Hungry Ghost

by Stephen Leather

  Ng nodded. ‘He wants the money at Hebe Haven. The pier again.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good, does it? One thing that diamonds and gold have in common – they’re both unharmed by salt water. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It gets worse,’ said Ng. ‘He wants you to wear nothing but shorts. He said that was because he wanted to make sure you weren’t armed, but …’ He left the rest unsaid. Dugan knew what he meant – everything pointed to Howells coming out of the sea. And all the indications were that the ransom, if not Dugan himself, would be taken back into the water.

  ‘So what are you doing about it?’ Dugan asked Ng.

  ‘We’ll be better prepared this time. I’ve already arranged for our men to sail a dozen or so boats into Hebe Haven, and we’ll have the whole bay sealed off. We’ve also drafted in four of our members who have scuba-diving experience. They’re already on their way; we’ll put them on a boat and drop them off a half mile or so from the pier with spare tanks. They’re going to sit on the sea bottom until we know where the gweilo is.’

  Ng Wai-sun came out of the house behind his son. He greeted Dugan but made no move to shake hands.

  ‘Do not let the obvious blind you to the unexpected, my son,’ he said quietly. ‘If all the signs are that the gweilo will come from the water, it could be that he plans to come from the road.’

  ‘Yes, Father, we will have our men staking out the pier too. And Patrick has brought his transmitter. I’ll have it stitched into the bag.’ He took it inside, leaving his father alone with Dugan.

  ‘Thank you for helping us,’ said the old man in halting English. ‘It cannot be easy for you.’

  ‘I love my sister, and Sophie,’ said Dugan, also using English, but speaking very slowly so that Ng Wai-sun could follow him. ‘I also liked your son. He was a good husband and father.’

  The old man smiled and looked at him with watery eyes. ‘Be careful today,’ he said.

  Chief Inspector Leigh put down the file he had been holding and looked at the photograph of his wife.

  ‘Well now, Glynnis, what are we to make of this?’ he said softly. It had long been the Special Branch officer’s habit to talk to his wife’s picture; it helped him get his thoughts in order, but he was careful to do it only when he was alone in his office. His wife smiled at him as she had done for the past twenty years, when the photograph had been taken, her head tilted to the left, her eyes looking right through him.

  The blue file on his desk contained the details of a messy double killing in the Victoria Hotel. Not that murders fell automatically within his brief, but the two barely cold corpses discovered in adjoining rooms were both CIA agents, Jack Edmunds and Rick Feinberg, and dead CIA agents most definitely were of interest. Both had been killed with a knife, both had been attacked from the back by a left-handed man. For more than that he’d have to wait for the coroner’s report, and with the way the brain drain was affecting the coroner’s office that could take two days.

  Robbery appeared not to have been the motive; both men still had their wallets and their passports, and it had none of the hallmarks of a triad execution, just one slash across the throat and not the wicked multiple hackings that the local thugs preferred. There was one item in the report, however, that made the chief inspector sit up and take notice. At about the time of the killings, give or take half an hour, two phone calls had been made from one of the rooms, one to the home of the recently deceased Simon Ng, and one, a few minutes later, to the home of that pillar of the community Ng Wai-sun.

  It was almost too much for one day, thought the chief inspector. First two dead Chinese agents in the Hilton, with a third spirited away to China, and two CIA agents dead in the Victoria. And a fifth death, a triad leader found handcuffed to the anchor of a yacht at Hebe Haven. It was like a puzzle, and Leigh took great satisfaction in the knowledge that if the file had dropped on to anyone else’s desk except for his, the puzzle would probably never have been solved. But Leigh knew what the link was between the five deaths, knew that the single connecting factor was Patrick Dugan the rugby player, the CCB officer who claimed to be infatuated with a hooker called Petal. Patrick Dugan, whose hooker girlfriend seemed to be an agent working out of Beijing. Patrick Dugan, whose brother-in-law was brutally murdered. Patrick Dugan, whose in-laws were telephoned from the room of a dead CIA agent. Patrick fucking Dugan. Leigh reached for the phone and rang Tomkins.

