‘Yes.’ Click. The line went dead.
Ng got up from behind the desk and walked over to the map.
‘What did he say? What did he say?’ asked Jill.
‘Hebe Haven,’ said Ng. ‘I have to deliver the money to Hebe Haven in one hour.’
Lin walked back into the room. There was a low groan from Cheng as he pushed himself up off the sofa. He massaged his left knee and then slowly kicked his leg backwards and forwards. ‘By sea or by land,’ he said quietly, as if to himself. ‘He could come either way.’
Ng nodded in agreement. He turned to Lin. ‘I must arrive alone, but if we are careful we might be able to get one or two men near the pier, maybe even on it. Pretending to fish, or painting, something. No more than two and they must leave now.’
Lin went without a word and less than a minute later a car drove away.
‘The sea way will be harder,’ Ng said to Cheng.
‘Perhaps not,’ said the old man, pointing to the map. The cove that was Hebe Haven was about two kilometres long and one kilometre wide, an impossibly large area of water to patrol, but the gap that led to the open sea was only a few hundred yards across.
‘Here,’ said Cheng. ‘Two boats placed between the headland at Chuk Kok and the tip of Pak Ma Tsui would effectively seal off the whole cove. Assuming he comes in by sea we could let him in and then shut the door behind him. You could hand over the money but there would be nowhere for him to run to.’
‘Unless he beached the boat within the cove.’
‘Station men on the beaches, it wouldn’t take many.’
Lin had returned now. ‘It wouldn’t be difficult,’ he agreed. ‘They all have radios. But if we decide to send them they’ll have to go now.’
Ng nodded and once again Lin went to brief his men. This time three cars left. Jill, sitting alone on the Chesterfield, felt alone and quite, quite useless.
‘So,’ said the old man thoughtfully. ‘He comes in by boat. We close the gap after him. He takes the money. Does he have the girl with him, that is the question.’ He sucked his teeth, nodding his head up and down slowly. ‘I think not,’ he said eventually. ‘I think he will come alone.’
‘I don’t see that as a problem,’ said Ng. ‘Once we have him he will tell us where Sophie is. I have no doubt about that. No doubt at all.’
The chilling conviction in his voice shocked Jill. It wasn’t something she’d heard from her husband before, and for the first time she became aware of the power he commanded, the power of life and death, and pain.
Lin came back into the room, baring his teeth at Ng’s words. ‘He’ll talk all right. We’ll make him sing as sweetly as one of your songbirds, Master Cheng.’
‘The boats will be a problem,’ said Ng. ‘My launch is berthed at Clearwater Bay. We won’t have time to get there and get it to Hebe Haven.’ He jabbed a finger at the map, an inch or so above the cove. ‘Sai Kung,’ he said. ‘We can beg, borrow or steal boats from there. Send six men to Sai Kung – they are to choose the fastest boats they can find. And tell them to be discreet about it. We don’t know where he’s coming from.’ Yet again Lin left the study. ‘What do you think, Cheng Bak-bak?’
‘If he comes from the sea we will have him,’ said Cheng. ‘But he would also be aware of the danger involved. And we should not assume that merely because he mentioned the pier he intends to come by water. You must also guard the road.’
‘There is only one road,’ said Ng, ‘Hiram’s Highway, the one that leads to the Clearwater Bay Road. The road to the pier comes off Hiram’s Highway, and if we put one car on either side of it we can seal it completely. There is nowhere else to go. There is a hill behind the road, we can put a man there and he’ll be able to see the whole area, from the main road to the pier.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Lin, who had returned to the room.
‘You’d better go now,’ said Ng. ‘And make sure the cars are inconspicuous, whatever you do. You’ll be able to put a few of our men in the boatyards disguised as workmen, but get them in place right away.’
Lin nodded curtly and left.
Cheng and Ng stood together at the map. Jill wanted to join them but she could tell from the strained silence that the two men were deep in concentration and that she would be in the way. She sat on the sofa, legs pressed tightly together, her stomach a mass of nerves. She knew there was no point in even asking Simon if she could go with him.
