by Adam Hall
“There is only one man in Asia,” he said softly, “who would have ordered the assassination of the British Secretary of State in that particular way. His name is Tung Kuofeng, and I’d better tell you about him.”
At the top of the wide staircase there was a metal grille in the doorway and Spur opened it, ushering me into the room and closing it after him. The place was large and cavernous, the result of knocking down a couple of interior walls to make one room. Three bamboo chaise—lounges with Thai silk coverings; two enormous tapestries on the walls showing a lion hunt with Burmese riders and mounts caparisoned in gold brocade; a whole series of carved teakwood tables crowded with jade and ivory; and the thick brown coils in the corner where a stick of incense was burning.
“Don’t sit there,” Spur said with his silent laugh, “he doesn’t like it. Name’s Alexander, but he doesn’t answer to it; he’s deaf, of course.”
I went in the other direction: I hate anything without legs, and this bloody thing was fully grown by the look of it, strong enough to strangle an ox.
“This is the only house in the whole square without any rats, you see. Besides, he’d be lonely without me. Tung Kuo feng, yes, a Chinese, scion of a family traceable to the early Ch’ing dynasty. You can sit here, if you like. Kim’s bringing us some tea.”
Kim was the boy he’d summoned from nowhere, clapping his hands, telling him to look after the shop below. “It’s a pity we haven’t got Youngquist here with us - I could have briefed you both.” He was lighting a couple of arabesque lanterns, and they began throwing mottled patterns across the rugs.
“Who’s he?” I asked him and he looked round at me with a sudden jerk of his head.
“Youngquist? Oh, chap in Pekin. Useful as a contact.” He turned away again to adjust the lantern flames. “I picked up the scent of Tung Kuofeng on the frontier, in the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom. There’s rather a lot of spook traffic between there and Seoul, as I’m sure you know, and that’s why the CIA finds me so useful.”
Youngquist? I’d never heard of him, and I didn’t like the way Spur had closed up. I would ask Ferris.
“Tung isn’t a young man anymore,” he said reflectively. “I’d put him at sixty or more. But extremely fit. Lots of ki, you know, the real thing. Lots of meditation. He was running one of the very exclusive tongs in Shanghai in the good old days, not totally disconnected with the opium trade. My information on him is rather on the thin side, but up to date. Not many people like talking about him, you see; it’s not healthy. Put it down there,” he said as Kim brought in a black lacquer tray with tea things on it. That bloody thing in the corner had started moving, its shadow creeping along the wall. “Have you fed Alexander yet?”
“No,” the boy said in English.
“Well we won’t do it in front of our visitor. Just leave him alone for the moment.” He turned to me again. “It’s absurd - we have to buy him frozen rats, when in fact he’s here to clean up the real thing. There’s a lesson there, my dear fellow - if you’re too bloody efficient you risk losing your job. Tung,” he said as he poured the tea into the rice-grain china, “has got some very superior people working for him, twelve at the latest count. He’s - “
“Eleven,” I said.
“What?”
“I ran across some of them in Pekin.”
“Ah.” His pale eyes studied for a second or two. “And one of them wasn’t quick enough, yes. But they wouldn’t have been Tung’s people; they would have been hired for the rough work, you see. If you’d run across Tung’s people, you wouldn’t be here now. You ought to watch that. If those bastards in London are putting you solo into the field with Tung Kuofeng, you don’t stand a chance. And I know a good deal about you. Not a chance in hell. Lemon?”
“Yes.”
He cut a slice for me. “Lapsang Souchong. They dry the leaves on wooden racks, and to protect the wood they soak it in tar. That’s where a lot of the flavour comes from. Tung’s people, you see, comprise a hit team, for the most part; but they’re used for special operations, like the one in Pekin. And when they hit, they don’t miss. They’re utterly loyal to him, and regard him as a living Buddha. They began in the usual way: he trained them as terrorists, and as soon as they’d made their first kill they couldn’t go back to their normal lives as students. One was a computer technician and three had got their PhD in social science at Pekin University; but, as you know, the creature man is not driven by his brain but by his emotions, which aren’t all that different from those of a well-educated baboon.”
