Dawn Pursuit
The sound of a crowbar tearing at the shutter echoed through the warehouse.
Bang. Bang. With every screech of protesting metal, the bottom edge of the shutter began to gape wider and wider.
Outside, rough shouts and bursts of Cantonese kept pouring in without pause.
We had at most a few seconds left.
I came out of the bathroom and swept my eyes over the warehouse interior.
Needless to say, going out through the front entrance was impossible.
The only exit was the side door on the left, the one I’d come through. But before that, there was something I had to do.
My eyes fell on the sacks of medicinal supplies stacked in the corner of the warehouse.
Dried chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. The powder had already begun to leak out in pale drifts.
So this was a medicinal warehouse, with spices on the side.
Crack. Riiiip—
I slit open two of the sacks with the sickle and hurled them down in front of the shutter.
“What are you doing?”
Marcus asked in a groan.
Half-dragging him upright, I caught his gaze. It hovered somewhere between confusion and pain.
“Buying us time.”
The instant I answered, the lower edge of the shutter split open with a sharp crack.
I could see men’s legs outside. Someone was crouching to force their way in.
I kicked the torn sacks upward.
Red powder burst into the air in a thick cloud.
The moment the dried chili and Sichuan pepper dust was scattered, the front of the shutter was swallowed by a choking, stinging fog.
“Aaagh!”
The men ripping their way inside screamed and clutched at their eyes and noses.
One cough after another, followed by violent sneezing, rang out almost immediately.
That should buy us at least a minute or two of useless thrashing.
Taking advantage of the confusion, I hooked Marcus’s arm over my shoulder and hauled him up.
His weight settled heavily onto my left side. Luckily, he was lean.
I moved quickly toward the side door.
Just as my hand closed around the knob, I felt movement on the other side.
Of course.
I signaled Marcus with a flick of my hand.
While he sensibly braced himself against the wall, I wrenched the door open.
“Huh—?”
The man guarding outside looked at me in stunned disbelief.
Before he could even get his mouth fully open, my left hand was already moving.
The edge of my palm struck his throat exactly, smashing into the airway.
“Ghk—”
His voice cut off as if someone had clenched a fist around it.
In the instant his head jerked back, my right fist drove into his solar plexus.
With a sharp thud, he folded at the knees without so much as getting a chance to scream.
When I looked back, Marcus was staring at me with a pale face.
“...What did you just do?”
“We’re in a hurry.”
I supported him again and slipped out through the side door.
The alley was dark. A yellow streetlamp cast long shadows across the pavement.
“The back... We need to take the back stairs,” Marcus said, pointing weakly with his chin.
A narrow passage ran behind the warehouse.
We took the steep concrete stairs at a brisk climb.
Marcus groaned with every step, but he didn’t complain.
He just clenched his teeth and endured.
By the time we reached the top, we were out onto the road above.
Behind us, Cantonese shouting rang out. The chase had already begun.
***
“Cough...”
Marcus Cheng tried to keep track of the situation even as consciousness kept slipping in and out.
The pain from his broken ribs stabbed at his lungs every time he breathed.
Blood from his shoulder soaked through his jacket sleeve and ran down to the back of his hand.
His vision kept blurring, then sharpening again.
Lee was hauling him along by the arm slung over his shoulder, practically dragging him.
The steep stairways of Ladder Street climbed between old buildings packed in tight on both sides, endless stone steps stretching upward into the dark.
“Huff... huff...”
Lee’s breathing was getting rough.
His back and neck were drenched with sweat, and the arm supporting Marcus was trembling slightly.
Whatever easy confidence he usually wore had vanished; his stamina was clearly running dry.
And yet he didn’t stop.
Every time his feet began to slow, he gritted his teeth and forced them to speed up again.
Marcus knew better than most how difficult it was to climb these brutal stairs while dragging the weight of a grown man. He’d crossed them countless times over twelve years.
Even a properly trained agent would have been on the verge of collapse. And yet this man kept planting his feet where they slipped and climbing on.
...Damn it.
Regret and gratitude hit him at the same time.
When he’d first seen Lee at the airport, he’d thought he was some uninvited nuisance who had barged into the operation out of nowhere.
Just a rushed piece of support staff from headquarters, sent to patch over the hollowed-out Hong Kong branch.
An unexpected variable right before a deal closes.
That was the sort of thing Marcus hated most—unpredictability, risk he couldn’t control.
And this man had looked, at a glance, like a pure civilian with no real training at all.
He’d felt more like dead weight than backup.
But that first impression had changed quickly.
After just two days together, it turned out he was sharp-eyed and had a decent head on his shoulders.
