by Mark Arundel
On board the train, we stored our bags and sat facing forward. The carriage was mostly empty.
‘It’ll take us all the way to the top of Hong Kong Island,’ she said. I tried to picture the map in my head. ‘From there we can take a bus.’
‘Where do you live again?’
‘Deep Water Bay,’ she said, ‘south of the island.’
We rode the train. It was along the Coast of Lantau Island, but the blackness outside hid the ocean view.
A teenager stood in the gangway. His black hair had streaks of bleach, which looked orange in the light. He wore a baggy leather jacket and pointed boots. A constant sneer creased his face. He glanced at us several times. He came closer. He appeared overconfident and he spoke quietly.
‘Give me your money,’ he said. His accent was terrible. He opened his jacket to show us the pistol he kept there. Xing looked at him with distaste. She spoke to him in Cantonese. Her words were rapid and disrespectful. His face changed from an aggressor to shock and then to a coward. He closed his jacket and left quickly. I watched him until he was out of sight.
‘What did you say to him?’ I asked.
‘He’s a punk,’ she said, ‘an uninitiated member of a triad gang. Did you notice the tattoo on his hand? He’s probably a drug courier or just a messenger boy. He rides the Express at this time hoping to find easy targets from the airport.’
‘We’re easy targets?’
‘He’s stupid; he probably thought we were a tourist couple from Europe. The husband had brought his Asian wife to see Hong Kong. We look like we might have a pocket full of holiday HK dollars.’ She looked at me. ‘He was right about that.’
‘But what did you say to him? He was scared.’
‘I told him my name.’
‘...your name?’
‘Yes, the name I’m known by in the triad world.’
‘But why would that scare him?’
‘He would know the name, and the reputation it has. Even though he couldn’t be certain, couldn’t know for sure that I was really that person, he knew that if I knew the name it was possible, and that I must have triad connections. I presented with a greater strength. He backed down.’
‘What is your triad name?’ I asked.
‘Mosquito,’ she said.
The train was fast and comfortable, except for the mugger. There’d been no mention of him when I paid for the fare. I pointed this out to Xing but she didn’t laugh.
‘Mosquito,’ I said, repeating the name. ‘Why?’
‘It was the name my Dragon Master gave me.’
‘Why?’
‘He said that like the mosquito I was a gifted and inconspicuous killer.’
‘What shall I call you?’
‘Call me Xing’ she said. ‘I don’t like the name Mosquito.’
The Express stopped at the end of the line. We were in the hub of the city. The high buildings framed the eastern horizon and the first light showed diffused through a low fog like candlelight behind a white cotton sheet. Hong Kong city was waking up. It stretched and scratched its balls. Xing breathed the air deeply. To me, it tasted polluted. We walked quickly. She was confident and she seemed at ease.
‘This area is Central,’ she said, ‘and this is Exchange Square.’
It wasn’t light enough for me to see much. There were dark shapes and black corners thrown by high neon lights.
‘We catch our bus from here,’ she said. ‘We want the number six.’
We found a bench and sat down to wait. Xing pulled out her K106. She was immediately lost in the device. I looked and saw she was testing its satellite positioning capabilities.
I watched the shaded light creep higher in the east. The buildings began to show like giant rectangular heads from Easter Island. A bus stopped. Xing glanced up. It wasn’t the number six. Her head dropped back down.
I watched the people. All of them seemed to move as if they had somewhere they had to be. Purpose and time seemed to be in charge. Faces appeared like monochrome masks of task and function. Another bus stopped. I began to wonder whether the number six was running today.
My K106 rang. It made Xing look up. I answered the call. It was Meriwether.
‘Have you arrived safely?’ he asked. ‘Not too tired I hope, good man.’ I didn’t attempt to answer. ‘We’ve checked the bank account,’ he said. ‘The money was transferred from Zurich into an account held in Macau. The registered user of that account is a single personal name. We do not know the name. We believe it may be the deposed triad leader. It only has a few monthly transactions and the balance is only a few thousand dollars.’
