by Lee Weeks
One by one they stepped out onto the tarmac. Commander Ting and his men were first to sprint across the runway, with Shrimp in tow.
Mann watched the men secrete themselves behind the palms. He and Ng were the last to run across. Midway, the firing began. A volley of gunfire passed millimetres above their heads. Wong retaliated. The shots echoed around the quarry base. Mann reached Ng and Li. He saw what Li had in his hand – it wasn’t police issue.
‘Shit, Li! Where did you get that?’ Li was carrying a Colt M16 rifle.
‘Off the Internet.’
‘Can you use that thing?’ Ng whispered.
‘Sure can, sir! Three-round bursts or fully automatic?’
‘Shut up and just do it. Over there – to the right.’ Ng gestured towards the second quarry. Li flicked the fire-selector catch forward for automatic and fired a round into the darkness. There was a silence for five seconds then fire was returned from five different stations around the edge of the runway and to the far side of the Eight building.
‘Fuck! That pissed them off!’ Li sank back behind the palm.
‘Least we know where they are now,’ said Ng.
The sound of feet running across tarmac and a single shot passed over their heads, fired into the undergrowth behind them. Wong was finding his mark. There was a thud of weight on tarmac and the skittle of a dropped gun. A body lay on the runway. Another burst and Wong took out another and another. No sound for five minutes, then, from somewhere at the back of the Six building, they heard a door close.
Mann judged it time to move and signalled to the PTUs to make their way around to the back of the Six building, while the rest of them made their way towards the main entrance, twenty metres ahead. They could see the reception ahead of them lit up by one huge tiered chandelier hanging just inside the glass doors. There was no sign of life. Mann, Ng and Li edged forward one at a time until all three stood on the black marble floor of the reception area. Above their heads ornamental swathes of silk hung down as the building spiralled in glass layers, fossil like, upwards to its four floors. All was still and silent except for the click and whir of unmanned electronic equipment.
The air-con was working, blasting them with cold air. Further into the building an acrid smell hung in the air and there was a thin veil of smoke in the atmosphere. Mann signalled to Ng to watch the door as he edged forward towards the large black marble reception desk to get a look behind it. He peered over the top. Hiding, as far into the corner as she could get, her knees tucked up under her chin, was a young woman dressed in a traditional Korean bridal outfit. She let out a startled scream when she saw Mann. He put his finger to his lips for quiet, smiled reassuringly, and flashed his warrant card. She stared back at him, shaking, her face frozen into a petrified smile. She tucked her legs even further beneath her and shook uncontrollably.
‘Where is Kim?’ he asked her as she blinked up at him. ‘The black mamasan. Where is she?’
At the same time as she shook her head, her eyes flicked upwards to the stairs.
‘Which floor?’
She didn’t answer. Mann picked up a set of keys from a shelf beneath the desk. ‘Are these the master keys?’
She nodded.
He bent down. ‘You need to work on your reception skills, young lady. Now, which floor shall I start looking?’
The girl hesitated, saw the look on Mann’s face, and then spluttered ‘Fourth’.
Ng hung back to cover any unwanted guests while Mann and Li took the stairs. The place was deserted. Cautiously but quickly, they passed the landings, one, two and three, and stopped on the fourth. They walked along separate sides of the silent corridor, straining and listening as they went. There was no sound except the soft pad of leather-soled shoes on expensive carpet.
There were twelve doors on the landing. It was difficult to know which to try first, and Mann didn’t have time to waste. He scanned the corridor. There was something different about the last three rooms – the doors. They were double in size – for getting large equipment in and out.
Mann sprinted to the last door on the right, tried his keys, gave up. He stepped back a few paces and charged at the door. His shoulder thudded into it. It rocked slightly, but it didn’t give in. He took a few extra paces back towards the wall behind and charged again. Better. The door creaked, splintered slightly. The third time it flew open.
Li glanced inside then instantly backed away from the door.
