Red Tiger
Red Tiger
A Ryan Lock Novel
Sean Black
Contents
About the Book
Author’s Note
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part II
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Also by Sean Black
About the Author
Copyright © 2018 Sean Black
Sean Black has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction, and except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
About the Book
The winner of the 2018 International Thriller Writers Award returns with his latest explosive thriller featuring ex-military bodyguard Ryan Lock and his business partner, retired US Marine, Ty Johnson.
When the daughter of a Chinese billionaire is kidnapped from her mansion in Arcadia, California, Ryan and Ty find themselves caught in the middle of a vicious standoff.
Emily Yan is a Chinese 'parachute kid', one of thousands of children sent to study in America by their ultra-wealthy parents. Living in a multi-million dollar mansion in Arcadia, California with her hard-partying cousin Charlie, it's not long before their ostentatious displays of wealth attract the wrong sort of attention in the form of some MS-13 gang members.
But someone else has been looking for Emily, a shadowy figure from back home known only as The Red Tiger.
Two very different worlds collide in this explosive new thriller from Sean Black as Ryan Lock and his business partner, wise-cracking US Marine Ty Johnson, set out to save Emily from a violent tug of war between two deadly forces; the brutal members of America's most dangerous gang, and an equally determined Chinese enforcer called the Red Tiger.
Praise for Sean Black
"This series is ace. It stars bodyguard Ryan Lock, here hired to protect a glamorous movie star with a headless corpse in her car. There are deservedly strong Lee Child comparisons as the author is a Brit (Scottish), his novels US-based, his character appealing, and his publisher the same. " – Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller, reviewing Gridlock
"An impressive debut thriller from Sean Black that introduces a new full-on action hero. Clearly influenced by Lee Child and Joseph Finder, Black drives his hero into the tightest spots with a force and energy that jump off the page. He still has a little to learn when it comes to depth of character and pacing, but that won't take long. Lock is clearly going to be around for a long time. With a spine-tingling finale that reminded me of Die Hard, this is a writer, and a hero, to watch." – Geoffrey Wansell. The Daily Mail, reviewing Lockdown
"Sean Black writes with the pace of Lee Child, and the heart of Harlan Coben. Lockdown is a sure-fire winner" – Joseph Finder, New York Times Bestselling Author of Buried Secrets
"In Lockdown, Sean Black's hero, Ryan Lock, causes New York to be sealed against a terrorist threat. The synergy between name and title matters because it highlights the artifice underlying an excellent first novel. Like Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Lock is an ex-military policeman. Unlike Reacher, he has a job (as an elite bodyguard), a home, friends and a sense of humour. Lock's likeability contrasts with Reacher's pomposity and Black's style is supremely slick.” – Jeremy Jehu, The Daily Telegraph, reviewing Lockdown
Sean’s books that were nominated for, or have won, the International Thriller Writers Award (previous winners include Stephen King, Jon Gilstrap Megan Abbott & Joseph Finder) presented annually in New York City.
Post (nominated in 2015)
The Edge of Alone (nominated in 2017)
Second Chance (winner in 2018)
Author’s Note
In China and Chinese culture, names are written, and expressed, with the family or surname, coming first. For ease of reading in English I have reversed the order to the more conventional (for English language readers) Western order. So, for example, Yan Emily is written as Emily Yan.
Part I
1
The Red Tiger stared down at the man’s bloodied face. There were several deep cuts above his right eye. His cheekbone was shattered, and his scalp was crisscrossed with hundreds of small incisions. The man’s hands were secured behind the seat back. His legs were tied together at the ankles. His mouth wasn’t covered but that hardly mattered. Even if someone from the nearby village heard his screams, they wouldn’t come to investigate. Nor would they tell the authorities.
They were simple country folk, who avoided trouble at all costs. Not that avoiding trouble was the reason they would keep their own counsel. People in this area loved the Red Tiger. He was a bringer of justice. A righter of wrongs.
There was fear too. How could there not be? He had done terrible things. He had killed without mercy. But, mostly, love and admiration ensured their silence.
To the people of the village, and hundreds like it across the vast expanse of mainland China, the Red Tiger offered something that no policeman could. In their time of deepest need he offered hope.
