Jade War

CHAPTER 56 No Surprise

The Sin 8 was one of the liveliest nightclubs in the Dog’s Head district. On a Fourthday evening, the line of fashionably dressed twentysomethings waiting to get inside stretched down the block and around the corner. Once past the bouncers, partygoers lined up again at one of the two neon-lit bars, shouting over the throbbing beat of the music to place their drink orders. The main dance floor heaved with the crush of sweaty bodies and pulsed with strobe lights. Upstairs, those hoping to have audible conversations lounged on the clusters of red sofas or, if they were particularly well heeled, rented one of the fifteen soundproof suites with a private bar and server. One of these rooms was regularly reserved for Ven Haku, Fist of the Mountain and scion of the K-Star Freight fortune, to use whenever he wished to entertain his many friends.

Haku was leaning back on one of the sofas now, and despite the glass of hoji in his hand and a couple of pretty girls on either side of him, he wore a brooding, impatient expression. When his most senior Finger said something funny, he didn’t laugh along with everyone else. After the next round of drinks, Haku motioned the server and the disappointed girls out of the room and sat forward, inducing the five other men in the room—all of them Mountain Green Bones with considerable jade and reputations—to quiet their banter and give him their attention.

“Is everyone ready?” Haku asked. “You’re all clear on the plan? If anything goes wrong this week, we’ll all lose our heads, so there’s no room for error. We’re committed now.”

The men around the room nodded. One of them said, “We haven’t been able to reach either Sunto-jen or Uwan-jen. We don’t know whether they’ll stand with us or against us.”

“We have to go ahead, anyway,” Haku said. His father had made that abundantly clear in their recent conversations. They were running out of time. “No matter which way Sunto or Uwan or the other Fists go, once Ayt’s gone, the Kauls will support us.” That was what Ven Sando had told him, and Haku had not questioned it. He trusted his father, who was a seasoned corporate executive, to handle the matter of clan alliances and getting the Lantern Men to fall in line; Haku only had to worry about the actual logistics of the coup, which was no small feat in itself.

“Just remember to kill Ayt first,” Haku reminded them. “Doesn’t matter how good that woman is at dueling and whispering names, an ambush from six of—”

He would’ve said more, but one of the other Fists interrupted, with sudden alarm, “Do you Perceive that?”

The men quieted, jade senses alert. At first, Haku discerned nothing out of the ordinary—merely the background energy din of all the people enjoying themselves in the club. That was one reason he chose to meet here with his coconspirators: It was easy for even the auras of half a dozen Fists and Fingers together to go unnoticed in such a crowded and lively environment. The club was a tributary Mountain property and there were always other Green Bones among the general throng. Haku’s Perception was not especially strong, but after a minute, he realized that several jade auras were moving from their scattered positions in the building and congregating on the second floor—right outside of their room. Haku drew his talon knife and threw open the door.

“Ven Haku-jen,” said Nau Suen, walking into the room ahead of a group of eight other Green Bones, “I’m too old for the clubbing scene, but I’m told that you throw good parties here.”

“Nau-jen,” Haku said, sheathing his talon knife and dipping into a respectful salute. His eyes darted over Nau’s other men and his heart began to pound. “You startled me.” Haku was not sure how the Horn did it, but Nau Suen had a way of quieting his jade aura to such a low, even hum that he moved inconspicuously even to jade senses and seemed to appear out of nowhere. “My friends and I always have this room. If I knew you were interested in joining us, I’d have invited you.”

Nau glanced around at Ven Haku’s comrades. “Nau-jen,” they murmured in unison, touching their foreheads. Nau nodded at them, then rubbed his chin with a thumb and said, “Haku-jen, you’re one of the clan’s senior Fists, but I haven’t seen much of you in person for months now. I think we ought to talk about all the time you’ve been spending at the Sin 8 in these parties.”

Haku did his best to remain calm. The Horn did not know anything—could not possibly know anything about their schemes. The most he might have were suspicions. “I haven’t been neglecting any of my duties,” he said, with a note of defensiveness. “If I haven’t been checking in as often, it’s because I’ve been helping my father. He’s busy with K-Star Freight these days.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Nau said. “You’re an obedient son, Ven Haku, but unfortunately a terrible liar. Your heart rate and blood pressure are up, your eyes are twitching, you’re sweating. You wouldn’t even pass a simple lie detector test, much less fool my sense of Perception, which is no doubt why you’ve been making an effort to avoid me.”

Haku went for his talon knife. He lunged at Nau’s throat, but two of the Horn’s men were already moving. With combined Strength, they bore the young Fist to the ground and pinned him to the floor. Haku screamed and pleaded his innocence, he tried to Deflect and Channel; two other men came over and helped to hold him down. Waun Balu, who was Nau’s First Fist, said in a regretful, almost gentle voice, “Don’t make it worse for yourself, Haku.” The traitor did not take Waun’s advice; as his head was pulled back, he Steeled for all he was worth, and so it took a full grisly minute for Waun to saw across his throat with the talon knife.

Two of Haku’s accomplices tried to come to his aid, and one of them tried to escape by crashing bodily through the door. They were blocked and forced into a line against the far wall by Nau’s other men, who drew handguns whose bullets could not possibly be Deflected at such close range. If anyone outside of the room heard the noise through the walls and over the pounding music, they did not investigate. No one, including the bouncers, would be so foolish as to interfere. When Haku was finally dead, Nau Suen barked in disgust, “Is it not enough that we have to contend with foreigners and criminals and with the No Peak clan? We have to fight among ourselves, and fear disloyalty and treachery from within our own brotherhood?”

