There was nothing else to do. She was cornered, trapped. Marie screamed, and screamed again, and again, as the Chinese agent approached, her hysteria mounting as the man politely but firmly took her by the arm. She recognized him—he was one of them, one of the bureaucrats! Her screams reached a crescendo. People stopped and turned in the street. Women gasped as startled men stepped hesitantly forward or looked around frantically for the police, several shouting for them.
“Please, Mrs.…!” cried the Oriental, trying to keep his voice controlled. “No harm will come to you. Allow me to escort you to my vehicle. It is for your own protection. ”
“Help me!” shrieked Marie as the astonished twilight strollers gathered into a crowd. “This man’s a thief! He stole my purse, my money! He’s trying to take my jewelry!”
“See here, chap!” shouted an elderly Englishman, hobbling forward, raising his walking stick. “I’ve sent a lad for the police, but until they arrive, by God, I’ll thrash you!”
“Please, sir,” insisted the man from Special Branch quietly. “This is a matter for the authorities, and I am with the authorities. Permit me to show you my identification.”
“Easy, myte!” roared a voice with an Australian accent as a man rushed forward, gently pushing the elderly Britisher aside and lowering his cane. “You’re a grand fair dinkum, old man, but don’t half bother yourself! These punks call for a younger type.” The strapping Australian stood in front of the Chinese agent. “Tyke yer hands off the lady, punkhead! And I’d be goddamned quick about it, if I were you.”
“Please, sir, this is a serious misunderstanding. The lady is in danger and she is wanted for questioning by the authorities.”
“I don’t see you in no uniform!”
“Permit me to show you my credentials.”
“That’s what he said an hour ago when he attacked me in Garden Road!” shouted Marie hysterically. “People tried to help me then! He lied to everyone! Then he stole my purse! He’s been following me!” Marie knew that none of the things she kept screaming made sense. She could only hope for confusion, something that Jason had taught her to use.
“I’m not saying it agyne, myte!” yelled the Australian, stepping forward. “Tyke yer bloody hands off the lady!”
“Please, sir. I cannot do that. Other officials are on their way.”
“Oh, they are, are they? You punkheads travel in gangs, do you? Well, you’ll be a pitiful sight for their eyes when they get here!” The Australian grabbed the Oriental by the shoulder, spinning him to his left. But as the man from Special Branch spun, his right foot—the toe of his leather shoe extended like a knife point—whipped around, crashing up into the Australian’s abdomen. The good Samaritan from Down Under doubled over, falling to his knees.
“I’ll ask you again not to interfere, sir!”
“Do you, now? You slope-eyed son of a bitch!” The furious Australian lunged up, hurling his body at the Oriental, his fists pounding the man from Special Branch. The crowd roared its approval, its collective voice filling the street—and Marie’s arm was free! Then other sounds joined the melee. Sirens, followed by three racing automobiles, among them an ambulance. All three swerved in their sudden turns, as tires screeched and the vehicles came to jolting stops.
Marie plunged through the crowd and reached the inner pavement; she started running toward the red sign a half block away. The slippers had fallen off her feet; the swollen, shredded blisters burned, sending shafts of pain up her legs. She could not allow herself to think about pain. She had to run, run, get away! Then the booming voice surged over and through the noises in the street, and she pictured a large man roaring. It was the huge Chinese they called the major.
“Mrs. Webb! Mrs. Webb, I beg you! Stop! We mean you no harm! You’ll be told everything! For God’s sake, stop!”
Told everything! thought Marie. Told lies and more lies! Suddenly people were rushing toward her. What were they doing? Why …? Then they raced past, mostly men, but not all men, and she understood. There was a panic in the street—perhaps an accident, mutilation, death. Let’s go see. Let’s watch! From a distance, mind you.
Opportunities will present themselves. Recognize them, act on them.
Marie suddenly whipped around, crouching, lunging through the still-onrushing crowd to the curb, keeping her body as low as possible, and ran back to where she had come so close to recapture. She kept turning her head to her left—watching, hoping. She saw him through the racing bodies! The huge major ran past in the other direction; with him was another man, another well-dressed man, another bureaucrat.
The crowd was cautious, as the ghoulish are always cautious, inching forward but not so far as to get involved. What they saw was not flattering to the Chinese onlookers or to those who held the martial arts of the Orient in mystical esteem. The lithe, strapping Australian, his language magnificently obscene, was pummeling three separate assailants out of his personal boxing ring. Suddenly, to the astonishment of everyone, the Australian picked up one of his fallen adversaries and let out a roar as loud as the immense major’s. “Fer Christ’s syke! Will you cryzies cut this out? Yer not punkheads, even I can tell that! We was both snookered!”
Marie ran across the wide street to the entrance of the Botanical Gardens. She stood under a tree by the gate with a direct line of sight to Ming’s Parking Palace. The major had passed the garage, pausing at several alleyways that intersected Arbuthnot Road, sending his subordinate down several of them, constantly looking around for his support troops. They were not there; Marie saw that for herself as the crowd dispersed. All three were breathing hard and leaning against the ambulance, led there by the Australian.
