Quayle spent the next fifteen minutes making sure he wasn’t being followed, then took a cab across to Kowloon. The boat he had waiting was a noisy twenty-five footer with two berths tucked away in a lower cabin. It was here that he found Cockburn, sitting in one of the bunks with a large duffel on the seat beside him. As Quayle dropped down through the tiny companionway, he dropped his feet off the other bunk.
“How’d it go?”
“He’ll play. He’s a prick but he’s shit scared. That other woman did the trick.”
“I should hope so. Do you know who you kidnapped?” Cockburn asked.
“I don’t care, as long as it works.”
“I would think the daughter of one of central committee will work wonders,” he said dryly. “London are having kittens.”
“If London did their jobs in the first place, we wouldn’t be here.” The remark was pointed at Cockburn but he let it ride as Quayle continued, “Anyway, it’s my scene. They want to pull you out, fine... What the fuck was she doing here without the diplomatic protection people watching her?”
“Little shopping trip while her husband does the deal, by all accounts.” Cockburn raised his voice as the engine revs picked up and beneath them the hull began to plane over the water. “Where do you want to do the swap?”
Before Quayle could reply, a young Chinese man called over to them and pointed off to the left. Out on the water, a gaggle of boats was surrounding an oil slick that shimmered with creamy grey light. Police craft shuttled back and forth and a harbour authority vessel was hove to, its crew looking down into the water and talking and pointing.
“Shame,” Cockburn said, “looks like something sunk.” He looked at Quayle. “And we’ve just added piracy to the list of this morning’s crimes…”
“I want an aircraft to get us out of here tonight. Can you line up seats on an RAF flight or something?” Quayle lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, enjoying the wind in his face. It was his first for days. “If it means getting back onto the mainstream mission, yes I can.”
“Do it.”
“What if it’s not over?”
Quayle’s face hardened. “It will be. One way or the other.”
“And the exchange?”
“Five o’clock. Nice and busy with lots of ferries about. We’ll do the swap on the water directly outside the port police facility.”
“Do you think that will stop him doing anything hostile?”
“No,” admitted Quayle. “He has too much to lose. He’ll try something. Did you get the stuff I asked for?”
“Below in the bag. McReady is bitching about laser sights and things.”
“Wait until you tell him I want a man on the Port police building roof.”
Quayle laughed then, a sharp dry chuckle.
They were in place at exactly ten minutes to five. Above the fourth floor on the roof of the Port Police building, two of Kirov’s Spetznazt men were in position. One was a wiry twenty-six year old sergeant, whose commanding officer claimed was in amongst the six best rifle shots alive. He cradled his own rifle, a customized Dragunov. Four inches had been added to the barrel length, and the butt had been reworked to improve the balance. Chambered for five millimetre magnum rounds and sporting a big American telescopic sight, the young Soviet could put ten out of ten bullets into a football at twelve hundred yards. Today the range would be nearer four hundred, but he was concerned with the windage and its effect on his light ultra fast bullets. A puff of wind, he thought, and he would blow a hole in the Englishman. That was why he had a second rifle at his side. This was a standard Parker Hale 270 that delivered a bigger slower round. With the variable Bushnell scope, it would become his choice if the breeze began to blow. On his head he wore industrial earmuffs that contained a small radio receiver, through which he could receive instructions from the boat. Watching the water below, he mused at how rapidly things were changing. Here he was, with the full knowledge of the local police in a British Crown Colony, reporting to a KGB officer. He had never had much time for the GRU, the Red Army Intelligence section and Spetznazt’s nominal parent regiment, but he thought that the KGB were even bigger wankers and he normally avoided any association with them. The hatred the two held for each other was legendary. They were the opposition. Although Kirov was OK. He’d been through the hell of Ryazan himself.
To his left, and lying on his side, was his partner, an older Afghanistan veteran, sometimes morose, sometimes laughing – but always there, watching his back. He would operate the laser sight. Normally mounted on a rifle, today he would simply point it at the target. In the failing light it would do its job. On the surface of the roof beside his hand was an electronic detonator that would set of a chain of fire crackers in the street below. No-one would hear the sharp whiplash crack of the Dragunov on the roof.
