The door stood brave for exactly three blows. With the fourth, the deadbolt heaved a splintery cough before the old brass moaned in protest. And then two men rushed in, clad in black windbreakers, caps pulled down low, with pistols fitted with fat suppressors that looked like steel soda cans. They operated in some sort of dark corps de ballet, moving in practiced synch, one high, one low, muzzles sweeping.
Xu Xiao stepped forward to put himself between Manning and the intruders. His right hand rose-not in surrender but in gesture, notable for its calmness, almost boredom. "Gentlemen," he said, "the house is alarmed. You have ninety seconds before the dogs and drones arrive. Speak your business or leave."
The eyes of the tall intruder glanced first at the cracked photograph on the floor, then at the safe that was still smoking. "We're here for the girl," he said. Mandarin, Beijing flavor, voice flattened through a cheap voice-changer strapped under his collar. "Send her out, you walk away."
Manning could feel the pulse in her mouth. She started to move, but Xu Xiao's left hand snapped back, fingers locking around her splinted wrist. Gentle, immovable. "She stays," he said. "Try again."
The second man raised his pistol slightly. "Clock's ticking, Mr. Xu. Your security feed is looping. Ninety seconds is fantasy."
Xu Xiao smiled—a thin smile, cold, yet grateful? "Looping ends the moment I break this." He lifted his right hand higher. Between his thumb and index finger there glimmered a glass vial no longer than a cigarette. Inside, a silver liquid shimmered like mercury. "RFID breaker. Shatters, resets every circuit in a fifty-meter radius. You'll wake up all the dogs, drones, and the police helicopter that's been loitering at two thousand feet. You'll be the only strangers on the property."
The intruders stopped in confusion. Thirty-two seconds, Manning thought irrelevantly. She could feel the house breathing around them—old timbers swelling in the morning heat, ducts sighing conditioned air, the almost sub-audible thrum of servers buried somewhere below. It was alive, pretending to be architecture.
The tall one adjusted his grip. "You won't risk the girl."
"Won't I?" Xu Xiao pressed slightly. A hairline crack appeared in the vial. A bead of silver slipped down the glass. "One."
With the fractional dip of the pistol muzzles, she saw the moment their certainty wavered. These men were clearly not fanatics; they were contractors. Contractors had escape plans.
"Two."
The second man spoke into his sleeve, the crackle of static from a brief reply. Both weapons were lowered. "We will be in touch," said the taller one. They moved backward, with an easy briskness, down the corridor from which they had come. Their footsteps faded—then the front door slammed, and the house had settled back into its patient silence.
Xu Xiao gave the full ten-count before returning the vial to his pocket. By this time, Manning realized she had been holding her breath; she exhaled shakily. "You just bluffed them."
"Of course." He turned, appraising her face. "They will come back, better prepared. We have maybe six hours."
"What did they want?"
"You. More precisely, what you're carrying." He nodded at the locket now in his breast pocket. "That key is worth more than the house."
Manning rubbed her wrist where his fingers had been. "Who were they?"
"Triad of Nine subcontractors. Low-level, but highly disciplined. Someone up the food chain wants Phoenix to rise from the ashes." He went to the desk, pressed a hidden switch. A panel slid aside to reveal a slim aluminum case. Inside: two passports, stacks of cash—USD, EUR, crypto wallets on steel cards—an unregistered satellite phone. "Travel kit," he said. "We leave tonight."
"Leave?" The word felt even more strange. "So you're kidnapping me now?"
"I'm saving you. And me." He closed the case. "You wanted the truth about your mother? It's in Switzerland. The asylum where she's been for nineteen years will cease to exist by next week. After that, she just vanishes."
Manning stared at the photograph on the floor—two young men, one scratched out by time, the other by fire. "I can't just disappear."
"You already did. The moment you stepped through my gate." He crouched, picked up the photograph, brushed away glass shards. "The question is, do you want to reappear on your own terms or theirs?"
Footsteps again—lighter this time. Mrs. Liu appeared in the doorway, her face pale but composed. "Mr. Xu, the police are at the gate. They claim a silent alarm was triggered. Shall I—"
"Let them in," Xu Xiao said. "Offer tea. Tell them the intruders were garden-variety burglars scared off by the dogs. Be charming."
The Liu woman's nods turned into nothingness, totally vanished. Manning swallowed. "The police will never believe that." "Oh, they will. I pay them to believe." He handed her the aluminum case. "Carry this. Don't open it again until we're airborne." She grabbed it; cool metal, reassuring weight. "Where to, exactly?" "Zurich. Lugano. After that, wherever the ghosts lead us." He linked his eyes with hers. "Last chance to walk away. After we leave Cloud Crest, you're back in the story. No more shadows." Manning was thinking about the ultrasound in the burnt folder, her mother's name typed out in clinical indifference. She thought, then, of the scar on her wrist, of the copper key, of the men who had come and taken her like a parcel. Then she looked at Xu Xiao-this cold, calculating man who had just risked his life to ensure she was not touched by strangers. "I am already in the story," she said. "I just want to read the next chapter before someone tears it out." He nodded once, whether in approval or acceptance she could not tell. They stepped together over the shattered photograph and made for the staircase. The study door, shorn of its former glory, swung to a slow close behind them. The house sighed, long and deep, and was almost imperceptibly preparing for its own leaving.