A taxi drove up to Ming’s. No one, at first, got out, then the driver emerged. He walked into the open garage and spoke to someone behind a glass booth. He bowed in thanks, returned to the cab, and spoke to his passenger. Cautiously his fare opened the door and stepped onto the curb. It was Catherine! She, too, walked into the wide opening, far more rapidly than the driver, and spoke into the glass booth, shaking her head, indicating that she had been told what she did not want to hear.
Suddenly Lin appeared. He was retracing his steps, obviously angered by the men who were supposed to be tracing his steps. He was about to cross the open garage; he would see Catherine!
“Carlos!” screamed Marie, assuming the worst, knowing it would tell her everything. “Delta!”
The major spun around, his eyes wide in shock. Marie raced into the Botanical Gardens; it was the key! Cain is for Delta and Carlos will be killed by Cain … or whatever the codes were that had been spread through Paris! They were using David again! It wasn’t a probability anymore, it was the reality! They—it—the United States government—was sending her husband out to play the role that had nearly killed him, killed by his own people! What kind of bastards were they?… Or, conversely, what kind of ends justified the means supposedly sane men would use to reach them?
Now more than ever she had to find David, find him before he took risks others should be taking! He had given so much and now they asked for more, demanded more in the crudest way possible. But to find him she had to reach Catherine, who was no more than a hundred yards away. She had to draw out the enemy and get back across the street without the enemy seeing her. Jason, what can I do?
She hid behind a cluster of bushes, inching farther inside, as the major ran through the Garden’s gates. The immense Oriental stopped and looked around with his squinting, penetrating gaze, then turned and shouted for his subordinate, who had apparently emerged from an alley on Arbuthnot Road. The second man had difficulty getting across the street; the traffic was heavier and slower because of the stationary ambulance and two additional vehicles blocking the normal flow near the entrance to the Botanical Gardens. The major suddenly grew furious as he saw and understood the reasons for the growing traffic.
“Get those fools to move the cars!” he roared. “And send them over here.… No! Send one to the gates on Albany Road. The rest of you come back here! Hurry!”
The early-evening strollers became more numerous. Men loosened the ties they had worn all day at their offices, while women carried high-heeled shoes in casual bags, supplanting them with sandals. Wives wheeling baby carriages were joined by husbands; lovers embraced and walked arm in arm among the rows of exploding flowers. The laughter of racing children pealed across the Gardens, and the major held his place by the entrance gate. Marie swallowed, the panic in her growing. The ambulance and the two automobiles were being moved; the traffic began to flow normally.
A crash! Near the ambulance an impatient driver had rammed the car in front of him. The major could not help himself; the proximity of the accident so close to his official vehicle forced him to move forward, obviously to ascertain whether or not his men were involved. Opportunities will present themselves … use them. Now!
Marie raced around the far end of the bushes, then dashed across the grass to join a foursome on the gravel path that led out of the Gardens. She glanced to her right, afraid of what she might see but knowing she had to know. Her worst fears were borne out; the huge major had sensed—or seen—the figure of a woman running behind him. He paused for a moment, uncertain, unsure, then broke into a rapid stride toward the gate.
A horn blew—four short, quick blasts. It was Catherine, waving at her through the open window of a small Japanese car as Marie raced into the street.
“Get in!” shouted Staples.
“He saw me!”
“Hurry!”
Marie jumped into the front seat as Catherine gunned the small car and swerved out of line, half on the sidewalk, then swung back with a break in the accelerating traffic. She turned into a side street and drove swiftly down it to an intersection where there was a sign with a red arrow pointing right. Central. Business District. Staples turned right.
“Catherine!” shouted Marie. “He saw me!”
“Worse,” said Staples. “He saw the car.”
“A two-door green Mitsubishi!” shouted Lin Wenzu into his hand-held radio. “The license number is AOR-five, three, five, zero—the zero could be a six, but I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter, the first three letters will be enough. I want it flashed on all points, emergency status using the police telephone banks! The driver and the passenger are to be taken into custody and there are to be no conversations with either party. It is a Government House matter and no explanations will be given. Get on this! Now!”
Staples turned into a parking garage on Ice House Street. The newly lighted, bright red sign of the Mandarin could be seen barely a block away. “We’ll rent a car,” said Catherine as she accepted her ticket from the man in the booth. “I know several head boys at the hotel.”
“We park? You park?” The grinning attendant obviously hoped for the former.
“You park,” replied Staples, withdrawing several Hong Kong dollars from her purse. “Let’s go,” she said, turning to Marie. “And stay on my right, in the shadows, close to the buildings. How are your feet?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Then don’t. There’s no time to do anything about them now. Bear up, old girl.”
“Catherine, stop sounding like C. Aubrey Smith in drag.”
“Who’s that?”
“Forget it. I like old movies. Let’s go.”
Marie hobbling, the two women walked down the street to a side entrance of the Mandarin. They climbed the hotel steps and went inside. “There’s a ladies’ room to the right, past the line of shops,” said Catherine.
