The young man nodded and pushed open the door into the second room.
*
The team arrived at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport within an hour of each other, using four different airlines.
Quayle had travelled alone. In the men’s rooms at the airport he changed into the uniform of a Qantas flight steward and, watching the time, emerged half an hour later in time for the Qantas flight in from Melbourne and the reciprocal flight eastbound. That would give him a group of upwards of twenty men in similar garb to become lost in, and each crew would think him part of the other. After waiting until he heard the landing announcement, he gave it another twenty minutes and then walked onto the crowded concourse, his cabin bag in his hand, his blonde hair hanging wild over the fake tan he had applied. As he arrived at the crew immigration counter, he saw that others in the familiar blue jackets with orange cuffs had arrived and dropped in behind them. The ruse worked, as he had known that it would. The checks were minimal and, soon, he was waved through. As he approached the baggage carousel, he shrugged off his jacket, slipped a lightweight coat over his shoulders and walked past the real crew members, out through customs.
Taking a look at the waiting hotel men, he randomly selected one that he knew was over on Hong Kong island. Apologising that he had no reservation, he flashed the attendant a hundred dollar bill and was soon being whisked away to a liveried driver in an awaiting limousine, with assurances that there were rooms available.
The hotel was new: a massive towering glass structure on the other side of the Hong Kong convention centre, between Causeway Bay and the central business district. As soon as Quayle had taken his room, he stood at the window and gazed out upon the city below. The location was perfect; Wanchai, the old red light quarter, the famous world of Suzie Wong, sprawled like an old slut out behind the complex. And there, in amongst the food stalls and girlie bars, the street traders and massage parlours, the noise and spitting and exhaust fumes, was the small flat that Steve Chung had found.
Steve Chung was a moon-faced laughing little man who seemed perpetually pushing his glasses up his nose, and had over the years provided Quayle with what he lacked on the streets: language, contacts, access to the black market, forged documents and information. He was a curious individual, one who claimed to do nothing for free and anything for money, but consistently broke his own rules by being loyal to his friends. That night he would meet Quayle at the flat in Wanchai while Cockburn and the others waited at the MI6 safe house overlooking Aberdeen Harbour. The first meeting here in the hotel was with a dour Scots Hong Kong Police Special Branch officer and, later, his MI6 counterpart.
Quayle welcomed the first into his room, a big beefy solid square block of a man called Jamie McReady, and they got right into it.
“You what?” he growled.
“You heard me. It’s the only way,” Quayle replied looking him straight in the eye.
“I have sworn to uphold the law,” the Scot replied. “I will countenance no such thing!”
“Crap. You’re SB. You spend more time breaking the law than upholding it. Anyway, the law is a mockery here and you know it. These people are untouchables. Too big, too rich, too powerful for you to get at. We do this my way.”
“Nevertheless,” he countered, “it’s the law. We may bend it a little to make a case, but never like this.”
“That’s shit, McReady. Besides, I don’t want to charge them in court. I want to get Holly Morton back. All you have to do is make sure I’m not compromised by one of your more zealous types. I’ll tell you when and I’ll tell you where. You file an SB operation blue sheet on the area and keep the uniform people the hell out of the way.”
“I don’t like it.” The rough burr rolled off his tongue.
“You don’t have to. Just do it,” Quayle snapped. Then, softening, he offered McRerady a bonus. “I’ll get him for you. Signed sealed and delivered. He’ll be your grass forever.”
“For Christ’s sake man, Fung Wa dines out with half the board of Jardines. He’s a consultant to the Swires! He’s one of the most respected business men in the colony. You can’t just deliver men like that…” He waved a ham sized fist out over Kowloon.
“Business set up on filthy money. He’s also in with the drugs dealers, with the extortion racketeers and, without a doubt, is a kidnapper. Twenty years ago he would have been a Triad warlord!”
