For a moment he considered the absurd idea that his ship was in the wrong place, but the familiar silhouette of Lamma Island offered the necessary reassurance. The Indian Sun was riding at anchor in her usual pre-voyage spot, some five miles inside British waters. It was the Chinese who had got their navigation wrong, or at least he hoped they had.
Berti left the bridge and walked swiftly through the officer quarters to his radio officer’s cabin. He opened the door to find the man studying a porn magazine centrefold in his bunk. ‘Paolo, emergency,’ he said. ‘Get hold of the Marine Police and tell them we’re having a visit from the Red Chinese.’
In the flat in Quarry Bay Rosalie awoke with a start to feel the end of the gun against the side of her head, and to see the dark shadow looming over her. ‘Don’t make a sound,’ a male voice said in Cantonese. It was the second time he had said it, she realized – the first time was what had woken her up.
She suddenly realized she was alone in the bed.
‘Come on,’ a nervous voice said from a few feet away. Another figure was standing in the open doorway.
‘Get up,’ the first man said. ‘Slowly,’ he added, keeping the barrel of the gun no more than a few inches from her head.
She got slowly to her feet beside him, and he wrapped an arm almost lovingly around her neck.
The other whistled softly. ‘Pity we haven’t got more time,’ he murmured.
She could almost feel his eyes wandering over her naked body. Where was Marker? Her heart sank at the thought that he had gone, that there was a note on the kitchen table telling her he had an early meeting.
‘Walk,’ the man was saying. She could feel his breath in her ear, which meant he wasn’t much taller than she was.
They moved out into the passage which ran through from the front door to the living room. Out of the corner of her eye she could see no sign of a light under the bathroom door, but then she supposed he would have turned it off.
And then, with a surge of relief which caused her heart to skip a beat, she saw that both their clothes were still scattered across the floor. He hadn’t gone. And they hadn’t noticed his clothes. There was still hope.
Only about ten minutes had passed since Marker had left her sleeping peacefully and walked out on to the balcony, wanting to feel some breeze on his body and share his sense of joy with the night. He had heard the click as the flat’s front door sprang open, and had seen the silhouetted men and guns against the bright light of the corridor beyond as they let themselves in.
For a moment all he could do was curse his own incompetence. Their passion had overridden every basic security precaution, from the double bolting of the door to keeping his gun within reach. As far as he knew, the holstered Browning was still attached to the trouser belt she had undone for him in the hallway.
The options flashed through his head. If they were going to kill her immediately – the thought dropped his stomach about a mile – then the best he could do was to die with her. But if they planned to take their time he had a chance.
He offered a prayer to whatever god might be listening, and in the silence heard one of the men say something in the bedroom. He didn’t understand the Cantonese, but words in any language had to be better than the apologetic cough of a silenced gun.
He paused on the balcony’s threshold, torn between the knowledge that any hesitation might be fatal and the fear of blowing his one chance by moving too soon. Give them a few minutes, his rational self insisted, give them time to feel secure, to let their guards down. But he found himself leaning into the living room regardless, as if a more primeval voice was pulling him forward.
He was saved by the enemy. One of the men backed out of the bedroom, his eyes on what was happening inside, and Marker had time to slip back out on to the balcony. Through the door curtains swaying in the breeze he saw the other man follow, pushing Rosalie in front of him. His left arm was wrapped around her throat, the right held a gun against her right temple.
They were walking straight towards him. Two guns against his none, and one of them poised to blow away the person who meant most to him in the world.
Go with the motion, his kung fu teacher in Kowloon had always told him. He should have continued the classes in England, but at the time it had seemed better, as far as he and Penny were concerned, if a line could be drawn under his months in Hong Kong.
And now it might cost both him and Rosalie their lives.
He took a deep breath, calculated distances, and as the first man came out he grabbed the arm with the gun, pivoted on both feet like a discus thrower and pulled in the direction the body was already travelling. There was a crack of bones breaking, and a scream of pain rising to a wail as the man crashed across the parapet, teetered on its edge like an acrobat, and tumbled from sight.
