ doing?” asked Katie, addressing Striper McKenna.

“Cryin’ his yiffin’ eyes out an’ bangin’ his head against the wall.” The Tasmanian tiger pegged a cigarette into his mouth, and popped a match with his thumb. “Fan there, had to practically truss him up like a yiffin’ Christmas turkey to get him to stop it.” He had just finished lighting up when everyone’s attention was diverted to a small commotion taking place at the entrance to the guardhouse. “Oi, an’ speak of the devil, here comes our little Iscariot now.”

Roughly handled by a pair of sentries, Le Ho-Chang looked very much like a drunk about to be given the classic ‘Bum’s Rush’ from a bar – except for the restraints, recently applied by his guards; Le’s paws were no longer tied behind his back, but instead were shackled to the front of a chain encircling his waist.  Meanwhile, a short length of bamboo had been thrust between his elbows and his back.  To this was secured a length of leather thong, secured tightly around the rodent’s neck.  His mouth was also tightly cinched, closing around a shorter section of bamboo, and effectively silencing anything he might have had to say. As the capper, hung around his neck was a wooden tablet bearing an inscription in Chinese characters, “Traitor and Thief.”

At his appearance the miners gathered around the front of the guardhouse let loose a cascade of derision, several pointed and laughed, and a few even picked up stones...until Fan Wong snarled a quick, sharp order and they hurriedly discarded the missiles.

For his part, Shang was nodding in satisfaction. “Very good, bring him over here.”

Le took two dull steps forward, and then realized he was being ushered in the direction of the Ch’ing cage.

At once, he seemed to find a renewed strength and began to struggle furiously with his guards.  In a split second, Shang was there and cuffed him into docility with two quick blows.

“Don’t stupid, Le!” he barked, “Even you can see that the cage is not completed yet.”

He allowed the rodent a few moments of whimpering, then spoke to him again, this time in a cool, almost purring voice.

“You are a dead rat, Le.  No matter what happens now, your life is forfeit.  Do you understand that?”

Le’s black, beady eyes filled with tears and he tried to nod as best he could.

“I will take that as a 'yes'.” the red panda replied, then  nodded over his shoulder at the Ch’ing cage, “The question is, will you die in there, slowly, or will you die somewhere else, quickly?  Will you end your life with your skin intact, and still in possession of both eyes and all your teeth?  Or will you die a misshapen freak, too horrible to look at?” 

The rat began to cry again.  Shang let him go on for a moment, and then continued.

“It is all up to you, Le Ho-Chang.  If you choose to co-operate, you will end your life with your flesh and fur unscathed.  We already know that Brian Lu was one of your compatriots...but he was not the leader.  That is who we want, Le.  Help us find him, and you will die quickly, Otherwise...” he stepped closer, whispering softly and menacingly in the rodent’s right ear, “Otherwise, think about what you saw in the number two storage shed.”

The rat began to shiver as if he had just been dropped into a deep-freeze, and he began desperately trying to speak through the bamboo jammed in his mouth

“Ffff dfff NMMM ooooeeee ifff.  FFFF DFFF NMMMMM!”

It was a sight the crowd seemed to find particularly hilarious; almost to a soul, they doubled over with laughter, and a few even applauded.   These included, Katie noted, Striper McKenna, who had to brace himself against the side of the Ch’ing cage to keep from toppling over in his glee.

Shang meanwhile, remained as cool as a wet fern.

“Take him back inside.” he said, turning to Fan, “And put him in the central cell.  I need three chairs, some more rope, and a few other items.”  He glanced sideways at Le as he ticked off the list, “First, a welding torch, then a carboy of that muriatic acid, then two razors, a dried stave of bamboo....”

That was as far as Shang got before Le spit up through the choke lodged between his jaws, touching off another round of frenzied laughter.  The red panda waited for the guffaws to subside and continued, almost as an afterthought.  “And have a case of soda and a bucket of ice brought from the commissary.”  He glanced at Katie, Drigo, Drake, and the Striper, “It’s going to be a long and sweaty night, and we will need something to slake our thirst.”

“Right away, commander.” said the Amur leopard, clicking his heels like a Prussian Junker, and then disappearing back inside the guardhouse.  A moment later a small group of sentries came out and quickly dispersed on their various missions of forage.  Shang nodded his approval, then mounted the stone steps to the guardhouse and turned around, cupping his paws around his muzzle as he spoke to the surrounding gaggle of spectators.

