Darkness Under Heaven (9 page)

Avakian pointed to his jacket, asking permission to open it. The cops nodded, and he pulled out his handkerchief and pinched his nose shut and dropped his chin to his chest. The woman photographer tugged his sleeve and gave him the thumbs-up. Avakian nodded gratefully, still clutching his nose.

Once he got the bleeding stopped they led him down to the dressing rooms. There were at least half a dozen bodies covered with sheets and jackets, smears of blood all over the floor, dropped handguns, and expended shell casings. The Chinese police were busy taking photos of everything.

All the gymnasts and coaches were still under guard in the dressing rooms. Avakian got a look at himself in a mirror, and damn he was grim. You could barely tell his shirt had been white. He definitely looked like he'd lost the title bout.

As he came limping in, one of the trainers from the Polish team came over, took him by the arm, and shooed some girls off a massage table so he could sit down. A blond Viking in braids, a pocket battleship of a woman who looked like she could have pressed that grenade thrower right over her head. She got his jacket and shirt off and began cleaning him up with a bottle of water and a handful of gauze pads.

All he knew were the languages of former enemies. He almost spoke to her in Russian, but that would only work on a Pole his own age. Someone in her twenties wouldn't even remember the Berlin Wall coming down. “Do you speak German?” he asked in German. His German wasn't as fluent as his Spanish but he could hold his own with it. As a more senior officer he'd done tours with the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany.

“A little,” she replied, now half wary and half suspicious. “You German?”

“No, American,” said Avakian.

Now a smile came over her face. “Then why not did you say so?” she demanded in somewhat better English than her German.

“I wanted to thank you,” said Avakian.

“Then thank me,” she said gruffly.

“Thank you,” Avakian said softly.

She blushed red as she smiled. Then turned gruff again, as if embarrassed. “Where hurt?”

Avakian pointed to his knee, elbow, and shoulder. The knee was already nicely swollen, and the elbow and shoulder were as sore as a toothache.

She poked and prodded him relatively gently. One of the other trainers came over and said something to her in Polish. She laughed and told Avakian, “She say, coach on Russia team. Look same as you. Could be brother.”

“No Russian brothers,” Avakian said.

“I no think so. Russian bad teeth. Smell bad.” She pinched Avakian's cheeks together with thumb and forefinger until his mouth opened involuntarily. “You, good teeth. Smell good.”

Lying flat on a table with two Polish Amazons peering at his teeth, Avakian could come up with no adequate response.

She finished her examination and told him, “Be strong man now.”

Oh, that didn't foreshadow anything good. Before Avakian could reply, she grabbed him by the upper arm, pulled back, moved it around, and slammed the heel of her other hand into his shoulder. Which he felt click back into place.

It hurt so bad he almost bit his tongue through. He hoped he'd been at least outwardly stoic, since he got the impression she might beat him out of sheer disgust if he started whimpering.

But he must have done all right, because she patted him on the head like, well, a circus dog, before strapping ice packs onto him with Ace bandages.

“What is your name?” Avakian asked.

“Jozefa.”

“Piotr. Thank you, Jozefa.”

She gave him another smile, and two enormous brown pills that he hoped were anti-inflammatories. No matter, as he was too afraid of her not to take them. Then she made him lie down on the table, creating a pillow and shoulder support from some towels. Avakian almost proposed to her right then and there.

The pills were the real deal, because in short order he was pain free and a nice warmth had replaced the chill of the ice. Despite the noise of a room packed full of excited people all talking in twelve different languages, he drifted off to sleep.

He was awakened by someone tugging on his uninjured arm. He opened his eyes and there was a pair of Chinese, a man in plainclothes and a female sergeant in police uniform, with Jozefa hovering protectively behind them.

The man asked the questions and the woman trans
lated. “Please, sir,” the policewoman said in English. “I must interview you now. Are you able to speak?”

Avakian almost said no, but that would only be postponing the inevitable. “I can speak.”

Her English was British-accented, which for some reason was a little jarring coming from a Chinese uniform. She had a palm-sized digital voice recorder, but also took careful notes in a regular paper notebook.

As he told them what had happened everyone else in the room shut up and listened in. He could hear whispered translations going on in multiple languages.

After hearing the story the one question the Chinese asked him was, “Had you ever see this man before?”

“Never,” said Avakian. “Tell me, what happened with all the shooting?”

She closed her notebook and translated primly, “You will be informed at the appropriate time, sir. Do you need to go to hospital?”

Until that moment Avakian had almost forgotten he was in China. But that brought him back. He could only imagine what the nearest hospital must be like if there had been as many casualties as he thought. He'd be on a gurney out in a hall the rest of the night. “No, thank you. I do not need to go to the hospital.”

The guy in plainclothes, who might have been either a cop or State Security, now held up a plastic bag containing Avakian's blackjack. And the translator asked, “This is yours?”

Ah, the Inspector Columbo moment: wait until the end, then spring the evidence on them. Avakian had mentioned hitting the maintenance man from behind. He hadn't mentioned with what. “Yes,” he replied, since it wasn't really a question.

“What is it, please?”

“A back scratcher,” Avakian said.

That provoked a conference in Chinese. “This is what?”

“A back scratcher. I suffer from dry skin.”

“This is a weapon.”

He almost said: then why did you ask me what it was. But what he actually said was, “Of course not. It's not a knife or a gun. How can it be a weapon?”

Another conference. “This is a serious matter.”

“I know,” said Avakian. “My back is itching right now.”

More discussion. “This will not be returned to you.”

Avakian had been talking to the policewoman. Now he fixed his gaze on the plainclothesman. “You should be glad I had it with me.”

