“Where are they?” I asked, thinking they were in the small cloistered room we had been using at the Jesuit residence.
“They’re back at the hotel. We left in so much of a hurry that I forgot to grab them.”
“Okay, I’ll just get hold of Joseph and he and I can arrange to get them. Where are they exactly?”
She told me and I sent a servant off to fetch Joseph. He arrived several minutes later, bringing a small Chinese man who Joseph introduced as their medical person.
“Sue,” Joseph said. “If you tell Wu what the exact nature of the problem is he will be able to prescribe some Chinese medicine which will be just as good as, if not better than, the drugs prescribed by your doctor.”
“I don’t want any damn Chinese medicine!” she snapped. “I want my own bloody pills!” It sounded as though the migraine had announced its arrival with a vengeance.
I was all set to jump in and try and talk her out of it, but knew that it wouldn’t do any good. We had now been shut up here, with virtually nothing to do, for almost three days. Her temper was wearing thin.
“We need the pills, Joseph,” I said. “It’s okay, I’ll go. I’m sure that Jackson Lee has given up by now.”
“No, Ben,” he replied. “I’ll do it. As a matter of fact there no longer appears to be anyone watching the hotel. We have had several people visit the hotel and there’s nobody lingering either in the lobby or just outside, at least nobody suspicious that is. But, just in case, I will go alone. If there is someone watching, they won’t expect me, a simple priest, to have any connection to you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Suit yourself. But I wonder why they’ve given up. If it was me, I’d expect us to return, even if it was only to collect our things.”
“Don’t forget our passports,” Sue butted in. “We can’t leave China without those.”
“Why aren’t they watching the hotel?” I said quietly. “It’s almost as though Jackson Lee’s men know where we are.”
“That’s not possible, Ben,” Joseph replied. “Perhaps they are watching the hotel from a distance. Sue, where are the pills, and what sort of bottle are they in?”
She gave him the details and that was it. He left straight away, promising to be back within the hour. The hotel was only a couple of kilometres away, but there was still a fair bit of traffic to get through. Sue leaned back in the chair, one hand up to her forehead, and the other tightly gripping the hard wooden armrest.
The hour passed and then another.
“Where’s bloody Joseph?” Sue moaned. “My head’s killing me.”
I went looking for Angelo.
“He told me he was going,” he said. “But he should have been back by now. I’ll give him a call on his mobile. He should have taken someone else with him.”
We waited while he made the call.
“There is no reply,” he said. “The call has gone straight through to his messages.”
“Try again,” I said. “Maybe there’s a problem with reception or something.”
But it was the same result.
“What about my migraine,” Sue moaned.
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “We can’t locate Joseph. Maybe he’s had an accident or something.” I could see that she was now in a bad way. “Do you want to try some of the Chinese medicine that fellow Wu was going to make up for you?”
“God, I’ll try anything!” she snapped. “Just get me something!”
Angelo called for Wu and he came shuffling through the door five minutes later with some evil-looking mixture in a glass. He spoke to Angelo in Chinese.
“You are to drink this slowly,” Angelo interpreted.
Sue put the glass to her lips and then thrust it away.
“It stinks!” she yelled. “It’s positively vile!”
“Drink the bloody stuff,” I said. “If they were trying to poison us they would’ve done it long before now, and the taste would’ve been quite pleasant.”
She drank it, reluctantly, and slowly. I was certain that if she had tossed it straight down it would have come straight back up again. I could smell the foul stench from across the room.
“Ugh,” she said. “That was bloody disgusting.”
Wu stood at the open doorway, his right hand covering the smile that was breaking out either side of his palm. For one minute I thought Sue was going to throw the glass at him. She leaned back in the chair, a cloth over her head to keep out the light, and was silent as Angelo tried for the third time to make contact with Joseph. But there was still no reply. We sat and waited. There was nothing else we could do.
“How’s your head?” I asked ten minutes later.
“Actually, it’s much better,” she replied softly. “Although I’d much rather take those tablets Steve prescribed. At least they don’t taste like crap.”
“Well,” I said. “I don’t think I know what crap tastes like, so I wouldn’t know.”
Before she had time to make a smart reply, Angelo’s voice suddenly erupted.
“Hello? Hello?” He was speaking loudly into the phone, Chinese style. “Joseph? Is that you, Joseph?” he almost yelled.
I spun round to him. He had the mobile phone up to his ear and a puzzled look on his face, brow furrowed, and then he started speaking in Chinese, and then he got angry, and the words became a shouting match between him and the person on the other end of the call. It wasn’t Joseph, that much was clear. He broke the connection, turned to us, and started rattling off in Chinese and then stopped mid-sentence and started again.
“I’m sorry,” he said rather too quickly. “I am angry. Joseph has been kidnapped.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Who by?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Well, what did they say?” Sue asked, on her feet and now presumably completely cured of the migraine.
“The person just said that they had caught him and had taken him away to a place where they would hold him. He said that we would have to wait for further instructions.”