“None of it provable in any court in the world,” McReady said. “Look, if he’s kidnapped someone, then give it to the Serious Crimes Squad. Let them deal with it.”
“No. I want this over in the next forty-eight hours.”
“There’s more to this than just a kidnapping, isn’t there?” he said. It wasn’t truly a question. “Level with me Quayle. What’s going down here? If this is political or subversives I want in. This is my patch.”
But Quayle just looked him straight in the eye.
“Just keep your people clear.”
As darkness fell, the MI6 man was given a list of instructions to take back to Cockburn at the safe-house and Quayle, slipping into jeans and a sweatshirt, disappeared into the throngs of people emerging from the conference centre and began to walk into bustle and noise of the Wanchai. His method was established. Now all that remained was the plan and its execution.
Quayle used the walk to come closer to the streets and the people that had made Fung Wa what he was. Fifteen minutes later, he pushed through a doorway. There, an old man in a tattered blue jacket squatted on thin haunches, stirring noodles on a primus stove. He barely glanced up. This was a place where many men came and went. Quayle stepped past him and took the filthy stairs upwards, the only light the garish red reflection of a neon sign outside, and the smell of urine strong.
The rooms were on the third floor. He paused on the landing to read the number on a door. An old metal ‘5’ hung at an angle from a screw held in place by peeling blistered paint. From the other side of the door came the smells of cooking, the coarse laughter of a woman – and, somewhere, the cry of a baby.
Moving down the passage to the place where the silhouette of a long-gone number ‘7’ glared down, Quayle pushed against the door. When it swung back, he paused in the darkness of the hall and allowed his instincts to roam ahead. Finally, he felt for the light switch and flicked it on.
A tired old forty watt bulb that someone had forgotten to steal illuminated the tatty room. An old packing case stood in one corner and upon it sat a plastic bowl that someone had placed there to catch the drips coming from the ceiling. If they had meant to return, they had forgotten; it had gone green and overflowed some time ago, and the case beneath it was sodden and mildewed. Cracked linoleum peeled up at the edges of the walls and, where the four legs of a bed had once stood, it was worn through – no doubt, Quayle thought, due to the hard work of the occupant.
Crossing to the door, he looked into the second room, a smaller dirtier version of the first. In the corner was a pile of dried crusted faeces. Whoever had felt the need had pulled one of the magazine pictures that adorned the wall to wipe themselves. He looked at his watch. Two minutes.
He crossed back to the front door, swung it shut and switched the light off, then leant against the wall to wait. No sooner was he in position, he heard light footsteps in the hall, followed by a soft knock at the door.
Quayle remained where he was and eventually the door swung back.
Steve Chung moved through, his posture suggesting he was confused and slightly lost as it always did.
“Ah little bird. Long time no see!” He beamed at Quayle as he turned on the light. “How the fuck are you?”
Quayle crossed to him to take the offered hand. “Hi Steve. I’m fine. How’s the family?”
“Two more since you were here last. They eat me out of home and house!”
Quayle smiled at the thought. Steve Chung had six children on his last visit.
“So you like this shithole I find for you? Very desirable for whore but not for you. L
et me find something else. This place seen more cock than Madame Chang Kai Chek…”
“No, it’s fine,” Quayle replied. “You want work?”
“Always!”
“It’s close to home and it’s big. You may say no.”
“I say yes! You just pay plenty!” he roared with laughter, slapping his thigh.
“Fung Wa,” Quayle said.
The smile dropped from Steve’s face. “I know you crazy. But you not that crazy, little bird. Fung Wa is bad.”
“I heard he is a respectable businessman.”
“To some. He runs for government this year. He has two halves like a dragon that has two heads. To others he is powerful gang boss!”
“His joss just ran out,” Quayle said softly. “He’s taken something of mine.”
“Something of value?”
Quayle nodded. He handed Steve a photo of Holly.
“This is what I want.”
When he had finished, Steve shook his head like he had heard something insane.