“There is nothing more for you to see here.  Go back to your work, or go home if you are off shift.  Until tomorrow morning, anyone not authorized found approaching within 20 yards of the guardhouse will be instantly fined a week’s pay.  That includes everyone except Striper McKenna, Drake Hackett, or Drigo Chavez.  The rest of you are to move on at once.”  He looked at Fan Wong, “That includes you as well, and any and all guards still inside.”

“As you say, commander.” said the feline, bowing slightly, “If you wish I shall set up a cordon around the guardhouse to insure that no one approaches.

Shang grinned benignly, then shook his head.  “I don’t think we’ll need that many, Fan.  One sentry out front and another in back will do.”

“Very good commander.” said the Amur leopard, nodding deferentially, then he disappeared through the doorway once again.

“Bloody hell,” observed the Striper when the big cat was gone, “Commander this, Commander that, salutes an’ bow every time you speak to him.  That bloke’s got a broomstick so far up ‘is arse, it’s a wonder it ain’t come right out the top of his head.”

Shang Li Sung just shrugged, “Agreed...but other than that, he does a fine job.  And anyway, he’s ex Chinese army; one of those types who’ve got the military discipline so drummed into their heads, it’s almost second nature.”

To everyone’s considerable surprise, the Striper’s expression became half wistful, half sorrowful.

“Yeah,” he responded softly, “My lieutenant from Gallipoli were like that...’till one of Johnny Turk’s bullets finally got him.”

This revelation hit Katie MacArran like a hammer blow. 

“Y-You were at Gallipoli?” she almost stammered.

The big marsupial shuffled his boots on the gravel making a sound like a bag of rice being shaken, “Yeah...well, now y’know why I never finished up at Charterhouse, don’t y’?  Ran away to enlist in the old Two-Ninth when I turned 15...lied about me age.  Because I was such a large bloke, they took me with no questions asked.”  His eyes closed and his lips pulled taut, “Biggest regret of my life, that.”

An awkward silence followed, broken only when Fan emerged from the door with a troop of guards following in neat formation.  Shang Li-Sung waited until they were gone, and then led the others inside.

The cell in which Le Ho Chang awaited them had stout, whitewashed walls, and a cement floor with a drain in the center.  An old tar-bucket with a lid served as the sanitary facility, and two plain wooden pallets served as beds.  On one of these, the rat had been unceremoniously deposited to await the arrival of his inquisitors.

It did not begin right away.  Katie and the others simply took up the chairs that had been left in the cell, and began chat amongst themselves pending the arrival of the items that Shang had ordered brought to the cell.  As each one was carried into the room, Le began to thrash about like an epileptic, pleading through his gag that he didn’t KNOW who the cell leader was.  Only the arrival of the case of soda produced no apoplectic reaction on the part of the hapless rodent.  In fact, as Drake Hackett planted a brace of the dew-flecked bottles in the ice bucket, the rat’s beady, black eyes commenced to brim over with an almost passionate longing.

When the welder’s torch arrived, Shang rose, dismissed the guards, then strode over to where Le was laying, with the others standing in the background.

They stood in a semicircle around the rat for a moment, saying nothing; a gaggle of vultures contemplating a dying victim.

Then Shang spoke, talking softly and clearly.

“I know you are not aware of your cell leader’s identity, Le Ho-Chang -- he would have been an idiot to have trusted such information to the likes of you...and I do not plan to ask you who he is.”  He stopped, cracked his knuckles and continued, “But you do know certain other details that may aid us in unmasking him.” he stopped again, pointing in turn to the acid, razors, torch, and bamboo stave, “If you cooperate with us, none of these will be used upon you, and you will leave this cell without so much as a mark upon you.  Otherwise...”

By way of conclusion, the red panda strolled over to the length of dried bamboo, picked it up and smashed it against the floor.  The stave instantly shattered into a galaxy of needle-sharp slivers and fragments.  Shang selected one of these and returned to where Le was laying.

“Grab his head, Striper.” he said, and the Tasmanian Tiger was only too happy to oblige, taking the rat’s by his temples in crushing, vice-like grip.  Shang nodded, then dropped to one knee, holding the bamboo shard only inches from the rodent’s left eye. 

Then he turned it in his grip and pointed it directly at the pupil.

