by Nick Elliott
She looked directly at me. ‘So I was lucky, but we’re both orphans aren’t we. You were lucky too.’ That connection hadn’t crossed my mind until she said it. We were on our second drink and she was looking lovelier than ever. We were both silent for a while.
Finally, smiling, she said, ‘Don’t worry, Angus, I wasn’t trying to draw anything out of you, just saying we have that in common.’
‘I can feel that.’ And I could. ‘And I didn’t think you were - trying to draw something out of me.
‘Have you heard anything from Monty?’ I said, feeling clumsy by switching subjects and changing the mood.
‘He’s not in Hong Kong, but I got a message a few days ago. Just a text saying not to worry, he was alright.’
‘No idea where it was sent from?’
‘No. I thought you could trace a text back to a location but I couldn’t see how. Anyway, let’s go into dinner shall we? I’m hungry.’
The Grill Room was quiet. We ordered, then she asked me to choose the wine though I sensed more out of politeness than because she’d thought I was a connoisseur.
As we ate I knew I had to make a judgement. Susanna Buchan was a big part of this case. I was holding much back from her but if I revealed part of what I’d learned then she’d want to know the rest. And the rest involved matters of international security. She had a right to know. It concerned her father’s wellbeing, the family business and possibly her own safety. It came down to whether I could trust her to keep it to herself.
In the end I told her pretty much everything without disclosing the IMTF by name, only that the CMM routinely shared its case files with Whitehall - which was true - and that they’d been asked to pursue this one to its conclusion. I told her of my meeting with her father and Nakamura on the Toyama Maru, of Dark Ocean’s ambitions, of the Foundation for Oriental and Asian Studies’ involvement and of Zoe’s abduction. Finally, I told her of my father’s gold-plated Buddha that the Firth Bank had been keeping.
She didn’t question my vague reference to the British Government’s interest or how they would expect a marine insurer to play such an improbable role. Perhaps she guessed there was more to it but I sensed she was just glad to have someone she could rely on.
‘Angus, will you come with me tomorrow? I want you to meet people who can help.’
‘Who?’
‘Let them tell you. I’ll arrange a meeting.’
She dropped me off at Ronnie’s place before heading back to Hong Kong side. I was about to get out of the car when she held my arm and leaned across, separated by the armrest.
‘I will help you, Angus. Everything I can.’
We kissed, lightly at first then more eagerly. Her perfume was intoxicating. I pulled her to me. After a while she drew away.
‘I’ll pick you up here at midday,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, and bring your golden Buddha with you.’
Chapter 22
Kowloon Tong is Kowloon’s version of a leafy suburb. Its villas built in the thirties and fifties came with their own gardens, garages and, since it was on the flight path into the old Kai Tak Airport, no high-rise blocks for the neighbours to peer down from.
We drew up at a two story villa in the local art deco style, surrounded by a two-metre high wall topped with razor wire and CCTV cameras at either end. At the back of the house I could see a garden that I guessed stretched for fifty yards or so back from the house. The garden was also surrounded by a wall with razor wire set on top. It was also populated with Banyan trees which provided both shade and privacy.
Susanna pressed a buzzer beside a stainless steel door. After a while there was the sound of bolts sliding and the door opened. The man standing there occupying the whole frame was Fat Boy, only this time he was beaming from ear to ear. I turned to Susanna. ‘What the hell?’
‘This is Ah Sun,’ she said to me, then greeted him in a Chinese dialect I recognised as Putonghua, the modern version of Mandarin.
‘Come in, come in. Welcome!’ He extended his podgy hand. I took it cautiously. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We explain. Come in. Welcome,’ he repeated.
He led the way across the front garden and into the house. Inside the hall it was cool, a wooden ceiling fan disturbing the air, wood panelled walls and a parquet floor partly covered by a large rug with a dragon motif. Two stone Buddhas stood sentry on either side.
‘This way please,’ said Ah Sun leading us into another room. More parquet flooring and another huge rug, this one in pale gold silk patterned with deep blue motifs. Heavy rosewood and lacquered chests stood against the walls which were painted in a deep red. Where there was space, elaborately framed paintings depicting Chinese mountain landscapes, lakes and forests hung from the walls.
Ah Sun gestured towards a rosewood sofa adorned with silk cushions. It looked more ornamental than comfortable. I remained standing.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Susanna. ‘What’s this guy doing here?’ I gestured to Ah Sun who was now standing in the corner of the room with his arms folded across his chest, still beaming.
‘Ah Sun? There is much to be explained, Angus. Ah Sun is a good boy, really. But you weren’t to know that when you last met him.’
A man entered the room, so quietly out of the shadows that I barely noticed him.
‘Nya Wang will answer your questions,’ Susanna said gesturing to the new arrival.
He was tall for a Chinese, five-ten maybe, and slim. I guessed his age at sixty but he could have been ten years either side of that. He was dressed in a simple black robe and wore sandals. His head was shaven. There was something about his movements, spare and calm lending an aura of serenity to the man. He made no attempt to sit down. When he spoke his voice was soft and hesitant, choosing his words carefully.