‘So, where’s the money now?’
‘It’s been moved. We’re attempting to discover where. It’s very likely Missouri has control of it. We’ll progress on that basis. How’s Jackie?’
I realised Meriwether had given Xing the nickname Jackie.
‘Very much at home,’ I said.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I’ve briefed our HK office. They are investigating Missouri and his organisation. Once they report I’ll call you again. By the way, you can now call Little Miss Marple and close that off. It’s best to keep that new relationship harmonious; we may need her again someday. Settle in, while we wait. I can recommend the Coco Thai restaurant. Jackie will know where it is.’
I wasn’t surprised Meriwether knew where to eat in Hong Kong. I pocketed my K106 and said to Xing, ‘do you know a restaurant called Coco Thai?’
‘Was that Meriwether?’ she asked. I nodded.
‘Coco Thai is in Deep Water Bay,’ she said. ‘We can walk there from my apartment.’
Meriwether had been working hard.
I began to tell Xing what Meriwether had told me. She interrupted. ‘That’s our bus,’ she said. The number six had arrived. We paid with our Octopus cards.
The bus chugged and we started to move. ‘The Macau account will be held in a false name,’ she said, picking up the conversation. ‘I’m not surprised the money’s been moved. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is we now know Missouri has control over it. If he’s moved it once then he can move it again—back to London.’
The bus took us south. We left the city and the capitalist Easter Island heads behind. The sky lightened. We went beyond the limit of the smog. Hong Kong Island was green. We skirted the Peak and I saw Victoria Mountain through the dirty window. The terrain was hilly and the snakes of tarmac hidden like pathways through a secret garden.
We crested a rise and the view opened. I saw the bay for the first time. It was wider and deeper than I had expected. Three peaks protected it. They stood like sentry guards.
‘This is called Violet Hill,’ Xing said. She saw me staring across the bay. ‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ She was right it was pretty.
The bus dropped us off and drove away. ‘I live down there,’ Xing said. ‘It’s close.’
Apparently, we were on Island Road. I couldn’t see an apartment building that was close. ‘It’s just a short downhill walk,’ she said. I hauled the four bags and followed her. The sun was up now. It felt like a three bar electric fire in an icy room. She wasn’t waiting for me.
‘Hold on, I don’t know the way.’
‘It’s just round the corner at the bottom. Come on.’
I trudged after her. She disappeared around the bend. I quickened my pace. Her apartment building was white. The mostly glass construction reflected the trees and the sky. There was a large entrance with an awning. I saw Xing go in. I’d almost caught her up. I followed straight in behind.
The lobby had marble flooring that shone like waxed hair. Xing crossed to the mailboxes against the sidewall. The man appeared as though teleported from another place. Later, I realised he must have been concealed behind the plants. Xing had reached her mailbox and was keying in her code. The man moved rapidly on silent feet. He carried a knife. He reached her before I had time to utter a warning. I then saw something I still have difficulty explaining. How could Xing have
been aware of the danger? Nothing I saw could have given her a warning and yet, in the half second before the man struck she spun with intense speed, defended the knife strike with a dipping double arm block and then attacked with a venomous full leg kick to the assailant’s abdomen. The man buckled, but he remained on his feet. He did his best to defend the onslaught, but Xing attacked without mercy. She danced towards him with her feet and fists flying, spinning and stepping, jumping and punching. Xing’s hair flew out behind her. It moved in rhythm to her kung-fu ballet. The man was suffering. He was close to dropping. It was then that the second man appeared. He had come in behind us. He headed directly for Xing. He must have been hiding outside, while he watched and waited. He too carried a knife. His intention was obvious. I moved fast and intercepted him. He lunged at me. I spun and stepped in. I gripped his forearm with both hands and thumped him with my shoulder. He struggled, but I held him. He punched my back. I twisted his forearm and he dropped the knife. I thumped him again. The first man ran by us. He was running for the exit. I saw fear in his eyes and wet blood on his face. I released my grip and the second man darted away after his friend.
