by Mark Dawson
Soto came over to meet them. Danny clasped the man by the hand.
“George,” he said. “Jesus. How long has it been?”
“Five years.”
“That long?”
“I was married then,” Soto said.
Danny’s face crinkled as he tried to remember. “Sarah?”
“Anna,” Soto corrected.
“Anna, of course. How is she?”
“We got divorced. One of those things.” Soto smiled warmly and, before Danny could say anything else, looked over at Beatrix. “This is your friend?”
“Caprice,” Beatrix said, offering her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m George. Lovely to meet you, too.”
“Thanks for helping out,” Danny said. “I really appreciate it.”
Soto waved his gratitude away. “It’s nothing. The cottage is empty. You can have it for as long as you need. Shall we go inside and get a drink? It’s hot, and we have a lot to catch up on.”
They followed Soto into the house. The place was new, but it had been furnished to look older with a style that was clearly aimed at recalling Hong Kong’s colonial past. There was a grand entrance hall that featured a floating staircase with ornate metal and wood railings, double-layered curtains, and pendulous crystal chandeliers. The hallway beyond had a false ceiling with concealed lights; it was laid with spotless marble and panelled with highly polished oak. Soto took them through to the family room, which was fronted by a scenic glass wall that overlooked an expansive terrace.
“This place,” Danny said. “Jesus, George. It’s amazing.”
Soto beamed, evidently pleased with the praise. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m lucky to live here.”
“You were still at the bank when I last saw you.”
“There was a chance to invest some money in a fund,” he said. “I went in big, and it did well.”
“This was from your investments?”
“We invested in tech at the right time.”
“What was it? Google?”
“Amazon,” he said with a smile. “We bought stock a few years before I bought this place. Ten bucks a share.”
“Now?”
“Over eighty.”
“God favours those who can do the math.”
“Amen to that.”
He invited them to take a seat on an enormous sofa that was set around an antique coffee table. A silver platter sat on the table; there was a pot of coffee, three cups and saucers, and a china plate that held a selection of cookies. Soto poured out three coffees and gave one to Beatrix and the other to Danny.
“You said you had a problem with your boat?”
“The bilge pump,” Danny said.
Beatrix had to stop herself from wincing.
“Not the electrics? I thought you said—”
Danny recovered well. “They’re shot, so everything else is shot, too, including the pump. I’ve booked it in for a service, but they need to get it into dry dock first, and they’re full until next week.”
“Like I said,” Soto said, “the cottage is yours for as long as you need it.”
He got up and walked to an occasional table on the other side of the room, from which he retrieved a key. He came back to the sofa and handed it to Danny.
“The maids will come in every morning to clean. The fridge is stocked and there’s booze in the drinks cabinet. If you need anything else, just ask.”
“Thanks again,” Danny said.
“Yes,” Beatrix said. “Thank you. It’s very kind.”
George waved the praise away. “Are you busy tonight?”
Danny glanced at Beatrix.
“No,” she said. “No plans.”
“Then you must come up to the house for dinner. Eight o’clock?”
“That would be lovely.”
25
Logan arrived at the consulate and made his way inside. He showed his passport to the receptionist and was promptly buzzed through to the guard post staffed by two brawny Marines. His passport was checked for a second time, and he was handed over to a woman who introduced herself as the DCoS’s secretary. Logan had called the consulate from the cab and said that he needed to see the DCoS immediately upon his arrival. The secretary said that the DCoS had been at home, but that she was en route and would be with him presently. She showed him through into a waiting area and told him that she would be at the end of the corridor should he need anything while he waited.
Logan sat down, pulling up the email containing the DCoS’s file and the back-of-the-envelope analysis that Phillips had been able to do in the short time since Logan had requested it. The deputy chief’s name was Kimberly Hathaway, and, so far as he could make out, she had no connection to Lincoln, Navarro, or anyone else at the Directorate of Operations. She was fifty-two years old, married with two children, and had been stationed in Hong Kong for several years. Before that, she had served as a case worker in Beijing, then had done a short tour in Tokyo. Phillips was running a deeper search to see whether there was anything that might suggest that Hathaway’s history might have intersected with Lincoln’s, but the initial results looked negative.
“Mr. Logan.”
He looked up. A woman was standing at the end of the corridor. He recognised her from the personnel file: it was Hathaway.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Welcome to Hong Kong.”
“Thank you. And thanks for seeing me on short notice.”
“Not a problem,” she said, although there was a testiness to her reply that made Logan wonder what he had interrupted. “I’ll admit that I’m curious why you’re here. What’s got the OIG so interested that you had to jump on a plane?”
“You know better than to ask that.”
“So how can I help?”
“I understand you pulled a USMC personnel file yesterday?”
“That’s right.” She frowned, as though remembering the details.
