Jackal Read online

  The skinny Asian man that Phoenix had choked groaned and slowly sat up, brushing dirt off of his face. I noticed a large bruise forming there, as if he’d been punched.

  “Ooooohhh, dear me,” he said in perfect English. “I am so light-headed.”

  “Take shallow breaths,” Phoenix said. “If you breathe too deeply, you might pass out again.”

  The man nodded, and I glanced over at Hú Dié, Ryan, and Raffi. They’d formed a wide circle around the short, fat Chinese guy. He’d said that he meant us no harm, but my friends obviously weren’t taking any chances. That was another thing I hated about dragon bone. Violence followed wherever it went.

  Phoenix pulled a fancy pen from one of the pockets in his cargo shorts and handed it to the skinny man. “You’d better be careful with this. I thought it was a knife.”

  The man rubbed his jaw. “Is that why you socked me?”

  “No,” Phoenix replied. “I socked you because you were stalking me and my friends. I choked you because of the pen.”

  “I apologize if you thought I was a stalker. I can assure you, this is not the case. I simply wanted to speak with you and your friends, and with Jake in particular.”

  “Then why didn’t you come talk with us back at the main track?” Ryan asked.

  The skinny man stood on shaky legs. “To be honest, we were taken aback by what we saw. We followed your van to the track from downtown San Francisco—which I’ll admit is rather like stalking—but we only wanted to talk with you about road bike racing. Once we saw what Jake could do on a BMX bike, well, that changed our plans. By the time we were ready to approach you, you’d already headed for this patch of woods. We intended to follow you by driving along the same path you took through the field, but then we saw a proper road leading here. It meant a bit of a hike through the woods on foot for me, but by taking the road, our vehicle wouldn’t disrupt the fields. We were being considerate of the landowners.”

  “You should learn to be more considerate of us,” Phoenix said.

  “I see that now. Your kung fu is very good.”

  “What do you really want?” I asked. “If this has anything to do with dragon bone—”

  “Dragon bone?” the skinny man asked. “Dear me, no. We’ve come to discuss bicycle racing. Specifically, you racing for a Chinese national team. You and your friends, Jake.”

  “Huh?” I said. “Hú Dié is the only one who is Chinese.”

  “Exactly. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ling, and this”—he gestured toward the short, fat guy—“is Mr. Chang. He is the head of a special committee that has been set up to try to popularize bicycle racing in China. China is a powerhouse in many professional and Olympic sports, but bicycle racing is in its infancy in our county. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people ride bicycles every day, but few actually compete on them and fewer still do it outside of Asia. It’s rather silly, to be honest, but the simple truth is that most Chinese people don’t know about the opportunities available to race bicycles, whether it’s road bikes, mountain bikes, cyclocross bikes, BMX bikes, or velodrome bikes. It’s Mr. Chang’s job to fix that.”

  “What does this have to do with me?”

  “We need a poster boy, Jake. We’re going to focus on recruiting kids, and who better to celebrate than a boy who just beat a field of adults? Never mind that you are not a Chinese citizen. The fact that you’re American will actually help our cause. You are the perfect candidate. Not only can you ride, but you also have the perfect look. Your appearance is consistent with that of a California surfer. Everyone loves a surfer, especially Chinese girls.” He winked. “You’ll have more girlfriends than you’ll know what to do with.”

  I felt myself begin to blush.

  “He is right, Jake,” Hú Dié said. “About the girls, and about bike racing. I have been wishing my entire life that bike racing was more popular in China. I would love to be able to race every summer weekend like you guys do here in the States.”

  Mr. Chang pointed to Hú Dié and said something in Chinese. This time, she was the one who blushed. The fat man grinned.

  “What did he say?” Raffi asked.

  “Mr. Chang complimented my looks as well as my riding,” Hú Dié said. “He also complimented Ryan and Phoenix. He is certain we would all be famous across China.”