“I see the sign.”
“Wait there. I’ll be with you as soon as I can make arrangements.”
“Is there a drugstore here?”
“I don’t want you walking around. There’ll be descriptions out everywhere.”
“I understand that, but can you walk around? Just a bit.”
“Bad time of the month?”
“No, my feet! Vaseline, skin lotion, sandals—no, not sandals. Rubber thongs, perhaps, and peroxide.”
“I’ll do what I can, but time is everything.”
“It’s been that way for the past year. A terrible treadmill. Will it stop, Catherine?”
“I’m doing my damnedest to see to it. You’re a friend and a countryman, my dear. And I’m a very angry woman—and speaking of such—how many women did you encounter in the hallowed halls of the CIA or its bumbling counterpart at the State Department, Consular Operations?”
Marie blinked, trying to remember. “None, actually.”
“Then fuck ’em!”
“There was a woman in Paris—”
“There always is, dear. Go to the ladies’ room.”
“An automobile is a hindrance in Hong Kong,” said Lin, looking at the clock on the wall of his office in the headquarters of MI6, Special Branch. It read 6:34. “Therefore we must assume she intends driving Webb’s wife some distance, hiding her, and will not risk taxi records. Our eight o’clock deadline has been rescinded, the chase now takes its place. We must intercept her. Is there anything we haven’t considered?”
“Putting the Australian in jail,” suggested the short, well-dressed subordinate firmly. “We suffered casualties in the Walled City, but his were a public embarrassment. We know where he’s staying. We can pick him up.”
“On what charge?”
“Obstruction.”
“To what end?”
The subordinate shrugged angrily. “Satisfaction, that’s all.”
“You’ve just answered your own question. Your pride is inconsequential. Stick to the woman—the women.”
“Every garage, the car rental agencies here on the island and in Kowloon all have been reached by the police, correct?”
“Yes, sir. But I must point out that the Staples woman could easily call upon one of her friends—her Canadian friends—and she would have an automobile we could not track.”
“We operate on what we can control, not what we can’t. Besides, from what I knew before and what I have subsequently learned about Foreign Service Officer Staples, I would say she’s acting alone, certainly not under official sanction. She won’t involve anyone else for the time being.”
“How can you be sure?”
Lin looked at his subordinate; he had to choose his words carefully. “Just a guess.”
“Your guesses have a reputation for accuracy.”
“An inflated judgment. Common sense is my ally.” The telephone rang. The major’s hand shot out. “Yes?”
“Police Central Four,” droned a male voice.
“We appreciate your cooperation, Central Four.”
“A Ming’s Parking Palace responded to our inquiry. The Mitsubishi AOR has a space there leased on a monthly basis. The owner’s name is Staples. Catherine Staples, a Canadian. The car was taken out roughly thirty-five minutes ago.”
“You’ve been most helpful, Central Four,” said Lin. “Thank you.” He hung up and looked at his anxious subordinate. “We now have three new pieces of information. The first is that the inquiry we sent out through the police was definitely sent out. The second is that at least one garage wrote down the information, and thirdly, Mrs. Staples leases her parking space by the month.”
“It’s a start, sir.”
“There are three major and perhaps a dozen minor rental agencies, not counting the hotels, which we’ve covered separately. Those are manageable statistics, but, of course, the garages are not.”
“Why not?” questioned the subordinate. “At most there are, perhaps, a hundred. Who cares to build a garage in Hong Kong when he could house a dozen shops—businesses? At maximum, the police telephone banks are twenty to thirty operators. They can reach them all.”
“It’s not the numbers, old friend. It’s the mentality of the employees, for the jobs are not enviable. Those who can write are too lazy or too hostile to bother, and those who can’t, flee from any association with the police.”
“One garage responded.”
“A true Cantonese. It was the owner.”
“The owner should be told!” cried the parking boy in shrill Chinese to the booth attendant at the garage on Ice House Street.
“Why?”
“I explained it to you! I wrote it down for you—”
“Because you go to school and write somewhat better than I do does not make you boss-boss here.”
“You cannot write at all! You were shit-shit afraid! You called for me when the man on the telephone said it was a police emergency. You illiterates always run from the police. That was the car, the green Mitsubishi I parked on Level Two! If you won’t call the police, you must call the owner.”
“There are things they don’t teach you in school, boy with small organ.”
“They teach us not to go against the police. It is bad joss.”
“I will call the police—or, better, you may be their hero.”
“Good!”
“After the two women return, and I have a short talk with the driver.”
“What?”
“She thought she was giving me—us—two dollars, but it was eleven. One of the bills was a ten-dollar note. She was very nervous, very upset. She is frightened. She did not watch her money.”
“You said it was two dollars!”
“And now I’m being honest. Would I be honest with you if I did not have both our interests in my heart?”
“In what way?”