‘Stay here, Li,’ Mann said, as he stepped inside and saw a sight that would haunt him forever.
97
In the far right-hand corner of the room, Kim was on her knees, tied at the wrists and suspended from two posts. She was naked and badly beaten. Where her knees touched the floor, they rested in pools of blood.
Mann went over to her and lifted her head gently. She was still breathing, just.
‘Kim?’
She didn’t answer. Her face was swollen and battered. He reached inside his jacket and took out a knife, flicked it open, and cut her arms free. She coughed and groaned in pain as her body fell against him.
He laid her gently down on the floor, took off his jacket and covered her. He shouted to Li to fetch the emergency aid pack from the helicopter and to hurry up. Kim heard his voice; she stirred and tried to open her eyes.
‘Johnny?’
‘All right, Pussy?’
‘I’m fucked, Johnny.’
‘You’ll be all right, Kim. You’ll be okay. Stay calm.’
He looked her over. She was covered in small-slatted puncture wounds everywhere on her body. Some of the wounds looked deep, but it was impossible to see how deep.
Kim tried to smile, but coughed instead and blood splattered across his face. Mann looked down at her ribs … Must have hit a lung.
‘Hang on, Kim. Stay with me.’ He wiped the blood from her mouth and cradled her.
‘Sorry, Johnny … Should have listened to you,’ she whispered.
‘Did Chan do this to you, Kim?’
She shook her head and flinched again. ‘He ordered it. His men did it.’ Her voice trailed off and Mann felt her body grow solid and heavy. ‘He took Georgina. I don’t know where. Sorry, Johnny.’
‘That’s all right, Kim. I’ll find her. Just stay with me now, Kim. Stay here. Hang on. You’re going to make it.’
‘I’m dying, Johnny.’
‘You’re not fucking dying! Stay with me, Kim! For once in your life do as you’re told! You’re going to be fine. I got plans for us. I’ve just upped my job offer to live-in housekeeper, uniform, the works.’
She smiled. ‘I’m gonna miss you, Johnny.’ She lay heavy in his arms, and then she was gone.
Ng appeared at the doorway.
Mann didn’t turn around. ‘Just give me a moment, please, Ng.’
Ng stood and waited. Mann pulled Kim closer to him and cradled her for a few minutes before he kissed her on the forehead. Then he laid her gently back down.
How many more women was he going to have to lose? No more, he vowed. He wasn’t going to attend one more fucking autopsy and see someone he cared about lying on the slab.
‘Sorry, Mann, I know she was a friend,’ Ng said.
‘Yes. She was. A good friend.’
Mann stood up. He looked around. ‘There are four stations by the look of it …’ He glanced at the ceiling. ‘And each one has a camera trained on it.’
‘There’s a water hose here.’ Ng stood next to a table with leather straps at its four corners. ‘This must be for tying the victim down. And this …’ he picked up a length of wire hanging from the wall, ‘looks like an animal snare.’
‘The hose is probably to wet the victim down prior to electrocution. This must be where Roxanne Berger met her death.’ Mann looked at the cattle prod and clamps. He saw the image of the young woman from Orange County dressed in animal hide with the lasso around her neck. He saw the cattle prod forcing her further into the tightening noose, and then he remembered something else �
�� the branding iron. He looked up and saw it hooked onto a shelf above the snare. Mann looked along the set of interchangeable heads – the F was missing.
‘This is a two-way mirror.’ Ng pointed behind him.
Mann looked above him. ‘And we’re being filmed.’ A light blinked at him from one of the cameras. ‘Let’s take a look behind the mirror, Ng.’
It was a small, dark, rectangular room. Its main feature was the mirrored window directly ahead, which took up half the room and afforded 360 visuals into the torture chamber next door. In front of the mirror, a bank of six computers were housed on an oval desk area. They were black-screened and vacant, except for one PC – it was on and linked to the camera trained on the station where Kim had been. It was still running – filming the empty space where she had been left hanging. Around the rest of the room were shelves and cupboards.