As she and her captor had advanced across the living room Rosalie had listened in vain for the slightest sound behind them. So Marker had to be on the balcony, and he would have to tackle the first man through the door. The man holding her would get a shock, and she would have a split second to make her move.
The man in front was only a couple of feet from the doorway. She let her knees buckle and went limp in her captor’s arms, as if she had suddenly fainted. He cursed, let her sag for a moment, and then encircled her beneath the breasts with his other arm.
He had put the gun away.
As the first man stepped out on to the balcony, and she saw Marker’s two hands reach out for his gun arm, Rosalie dug both her elbows backwards into the second man’s ribs with as much force as she could muster. He grunted, but the arm around her throat only loosened for a second, and she could feel the other hand desperately reaching for his gun.
She pushed her foot against the door jamb and shoved with all her might, forcing them both backwards, and as they tottered in unison across the floor she managed to entangle one leg through his.
They both went down, she on top of him, he on to the TV, his head striking the corner of the set with sickening force.
She whirled away, but there was no need. He was out cold, and Marker was holding his dead partner’s gun in the balcony doorway.
Some six miles to the north-west, one FPC and two Sea Rider inflatables belonging to 3rd Raiding Squadron were lurking close to the island of Peng Chau on the western side of the West Lamma Channel. They were sitting in silence, with lights out, on the lookout for smugglers. There were two Marines in each boat, and the FPC also carried a Chinese interpreter from the Marine Police. Corporal Taff Saunders was in overall command.
It was about half an hour after the Chinese first set foot on Captain Berti’s ship that the order to investigate reached the patrol. Reckoning that an early appearance by the British authorities would count for more than numbers or fire-power, Saunders took the decision to make best speed in the FPC, and leave the Sea Riders to catch him up as quickly as they could.
‘Go and take a look, but be bloody careful,’ the voice on the radio had advised, and the latter half of the instruction had not been lost on Saunders. He had been in Hong Kong long enough to remember several such incidents turning sour. In one, not more than a year earlier, an inexperienced young Marine had stepped on to a Chinese boat thinking that his comrades were right behind him. They hadn’t been, and the Marine had been forced to leap from a speeding boat into the dark waters.
‘Whatever you do,’ Saunders yelled at the young Marine who was with him, ‘don’t leave the boat. I’m not spending half the night looking for your body.’
‘No, Corp,’ the young man said with a grin. His name was Branston, and everyone called him Picklehead.
In the bow of the FPC the Chinese interpreter seemed more concerned with the immediate perils of a sixty-five-mph journey across the choppy centre of the Channel than any upcoming confrontation with the People’s Republic. As he bounced around in his own seat Saunders could appreciate why.
‘Why would they board a ship in our waters?’ Picklehead was shouting. ‘
Why not wait until it’s in theirs?’
‘Because it’s a bloody sight harder to board a moving ship in daylight than an anchored one at night. A lot of the freighters don’t want to pass through the offshore islands in the dark, but they don’t want to pay an extra night’s harbour dues either. So they move out here in the evening, spend the night at anchor, and head on out after a hearty breakfast.’
Picklehead nodded his understanding.
They could see the ship now, a couple of miles ahead of them, a long, black wedge against the shadowy background of Lamma Island.
‘It’s moving,’ Picklehead yelled.
It was. Saunders altered course slightly, wondering where the Chinks got their nerve from.
Picklehead’s hands emerged from the watertight bag with the low-light camcorder which had been specially designed for 3rd Raiding Squadron’s smuggling patrols.
‘Don’t go flashing that around,’ Saunders yelled at him. ‘The bastards may be camera-shy.’
They were about a quarter of a mile from the slow-moving cargo liner when it became apparent that the Chinese had spotted them. Two of the speedboats were arcing away from the freighter on an intercept course, like dogs leaping to the defence of their prey.
‘What now, Corp?’