“I will tell this rich, frightened American—she spoke American—that you and I have not called back the police on her behalf. She will reward us on the spot—very, very generously—for she will understand that she may not retrieve her car without doing so. You may watch me from inside the garage by the other telephone. After she pays, I will send another boy for her car, which he will have great trouble finding, for I will give him the wrong location, and you will call the police. The police will arrive, we will have done our heavenly duty, and had a night of money like few other nights in this miserable job.”
The parking boy squinted, shaking his head. “You’re right,” he said. “They don’t teach such things in school. And I suppose I do not have a choice.”
“Oh, but you do,” said the attendant, pulling a long knife from his belt. “You can say no, and I will cut out your talk-talk tongue.”
Catherine approached the concierge’s desk in the Mandarin lobby, annoyed that she did not know either of the two clerks behind the counter. She needed a favor quickly, and in Hong Kong that meant dealing with a person one knew. Then to her relief she spotted the evening shift’s Number one concierge. He was in the middle of the lobby trying to mollify an excited guest. She moved to the right and waited, hoping to catch Lee Teng’s eye. She had cultivated Teng, sending numerous Canadians to him when problems of convenience had seemed insurmountable. He had always been paid handsomely.
“Yes, may I be of help, Mrs.…?” said the young Chinese clerk, moving in front of Staples.
“I’ll wait for Mr. Teng, if you please.”
“Mr. Teng is very busy, Mrs.… A very bad time for Mr. Teng. You are a guest of the Mandarin, Mrs.…?”
“I’m a resident of the territory and an old friend of Mr. Teng. Where possible I bring my business here so the desk gets the credit.”
“Ohh …?” The clerk responded to Catherine’s non-tourist status. He leaned forward, speaking confidentially. “Lee Teng has terrible joss tonight. The lady goes to the grand ball at Government House but her clothes go to Bangkok. She must think Mr. Teng has wings under his jacket and jet engines in his armpits, yes?”
“An interesting concept. The lady just flew in?”
“Yes, Mrs.… But she had many pieces of luggage. She did not miss the one she misses now. She blames first her husband and now Lee Teng.”
“Where’s her husband?”
“In the bar. He offered to take the next plane to Bangkok, but his kindness only made his wife angrier. He will not leave the bar, and he will not get to Government House in a way that will make him pleased with himself in the morning. Bad joss all around.… Perhaps I can be of assistance to you while Mr. Teng does his best to calm everybody.”
“I want to rent a car and I need one as fast as you can get it for me.”
“Aiya,” said the clerk. “It is seven o’clock at night, and the rental offices do little leasing in the evening hours. Most are closed.”
“I’m sure there are exceptions.”
“Perhaps a hotel car with a chauffeur?”
“Only if there’s nothing else available. As I mentioned, I’m not a guest here and, frankly, I’m not made of money.”
“ ‘Who among us’?” asked the clerk enigmatically. “As the good Christian Book says—somewhere, I think.”
“Sounds right,” agreed Staples. “Please, get on the phone and do your best.”
The young man reached beneath the counter and pulled out a plastic-bound list of car rental agencies. He went to a telephone several feet to his right, picked it up, and started dialing. Catherine looked over at Lee Teng; he had steered his irate lady to the wall by a miniature palm in an obvious attempt to keep her from alarming the other guests who sat around the ornate lobby greeting friends and ordering cocktails. He was speaking rapidly, softly, and, by God, thought Staples, he was actually getting her attention. Whatever her legitimate complaints, mused Catherine, the woman was an ass. She wore a chinchilla stole in just about the worst climate on earth for such delicate fur. Not that she, Foreign Service Officer Staples, ever had to consider such a problem. She might have if she had chucked the FSO status and stuck with Owen Staples. The son of a bitch owned at least four banks in Toronto now. Not a bad sort, really, and to add to her sense of guilt, Owen had never remarried. Not fair, Owen! She had run across him three years ago, after her stint in Europe, while attending the Brit-organized conference in Toronto. They had had drinks at the May fair Club in the King Edward Hotel, not so unlike the Mandarin, actually.
“Come on, Owen. Your looks, your money—and you had the looks before your money—why not? There are a thousand beautiful girls within a five-block radius who’d grab you.”
“Once was enough, Cathy. You taught me that.”
“I don’t know, but you make me feel—oh, I don’t know—somehow so guilty. I left you, Owen, but not because I wasn’t fond of you.”
“ ‘Fond’ of me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I think so.” Owen had laughed. “You left me for all the right reasons, and I accepted your leaving without animus for like-minded reasons. If you had waited five minutes longer, I think I would have thrown you out. I’d paid the rent that month.”
“You bastard!”
“Not at all, neither of us. You had your ambitions and I had mine. They simply weren’t compatible.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you never remarried.”
“I just told you. You taught me, my dear.”
“Taught you what? That all ambitions are incompatible?”
“Where they existed in our extremes, yes. You see, I learned that I wasn’t interested on any permanent basis in anyone who didn’t have what I suppose you’d call a passionate ‘drive,’ or an overriding ambition, but I couldn’t live with such a person day in and day out. And those without ambition left something wanting in our relationship. No permanency there.”
“But what about a family? Children?”