“He is not normal Joe. He has many men. He pays big money for things to go right. This is going into the mouth of the storm…”
“It will work,” Quayle said firmly. “Fung Wa has forgotten the taste of fear. He has been above it. He thinks he is invulnerable. He thinks he is safe. Now it will all come home to roost.”
“Maybe,” Steve said, shrugging. “Fung Choi.”
Quayle know those words.
Fate.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was seven hours before Steve contacted Quayle, who had gone to ground in a flat overlooking Happy Valley Road. He thought he had been tailed going back to the hotel. If it was a big team then he would never see all of them and, not willing to try and confirm it, he simply did what agents do who want to shake a tail.
One minute he was there; the next he had disappeared.
In fact, he had climbed into the back of a police car and flashed a Hong Kong Special Branch warrant card, one of his collection. The Chinese constable almost saluted at the sight of it but caught himself as Quayle slid down in the seat and asked to be dropped at the first quiet spot. The policeman – who had seen this kind of thing before –gave an imperceptible nod and, looking straight ahead, meandered round to the back of one of the hotels on Causeway Bay, where Quayle slid from the rear door as it was still moving. With money and papers, he could move indefinitely – so he phoned the Aberdeen Harbour safe-house and nonchalantly asked them find someone to go over and pick up his laundry.
Cockburn understood immediately and asked him to call back in an hour, then immediately dropped into business as a field controller. His agent on the ground needed support; this was how he had earned his money before the dizzy heights of the Head of Stations desk.
Chloe sat back to watch. He phoned the embassy, roused the local man and sent him down for a list of any British who had left the island in the last two days on home leave. Someone who lived near the city on the island. Forty minutes later, he had several names jotted down, amongst them the address of a homosexual gold trader who had a flat above the Happy Valley Road. Cockburn picked it straight away because people would be used to strange men arriving unannounced.
“Will you go over and water Rupert’s plants for me?” he asked when Quayle called back.
“I’ve forgotten his address,” Quayle came back.
“Oh you silly! Here I’ll read it out to you!” Cockburn really turned it on. “We haven’t got the key but I’m sure you’ll think of something. Not sure if the houseboy is coming in, so just in case...”
Great, Quayle thought when he hung up. I’ve got to break into this man’s place. I hope he doesn’t have a big dog.
In the end, he got through the locks inside a minute, pushing through into a spacious hall jammed with rare brasses and a huge delicious monster in a tub. On the wall was a small Qom rug and, for a second, Serifos flooded back into his memory, the smell of scones baking and Holly covered in flour, trying to read a Greek recipe. Afternoon lovemaking and the warm breeze of the sea swirling the curtains. An image of all that was good for him. Soon, Teddy. Soon we will have Holly back. He stepped down one shallow step into the living room. He was expecting it to be overdone in Laura Ashley cushions and matching photograph frames but was pleasantly surprised at the two hefty club chairs either side of a carved teak chest. It felt right.
He was hungry but checked the remainder of the rooms before heading for the fridge, hoping that Rupert had left something in the freezer. He had, complete with a note to himself not to binge, saying fat fat fat! Quayle smiled and helped himself to what looked like a TV lasagne. Only the microwave would know. Rupert wasn’t a fussy eater by the look of things.