  ‘Is Dugan about?’ he asked.

  ‘No, he rang in earlier. Family problems. His wife’s husband has been killed and he said he needs time off to arrange things. Something up?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Have you got his home number?’

  Tomkins gave it him, but when Leigh dialled the number there was no answer. He wasn’t surprised; he had a pretty good idea where he’d be. The second call had been to Golden Dragon Lodge, and Leigh would bet a season ticket to Cardiff Arms Park that Dugan would be there.

  He called for his car and summoned a sergeant and two armed constables to meet him outside. He checked his own gun carefully before adjusting his holster. ‘Times like this when I’m glad I’m not a British bobby, Glynnis,’ he said to the picture. There had already been five deaths linked to Mr Dugan and Leigh was going to make damn sure there wasn’t a sixth.

  There were no problems at all in persuading old Dr Wu to give them the address where he’d treated the injured gweilo, no problems at all. Kenny Suen knocked on the door of the doctor’s 14th floor flat in a Mong Kok residential block with two other Red Poles and his wife, a frail sixty-year old, bow-legged and slightly hunched, let them in. Suen did the talking; at twenty-five, he was a couple of years older than his companions, and half a head taller. He was the one carrying a gun, tucked away in a holster under his left armpit, hidden by his American football jacket, but there was no need to show it to the doctor as he sat at his dining-table in stockinged feet, his shirt sleeves rolled up, a glass of hot tea and a racing paper in front of him. He polished his glasses nervously on a white handkerchief as Suen introduced himself and told him what they were after. Wu was just a name on a list, and a long list at that, before Suen knocked on the door, but immediately he saw Wu’s reaction he knew that the search was over.

  The doctor began trembling slightly, and when Suen described what had happened to the Dragon Head his breathing began to deteriorate into short, rasping gasps. He invited the three visitors to sit at the table and asked them if they would take tea with him. Suen and the two Red Poles accepted his hospitality and waited until the old woman had poured three glasses of tea and retired to the kitchen.

  ‘I had no idea, no idea at all,’ muttered Wu, shaking his head and replacing his glasses.

  ‘We understand,’ said Suen. He knew there was no need to threaten the doctor. He was not a stupid man, he knew what would happen if he lied or if he did not offer them every assistance. Triad justice was swift and sure. They helped and rewarded those who were loyal, they killed those who betrayed the organization. Wu knew that, there was no need to insult him by stating the obvious. So they took tea and offered him the respect that was due to an elderly doctor. He told them everything, apologizing profusely all the time.

  Leigh sat in the back of the black Rover with Sergeant Lam. One of his constables, Chan, was driving while the other, Lau, was in the front passenger seat. The traffic was heavy and they moved at a crawl through Wan Chai, hemmed in by double-decker buses and open-sided trucks laden with goods. A man on a bike, his carrier full of green vegetables, cycled by, making better progress than the Rover. Even with the windows up and the aircon on the car was still filled with the bustling noise of Hong Kong, the rattle of trams, the judder of jackhammers biting into concrete, the shouts of hawkers, the roar of engines, the shrill whistle of a traffic policeman on point duty where a traffic light had stopped working. Wherever you went in Hong Kong there were people, and wherever there were people there was noise.

  Leigh sat patiently, knowing there was nothing the driv
er could do to speed things up. It was one of the first things he’d learnt when he arrived in the colony almost a quarter of a century earlier, that the quickest way to a coronary or a stroke was to waste one’s energy fighting Hong Kong. That went for the people, the traffic, and the climate. There was no way any of it could be defeated by confrontation, you had to go with the flow. And you had to learn to relax.

  He looked across at his sergeant and pulled a face. ‘Wrong time of the day to be driving through Wan Chai,’ he said.

  ‘Soon be out of it, sir,’ said the man in accented English.