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “We want the four of you to race together,” Ling said. “We’d like a poster team as much as a poster boy, if we can have it. In addition to your all-American surfer looks, Jake, Ryan has the powerful European physique, Phoenix has his unique green-eyed, red-haired Chinese/Caucasian appearance, and Hú Dié is clearly strong yet possesses a classic Chinese beauty. You are not only a talented bunch, you’re a marketing dream. I wouldn’t be surprised if your fame were to spread beyond China, across the entire world.”

  I saw a glimmer in the eyes of all three of my friends. Even Raffi seemed stoked.

  “Yo, Jake,” Raffi said. “If this dude is for real, you should seriously consider his offer.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. It sounds too much like work to me.”

  Raffi snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I forgot. You hate to work. Otherwise, you’d be the one wearing the BMX jersey with all the sponsor logos instead of me.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t hate me for this, Jake, but you’ve got to stop being so lazy. You could really do something with this.”

  “You don’t get it,” I said. “I worked really hard the past few weeks, learning to race road bikes. It was fun, and I won a race. Big deal. I’m already over it. You probably don’t know this, but first place in that race came with a professional sponsorship. I told them that I wasn’t interested, and they were glad because they didn’t want a kid. I’d rather ride a BMX bike or even a mountain bike instead of a road bike, any day. Road bikes are kind of … boring.”

  Ling grinned. “That’s exactly what we were discussing in the parking lot. We drove out here expecting to invite you to China as a four-person road racing team. However, seeing you ride BMX broadened our focus. I recalled reading stories of the four of you racing mountain bikes in Indiana as well as Ryan and Phoenix training for cyclocross in Texas. We’ve decided that we’d like the four of you to participate as a team in a road race in Shanghai this Saturday. Afterward, we’ll arrange for all of you to participate in different types of cycling races throughout the rest of the year, depending upon your interest level and skills. The four of you already have a fair amount of media exposure in China because of your victory the other night in San Francisco, combined with your brush with gangsters in Chinatown, which was all over the Chinese newspapers. We can use that. You will be stars. You’ll be asked to sign more autographs after the race than the rest of the participants combined. I guarantee it.”

  “I don’t care about being famous,” I said, “especially if it has anything to do with those Chinese gangsters. I don’t even care about winning races. I just want to have fun with my friends.”

  “It sounds like it would be fun, Jake,” Phoenix said.

  “Yeah,” Ryan said. “It would be a riot.”

  I sighed and looked at Hú Dié. “What do you think?”

  She smiled. “It would be my dream come true, but this is not about me. What do you want?”

  “I just want to ride my bike, bros,” I said. “I don’t care about racing. I want to go home and chill with you guys for the next two weeks. That’s all the summer vacation we have left.”

  “Think of it this way,” Ling said. “If you accept our offer, your summer vacation will never end. You’ll be enrolled in an American-style school, but you won’t be there much. You’ll be too busy racing and making public appearances. Your schedule will be like that of college athletes.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “How long do you expect me to stay in China?”

  “At least one year. More than likely, two or three.”

  “That’s insane! No way.”

  “It
’s not that insane,” Ryan said. “I spent six months training in Belgium. The time flew by, and even though my uncle was a jerk, I still had a lot of fun. Living in a foreign country is cool.”

  “It is cool,” Phoenix said, “especially China. I was only there for a few days, but I could tell that it would be neat to live in a big city like Shanghai if I had some friends to hang out with.”

  “And I would be there to translate for everyone,” Hú Dié said. “Oh, Jake! We would have the best time ever!”

  I shook my head. “I’m still not feeling it.”

  Ling removed a business card from the pocket of his suit jacket and held it out to me. “Why don’t you take a day and think about it? We can’t wait any longer than that. The Shanghai race is coming up fast.”

  “What if I say no?” I asked. “Would my friends still be able to join your team?”

  “No. We need a winner, Jake. You won the race. Our plan won’t work without you.”