“I have two children,” Owen had said quietly. “Of whom I’m immensely—fond. I love them very much, and their very ambitious mothers have been terribly kind. Even their subsequent respective husbands have been understanding. While they were growing up I saw my children constantly. So, in a sense, I had three families. Quite civilized, if frequently confusing.”
“You? The paragon of the community, the banker’s banker! The man they said took a shower in a Dickens’ nightshirt! A deacon of the church!”
“I gave that up when you left. At any rate, it was simply statecraft on my part. You practice it every day.”
“Owen, you never told me.”
“You never asked, Cathy. You had your ambitions and I had mine. But I will tell you my one regret, if you want to hear it.”
“I do.”
“I’m genuinely sorry that we never had a child together. Judging by the two I have, he or she would have been quite marvelous.”
“You bastard, I’m going to cry.”
“Please don’t. Let’s be honest, neither of us has any regrets.”
Catherine’s reverie was suddenly interrupted. The clerk lurched back from the telephone, his hands triumphantly on the counter. “You have good joss, Mrs.…!” he cried. “The dispatcher at the Apex agency on Bonham Strand East was still there, and he has cars available but nobody to drive one here.”
“I’ll take a taxi. Write out the address.” Staples looked around for the hotel drugstore. There were too many people in the lobby, too much confusion. “Where can I buy some—skin lotion or Vaseline, sandals or thongs?” she asked, turning to the clerk.
“There is a newspaper stand down the hallway to the right, Mrs.… They have many of the items you describe. But, may I please have money, as you must present a receipt to the dispatcher? It is one thousand dollars, Hong Kong, whatever remains to be returned or additional monies to be added—”
“I don’t have that much on me. I’ll have to use a card.”
“So much the better.”
Catherine opened her purse and pulled out a credit card from an inside pocket. “I’ll be right back,” she said, placing it on the counter, as she started for the hallway on the right. For no reason in particular, she glanced over at Lee Teng and his distraught lady. To her brief amusement, the overdressed woman in the foolish fur was nodding appreciatively as Teng pointed to the line of overpriced shops one reached by climbing a staircase above the lobby. Lee Teng was a true diplomat. Without question, he had explained to the overwrought guest that she had an option that would both serve her needs and her nerves and hit her errant husband in his financial solar plexus. This was Hong Kong, and she could purchase the best and the most glittering, and for a price everything would be ready in time for the grand ball at Government House. Staples continued toward the hallway.
“Catherine!” The name was so sharply spoken Staples froze. “Please, Mrs. Catherine!”
Rigid, Staples turned. It was Lee Teng, who had broken away from his now mollified guest. “What is it?” she asked, frightened as the middle-aged Teng approached, his face lined with concern, sweat evident on his balding skull.
“I saw you only moments ago. I had a problem.”
“I know all about it.”
“So do you, Catherine.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Teng glanced at the counter—oddly enough, not at the young man who had helped her, but at the other clerk, who was at the opposite end of the desk. The man was by himself, with no guests in front of him, and he was looking at his associate. “Damn bad joss!” exclaimed Teng under his breath.
“What are you talking about?” asked Staples.
“Come over here,” said the Number one concierge of the night shift as he pulled Catherine to the side, away from the sight of the counter. He reached into his pocket and removed a perforated half-page of paper on which there was a computer printout. “Four copies of this were sent down from upstairs. I managed to obtain three, but the fourth is under the counter.”
Emergency. Government control. A Canadian woman by the name of Mrs. Catherine Staples may attempt to lease an automobile for personal use. She is fifty-seven years of age, with partially gray hair, of medium height, and a slender figure. Delay all proceedings and contact Police Central Four.”
Lin Wenzu had drawn a conclusion based on an observation, thought Catherine, along with the knowledge that anyone who willingly drove a car in Hong Kong was either crazy or had a peculiar reason for doing so. He was covering his bases quickly and completely. “The young man just got me a car over in Bonham Strand East. He obviously hasn’t read this.”
“He found you a rental at this hour?”
“He’s writing up the credit charge now. Do you think he’ll see this?”
“It is not him that I worry about. He is in training and I can tell him anything and he will accept what I say. The other one not so; he wants my job badly. Wait here. Stay out of sight.”
Teng walked to the counter as the clerk was anxiously looking around, the layered credit card slips in his hand. Lee Teng took the charges and put them in his pocket. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Our customer has changed her mind. She found a friend in the lobby who will drive her.”
“Oh? Then I should tell our associate not to bother. As the amount is over the limit, he is clearing it for me. I am still somewhat unsure and he offered—”
Teng waved him quiet as he crossed to the second clerk on the telephone at the other end of the counter. “You may give me the card and forget the call. There are too many distressed ladies tonight for me! This one has found other means of transportation.”
“Certainly, Mr. Teng,” said the second clerk obsequiously. He handed over the credit card, apologized quickly to the operator on the line, and hung up the telephone.
“A bad night.” Teng shrugged, turning, and heading back into the crowded lobby-lounge. He approached Catherine, pulling out his billfold as he did so. “If you are short of money, I will cover it. Don’t use this.”