Saunders throttled down. ‘Jesus, I don’t know. I guess we see what they have to say.’
The three boats decelerated towards each other, the Chinese moving in on either side of the FPC. In the latter’s bow the interpreter looked distinctly apprehensive.
A uniformed officer shouted out something in Cantonese across the few feet of water which separated the craft.
‘He says you will not be permitted to interfere in the internal affairs of the People’s Republic. This ship has been engaged in smuggling and is being taken into port for investigation. The captain is under arrest.’
Saunders looked the Chinese officer in the eye. ‘Tell the little fucker that he’s in British waters. Tactfully, of course.’
The officer listened, smiled, and said in perfect English: ‘This is the South China Sea, not the English Channel.’
‘Tell him 1997 is still two years . . . ’
One of the Chinese in the other boat suddenly shouted, turning Saunders round. He was pointing at the camcorder which Picklehead was holding loosely in his hand.
‘Put it down,’ Saunders said, and turned with upraised hands and an innocent expression to find two Chinese officers in the process of jumping aboard the FPC, both of them brandishing automatic pistols.
‘Hey!’ he shouted impotently.
Suddenly everyone seemed to be shouting at once.
‘Give him the camera,’ Saunders told Picklehead, who went to pull the strap off his shoulder, and ended up jerking the sub-machine-gun into his hand.
One of the Chinese officers fired point blank at the young Marine’s chest, and he sank to the floor of the FPC with a look of astonishment on his face.
There was a moment’s stunned silence. As Saunders bent to see how badly Picklehead was injured, the Chinese officer rapped out an order, and his men returned to their boat, taking the camcorder with them.
The freighter was already a mile away, and the two Chinese speedboats raced off to catch it. This was one for the politicians to sort out, Saunders thought. He was sorry he had ever heard the fucking distress call.
He was sorrier still when Marine Branston died on his way to hospital.
In London it was shortly after seven-thirty, and Sir Willoughby Winterton was just about to leave for his club and an evening of bridge when the telephone rang. He would not have answered it, but his elder son, recently sent down from Cambridge, had probably been expecting a call from one of his druggie friends. ‘It’s for you, Pops,’ the young man called out in his usual mocking tone. ‘Someone named Beeston. I told him you were home.’
Winterton sighed. ‘I’ll take it in the study,’ he called out. As the chief executive of a huge insurance conglomerate which had long been a major contributor to Party funds, Brian Beeston was not someone a Party Chairman could afford to antagonize.
‘Hello, Brian,’ he said cheerfully. ‘What can I do for you?’
Beeston wasted no time on niceties. ‘I heard it on the grapevine that the Government has just put new handcuffs on our lads out in Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘Can you confirm that?’
‘More or less,’ Winterton agreed. He knew there was no point in denying it. ‘It’s a matter of . . .’ he started to say, but Beeston was having none of it.
‘Well, I’ve just had news that another one of our ships has been hijacked,’ he ploughed on remorselessly. ‘In Hong Kong waters, no less. And it seems as though a Royal Marine was killed trying to stop the bastards.’
Hell’s bells, Winterton thought. A dead serviceman meant Questions in the House.
‘Do you know how many millions this is going to cost us?’ Beeston asked. ‘And can you guess what our shareholders will want us to cut back on?’
Winterton could.
‘From what I’ve heard,’ Beeston went on, ‘your contributors in the Hong Kong business community are deserting you in droves. Perhaps it’s time you took a hard look at who your real friends are.’
In Hong Kong it was almost dawn when her police colleagues finally left Rosalie’s flat. The locals had arrived first, followed by CID officers from Central and a couple of Ormond’s OSCG team. Finally an anxious Li had put in an appearance. He had received a garbled message on the phone saying only that she’d been attacked at home, and was relieved to find that she hadn’t been injured. He confirmed her recognition of the injured man as a Blue Dragon foot soldier, and agreed that the dead man was likely to be the same. Since the latter had fallen seven storeys on to his face a definite identification was going to take time.