The five Green Bones who’d conspired with Ven and his father dropped to their knees and pressed their heads to the ground. They were all Fists and senior Fingers, respectable fighters in their own right, but with their plotting exposed and Ven dead, they were not stupid enough to think they could stand against the clan or run from its justice. Nau said to them, “You all deserve death, for scheming to assassinate the Pillar and install that weakling in her place. Do you repent your part in this treason? Do you swear on your jade and the lives of your family members to give Ayt-jen your complete and unequivocal loyalty from now on?”

With collective vehemence, the men said that they did, and thanked the Horn for his mercy. Nau Suen studied the handful of kneeling Green Bones for a long minute. Then he pointed out three of the five. “Those three,” he said, and from where they were standing behind the prisoners, Waun Balu and his men slit each of the indicated throats and pushed the bodies face-first to the floor. The two remaining survivors turned pale with anticipation of death.

Nau said, “Your three friends weren’t sincere; they would’ve waited to seek revenge for Haku or betrayed the clan in some other way. The two of you, however, are being truthful.” The Horn fixed them with a terrifying stare. “You’ll be exiled from Janloon, to do work for the Mountain elsewhere in the country, and if you ever go against the Pillar again, you know what will happen to you and your families.”

One of the spared men asked permission to draw his talon knife. He sliced off his left ear and laid it on the floor, head bowed and blood running down his neck. His companion swallowed. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master,” he murmured quickly, and followed suit.

Ven Sando was in a senior management meeting with the leadership team of K-Star Freight the following morning when the door to the boardroom opened unexpectedly and Ayt Madashi strode in, accompanied by the Horn and the Weather Man and a small retinue. The Pillar of the Mountain looked down the long table of company executives and said, “Gentlemen, I apologize for the interruption. The Weather Man’s office has received an offer of purchase for K-Star Freight from a credible and interested party, and I must discuss it with Ven-jen privately before we make the news public to shareholders.”

The vice presidents murmured, looking at each other in surprise and confusion, but they departed without arguing. When they were gone, Ven rose from his leather chair at the end of the table and said, affronted, “I haven’t been approached by any buyers. Besides, K-Star is not for sale.” His gaze landed suspiciously on Nau Suen and the two Fists behind him, one of them carrying a cardboard filing box. If this was a business discussion, why were the Horn and his men here? Ven knew the answer, and despite his best efforts to appear normal, his hands began to shake.

Ayt motioned forward two strangers. They were not Kekonese. “These men are here to buy out your family’s majority ownership of K-Star Freight. Iwe-jen has prepared all the paperwork.” Iwe Kalundo, the clan’s Weather Man, was a dark, bald man with square black glasses frames. He placed his briefcase on the table and extracted a file folder with several documents, which he walked over to Ven and placed in front of the man.

Ven picked up the folder and flung it back across the table at Ayt, scattering pages. “Never,” he declared. “I’ll never sell. You’re making a terrible strategic mistake by trying to oust me. K-Star is one of the Mountain clan’s largest tributary entities, one of the largest corporations in Kekon. There aren’t any other companies with the capital to buy us out, and certainly none with the world-class expertise in transportation logistics to be able to take over our operations. If I leave, my entire management team leaves with me. K-Star will fail, and so will the Kekonese freight industry. The Mountain clan needs K-Star and the Ven family.”

Ayt Mada said, “You’re admirably confident for a clan traitor who is facing death, Ven-jen. Yes, K-Star is one of the largest companies in Kekon, and that would seem to make the Ven family indispensable. But the world is much bigger than Kekon these days; I would think that someone working in the transportation business would appreciate that.”

“You would put K-Star in the hands of foreigners?” Ven exclaimed in disbelief.

“Fifty-one percent of the company will be acquired by YGL Transport, headquartered out of Bursvik. I’m confident that these new owners have the operational capabilities to capably run K-Star in your absence. The other forty-nine percent of K-Star will remain under the control of selected Kekonese shareholders within the Mountain.”

At the Pillar’s nod, the Fist holding the closed cardboard filing box came forward and set it on the table. Ayt said, “Your eldest son, Haku—his head is inside this box. I’ll spare you by not opening it, but even with your tiny amount of jade, I expect you can Perceive that I’m not lying. You forfeited his life and your own when you conspired with No Peak. I’ve been thinking that Kaul Hilo has been acting unusually restrained as of late, and now it’s clear why. Sign the papers, Ven-jen. You come from an old Green Bone family; none of this should surprise you.”

Ven’s fragile mask of indignation and bluster collapsed; his chin trembled and his shoulders began to shudder. “My other children,” he whispered. “They had nothing to do with this. Spare them, Ayt-jen. I’ll sign the papers, I’ll instruct my managers to stay on after the sale, I’ll do whatever else you ask of me before I die, if only you’ll spare the rest of my family.”

“Your sons, no,” Ayt replied. “Your wife and daughters can leave the country in exile. I’ll allow you and your male children to be buried with your jade in the family plot on Kekon. That’s all the accommodation I can give to a man who has betrayed his Pillar.”

Iwe Kalundo gathered the strewn documents back together and showed Ven Sandolan each of the places he was required to sign.