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pick me up in front. Cowboy, come with me. I have to do a quick damage assessment.”
    Dragon stood. Brennan stopped in front of him and they looked at each other for a long moment. There was something strange about Lazy Dragon, Brennan suddenly thought, something hidden, something utterly unfathomable that went beyond his unusual ace power. But the man had saved his life.
    â€œLucky you had a tiger on you.”
    Dragon smiled. “I like to have a backup handy. Something more deadly than a mouse.”
    Brennan nodded. “I’m in your debt,” he said.
    â€œI’ll remember that.” Dragon turned to help Whiskers with Deadhead.
    Downstairs there were five dead Egrets, and half a dozen deceased mafiosi. The surviving Egrets were buzzing like angry bees.
    Fadeout shook his head. “Damn. It’s escalating. Little Mother isn’t going to like this.”
    Brennan squelched the expression of sudden interest before it reached his face. He said nothing, because he was afraid his voice would betray him. Little Mother, Siu Ma, was the head of the Immaculate Egrets. If Fadeout was a lieutenant in Kien’s organization, she was at least a colonel. In all his months of investigation he’d discovered only that she was an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who’d come to the states in the late 1960s to become the wife of Nathan Chow, the leader of a penny-ante street gang called the Immaculate Egrets. Her arrival corresponded with a quick rise in the fortune of the Egrets, little of which was enjoyed by Chow. He had died under unspecified but mysterious circumstances in 1971, and Siu Ma took over the gang, which continued to grow and prosper. Kien, then still an ARVN general, used it to funnel heroin into the States. There was no doubt that Siu Ma was very high in Kien’s organization, very high indeed.
    â€œWe have to split before the cops arrive,” Fadeout said. He turned to an Ingram-toting Egret. “Leave this place. Take all the files, all valuables.”
    The Egret nodded, sketched an informal salute, and started shouting orders in rapid Chinese.
    â€œLet’s go,” Fadeout repeated, carefully picking his way among the bodies.
    â€œWhere to?” Brennan asked as casually as he could.
    â€œLittle Mother’s place in Chinatown. I’ve got to tell her what happened.”
    A sleek limo pulled up to the curb. Whiskers was driving, Deadhead lolled in the backseat with Lazy Dragon. Fadeout got in and Brennan followed him, excitement thrumming through his body like tautly stretched wire.
    He carefully noted the route that Whiskers took, but he had no idea at all where they were when the limo finally stopped in a small, ramshackle garage in a dirty, garbage-choked alley. His unfamiliarity with the area irritated him and upset his fine-tuned sense of control. He hated the helpless feeling that had been plaguing him lately, but there was nothing to do but swallow it and go on.
    Whiskers, his mask back in place, and Lazy Dragon dragged Deadhead from the limo on Fadeout’s order. The significance of that wasn’t lost on Brennan. He knew that he’d gone up a notch or two in Fadeout’s estimation, which was exactly what he wanted. The closer he got to the core of Kien’s organization, the easier it would be for him to bring it tumbling down like a house of cards.
    The door they approached wasn’t as flimsy as it appeared. It was also locked and guarded, but the sentinel let them in after peering through a peephole when Fadeout knocked.
    â€œSiu Ma is asleep,” the guard said. He was a large Chinese dressed in traditional baggy trousers, broad leather belt, and matching tunic top. The machine pistol holstered on his broad leather belt was a jarring anachronism with his antique style of dress, but, Brennan reflected, was a sensible compromise with what was apparently Siu Ma’s strongly developed sense of tradition.
    â€œShe’ll want to