88° North. J.F. Kirwan

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СКАЧАТЬ to footballers. For him, life was motion, and he’d never known a more active city, especially the older generation. He paused to watch a group of ageing women performing the slow, dance-like tai chi fan form, in perfect harmony, all with serene, smiling faces. Under a clutch of trees, a lithe man was teaching the sword form. He crouched low, thighs horizontal, the two fingers of his non-sword hand pointing like a pistol, parallel to the sword held above his head. The fingers represented a knife. The Chef wondered if the teacher really knew knife tai chi – it was almost a lost martial art, replaced by Navy SEAL knife-fighting techniques. The teacher was good. He went from low to high, perched on one foot as the sword angled down at forty-five degrees. His students were not so good, and he didn’t correct them. It was his one criticism of Chinese martial arts training – they didn’t do much actual teaching. They demonstrated, and waited to see if the student got it. It was closer to a talent vetting system. He didn’t criticise too much, however, because it worked. Most people gave up or accepted their limitations, while a few, the very talented ones, persevered and became legends.

      He walked on until he found the person he was looking for. He had to pass by a couple of men who appeared to be chatting, laughing at something on a smartphone. They were watchers. The Chef made a triad hand signal and caught one of the men’s attention. The Chef flicked his eyes to the old man seated on a rusting iron bench beneath a weeping willow. The watcher nodded almost imperceptibly then laughed some more at the smartphone screen.

      The Chef sat next to the old man and placed the brown bag between them.

      ‘Good students never forget,’ the man said, in English.

      He looked sixty. The Chef knew he was closer to eighty, and resembled Hotei, the laughing Buddha. He’d been the Chef’s teacher – his Sifu – for three years back when Hong Kong was a British colony. The Chef had learned Iron Shirt chi gung, a gruelling, body-hardening process that worked on the fascia – thin layers between muscle groups inside the body – and rendered the body resilient to blunt force attacks, and quicker to heal. It had taken nine months, during which the Chef had had to abstain from sex – and then he had stayed longer to perfect the internal arts.

      He recalled asking, on his first day, what the difference was between external and internal martial arts. In the West it was the subject of years of chatroom discussion. His Sifu had replied, matter of fact, that the internal arts were so called because you couldn’t see what was going on. He’d then added that in the West people often sought depth when the water was shallow and the bottom was clear enough. The Chef realised later what a perfect fighting strategy that was, especially for an assassin, because an enemy’s weak spots were often on the surface, not hidden. And at the end of the day, everyone is a bag of flesh and bone, containing a heart, brain and other vital organs. Countless ways to end somebody. Shallow, clear water.

      ‘I must challenge Blue Fan,’ he said. ‘Will I defeat her in combat?’

      The old man sighed, a wrinkle appearing on his shiny forehead before it flattened out. ‘Hand-to-hand, yes, though she is the best Hsing Yi fighter I have ever seen. But if she has her knives, you will not survive.’

      Not what he’d hoped for. But fighting – and war – were about more than single combat. The Chef had always relied on two guides: the Chinese text compiled by Sun Tzu – the Art of War, the distillation of lessons learned from five hundred years of war – and the legendary Japanese swordsman Musashi’s Book of Five Rings.

      ‘I need to know the ground. I have been away for a long time. What are the forces in play.’

      ‘You seek Salamander.’

      It wasn’t a question. The Chef didn’t insult his master by asking how he knew.

      The old man leant forward and grunted as he rose slowly to his feet. Suddenly the two young men were by his side, supporting him. It was an act. The old man would only show his prowess behind closed doors, and then only to a chosen few. It was when such teachers neared their end that they became more generous, finally imparting their secrets. Most students wanted to train with younger teachers who looked good; a few smart ones knew where they could gain the deepest knowledge.

      The Chef remained seated. He’d not been invited to join them.

      ‘You must not kill Blue Fan,’ the old man said. ‘Salamander is another matter. He has brought shame on us all.’

      He started to walk away.

      The Chef pushed his luck, given that the interview was over. ‘I need her to get to him.’

      The old man paused, then turned around. ‘Find the Judge. Demand ritual combat for the White Tiger triad. Tell him I sent you.’

      The Chef rolled it around in his mind. If he challenged Blue Fan to ritual combat, it was her right to choose the weapon, and she would select knives, the one weapon he had never been taught. His Sifu, the man standing in front of him, had refused to teach him knife unless he agreed to remain in Hong Kong. There was one more thing he needed to know.

      ‘Who trained her in the knife fighting form?’

      The old man beamed. ‘We Chinese seek longevity. You Westerners like to live fast and die young, while your gonads are still full of fire.’ His eyes softened. ‘You could have been so much more if you had remained here. Goodbye, Chu Shi.’

      The Chef stayed while the sky darkened and night closed in, immersing him in a cacophony of traffic, horns, and the squawks of chattering starlings seeking somewhere to sleep amidst the brightening neon. Many years ago, his master had given him his nickname. In Cantonese it meant head chef, or boss. His Sifu

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