Logan helped her out. “Daniel Nakamura.”
“That’s right. So?”
“Why?”
“I received a message from an old contact in British intelligence yesterday morning. She said that she was working with a man called Nakamura and that he needed a new passport. He’s a Vietnam deserter and he was concerned that he’d be picked up if he came in and applied in his own name.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you’d pull the file.”
“We owed her. She did some work for us that was… sensitive.”
“And the reason for the file?”
“She asked for anything else I could pull on him. I got the impression that she was interested in finding out how likely it would be that he’d be arrested if he went back to the States.”
“Does she have the file yet?”
“I emailed it an hour ago. Why—is that a problem?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “What about the passport?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I was going to deliver it tomorrow afternoon.”
“Don’t,” Logan said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“All right,” she said. “You sure you can’t tell me what this is about?”
He shook his head.
“Fine,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Have you had anyone else over from Langley recently?”
“Anyone in particular?”
Logan decided to take a small chance. He took out his phone, opened his photos, and thumbed to a picture of Navarro. He turned the screen around so that Hathaway could see it. “Him?”
She looked at the screen, her brow furrowed. Logan was watching her for a reaction, but he didn’t notice anything that might make him suspect that she was lying. “Never seen him before,” she said. “Who is he—or can’t I ask that, either?”
“You can’t.”
She gave a little shake of her head. “Need anything else?”
“The British agent you’ve been speaking to. I’d like you to pull everything yo
u have on her and send it to me. And then I’ll want to debrief you tomorrow morning before the exchange.”
“When do you need it?”
“Tonight,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
26
The guest cottage sat below the main house, on its own terrace a little lower down the slope. Despite only being intended for visitors, it was bigger than the terraced house in East London that Beatrix had shared with Lucas and Isabella. The front wall was all glass, offering spectacular views of Repulse Bay from the dining room, kitchen, and lounge. A staircase with an etched-glass balustrade led up to a pair of bedrooms. Danny took the one on the left and Beatrix the one on the right.
She met Danny in the kitchen.
“The life of the rich and famous,” he said. “I had no idea.”
“Is Soto trustworthy?”
“As far as I know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I’ve known him for a long time.”
“Is he on the level?”
“He was never involved with Michael, if that’s what you mean. He has no idea what I used to do.”
“What does he think you do for a living?”
“He thinks I’m a translator. He’s honest. He wouldn’t have invited us if he thought I was involved with the triads. He’s always been a straight shooter.”
Beatrix had seen men like George Soto before and, in her experience, none of them had been averse to nefarious tactics if it meant that they could increase their profits, but that was by the by. She didn’t mention it; Danny was happy, and she preferred to keep it that way.
“I’m just going to go over the ground rules again,” she said.
“I know, I know—”
“You stay here.” She spoke over him. “You do not leave the compound.”
Danny tossed his duffel onto the sofa. “I get it.”
Beatrix took out one of the boxed phones and put it on the table. “If you need me, use this phone. Not yours. Clear?”
He went into the kitchen, nodding his head, and called out that he had found the beer fridge, and would Beatrix like one? She said that she would. He came back into the room with two bottles and a bottle opener and popped the tops of both bottles.
“Cheers,” he said, touching his bottle to hers.
She drank off half the bottle, watching him as she did so; it was amazing how quickly he had forgotten what had happened just three hours earlier.
“Thanks,” he said. “For everything.”
“Thank me when I’ve got you out of here in one piece. We’re not there yet.”
He leaned back and extended his legs. “What do we do now?”
“We can take it easy tonight. We go to dinner with George.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow I get to work.”
Dinner was pleasant, with expensive bottles of wine brought up from the cellar and a delicious menu prepared by a chef in the kitchen and served by a uniformed waiter. George and Danny had plenty to catch up on, and, as the alcohol flowed, their conversation covered their early years in the Walled City and George’s ascent to the riches so amply displayed by his property. Danny was much more reticent, suggesting that he had supported himself with his translation work. Beatrix nursed a glass of wine, laying her hand over it as the waiter offered a refill; she had a busy day tomorrow, and she didn’t want to tackle it with a hangover. She was also wary of lowering her guard in front of a man whom she had never met before, and she was aware that Danny might offer more than was wise as the libations took hold.
They retired to the balcony, where the men smoked cigars and continued their reminiscences. Beatrix nudged the conversation away from sensitive areas on more than one occasion and, as Danny started to become emotional when the subject of children was raised—George’s marriage had produced three girls—she interceded and suggested that it had been a long day, and that perhaps they should call it a night. Danny had protested, but, even though he was merry, he was not so drunk as to miss her look of stern resolve.
“That was nice,” Danny said as they made their way back down the hill to the cottage.
Beatrix made sure that he got to his room, and, as she went to her own room and undressed, she heard the sound of his loud snoring from across the landing.