Xing was breathing deeply. Her forehead shone like the marble flooring. I picked up the knife.
‘Did you forget to pay the rent?’ I asked.
‘They were sent to kill me...,’ she said. She was surprised. ‘...to silence me.’ Her eyes were black and cold, and then they focused. She looked at me. ‘They will report back,’ she said. ‘We cannot stay here now, not again until this is over.’
I checked outside. The two men had gone. I returned inside to Xing. We took the stairs. We didn’t want any surprises when the lift doors opened. The stairwell was empty. Xing went into the corridor on her floor and I followed. It was silent. Nobody jumped out.
At her door, Xing stared into a small circular lens fitted in the wall and simultaneously keyed in a code. She had retina identity access. The door clicked and I heard the dead bolts slide open. It was top security. We entered and she closed the door behind me. Her apartment was large, open-plan and split-level. The entire far wall was glass. It looked out across the bay. I saw two of the three sentry guards and the stillness of the water surprised me.
‘Make the most of it, she said. ‘It may be the only time you see it.’ I could see in her eyes she was thinking it might be the last time she saw it too. ‘We have to leave quickly and not come back,’ she said.
I continued to stare at the view.
‘Sniper,’ I said.
‘The glass is toughened,’ she said, ‘bulletproof; and anyway, it’s too soon for a second attempt. We have time to get organised and get out.’
‘Organised?’ I asked.
‘This is now a war,’ she said. ‘Missouri will know that. He missed me. He sent two amateurs. He made a mistake being cheap. He knows I will now try to kill him. Either he dies or I die. For it to end one of us must die.’
‘What about the money?’ I said.
The money was the only reason I was in HK. Meriwether wanted the money back. I liked my new job.
‘Our priority is still the money. After we get it I will kill him.’
‘It would be much simpler for you to just kill him and forget about the money.’
‘Yes, it would be,’ she said, ‘but we both want the money. We can still do that. You and I together, backed by British Intelligence against Missouri and his Macau triads. Don’t tell me you’re not looking forward to it.’
I didn’t reply. Something was bothering me. How did Missouri know Xing was returning home that morning? I didn’t share my concern.
‘We take only one bag each,’ she said. We both selected our rucksacks. ‘We’ll fill them in my bedroom. Bring what you need.’
Her bed was square and low to the ground. It had cream silk sheets. The bedroom also had a glass wall looking out over the bay. Hanging from the ceiling was a punching bag.
Xing went to the opposite wall. Using a keypad, she opened a panel to reveal a hidden cupboard. It was her arsenal. There was every type of gun, a selection of knives, body vests, hand grenades, boxes of ammunition, and ammunition belts, webbing and even a rocket launcher.
‘Choose what you want,’ she said.
I wasn’t certain what we would be doing, so I didn’t know what we would need. ‘Do you have any other way of getting weapons after we’ve left here?’
‘Yes, I have a contact.’
I picked the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife in a leather sheath with a leg tie and a lightweight Glock 29 in a shoulder holster with a suppressor. In Tenerife, I had used the same weapon. I’m not superstitious. I also took two lemons (hand grenades), and two boxes of ammo for the Glock.
Xing watched me and then took the same, and she took one of her detachable sniper rifles. She removed it from the case and wrapped it in a striped woollen scarf. She began filling her rucksack with clothes from her built-in wardrobe: knickers, bras and socks, t-shirts, tops, jeans, cargos, a cashmere hat, gloves and scarf set.
I opened my luggage and began doing the same. I only picked what I needed. Xing threw in her toilet bag and packed the scarf wrapped rifle.
Inside the gun cupboard, was another much smaller secret compartment. It opened by pushing a button, disguised as a wooden rivet in a row of a dozen other wooden rivets. The compartment contained cash, passports, driving licences, ID cards. There were several bundles. She found what she wanted, put them in a cotton bag and placed them in her rucksack.
