Читать книгу 88° North - J.F. Kirwan - Страница 11

Chapter One

Skyscrapers punctured the cloud layer, their glass facades gleaming gold in the morning sun. They floated above a sea of white, the cloud base locking the local and expat population into the sweatbox that was Hong Kong. The plane approached the airport on Chek Lap Kok island, and Nadia felt respect for what humanity could achieve. Yet as the A380 dipped, the white turned to smudgy grey, and she recalled that while most were prepared to do an honest day’s work, there were those few who would tear it all down.

Salamander.

Her quarry, the world’s most wanted terrorist. He was on the run after she’d thwarted his attempt to nuke London, but not before he’d taken out eight world leaders. She stared down as Kowloon unfolded itself, Hong Kong Island opposite, several green-and-white Star Ferries traversing the short expanse of water in between, carrying people to and fro. He was here. And although his organisation was in ruins, he would know she and Jake were coming for him.

Jake touched her arm. ‘Did you get some sleep?’

Two hours, out of an eleven-hour flight in first class. Before she’d thrown up in the loo. Before she’d seen the spot of blood that told her she was doomed, radiation from her stunt back in Chernobyl exacting its deadly toll. Four weeks left before she’d slip this skin.

‘Yes,’ she lied. When did she start lying to Jake? Now, apparently. If he knew the truth, he’d abort the mission, or worry too much about her and get them both killed.

He gave her a searching look. They knew each other too well. Distraction then. Besides, she needed to tell him about her phone call.

‘I called for reinforcements.’

He sat back. ‘Greaves? Mallory?’

Not a bad idea. Maybe later. ‘No. The Chef.’

The plane bumped onto the tarmac. A few people clapped. Engines shifted into reverse, thrusting her against her seat belt, then eased off.

‘Seriously? You can just snap your fingers and he comes running?’

‘I wish,’ she said, smiling. ‘But the Colonel, he can.’

Jake nodded. ‘Why is he called the Chef?’

Good question. ‘Nobody knows.’

‘You never asked?’

She shook her head. ‘You haven’t met him. Not exactly one for small talk.’

Jake let it go, and she gazed out the porthole. The runway shimmered in the heat. August in Hong Kong wasn’t recommended. This was the month most expats fled to cooler climes, the humidity intolerable. She turned back to Jake’s difficult-to-lie-to blue eyes. Like the ocean. The stewardess handed him his jacket. Nadia studied his profile, and suddenly wanted to call it all off. Screw Salamander, screw everything. Three weeks of functional life left. Maybe less. They could head to Thailand. She could fuck his brains out until the sickness really kicked in, then swallow a bullet. Maybe do a deep dive, and keep going.

She caught herself. No. She’d promised too many people. Salamander had taken everyone from her. Her sister, her father, Jones, Bransk. Only Jake was left. And he wanted revenge as well, for Lorne.

‘You up for this?’ he asked, turning back to her.

She stood up and folded her arms, waiting for him to rise and let her off the plane. He flashed one of his winning smiles as he got up, and she felt a pang. She was going to miss those …

They were met in the chilly air-conditioned Customs area by a small entourage of uniformed police, led by a man who introduced himself as Inspector Chen, head of counter-terrorism in the Hong Kong Territories. Short, lean, dark-haired, he greeted them with a smile that could almost have been a sneer. He spoke too fast. His English was good, but it took Nadia a few seconds to untangle the heavily-accented word-stream and work out what he’d just said. The three policemen behind him, alert but bored, said nothing. Jake seemed to understand Chen better. Even though Nadia frequently dreamed in English, it wasn’t her mother tongue.

She caught ‘we have transport waiting,’ and was about to follow, when Jake’s tone grew an edge.

‘We’re taking the MTR.’

The metro? Why? But she wasn’t about to second guess Jake. Maybe he was making a statement, that he and Nadia needed to work alone.

Chen’s sneery smile flat-lined. ‘You are guests of the Chinese—’

‘We jointly represent MI6 and FSB,’ Jake said, as if there was nothing more to say.

Chen remained unruffled. His sneer re-emerged, no longer masquerading. His men no longer looked bored. Two of them took a pace, fanning out behind their leader. They wore sidearms. Chen didn’t. Jake and Nadia were unarmed, of course, though she hoped not for long. Maybe that was why Jake wanted to separate from this official escort.

Chen puffed out his chest. ‘Then we will accompany you.’

Jake didn’t miss a beat. He’d thought it through. She’d have to have a word with him later about her low tolerance for surprises.

‘No,’ he said. ‘If you come with us, no one will talk to us, and we’ll have a big target painted on the backs of our heads.’