  Leigh wondered what would happen to Lam come 1997. If he had any sense he’d be out of it then, out of Special Branch and out of Hong Kong. The Chinese had long memories, bloody long memories, and there would be no favours granted to Special Branch after handover. As early as 1989 they’d stopped Chinese officers having access to delicate or sensitive police files, more for their own protection than anything else. Part of the reason was that the Government didn’t want sensitive information getting into the hands of Beijing, but it also meant that there was less reason to put pressure on any former officers who were still around after 1997. They wouldn’t know anything, so hopefully the Chinese would leave them alone. Sure, believe that and you’ll believe anything.

  The top-ranking Chinese officers had already been promised UK passports or resettlement in other countries where they would be safe, and all had been told that under no circumstances were they to come back after Hong Kong became part of China. They had been promised hefty compensation packages and had been issued with secret identification numbers, memorized and on no account to be written down, which would give them priority in the event of an emergency evacuation, much as the Americans had done with trusted South Vietnamese personnel prior to the pull-out of Saigon. Leigh hoped it wouldn’t get as ugly as it had in Vietnam, but he had been working against the Communists for long enough to know that it could still all go very wrong, despite all the promises from Peking. What then would happen to the likes of Sergeant Lam and the two constables? No foreign passports for them, no sanctuary in the UK, or Canada, or Australia. God help them.

  They eventually escaped from the traffic jamming up Wan Chai and headed up the Peak, Leigh shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight as they ascended, the car whining up in third gear, the driver’s foot flat on the floor. They were about a quarter of a mile from Ng Wai-sun’s house when Leigh saw the motorcade heading towards them, eight cars driving together.

  ‘Slow down,’ he said to the driver, and he craned his neck as the cars shot past. The third car from the front was a large Mercedes and in the back sat Patrick Dugan, his face set as if in stone, unsmiling and clearly worried. The rest of the vehicles contained enough triad fighters to start a small gang war.

  Leigh told his driver to turn around and follow them, but at a distance, and he told the constable in the front passenger seat to radio for reinforcements, three more unmarked cars and officers in plain clothes. Four Speical Branch cops in a black Rover wouldn’t be able to tail a triad army for long without being spotted. Leigh didn’t feel so calm anymore and his stomach began to churn. He reached down to his side and checked that his gun was there. It was, but its weight provided little comfort.

  Grey fumbled for the ringing phone while still asleep, trying to stop the noise before it woke up his wife. He checked the time on the clock radio by the bedside, squinting to make out the red figures because his glasses were out of reach. Half past seven – almost time to get up, anyway. He pressed the receiver to his ear. ‘Grey,’ he said.

  ‘Grey?’ The voice was American.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, sitting up in bed. His wife stirred next to him, a shapeless lump hidden under the quilt, snoring loudly.

  ‘It’s Hamilton.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Grey. If the CIA man was ringing at this time of the morning it wasn’t a social call, and good news would have waited until a more civilized hour.

  ‘Everything,’ said Hamilton, and it sounded to Grey as if he was talking between clenched teeth. ‘Two of my best men are dead.’

  ‘Howells?’

  ‘Of course it was Howells. I’ve just heard from Langley that my agents, Feinberg and Edmunds, have been found dead in Hong Kong. In their hotel rooms. Their throats had been cut.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘I don’t think God had anything to do with it,’ said Hamilton.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Grey.

  ‘There’s something else. The girl who tried to kill Howells before, the Chinese girl?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Her name is Hua-fan, yes?’

  Grey frowned. He hadn’t told Hamilton her name, or even the fact that the assassin was a girl. ‘Yes. She’s one of their best.’

  ‘So I gather. She also killed one of my agents in Beijing two years ago during a Presidential visit. We thought it was natural causes, but our technical boys reckon that the same stuff was used to kill him that the girl tried to use on Howells in Hong Kong.’ Grey said nothing, but he closed his eyes and cursed silently. ‘We don’t know why he was killed, but it’s quite possible that he was on the track of your agent. And that it was your agent, your so-called goldmine, who got Hua-fan to kill him. Does that sound possible to you?’

  ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know. But yes, it is possible. But I didn’t know, I swear to God I didn’t know.’