She shut away her Aladdin’s cave.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
I was too.
We left the apartment cautiously. I went ahead, Xing followed. She caught me up.
‘This way,’ she said.
We left the building through a side entrance. It led to a pathway. One route turned down towards the beach and the other traversed the hillside.
‘We go this way,’ Xing said, ‘it connects with the next bay over. We can take a bus from there.’
The pathway took us over the hill and down into the neighbouring bay. Occasional joggers puffed by, a dog-walker or two, and a pair of strolling old men deep in conversation, but nobody who intended us harm.
We didn’t want to hang around, so we took the first available bus. We paid with our cards and sat at the front.
‘Where does this take us?’ I asked.
‘Back to the north of the island,’ she said, ‘to Central, where we caught the bus earlier.’
‘Do you have a plan?’
‘Not really; I think we should find a tourist hotel, one popular with the British, and get a room. Do you have false ID?’
I shook my head.
‘They now know I’m with someone; if they find out your name then they might find us.’
‘Perhaps I can get a false passport and credit card from the HK office? I’ll ask Meriwether.’
Xing nodded her agreement.
I called Meriwether using my K106.
‘Ah dear boy, how are you settling in? Are the locals treating you well?’
‘I need a false ID: passport and credit card. Can the HK office help?’
‘Oh dear, has something happened?’
‘Missouri had two friends waiting for us at Jackie’s apartment. They weren’t concerned with her wellbeing. We persuaded them to leave, but now we have to remain out of sight.’
‘Yes, I see, how very unfortunate. Friends of Missouri you say, how interesting. We can easily arrange a new ID for you. I’ll ask Hoagy to have a word with the office. He’ll call you with the details.’ Meriwether ended the call.
I turned to Xing and nodded confirmation.
‘Jackie?’ she questioned.
I smiled.
‘Meriwether gives everyone a nickname,’ I said.
The bus stopped at Central. We got off carrying our rucksacks. There were Glocks under our coats and fighting knives at our waists. I felt like a combat soldier going into battle. I’m not sure how Xing felt. She seemed just the
same.
She said, ‘It is funny, isn’t it, how only a few weeks ago we fight each other and now we fight together.’
She was right.
‘Yes, very funny,’ I said.
Central was crowded. Even in the smog, I could now see the aggressive urban metropolis and feel the Asian capital city impose its will.
‘The Central Park Hotel is close,’ she said. ‘It’s popular with British tourists. We won’t be noticed there.’
I followed her through the swamp of bodies and across the hard terrain of molten concrete. We arrived at the hotel rucksack-to-rucksack.
‘We can’t check-in until you have your new identity,’ she said. ‘Are you hungry?’
We left the busy road and the high-rise buildings. A narrow concrete lane sloped like a skate park. It led us to a street side cafe. We sat at an outside table. A dirty, three-wheeled delivery truck with red hubcaps squeezed through the gap. It blew exhaust fumes in our direction.
‘This is a Dai Pai Dong,’ Xing said. ‘They’re HK’s kitchens, very popular with everyone, cheap and honest. Do you like noodles?’
I didn’t like noodles.
Xing ordered for both us. She spoke in Cantonese. It hardly helped our cover as tourists.
I considered making the call to Little Miss Marple, but given the street noise, I decided to wait. Anyway, I didn’t want Hoagy to get an engaged tone.
Xing scoffed her noodles using chopsticks. She looked like a native. ‘An English tourist would use a fork,’ I said.
Xing stopped eating while she considered my observation. Then she shrugged and carried on. She sipped what looked like milky tea.
I used the plastic fork. The food was wok fried. I identified chicken and peppers. The generous sauce was of uncertain origin.
‘Do you like it?’
I didn’t, but I ate it. The can of cold Coca-Cola, however, was excellent.
‘How long do we have to wait?’ she asked.