Wildcards

He held a recurved bow, forty-two inches long, made of layers of fiberglass laminated around a yew core. Bre

The case also held a three-fingered leather glove which Bre

He listened, but could hear nothing. He tried the door, found it unlocked, and cracked it open half an inch. An arc of light spilled out and he found himself looking into a swatch of the kitchen. It, too, was empty and quiet.

He slid inside, a silent blot of darkness in the stainless steel and white porcelain room. Keeping low, moving fast, he went to the double swinging doors that led out into the dining area and cautiously peeked through the oval window set into the door. He saw what he had been afraid he would see. The waiters, cooks, and customers were huddled together in one corner of the room under the watchful eyes of a man armed with an automatic pistol. Two others held Minh spreadeagled against a wall while a third worked him over. Minh's face was bruised and bloody, his eyes were swollen shut. The man who was beating him methodically with a leather sap was also questioning him.

Bre

Kien had recognized Minh and ordered him hunted down. Minh was one of the few people in America who could identify Kien, who knew that he had methodically and ruthlessly used his position as an ARVN general to betray his country, his men, and his American allies. Bre

He reached into his back pocket, withdrew a hood, and slipped it on, covering his features from his upper lip to the top of his head.

He took a moment to breathe deep, to drown his emotions in a void of nothingness, to forget his rage, his fear, his friend, his need for revenge, to forget even himself. He became nothing so that he would be all. He was not angry, not calm. He rose silently to his feet and stepped through the door, sank down on one knee behind a table and drew his first shaft.

The quiet, assured words of Ishida, his roshi, filled his mind like the somnolent tolling of a great bell.

"Be simultaneously the aimer and the aimed, the hitter and hit. Be a full vessel waiting to be emptied. Loose your burden when the moment is right, without thinking or direction, and in that ma

He stared without seeing, forgetting whether his targets were men or bales of hay, loosed his first shaft, dropped his hand to the quiver at his belt, took out his next arrow, nocked, lifted the bow, and drew the string while the first shaft was still on its way.

The first arrow hit while he was shifting his aim to take in the third target. They realized they were being attacked by the time the second arrow had struck and the fourth was released. By then it was too late.

He had chosen the order of his targets before becoming submerged in the void. The first was the man guarding the hostages with the drawn gun. The shaft struck him in the back, high on the left side. It skewered his heart, sliced through one lung, and burst out half a foot from his chest. The impact hurled him forward, astonished, into the arms of a waiter.

They both stared at the bloody aluminum shaft protruding from his chest. The gunman opened his mouth to swear or pray, but blood gushed forth, drowning his words. He slumped forward, his legs gone rubbery, and the waiter dropped him.

The two who held Minh released him. He slumped to the floor as they reached for the weapons at their belts. One had his hand pi

Nine seconds had elapsed. The sudden silence was broken only by the pained weeping of the man nailed to the wall.

Bre

The one who was gutshot was curled up on the floor, unconscious and in shock. The other, pi

Bre

He was badly hurt. All his limbs were broken-it must have been agonizing to have been held up the way he wasand internal damage must have been massive. His breathing was shallow and shuddering. His eyes were swollen shut. They probably wouldn't have focused even if he could have opened them.

"Ong Id ai?" he breathed at Bre

"Bre

Minh smiled a ghastly smile. Blood bubbled on his lips and gleamed on his teeth.

"I knew you would come, Captain."

"Don't speak. We have to get help-"

Minh shook his head. The effort cost him. He coughed and grimaced in pain.

"No. I am dying. I must tell you. It is Kien. This proves it. They wanted to know if I told anyone, but I would say nothing. They don't know of you."

"They will," Bre

"I had hoped to help. Like the old days. Like the old days." His mind wandered for a moment and Bre

"Call an ambulance," he ordered. "And the police. Tell them there's three more on the street in front. Move." One of the waiters leaped to follow his orders while the others watched in mute incomprehension.

"Help you," Minh repeated, "help you." He fell silent for a moment and then seemed to make a supreme effort to speak rationally and clearly. "You must listen. Scar has kidnapped Mai. I was following him, trying to get a lead to where he had taken Mai, when I saw him and Kien together in the back of a limousine. Go to Chrysalis, Crystal Palace. She might know where he's taken her. I couldn't… find… out." His last sentence was interrupted by bloody fits of coughing.

"Why did they take her?" Bre

Bre

But Minh didn't listen. He rose up, clutching Bre

"Find Mai. Help. Her."

He settled back, sighed. Blood bubbled on his lips. "Toi met," he said. I am tired.

Bre

"Rest, then."

Minh nodded and died.