False Horizon - Alex Archer [9]
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