“You know who I am?” said the Red Tiger.
The man began to cry. His head bobbed up and down.
“Then you must also know why I’m here.”
The furious nodding stopped. “I can’t.”
The Red Tiger reached down, opened the bag of salt and scooped out a palmful. “Where?” said the Red Tiger.
“They’ll kill me.”
“That happens either way. But I can make it go fast.”
The palmful of salt hovered over the man’s scalp. He swallowed hard. “They’ll kill my family too,” he said.
“And I won’t?”
“You never have. You don’t touch the innocent. Everyone knows that.”
The Red Tiger seemed caught off guard. The salt spilled through his parted fingers and landed harmlessly on the floor. Some caught on the shoulder of the man’s jacket.
“This is different.”
“How? How can it be different?” said the man in the chair. It was a genuine question. What faced him was grotesque and violent. He accepted that. In some ways, he deserved it. But it wasn’t any different from any other t
ime.
Men, sometimes women, taken somewhere quiet. Tortured until they died or gave up their secrets. Then dumped, after night had fallen, by the side of the road. Sometimes a poster was left with them, a child’s face staring back at whoever found them.
Justice delivered. Swift, macabre, a warning to others.
The Red Tiger produced a piece of paper. He unfolded it and held it up for the man to examine.
It meant nothing to him. “I don’t remember anything about this one. There have been so many.”
“Look at the name.”
The man peered at the bottom of the poster. He read the name out loud. Before his mouth had stopped moving he knew what he had just been told. He swallowed again. It hurt his throat. He started to cry again. Not for himself. For those he loved.
“Your family,” said the Red Tiger. “A wife. Two sons. You’re a lucky man to have had two sons when you did.”
Until a few years ago the Communist Party had decreed that each family could have only one child. Unless, of course, there was special dispensation, or you had a good reason for another, such as adopting a relative’s child.
“My brother in the country. He died. His wife couldn’t cope,” said the man.
It was a lie so well rehearsed that he had finished repeating it before he realized how absurd it sounded in the present company. The Red Tiger must have heard it, with some slight variation, dozens, maybe hundreds of times.
“You recognize the name?”
The man nodded.
“You still think I wouldn’t kill your family?” asked the Red Tiger.
“No. I believe you. You would.”
The Red Tiger leaned down.
The man felt hot breath next to his ear. “Your wife is already dead, Xi. Your sons, they are alive, but gone. You’ll never see them again. If I have to, I can arrange that they die.”
Xi felt a deep ache of grief flood through him. His wife. It had all been for her. That was how it had begun many years ago when he had come home from the factory to find her staring at the wall. She’d seen the doctor. The news had been bad. Xi had done what he had to. Once he had started, and realized the demand, he had been sucked into the life. Now it was time to pay the price.
Xi Yow Chang blinked the blood from his eye. The Red Tiger’s face came into focus. Nothing special to look at. Nothing to suggest that this was someone dangerous.
The Red Tiger’s features softened. “Tell me what you know.”
Xi began to talk. He stumbled and strained over some details. It had been a long time ago. Almost two decades. His memory was hazy. But he confessed enough to satisfy the Red Tiger.
When he was done, the Red Tiger gave him a cigarette. When he was halfway through and had just drawn a fresh puff of smoke deep into his lungs, the Red Tiger walked behind him, and shot him twice in the back of the head.
2
Li Yeng grabbed his cell phone from the seat of his car. He tapped the answer icon. His hands were trembling slightly. The boss called every week, on the same day and at the same time, to get an update on his daughter, Emily. The other kid, Charlie, Emily’s cousin, was mentioned in as much as he impacted on Emily, which was more frequently. Charlie was trouble. Not a bad kid, but reckless and thoroughly spoiled by the boss’s sister.
This was not the usual time or day of the week. That alone unsettled Li Yeng. His boss was a man with an iron routine. You didn’t gather the wealth and power he had without such self-discipline. To make a fortune in America was one matter. To do it in China, where everything could be taken from you on the whim of a government official, was something else. Americans didn’t know how lucky they were.
Li greeted his boss. He was always formal with him. Always.
