Shiva snorted. “No one but you.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Kade. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

Kade felt a flush rise to his cheeks, felt his face go hot.

He’s right, Ilya whispered in Kade’s ear. No one but you.

Kade took a breath. This was nuts. He had to get out of here.

He opened his hands towards Shiva, placatingly. “Look, if you want to convince me,” he told the older man, “why not just take this off?” His fingers rose to the metal disk at his throat.

Shiva laughed.

“And you would use that access to my mind to coerce me, to ‘escape’, out to a world where you’re in far more danger than here. I don’t think so, Kade.”

“I give you my word,” Kade said. “Let me just see what’s going on in your mind. Not just some carefully selected memories. All of it. I promise not to do anything other than look.”

Shiva smiled grimly. “You’re a terrible liar, Kade.”

Chapter 54: Brother in Arms

54

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Sunday October 28th

Feng woke slowly. His head throbbed. Intense pain came from his left side, from his right knee, from his shoulder. And he was hungry, so hungry. His body’s emergency genes had kicked in, working to heal the damage, demanding protein, fats, calcium, all the raw materials required to rebuild him. Feng ignored the gnawing hunger, kept his eyes closed, tried to take stock of his situation.

He was seated. A hard metal chair by the feel of it. His hands were cuffed behind his shoulders to his ankles, pulling them up off the floor. Professional.

His internal GPS gave him his location. Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam. Saigon. South side of town. Eighteen meters above street level.

Two kilometers from his last location, on the fifth or sixth floor. Who had him? Bounty hunters? Police? The mystery men with the Indian boss?

He opened his senses, listened to the room. A soft sound of breathing, three meters in front of him. Slow. Rhythmic. Deep. A lone male. Fit.

Feng tensed his muscles ever so slightly, aiming for the smallest motion, the minimum of sound. How strong were these cuffs? How strong was this chair?

“Ni hao,” a voice greeted him in perfectly accented Mandarin: Welcome back.

Feng sighed and opened his eyes. He was in a soundproofed room, the walls thickly padded. And across from him, seated in a chair, was a tall Asian man. Japanese, perhaps. In his forties. Graying at the temples, but still fit and hard. In his hand was a silenced pistol of Chinese design, pointed at Feng. On his face was a grim smile.

Feng recognized the man from Kade’s memories.

“You’re Nakamura,” Feng said.

“And you’re Feng,” Nakamura replied.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

Feng broke it. “You pulled me from the building?”