He was maddeningly slow, but I couldn’t hurry him. The information I wanted was coming on stream now and nothing must interrupt. He wasn’t doing this for London; he was doing it for a fellow slave of the Sacred Bull, which is the name we have for the Bureau, the dispenser of so much sacred bullshit.
“Rumour has it,” he said as he sipped his tea, “that Tung is peddling snow, though I rather doubt that. But I know he runs a Triad, and that it’s very powerful. I’m sure you know that Triad societies were first organised in the 17th century, to combat by secret means the tyranny of the Manchus, who overthrew the Ming dynasty. Their original aims were therefore legitimate, but like the Mafia they deteriorated over the passage of time to become illegal gangs.” With sudden emphasis he went on. “But don’t misunderstand me. The people of the Triads are rather more sophisticated than our Sicilian friends; they are secretive, subtle and infinitely more dangerous. Such a man, then, is Tung Kuofeng. Whether or not he’s engaged in exporting heroin out of the Golden Triangle I don’t know, as I say, but that bombing in Pekin carries his signature: it was decorative, ironic and effective. Tung to a T, if you’ll forgive the expression.”
I waited until I was sure he’d finished.
“Where is he now?”
“Don’t move,” he said softly. “Just keep absolutely still. It’s all right.”
I tensed, and felt slight pressure along my left leg as the bloody thing came gliding past me, its scales making a whispering across my shoe as it turned and came back, its head lifting and sensing me.
“He just wants to know who you are,” I heard Spur murmuring, “and if you move too suddenly you’d frighten him, and he’d bite. Just keep still.”
I could smell the thing now: a faint, bitter scent like something rotten. That was why Spur burned the incense in the corner there. The narrow head was lowering now, and the sinuous ten-foot body went gliding towards the bamboo basket by the wall, where it formed coils again.
“Everyone loves old Alexander,” Spur said with his silent laugh. “He was the gift of a grateful Armenian whom I got off a murder charge in Calcutta. Of course I told him it was just what I wanted. And where, you were asking, is Tung Kuofeng now? He’s in South Korea, that much I know, I’ll put out a few feelers and give you a buzz if I get any warmer.” He put down his teacup gently. “Or perhaps you’d rather do the buzzing, would you?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want me to have you followed about any more, I quite understand. I hope you’ll forgive my saying so, but the less we see of each other the more I’d like it; if you’re going to be so foolhardy as to tackle a chap like Tung Kuofeng on his home ground, I’d rather stay in the clear. Sudden death has never appealed to me, even as a way of avoiding taxes.”
The Chonju Hotel was halfway down a narrow street of small shops that sold jewellery, silk, lacquerwork and porcelain, one or two of them still open despite the moist wind that was rattling at the shutters and singing through the spokes of the bicycles that leaned everywhere against the walls.
I went into the lobby of the hotel and checked in, fetching the desk clerk away from his game of Jang-gi with an ancient Chinese under the leaves of a big potted palm.
No messages, either from Ferris in Pekin or the British Embassy here in Seoul; and suddenly I felt cut off and helpless to make a move. It was hard to believe that in London they’d opened up a plot board for this mission in signals, with a man sitti
ng there at the console waiting for Ferris or our contact at the Embassy to feed in information and request instructions, while Croder stood by with his mouth tight and his black eyes hooded and that brilliant and complex brain of his keyed to the work of sending me through the dangerous intricacies of a mission that was blocked at the start by the will-o’-the-wisp elusiveness of the opposition.