‘Well, Bak-bak, what do you think?’ asked Ng.
The old man rocked back on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘If he comes by sea, he will surely be trapped,’ he said quietly. ‘If he comes by the road he will also be trapped. He surely cannot come by air, unless he can fly like a bird.’
‘A helicopter isn’t impossible, but air traffic control at Kai Tak would be on his back right away,’ added Ng. ‘What we must be careful of is a combination, arriving by sea and leaving on land, or vice versa.’
‘But even so, once he is at the pier he will be trapped on all sides,’ said Cheng, sounding unconvinced.
‘You seem worried, Bak-bak.’
‘If you and I can so easily see that it is a trap, why did the gweilo arrange to meet you there?’
Ng nodded. ‘Presumably because he assumes that he can just as easily get away? But how?’
‘I would assume that when you see him, he will not have your daughter with him. He will think that so long as he has her he will be safe. He will want to take the money and release her later, when he is out of harm’s way. Sophie will be his way out.’
‘But as Elder Brother said, once you have trapped your bird, it is easy to make it sing.’
‘But if the bird is not alone, if he has friends, and if the bird does not return to its nest …’ The old man left the sentence unfinished, hanging in the air.
‘We have no choice,’ said Ng. ‘If we let him escape with the money, there is no incentive for him to release her. Especially as she can identify him.’
‘Identification is not such a problem,’ said Cheng. ‘Do not forget that the headmistress also saw him. I do not think that he will kill your daughter merely because she has seen his face.’
‘We cannot take the risk,’ said Ng. ‘We must hope that he brings Sophie with him, and if he does not then we will force him to tell us where she is. It will not take long.’
‘Oh my God,’ gasped Jill. ‘Please, please be careful, Simon. I just want her back, I just want Sophie back.’
Ng turned round as Jill got up, and took a step towards her and held her close, her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck.
‘You will have her back,’ he said. ‘I promise.’ Over her shoulder he could see Lin driving through the gates in the Mercedes, leaving the Daimler for him. He looked at his watch. It was 6.25 a.m. ‘Time to go,’ he said, releasing himself from her clinging grip and holding her shoulders at arm’s length. ‘You’d better get her room ready, when she gets back she’ll be tired and hungry.’ He kissed her tear-stained cheek and picked up the briefcase on the desk. He left the house without looking back but knew that she watched him go from the study.
Howells watched them come from his hiding-place below the pier. The water around the supporting legs of the structure was shoulder-deep so he stood next to one, back bowed forward so that he was submerged from the chin down. After making the phone call exactly at 6 a.m., he’d taken the dinghy back to the junk and put on all his diving equipment. He used the snorkel for the first quarter of a mile to save air and only submerged when he got close enough to shore to be seen. As soon as he reached the safety of the pier he switched back to the snorkel as he swayed gently backwards and forwards with the rhythm of the waves. He could see a good chunk of the shoreline and had a clear view of the approach road in the distance, and if he turned round he could see most of the bay, and his junk bobbing up and down in the water.
The first two arrived just after 6.30, a young man in jeans and T-shirt carrying a fishing basket, and an old
er man with a couple of cans of paint and a tattered holdall. They came one at a time, on opposite sides of the road, but Howells had no doubt that they were together.
The fisherman came first. Howells lost sight of him as he passed through the metal bollards that marked the end of the road, but a minute or so later he heard him walk overhead to the end of the pier. The older man stood by the bollards, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, leaning back his head and blowing smoke up at the sky. He began to unpack brushes and cloths and after opening one of the tins of paint started to apply unprofessional strokes of red to a bollard.
Five minutes later a white van drove down the road and turned in to one of the boatyards and three men in dark blue overalls climbed out. One of them knocked on the door to the yard’s office, and on getting no answer all three moved between the boats until they were out of his sight. Even at this early hour the main road seemed busy, but not so busy that he didn’t notice the two big Mercs driving past or see one of them go in the opposite direction a few minutes later. He’d expected them to seal off the road, and knew that the way out to the open sea would be closed off as well.
