Hungry Ghost (20 page)

Lin’s soldiers were split into a dozen fighting sections of between twenty and twenty-five men, and he had two of his best units waiting outside. There were four Mercedes in the drive in addition to Jill’s Porsche, Ng’s Daimler and the 560SEL that Manny drove. There were another six cars lined up on the single-track road leading from the compound. Lin was as prepared as he could be, but he still had no idea who the enemy was, or where the handover was to take place. Howells had told Ng that he wanted the money by seven o’clock and that he would call one hour earlier. That meant that Howells wanted the swap to take place within an hour’s drive from the house, but at this time of the morning that just about covered the whole of Hong Kong island, Kowloon and the New Territories. A map of the territory had been pinned to the wall opposite the window and though it was small in area Lin knew there were a million places to hide, even for a gweilo.

There were only four of them in the study, but the room felt crowded, oppressive. They were careful to avoid eye contact with each other, like warring relatives at the reading of a will. Jill couldn’t understand it, the crisis should have brought them closer together but instead it seemed to have isolated them, locked each of them into their own private world. Right now what she needed most was physical contact with her husband, his arm around her, the reassuring feel of his flesh, but she was reluctant to show her feelings in front of his men. Worse than that, she was afraid that he would refuse to comfort her, that he would be embarrassed by her and reject her. She could see now the power he had, how hard and controlled he was when dealing with a crisis. It wasn’t the Simon she knew, despite the occasional smiles he threw her way. For the first time she was a little frightened of him. She had to be like him, strong and controlled. Public displays of hysteria wouldn’t get her anywhere.

The phone rang and they all jumped, even Cheng. Ng let it ring, three times, four times, before he picked it up, so as not to appear to be too anxious. Lin slipped out of the room to pick up the extension.

‘You have the money?’ asked Howells.

‘Yes. I want to speak to my daughter.’

‘You can talk to her all you want once I have the money,’ said Howells. The line clicked as Lin picked up the phone in the lounge.

‘I want to talk to her now,’ said Ng, firmly.

‘She isn’t with me now. Once you have given me the money I will tell you where she is.’

‘How can I believe you?’

‘You have no choice. Now listen and listen carefully. I will only tell you once.’

‘I am listening.’

‘You know a place called Hebe Haven, about half an hour’s drive from your house?’

‘Yes, I know it.’

‘There is a pier there, an L-shaped pier.’

‘Yes.’

‘You are to park your car on the road and walk to the pier. To the right, as you face the sea, is a row of concrete steps that lead down to the water. I want you to wait there at exactly seven o’clock. Alone. With the money. If you are not there the girl will die. If you are not alone, the girl will die. If you do not have the money with you, the girl will die. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ Click. The line went dead.

Ng got up from behind the desk and walked over to the map.

‘What did he say? What did he say?’ asked Jill.

‘Hebe Haven,’ said Ng. ‘I have to deliver the money to Hebe Haven in one hour.’

Lin walked back into the room. There was a low groan from Cheng as he pushed himself up off the sofa. He massaged his left knee and then slowly kicked his leg backwards and forwards. ‘By sea or by land,’ he said quietly, as if to himself. ‘He could come either way.’

Ng nodded in agreement. He turned to Lin. ‘I must arrive alone, but if we are careful we might be able to get one or two men near the pier, maybe even on it. Pretending to fish, or painting, something. No more than two and they must leave now.’

Lin went without a word and less than a minute later a car drove away.

‘The sea way will be harder,’ Ng said to Cheng.

‘Perhaps not,’ said the old man, pointing to the map. The cove that was Hebe Haven was about two kilometres long and one kilometre wide, an impossibly large area of water to patrol, but the gap that led to the open sea was only a few hundred yards across.

‘Here,’ said Cheng. ‘Two boats placed between the headland at Chuk Kok and the tip of Pak Ma Tsui would effectively seal off the whole cove. Assuming he comes in by sea we could let him in and then shut the door behind him. You could hand over the money but there would be nowhere for him to run to.’

‘Unless he beached the boat within the cove.’

‘Station men on the beaches, it wouldn’t take many.’

