Jade War

Hilo had two four-ounce juice boxes with him; he always had a couple of them in the car, along with some snacks, for times when his sons got hungry or thirsty while on outings. The oppressive humidity of Janloon’s summer was even worse here in the windowless warehouse than it was outside. The stale air stank strongly of the prisoner’s piss, which stained a splotchy circle of concrete around his feet. Hilo approached the man. He unwrapped the plastic around the tiny straw, punched it into the juice box’s small foil circle, and held it out to Soradiyo, who clamped his bloodied lips around it and sucked back the entire drink in one desperate mouthful. He eyed the second box in pleading, but the Pillar did not give it to him.

“One more question,” Hilo said. “Who gave the order? Ayt or Zapunyo?”

“Zapunyo,” Soradiyo rasped. “With the Mountain’s encouragement.” He struggled to shift, to take some of the body weight off his straining shoulders. “Last year, Nau Suen contacted me. He wanted me to act as the go-between for his clan to talk to Zapunyo. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice; the bastard was killing my scrap pickers and rockfish as fast as I could hire them. The Mountain said it was obligated to uphold its publicly declared agreement with No Peak and do its part to oppose smuggling. But if the Mountain was in sole control, things might be different. Perhaps some sort of accommodation could be reached. That’s what was suggested.”

“And Zapunyo bought it.”

“He saw it for what it was: a trade. The clans were making it too hard for us, costing Zapunyo too much. Ayt was saying that if we got rid of you, she would let us eat.”

Hilo nodded. “It must sting that Ayt gave you up so quickly, that you’re in here now.”

Soradiyo made a motion that might’ve been an attempted shrug. “The price of failure. It’s no big surprise. And it’s not as if I’m telling you anything that you didn’t already suspect.”

“No,” Hilo agreed. “Where do you want your body sent? Do you have relatives?”

Soradiyo closed his eyes. “Yes, in Oortoko, but because of the war, I’m not sure where they are now, and I don’t want them to see me like this. Send me to my cousin Iyilo in the Uwiwa Islands. He’ll bury me, and it’ll serve him right to feel guilty for leaving me here on my own, and for what happened.”

Hilo said nothing more. He drew his talon knife and opened the barukan’s throat in one swift motion. Soradiyo’s wracked body relaxed and his chin fell forward to his chest over an apron of red. When Hilo exited, he said, “Clean him up and send him back to the Uwiwas.”

“That piece of scum killed Kehn,” Tar exclaimed, furious emotion coloring his face. “Why’d you let him off so easy? We ought to sink him into the ocean bit by fucking bit.”

Hilo silenced his Pillarman with a look that was not unsympathetic, but was stern enough to make it clear that he expected no further talking back. “Soradiyo and Tau Maro might’ve planned and carried out the bombing, but they were puppets on strings.” Hilo wiped and sheathed his knife. “Ayt Mada is playing a long game. As for Zapunyo—I warned that Uwiwan dog that if he kept reaching his dirty hands into Kekon, I’d go after him, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” The Pillar’s voice flattened to an edge. “We’re going to destroy everything he’s built.”

CHAPTER 50 Patience

Over the following weeks, the Green Bones of No Peak led a merciless city-wide purge targeting illegal jade dens used by the so-called new green, rockfish, barukan, and shine dealers. Dozens of criminals were beaten, jade-stripped, and imprisoned, if not outright killed. The two perpetrators that Soradiyo had paid to plant the car bomb fled Janloon and made it all the way to the city of Toshon on the southern peninsula before being caught by members of the local Jo Sun clan. The men begged for their captors to kill them, but the Jo Sun clan handed the criminals over to No Peak as a sign of allegiance and good will to the Kaul family. They were not alone in their thinking; the other minor Green Bone clans, the Janloon city police, and even the Mountain clan assisted or got out of the way—there was nothing to be gained from opposing Kaul Hilo’s rampage.

Most Janlooners, judging by sentiment on the street and coverage in the press, approved of the crackdown and saw it as necessary. The car bombing, everyone knew by now, had been the cowardly scheme of a Shotarian gangster working for an Uwiwan jade smuggler. While the Kekonese are forgiving, even comfortable, with public violence between those of equal status, the idea of dishonorable foreign crooks striking at a great and powerful Green Bone family and injuring innocent people in the heart of an affluent Janloon neighborhood was offensive in the extreme.