Blood Tide. Don Pendleton

She frowned. “But this may be stretching the mark to the breaking point.”

      “Maybe we should go have a talk with this guy.”

      “This guy’s a real wild card.” Mei’s frown deepened. “I don’t know if you want to get in bed with him.”

      Bolan shrugged. “I usually don’t get in bed with anyone on the first date.”

      Mei burst out laughing.

      “What’s so funny?”

      Mei waggled her eyebrows. “You’ll know when you meet him.”

      “I don’t get it.” Bolan finished his beer. “And I’m not sure I want to.”

      3

      Macao

      Bolan stepped off the hydrofoil that had taken them from Hong Kong to the estuary of the Pearl River and onto the waterfront. At first glance, Macao looked like every other economically emerging city in Asia. Construction was everywhere. High-rise apartments and office buildings relentlessly clawed their way into the skyline. The streets were jammed with traffic, and hellish pollution surrounded them in the three dimensions of the air, the water and the streets. Casinos jammed the waterfront, and tourists crowded the casinos to overflowing.

      Rickshaw men pounced on disembarkees from the hydrofoil, each working for a casino and affiliated hotel. Marcie Mei ignored them as she curled her thumb and forefinger against her teeth and let out a whistle that could have hailed a cab all the way from Manhattan.

      A small man with massive calves and the shoulders of an ox looked up from his lunch. He took up the yoke of his rickshaw and trotted over to the pier. He and Mei spoke in rapid-fire Cantonese for a moment, and the woman gestured at Bolan. “Du, this is Cooper. Cooper, this is Du. There’s hardly anything I don’t owe Du, including my life.”

      Du grinned up at Bolan through gold teeth and stuck out a callused hand that seemed too big for his body. His English had strange inflections. He spoke his English more like a Brazilian than Chinese. “How you doin’, hot rod?”

      Bolan shook Du’s hand. The rickshaw man squeezed, testing Bolan’s strength. The calluses spread across his knuckles as well as his palms. Bolan suspected he hadn’t developed them from pulling carts. The Executioner smiled and squeezed back. “Nice to meet you, Du.”

      Du grinned. He and Bolan silently agreed not crush each other’s hands and relaxed their grips. Du grabbed what little baggage there was and threw it in back as Bolan and Mei climbed aboard. He took up the yoke and swiftly pulled his passengers away from the waterfront and into the sprawl. He chattered back over his shoulder, pointing out the sights.

      He jerked his head off toward a tower of glass. “The Hilton?”

      Mei sank back against Bolan. “Head for Rua da Felicidade.”

      Bolan perked an eyebrow. “The Street of Happiness?”

      Mei nodded.

      “Awww…man!” Du shook his head as he trotted past cars, bikes and scooters, and swerved around an ox. “Tell me you’re not going to Ming’s.”

      “Directly,” Mei confirmed. “We’re expected.”

      Du hunched his shoulders fatalistically and turned away from the glass and light of the downtown sprawl.

      Macao was unique among Chinese cities in that it had once been a Portuguese possession. Once they pulled onto the Rua da Felicidade, they might as well have been in prewar China. Mediterranean architecture abutted ancient style Chinese houses and shops. The Rua da Felicidade had once been Macao’s red light district. Now the street was lined with shops and street vendors and food stalls. The bright colors of silk were everywhere as were the smells of spices and roasting meat. For all of China’s gustatory glory as one of the world’s great cuisines, the art of barbecue was almost unknown there. Except in Macao. The Portuguese had brought their grills with them, and to this very day smoke filled the air. They passed a bamboo cage filled with a half dozen small, tapir-like animals. A metal trough lined with live coals and multiple spits glowed red hot and ready next to them. Bolan suspected few of the beasts would survive the lunch-time rush.

      Bolan crooked two fingers and thrust out a note as the rickshaw passed a stall. Marcie’s eyebrows shot in surprised approval as Bolan took two sheets of au jok khon wrapped in paper. The barbecued strips were a sweet, salty, cholesterol blowing form of pork-jerky sheathed in crispy fat.

      Du pulled past the shops and took them deeper into the maze.

      Bolan thought about their contact. He had consulted Kurtzman via satellite and was surprised Kurtzman had come up goose eggs. Neither the Farm, US, nor British Intelligence had anything on the man. He was an enigma.

      Ming Jinrong was a part of the Chinese underworld.

      Mei had been very closemouthed about the man. He was a valuable resource, and she was taking pains to protect him.

      Bolan decided to try again. “What can you tell me about Jinrong?”

      “I’ve had some dealings with him. He was Red League in Shanghai, but his…proclivities kept getting him in trouble, and he had to flee. He’s been in Macao for twenty years,” she said.

      Bolan considered the tidbit of information. He had fought the Chinese triads before. The Red League was a secret society that had begun as a patriotic anti-Manchu organization of martial artists and merchants dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty centuries ago. Like most of the other secret societies in China, as the ages passed, they had become runners of opium, heroin and prostitutes. They had taken their place as the heads of Chinese gambling, extortion, assassination and political manipulation.

      The Communist revolution had only driven them further underground and made their business dealings even more Byzantine.

      “So what does he do now?”

      “He’s kind of on the outs, but one of his strengths is that he’s unconventional. Since he got pushed out of normal Chinese crime, he’s specialized in peddling information. He’s also interested in high tech. At this point, I believe the old men of the Red League council consider him a useful embarrassment.”

      “What does that mean?”

      Mei locked eyes with Bolan. “It means he’s not what you’re expecting to meet, and when you meet him you be respectful.”

      “I’m always respectful.” Bolan shrugged. “Until it’s time not to be.”

      “Yeah, you just let me do the talking, and if you have to say something, mention the Eight Trigrams Double Broadsword.”

      Bolan nodded. “Got it.”

      Du pulled them down one side street and then another, each more narrow than the last, until he brought them to a halt before the wooden gate of a Portuguese villa that looked at least three hundred years old. The tile and stucco were faded and cracked, but the stonework was still incredible. It was a picture of lost colonial glory. Men with rifles peered down from the ornamental minarets at the wall corners.

      Du set down his yoke and rapped the brass, lion-head knocker on the gate.

      A pair of men with AK-47s opened the gate and let them in. Bolan, Mei and Du walked into the courtyard. A Spanish-style fountain with a potted flowering lemon tree in its middle dominated the tiled courtyard. Peacocks strutted freely, pecking among the rose beds.

      Bolan locked eyes with their hosts.

      The man was huge. He sat artfully draped across a cerulean chair, enthroned beneath a pink silk awning. Ming Jinrong looked like a six-foot-six, 270-pound Chinese version of Oscar Wilde. Right down to the wine-colored crushed velvet suit and the lily he held across his breast. A jaw like a steam shovel and a massive brow belied his soft eyes, cheeks and lips. His hair fell away from his face in languorous black curls.

      Ming