Lin had returned now. ‘It wouldn’t be difficult,’ he agreed. ‘They all have radios. But if we decide to send them they’ll have to go now.’

Ng nodded and once again Lin went to brief his men. This time three cars left. Jill, sitting alone on the Chesterfield, felt alone and quite, quite useless.

‘So,’ said the old man thoughtfully. ‘He comes in by boat. We close the gap after him. He takes the money. Does he have the girl with him, that is the question.’ He sucked his teeth, nodding his head up and down slowly. ‘I think not,’ he said eventually. ‘I think he will come alone.’

‘I don’t see that as a problem,’ said Ng. ‘Once we have him he will tell us where Sophie is. I have no doubt about that. No doubt at all.’

The chilling conviction in his voice shocked Jill. It wasn’t something she’d heard from her husband before, and for the first time she became aware of the power he commanded, the power of life and death, and pain.

Lin came back into the room, baring his teeth at Ng’s words. ‘He’ll talk all right. We’ll make him sing as sweetly as one of your songbirds, Master Cheng.’

‘The boats will be a problem,’ said Ng. ‘My launch is berthed at Clearwater Bay. We won’t have time to get there and get it to Hebe Haven.’ He jabbed a finger at the map, an inch or so above the cove. ‘Sai Kung,’ he said. ‘We can beg, borrow or steal boats from there. Send six men to Sai Kung – they are to choose the fastest boats they can find. And tell them to be discreet about it. We don’t know where he’s coming from.’ Yet again Lin left the study. ‘What do you think, Cheng Bak-bak?’

‘If he comes from the sea we will have him,’ said Cheng. ‘But he would also be aware of the danger involved. And we should not assume that merely because he mentioned the pier he intends to come by water. You must also guard the road.’

‘There is only one road,’ said Ng, ‘Hiram’s Highway, the one that leads to the Clearwater Bay Road. The road to the pier comes off Hiram’s Highway, and if we put one car on either side of it we can seal it completely. There is nowhere else to go. There is a hill behind the road, we can put a man there and he’ll be able to see the whole area, from the main road to the pier.’

‘I’ll be there,’ said Lin, who had returned to the room.

‘You’d better go now,’ said Ng. ‘And make sure the cars are inconspicuous, whatever you do. You’ll be able to put a few of our men in the boatyards disguised as workmen, but get them in place right away.’

Lin nodded curtly and left.

Cheng and Ng stood together at the map. Jill wanted to join them but she could tell from the strained silence that the two men were deep in concentration and that she would be in the way. She sat on the sofa, legs pressed tightly together, her stomach a mass of nerves. She knew there was no point in even asking Simon if she could go with him.

‘Well, Bak-bak, what do you think?’ asked Ng.

The old man rocked back on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘If he comes by sea, he will surely be trapped,’ he said quietly. ‘If he comes by the road he will also be trapped. He surely cannot come by air, unless he can fly like a bird.’

‘A helicopter isn’t impossible, but air traffic control at Kai Tak would be on his back right away,’ added Ng. ‘What we must be careful of is a combination, arriving by sea and leaving on land, or vice versa.’

‘But even so, once he is at the pier he will be trapped on all sides,’ said Cheng, sounding unconvinced.

‘You seem worried, Bak-bak.’

‘If you and I can so easily see that it is a trap, why did the gweilo arrange to meet you there?’

Ng nodded. ‘Presumably because he assumes that he can just as easily get away? But how?’

‘I would assume that when you see him, he will not have your daughter with him. He will think that so long as he has her he will be safe. He will want to take the money and release her later, when he is out of harm’s way. Sophie will be his way out.’

‘But as Elder Brother said, once you have trapped your bird, it is easy to make it sing.’

‘But if the bird is not alone, if he has friends, and if the bird does not return to its nest . . .’ The old man left the sentence unfinished, hanging in the air.

‘We have no choice,’ said Ng. ‘If we let him escape with the money, there is no incentive for him to release her. Especially as she can identify him.’

‘Identification is not such a problem,’ said Cheng. ‘Do not forget that the headmistress also saw him. I do not think that he will kill your daughter merely because she has seen his face.’