Howells checked his watch. Ten minutes to go. He shivered, but it was the cold, not fear. The water was colder than he’d anticipated, yet to be warmed by the early morning sun. The harness was starting to chafe against his skin but he knew it would be a mistake to take it off so he ignored the pain. The emergency cylinder was hanging from the harness, occasionally banging against his leg. A plastic bag drifted past, followed closely by a scattering of green leaves from some sort of Chinese vegetable. One piece washed up against his mask and he ducked his head down under the water to clear it. When he surfaced he saw Ng, standing at the top of the stairs, briefcase in hand, shading his eyes as he looked out to sea.
Lin had left his three Red Pole fighters looking under the bonnet of his car, the engine running so they could move quickly if needed, while he climbed up the hill, moving effortlessly through the bushes and spindly trees. He stopped halfway up, not even breathing heavily, and then cut across to give him the best possible view of the pier. He had a pair of powerful binoculars and a walkie-talkie with which he could contact his men who were now scattered around the bay and on two launches just beyond the headland. He spoke to them one by one: the men in the cars on the main road, the team in the boatyard, the man and woman walking their dog along the housing development at Marina Cove on the southern rim of the bay, which overlooked the pier, and the men on the boats. Like Lin they were all armed. His pistol in its leather holster felt heavy under his left armpit.
He put the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the bay. Nothing. He spoke into his walkie-talkie again, asking the men in the launches if there was anything approaching. Nothing. He heard Ng’s Daimler tearing up the road before he saw it, then it rounded the bend and indicated it was turning right. Ng accelerated down towards the pier and stopped with a screech of brakes in one of the white-painted parking spaces. The painter looked up, then put his head down and got on with his work.
‘Easy, easy,’ said Lin through clenched teeth. A flying insect buzzed close to his ear but he ignored it. Ng opened the car door and stepped out, black shoes gleaming in the sunlight. Lin heard the door clunk shut and watched as Ng walked past the painter, briefcase swinging, and headed for the stone steps. Lin knew that Ng’s gun was in a holster in the small of his back, under the Italian jacket, and that he had a wicked hunting knife taped to the calf of his right leg. In his inside jacket pocket he had a small walkie-talkie but it was switched off. A blast of static or a careless broadcast could spoil the whole thing. The painter and the fisherman were also under orders to keep theirs switched off. They were too close to the action.
Lin looked at his watch for the hundredth time that morning. Five minutes to go. That surely ruled out a boat, for there was no sign of activity in the bay at all. Lin radioed to the men at the roadside telling them to get ready, that it looked as if the gweilo would be coming by road.
He steadied his binoculars and checked Ng. He was still standing at the top of the steps, looking out to sea.
Howells bit on to the rubber flanges of the mouthpiece and ducked down under the water, the taste of salt on his tongue. He kicked his flippers and hugged the seabed as he headed towards the base of the stone steps. As he covered the fifty yards or so from the pier he unclipped the handcuffs from his belt. The water got shallower and shallower and once or twice his knees banged into sand as he swam, scraping his skin. Then he saw the steps ahead and he slowed to a halt. The water was about five feet deep so he kept his knees bent as he surfaced so that only his head was in the air. Ng was still at the top of the steps and hadn’t seen him. Howells removed the mouthpiece and took a deep breath.
‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he said, firing the words in sharp staccato fashion, like bullets from a machine-gun, knowing that Ng was more likely to obey the authority in a strong voice than a weak-willed whisper. ‘Don’t look down. Put the briefcase down on the floor.’ Ng did as he was told, then stood still with his hands at his sides. ‘Now do the same with your gun.’
Ng hesitated. Howells was sure he would be armed, and wired. Neither the gun nor the communications equipment was likely to function under water but it would be safer to get rid of them straight away.
‘Do it or she dies,’ said Howells, and he saw the fight drain out of Ng. The triad leader reached behind his back and removed the gun, then bent down and placed it next to the briefcase.
‘Now the radio.’
Ng took out the walkie-talkie and dropped it on to the concrete steps, where it clattered down and plopped into the dark water.
‘Now, walk down the steps towards me,’ said Howells.