Below them, on the water, Quayle stood alone on the flying bridge. It was warm but, in spite of that, he wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of baggy track suit pants. His feet were bare and, although he hadn’t trained for some time, the layers of hard skin around the edges of his feet were still thick. He lifted a cigarette to his lips, inhaling deeply. Below him, in the main wheel house behind the tinted windows, Kirov sat behind an array of weaponry that included a flare gun, his own pistol – now with a silencer affixed – and the queen of any infantry battle, an M60 machine gun. One of the Spetznatz men loaded a belt into it and cocked the action. If it came to that, then they were in trouble. No amount of fire crackers or police blind eyes would help then. But then, if it came to that, as Quayle had said, who cared anyway?
The three hostages were below in the main saloon, guarded by one of the Soviets, and the final pair of Kirov’s men were suited up and waiting, breathing through snorkels to conserve their tanked air at the bathing platform. They carried light waterproof arms and powerheads and, if necessary, would board Fung Wa’s boat from the rear.
Quayle took another puff and inhaled deeply. Given the timeframes, they had taken all the precautions possible for a counter strike by the Chinese. Now all they could do was wait. He looked across the harbour and, smiling, picked up a pair of big Ziess glasses. Come to me, my darling.
At the wheel of the boat, Cockburn sat in a big leather chair and wished the Royal Navy were tied up alongside them, not the little ski-boat. As he muttered curses to himself, Chloe appeared and handed him one of the cups of coffee she was carrying. He took it wordlessly and she began to climb the steep stairs to the flying bridge.
“Chloe,” he said. “Leave it now.” Lifting a finger, he pointed out the big opaque wheel house windows. There, across the harbor, moving towards them, was a big modernistic boat with a cathedral hull and square ports. Behind it moved a second smaller boat. She felt a flicker of fear move up her spine.
Quayle dropped cat-like through the hatch from the flying bridge. Smiling at Chloe, he took the cup from her hand.
“Alexi – your two divers. The second boat. That’s the back-up. The marksmen stay on the big job. They’re to wait for your signal, unless something breaks that we can’t see. And tell ‘em not to bloody shoot me or Holly. OK,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s get the women up now and into the fizz boat.”
“How long has he known about this place, here on the water?”
“Three hours,” Quayle answered. “Why?”
“Long enough to get his own divers,” Kirov replied pointedly.
Quayle swore softly. He had missed that possibility. He looked at Kirov. “Suggestion?”
“Da.” The Soviet turned and spoke rapidly to the two men waiting in wetsuits on the bathing platform. “We will watch the fish finder. If he sees something, he can alert one diver. The other will cross to the other boat.”
“One enough?” Quayle asked.
The expression on Kirov’s face told him the question was stupid.
“Good. Let’s do it.”
Kirov nodded and, taking his gun from the shelf, he picked up the radio, dropped it into
his pocket and put the slim-line headset on.
The other boat hove to two hundred yards from Quayle’s. As he watched the last of the women clamber into the runabout, he wondered how many people were watching the switch from offices and hotel rooms.
Kirov started the motor, then dropped down below into the tiny cabin with the hostages. Quayle took the wheel and eased the bows round. Then, with the engine barely above an idle, he headed for the midpoint between the two bigger boats. Ahead he could see a small tender leaving Fung Wa’s boat and he resisted the temptation to pick up the binoculars. Kirov, however, had no such compunction. Scooping them up, he poked his head above the gunwale and trained them on the tender.
“Three I can see.” He paused for a second. “But there may be more below…”
“Did you see a woman? Dark hair?”
“She’ll be down in the bows, just like ours. Don’t worry, Titus. We’ll know soon enough.”
Please God, he prayed, let her be safe and well. She is just too good and too decent to be a victim of this. She deserves better. I swear to you, you whom she believes in, her God, that if anything has happened to her, then I will put it to rights. With you or without you. An eye for an eye.