She watched Jake. There was something else. He didn’t trust the local police. Hardly surprising. Salamander, his son Cheng Yi before him, and now his granddaughter Blue Fan all operated out of Hong Kong, yet were never arrested, never brought in for questioning. The HK database had been completely empty on these three, except for Cheng Yi’s funeral. Not even birth certificates. Which made her wonder … Now the Territories were run by China. Power had shifted since British colonial rule had expired. Still they’d remained hidden all this time. Did Salamander have friends in the Hong Kong government? Or China?

Chen had his hands by his sides, the pinkie of each stretched out, and his three men drew their pistols. Slick. No barking of orders that would draw attention to the group. She and Jake were on the wrong side of passport control. They were in international space. Chen could put them back on the plane, send them home. It looked as if Jake had overplayed his hand.

A man in a crumpled beige suit hustled over to them, his brow sweating despite the aircon, dampening the wavy fringe of unkempt rusty-grey hair, his belly protruding far over his belt. When he spoke, it was in the Queen’s English.

‘Inspector Chen, no need for that, these are my guests.’ He held out his palm as he approached, and bowed with such an amiable face that Chen had no choice but to shake his hand.

‘Mr Hanbury,’ Chen said, for the first time his voice slowing to a normal pace.

‘So sorry I’m late. Traffic, you know, and I had to take the dogs to the vet again, well you of all people know how it is, with Biyu and Da Chun, how they fuss over their Boxer.’ He turned briefly to the three men. ‘Guiren, Jun, so good to see you again. And you, young sir, I don’t believe we’ve met?’ He offered his hand to the third policeman who still held his pistol, his eyes darting between his colleagues to know how he should react.

Chen spoke again. ‘Mr Hanbury, we have a situation here—’

‘Oh come, come, I think not. I have a letter here from the Embassy, and an email from the HK CEO’s office, granting these two good people diplomatic immunity. It just came through an hour ago, so how could you possibly have known.’ He showed his iPhone to Chen. Nadia caught sight of it. A sea of Chinese characters.

Hanbury was good. And prepared. Nadia noticed two male baggage handlers who were taking their time, stealing occasional glances in Hanbury’s direction. She doubted they were armed, but they belonged to Hanbury.

Chen took and read the letter, quickly scrolling down the iPhone, stabbing it with his forefinger, knowing he’d been outplayed. He turned to Jake, his face breaking into an award-winning fake smile.

‘Welcome to Hong Kong. Enjoy your stay.’ He glanced briefly towards Nadia. His smile evaporated, and he and his men marched off. The baggage handlers melted into a group of tourists.

‘So sorry about all that. Alex Hanbury, at your service., but just call me Hanbury, everyone does for some reason.’ He offered his hand to Nadia. She shook it. Clammy and limp. Somehow it suited him.

Hanbury led them towards the express train, then at the last moment they veered off towards the taxi area. As soon as they passed through the automatic glass panels to board one of the red and white taxis, whose door and boot automatically swung open, the heat and humidity smacked into her. Hanbury said some words in Chinese, then spoke again as the driver seemed not to understand.

Catching her inquisitive eye, Hanbury explained. ‘I always try Cantonese first, in case the driver is local, then if that fails, I switch to Mandarin, which is what the influx of Chinese mainlanders speak.’

She climbed in next to Jake, Hanbury in front. As soon as the doors closed, she was washed in cool air. The taxi pulled out of the underground car park into eye-blistering sunlight that made her wince, until they descended into a long tunnel full of red tail-lights.

She leaned her head towards Jake. ‘You like changing your mind.’

‘The sooner we disappear the better.’

She nodded towards the front of the cab, to Hanbury. ‘We could do with some local knowledge.’

Jake asked, and Hanbury filled the role of a cosy radio station, covering weather, politics, where to eat, where not to go – he spent rather a long time on that. All in all, he was an entertaining and jovial tour guide. Eventually they came out of the tunnel, and she got to see the bottom halves of the skyscrapers she’d admired a couple of hours earlier, most of the cloud cover burned off by the sun. Each tower was an architectural marvel, but also a middle finger to nature, and in the case of the tallest, to all its shorter contemporaries. On the Hong Kong skyline, size mattered.

At ground level, everyone walked fast, termites swarming around their metal-and-concrete mounds. There were a number of religions in China, but in Hong Kong the undisputed one was work. The taxi driver veered right and climbed a zig-zagging road, revving through the lower gears. Abruptly he stopped by a railing, and they piled out into the morning heat. The sign at the entrance said ‘Zoological Park’ and Hanbury wandered inside, his handkerchief already drawn to mop his brow.

‘So few places to meet and not be overheard,’ he said. ‘We don’t kid ourselves at the embassy. Besides, once there, they’d track you easily.’ He turned to Nadia, eyes suddenly bulging with excitement, like an overgrown kid. ‘Have you ever seen a snow leopard? Can you imagine, a snow leopard in this heat?’