Mann touched the screen and tracked the camera down and left. He turned to Ng.
‘Ever seen anything like it, Ng?’
‘Once. On a sex-trafficking case – some women from Thailand were promised good jobs here. When they arrived they were being used for live porn shows. Some of them were underage. I was part of the raid. This looks like similar equipment. You don’t need a lot to make your own films these days.’
Mann looked around the room. The cupboard doors hung open, revealing emptiness – not tidy, sorted, cleaned-up emptiness, but the left-in-a-hurry, no-time-to-sort-anything-out, just-take-everything-you-can-carry kind.
‘It looks like the place has been stripped. Whatever films were made here, the hard evidence is gone. They left in a big hurry. Can’t have been more than a couple of hours ago. Still, they might have left some evidence.’
‘Whatever there is will be in those.’ Ng pointed to the computers.
‘And on the walls of that room in there.’
On the screen they saw Li cover Kim’s body with a sheet, before he joined them.
‘Down the corridor I found the bedroom set used for those snuff movies we saw. This whole floor seems to be where they do the film production. There are sets and storerooms full of expensive equipment.’
‘Call the Super for me, Ng, and get him to send a team out here right away. They can’t argue with this evidence. They’ll have to do something. Then let’s finish here as fast as we can. I want to catch that bastard before he gets too far. We’ll briefly sweep the rest of this building then we’ll head over to the Six – see how our friends are doing.’
Mann returned to Kim. He pulled the sheet back and leaned over to kiss her forehead. ‘Be seeing you, Pussy.’ Then he pulled the sheet back over her face, stood up and wiped his eyes.
Ng was waiting at the door for him. He handed Mann his jacket.
‘There was nothing you could have done to save her, Genghis.’
‘Not now – no. But a long time ago I had the chance to rid the world of Chan and I saved his life. If I have any regrets, that’s the one.’
‘Maybe one day you will get to correct that mistake, but for now Kim had her own path to tread and you could not alter it. Look to help those who can be helped now.’
98
Mann, Ng and Li walked briskly through the corridor that connected the two buildings together and into the main section of Six. They radioed to Commander Ting. He told them they’d found a bit of resistance.
‘There are twenty of them altogether, sir, mainly women. They weren’t expecting police. They knew something was going on when Chan had a massive clear-out and took half the security with him. He had to scramble three helicopters to get all the clients out. Apparently he tried to torch the place but these people here put the fire out. They aren’t going to answer any questions about Chan. They might be scared of the police, but they’re much more frightened of him.’
‘Bernadette?’
‘Not so far.’
Mann led the way into the tail section of Six. There were rooms with bunk beds, clothes, a few personal effects: make-up, jewellery, feminine things. The place still felt warm. There was the smell of people.
‘There are kids here, boss.’
Li stood back from the entrance to one of the staffrooms. As Mann looked inside about twelve children stared back at him. They were a mixed bunch, mainly Chinese but there were some Filipinos among them. Some were asleep on mats, while others lay on their backs, staring into space. One little boy was rocking in the corner of the room.
Jesus Christ! thought Mann. What’s the matter with this world?
‘We’re not going to hurt you. It’s all right, children. You’ll be safe now.’
One little girl stepped forward, attached her hand to Ng’s and smiled up at him. Her grip was tight, her eyes desperate.
‘Take me,’ she said. ‘Please, take me.’
Ng looked at Mann. He was a sucker for kids, and already his puppy brown eyes were melting as she held tightly to his hand.
Mann answered for him. ‘We can’t take any of you now, but help will be coming very shortly for you all. I promise.’
‘Please. Don’t leave me here.’ Her grip intensified on Ng’s hand. She wouldn’t take her eyes from his face. Mann knelt down to talk with her. She tried to hide behind Ng’s legs.
‘We cannot take you with us, there isn’t room, but help is coming and some men will stay here to look after you until we can get you out. No one will hurt you again, I promise.’