After everyone had gone Rosalie and Marker went back to bed, and fell swiftly asleep in each other’s arms. Two hours later by the clock – it felt more like two minutes – they were woken by the phone.
‘Kai,’ she said sleepily, listened, and handed it to Marker.
It was Cafell. ‘I thought you’d like to know – leave’s been cancelled. Colhoun just phoned. He thinks we’ll get the green light in a few hours.’
‘What changed their minds?’ Marker asked. He felt suddenly awake.
‘Our pirate friends. They took another ship last night, off Lamma Island. Right from under our noses,’ he added disgustedly.
‘Christ . . . ’
‘And a Marine was killed,’ Cafell added.
‘Oh shit,’ Marker murmured.
‘Name of Billy Branston.’
Marker had never heard of him.
‘If the ship was taken last night,’ Cafell went on, ‘there’s a good chance it’ll still be at Chuntao.’
‘Right,’ Marker agreed. ‘It’ll have to be tonight.’
‘Well, I hope you’ve had a good night’s sleep,’ Cafell said mischievously.
Marker grunted. ‘Not so as you’d notice. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Get started on the usual, OK?’
‘Gotcha.’
Marker hung up, and turned to Rosalie. ‘I have to go,’ he said, and wished he didn’t.
‘Chuntao?’ she asked, worry in her eyes.
‘Looks like it.’
She nodded, as if in acceptance. ‘I’ll take the train in with you,’ she said. ‘I want to be there when they bring Lu Zhen in for questioning.’
They showered, dressed, drank a cup of instant coffee, and walked down to the MRT station. With a gentle breeze blowing in off the harbour and the sky still blue, it was hard to believe that less than six hours earlier they had both been fighting for their lives.
At Wan Chai he watched her walk away down the platform, and then turn at the last minute with a wave and a smile.
Back on Stonecutters’ Island Marker eventually found Cafell in one of the instruction rooms, hard at work on a model of the Chuntao port and its surroundings.
‘It’s Play-do,
’ the younger man explained as he added more height to a headland. ‘I found it in the crèche.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘Ian’s checking out the available boats, and Finn’s looking for photographic equipment.’
Marker went in search of Dubery. He already knew what sort of boats he wanted to use.
Rosalie stood behind the one-way glass, studying the seated figure of Lu Zhen. They were in the Kowloon Regional HQ on Argyle Street, the station where she had started her career, and even now, a decade later, the place still felt oppressive. This was where she had begun the process of exorcizing her father’s ghost.
And now she was looking at the man who had acted as the executive officer in the small matter of her attempted murder. Not that there was any hope of proving it.
The Blue Dragon Red Pole knew he was bright, but there was no bombastic arrogance – he wouldn’t trip himself up with his own cleverness. There was something so smooth and self-assured about the bastard – ‘urbane’ was the word her father’s circle would have used. He probably liked Zhang Yimou’s films.
Ormond’s two men were trying to convince Lu Zhen that the survivor of the previous night’s attack had implicated the Blue Dragons in general and him in particular. Of course he had done no such thing, and the Red Pole knew it as well as the two detectives. His mouth was still creased in amusement at the thought.
If they ever got this one, she thought, then it would only be for something like tax evasion. He might run a gang of vicious thugs, but he had risen above personal participation in the sort of crime which left DNA traces or fingerprints. The only sure method of stopping Lu – and his equally immune boss Shu Zhi-fang – lay in the destruction of that cross-border alliance which had facilitated the Blue Dragons’ spectacular rise.
* * *
By three in the afternoon the SBS team had finished sorting out their transport, weapons and equipment, and had gathered together every scrap of available information on Chuntao Island and the surrounding waters. The four men had sat around Cafell’s model making plans for all the contingencies they could think of. The usual litany of hysterical jokes had reached a peak around noon and declined thereafter, leaving each of the four men as ready as he would ever be to risk life and limb in the service of Queen, Country and SBS.
Marine G SBS Page 17