“Was it a Chinese person or a westerner?” I asked.
“Chinese, definitely Chinese,” Angelo replied. “I think he had a Shanghai accent, but I am not certain, but he wasn’t from Beijing.”
“Could it have been someone from Hong Kong?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Jackson Lee,” I said. “It’s got to be him, or someone employed by him.”
“What are we to do?” Angelo said, his hands clasping and unclasping each other as he paced around the room. “What are we to do?”
“We wait until we hear their demands,” I replied. “Although I’ve got a fair idea what they’re going to be.”
It was late that evening when the next call came through to Father Angelo. He passed the mobile to me, obviously as instructed by whoever was on the other end, and then put one ear close to my head and listened in.
“Ah, Mister Dunlop. Good evening.”
The caller only said those few words, but I was certain it wasn’t the voice of the person I had spoken to in the hotel as we had got ready to sneak down to meet with Joseph.
“Let me speak to Father Joseph,” I said.
“Not yet, Mister Dunlop.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “You’re not Lee.”
“No, Mister Dunlop. I am partner of Mister Lee. I am his friend. I help him. You meet my cousin in Australia. You meet him in café and give him jade.”
“Let me speak to Jackson Lee,” I said.
“Mister Lee very busy. You talk with me.”
“Let me talk to Father Joseph!”
“Maybe later, Mister Dunlop. First we have few matters of business to settle. Mister Lee want his family property. You have been very dishonourable, Mister Dunlop. You not tell Mister Lee you coming to China. You not tell him you make bargain with Jesuit Church. Mister Dunlop, you make Mister Lee very unhappy. You have more of Mister Lee’s property now, yes? Where are two golden pieces from Mister Lee family? You and Jesuit
Church trying sell them to wealthy Chinese maybe? We know you looking for more of Mister Lee family property.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. Should I tell him that we now knew that the two gold pieces, the three pieces of jade and any other pieces that might or might not be in the chest didn’t belong to Lee but to the Buddhist temple? Should I tell him that we hadn’t found it yet? Should I even mention the chest? I didn’t know what Joseph might have told him. Lee would certainly know that we had come to Beijing for a specific purpose, and that purpose could only be to search for more of the same, more of the Nine Doves of Wisdom.
“Let me talk to Joseph,” I said loudly. “I’m not telling you anything until I talk to Father Joseph!”
“Ah, Mister Dunlop, you are foolish man. Maybe I talk to your beautiful wife when she go for walk. I call back in morning.”
And with that he broke the connection. Angelo tried calling him back, but the guy had turned Joseph’s mobile off. I repeated the other side of the conversation to Sue.
“What should we do, Ben?” Angelo asked. “Should we call the police?”
“No,” I replied. “Not just yet. Let me think.”
If the police were called in, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that we would get Joseph back alive. I didn’t think they would do him any harm at the moment, but if we put them to the test, anything could happen. If we called the police in, we would have to tell them the full story. They would recover the chest and God only knew what would happen to whatever was still inside. It would be touched by too many hands. The contents could go missing as they passed through those hands; either that or they would be tied up in Government red tape for years. We would get nothing, and inter-government co-operation might mean that we would have to give up the cross until the whole complicated business was sorted out. I doubted that Sue and I would see a single cent for years.
“We’ve got to get the chest first,” I finally said to Angelo. “It’s what Father Joseph would want us to do. All Father Joseph wants is for the relics to be returned to the Church. He’s not really concerned about the regalia. He’d give his life to recover those relics. If we go to the police the relics might finish up as government property and deposited with some museum or other.” I looked at Angelo, but he said nothing, so I added: “I’m right, aren’t I, Angelo.”
He was still silent. I stared at him for a full minute and then he finally replied.
“Yes. If we let these men take the chest, we would lose the relics forever. But they haven’t asked for everything that’s in the chest. Lee is only asking for what he claims belonged to his family, even though we know it is a lie.”
“He hasn’t asked about the chest,” I replied. “I’m certain Joseph hasn’t told them, but they must know we’re here to look for something. They’re not stupid.”
“We could possibly let him have some of the jade,” Sue said. “If it means getting Joseph back unharmed, it might be worth it.”
“No,” Angelo said without hesitation. “They were part of the valuables that we were holding for the Buddhist temple. It would be a breach of the Church’s trust. It would go against everything that we stand for.”
“Anyway, Sue,” I said. “We now know for certain that nothing belongs to his family. He’s not entitled to anything. No, Jackson Lee wants it all. He wants to know the location of whatever it is we’re here to find. In other words, the chest. He won’t settle for just part of what might be in there. And if he gets his hands on the relics that Joseph is so concerned about, they’ll be sold on the antique black market and the Church will never see them again.”
I glanced across at Angelo, at his ashen face, a face suddenly gone into shock at the mention of the relics being sold on the antiques black market.