“I’m not short at home or at the bank, but I don’t carry so much with me. It’s one of the unwritten rules.”
“One of the better ones,” said Teng, nodding.
Staples took the bills in Teng’s hand and looked up at the Chinese. “Do you want an explanation?” she asked.
“It’s not required, Catherine. Whatever Central Four says, I know you are a good person, and if you are not and you run away and I never see my money again, I am still many thousands, Hong Kong, to the better.”
“I shan’t run anywhere, Teng.”
“You will not walk, either. One of the chauffeurs owes me a good turn, and he’s in the garage now. He will drive you to your car in Bonham Strand. Come, I’ll take you down there.”
“There’s someone else with me. I’m taking her out of Hong Kong. She’s in the ladies’ room.”
“I’ll wait in the hallway. Do hurry.”
“Sometimes I think the time passes more quickly when we are flooded with problems,” said the second, somewhat older clerk to his younger associate-in-training as he removed the half-page computer printout from beneath the counter and unobtrusively shoved it into his pocket.
“If you are right, Mr. Teng has barely experienced fifteen minutes since we came on duty two hours ago. He’s very good, isn’t he?”
“His lack of head hair helps him. People look upon him as having wisdom even when he has no wise words to offer.”
“Still, he has a way with people. I wish to be very much like him one day.”
“Lose some hair,” said the second clerk. “In the meantime, since there is no one bothering us, I have to go to the toilet. By the way, just in case I ever need to know a rental agency open at this hour, it was the Apex on Bonham Strand East, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“That was very diligent of you.”
“I simply went by the list. It was near the end.”
“Some of us would have stopped before then. You are to be commended.”
“You are too kind to an unworthy trainee.”
“I want only the best for you,” said the older clerk. “Always remember that.”
The older man left the counter. He cautiously went past the potted palms until he saw Lee Teng. The night concierge was standing at the foot of the hallway to the right; it was enough. He was waiting for the woman. The clerk turned quickly and walked up the staircase to the line of shops with less dignity than was proper. He was in a hurry and entered the first boutique at the top of the steps.
“Hotel business,” he said to the bored saleswoman as he grabbed the phone off the wall behind a glass counter displaying glistening precious stones. He dialed.
“Your directive, sir, regarding the Canadian woman, Mrs. Staples—”
“Do you have information?”
“I believe so, sir, but it is somewhat embarrassing for me to relay it.”
“Why is that? This is an emergency, a government matter!”
“Please understand, Officer, I am only a minor employee, and it is quite possible the night concierge did not recall your directive. He is a very busy man.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Well, Officer—sir—the woman I overheard asking for the concierge bore a striking resemblance to the description in the government directive. But it would be most embarrassing for me if it was learned that I called you.”
“You will be protected. You may remain anonymous. What is the information?”
“Well, sir, I overheard …” With cautious ambivalence, the first assistant clerk did his best for himself and consequently the worst for his superior, Lee Teng. His final statements, however, were concise and without equivocation. “It is the Apex Car Rental Agency in Bonham Strand East. I suggest you hurry, as she is on her way there now.”
The early-evening traffic was less dense than the rush hour, but still formidable. It was the reason why Catherine and Marie looked uneasily at each other in the backseat of the Mandarin’s limousine; the chauffeur, rather than accelerating into the sudden wide space in front of him, swung the enormous automobile into an empty section of the curb in Bonham Strand East. There was no sign of a rental agency on either side of the street.
“Why are we stopping?” asked Staples sharply.
“Mr. Teng’s instructions, Mrs.…” answered the chauffeur turning around in the seat. “I will lock the car with the alarm on. No one will bother you, as the lights flash beneath all four door handles.”
“That’s very comforting, but I’d like to know why you’re not taking us to the car.”
“I will bring the car to you, Mrs.…”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mr. Teng’s instructions. He was very firm, and he is making the proper phone call to the Apex garage. It is in the next street, Mrs.… I shall be back presently.” The chauffeur removed his hat and his jacket, placed both on the seat, switched on the alarm and climbed out.
“What do you make of it?” asked Marie, putting her right leg over her knee and holding tissues she had taken from the ladies’ room against the sole of her foot. “Do you trust this Teng?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Catherine, her expression bewildered. “I can’t understand it. He’s obviously being extra cautious—but they’re extra risks for himself—and I don’t know why. As I told you back at the Mandarin, that computerized missive about me said ‘Government Control.’ Those two words are not taken lightly in Hong Kong. What in the world is he doing? And why?”
“Obviously, I can’t answer you,” said Marie. “But I can make an observation.”
“What is it?”
“I saw the way he looked at you. I’m not sure you did.”
“What?”
“I’d say he’s very fond of you.”
“Fond … of me?”
“It’s one way to put it. There are stronger ways, of course.”
Staples turned away and looked out the window. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“What’s the matter?”
“A little while ago, back at the Mandarin, and for reasons too unreasonable to analyze—it started with a foolish woman in a chinchilla stole—I thought about Owen.”
