The Chef needed to call in a favour. They were holed up in Fortress Hill for a reason. He walked down the curving road, then stopped at a pharmacy that was also a herbalist – not uncommon in Hong Kong – waited until the owner was free, and spoke to him in fluent Cantonese. The herbalist gave him a curious look as he listened to the order, then nodded and disappeared out the back for ten minutes, returning with a brown paper bag stuffed with roots. The Chef paid, left the shop, and hopped on a tram, paying with a Hong Kong two-dollar coin as the dilapidated, double-decker bus rattled its way through rush hour traffic. Victoria Park approached on the left, a haven of green hemmed in by skyscrapers and expressways.
He walked around the perimeter, taking in the different groups limbering up, cooling down or else in the heat of training, from martial artists to basketball players to footballers. For him, life was motion, and he’d never known a more active city, especially the older generation. He paused to watch a group of ageing women performing the slow, dance-like tai chi fan form, in perfect harmony, all with serene, smiling faces. Under a clutch of trees, a lithe man was teaching the sword form. He crouched low, thighs horizontal, the two fingers of his non-sword hand pointing like a pistol, parallel to the sword held above his head. The fingers represented a knife. The Chef wondered if the teacher really knew knife tai chi – it was almost a lost martial art, replaced by Navy SEAL knife-fighting techniques. The teacher was good. He went from low to high, perched on one foot as the sword angled down at forty-five degrees. His students were not so good, and he didn’t correct them. It was his one criticism of Chinese martial arts training – they didn’t do much actual teaching. They demonstrated, and waited to see if the student got it. It was closer to a talent vetting system. He didn’t criticise too much, however, because it worked. Most people gave up or accepted their limitations, while a few, the very talented ones, persevered and became legends.
He walked on until he found the person he was looking for. He had to pass by a couple of men who appeared to be chatting, laughing at something on a smartphone. They were watchers. The Chef made a triad hand signal and caught one of the men’s attention. The Chef flicked his eyes to the old man seated on a rusting iron bench beneath a weeping willow. The watcher nodded almost imperceptibly then laughed some more at the smartphone screen.
The Chef sat next to the old man and placed the brown bag between them.
‘Good students never forget,’ the man said, in English.
He looked sixty. The Chef knew he was closer to eighty, and resembled Hotei, the laughing Buddha. He’d been the Chef’s teacher – his Sifu – for three years back when Hong Kong was a British colony. The Chef had learned Iron Shirt chi gung, a gruelling, body-hardening process that worked on the fascia – thin layers between muscle groups inside the body – and rendered the body resilient to blunt force attacks, and quicker to heal. It had taken nine months, during which the Chef had had to abstain from sex – and then he had stayed longer to perfect the internal arts.
He recalled asking, on his first day, what the difference was between external and internal martial arts. In the West it was the subject of years of chatroom discussion. His Sifu had replied, matter of fact, that the internal arts were so called because you couldn’t see what was going on. He’d then added that in the West people often sought depth when the water was shallow and the bottom was clear enough. The Chef realised later what a perfect fighting strategy that was, especially for an assassin, because an enemy’s weak spots were often on the surface, not hidden. And at the end of the day, everyone is a bag of flesh and bone, containing a heart, brain and other vital organs. Countless ways to end somebody. Shallow, clear water.
‘I must challenge Blue Fan,’ he said. ‘Will I defeat her in combat?’
The old man sighed, a wrinkle appearing on his shiny forehead before it flattened out. ‘Hand-to-hand, yes, though she is the best Hsing Yi fighter I have ever seen. But if she has her knives, you will not survive.’
Not what he’d hoped for. But fighting – and war – were about more than single combat. The Chef had always relied on two guides: the Chinese text compiled by Sun Tzu – the Art of War, the distillation of lessons learned from five hundred years of war – and the legendary Japanese swordsman Musashi’s Book of Five Rings.