Even through his bamboo gag, Le was able to let loose a shriek terrified that echoed off the walls...as the red  panda slowly brought the bamboo sliver to within a centimeter of his eye.  For some reason it made Katie think of the old Edgar Allan Poe story, “The Pit and the Pendlulum.”

But then Shang abruptly stood up and tossed the bamboo shard over his shoulder.

“I won’t Le...this time.  But there are plenty of others where that came from.  Just think about that for a moment.  In the meantime...Striper?  We will need a notepad for Drake to copy down whatever he tells us.  There is one in my office, I think.  Come with me, please.”

The Striper responded to this with a very peculiar look, but did as he was requested.  Only when they were safely out of earshot did he ask what the yiff it was that Shang really wanted.  In response the red-panda told him of his plan to expose the cell leader, Katie’s opposition and Drigo’s compromise suggestion.  In response, the big marsupial looked as if he’d just been offered a plate of garbage to eat. 

“Oi!, you’re bloody jokin’ mate.  That’s ALL we’re gonna do?”

“Keep your voice down, Striper.” the red panda hissed, “I don’t believe it either, but Drigo Chavez swears it’s a lot nastier than it sounds.”

“Well,” said the Striper, puffing out his cheeks “Much as I’d like to see that little shit Le get the full course, I’m afraid I’ve got to side wi’ you one this one, mate.  First order o’ business before anything else is to get our paws on that ring leader...coz who knows WHAT other mischief he might be workin’ on even now, eh?”

“Exactly.” said Shang, greatly relieved that the Tasmanian tiger understood.

“Only...” said the Striper, scratching an ear, “How come you’re not tellin’ Drake about this?”

“Because he’s not going to see it happen.” said Shang, and recounted for him the way the Heeler had objected when Katie MacArran had docked one of the miners a weeks pay for spitting while she’d passed him by.  The big marsupial responded at once with a wink and a raised thumb.

“Say no more, mate.  I gotcha.”

“And there is something else I need to retrieve from my office, something I don’t want Le to know about just yet.”

When they returned to the cell, Le’s whimpering had ceased and the look of terror in his eyes had cooled to a dull, glassy stare.  Shang tossed the pen and pad to Drake who caught them lightly, then with a single, fluid motion, drew his knife.

“I am only going to cut your bonds, Le.  Do not move until I am finished.”

The rat not only complied, he seemed almost incapable of not complying.  For one, horrified moment Katie MacArran began to wonder if he’d expired from all the shock.

But then Striper exited the cell for moment and returned with a bucket of water.

“I baptize thee, bludger.” he sneered, then doused Le-Ho Chang with the contents.  The rodent instantly seemed to come awake, coughing and sputtering as though he had just been rescued from drowning.  Shang, meanwhile had grabbed one of the chairs, planting it unceremoniously in the center of the room.

“Sit, Le.” he told the rat, pointing at the chair with a steely finger.  Le tried, but having spent the last few hours with bound limbs, his legs would no longer support him.  He had to be helped into the seat, (jammed into it) by Drigo and Striper McKenna.  Shang waited until Drake had unfolded his notepad, then drew from his pocket the other item he had retrieved from his office.  When Le saw it, his eyes widened once again, not so much in fear this time as in surprise and chagrin.  It was the one item Brian Lu had missed when he had ransacked the rodent’s shack, the letter from Singapore containing his encrypted instructions.

“How do I decipher the code on this letter?” said Shang, thrusting out it towards the rat.  Le quickly leaned forward and pointed to the first of the coded characters.

“It’s a little complicated...but not that difficult, once you understand.” he said.

For the next twenty minutes, he carefully walked Shang Li-Sung through the code, while Drake Hackett made studious notes.

“And is this the same code used on ALL the messages you picked up and left at the dead drop?”  Shang asked, when they were done.

“Yes,” said Le, rubbing his wrists where the cords had bound him.  Then answer seemed to satisfy Shang and he nodded, slowly.

“So what’s it say anyway?” asked Drigo Chavez, pointing at the letter.  Shang held up it up to the light and squinted.

“Your information has been most valuable...etc. etc.  Keep up the good work...etc etc. Ahhh, here we are.  You will shortly be receiving your instructions via dead drop rather than through the post.  Location to follow shortly.  Begin exchanges there when you receive it.”

He folded the letter up again, and returned his attention to Le Ho-Chang.

“When did you receive get this?” he asked, “And how much longer was it until you were given the exchange point?”