He seemed meek, yet at the same time he had a strange, easygoing shamelessness to him—almost brazen.
Honestly, Marcus liked him.
If the situation had been better, he might have wanted to keep him around for years and shape him into something useful.
And now, in this very moment, even those thoughts were changing again.
Tap-tap-tap.
The sound of pursuit pounded from behind. Yee Hing Tong men.
Just when it seemed impossible to keep going, Lee lowered him behind a pile of trash in a narrow alley.
“Huff... Stay here for a second.”
Then he vanished into the darkness.
Marcus leaned against the wall, gripping his Glock as he panted hard.
His field of vision kept narrowing. And then—
“Seia! Kweido haibin—!”
Furious Cantonese voices rang out.
The sound of feet splashing onto wet stone drew closer.
Then came a sound he hadn’t expected at all.
Thwack!
A dull, heavy impact.
A short scream followed, then cut off abruptly.
In Marcus’s blurred vision, the outline of the alley corner came into view.
The dead zone where the streetlamp’s light didn’t reach.
Lee was there.
The first gangster rounded the corner.
Lee pressed his back to the wall, and the moment the man crossed the edge, he hooked an ankle out and took him off balance.
As the man pitched forward, Lee slammed a knee down into the back of his head.
The sound of his face hitting the pavement echoed through the alley.
Thunk!
The second man was right behind him.
Seeing his partner go down, he drew the knife from his waist and charged.
The blade flashed in the streetlamp’s light.
“Aaaah!”
Lee sidestepped half a step, caught the knife man’s wrist, and twisted.
No—he didn’t just catch it. He wrenched it. The angle was wrong, violently wrong.
The instant the joint bent beyond what it could bear, the knife clattered to the ground with a sickening crack.
“Kaaah—”
Lee’s elbow shot up into the man’s jaw, cutting the scream off mid-breath.
Crack!
The third.
A big man charged in from the opposite side of the alley.
He was at least a head taller than Lee.
“Diu lei!”
He swung a punch.
Lee ducked under it, slipping inside the man’s guard.
He seized the elbow, twisted the joint backward, and drove the man straight into the wall.
The dull impact of skull against brick rang out.
Crash!
The fourth man came at him from behind.
Lee reacted instantly, spinning and locking an arm around his throat with his forearm.
“Kuh... erh...!”
The man thrashed.
Veins stood out in Lee’s arm. A few seconds later, the strength drained from the man’s body.
When it was all over, the alley fell silent.
Four sturdy men lay strewn across the ground.
Marcus leaned against the wall and stared at the scene.
He’s a doctor?
Lee’s movements were textbook clean.
He used the narrow alley’s terrain to full advantage, as well as walls and corners, taking them one by one and never more than one at a time.
He didn’t kill them, but he made sure they were thoroughly neutralized by breaking joints or striking vital points.
This was not the level of skill a simple backup was supposed to have.
Burns... what on earth did you send me?
Marcus thought of SAC—the Ground Branch.
The CIA’s elite paramilitary operations unit, run under complete secrecy from its structure to its personnel.
Was this man some kind of cleaner sent in to mop up the broken Hong Kong branch?
Or maybe something even worse than that.
In movies, agents were always shown as human weapons who could drop people in an instant.
In reality, though, subduing a grown man who knew how to fight was incredibly difficult.
Marcus knew that better than anyone, which made this situation feel all the more unreal.
“Haa... haa...”
By then, Lee was already back.
Sweat was pouring off him like rain.
His breathing was far rougher than before, and his steps had grown heavy.
He was clearly close to his limit.
And yet there wasn’t a trace of fear or panic in his eyes.
“Huff... I’ve dealt with them more or less. Let’s move before the others get here.”
For a line delivered after putting four men on the ground, it was absurdly calm.
And the very next thing he said was unmistakably a doctor’s voice.
“We need to get somewhere and stop the bleeding fast. You’ve lost too much blood.”
Lee hooked his arm over his shoulder again.
His hands were trembling more than before. His whole body was soaked through with sweat, and his breathing was ragged enough to sound like it might snap at any moment.
And still he didn’t let go.
At that sight, Marcus felt his throat tighten strangely.
A useless ache of guilt rose in him.
“Up ahead... if we go a little farther up... there’s a place I set up. Let’s go there.”
Supported by Lee, Marcus forced himself upright again.
Even then, one thought refused to leave him.
What the hell is this guy?
***
“Kuh—”
The man with his throat locked around my forearm went limp.
With a crack, I felt the area between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae shift slightly beneath my fingertips.