‘I need to know the ground. I have been away for a long time. What are the forces in play.’
‘You seek Salamander.’
It wasn’t a question. The Chef didn’t insult his master by asking how he knew.
The old man leant forward and grunted as he rose slowly to his feet. Suddenly the two young men were by his side, supporting him. It was an act. The old man would only show his prowess behind closed doors, and then only to a chosen few. It was when such teachers neared their end that they became more generous, finally imparting their secrets. Most students wanted to train with younger teachers who looked good; a few smart ones knew where they could gain the deepest knowledge.
The Chef remained seated. He’d not been invited to join them.
‘You must not kill Blue Fan,’ the old man said. ‘Salamander is another matter. He has brought shame on us all.’
He started to walk away.
The Chef pushed his luck, given that the interview was over. ‘I need her to get to him.’
The old man paused, then turned around. ‘Find the Judge. Demand ritual combat for the White Tiger triad. Tell him I sent you.’
The Chef rolled it around in his mind. If he challenged Blue Fan to ritual combat, it was her right to choose the weapon, and she would select knives, the one weapon he had never been taught. His Sifu, the man standing in front of him, had refused to teach him knife unless he agreed to remain in Hong Kong. There was one more thing he needed to know.
‘Who trained her in the knife fighting form?’
The old man beamed. ‘We Chinese seek longevity. You Westerners like to live fast and die young, while your gonads are still full of fire.’ His eyes softened. ‘You could have been so much more if you had remained here. Goodbye, Chu Shi.’
The Chef stayed while the sky darkened and night closed in, immersing him in a cacophony of traffic, horns, and the squawks of chattering starlings seeking somewhere to sleep amidst the brightening neon. Many years ago, his master had given him his nickname. In Cantonese it meant head chef, or boss. His Sifu had said he was always master of himself, rare in someone so young, and talented at arranging fights and assassinations. Like a chef preparing a complex but satisfying meal.
Yet his Sifu had just signed his death warrant.
He watched young couples strolling through the park, kids playing football under floodlights, people walking dogs. He took it all in. Life. Motion. His Sifu knew him well. He’d never wanted to die old, never assumed he would. Now, for the first time, he wondered if the Chinese were right after all in their eternal pursuit of longevity.
He could walk away from this. Return to Russia, start afresh somewhere. But he missed this life. He should have come back a long time ago. His lover was buried here. The Chef had never wanted to die in bed of old age, decrepit, unable to look after himself. Nor had he ever yearned for a soft life.
As he got up, he noticed a fortune cookie on the bench. He wondered if there was a relevant message inside. He cracked it open. A phone number. The same one Jin Fe had shown him. He crossed the busy road and made his way to the yacht-filled harbour, staring across to Tsim Sha Tsui on Kowloon, where the Green Dragon triad held sway.
He pulled out his phone.
***
Jake’s eyes opened sluggishly, as if stuck with glue. He saw two pairs of legs ending in heavy, army-style boots, grey-and-white camouflaged trousers, semi-auto rifles resting on their stocks. Behind the two men, thick struts painted khaki. A loud hum and vibration under his head told him he was in a plane, most likely a military transport. The cold suddenly hit him, as if he’d been dropped into a freezing sea. Which meant he was already hypothermic. His body began to shake. Nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to look up, but his neck didn’t respond. Nor did the rest of him.
Drugged.
Low voices. Mocking. Russian. One of the men stamped a boot against the cold, said something to his comrade, and laughed. Jake watched the boot swing backwards, slow, like a rugby player about to take a penalty kick. Then the hardened leather rocketed towards his face. Pain exploded in Jake’s nose and engulfed his head, as warm blood trickled down his cheek. His mind blanked; he was unable to think, overloaded by agony. An unbidden moan rose from within. Fear and panic threatened to overwhelm him. Above all else, he didn’t want to be kicked again. But Jake was forearmed in the only true way possible. He’d been beaten and tortured before. He knew what he had to do. Take control in three steps: engage the mind, borrow humour, then kick-start his fighting instinct.