‘We cannot take the risk,’ said Ng. ‘We must hope that he brings Sophie with him, and if he does not then we will force him to tell us where she is. It will not take long.’

‘Oh my God,’ gasped Jill. ‘Please, please be careful, Simon. I just want her back, I just want Sophie back.’

Ng turned round as Jill got up, and took a step towards her and held her close, her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck.

‘You will have her back,’ he said. ‘I promise.’ Over her shoulder he could see Lin driving through the gates in the Mercedes, leaving the Daimler for him. He looked at his watch. It was 6.25 a.m. ‘Time to go,’ he said, releasing himself from her clinging grip and holding her shoulders at arm’s length. ‘You’d better get her room ready, when she gets back she’ll be tired and hungry.’ He kissed her tear-stained cheek and picked up the briefcase on the desk. He left the house without looking back but knew that she watched him go from the study.

Howells watched them come from his hiding-place below the pier. The water around the supporting legs of the structure was shoulder-deep so he stood next to one, back bowed forward so that he was submerged from the chin down. After making the phone call exactly at 6 a.m., he’d taken the dinghy back to the junk and put on all his diving equipment. He used the snorkel for the first quarter of a mile to save air and only submerged when he got close enough to shore to be seen. As soon as he reached the safety of the pier he switched back to the snorkel as he swayed gently backwards and forwards with the rhythm of the waves. He could see a good chunk of the shoreline and had a clear view of the approach road in the distance, and if he turned round he could see most of the bay, and his junk bobbing up and down in the water.

The first two arrived just after 6.30, a young man in jeans and T-shirt carrying a fishing basket, and an older man with a couple of cans of paint and a tattered holdall. They came one at a time, on opposite sides of the road, but Howells had no doubt that they were together.

The fisherman came first. Howells lost sight of him as he passed through the metal bollards that marked the end of the road, but a minute or so later he heard him walk overhead to the end of the pier. The older man stood by the bollards, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, leaning back his head and blowing smoke up at the sky. He began to unpack brushes and cloths and after opening one of the tins of paint started to apply unprofessional strokes of red to a bollard.

Five minutes later a white van drove down the road and turned in to one of the boatyards and three men in dark blue overalls climbed out. One of them knocked on the door to the yard’s office, and on getting no answer all three moved between the boats until they were out of his sight. Even at this early hour the main road seemed busy, but not so busy that he didn’t notice the two big Mercs driving past or see one of them go in the opposite direction a few minutes later. He’d expected them to seal off the road, and knew that the way out to the open sea would be closed off as well.

Howells checked his watch. Ten minutes to go. He shivered, but it was the cold, not fear. The water was colder than he’d anticipated, yet to be warmed by the early morning sun. The harness was starting to chafe against his skin but he knew it would be a mistake to take it off so he ignored the pain. The emergency cylinder was hanging from the harness, occasionally banging against his leg. A plastic bag drifted past, followed closely by a scattering of green leaves from some sort of Chinese vegetable. One piece washed up against his mask and he ducked his head down under the water to clear it. When he surfaced he saw Ng, standing at the top of the stairs, briefcase in hand, shading his eyes as he looked out to sea.

Lin had left his three Red Pole fighters looking under the bonnet of his car, the engine running so they could move quickly if needed, while he climbed up the hill, moving effortlessly through the bushes and spindly trees. He stopped halfway up, not even breathing heavily, and then cut across to give him the best possible view of the pier. He had a pair of powerful binoculars and a walkie-talkie with which he could contact his men who were now scattered around the bay and on two launches just beyond the headland. He spoke to them one by one: the men in the cars on the main road, the team in the boatyard, the man and woman walking their dog along the housing development at Marina Cove on the southern rim of the bay, which overlooked the pier, and the men on the boats. Like Lin they were all armed. His pistol in its leather holster felt heavy under his left armpit.

He put the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the bay. Nothing. He spoke into his walkie-talkie again, asking the men in the launches if there was anything approaching. Nothing. He heard Ng’s Daimler tearing up the road before he saw it, then it rounded the bend and indicated it was turning right. Ng accelerated down towards the pier and stopped with a screech of brakes in one of the white-painted parking spaces. The painter looked up, then put his head down and got on with his work.