Four men dead, within four days - Sinclair, Jason, the Secretary of State and the US Ambassador to Pekin - and I was holed up in a backstreet of Seoul with the monsoon fretting at the shutters and the lamplight flickering and no messages in the key-box, almost nothing to go on, while somewhere Tung Kuofeng was planning his next move, playing his own game of Jang-gi with a fifth man on the board and ready for sacrifice.
Nerves. Discount. Nerves and the faint putrid smell of that bloody thing still in my senses, and the haunting memory of the death I’d brought to the boy in the alley, his tigerish fierceness stilled by my own hands as he lay under me with the blood filling his throat.
I went up the stairs, past grilled windows and a huge brass gong hanging from the wall; the corridor of the second floor was deserted as I walked to my room at the far end and opened the door.
Instant impressions: the sheen of dark silk and the scent of sandalwood, the glow of an emerald bracelet on a slender wrist, and in the ivory fingers with their lacquered nails the blue metal of a gun.
Chapter 8
Li-fei
A gun at close quarters is always dangerous because of the unpredictable factors involved: the state of the opponent’s nerves and the degree of his fear and the position of the safety catch and the distances and angles that will govern the trajectory of the shot if the gun is fired. Timing, above all, will decide the difference between success or failure.
She was only just inside the door and well within my reach so I hit for the wrist and the gun span across the floor as she cried out in pain and came at me with her lacquered claws, hooking for my eyes with the soft ferocity of a cat as her scent wafted over me and her face was held close to mine, the faint light from the street glowing in her eyes as she fought me, her breath hissing in fury.
She was hardly bigger than a child, but it took a few moments to subdue her, and even with both slender arms locked behind her back she still went on trying to struggle. I left things like that for a couple of minutes, giving her time to think; the Astra Cub .22 was lying on the Numda rug between the window and the bed and her dark head was turned in its direction; her breath came painfully in the quiet of the room as she began whispering to me in Chinese - to me or to herself or her gods, I couldn’t tell.
I said in English: “I’m going to hand you over to the police.” I was Clive Ingram, an innocent travel agent, and it was outrageous to find myself attacked like this in my own hotel room.
She didn’t answer, but stood quivering with her head still angled to watch the gun. I was aware of warm silk against me, and of the fury that was still in her as I kept the lock on her arms; I could feel blood creeping on my face where her nails had torn the skin close to my eyes, and I knew that if I let her go she’d fly to the gun or spin round and try to blind me.
I told her again that I was going to call the police, this time speaking in French, and her small head jerked upwards as she tried to look at me.
In the same language she said: “I shall kill you.” Her breath shuddered out of her with the force of what she was saying.
“Why?”
“One day I shall kill you, however long it takes. Do you understand?”
“Not really.” She knew I could snap her fragile arms and finish with it, but she also knew that a civilised male of the species wouldn’t want to do that. If I let her trade on it she wouldn’t give me a second’s chance. “My name is Ingram,” I told her wearily, “and I’m an English travel agent on a visit to Seoul. You’re mistaking me for someone else.” I waited, feeling the small vibration of her heartbeat as her fury went on forcing its rhythm; but her breath was slowing now, and I was encouraged. I wanted to get her out of here, and sleep; I hadn’t slept since the flight out from London two nights ago, and the death struggle in Pekin had left me bruised and drained.
It occurred to me that this woman hadn’t seen me very clearly in the gloom of the unlit room, so I pulled her backwards and felt for the light switch with my shoulder, moving it down; then I walked her across to the mirror on the dressing-table and for a moment we stared at each other; she was a pure Chinese, her delicate bone structure lit and shadowed by the lamps on the wall and her cinnamon eyes glistening; I looked less elegant, with streaks of blood on my face.
“You see,” I told her, “I’m no one you know.”
She stared at me for another few moments and then broke, her head going down and the tears coming and her slight body shaking under my hands; and when I released her she covered her face and sank slowly to the floor, the gold embroidery of her long silk hanbok glowing in the light as her black hair fell forward and revealed the pale ivory of her neck. I left her there, going to pick up the gun. She’d come close to killing me and by mistake, and now the reaction was setting in.
