Chapter One
"Are you fucking kidding?"
Jane Gannon shook her head. "This comes down from Dockery. He wants me to check it out."
"You're fucking kidding."
"Fuck you, Jack. That's what I think."
Jack rubbed his thumbnail across his upper lip. The nail felt smooth against his skin. Since he'd quit drinking again, he'd developed this new habit. But it didn't do anything to curb his craving for smokes.
"And?"
She brought her ear toward one of her bare shoulders, the one closer to him. It was just a plain hotel room, but Jack had been staying there long enough to start thinking of it as home.
Even with the sheet pulled up to her neck, Jack liked what he could see in the bumps and creases of the fabric. He slid his hand down her arm, then toward one of her breasts. She slapped it away.
"And I'd like you to come along on this one, help me out. I might be able to find some use for you."
"Like ride shotgun. Right? Like you need a bigger gun?"
"Yeah, Jack. It's that exactly. I need your big, fucking gun."
Her hand shot toward his crotch, and Jack flinched.
"But I can use you for something work related too." She pursed her lips. "It's not often a girl gets sent into a gang-sponsored fighting tournament on her own."
Jack reached for the nightstand, unconsciously going for the pack of cigarettes he'd left there–the pack he was doing his best to stop smoking.
Without being asked, Gannon handed him her package of nicotine mints. She hadn't smoked around him since they first met, but she'd become very comfortably addicted to the mints.
"Dockery wants to send you into the Triad mix by yourself?" Jack popped a mint, a sensation he already knew he didn't like.
She shook her head. "This comes down from even higher. Federal budget. From now on we're assigned to cases on our own, no partners unless the assignment is deemed Code Level Red."
"And this one is?"
She winked at him. "This one is orange–so long as it doesn't involve multiple cities and potential chemical weapons. That's the highest it can go."
"Nice." Jack flopped back against his pillow, and she rolled over to put her hand on his chest. Just like that he knew he'd be going along with her on this assignment, the one that would take them into Chinatown to investigate a gambling ring based on a human combat tournament that would put MMA and UFC to shame.
He spit the nicotine mint into his hand and dropped it into the ashtray as he reached for his pack of smokes.
They started in Chinatown on Friday night, dressed to the nines and acting like they'd just dropped in from Vegas, looking to gamble Vegas money on whatever they could get involved in, telling anyone who would listen that they wanted in on the new fight games.
They got more than a few skeptical looks. The Chinatown community kept to themselves; they didn't like white folks coming around and asking too many questions. Some, even if they went through Harvard or MIT, went Chinese-only and pretended English was a foreign tongue.
And the fight game was still pretty low-key. Through a wiretap and too many hours of listening time, a desk jockey at the Feds had caught a few hints of something dangerous and new. But from what Jane could gather, even within Chinatown, the word on the street was quiet. And rumors weren't trickling out into the rest of San Francisco yet.
Jack couldn't help but think about it as the Kumite tournament Jean-Claude Van Damme went to Hong Kong for in Bloodsport . From Gannon's report, Jack had read about bodies getting dumped into the Bay or left in the walkway along the inside of the Stockton tunnel.
In the movie, Van Damme won the contest, the first-ever white man to do so, even though he had to fight in the final battle with his eyes blinded by cocaine. The rest of the movie was standard fair: guys representing different countries, playing up different stereotypes. Bolo Yeung even played the big, bad Chinese champion, the same guy Bruce Lee fought at the
"Are you fucking kidding?"
Jane Gannon shook her head. "This comes down from Dockery. He wants me to check it out."
"You're fucking kidding."
"Fuck you, Jack. That's what I think."
Jack rubbed his thumbnail across his upper lip. The nail felt smooth against his skin. Since he'd quit drinking again, he'd developed this new habit. But it didn't do anything to curb his craving for smokes.
"And?"
She brought her ear toward one of her bare shoulders, the one closer to him. It was just a plain hotel room, but Jack had been staying there long enough to start thinking of it as home.
Even with the sheet pulled up to her neck, Jack liked what he could see in the bumps and creases of the fabric. He slid his hand down her arm, then toward one of her breasts. She slapped it away.
"And I'd like you to come along on this one, help me out. I might be able to find some use for you."
"Like ride shotgun. Right? Like you need a bigger gun?"
"Yeah, Jack. It's that exactly. I need your big, fucking gun."
Her hand shot toward his crotch, and Jack flinched.
"But I can use you for something work related too." She pursed her lips. "It's not often a girl gets sent into a gang-sponsored fighting tournament on her own."
Jack reached for the nightstand, unconsciously going for the pack of cigarettes he'd left there–the pack he was doing his best to stop smoking.
Without being asked, Gannon handed him her package of nicotine mints. She hadn't smoked around him since they first met, but she'd become very comfortably addicted to the mints.
"Dockery wants to send you into the Triad mix by yourself?" Jack popped a mint, a sensation he already knew he didn't like.
She shook her head. "This comes down from even higher. Federal budget. From now on we're assigned to cases on our own, no partners unless the assignment is deemed Code Level Red."
"And this one is?"
She winked at him. "This one is orange–so long as it doesn't involve multiple cities and potential chemical weapons. That's the highest it can go."
"Nice." Jack flopped back against his pillow, and she rolled over to put her hand on his chest. Just like that he knew he'd be going along with her on this assignment, the one that would take them into Chinatown to investigate a gambling ring based on a human combat tournament that would put MMA and UFC to shame.
He spit the nicotine mint into his hand and dropped it into the ashtray as he reached for his pack of smokes.
They started in Chinatown on Friday night, dressed to the nines and acting like they'd just dropped in from Vegas, looking to gamble Vegas money on whatever they could get involved in, telling anyone who would listen that they wanted in on the new fight games.
They got more than a few skeptical looks. The Chinatown community kept to themselves; they didn't like white folks coming around and asking too many questions. Some, even if they went through Harvard or MIT, went Chinese-only and pretended English was a foreign tongue.
And the fight game was still pretty low-key. Through a wiretap and too many hours of listening time, a desk jockey at the Feds had caught a few hints of something dangerous and new. But from what Jane could gather, even within Chinatown, the word on the street was quiet. And rumors weren't trickling out into the rest of San Francisco yet.
Jack couldn't help but think about it as the Kumite tournament Jean-Claude Van Damme went to Hong Kong for in Bloodsport . From Gannon's report, Jack had read about bodies getting dumped into the Bay or left in the walkway along the inside of the Stockton tunnel.
In the movie, Van Damme won the contest, the first-ever white man to do so, even though he had to fight in the final battle with his eyes blinded by cocaine. The rest of the movie was standard fair: guys representing different countries, playing up different stereotypes. Bolo Yeung even played the big, bad Chinese champion, the same guy Bruce Lee fought at the
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