“Owen?”
“My former husband.”
“Owen Staples? The banker, Owen Staples?”
“That’s my name and that’s my boy—was my boy. In those days one stayed with the acquired name.”
“You never told me your husband was Owen Staples.”
“You never asked me, my dear.”
“You’re not making sense, Catherine.”
“I suppose not,” agreed Staples, shaking her head. “But I was thinking about the time Owen and I met a couple of years ago in Toronto. We had drinks at the Mayfair Club and I learned things about him I never would have believed before. I was genuinely happy for him despite the fact that the bastard nearly made me cry.”
“Catherine, for heaven’s sake what’s that got to do with right now?”
“It’s got to do with Teng. We also had drinks one evening, not at the Mandarin, of course, but at a café on the waterfront in Kowloon. He said it wouldn’t be good joss for me to be seen with him here on the island.”
“Why not?”
“That’s what I said. You see, he was protecting me then just as he’s protecting me now. And I may have misunderstood him. I assumed he was simply looking after an additional source of income, but I may have been terribly wrong.”
“In what way?”
“He said a strange thing that night. He said he wished things were different, that the differences between people were not so obvious and those differences not so disturbing to other people. Of course, I accepted his banalities as a rather amateurish attempt at … at statecraft, as my former husband phrased it. Perhaps it was something else.”
Marie laughed quietly as their eyes locked. “Dear, dear Catherine. The man’s in love with you.”
“Christ in Calgary, I don’t need this!”
Lin Wenzu sat in the front seat of the MI6 Vehicle Two, his patient gaze on the entrance of the Apex agency on Bonham Strand East. Everything was in order; both women would be in his custody within a matter of minutes. One of his men had gone inside and spoken to the dispatcher. The agent had proffered his government identification and was shown the evening’s records by the frightened employee. The dispatcher, indeed, had a reservation for a Mrs. Catherine Staples but it had been canceled, the car in question assigned to another name, the name of a chauffeur from the hotel. And since Mrs. Catherine Staples was no longer leasing a car, the dispatcher saw no reason to call Police Control Four. What was there to say? And no, certainly not, no one else could pick up the car, as it was reserved by the Mandarin.
Everything was in order, thought Lin. Victoria Peak would feel an enormous sweep of relief the moment he reached the sterile house with his news. The major knew the exact words he would say: “The women are taken—the woman is taken.”
Across the street a man in shirt sleeves entered the agency door. He appeared hesitant to Lin and there was something.… A taxi suddenly drove up and the major bolted forward, reaching for the door handle—the hesitant man was forgotten.
“Be alert, lads,” said Lin into the microphone attached to the dashboard radio. “We must be as quick and as unobtrusive as possible. No Arbuthnot Road can be tolerated here. And no weapons, of course. Ready, now!”
But there was nothing to be ready for; the taxi drove away without disgorging anyone.
“Vehicle Three!” said the major curtly. “Get that license and call the cab company! I want them in radio contact. Find out exactly what their taxi was doing here! Better yet, follow it and do as I tell you. It could be the women.”
“I believe there was only a man in the backseat, sir,” said the driver.
“They could have ducked below the seat! Damned eyes. A man, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I smell a rotten squid.”
“Why, Major?”
“If I knew, the stench would not be so strong.”
The waiting continued, and the immense Lin Wenzu began to perspire. The dying sun cast both a blinding orange light through the windshield and pockets of dark shadows along Bonham Strand East.
“It’s too long,” whispered the major to himself.
Static erupted from the radio. “We have the report from the cab company, sir.”
“Go on!”
“The taxi in question is trying to find an import house on Bonham Strand East, but the driver told his fare that the address must be on Bonham Strand West. Apparently, his passenger is very angry. He got out and threw money into the window only moments ago.”
“Break away and return here,” ordered Lin as he watched the garage doors opening across the street at the Apex agency. A car emerged, turning left, driven by the shirt-sleeved man.
The sweat now rolled down the major’s face. Something was not in order; another order was being superimposed. What was it that bothered him? What was it?”
“Him!” shouted Lin to his startled driver.
“Sir?”
“A wrinkled white shirt, but trousers creased like steel. A uniform! A chauffeur! Swing around! Follow him!”
The driver held his hand on the horn, breaking the line of traffic, as he made a U-turn while the major issued instructions to the backups, ordering one to stay at the Apex agency, the others to take up the new chase.
“Aiya!” screamed the driver, jamming on his brakes, screeching to a stop, as a huge brown limousine roared out of a side street blocking their way. Only the slightest contact had been made, the government car barely touching the left rear door of the large automobile.
“Feng zi!” yelled the limousine’s chauffeur, calling Lin’s driver a crazy dog, as he jumped out of his outsized sedan to see if any damage had been done to his vehicle.
“Lai! Lai!” shrieked the major’s driver, leaping out, ready for combat.
“Stop it!” roared Wenzu. “Just get him out of here!”
“It is he who does not move, sir!”
“Tell him he must do so! Show him your identification!”