Le just looked up and blinked.

“Wh-What do you need to know that f...?”

That was as far as he got.  A split second later, he was laying on the floor with a sharp ringing beneath his jaw and Shang Li-Sung standing over him.

“You are here to ANSWER questions Le, not ask them.  Is that understood?  Now get up and sit down.”

Le scrambled for the chair as if it were a the exit from a burning basement.

“I-I received it seven months ago.” he said, “It was the next letter, one month later, that gave me the location of the dead drop.”

Shang looked at Katie, and she nodded.  The spymaster, whoever he was, had been in Iso for at least six months...though it could have been much longer.  Who knew?

“And where was the dead drop located?” the red panda queried, almost too casually.

“In...” the rat started to answer, and then his eyes screwed shut and his words were choked off.

“Where?” said Shang coolly, snatching up another sliver of bamboo while Striper McKenna also moved forward.

Le hugged himself and was shaking all over, his nose pointed directly at the floor.  But before anyone could make another move he looked up again, tears streaming from his eyes as the words burst out of him like a cannon shot.

“It’s in the number two storage shed!” he cried, and then collapsed into the chair in a fit of hysterics.

So did everyone else.  Drake Hackett’s pad and pen went tumbling to the floor, and Drigo and the Striper had to practically hug one another to keep from toppling over.  Katie MacArran laughed so hard, she almost injured her bruised ribs again, and Shang Li-Sung had to leave the cell so that Le wouldn’t see HIS reaction.

It was Drake who recovered first.

“Jaysus blaydin’ Christ!” he yipped, “Right under our bloody noses!”
 
“Yes, but where exactly under our noses?” said Katie, “That shed’s not a small place, you know.”

“I think I have some idea about that.” said Shang Li-Sung, wiping his face with a little paw towel as he returned to the cell.  “It would have to be a location where neither Le, nor Brian Lu would arouse any suspicion if they were seen rummaging about in there.  One of the drawers where the smaller parts for the diesel engines are kept I would think, since both the Toonerville Trolley and the dredges run on diesel power.” He looked over at Le Ho-Chang. “Isn’t that right Le?”

“Y-Yes, that’s right.” said the rat, his mirth instantly melting away under the combination of the red panda’s penetrating mind and penetrating gaze, “Behind the drawer where the small hose clamps are kept, there is a hidden space.”

“Hmmmm, yeah that makes sense,” rumbled the Striper.  They were constantly having to replace the hose clamps on every engine in the valley; the little monsters were notoriously prone to corrosion.  

“And the paper,” Shang was saying, “describe the paper on which the messages were written.  I know that it was not rice paper, not surprising in this humid climate, but I only suspect it was red in color.  Is that correct?”

“Uh, why is the color...?” Le started to ask, then quickly finished with, “I mean yes, yes it was red!”

“And always red paper?  Always?”

“Yes.”

“And when did you first begin to save the messages instead of destroying them?”

“About the end October, right after I discovered that Brian Lu was a fellow cell member.”

“Ah yes, that.” said Shang, he grabbed another chair and pulled it up in from of  Le with it’s back facing towards the rodent, then seated himself astride it with his elbows resting on the top and his eyes boring directly into the rat’s. “Tell me, Le Ho-Chang, how were you able to find out Brian Lu was one of your fellow cell members without your being detected?  The walls on either side of the drawer you’re talking about are stacked at least two feet deep with machinery, so you couldn’t have looked through there, and you couldn’t have seen the dead-drop from the wall against which it’s placed either.  That means the only place from which you could have observed it is through the front wall; and had you been watching from there, someone would surely have spotted you.  How did you manage it?” The red panda sounded mildly impressed, and his tone sparked a nervous grin on behalf of the prisoner, who looked modestly at the floor

“Go on,” Shang prompted, still with that same thread of respect in his voice -- but now a tighter, sharper thread.

Le Ho-Chang got the message.

“There is a hole in the wall, just to the right of the cabinet where the messages were left,” he answered quickly, clasping his paws hard together as he spoke “and a support post, just opposite.  So what I did was mount a mirror on that post, looking directly at the dead-drop from where I was watching through the hole.  No one could see my hiding place unless they were almost directly on top of it; there is a tree beside the shed, blocking the view.”