Without waiting for a reply, he strode up a winding pathway towards metal cages containing shrieking birds, some monkeys, and … the snow leopard didn’t look too happy.

Suddenly she felt nauseous. Not the common garden variety. This was the clawed-animal-in-your-colon kind. She walked as calmly as she could towards a bench.

‘You okay?’ Jake asked.

She didn’t meet his eyes. ‘It’s the heat.’ Second lie. She made a promise to stop at ten.

‘It’s the humidity,’ Hanbury interjected. ‘Over ninety per cent in August. Poor little bugger.’

She glanced up sharply, but Hanbury was staring at the snow leopard. ‘Sometimes I think about coming here in the small, wee hours and putting it out of its misery. You see, animals can’t kill themselves. This one never even moves. Animals don’t realise when the game is lost, don’t know when to call it a day.’ He turned to her, and the playful, avuncular veneer was gone. He looked into her, through her, as if she was already gone.

He knew. Possibly through his embassy connections, maybe via the Colonel back in Moscow. But he knew.

Jake was squatting on the pebbles, staring at the leopard. It got up and came over to sniff his fingers through the wire mesh. Jake stroked its nose. Hanbury raised an eyebrow.

‘Are you talking about Salamander?’ Jake asked, standing up.

‘Who else?’ Hanbury replied, smoothly.

The nausea ebbed. Nadia needed to get her head into the game. ‘So, can we talk here?’

Hanbury plonked himself down next to her, with a middle-aged sigh, and the wooden beams under her bottom lifted a few centimetres. He pulled out a smartphone, touched it a few times then surveyed the blue and white sky. ‘Definitely.’

‘Do you know the location of Blue Fan?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

She and Jake exchanged a glance. They hadn’t expected that particular answer.

‘Then why isn’t she in custody? Someone knock her off her number-two-most-wanted pedestal?’

Hanbury leant his head back to survey the sky through the tree cover. ‘Not quite.’ Some locals meandered towards the snow leopard enclosure, a giggling toddler in pigtails riding her father’s shoulders while his beaming wife shouldered the cluttered pushchair up the slope.

Hanbury hauled himself upright, his paunch leading the way, and headed down towards the central gardens. Nadia and Jake followed. They walked past two elderly women doing their morning exercises. Nadia realised the park was full of people doing warm-ups and tai chi. One tall, reed-thin woman of indeterminate age was practising sword-fighting, her ponytail waving behind her as she executed a flawless series of complex movements, while a younger woman kneeling on the dusty ground, watched with sharp, unwavering eyes.

‘The serious martial artists are over in Victoria Park, the exhibitionists are in the Hong Park over in Central, but there is some real local talent here and it’s more relaxed,’ Hanbury said, wiping sweat from his brow with a second handkerchief. They all sat on a stone bench, and Nadia studied three separate groups of teachers and students learning the tai chi long form. Yang style – she recognised it. She’d seen the Chef practice once.

Hanbury sighed. ‘We sent people in at 4 a.m. SAS.’

Jake spoke first. ‘And?’

Hanbury flourished his hands like a conjurer. ‘And nothing. They disappeared. Dead of course. There’s quite a prosperous organ market here. Being fit young men, they were probably sliced, diced and iced, then shipped in polystyrene to Mumbai.’

Nadia winced. Hanbury was so matter of fact about it. There was more to him than met the eye. He wasn’t standard embassy material. Jake had shown her Hanbury’s file on the plane. Contractor for Her Majesty’s government in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Was he a killer? Hard to tell. Probably one step removed. Not the one to pull the trigger, but the one who set up the target. Which made her wonder …

Hanbury continued. ‘Blue Fan’s location – at least that particular one – is an underground maze of tunnels and chambers. Many homeless live there at night, not to mention it’s a sanctuary for the remnants of a Falun Gong circle. The police won’t enter, they say it will cause a social storm, be used as political capital by those who oppose re-integration, trigger another Umbrella Protest.’

It wouldn’t stop her and Jake going in. Besides, her organs were too irradiated to make any money on the market. Her mind stalled. She’d promised not to think about it. Find Salamander, kill him, then give Jake a good time. That was Plan A. Plan B was take down Salamander and get killed in the process. Plan B, statistically speaking, was Plan A. Plan C was simply get killed in an exotic location.

Nadia switched her attention to the central group of Chinese locals near a dry fountain. Most were sitting in a circle, watching a young man who moved more fluidly than any other she’d ever seen, except the Chef, her taciturn trainer back in Russia who should be coming to their aid soon. This man, though, was something else; it was as if he had no bones or joints, like he was a human snake. The two other groups at opposite ends of the park quickly finished what they were doing, and scuttled over to join the growing audience. Hanbury was mid-sentence, but was mainly addressing Jake, and the tail-end of the nausea still tugged at her guts, so Nadia got up and walked over to watch. She’d been trained in martial arts, and knew a bit of tai chi, but this guy had obviously popped out of the womb doing it.