‘Susanna has told me much about you; Ah Sun here also. I will explain why we are meeting now, but first, please, we shall drink tea together. He clapped his hands rather theatrically and a small woman emerged from nowhere carrying an ornate silver tray.
‘This is Dianhong tea from Yunnan province, Mr Angus. It is where our Order was founded. Our monastery became a cradle of Chinese Buddhism. It is still there today, in the far south of the province at Ganlanba near Xishuangbanna, a beautiful place.’ The woman poured the tea from an ornate porcelain teapot then left the room.
‘Mr Angus…’
‘Call me Angus.’
‘Angus, very well.’ We sat now, Nya Wang cross-legged at the end of the rosewood table.’ Let me first tell you something of the background to why we have found each other, you and me.
‘You may know that Bodhidharma was an Indian Buddhist monk. He lived fifteen hundred years ago, and he brought our Chan Buddhism to China. He also began training the monks of that Order and this led to the creation of our own Kung Fu martial art. Our traditions and practices have been preserved and revered for many centuries.
‘So now, if we move forward, we know the ship, the Lady Monteith, belonging to the family of Susanna here was carrying an important item belonging to our monastery. It was taken by Japanese troops during the war. They transported it to Beihai, a port in the south, and there loaded it onto the ship. It was on its way to Japan when the ship sank close to where we are now. The item was a statue of Buddha.
‘The Japanese wanted it for its gold, to melt it down and add it to the other gold they had taken from our country and from our neighbours. But to us, this Buddha means much more than the value of its gold. Our Buddha gave protection and helped us conquer fear and anger. It gave us courage too.’
He paused and I placed my father’s Buddha on the table. ‘Like this?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Where did you get this?’ He picked it up and examined it closely.
‘My father kept it on his desk, here in Hong Kong.’
‘It is old, and yes, it is our Buddha. I mean it is a model but exactly like our Buddha, a replica. You know, the Buddha has thirty-two major characteristics and another eig
hty minor features. Believe me, this matches our Buddha statue in every way. We can only guess how your father came upon such a rare object. Our own golden Buddha is over three hundred years old.’
‘I understand but what is your own role in all this?’
‘I am an emissary sent by the head of our monastery to retrieve the Buddha and return it to our temple. This is not an easy task. It is lying at the bottom of the sea and now some Japanese want it, again it seems for their old imperialist plans. We also must plan. We have many obstacles to overcome, but with your help and Susanna’s, we will return our Buddha to its home.’
‘How big is the Buddha? Do you know what it weighs?’
‘It is one of the largest such statues, perhaps the largest. It is over five metres high. It weighs nearly six tons.
‘Now, Ah Sun here is a member of our Order. He is already close to the Genyosha, the Dark Ocean. But his position is extremely dangerous. If they learn of his true allegiance they will surely make things very hard for him. Yet his presence in their camp is vital. For example, he knows that they wait for you to give them the exact location of the shipwreck, and that they are holding your friend from Greece.’
‘Where are they holding her?’
‘On their ship. The Toyama Maru. Ah Sun can help to rescue her.’
‘And of course I will help you,’ I said. ‘But it will not be so easy to snatch something the size of your statue from under their noses.’
‘I have a proposal to make,’ Nya Wang said. ‘You must provide them with the information they seek so they can start their salvage operation. Ah Sun says they have all the equipment available to do this: a tug and a special crane mounted on a barge, an underwater vehicle, and a team of divers.’
‘What about the China Coast Guard. Don’t tell me they are not curious, or do they want a piece of the action?’
‘Do not worry about that. We have an arrangement with the China Coast Guard to, how would you speak it, turn a blind eye to the salvaging operations. They were very appreciative of our generous payment. Furthermore, much of the equipment to be hired is Chinese as are some of the crews and divers. They have all been vetted by and are acceptable to Dark Ocean and will arouse less suspicion than if only non-Chinese personnel were engaged. It was the only way to arrange matters, and it depended on Ah Sun and his team gaining their trust. There is no need for you to suffer anxiety about this.’
‘You must have good contacts here to pull all this off.’
Nya Wang laughed. ‘Of course. There are many disciples of our Order here in Hong Kong. They come to Ganlanba to train in our martial arts. And they are well connected to the Chinese authorities.’
‘Are we talking about Triads?’
He laughed again. ‘If you wish to call them so.’
‘Alright, supposing the Buddha is salvaged, I can’t see Nakamura and his people standing around while you tow it off to China.’
‘It will then be the time for us to seize it from them.’
‘I agree this would be the most desirable outcome but it is not without its difficulties though, you will admit.’
‘Of course, but understand please, this is extremely important to us. We will give our lives if necessary to bring the Buddha home. And even this simple plan is better than no plan. You agree? We must begin somewhere.’
I had visions of an all-out gun battle at sea and wondered whether Nya Wang had thought it through.
‘I understand you also seek to destroy these people,’ he continued. ‘They have killed your friend and seized the girl.’ He spoke vehemently, his earlier serenity now replaced by fervour. ‘With your help we can find our statue and bring it home. Will you help us or not?’