  “Hey,” Phoenix said. “I have an idea. How about Jake only commits to a week in China? It would be like a trial run. We all go and do the race, and Jake gets a chance to see how he likes it.”

  “Hmmm,” Ling said. “Just a moment.” He turned to Mr. Chang, and they spoke in Chinese for a minute. Ling turned back to us and said, “We could do one week.”

  I took the business card from Ling. “I’ll think it over. Don’t get your hopes up, though.”

  Ling nodded. “Remember, I’ll need your answer by tomorrow night, at the very latest.”

  “Okay.”

  Raffi pulled a cell phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. “Yo,” he said. “I hate to be a party pooper, but don’t you all have a plane to catch?”

  Ryan glanced at his training watch. “We don’t actually fly out until really late, but it does look like our hour is up. Bummer. I guess I’ll have to find a BMX trail somewhere in Indiana to see if I can fly like you guys.”

  “You’re welcome to come back here anytime,” Raffi said. “All of you.”

  “Thanks, bro,” I said. “I’d like to do that, especially if I take a pass on China. Any chance we could all come and crash at your place over fall break or something?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Raffi said. “My mom still asks after you, even though she knows we lost touch. Your friends seem solid, too. You’re in.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Did you change your phone number when you moved?”

  “Nope,” Raffi said. “I still have the same digits. So do my folks.”

  “Sweet. I’ll be in touch.” I turned to Phoenix, Ryan, and Hú Dié. “Come on, guys. Let’s go home.”

  The rest of the day flew by, and we boarded the plane to Indiana without any drama. I buckled in for the four-and-a-half-hour overnight flight, sitting next to Ryan and his mom. Less than fifteen minutes after takeoff, they were both sound asleep.

  I wasn’t surprised. It was midnight, and half the people on the plane had already nodded off. I’d forgotten to charge my computer tablet after using it at the airport, so I flipped on the overhead light and poked through the seat pocket in front of me for something to eyeball. I found a copy of a San Francisco newspaper from the previous day. One of the headlines read:

  SEARCH FOR CYCLIST’S BODY CALLED OFF

  I frowned and unfolded the paper to take a closer look.

  SAN FRANCISCO—Authorities have called off the search for the remains of controversial professional cyclist Lin Tan. His body disappeared during an investigation into the death of a Chinatown resident and reputed Chinese mafia kingpin known only as DuSow.

  DuSow, literally Poison Hand in Chinese, was found strangled to death outside his wharf-front warehouse immediately following last week’s nighttime criterium bicycle race. According to security surveillance video and eyewitness accounts, he was killed by one of his former associates, DaXing, who is still at large.

  Lin Tan’s body was found at the scene, and the same eyewitnesses claim he fell victim to DuSow’s reputed ability to poison someone simply by touching his victim’s skin. Preliminary tests of DuSow’s remains suggest these reports may be plausible, and skin discoloration on areas of Lin Tan’s remains are consistent with that of death by poison.

  Lin Tan’s body was photographed at the scene by an EMT who failed to locate a pulse. Because of concerns over secondhand poison transfer, the body was temporarily left where it lay—draped over the railing of DuSow’s sailboat, The Strong Hold. Authorities believe that at some unknown point during the investigation, Lin Tan’s body slipped off of the railing, into San Francisco Bay, where powerful currents washed it out to sea.

  The Coast Guard has been patrolling the bay since the incident, but to no avail. As of this morning, all search efforts have been suspended. Lin Tan’s death has been officially ruled a homicide, and the investigation is still open.

  I folded the newspaper and shoved it back into the seat pocket. What horrible news. It seemed every time I turned around, dragon bone reared its ugly head. The stuff wasn’t mentioned in the article, but that was only because Ryan, his mom, Phoenix, and I, along with several others, had done such a good job of conveniently forgetting to bring it up to investigators. The truth was, both DuSow and Lin Tan were dead because of dragon bone, and so were lots of other people. I’d argued with Phoenix that telling the police was the best way to get dragon bone out of our lives for good, but in the end I caved to his pleas that we all keep our mouths shut.