Settling back in of the chairs, he wondered how Steve was getting on. Anyone who had made it like Fung Wa had made enemies along the way. Steve would have to find them, find people who would talk. Find men who had waited years for the opportunity to play some small part in his downfall. He considered the watchers. They had only had him for five minutes along one of the busy Wanchai streets. They could not have confirmed his identity in that time, even working from photographs. It was pure bad luck. There was a time, long ago, that he would have let them follow, drawing them in, leaving them secure that they weren’t blown, waiting for their move. But that was for networks and teams, not a man on his own, not a man who was the target. With a little luck, they wouldn’t even report the incident, mindful of their masters’ wrath. If they did, then Fung Wa’s machine would begin to turn and security would be tightened immediately. They would know he was coming to take back what was his, to come for the bait. Fung Wa would be worried. He would have made commitments to others, he would have made assurances that he could deal with the problem, assurances to Broken Square. Together they would keep it from the Chinese. There was too much to risk in allowing shy paranoid xenophobic Beijing know that there was a loose cannon on the deck. Fung Wa couldn’t afford a battle on the streets, not with Beijing watching so closely, not with a political career in the offing, not having spent years going legitimate in preparation for the handover of the colony to the Peoples Republic of China. Fung Wa was risking everything on one magnificent gamble. The tightrope walk between Broken Square and the Chinese could bear staggering fortunes.
Quayle walked to the windows, gazing down over the layers of light that was Happy Valley at night. It was still too simple. Broken Square, whoever they were, was big. So big as to include the minutemen and nachtwatch and exert some control over even Fung Wa’s organisation and all he could muster. So why become the hired gun, even if it achieved their own ends? He toyed with the words for a minute, looking for a relationship between Tiananmen Square and Teddy Morton’s file name, but it was all hollow. Teddy was dead long before the massacre in Tiananmen signalled the end of reform on the mainland, long before the old party hard-line Marxists crushed their own bright future beneath the tracks of their tanks.
Had Teddy foreseen it? Was that his warning, woven through the words of Newbolt? No, Quayle thought. His warning was not the broad screech of the tabloid press crying yellow peril. It was something more esoteric and infinitely more evil. It was deeper and closer and with more at stake than the possession of an island half a world away.
Through Fung Wa, Beijing had made an offer with ironic timing, like offering a nymphomaniac a million dollars to go to bed with a super stud. The minutemen and the nachtwatch were going to do it anyway; Beijing had simply offered a convenient scapegoat, and Fung Wa and his associates a substantial war chest.
If they put up any less than a billion dollars for the expenses they had gotten away lightly. Somewhere out there was the real threat. If Nachtwatch and the minutemen provided the soldiers and the infrastructure, then someone else had provided the strategy. Who? Talk to me Teddy. You either knew or you were close. Close enough that you lost at chess. Cclose enough that they could peer over your shoulder…
The phone rang, a cricket warble loud across his thoughts.
It stopped after one ring, then rang again and stopped after two.
Cockburn.
Quayle crossed the floor in three strides and picked it up on the first ring of the next attempt.
“Got someone who wants a word with you here,” Cockburn said dryly.
“Put him on.” Quayle said pleased. Only Steve could have gotten Cockburn irritated so fast.
“Little bird?”
“Mmmm.”
“Remember where we met and ate noodles last time?”
“Yes… you wanted a Budweiser.”
“Correct. One hour. OK?”
“One hour,” Quayle confirmed.
Almost as soon as he hung up, he was on the move. The noodle place Steve had mentioned was over in Kowloon. He quickly scrounged through the wardrobes in the master bedroom until he found a jacket that fit. Pulling it on, he went straight to lifts. Once outside, he walked four blocks before hailing a cab and had it take him across the harbour in the tunnel, then drop him at the cultural centre. From here he walked up to the Regency Hotel and took a limousine to the airport, and from there a another taxi to the rendezvous.
It was a cheap eating house with Formica-topped tables, neon lights and incongruous calendar prints of the European Alps upon the walls. Sitting just inside the kitchen was Steve Chung. He nodded to Quayle and stepped out , leading him directly through the back door into the alley where a car waited.
“My brother’s son,” Steve said, pointing to the driver.
They drove through busy streets for a few minutes before the car pulled over and drew to a halt. Steve looked up an alley.
“Come, we go.”
Two floors up, over a seedy photographer’s studio, was a dingy little office complete with overhead fan, wooden desk and old metal filing trays.
“A guy is coming in half an hour. He can help. But it will cost more than money.”
The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller Page 28