Free The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor by Max Allan Collins Page A

“Are you kidding? His life has always been my top priority. Do you have any idea how many times I stopped him from breaking his damn-fool neck?”
    She put her fists on her hips. “Perhaps with a little warmth and encouragement, he might not have felt the need to show off for you. A little fatherly support would have gone a long way.”
    “Well . . . it was implied.”
    They said nothing for several long moments, just standing facing each other, mutually flummoxed, with the Chinese doormen as mute observers.
    Finally Evy, shaking her head, said, “We’ve spent the better part of our lives finding priceless artifacts, you and I . . . and now the one thing that’s most precious to us, we’ve lost.”
    O’Connell could say nothing to that.
    Evy sighed. “We should never have sent him away to Australia.”
    Shrugging, O’Connell said, “He was fourteen! How were we supposed to keep him safe, with bombs blitzing London, and Nazis swarming Cairo? What other choice did we have?”
    She considered that, then asked, “Is that really true?”
    “Well, of course it is.”
    “Or is that just what we tell ourselves, to make it all right that we went off adventuring again?” She shook her head again, determination mingling with frustration edged with sadness. “I will not allow Alex to become some stranger in framed pictures on our mantel.”
    O’Connell drew in a deep breath, and then let it out. “Okay. So how do we fix this?”
    “Frankly . . . I am not really sure. But I do know one thing.”
    “What, Evy?”
    Her eyes met his and they were alone on the bustling street of neon-streaked Shanghai.
    She said, “We need to do it together.”
    He swallowed and nodded and slipped an arm around her, and led her back inside the nightclub.
    Neither of them was aware that from the shadows of the alley across the street, a tall, formidable-looking Chinese woman in her thirties in a slit-up-the-side silk dress—her lovely face marred by a scar—had been watching them with much more than casual interest.

  4  
    Eye Opening
    China—General Yang’s Training Camp
    U nder a high, hot sun, an orderly arrangement of yurt-style tents encircled the sprawling ruins of an ancient Ming temple; carts of ammunition and weapons and other military gear were neatly stacked at various key points.
    Nearby, platoons of Chinese mercenaries in gray uniforms representing no modern nation—bearing the insignia of Emperor Er Shi Huangdi’s three-headed dragon—were engaged in a variety of training exercises, including target practice and close-order drill, displaying a precision that indicated these endeavors had been going on for quite some time now.
    Through the training field rumbled a chauffeured jeep with a general in back, who received salutes from officers as the vehicle passed. This was General Yang, who also represented no nation, other than that of his own ambitions, his rank self-bestowed. A tall, slender yet round-faced man with thinning dark hair and a trim goatee, Yang had the intensity and intelligence of a real general, and the hard cold eyes of a genuine sociopath.
    Half an hour later, Yang was studying a map at his desk in the strategy room he’d had equipped within the crumbling Ming temple, a large banner with the three-dragon emblem draped behind him. Through a ruined doorway, an officer entered, but not just any officer: a beautiful woman, who made the crisp gray uniform, black-leather-trimmed cap and black leather boots seem fashionable.
    And not just any beautiful woman, either, but Choi, the scar-faced beauty who had positioned herself in a dark alley across from the Imhotep’s nightclub to gather intelligence on Alex, Rick and Evelyn O’Connell.
    She was here to report on her spy duties, standing before the desk and giving a razor-sharp salute before saying in Mandarin, “The O’Connells are indeed in Shanghai.”
    “The parents and the boy?”
    “Yes, General. They assembled at the club owned by the