  Phoenix was a great guy, but he could be clueless sometimes. He did whatever his grandfather told him to do. His grandfather wanted to keep dragon bone secret, because he knew that his life would be changed forever if word got out that he was four hundred years old, thanks to dragon bone. I would never have believed the old man’s true age if I hadn’t seen what I’d seen over the past few weeks. Dragon bone was truly some messed-up stuff.

  I turned off my overhead light and shut my eyes, trying to think happier thoughts. As cheesy as it sounds, the first thing that came to mind was my parents. I liked them. A lot. I mean, sure, my mom talked too much and my dad was kind of hyper, but they took good care of me and were really great to hang out with. I just wished we got to hang out more often. Like Raffi said, they were super busy people.

  Even so, I felt lucky. None of my friends had “normal” homes. Ryan’s dad had passed away from cancer less than a year ago, and he lived with just his mom. Hú Dié’s mom was in an assisted-living facility because she had ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—so it was just Hú Dié and her dad at home. Both of Phoenix’s parents had died in a car wreck when he was a baby, and he lived with his grandfather. If there was one thing I couldn’t complain about, it was two solid parents.

  My folks knew most of what had happened in San Francisco, but I never told them about dragon bone. It wasn’t so much because of the bad guys involved, but the good guys—like Ryan, a wise old Chinese woman named Hok who lived in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and even Phoenix’s grandfather. I knew how careful my parents were about legal issues, and I’m positive they’d never let me hang out with any of my friends again if they knew what I knew. More than that, if my parents ever found out that I’d withheld important information from investigators, they’d kill me.

  I’d talked with my mom for, like, an hour before our flight took off, and it was nice to hear her voice. As usual, she did most of the talking, motor-mouthing about the weather and other nonsense, but that’s exactly what I needed back in my life—a major dose of normal. I did tell her about Ling and Mr. Chang’s offer for me to be China’s “poster boy” for cycling, and she actually went quiet for a full ten seconds. Then she rambled on about how she thought it would be a great idea for me to take them up on the offer to try for a week. She said that she and my father were going to be swamped for the next month anyway, and that I might as well be off doing something exciting with my friends instead of sitting around the house, bored. I told her the same thing I’d told Ling, that I’d think about it.

  My mo
m said that while she couldn’t pick me up from the Indianapolis airport when we landed—at 7:30 a.m., because of the time change—she’d be home when Ryan’s mom dropped me off around 8:30 a.m. My dad was going to be home, too. Best of all, my mom was going to make her famous huevos rancheros for breakfast. I couldn’t remember the last time the three of us had eaten a meal together. I was pumped.

  I thought I heard people arguing softly in the row across from me, and I opened my eyes just a hair. It turned out to be Phoenix and Hú Dié, who were sitting beside one another. I doubted I’d ever figure those two out. Sometimes they acted like best friends. Other times they fought like brother and sister, complete with fists flying. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, which was why my friends meant so much to me. Phoenix had been my best friend until this summer vacation began. Now he, Ryan, and Hú Dié were pretty equal in the best-friend department, and I liked it that way. I hoped that whatever I decided about China didn’t screw that up.

  It was obvious that the three of them were ready to move to China immediately and start racing for Mr. Chang. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. At least, that’s what I told them and myself. Deep down, though, I knew the truth. There was no way I was going to a foreign country to race bikes, even for a week. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to race bikes in the good old USA anymore. Riding Raffi’s dirt trail reminded me that bikes were supposed to be fun. Racing was too much work.

  Ryan and his mom both began to snore, and I couldn’t help grinning. At least they had their priorities right. I couldn’t do anything about any of the stuff on my mind while I was thirty thousand feet in the air, so I might as well get some sleep. I closed my eyes again and tried to follow Ryan’s mom’s lead. If everything went well, I’d be home before I knew it.