He finished a complicated routine, where he crouched down and leapt up and spun and kicked, all in a heartbeat, landing soundlessly. Everyone around burst into applause, Nadia included. Some of the people clearly knew him; a local tai chi hero.

The crowd was beginning to disband, when a young woman cut through and walked straight up to the man. She had short, rough-cut black hair, and wore a tight-fitting black one-piece suit with an open Chinese collar. Her features weren’t quite Chinese, they were thicker set. She was slim, not an ounce of fat. The only non-black item on her person was a rectangular grey pouch strapped to her outer right thigh. Sticking out the top were six thin silver handles, with a metallic blue sheen. Blades.

Shit.

The woman adopted a martial stance, right leg forward, right arm bent, her open palm head height. A challenge to the man who had just wowed everybody. The crowd that had begun dispersing converged again, creating a solid wall of people, Nadia on the inner ring. Which meant Jake and Hanbury could see nothing.

The man noticed the challenger for the first time, with a barely detectable flinch. He knew who she was. He cautiously mirrored her stance, and the back of his right wrist made light contact with hers. The crowd stopped breathing. It was like an adult version of the game ‘blink’. Thirty seconds passed. Nadia could see his eyes, but also those of Blue Fan – Nadia presumed it was her, in the flesh. Maybe she could try and arrest Blue Fan here and now. But with what? She had no weapons. Besides, this couldn’t be coincidence.

A few people pulled their smartphones out to take videos, but others in the audience dissuaded them, politely or otherwise.

Without warning, his arm rammed forward like a piston, propelling an iron fist, like he really meant to flatten her, but Blue Fan’s head had moved. She whirled around almost too fast to see, her left arm chopping towards his neck. He blocked it with his own left, while Blue Fan’s back leg scythed around low, aiming to sweep him off his feet. But he was good, and spun in mid-air, landing a few feet away from her. She stood up straight, relaxed, like she was waiting for a bus.

He wasted no time, and attacked in a flurry of hands, feet, knees and elbows, a head-butt or two thrown in for good measure. She evaded them all. She didn’t block them, she simply wasn’t in whatever space he tried to strike. The man began to perspire. Blue Fan remained serene.

The local hero backed off, trying to regain his composure. Blue Fan crouched down low on her right haunch, her left arm pointing forward, palm stiff, as if it was a spear. She sprung towards him, the spear unwavering. He tried to block, to kick, to evade, but Blue Fan countered, her arm always ending in the same location, aimed towards his neck. In the end she tripped him and drove him down to the ground, her fingers pressing into his throat. He yielded. For a moment Nadia thought Blue Fan was going to kill him. But she stood up in a formal statue, as if standing to attention, and bowed to him. No applause this time, though Nadia thought she’d just witnessed the most dazzling display of martial artistry she’d ever seen. Instead the crowd drew back, except a few who helped the man to his feet. Everyone was awe-struck.

No, they were afraid.

Blue Fan ignored them all and walked right up to Nadia, while those standing behind Nadia vanished, and Nadia’s Plan C spiked in probability. Blue Fan’s black eyes bored into Nadia’s.

‘Go home,’ she said, her accent thick, guttural. Like her grandfather’s. ‘Or else you will die here.’

Nadia didn’t know why she decided to say it, especially since she’d not even told Jake yet. Maybe some things were easier to tell an enemy than a friend.

‘I am dying. Might as well be here. Nice and warm.’

Blue Fan’s eyes narrowed a fraction. Nadia didn’t miss the moment. ‘I’m going to kill your grandfather.’

Blue Fan’s eyes relaxed. Were they smiling? ‘Juk neih houwahn.’ She spun around and walked away, the crowd parting before her. Nadia dashed back to Jake and Hanbury, but a quick backwards glance told her that Blue Fan was long gone.

Jake looked up, smiling. ‘Must have been good.’

‘It was Blue Fan,’ she replied.

His smile stalled, then vanished. Hanbury whipped out his phone and began talking urgently, then yelling in Chinese, losing his composure for the first time. Cantonese seemed like a good language to shout in. Sharp, choppy syllables. Maybe she could pick some up if she had the time.

Nadia told Jake – who knew some basic Cantonese from his last trip here – what Blue Fan had said.

‘It means good luck,’ he said.

She gazed back to the crowd, where a group of people consoled their defeated champion. A squad of police entered the park, exactly from where Blue Fan had exited. They had to have passed her. They stopped and surveyed the scene, and one of them spied Nadia across the park. He was smiling. It was Chen. The smile looked genuine this time.

It figured. She turned back to Jake. ‘We need guns.’ She stared at the place where Blue Fan had demolished her opponent. ‘Lots of guns.’