Lin caught his breath as Ng put the gun on the floor. ‘What are you doing, Lung Tau?’ he said to himself. Ng straightened up and a few seconds later he took something from inside his jacket and threw it down the steps. Even through the binoculars, Lin could not see what it was. He checked the pier. Nothing – and the road was clear. What the hell was going on? He called up the launches on the radio. No, they hadn’t seen anything. There were no boats on the way to Hebe Haven. Ng began to walk down the steps, slowly. Suddenly Lin understood, like a bolt of lightning streaking through his consciousness. He pressed the radio to his lips.
‘He’s in the water,’ he barked. ‘He’s in the fucking water. Get those boats in now.’
Lin began to run down the hill, slipping and sliding through the undergrowth, not caring about the branches and thorns that tore into his trousers. As he ran he called up the teams by the cars, ordering them to get to the pier, and then he shouted instructions to the men in the boatyard. He didn’t wait to hear their acknowledgements, he concentrated on running, on covering the quarter mile to the pier in the shortest time possible. The hillside levelled out and he burst through the trees, vaulted over a wall and crossed the road in three strides, his arms pumping up and down as his feet slapped on the tarmac. As he hurtled down the approach road to the pier he heard the Red Poles hard on his heels.
Ng was confused. He took four steps down and then stopped.
‘What about the money?’ he asked.
‘Keep moving,’ said the gweilo. ‘Keep moving or she dies.’
Ng took another couple of steps, his mind whirling. The whole point of this was the money, yet the gweilo wanted it left behind. It didn’t make sense.
‘Where is Sophie?’
The man gestured with his hands; something metallic, a chain perhaps, glinted wetly between his fingers. ‘Faster,’ he said. ‘Keep moving.’
Ng walked down to the water’s edge. The frogman stood up, his shoulders rising above the water. ‘I’ll take you to see your daughter,’ said the gweilo. The voice was powerful but controlled, each word carefully enunciated and projected.
Ng was still unsure. Behind him he could hear shouts and the sound of men running. He turned to look up the flight of steps and then he felt a hand
close around his ankle and pull. He fought to regain his balance but the pull was too strong and he toppled forward, arms flailing. He hit the water, the shock forcing all the air from his lungs, and as he gasped for air he took in salt water and fought back the urge to retch. The gweilo’s arm was round his neck, his face pressed close to his ear.
‘We’re going under the water,’ the gweilo said. ‘Put this in your mouth and breathe slowly. The water will sting your eyes so keep them closed.’
Ng saw a silver cylinder with a black mouthpiece thrust towards his face. He didn’t want to obey but in his confusion he did as he was told. As soon as his teeth were closed on the mouthpiece the gweilo pulled him under the water and his ears were filled with a roaring noise. The salt water stung his nostrils and Ng reached up to hold his nose. He could feel the gweilo kicking his legs and the sensation of water passing over his body. He opened his eyes, but the salt water burned so he clamped them shut and concentrated on breathing. He felt something hard lock around the wrist of his left hand and then his ears popped as the gweilo continued to drag him down to the seabed.
Lin bellowed like a bull as he ran. The walkie-talkie slipped from his sweating fingers and he ignored it as it smashed on to the tarmac and broke into plastic pieces. One of the Red Poles, Kenny Suen, caught up with him and it gave Lin the adrenalin boost he needed to speed up. The two ran together, chests heaving and arms pounding. The painter looked up and saw the men running towards him, stopped painting and straightened his back. The fisherman at the end of the pier stood up, his line forgotten.
‘The water!’ yelled Lin. ‘The water!’ He pointed at the stairs but both men just continued to look at him, totally confused. Suen had pulled ahead and was certain to get to the steps first so Lin stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Get Lung Tau. He’s in the water,’ he roared. The painter realized first and he dropped his brush on to the floor and sprinted to the top of the steps. Once he started to move the fisherman followed, running at full pelt down the pier. Lin started running again, and as he passed the bollards he pulled his gun out of the holster. Suen reached the steps first, closely followed by the painter, and both had guns in their hands and were looking down at the water by the time Lin got there.
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