“It’s happened,” said Chow Yan.
It took a moment for Li to realize what “it” was. The clue was in how his boss said the word. He sounded fearful. That narrowed the possibilities down to one.
“How?” asked Li.
“That’s not important.”
“What should I do?” asked Li. He had a thousand other questions, but this was the only one that felt appropriate. Whatever the boss asked of him, he would do. Regardless.
“There’s nothing to do. Be thankful you’re there and not here. I just wanted you to know.”
The boss hung up without a goodbye or any further instruction. Li Yeng sat there for a moment. A car horn sounded behind him. He watched in his rearview as the driver leaned out of his window. “Wake up, asshole,” the man shouted.
Li lowered his window and hit the button. The machine spat out a parking ticket. He snatched it. The barrier lifted. Li drove through, went up a level and found a space.
He visited this building in downtown Los Angeles once a month. Just to make sure that everything was as it should be. An American agency managed the day-to-day running, but it was always good to make sure they were doing their job. His boss had purchased it back in 2008 after the financial crash, along with two others in a six-block radius.
As Li exited his car, the irate driver who’d shouted at him sped past. Li raised his hand in apology, the way people did here. It was important to blend in. Not to upset the Americans. What was the expression people here used? To fly under the radar.
If they could all do that then perhaps nothing would come of the news he had just received from home.
3
One week later
Arcadia, California
* * *
“Would you please turn down that music?”
It was two in the morning, her cousin Charlie was driving like a complete a-hole, and Emily Yan needed to be at her first class of the day in six hours. She hadn’t even wanted to go out tonight. Who went to clubs on a Tuesday? But she knew that if she didn’t go with him Charlie would only get into even more trouble than he usually did. Only last week he had almost gotten arrested. He would have been if Li Yeng hadn’t paid off the kid Charlie had punched.
“What? You don’t like Kanye?” Charlie shot her the easy smile that girls who weren’t his cousin fell for.
“No, he’s an idiot. Which maybe explains why you like him.”
“You’re funny.”
Charlie laughed and pressed down even harder on the Lamborghini’s gas pedal. The fresh burst of acceleration pushed Emily back into her seat. Charlie had no business driving a car like this. He only did it to keep up with his idiot friends. She’d wanted to take the Audi, but Charlie had insisted they take the “Lambo”. He said it like that, Lambo, and sounded like a complete tool.
Emily really wished her aunt would send for her cousin, but there was no chance of that happening. The family was all about them getting their education here in America. America was safe. The schools were good. They had the money, so why not?
She and Charlie were parachute kids. Chinese kids sent to America to get an education while their parents stayed in China. There were thousands of them up and down both American coasts. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, New York.
Emily and Charlie lived in a seven-thousand-square-foot house her father had bought for them in Arcadia, thirteen miles north-east of Los Angeles. It was pretty much little China, but for rich Chinese families rather than poor immigrants from places like Taiwan. Over half the population was Chinese, with many parachute kids, like Emily and Charlie. There were also lots of ernai, the beautiful young mistresses of wealthy Chinese businessmen and government officials.
The street where Emily and Charlie lived was known as an ernaicun, a mistress village. It drove Emily crazy. She didn’t want anyone to think she was an ernai. On the other hand, Charlie loved it. He was always hitting on the cute little ernai across the street. Emily had warned him what would happen if her “sponsor” found out but, as with everything else, Charlie didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he was untouchable.
The Lamborghini was almost flat out. The speed made Emily nervous. She checked WeChat on her iPhone X as Kanye blasted from the speakers a
nd the wind whipped her hair across her face.
The supercar slowed abruptly.
Charlie angrily thumped his hands against the wheel. The engine was making a metallic whining noise.
“What is it?” Emily asked.
“How do I know?”
He pulled the Lamborghini into the breakdown lane, opened his door and got out. He walked to the front and tried to yank up the hood so he could look at the engine. This would be good. Emily still had to show him how to put gas in it. He couldn’t even lift the hood so the idea of him fixing the problem was pretty hilarious.
“I told you we should have taken the Audi. How many times has this thing broken down?”
“Can you just be quiet?”
“Fine.” She went back to scrolling through her WeChat messages.