  ‘Whether you knew or not makes no difference. Look, Grey, all bets are off. Feinberg and Edmunds were acting unofficially – I don’t think it’ll be traced back to me, though it could get a bit too close for comfort. But you are in deep shit. Howells is still alive and I’d think he’s going to be pissed at you. And if he gets caught he’s bound to tell everything. But that’s not my problem, Grey. You and I never spoke, do you get my drift?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’m going to do everything I can to protect my own back, Grey, and I suggest you do the same. But if you so much as whisper my name …’ He left the threat unfinished. The line went dead.

  ‘Who was it?’ murmured Grey’s wife from the depths of the quilt.

  ‘Nobody,’ said Grey. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

  The traffic heading towards the tunnel seemed surprisingly heavy, especially as rush hour was still an hour or so away. Dugan sat in the back of the big Merc feeling a bit exposed wearing his too-tight shorts. Ng had scoured the house for a pair that would fit, but the only pair that came close to accommodating Dugan’s expanding waistline were still an inch or so too tight and he couldn’t get the zip closed up to the top. He sat looking down at his legs, scarred and mottled from too many bad tackles. At his feet was the leather attaché case containing gold and diamonds worth something like US$275,000. Dugan was very conscious of the fact that it would take him more than ten years to earn that much. The triad had raised it with one phone call. It didn’t seem fair, but Dugan had long ago learned that the meek inherited nothing, certainly not the earth. He was wearing a red and black cotton T-shirt, but that would have to come off when they got to Hebe Haven. High fashion it wasn’t.

  Thomas Ng was sitting next to him, immaculate in a sharp grey suit and white shirt and a red tie, the sort that would allow him to dominate breakfast meetings. In the front seat, next to a driver in a chauffeur’s cap, was the old Dragon Head, who had insisted on coming along. Thomas Ng had protested, but Ng Wai-sun had been adamant and that was the end of it.

  Dugan had made it clear that when the car dropped him at Hebe Haven it should drive well away from the area; it was far too conspicuous to hang around. Lin Wing-wah would be responsible for tailing the girl until she handed the ransom over to the gweilo, and he would be in a battered old off-white delivery van with Franc Tse and Ricky Lam. They had taken the directional finder and had gone ahead of the motorcade so that they could be in position before Dugan arrived. The car moved slowly along and Dugan rubbed his hands together anxiously. Despite t
he cold air blasting from the aircon he was sweating heavily.

  Ng noticed Dugan’s discomfort. ‘Don’t worry, our men will be all around,’ he said. ‘There will be four under the water around the pier and we’ll have half a dozen small boats close by. There’ll be three men in the van up close and they’re all armed, and they’ll be in radio contact with the rest of us. Nothing can go wrong.’

  Dugan nodded, but he didn’t feel any more secure.

  ‘You know what your biggest problem will be?’ asked Ng.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not getting arrested for indecent exposure in those shorts,’ Ng laughed.

  Dugan forced a smile. The entrance to the tunnel came into view and they could see what was holding up the traffic. A lorry had run into a taxi on the approach road and both drivers had got out to wait until the police arrived. They each stood by their own vehicles refusing to look at each other. It was a matter of face, neither wanting to admit they were in the wrong, neither wanting to be the first to pull over to the side and allow the cars behind to pass. They just stood and waited, and to hell with the rest of the world. Eventually the Merc passed the taxi and Dugan looked across. There was no damage to be seen, other than a slight denting of the taxi’s rear bumper.

  ‘Face,’ laughed Ng. ‘The strength and the weakness of the Chinese.’

  That sounded great coming from a Chinese, thought Dugan, albeit one with an American passport.

  Once the accident was behind them the Merc picked up speed and a few minutes later they were Kowloon-side, heading for Hebe Haven. One by one cars left the motorcade, parking on the approach roads leading to the bay, effectively sealing off the area. By the time they were travelling along the Clearwater Bay Road there were just two cars left accompanying the Merc.

  Dugan looked at his watch. Half an hour to go before the deadline. His mouth felt dry and uncomfortable and swallowing was difficult. He wanted something to drink but didn’t want to ask Ng. Face, thought Dugan ruefully, didn’t only apply to the Chinese.