“Yes,” Sue said. “Okay, you’re probably right. Poor Joseph.”
“Angelo,” I said, moving across and helping him into one of the chairs before he collapsed onto the floor. “We’ve got to get the chest. We’ve got to get control of it, and everything that’s inside it. At the moment we’ve got nothing, apart from the location. If it turns out that this was all a wild goose chase, and the chest has gone, then, well…,”
“Well what?” Sue asked.
“I don’t bloody know. All I know is that we have to get the chest first and then deal with Jackson Lee. We have to deal from a position of strength.”
“When do you want to go and get it?” Angelo asked, his fingers gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that the knuckles shone through white as ivory.
“Early tomorrow morning.”
“What about the Heads of Agreement?” Sue asked. “It won’t be here until tomorrow afternoon!”
“Bugger the Heads of Agreement!” I snapped. “We’ll worry about that later.”
“Okay, okay,” she replied. “Don’t bite my head off. Can you and I talk about it a bit before you go any further?”
I looked at Angelo. “Can you give us a few minutes?” I asked. He nodded. I helped him up out of the chair and closed the door as he went out.
“What is it?” I asked Sue.
“Do you think he’s really been kidnapped?” she said. “It could be a ruse to get us to tell them where the chest is.”
“No way! Did you see the look on Angelo’s face when he took that first call? No, this is for real. They must have been waiting in our room for us to return. That’s why nobody noticed them hanging around outside the hotel. They didn’t need to. They would’ve grabbed him as he went into the room. We’ve got to get the stuff from the chest and then bargain with them. It’s the only way.”
“Okay, if that’s what you think is best. I’m sorry about the pills.”
“If it hadn’t been your pills, it would have been something else. Don’t worry about it.”
“But,” she said.
“But what?” I replied.
“But how did they know we were here?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did they know to grab Joseph?” she asked. “We’re only surmising that they got him as he walked into the hotel room. For all we know they could’ve grabbed him anywhere between here and the hotel. They could have grabbed him as soon as he walked out of the seminary. Maybe they were waiting for either Angelo or Joseph to leave. I mean, both of them have been inside here with us ever since this thing began.”
“Yes,” I replied. “That makes sense. They could hardly grab him inside the hotel and hope to carry him out without raising a few surprised looks from the hotel staff.”
“Right,” she said. “So that means they knew we were here.”
“But how?”
“How what?” she replied.
“How would they know we were here?” I asked. I thought for a few seconds and then the penny dropped. “The bloody back-pack!”
“What?” she asked.
“Remember the clerk at the hotel?”
“What about him?”
“He started to laugh at my back-pack, at the bloody great sun-flower painted on the back.”
“So?”
“Well, I bet he noticed Joseph walking out with it after we’d left. I bet Jackson Lee’s guys asked about us and the clerk let slip that he’d seen Joseph with my bag and thought it was a bit peculiar at the time. A few dollars would have passed hands and they’d have all of Joseph’s details.”
“A few renminbi.”
“What?”
“They don’t use dollars here. It’s renminbi.”
“I don’t give a shit what they use!”
“Okay, okay. Sorry.”
“Yeah well, anyway, it’s all the more reason to dig the chest up and get it back here.”
“Quiet,” she hissed.
“Huh?”
“Not so much of the word dig,” she whispered in my ear.
“Sorry.”
I called Angelo back in and told him we were both agreed that we would go tonight. I then told him we would need some tools to lift flagstones and dig into a cellar
. I also requested a couple of trusted men. Angelo was probably a little too old for the job, and he tended to take his time over everything. This exercise would need speed. And we might also need a bit of muscle if we ran into difficulties.
“I’m sure that Fathers Terrence and Christopher would be only too happy to help,” Angelo replied. “I’ll go and fetch them now and you can tell them exactly what you want. Would you like me to enlist the help of some of the Chinese domestic staff as well?”
“No, I think that two strong young clergymen and I should be able to do the job.”
“What about me?” Sue asked.
“No way, my girl. You stay here and hold Father Angelo’s hand.”
Angelo went red in the face again, the blush extending all the way down his neck. “I must first check with the Bishop,” he said, and then quickly walked out of the room, stumbling against one of the chairs as he did so.
“Why can’t I come?” Sue asked.
“Because if you’re here it’s one less thing I have to worry about. I don’t trust Jackson Lee. They might spot us leaving here. Anything could happen. We might have to run for it.”
“I can run as fast as you can – well, nearly.”
“No. You stay here, okay?”
There was a short pause, and then: “Okay.”
We waited another five minutes, and then ten.
“Where the hell is he?” I asked.
“How would I know?”
It was right at that moment that the door opened and Angelo returned. He didn’t look pleased.
“The Bishop says that we can not go after the chest until Father Joseph is back in the fold. He says that if the chest must be sacrificed to save one soul, if we have to give its location to these people to save the life of our Father Joseph, then that is how it will be.”
Dark Eye of the Jaguar Page 19