For a long time she didn’t move, and when the worst of the sobbing was over I asked her gently: “What is your name?”
She turned her tear-wet face. “Soong Li-fei.”
“What were you doing in my room?”
I was holding the gun, its trigger-guard hanging from one finger; but she didn’t even glance at it.
“It was a mistake,” she said, so softly that I only just heard; her French was cultured, with the accent of Touraine.
“What kind of mistake, Li-fei?”
Slowly she straightened up, wiping at her face with the back of her small hands. “It was for my brother. They killed my brother.”
The wind was rattling one of the shutters, and I went across to the windows and secured the stay. Her handbag was on the floor near the door, where she’d dropped it; it was of the same dark eau-de-nil silk as her dress. I took it over to her and she found a handkerchief and blew her nose a few times, turning away from me. When she was quiet again I said:
“They killed your brother?” I went over to the handbasin and washed the blood off my face. “Who did?”
“This is the wrong room,” she said, “or you are the wrong person. Please let me go now.”
“Someone told you I killed your brother?”
“No.” She put away her handkerchief and clicked the bag shut. “It was a mistake, m’sieur. I apologise.”
“Then someone must have told you that the man who killed your brother would be coming to this room tonight.”
“No.”
“It’s got to be one way or the other, Li-fei.”
She watched me with reddened eyes, the last of the tears still glistening on their lids. “I had the room number wrong.”
That was possible, but I had to make sure. In the initial phase of a mission I like my privacy.
“Who gave you the room number?”
“I forgot.” She was lying with a child’s simplicity now, embarrassed, wanting to go. Her lip was trembling and she was making an effort to keep control; it occurred to me that she’d cried tonight from disappointment because I’d been the wrong man and she hadn’t been able to avenge her brother.
“When did they kill your brother?” I asked her.
On a sudden sob that she couldn’t stop - “Yesterday.” I went across to her quickly and held her small cold hands, and she looked up at me in surprise.
“Was this in Seoul?” I asked her.
“No. In Pekin.”
My nape crept; but she’d said yesterday, not this morning. “How did they do it?”
She opened the little silk bag quickly, showing me a news cutting folded many times. It was in Korean. “I can’t read it,” I said.
“It says -” but there was another sob, and she gripped my hands tightly, refusing to break down again. “It says it was a ritual murder, on the steps of a temple.”
She thrust the small wad of paper back into her bag and closed it.
I felt the tension leaving me. “What was his name?”
“Soong Yongshen.”
“I’m sorry. Do you live with your parents?”
“I have no parents.”
And no brother now. “I’ll see you home,” I told her. “Where do you live?”
“No. Just let me go, please.
The monsoon sang through the street outside, banging at the shutters and swinging signs on their rusty hinges. It would blow her away, scattering her like fragments of porcelain.
“I’ll get a taxi for you downstairs.”
“No. I don’t live very far away.”
I took out the gun and put it into her hands, and her ivory fingers closed round it clumsily, as if she’d forgotten what it was, and what it was for.
“Thank you.”
“I’d throw it away, Li-fei.”
“No,” she said at once. “I will find him, and kill him.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From a friend.”
I went with her to the door. “What do you do?”
“I’m an official interpreter for the airline.”
“French and Chinese. No English?”
“No. Japanese. There are so many who speak English.” We were by the door now but I didn’t open it yet; I’d been giving her time to recover. “What did your brother do?”
She caught her breath but steadied. “He worked for - for some kind of organisation. I’m not sure.”
“Why would anyone want to kill him?”
“He did something wrong. It was something to do with the dreadful thing in Pekin.”
“What dreadful thing?”
“The bombing at the funeral.”
Blown.
As if from somewhere outside myself I noted that my voice didn’t change in the slightest, but my skin was creeping along the whole length of my spine as the nerves reacted.