I remembered something Claire had said that evening back in Edinburgh when she was schooling me in the dark art of tradecraft. ‘Remember, Angus, failure in the art of intelligence comes to those who cannot or will not distinguish between what they know to be facts and what they wish were true. It’s a matter of keeping an objective viewpoint even when tempted otherwise.’
Was I facing a comparable situation now? Here there was the danger that two parties might seek to convince each other of an unrealistic objective through a mutual desire to secure a chosen outcome. Nya Wang was as passionate about his Buddha as I was about finding Zoe. The danger was that neither of us was viewing the situation objectively.
But we talked on and by the time we left there we had a plan of sorts. It remained to be seen whether we could make it work.
I picked up my father’s little Buddha statue. Did he know of its protective properties? ‘I’ll leave this with you, Nya Wang, ‘I said. ‘I’m sure it belongs to you.’
He weighed it in his hand. ‘Let us hope it protects us all.’
Chapter 23
Susanna offered me a lift back to Ronnie Eastfield’s place in Sai Kung but I said I’d take a taxi. I needed to think. How did Nya Wang’s quest for the golden Buddha fit in with what I was trying to achieve for the IMTF? Was the involvement of Nya Wang and Susanna an added complication or a welcome opportunity? And I had a message from Claire to call her.
I remember checking the time after I’d paid off the taxi. Our meeting in Kowloon Tong had taken up the whole morning. It was ten past two and I was hungry but first I found a quiet spot by the waterfront and called Claire on another of the burner phones I was using. I brought her up to date on my meetings with Jim Brodie, and now Susanna Buchan and Nya Wang.
‘So what is this magical plan?’
I gave her the bare bones of it.
‘Will it work?’
‘Yes,’ I said cautiously. ‘If the planets are properly aligned and the Lord Buddha so decrees it.’
‘Very funny. Now then, can you be in Tokyo on Thursday? We’re meeting some guys from Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency. They’re handling the Dark Ocean end of things.’
‘Hold on. What do you mean handling?’
‘Things have moved on, Angus. They’re our counterparts, on this job at least. They’re sharing intel on Dark Ocean’s activities and its collaboration with the FOAS. It’s the only way to nail this whole crazy scheme before it becomes a reality.’
‘So who is we? Who’s attending this meeting?
‘Amber Dove, Ben Wood, you, me and two senior guys from the PSIA: Takeo Ishikawa and Saburo Akimoto.’
We talked on for another five minutes or so and she told me where and when to meet them in Tokyo. Then I walked the hundred metres back to Ronnie’s. I’ve replayed that hundred yard walk in my mind a dozen times or more, just as I had the minutes before they snatched Zoe back in Athens. Was there anything I’d missed? I’d become more alert to danger recently, keeping an eye out for anything unusual, anything or anyone out of place. I tell myself there was nothing.
I reached the entrance to the four-story block and with my mind on one of Ronnie’s ice-cold beers, pressed the buzzer for his apartment on the top floor. The blinding flash came an instant before the sound of the explosion. I was thrown backwards onto the ground. Dazed, I looked up. I could see the top floor was ablaze. I could hear nothing other than a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I stood up as slowly my hearing returned. Car alarms were going off and people were beginning to gather around the building. The main entrance door opened and three or four Chinese stumbled out. The lobby was full of smoke but I went in keeping low, looking for the stairs. More people were coming into the hall descending from other floors. I pushed my way past and went up the stairs two at a time. The smoke cleared a bit as I ascended. I reached the third floor surprised that the fire wasn't more intense. Then I saw what had happened. The blast had blown the top floor off the building. I was looking up from the third floor through a tangled mess of broken concrete and twisted rebars, up to where the top floor had been.
‘Ronnie!’ I yelled. Had he been in? I recognised mangled bits of his furniture, smouldering rugs, the fridge door hanging off its hinges, the contents blackened. I moved across the third floor
still looking upwards. Then I saw Ronnie, or what was left of him. The blast had blown him apart. What I was looking at was part of the upper part of his body including his head, charred, blackened and still smouldering. I knew it was him from the steel frames of his glasses. The glass had melted across his blackened face but the frames, unfashionably large and round, were intact.
I stumbled back down the stairs worrying that the 9mm ammunition I'd left in the flat would start going off. The Glock was in there too. Outside on the street I could hear sirens wailing. The crowd had grown but the emergency services hadn't arrived. No-one took any notice of me as I walked away.
Poor old Ronnie. Pressing that buzzer had killed him, I was sure. What else could it have been, a gas explosion? I doubted that. Given what we were involved in I’d put my money on Dark Ocean. Had they hoped I'd be in there too with him? No, they weren't after me. They needed me. I had the location of the wreck. Ronnie was dispensable, but then so would I be after I’d revealed the coordinates.
Chapter 24
Tokyo’s New Otani was built by an ex-Sumo wrestler on a site he had owned. It had once been the residence of a samurai lord and the hotel’s traditional Japanese décor expressed timeless ambience, or so its public relations people said, and it seemed to work. But it was the four-hundred year old, ten-acre gardens that made it special and it was through them that I now walked with Claire.
We’d stopped by a waterfall. ‘You know what these gardens remind me of?’ she said.
‘The Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh; me too. This is all a bit grander though.’