“Ah yes,” said Shang, his tone softening once more. “I must say that is more cleverness than I would have given you credit for, Le Ho-Chang.” He frowned, “But how did you know it was Brian Lu?   You would have known it was a brown bear certainly, but from that location, you would only have been able to see his back.  Did he turn around perhaps?  Were you able to observe the cream coloured ‘V’ on his chest?”

“Yes, he did turn around.” Le responded, this time without any hesitation.  And then, incredibly, his voice took on an edge of it’s own; the superior tone he had formerly adopted when addressing  miners of lesser stature than himself. “Only I did not see his chest.  How could I, Shang Li-Sung?  Brian would have had to remove his shirt for me to see that.  No, it was his face...when he turned around, I saw his face in the mirror.  There was no mistaking those eyes.”

Shang smiled, but it was not a chagrined smile, rather a mixture of triumph and contempt.  Then he laughed, a pitiless, mirthless shout, as harsh as chlorine bleach.

“I cannot believe,” he said, s shaking his head as if trying to clear it, “that the Snakeheads ever recruited someone as colossally stupid as you.”

Le almost fell out of his chair again.

“S-Snakeheads?” he rasped, in a voice not unlike a frog’s croak.

Now it was Katie who almost hit the floor.

“Wha...?   You didn’t KNOW?” she demanded, incredulous.

“I...was never told.” the rat replied, hugging himself once more.

Katie stared...but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that no, Le wouldn’t have been told who he was working for.  Brian Lu, maybe -- he had been blackmailed into working against her and knowing it was the Snakeheads giving the orders would have helped to keep him in line.   But letting such information slip to a self-important, little jerk like Le Ho-Chang?

Not hard...

“Bullshit!”

The outburst came in a voice both high, and rich with anger...and it was coming from Striper McKenna.

“Don’t y’ believe this snaggletoothed little gallah for a second, mates.  He knew right well who he was workin’ for.”  He looked at Katie, “Didn’t show the slightest surprise when he saw the tattoos on that rhino hide, remember, Y’Grace?”

Katie did remember, and the Striper was right....or maybe he wasn’t.  Hard to tell if anyone’s surprised when they’re busy screaming in terror.

But this, apparently, was too much for Le, even in the present circumstances.  He bared his teeth and hissed, “How was I supposed to see ANYTHING with you trying to push my face through that hide, you big, dumb, yiffing poucher?”

The room froze in place.  ‘Poucher’ was a derogatory Chinese term for a marsupial, usually spoken within earshot of an opossum, sometimes a wallaby, on rare occasions, a kangaroo....

...but NEVER within hearing of a Tasmanian tiger.

The Striper took two steps in the direction of Le, but the rat quickly moved behind Shang Li- Sung...who merely glanced over his shoulder and then shook his head in disgust.

“As I said before, incredibly stupid.  Do you think you can play us off against one another so crudely?”

He stepped aside to let the Striper pass. “Just don’t do anything that will show.”

The big marsupial seemed not to hear Shang, and for a moment, Katie was afraid he was going to do something that would put Le out of his misery right then and there.  But the Striper merely picked Le up by the scruff of the neck, seized his cheeks in a steel grip and pinched his mouth open.

Then he spit into Le’s open maw and unceremoniously dropped him to the floor.

“Word to the wise, mate.” he said, looking down at the retching rodent with folded arms and a contemptuous sneer, “When yer wank’s caught in the mincer, it’s NOT a good idea to piss off the bloke’s got his paw on the handle.”

He turned and went back to where he’d been standing without another word.

“But what I was about to tell you Le,” said Shang, apparently having already dismissed the incident, “Is that if you can see someone’s face in a mirror, they can also see yours.  When Brian Lu turned around and looked into that mirror, he saw at once that there was peephole in the wall beside the cabinet...and with an eye looking through it.  THAT is how he first discovered that you were betraying both himself and the cell leader.  All he had to do next was linger for moment when he left the shed, to see who would emerge from behind that tree you described.”

This last was pure conjecture, and Katie knew it. 

Fortunately, Le Ho-Chang did not.

“Wh-Where is Bri...?” he started to ask, and then hurriedly checked himself.

“He is dead, Le.” said Shang, with that same feral smile. “The cell leader murdered him.”  He waved a paw.  “Yes, I know I told you he was being very cooperative, and in his own way he was.  Thanks to what you have told me and the clues Brian Lu left before he died, I think we now have enough information to unmask the ring leader.”


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