She went onto the balcony outside her room and gazed out over Repulse Bay. The talk of family had made her wistful. She followed the long silver reflection on the water and looked up at the moon; she wondered where Isabella was, whether she was looking up at the same moon, and whether she would ever see her again.
27
Jefferson Morley slumped in the back of the cab. He was exhausted. He had received the flare from Navarro fifteen hours earlier and had busted his balls to get here as quickly as the old man had demanded. He had been in Islamabad with Farrow and Harker. They had earned a week’s downtime after spending the last month in the Hindu Kush tracking down the leadership of the Taliban. It had been a difficult assignment, dangerous and—so far, at least—fruitless. All of them had been looking forward to enjoying a little relaxation. Navarro’s call had made that impossible.
Instead, they had made their way to the airport and booked seats on the first flights out. Morley had taken a Thai flight, nine hours in the air with a ninety-minute layover in Bangkok. Harker was flying Qatar Airways, routing through Doha. Farrow was on Etihad, laying over in Abu Dhabi. Morley was the first of the three to arrive, with the others coming in shortly afterwards. It was standard operating procedure for them to travel separately. They had no wish to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.
The cab arrived in Central and pulled up on Des Voeux Road West. Navarro said that he had rented a safe house for them while they were in the city. Western House was a collection of large apartments, each accessible through its own private entrance. Morley paid the driver, grabbed his single piece of luggage from the trunk, and crossed the road to the entrance.
He buzzed the intercom.
“Who is it?”
He stepped back so that he was visible to the camera. “Morley.”
The door unlocked with a buzz, and Morley went inside.
He took the elevator to the fifth floor and knocked on the door. It opened, and he found himself staring into the grizzled face of Ethan Schroder.
“About time,” Schroder said.
Morley stepped inside and looked around the room. Millman was already here, too, together with a man he didn’t recognise. At least he wasn’t the first or the last to arrive; the early set-up would already be underway, and he would avoid the hazing that invariably stuck to whichever one of the guys showed up last.
“When did you get in?” he asked Schroder as he dumped his bag.
“Couple of hours ago.”
“Where were you?”
Schroder pointed to Millman. “We were in Manila,” he said. “You?”
“Pakistan. I was hoping for a little R&R. I’ve been chasing shadows across the desert for weeks.”
Morley looked around. The room was large, with a wooden floor and a table that had been employed as a temporary armoury. There were pistols, submachine guns and ammunition laid out there, together with a stack of boxed cellphones and comms gear. There were doors off to the side that, he guessed, would lead to the kitchen, bedrooms and bathrooms. They would be bunking here for however long it would take them to do whatever it was that Navarro wanted them to do.
“Where’s the boss?” he asked.
“Here,” Navarro said as he stepped out of the kitchen. “Glad you could join us, Captain Morley. Where are the others?”
“On the way. Separate flights.”
“Good. You can catch them up when they get in. Sit down. We need to get started.”
28
Navarro went to the front of the room and waited for the men to settle down.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. He took a printed photograph and stuck it to the wall. “We’re looking for this man,” he s
aid, slapping his palm against it.
Morley looked: the man appeared to be in his twenties and was wearing military fatigues. He was staring into the camera and there was a bare white wall behind him. A typed notation across the top of the photograph identified him as NAKAMURA (312229), Daniel L, and noted his date of enlistment as 28Jul67 and the date of the photograph as 4Aug67.
“That’s forty years old,” Morley said. “We got anything more up to date?”
“We do,” Navarro replied, adding two more pictures.
Morley looked again. The images had been grabbed from security camera footage; one looked down from above, and the other was shot through a window over the shoulder of a woman. Both pictures showed an older man, in his late sixties or early seventies, with a tanned and wrinkled face, a well-kept goatee, and a messy head of hair.
“This is Daniel Nakamura. Cryptonym for the purposes of this operation is PROSPERO.”
Morley groaned. Navarro had a habit of using Shakespeare’s plays as the source of his operational crypts; Morley had always suspected that he used them because he wanted to appear erudite, but it just smacked of pretension. He wouldn’t tell him that, of course.
“Prospero,” Millman said. “‘The Tempest.’”
“Correct,” Navarro said. “And this will be Operation TEMPEST.”
“So, the first picture,” Morley said. “That was from Vietnam?”
“Correct. PROSPERO was attached to a CIA unit operating in the Highlands in the mid to late sixties. He deserted in sixty-eight; disappeared without a trace. We had no idea where he was until six weeks ago, when he visited the US Consulate in Hong Kong and asked for a new passport. He didn’t keep his appointment to get one and he disappeared again. I shipped out here two days after that, and I’ve been here ever since, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about how hot it is.”
“Why are we looking for a deserter?” Millman asked.
“It doesn’t matter why we want him. We just want him.”