Easing back on the power, he let the boat settle in the water.
They were almost half way. In another minute, the diver would be under the hull of Fung Wa’s boat.
The other boat was close now. Here it came, idling towards them. Quayle no longer needed the binoculars to clearly see Fung Wa standing at the wheel, the man beside him openly holding a small automatic weapon.
Meanwhile, up on the roof of the port police building, the sniper zeroed in on the man while his partner took a last look at the photo and peered through the laser sight his finger on the trigger. The spot would appear dead centre on Fung Wa’s chest.
The two boats were now in hailing distance. Quayle turned his boat beam on.
“Let’s see her!” he called.
“All in good time, Mr Quayle,” Fung Wa called back. His voice had lost its resonant quality and was filled with tension.
No doubt about it: he was up to something.
Quayle tapped his foot once and Kirov spoke into the tiny microphone. A second later, a tiny red spot danced across Fung Wa’s chest as Quayle said a silent prayer of thanks for calm waters.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he called, his eyes glittering. “Take a look at your front. That red spot is a laser sight. One funny move that my man doesn’t like and someone dies. Now bring her up!”
Fung Wa looked down quickly and then hurriedly stepped to one side, pushing the armed man – who was sweeping air with his gun, looking for the threat – aside. But no sooner had he moved, the spot reappeared on his breast. His anger flowing, he snapped out an order and, as the guard lifted his weapon, Quayle heard the meaty thump of a high calibre bullet hit flesh and bone. In that same instant, the guard slammed back and downward onto the transom. His body twitched for two seconds. Then it relaxed.
He was stone dead.
Several seconds later, the faint crackle of fireworks carried over the water.
Kirov bent into his earpiece to listen, and quickly turned to look to the rear. Quayle resisted the temptation and kept his eyes firmly on Fung Wa. There in the water, bobbing on the surface thirty metres behind their boat, were the bodies of two divers. The first’s buoyancy jacket was inflated and the water around what remained of his head was pink. The second was also dead – but this time seemingly intact. The powerhead blast, it seemed, had taken him in the back.
Kirov turned, his gun resting on the gunwales, aimed at Fung Wa. Below them, in the small cabin, someone began to sob and another voice spoke in rapid, almost hysterical Cantonese.
“Temper temper!” Quayle cried out. “Next time, you say good-bye to Noi and the China deal. Now bring her up!”
Fung Wa looked back at Quayle, trying to believe what had happened to his men, trying to understand where the shot had come from. For the first time, it seemed, he was realising that he had been out thought. He snarled down at the helmsman who still lay prone on the deck between the seats. The man stood and ducked forward into the bow section, reappearing a moment later, pushing a figure.
She seemed smaller, bowed over, a hood masking her features. Her hands were bound behind her, pulling her arms back cruelly – but Quayle had no doubt it was Holly. Her foot hit something on the floor of the boat and she tripped forward, smashing into the deck.
Quayle’s anger and frustration peaked. As he cried out, Kirov’s hand shot out and took his shoulder, standing up, his gun aimed rock steady at the Chinese.
“Cut her free, you bastard, or they’ll be scraping your fucking brains off the deck!”
The helmsman didn’t wait for Fung Wa to tell him. He pulled a small knife from his pocket and rapidly cut away the bonds.
“Now the hood, you fucker of your own mother!”
Kirov had a mad look in his eyes, the Cossack blood of his forefathers bubbling up inside him.
Fung Wa glanced down. There, on his breast, the red dot still danced.
Fung Wa’s helmsman pulled the hood pulled clear and, at last, Quayle saw her: her tousled rich brown hair, her eyes wide and frightened, her red-rimmed mouth covered by tape.
“Hands up!” Kirov shouted. “Both of you. Very high. We will come alongside. Exchange.”