No more questions. The plainclothesman just turned around abruptly and left now that he was done. The policewoman didn't seem to know quite what to do, so she gave him a little bow before trotting after her boss. Jozefa gave him two more pills that he downed eagerly, and kissed him on both cheeks.

Avakian thought he was doing surprisingly well with the ladies lately. Getting wounded with women around was obviously the way to go. Then he crashed again.

He had no idea how much time had passed when he was awakened again from a dreamless, drug-induced sleep by the voice of Russell Marquand. He opened his eyes and it really was Marquand. Jozefa was gone. As a matter of fact, everyone was gone. They were all alone in the dressing room. Him, Marquand, and Dave Kinney, the second in command of the Secretary of State's bodyguard detail. “Have you been watching me sleep long?”

“To be honest, no,” said Marquand. “We pretty much just came in here and woke your ass up. How you doing?”

“I can't believe this week I'm having,” Avakian groaned.

“Neither can anyone else,” said Marquand. “But I was really asking how you're feeling.”

“I was a hurtin' cowboy,” said Avakian. “But I'm better.” A Polish warm-up jacket was spread over him like a blanket. As he moved he heard the rattle and squeezed the pocket. There was a large bottle of pills in there. And something else. He pulled out a piece of paper with a phone number written on it. Well, he owed Jozefa flowers and chocolate, minimum. Though anything else would definitely have to wait until he healed up. And maybe did some serious training.

The ice packs were gone, and his right arm was in a sling strapped tightly to his torso, immobilizing the shoulder. It was hard to believe he hadn't woken up for that. Good drugs. He raised his arm to look at his watch, but the crystal was shattered. “What time is it?”

“8:15,” said Marquand.

“I hope that's PM,” Avakian said.

“Yeah, you slept through all the excitement,” said Marquand.

“No, I didn't,” said Avakian. “If I had, I wouldn't be this messed up.”

“Well, at least you didn't jump on the grenade yourself,” said Marquand.

“That was a little farther down on my list of courses of action,” said Avakian. “Give me a hand up.”

They pulled him up into a sitting position. Avakian grabbed the side of the table as the room swirled around on him. His sinuses ached, and his nose felt like it was packed full of dried blood, but he didn't want to blow it and risk bleeding again.

“Still a nice call in four seconds or less,” said Marquand.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Avakian.

“I hear that,” said Marquand. “Witnesses said the guy you were on top of never came off the floor when the grenade went off. But you went about three feet in the air.”

“It felt higher,” said Avakian. “And I didn't nail the landing.”

“Nobody got blown up, though,” Kinney broke in. “Except the guy who needed to.”

“Yeah, let's all just forget about me,” said Avakian. Kinney always reminded him of a blond California surfer boy twenty years down the road. Still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but battered by too much sun and salt.

“How did you make him?” Marquand asked.

“I didn't,” Avakian said.

“You didn't?”

“It would probably boost my street cred if I said I did. But the truth is he stepped out of a door right in front of me. The Avakian luck. If there's some shit, I'll step in it. Now what was the deal with all the gunfire?”

“You don't know?” said Marquand.

“I hardly would have asked it I did,” said Avakian. “I've been a little out of the loop.”

“The grenade went off,” said Marquand. “Everyone, and I do mean everyone, went for their guns. The exact details are a little hazy, but it seems that a couple of the Taiwanese security men started shooting. And they shot their own guy.”

“The president?” said Avakian, amazed.

“Dead,” said Marquand.

“No shit?” said Avakian.

“He goes down,” said Marquand. “Then the Chinese
security detail opens up on them, and it's
Reservoir Dogs
all over again. You've got both details shooting at each other point-blank. Twelve dead so far, over twenty wounded. There was lead ricocheting all over that tunnel. Turns out you were in about the safest place, down on the deck.”

“Yeah, it sure felt like that,” said Avakian.

“Everyone's trying to figure out whether the president got shot accidentally or on purpose,” said Marquand. “And all the people who could answer that for sure happen to be dead.”

“This is going to make the Kennedy assassination look cut and dried,” said Kinney. “The conspiracy theorists will get off on it forever.”

“Panicking and shooting into the crowd is easy,” said Avakian, groaning again as he shifted position on the table. “Panicking and shooting the principal you're there to protect is hard. So I'm guessing some part of the Taiwan security establishment decided they didn't like snuggling up to Beijing, and decided to have themselves a little coup. And decided that here was the perfect place for it—let your traditional enemy take the rap and get stuck with the cleanup. Maybe they even had a little help from some Chinese.”

“I was saying a few prayers that wouldn't turn out to be the case,” said Marquand. “Once again they're not answered. You haven't mentioned your little theory to anyone, have you?”

“Are you kidding?” said Avakian. “And I won't, either.”

“But what about the grenade?” said Kinney. “You throw a grenade that might take out your own assassins? I don't get it.”

“It was a concussion grenade,” said Avakian.

“Okay,” said Marquand.

“You mean a stun grenade?” said Kinney.

“No,” said Avakian. “Our good old American hand grenade you're thinking about is one size fits all. Kills you within five meters, wounds you within fifteen, and beyond that the fragments slow down to where they're not lethal. Other parts of the world they issue an offensive grenade and a defensive grenade. Defensive sends fragments out a good long way, so you throw that from behind solid cover. Offensive is just explosive. So you can throw it while you're rushing forward in the assault without fragging yourself. It has to land right next to you to be lethal, but the blast knocks everyone off their pins until you can close in and finish them off. It was an old Russian RG42 concussion, or the Chinese copy. Just TNT in a tin can. Literally.”