All traffic came to a stop; horns blared, people in automobiles and in the streets yelled angrily. The major closed his eyes and shook his head in frustration. There was nothing he could do but get out of the car.
As another did from the limousine. A middle-aged Chinese with a balding head. “I gather we have a problem,” said Lee Teng.
“I know you!” shouted Lin. “The Mandarin!”
“Many who have the taste to frequent our fine hotel know me, sir. I’m afraid I cannot reciprocate. Have you been a guest, sir?”
“What are you doing here?”
“It is a confidential errand for a gentleman at the Mandarin, and I have no intention of saying anything further.”
“Damn-damn! A government directive was sent out! A Canadian woman named Staples! One of your people called us!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. For the last hour I have been trying to solve a problem for a guest who’s attending the ball at Government House tonight. I’d be happy to furnish you with her name—if your position warrants it.”
“My position warrants it! I repeat! Why have you stopped us?”
“I believe it was your man who sped across the changing light.”
“Not so!” screamed Lin’s driver.
“Then it is a matter for the courts,” said Lee Teng. “May we proceed?”
“Not yet,” replied the major, approaching the Mandarin’s concierge. “I repeat again. A government directive was received at your hotel. It stated clearly that a woman named Staples might try to lease a car and you were to report the attempt to Police Central Four.”
“Then I repeat, sir. I have not been near my desk for well over an hour, nor have I seen any such directive as you describe. However, in cooperation with your unseen credentials, I will tell you that all car rental arrangements would have to be made through my first assistant, a man, quite frankly, I have found quite compromising in many areas.”
“But you are here!”
“How many guests at the Mandarin have late business in Bonham Strand East, sir? Accept the coincidence.”
“Your eyes smile at me, Zhongguo ren.”
“Without laughter, sir. I will proceed. The damage is minor.”
“I don’t give a damn if you and your people have to stay there all night,” said Ambassador Havilland. “It’s the only crack we’ve got. The way you’ve described it she’ll return the car and then pick up her own. Goddamn it, there’s a Canadian-American strategy conference at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. She has to be back! Stay with it! Stay with all the posts! Just bring her in to me!”
“She will claim harassment. We will be breaking the laws of international diplomacy.”
“Then break them! Just get her here, in Cleopatra’s carpet, if you have to! I haven’t any time to waste—not a minute!”
Held firmly in check by two agents, a furious Catherine Staples was led into the room in the house on Victoria Peak. Lin Wenzu had opened the door; he now closed it as Staples faced Ambassador Raymond Havilland and Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister. It was 11:35 in the morning, the sun streaming through the large bay window overlooking the garden.
“You’ve gone too far, Havilland,” said Catherine, her throaty voice ice-like in its flat delivery.
“I haven’t gone far enough where you’re concerned, Mrs. Staples. You actively compromised a member of the American legation. You engaged in extortion to the grave disservice of my government.”
“You can’t prove that because there’s no evidence, no photographs—”
“I don’t have to prove it. At precisely seven o’clock last night the young man drove up here and told us everything. A sordid little chapter, isn’t it?”
“Damn fool! He’s blameless, but you’re not! And since you bring up the word ‘sordid,’ there’s nothing he’s done that could match the filth of your own actions.” Without missing a verbal beat, Catherine looked at the undersecretary of State. “I presume this is the liar called McAllister.”
“You’re very trying,” said the undersecretary.
“And you’re an unprincipled lackey who does another man’s dirty work. I’ve heard it all and it’s all disgusting! But every thread was woven”—Staples snapped her head toward Havilland—“by an expert. Who gave you the right to play God? Any of you? Do you know what you’ve done to those two people out there? Do you know what you’ve asked of them?”
“We know,” said the ambassador simply. “I know.”
“She knows, too, in spite of the fact that I didn’t have the heart to give her the final confirmation. You, McAllister! When I learned it was you up here, I wasn’t sure she could handle it. Not at the moment. But I intend to tell her. You and your lies! A taipan’s wife murdered in Macao—oh, the symmetry of it all, what an excuse to take another man’s wife! Lies! I have my sources and it never happened! Well, get this straight. I’m bringing her in to the consulate under the full protection of my government. And if I were you, Havilland, I’d be damned careful about throwing around alleged illegalities. You and your goddamned people have lied to and manipulated a Canadian citizen into a life-threatening operation—whatever the hell it is this time. Your arrogance is simply beyond belief! But I assure you it’s coming to a stop. Whether my government likes it or not, I’m going to expose you, all of you! You’re no better than the barbarians in the KGB. Well, the American juggernaut of covert operations is going to be handed a bloody setback! I’m sick of you, the world is sick of you!”
“My dear woman!” shouted the ambassador, losing the last vestiges of control in his sudden anger. “Make all the threats you like, but you will hear me out! And if after you’ve heard what I have to say you wish to declare war, you go right ahead! As the song says, my days are dwindling down, but not millions of others’! I’d like to do what I can to prolong those other lives. But you may disagree, so declare your war, dear lady! And, by Christ, you live with the consequences!”