Fung Wa stood back, a look of complete defeat across his face. In front of him, the helmsman lifted his hands high over his head – but Kirov wasn’t satisfied with the speed of response. Bent in the classic marksman’s crouch, he squeezed the trigger. The big gun gave a silent cough and the perspex windscreen beside Fung Wa’s head shattered and split into a spider’s web of opaque cracks. Recoiling instinctively, the surge of fear bought him back to reality. His hands came up. The faint crackle of fireworks reached them again and, as Quayle eased the throttles forward and manoeuvred the boat around, keeping the tender between them and the big cathedral hull, he knew that someone on the big boat had done something stupid and had died. His face was a mask of anger, his grey eyes glittering and his jaw set. It was taking all his self control to allow Kirov command. It was right and he knew it. He was too close, too emotionally involved.
In the other boat, Holly was coming to her feet. Quayle watched with immense pride as, with shaking hands, she pulled the tape from her mouth, squaring her shoulders and holding everything back, determined not to give Fung Wa the pleasure of seeing her break down.
The boats nudged and Quayle crossed from one to the other like a big cat. Now it was his time. Up close enough to use his hands and feet.
Fung Wa must have remembered, because he was already backing away to the far gunwale, his confidence gone and his eyes full of defeat.
Quayle paused before Holly and ran a finger down her nose. Then he looked around. The boat held no other threat. Scooping up the bodyguard’s gun, he threw it over the side and finally faced Fung Wa.
“You’ve killed four people in two minutes with your stupidity. Lie on the floor. Face down, palms upward. Do not look up until I tell you. If you do, you’ll be the fifth. Do you understand me?”
The man nodded impassively and dropped slowly to his knees, then forward onto his front, holding his face up out of the blood of his bodyguard. Holly began to cry then, slow deep sobs of relief, her shoulders heaving with each breath. Quayle turned and, in one fluid motion, picked her up and crossed back into the other boat, where he put her down on the rear seat.
“OK Alexi. Bring ‘em up,” he said without taking his eyes of Holly. “Be brave a few minutes longer, my love. Then we’re away and safe.” She didn’t acknowledge him with more than a tiny nod, but he wiped a tear from her cheek – and, fighting the desire to hold her close and cuddle her and make the world go away, he stood and watched the tender as the first of Fung Wa’s women came up from the cabin. Then he pointed to the tender alongside. “Thank you for your co-operation, ladies. There is your ride home.�
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Fung Wa’s wife glared at Quayle and, ignoring the sight of the bloody body stepped, across the gunwales inelegantly, swearing coarsely in Cantonese.
On the other side, she was about to say something to her husband when he silenced her with a look that could wither gorse. Instead, she remained in silence and waited until her daughter and the wife of the mainland official had clambered over.
“You women sit in the bows,” Quayle said. “Fung Wa, you stand and move to the back of the boat, sit on the engine. Now!”
After they had done what he demanded, Quayle nodded to Kirov, who spoke into his microphone. Moments later, the red dot danced back across Fung Wa’s chest, now blending with the bodyguards blood down the front of his shirt.
“When the dot goes, you go. Understand?”
Fung Wa nodded imperceptibly. Realising he was going to be allowed to liv,e his eyes had lost their fear and were full of hate.
Kirov took the wheel.
*
“I’m so sorry Holly.”
They were sitting below in the master stateroom, Quayle holding her close as the big boat thundered her way round to Aberdeen Harbour. The tears had stopped and she gave him a last strong squeeze.
“It’s OK,” she said, her face snuggled into is chest. “I’m here now.”
“No it’s not. I promised you and I failed.”
“No you didn’t,” she told him. “You got me back.” Sitting up, she wiped the last tear from her eye and tried a brave smile. “I knew you would. How is Marco?”
Quayle smiled. How like her to ask. “Strong as a bull when I spoke to him. He’ll be fine.”
Smiling, she looked him in the eye. “When will this be over, Ti?”
“Soon, my love.”
“Can’t you hand over to Hugh now? Let them do it. They aren’t after us any more are they?” She had seen Cockburn on the bridge as they came aboard. “Or have you corrupted him too?”
“No. He’s here on the job. But there are a couple of things to tie up first…”
The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller Page 30