by Dawson, Mark
Beatrix frowned and took a step back. She had no idea what Ying meant. He said something in Cantonese and the doorman and another man appeared at the exit. She clenched her fists, looked back at Ying and then to the bar behind him. She instinctively looked for a weapon. There was a corkscrew nestled between a clutch of cocktail sticks in a holder. Not great, but it would improve her odds a little if the situation demanded it.
Ying took another sip from his tea and then replaced the cup in the saucer with deliberate care. He turned his head and nodded to the two men. The doorman beckoned a third man into the room. The man was holding a fistful of Grace’s collar and he slung her ahead of him. The girl stumbled and sprawled onto the floor.
Beatrix was distracted and didn’t notice that Ying had slid down from the stool. He sucker-punched her on the jaw and, for a moment, the lights spun. She stumbled back two steps and braced herself on the bar. She was closer to the corkscrew now and she reached over to grab it, clasping it tightly in her fist with just the last inch and a half pointing out between her index finger and forefinger. She spat out a mouthful of blood and turned back to Ying.
“Do not,” he said, nodding to the corkscrew. He flicked his eyes back at Grace. The man who had thrown her down now had a cleaver in his hand.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Beatrix said.
“No threats. You are not in a position to make them.”
“I’ll kill you. All of you.”
“No. You will not.”
The dizziness dispersed. “What do you want?”
“I know you could not give me every copy of the file. If you did, and I believed you, I would kill you. You know this. But I can see that you care for the girl. You cannot use the file while I have her. But, by the same logic, I cannot harm her, either.” He took another sip of his tea.
“So what do we do?”
“We do nothing. You keep the file, I keep the girl. You disappear from Hong Kong. I guarantee that she will not be harmed.”
Beatrix gritted her teeth.
“But, before you leave, there is one thing I need you to do.”
“Is that right?”
“I want Chau. He, too, has defied me. He disposed of the first man to visit the girl when he should have told me what had happened. You are a gweilo, Suzy, but he is Chinese. His crime is worse and, for that, he must die. But he was not at the hotel this afternoon. He left the girl alone. That was negligent, but it saved his life. For now, at least. He trusts you. You have twenty-four hours to find him and bring him to me.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Please,” Ying said. “I have said that I would not kill her, but there are other fates. She is pretty. There are men who pay well for pretty young girls. You do not need me to explain, do you?”
Beatrix looked from Grace to the three men behind her and then back to Ying. She had no options. No cards to play. Chau had failed her. All he had to do was keep the girl safe, and he had failed. She looked back to the girl. She was terrified. Beatrix knew that it was with good reason. Ying had risen through the ranks of the Wo Shun Wo, and that would require a ruthless amorality. He had sanctioned her murder of Donnie Qi because he could see the benefits that would accrue to him: less competition, and the ability to call upon her services. It wasn’t amorality, she corrected, or at least not just that. He was psychopathic.
“If you touch a hair on her head, you know what I’ll do to you?”
Ying waved the threat away. “You have one day. Find Chau. If you do that, I promise the girl will not be touched. If not?” He shrugged. “You will find her in one of my Kowloon brothels. I cannot guarantee that she will be as pretty, or as innocent.”
She knew there was no point in trying to bluff him with what she might do with the information on the memory stick. He had trumped her.
He wouldn’t murder Grace.
What he was threatening was much worse.
He would hurt her. A little at first, and then a lot. Her life would be made into an unimaginable Hell. It would be better if she was dead.
Beatrix turned and walked away from him. Grace looked up at her as she approached.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said, loud enough for Ying to hear. “I am coming back.”
Grace sobbed as she reached out and grabbed Beatrix by the ankle.
She reached down and gently released her grip.
“I’m coming back.”
#
SHE CLIMBED the stairs to Lockhart Road. It was bright outside and the light lanced into her eyes. The noise of the busy street outside was clamorous, a confounding din after the quiet of the subterranean nightclub, but she didn’t stop. She turned into the stream of pedestrians and started to walk. She was heading towards the MTR station at Wan Chai, but that was something of which she was only peripherally aware.
Think.
There had to be an angle.
She looked down at her watch.
Just past midday.
She selected the timer, set it for twenty-four hours and started it.
There had to be a weakness, somewhere that Ying was vulnerable.
She just needed to find it.
She left the Nine Dragons behind her and vanished into the crowd.
BEATRIX ROSE returns in the third and final Hong Kong Story
DRAGON HEAD
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Dawson is the author of the breakout John Milton, Beatrix Rose and Soho Noir series. He makes his online home at www.markjdawson.com. You can connect with Mark on Twitter at @pbackwriter, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/markdawsonauthor and you should send him an email at [email protected] if the mood strikes you.
