False Horizon. Alex Archer

doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Tsing,” the goateed man said.

      “Well, as long as there’s that,” Annja said. She looked at Mike. “Have you been here before?”

      “Nope. My meetings with Tsing always took place at his restaurant.”

      The goateed man grunted. “Mr. Tsing uses the hotel for his most important meetings.”

      “Guess I didn’t rate,” Mike said.

      “Apparently,” Annja muttered.

      The big henchman knocked once on the door, his knuckles creating a massive boom that echoed for a moment before dying in the artificial twilight. He looked back at Annja and Mike. “Behave yourselves when we go in.”

      Annja smiled. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”

      He frowned and started to say something, but then stopped as the massive doors swung back on well-oiled hinges. Inside, the gloom was even deeper than in the hallway. Annja could smell incense wafting from inside.

      A form appeared next to the door and she saw that it was a woman. “Enter.”

      The henchman led them into a large entry hall. Inside, the windows were open to the night air. Far below, Annja caught glints of the lights of the city twinkling around them.

      And then another form appeared before her. “Annja Creed.”

      She squinted and saw a thin rail of a man with heavy folds surrounding his eyes. But they gleamed with an almost imperceptibly acute sense of sight despite the relative darkness.

      She smiled. “You must be Mr. Tsing.”

      He bowed low. “I am.”

      “Nice to meet you.”

      Tsing grabbed her hand and then Annja felt the leathery touch of his lips on the back of it. There was the briefest flicker of moisture and she realized that he’d licked her skin. Resisting the urge to recoil and kill the little cretin, Annja took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

      Tsing straightened and then turned to Mike. “Mike. How very nice to see you again.”

      “Rather soon, wouldn’t you say?” Mike replied.

      Tsing shrugged. “Well, we have much to discuss. After all, our former arrangement seems hardly fair given the fact that I had no knowledge of what you intended to do with the money I provided.”

      “What do you care what I do with it?”

      Tsing glanced at Annja and then back at Mike. “I care very much what my money goes toward. Especially so if it appears I might make even more on a business proposition than what I first expected.”

      Mike shook his head. “We have an arrangement already. There’s no need to discuss this any further.”

      Tsing held up a crooked finger and waggled it in front of their faces. “That’s where you’re wrong, Michael. The underlying tenet of my business—one that you sought out of your own free will, I might mention—is that as the primary share-holder in your life, I can make and remake any arrangements as I see fit.”

      Mike frowned. “And if I don’t like the new parameters of the deal?”

      Tsing smiled. “I truly hope it won’t come to that.”

      There came a high-pitched wailing scream from somewhere outside, and in the next instant Annja saw a flash as the bulk of a body tumbled past the windows. The scream died away in the night air. In her mind, Annja could imagine the body hitting the street far below and shuddered at the vision.

      Tsing watched them both closely. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Another of my business partners saw fit to dispute my attempts at a more equitable financing arrangement.”

      Annja frowned. “So you killed him.”

      Tsing smiled. “I believe it will be ruled a suicide.” He clapped his hands. “But come in, let us sit down and see if we might avoid any such unpleasantries. I am very interested in hearing what you both have to say.”

      Tsing turned and led them deeper into the suite. Annja and Mike had little choice but to follow.

      4

      Tuk watched the hotel from beneath the overhang of a small electronics boutique that specialized in global positioning systems and cell phones. He had trailed Annja and the men with her to this hotel with very little effort. When they’d emerged from the Blue Note, it had been an elementary matter to ease into the traffic slipstream and follow them to this destination.

      But Tuk was not happy.

      As the party had exited the Blue Note, his weathered face had creased and then flushed. He knew the men who escorted Annja Creed. The heavyset man with the goatee was known as Burton and the other man was called Kurtz. They were two of the worst enforcers working for Katmandu’s most illustrious crime syndicate run by Mr. Tsing.

      Tuk had worked for Tsing in the past, when his personal circumstances had forced him to take jobs from such despicable people. Tsing’s treatment of Tuk bordered on abusive, and after he had withheld part of Tuk’s payment, the small man resolved never to work for him again, personal finances be damned.

      Burton and Kurtz had especially insulted him by tossing him out of his last meeting with Tsing and threatening to kill him if he ever showed his face around there again.

      Tuk thought about the miniature folding kukri he carried in his pocket and how he would dearly love to use the knife to end Tsing’s life and that of both Burton and Kurtz, if he was given half a chance to do so. He never used to carry a weapon, preferring instead to rely upon his natural stealth abilities to remove him from harm. When he worked for spies, there was never much danger to him. But working with criminals meant constant danger so Tuk had taken to carrying a smaller version of the curved blade favored by the Gurkhas, the famed Nepali warriors who often served in the British Army.

      Why was Annja Creed meeting with Tsing? And just who was the other man with her that Tuk did not recognize? If he read the body language right, and he felt that he did, then Annja and the other man were not going with Burton and Kurtz willingly. Tuk also thought it doubtful that in the short span of time since Annja had left the airport that she had somehow managed to run afoul of Tsing.

      That meant the other man must have been responsible.

      But how?

      Tuk’s brow furrowed as he thought about it. Tsing specialized in any manner of criminal enterprises, but drugs, prostitution and extortion were his favorites. Less lucrative was the loan sharking, but Tuk nodded to himself. Perhaps that was it. If the man was in debt to Tsing, then this would not end well.

      Did that also mean that Annja Creed was in danger?

      Tuk slid the small cell phone from his pocket and pressed the two on it. The phone dialed a number that did not display on the screen, which Tuk now shielded to keep it from revealing his presence. He put the phone to his ear and waited.

      “Yes?”

      “The woman—Annja Creed—is at the Fairbanks Hotel.”

      “All right.”

      “She was brought there under duress.”

      “What do you mean?”

      Tuk recounted what he had seen and waited for the man on the other end to comment.

      “You’re certain of this?”

      “I know Tsing,” Tuk said. “He is a worthless criminal who enjoys seeing people suffer.”

      “You have history with him?”

      “Yes.”

      “I would have thought it foolish for anyone to cross you,” the man said.

      Tuk inclined his head. “I appreciate your saying that,