At the same time, I let go of the arm I’d been restraining him with.
I didn’t kill him.
His cervical nerve was compressed, so he’d be laid up in a hospital for a while with full-body paralysis.
But at least he wasn’t dead on the spot. I’d call that mercy, more or less.
Thud.
I let the spent bastard down quietly onto the ground.
“Huff... I’m dying here.”
Sweat was pouring off my forehead.
I had no idea how many of the bastards who’d chased us from Ladder Street I’d already dropped.
I was reaching my limit too.
My legs felt as heavy as cotton soaked in water. My stomach was churning.
Maybe I’d pushed my internal energy too hard, because my whole body felt twisted and wrung out.
My lungs were burning, and every muscle in me was screaming.
Still, I couldn’t stop.
I could hear Marcus’s rough breathing behind me.
I had to go back and get him from where I’d hidden him behind the trash heap.
“Let’s go.”
I pulled Marcus up again.
The moment his arm went over my shoulder, the muscles in my legs cramped on their own.
I clenched my teeth. I forced myself to ignore the dizziness washing over my vision.
Marcus looked like he wanted to say something, but I didn’t answer him.
I didn’t have room for conversation. If I started talking now, I felt like my knees would give out.
Whoosh—
Just then, a fine rain began to fall from above.
The cold drops ran over my face, but oddly enough, it felt like they were cooling the heat in my body rather than bothering it.
More importantly, the rain was washing the blood off the ground. Lucky break.
Huff... huff...
We turned one alley, then another.
Without Marcus guiding me, I would have been lost already.
Tap-tap-tap.
Footsteps sounded again from behind us.
Reinforcements, apparently. These guys never seemed to run out.
After a few more turns, we reached the front of a building above an old grocery store.
Halfway up the stairs, Marcus opened his eyes a slit.
“Over there... second floor.”
His trembling hand pointed to a pocket on his right.
“The key’s... in my pocket...”
I rummaged through the slick mess of sweat and blood and pulled out the key.
We climbed the narrow, dark staircase to the iron door on the second floor.
When I turned the key, the lock clicked open.
Clank.
I shoved the door open and locked it behind us.
It was a cramped one-room apartment, laid out much like the place in Sham Shui Po.
An old bed, a small sink, one window.
I lowered Marcus onto the bed.
I didn’t have the luxury of placing him down gently.
At the same time, I collapsed onto the floor myself.
No, collapsed was the wrong word. I pretty much fell over.
“Ughhh...”
For a while, I couldn’t do anything. I just sucked in rough breaths.
The ceiling spun above me. My fingertips tingled, and my vision kept going soft around the edges.
But there still wasn’t time to rest.
“Cough, cough...!”
Marcus coughed violently and spat up blood.
The bleeding was getting worse. If I left it alone, he’d go into shock.
Forcing myself upright, I searched the shelf by the wall.
If this was a safe house, there had to be a basic medical kit somewhere.
Sure enough. The first-aid box held a hemostatic agent, bandages, and suture tools.
“I’m going to disinfect it first. Haa...”
I started with the puncture wound in his shoulder.
As soon as the hydrogen peroxide touched the wound, the blood began to fizz and boil.
“This’ll sting. Though I guess you won’t notice, since you’re out cold.”
Right after that, I stitched the torn skin together with the suture kit’s thread and needle.
I’d learned the basics in acupuncture school, but to be honest, I wasn’t a surgery specialist, so it wasn’t exactly pretty. Still, it was far better than leaving him like that.
I wrapped the wound tightly in bandages, then took antibiotics and painkillers from the kit.
I mixed the medicine with water and made him swallow it by force. Oral medication for an unconscious patient was risky, but I didn’t have another option.
“...That should do it.”
Marcus’s heartbeat gradually steadied.
His ragged breathing lengthened.
I rinsed the blood off my own hands in the sink as best I could and stretched out flat on the floor.
My whole body felt like lead.
“Man... I really feel like I’m dying.”
With trembling fingers, I pulled out my phone and checked the time.
5:30 a.m.
Somewhere far outside, a siren wailed loudly.
Police, maybe. An ambulance, maybe. Fortunately, it moved away quickly.
Lying there and staring up at the ceiling, I let out a long breath.
So that’s what the travel budget and hazard pay were for...
I felt bad for Hong Kong, but I never wanted to come back here again as long as I lived.
From the bed beside me, I could barely hear Marcus breathing.
It had stabilized. For now, he seemed all right.
Slowly, I closed my eyes.
I felt my consciousness sink away into the dark.
I couldn’t have said whether I fell asleep or simply passed out.