ALSO BY MARK DAWSON
Have you read them all?
In the Soho Noir Series
Gaslight
When Harry and his brother Frank are blackmailed into paying off a local hood they decide to take care of the problem themselves. But when all of London’s underworld is in thrall to the man’s boss, was their plan audacious or the most foolish thing that they could possibly have done?
Free to download: US UK
The Black Mile
London, 1940: the Luftwaffe blitzes London every night for fifty-seven nights. Houses, shops and entire streets are wiped from the map. The underworld is in flux: the Italian criminals who dominated the West End have been interned and now their rivals are fighting to replace them. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, the Black-Out Ripper sharpens his knife and sets to his grisly work.
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The Imposter
War hero Edward Fabian finds himself drawn into a criminal family’s web of vice and soon he is an accomplice to their scheming. But he’s not the man they think he is - he’s far more dangerous than they could possibly imagine.
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In the John Milton Series
One Thousand Yards
In this dip into his case files, John Milton is sent into North Korea. With nothing but a sniper rifle, bad intentions and a very particular target, will Milton be able to take on the secret police of the most dangerous failed state on the planet?
Free to download: US UK
Tarantula
In this further dip into his files, Milton is sent to Italy. A colleague who was investigating a particularly violent Mafiosi has disappeared. Will Milton be able to get to the bottom of the mystery, or will he be the next to fall victim to Tarantula?
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The Cleaner
Sharon Warriner is a single mother in the East End of London, fearful that she’s lost her young son to a life in the gangs. After John Milton saves her life, he promises to help. But the gang, and the charismatic rapper who leads it, is not about to cooperate with him.
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Saint Death
John Milton has been off the grid for six months. He surfaces in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and immediately finds himself drawn into a vicious battle with the narco-gangs that control the borderlands.
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The Driver
When a girl he drives to a party goes missing, John Milton is worried. Especially when two dead bodies are discovered and the police start treating him as their prime suspect.
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Ghosts
John Milton is blackmailed into finding his predecessor as Number One. But she’s a ghost, too, and just as dangerous as him. He finds himself in deep trouble, playing the Russians against the British in a desperate attempt to save the life of his oldest friend.
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The Sword of God
On the run from his own demons, John Milton treks through the Michigan wilderness into the town of Truth. He’s not looking for trouble, but trouble's looking for him. He finds himself up against a small-town cop who has no idea with whom he is dealing, and no idea how dangerous he is.
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In the Beatrix Rose Series
In Cold Blood
Beatrix Rose was the most dangerous assassin in an off-the-books government kill squad until her former boss betrayed her. A decade later, she emerges from the Hong Kong underworld with payback on her mind. They gunned down her husband and kidnapped her daughter, and now the debt needs to be repaid. It’s a blood feud she didn’t start but she is going to finish.
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Blood Moon Rising
There were six names on Beatrix’s Death List and now there are four. She’s going to account for the others, one by one, even if it kills her. She has returned from Somalia with another target in her sights. Bryan Duffy is in Iraq, surrounded by mercenaries, with no easy way to get to him and no easy way to get out. And Beatrix has other issues that need to be addressed. Will Duffy prove to be one kill too far?
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Blood and Roses
Beatrix Rose has worked her way through her Kill List. Four are dead, just two are left. But now her foes know she has them in her sights and the hunter has become the hunted.
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Standalone Novels
The Art of Falling Apart
A story of greed, duplicity and death in the flamboyant, super-ego world of rock and roll. Dystopia have rocketed up the charts in Europe, so now it’s time to crack America. The opening concert in Las Vegas is a sell-out success, but secret envy and open animosity have begun to tear the group apart.
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Subpoena Colada
Daniel Tate looks like he has it all. A lucrative job as a lawyer and a host of famous names who want him to work for them. But his girlfriend has deserted him for an American film star and his main client has just been implicated in a sensational murder. Can he hold it all together?
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DEDICATION
To Mrs D, FD and SD.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks, as usual, to my wife for her support (especially with regard to one very important decision). Thanks to my editors, Martha Hayes and Pauline Nolet, and the members of Team Milton who stomped on typos and checked facts until this book is as shiny and pristine as we can make it. You know who you are, and you all rock.
COPYRIGHT
AN UNPUTDOWNABLE ebook.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by UNPUTDOWNABLE LIMITED
Copyright © UNPUTDOWNABLE LIMITED 2015
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
The moral right of Mark Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY MARK DAWSON
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT