The Sky Might Fall (Harry Vee, PI)

by Michael Young

  The next light was green. Harry shouted, “Hang on.” He floored the accelerator and hit a hard left, just making it through as the light changed to red, then the brakes screamed as he skidded to a halt by the side of the road. He shoved the gun into Mui’s hand, then leaned across to open her door. For a moment she stared dumbly into his face, until he yelled, “Run! Just run!”

  Suddenly she understood, spilling out onto the side of the road in her hospital gown. Harry’s wheels spun as he hit the accelerator again. He leaned hard on the steering wheel, dodging traffic to turn about and face the agents’ car as they came around the corner.

  Mui stood at the side of the road, gun in hand. She stared in horror as Harry’s car spun around in to a head-on collision. The cars crumpled in a plume of glass, both momentarily lifted off the ground, then Harry’s car was thrown backwards, air bags exploding, fragments flying off, and inside Harry was driven into the crushed dashboard, then tossed back against the roof of the car, and finally thrown down inside as the car landed again.

  In a second it was all over, other vehicles skidded to a halt around them, bystanders staring mutely. Complete silence shrouded the scene, except for Mui. But even to herself, the scream was a hollow, far away, and useless sound.

  *

  It took him a few seconds to realise it, but Harry started to come round. There was noise around him, but he couldn’t make anything out. It was distant, disconnected. He opened his eyes, there was a doctor leaning over him. No, a paramedic. His lips were moving, but no sounds came out. There was pain in Harry’s body, but he couldn’t work out where.

  It hurt, though. And the light hurt his eyes. He squinted. He was inside an ambulance. Harry tried to sit up, feeling nauseous, while the paramedic struggled to hold him down. Harry wriggled an arm out from the straps, and pushed the paramedic away across the ambulance. There were shouts from the front, and he felt the ambulance break sharply. He undid the straps holding him, stood up, his legs nearly buckling from under him. He shoved the paramedic aside and opened the doors, spilling into the dim Seoul evening.

  Rounding a corner, he rested against the wall, took a deep breath and vomited. His ribs felt crushed; his legs were both badly bruised. One arm was twisted and painful at the elbow. There was a bandage around his head, and blood had spilled down his face. Splinters of glass were lodged in the back of his hand. He slowly started to shuffle away into the dark side streets.

  An hour later, back at the hotel, he tried to duck through reception, almost doubled up from pain. Finally he stumbled out of the lift, fell against his room door, and slid the key card into the slot. He swung into the room on the door, managing to push it closed behind him before he collapsed on the floor.

  *

  Light came through the open window. Harry winced as he woke. The pains all came rushing in at once. His face was stuck with dried blood to the carpet. As he tried to move his legs, agony came shooting white-hot up his spine. Slowly, inch by inch, he crawled across the room. Mui’s things were gone. The closet door was open, and half empty, and the small safe inside, with their cash reserves, was swinging open.

  He reached up onto the desk, noticed the gun sat there, pulled down the bottle of scotch, and took a long drink against the pain. With his good arm, the one with glass shards speckled across the hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It still worked. He managed to make one call before he passed out again.

  *

  Harry woke up in his bed. He was in the hotel room. It was day, judging by the light. He brought his hand up - it was dotted with tiny red scars - and felt around his neck. It was wrapped in a hard brace. His legs were heavy, swollen and painful, but he could move them a little. The elbow on his other arm was heavily strapped, and he had one hell of a headache. He lay in bed and waited. He didn’t have many other options.

  After ten minutes, Jim James came in through the door. “Rise and shine, Harry. How you feeling? Don’t answer that, you look like shit.” He dropped a plastic bag on the desk. Harry tried to rise, but his body was too heavy. He slumped back in the bed. James said cheerfully, “I’ve had you pretty heavily doped for a couple of days. It’ll wear off in a couple of hours. Then the pain’ll really start.”

  Harry managed to croak out, “Mui?”

  “She was travelling on the same name as your new passport? Paxman?” Harry tried to nod, but the brace didn’t give him much movement. “Then she arrived in Hong Kong two days ago, according to the flight registers. I’ve had Chang keep an eye out for her, but nothing yet.”

  Harry managed to half sit up, and swung his legs out of the bed. He stifled a yelp as his feet dropped heavily on the floor. Both legs were heavily strapped, with a brace over his left knee to keep it straight.

  “What’s the damage?”

  “Bruising, mostly. Big gash down your left leg, and it’s pretty heavily banged up. Probably damaged the ligaments in your knee. Your other leg’s pretty badly bruised. Your elbow looks like a bag of apples. Strained your neck, whiplash. Heavy bruising to your ribs, and a big gash in your head is ruining your good looks. That’s the highlights.”

  “So pretty fucked up, then?”

  “Yeah, pretty fucked up. Could be worse. You know you’ve started an international fucking crisis.”

  “The agents? Bureau 21?”

  “Yeah them. It’s been brushed under the carpet in the media, but Seoul is furious at Beijing, and Beijing is furious at the fuck up.” Harry looked at him. “Yeah, it’s bad. The Ministry’s called in Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs; there’s been emergency meetings. Word on the vine is they’re going to be mounting a major clean-up. Bureau 21 is out and Beijing is sending in the heavy guys to take out anyone even remotely connected to the whole shitty mess.”

  “We have to get to Hong Kong.”

  “Probably the last place you want to be. The Chinese will be hitting it hard. Still, I knew you’d say that. But it’s gonna be another couple of days before you go anywhere.”

  Harry tried to stand. He couldn’t bend his legs. “They’ll be after Mui.”

  “Everyone’s after Mui, and no-one’s caught up with that girl yet. Korean secret services are looking for you, or at least, someone of your description. Try to get on a plane in that state, you won’t make it through the airport.”

  Harry fell back on to the bed. He picked up the phone. Chang answered. “Chang. What’s going on?”

  “Yeah, hi Harry. Nice to hear from you. I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Where’s Mui?”

  “A Sarah Paxman came in to Hong Kong airport two nights ago. No sign of her since. I’ve been keeping an eye on Huang. I don’t think he has her, or any clue that she’s here.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. A few days ago her boyfriend resurfaced.”

  “Buchanen?”

  “The same. He sent an email out to the group, plus the girl. Seems he’s in hiding.”

  “Any replies?”

  “Denmead told him the girl was missing. Mui replied from the airport in Seoul, asking where he was, but he hasn’t checked his mail since, so he hasn’t seen either message.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Somewhere in Kowloon. Logged on from an internet café. And you can bet your ass we’re not the only ones who know that.”

  Harry hung up. James passed him a cup of coffee. “Anything else I can get you?”

  Harry looked at the coffee, then back at James. “Yeah. Painkillers. And whisky.”

  *

  The stewardess shook Harry gently awake, making sure to avoid his arm in the sling. With a cheery smile full of teeth and lipstick, she pretended she couldn’t smell the whisky fog surrounding him. “Sir, we’ve arrived in Hong Kong.”

  Harry looked around him. The passengers were queuing to exit the plane. Outside the window was bright late afternoon sunlight. He examined his face in the window reflection. It was old, and tired, with an ugly new scar running above one eye. He had spent
the last couple of days in a cloud of painkillers and whisky, while trying to get some movement back in his legs.

  James and he waited until they were the last people on the plane, and he steeled himself to stand up. He’d been okay going through the airport in Seoul, but now he was stiff from sitting. It hurt, but not as much as he had feared. He made his way through customs, leaning heavily on a cane, and stopped in the bathroom to take some more meds with his duty free scotch. James went ahead to hire a car, while Harry rang the Angels Motel and asked about the girl who was staying there.

  “You want girl? Bring your own girl.”

  “No, the young girl staying there, alone. Checked in a few days ago.”

  “No, no girl.” The guy hung up. If Mui was being sensible, she was holed up in a random, quiet place. Somewhere out of the way that she’d never been to before. But that only made it harder for Harry to find her. Harry went outside and met Jim James in the car, and they drove into Kowloon City and to Denmead’s apartment. There was no answer at the door. Harry looked through the window, holding his hand up to shield against the sun. The place was empty, deserted. Denmead had moved out.

  At Buchanen’s place a woman answered the door to shout at them in Cantonese, as a baby started screaming in the background.

  Next was Mui’s father’s place. There was no security guard, and the place looked shut up tight, doors and windows locked, with a thick chain padlocked through the gates. The alarm systems were still on. He called out Mui’s name, but there was no response. They gave up and booked into a hotel.

  *

  The next morning James went to put out some feelers amongst his old contacts. Harry met Chang in a café. Chang walked in through the door, got a coffee from the counter, and sat opposite Harry. He looked him up and down. “What the fuck happened to you?”

  “The Chinese.”

  “Hey, you know you caused a major diplomatic row with that one. It’s a fucking shitstorm across the Korean backchannels.”

  “Good. It’s a shit storm in Beijing, too. The Chinese are still in this one, and they’re looking to clean the mess up.”

  “No more Mr Nice Guy from the bad guys, huh?”

  “I presume Huang and Jessica Lee are still around. We have to find Mui before they do.”

  “Mui?”

  “The girl, that’s her name. We need to track down whoever’s left from the group.”

  “The only ones we know about are Jason Denmead and the boyfriend, Andrew Buchanen.”

  “Okay, see if you can track down Denmead, and keep an eye on the boyfriend’s email. Let me know as soon as he logs on.”

  “We could e-mail her ourselves.”

  “And say what? The Chinese at least must be monitoring her mail. We’d just give ourselves away to them, and she’ll still be in danger the moment she gets on a computer. What about the doctor?”

  “Him? He skipped Hong Kong a week ago on a flight to the States.”

  “Well then we’re running out of leads. We need to go after Huang.”

  “Huang? You know his son is going to fucking slaughter you when he catches up with you. His arrest was in all the papers, and they talked it up a treat: missing schoolgirl, paedophilia on his computers. The media had a blast, the full fucking works.”

  “I’ll deal with him when I see him. Speaking of which, I’m gonna need a piece.”

  “Yeah, I figured.” He pulled a too-heavy paper bag from his laptop case and passed it to Harry, who slipped it in his pocket. “How do we go after Huang?”

  “He’s the one who started all this. There must be a way to track the shipments through Fong’s Export.”

  “That’s a lot of containers Harry.”

  “Yeah. I’ll need your help.”

  Chang pushed his glasses up on his face, “Don’t you always. You look like you need some rest. I’ll call you when I have something.” He stood up and walked out of the café.

  In the hotel room, Harry set up the laptop he’d got in Seoul and lit a cigarillo. He started hunting down all the property owned by Huang in Hong Kong. There was a lot, warehouses, empty land and apartment buildings all through and around the city. He went to the Maritime Authority and searched for exports registered to Huang’s companies. Nothing. Registered to Fong Export Co. One hundred and sixty containers had been shipped since Fong died. Over a hundred more registered to leave in the next two weeks, but there was no way to find out where they were stored.

  He went to Fong’s website. It was all in Chinese, except a small English message that said they were accepting no new orders until further notice. Harry’s head swam with whisky and painkillers. There had to be a way to track those parts, but he couldn’t see how. Even if they could find them, surely security would be tighter than he, James, and Chang could manage.

  The pieces of the puzzle floated round and round. Oblivion slowly folded over him, and he collapsed next to the flickering screen.

  *

  He lifted his head at the knocking sound. In his mind it seemed to have been knocking for ages. The laptop was still in front of him. He looked at the clock; he’d been out for four hours. The knock came again, from the hotel room door. He heard Chang outside, calling him. He tried to stand up. The pain in his ribs was still there, but not too bad, and his knees were starting to bend.

  He opened the door to Chang, who handed him a large coffee in a paper cup and entered carrying a laptop and a small rucksack. “About time. Now listen up. Whoever was monitoring my systems before had slackened off a bit, but now that you’re back in town, guess what?”

  Harry said nothing, but took the lid off his coffee and started to blow on it. Chang started turning on his laptop. “That’s right, they’re back on my back. Whoever’s doing it I’ll tell you one thing. They know what they’re doing. That isn’t Chang’s men on there.”

  Harry was still silent. He was finding it hard to concentrate. He sipped at the coffee, burning his lip. Chang brought up a screen and typed in some codes. “So anyway,” he gave up waiting for a response from Harry, “I’ve set up some smart little programs to make it look as though I’m busy, and watch the watchers, and at the same time some tracers to see where they’re coming from, while I slip over here unnoticed and work from your place.” He looked at Harry. “Clever, huh?”

  Harry stared at him blankly. “Wake up Harry. You’ll like this bit.” He typed more numbers into the screen “Our friend Denmead has got himself a new phone, and the fool put it in his real name. And there he is.” He showed Harry a map on the screen. In the centre was a green dot. As he watched, it was slowly heading left across the screen.

  “Where is that?”

  “Kowloon.” He zoomed out a little. “Prince Edward Road West.” Harry grabbed his walking stick and his coat. He checked that Chang’s gun was still in the pocket. It was. He headed out the door. James had taken the rental car so he jumped in a taxi. His phone rang. Chang again. “Now he’s headed north up Lai Chi Kok road. From the speed, I’m guessing he’s in a car.” Harry gave the instructions to the taxi driver and told him to get a move on. They couldn’t be too far behind. “Okay Harry, right on Yen Chow Street. Where are you?”

  “I’ll be there in sixty seconds.”

  “The car’s stopped Harry. He’s outside the shopping centre.”

  Harry urged the taxi driver on. They turned into the street, with Harry trying to scan the pavement on both sides of the taxi. “Where is he?”

  “He’s still there Harry. Looks like he’s waiting for someone.”

  “Wait, I see him.” The taxi pulled up outside the busy shopping mall. Harry threw some money at the driver and scrambled out on to the pavement. Denmead, lanky and white, stood out from the crowd on the opposite side of the street. A big black SUV pulled up alongside him. Harry tried running, hobbling along as fast as he could on his cane.

  Two Chinese men got out from the car and went up to Denmead. Harry saw them approach, then start to struggle with the foreigner. Denmead was t
hrown into the back of the car, which started to speed down the road past Harry. He turned, dropping his walking stick, and started to run after it. Chang was back on the phone.

  “He’s moving again Harry, back the way he came.”

  Harry shouted into the phone, “They’ve got him. Keep on that signal, Chang. Don’t lose it.” But even as he spoke, Harry saw a small object fly from the window of the black SUV, to be scattered into a million pieces under car wheels. Harry stopped, his lungs bursting, holding on to his chest as pain shot through his knees and ribs. He heard Chang from his phone.

  “It’s gone, Harry. The signal’s gone!”

  It took Harry a few minutes to get his breath back. “Okay, Chang. Head back to your place and see if you can trace who’s bugging your systems. And find Buchanen, he’s the last link.”

  Harry’s head was swimming by the time he arrived back at the hotel. Outside was dark. Another day, and he was no closer. He fumbled his key card into the door, and then into the slot for the lights. The room lit up, and Jessica Lee was sat at the desk, a glass in her hand.

  Harry let go of the door, and fumbled in his pocket. “Don’t bother Harry,” Jessica said.

  He raised the gun anyway, trying to keep his arm steady out in front of him. “Where’s Mui?”

  Jessica sighed. “If I knew that you’d be dead already.” Harry staggered into the room, keeping the gun on the woman at the desk. He looked around the room. There was nobody else.

  “Don’t worry, Harry. I came alone.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Do you want me to say I followed Chang, or point out that when Jim James waltzes back in to town, certain tongues start wagging. Either could be true enough.”

  “Who sold me out in Seoul? Jin-Ho?”