Ng knelt down and she wrapped her skinny arms around his fat neck and held on tight.
‘I promise to come and find you as soon as you get back to Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘I promise. Now, be brave.’ He pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. ‘Share this out and stay put. I’ll see you very soon.’
They met up with the PTUs at reception.
‘We’ve found Bernadette,’ said Commander Ting.
‘Alive?’
He shook his head. ‘Been dead for several days. There’s a cold storage place in the other building. It’s laid out as a morgue down there. She was on a trolley.’
‘Any idea of the cause of death?’
‘She looked like she’d been strangled, tortured. What do you want us to do? Shall we come back with you or shall we stay here and help the teams when they come?’
‘Stay here. Protect the kids. Keep looking. You shouldn’t have to wait long. Ng has phoned the Super – there’s a team on the way.’
The three detectives walked back across the tarmac one at a time, towards the waiting helicopter. Peter Wong was ready to take off. Mann was three-quarters across and Ng was halfway when they heard the young girl’s shouts. The child who had latched on to Ng’s hand was now running at full speed to catch them up. As her young cry echoed around the quarry-base, so did a flash of gunfire and a volley of bullets a millimetre from their heads.
Mann and Ng ran towards the child. Ng pinned her to the floor just as a further volley of shots was returned by three rounds from Li’s M16. Then there was silence.
‘Okay, Ng, we can move now. Li must have got him. He’s getting better with that thing.’
Mann touched Ng on the shoulder. He didn’t move. He’d been hit.
99
‘How is he?’ Superintendent White stopped Mann on the stairs on the way down from his office.
‘We don’t know yet. They’re working on him. He was hit twice: once in the shoulder, once in the stomach. We’ll go down and see him in a few hours when he comes round. Are the teams on their way to Sixty-Eight?’
‘Yes, they are there now, but Mann … we need to talk. I will do what I can, but it’s not going to be straight-forward. I had a difficult job getting permission to send the rest of them in, over the border. It’s not in our jurisdiction. There were stipulations – concessions.’
‘But these women are our responsibility. They were kidnapped from Hong Kong and taken to mainland China, where they were murdered. Plus, we have child-trafficking charges, added to the murder of an Irish citizen. Surely that’s enough to get some attention?’ Mann was d
escending the stairs as he spoke.
‘It’s not the kind of attention that’s wanted, Mann,’ Superintendent White called after him.
‘Sorry, David. Got to go. Can you get Li to brief you further? I need to interview the brothers. If I am to have any hope of finding Georgina alive and getting Chan, I have to move fast.’
Mann disappeared, leaving the Superintendent halfway up the stairs and only a fraction of the way to telling Mann what he wouldn’t want to hear. White stood for a few minutes, listening to Mann’s footsteps, then he swore under his breath and walked into his office, slamming the door behind him.
100
It was late, but then there was no clock to watch in the cells. Man Po was slumped in the corner, his head resting on his chest. His T-shirt was saturated with dribble. He was heavily sedated. They had had to. He cried all day long. He wanted to see his brother. He wanted to see his father and he wanted to see his photo collection of dead women. Because he didn’t get any of those things he had spent the previous twelve hours hitting his head repeatedly against the bars of the cell. One side of his head was a mush.
Mann looked at him. He had better get used to it, he thought. He was going to spend the rest of his life tied up, knocked out, and kept in conditions befitting an animal.
Mann called to him. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t even lift his head. So Mann went to talk to Max, who was housed in the opposite side of the building to his brother. When he got there, Max was sitting on his bunk, his head in his hands. One bare lightbulb shone down into the cell. He didn’t move or look up as Mann approached him.
‘You ready to help, Max?’
Max didn’t answer.
‘I know about Club Sixty-Eight, Max. I know that at least some of the women met their deaths there. You want me to help you and your brother, you need to talk to me now.’
Max shook his head miserably and wrung his hands as he stared up at Mann from his bunk.
‘What have you got to lose, Max? What are you afraid of?’