Engage the mind. He focused on his knowledge that there are so many nerve endings in the face, and a nerve centre just under the nose called jinchu in Japanese, which could cause death if struck in the right way. Another fact. His nose was broken. It would take two weeks to heal if it wasn’t reset within half an hour, but aside from smell, taste, elocution and breathing – for which his mouth would suffice in the short-term – he was functional.
Humour was next. He must look like shit. He imagined asking a girl to dance, how ridiculous he’d look, how funny he’d sound. Some semblance of control returned. The final step, to get his emotional balance back on the offensive.
He was going to severely damage the one who had just kicked him.
His eyes cleared. The shaking stopped. Red light flooded in from a doorway, the engine noise suddenly louder, the thrum of propellers – four he reckoned, from the subtle wave in the rhythm – more distinct. Red light meant they were flying low at night and didn’t want to be seen. The soldier’s right boot had smudges on it. Blood that used to belong to Jake.
Something was uttered in Russian. Jake recognised that low, earthy voice, like gargling with rocks. The two soldiers shuffled off. Although Salamander was a bear of a man, Jake barely heard or felt his footsteps approach until two legs appeared within his limited field of vision. Salamander wore the same camouflage pants, but the boots were grey and made of softer leather. So, he could move silently. A blanket dropped over Jake, then another, and Salamander squatted next to him, his head not yet visible. A rag wiped away the blood and snot and whatever else from Jake’s nose, methodically, professionally. Then Salamander placed his large hand over Jake’s cartilage and snapped it all back into place, making Jake flinch with pain, but he was prepared for it this time, and didn’t make a sound.
Salamander stood up, then said something to the two soldiers. There was a reply, higher-pitched than earlier. One of the soldiers approached, and Jake saw the boots again, one of them bloodstained. There was a choking sound. Both boots lifted off the ground, then began kicking, thrashing, to the drowning sounds of a throttled, gurgling scream, all the while Salamander’s legs steady as steel. The boots slowed down, like two pendulums running out of time, then stopped. The soldier’s body slumped to the floor. All Jake could see was the dead soldier’s boots, Jake’s blood almost dry.
Salamander left. The red light shut off. The propellers’ hum quietened. The other soldier stayed wherever he was, and one thing became apparent to Jake. Salamander wanted him alive and intact. Which could only be bad news. And then he wondered. Where was Nadia? Was she still alive?
She had to be.
Jake opened his eyes. The red light was on again, it must have woken him. The drone of the propellers sounded the same, so they were still in cruise. Low or high altitude, he couldn’t tell. The dead soldier was gone. Jake no longer felt perishingly cold; the blankets were doing their job. But he still couldn’t move. Salamander’s boots came back into view. The trouser legs loosened then rode up a little, so he guessed Salamander must have sat down.
Time for a chat.
‘Jake Saunders. MI6,’ Salamander said, slowly, the words pouring out of his mouth like cooling lava.
Jake couldn’t move, let alone speak.
Salamander continued. ‘Lover of Nadia Laksheva. She is still breathing, for now.’
Jake felt a wave of relief, and was glad Salamander would see no reaction. But then maybe he didn’t need to.
‘Ex-lover of Virginia Lorne.’
Jake’s relief stalled. He felt blood rise into his chest, then his neck. Salamander had orchestrated Lorne’s death. Jake wished he could spit, but there was no saliva, his mouth numb, just a breathing hole, his nose plugged by congealed blood.
‘Nadia will die soon. You will not see it. Better that way.’
Jake imagined driving his knife into Salamander’s solar plexus, stopping his heart from doing its business. He’d twist it a few times, not that he’d need to. Well, actually, he really needed to.
‘Gideon Lorne betrayed us. My wife and I.’ There was an inflection in Salamander’s voice as it caught for a moment. He paused, gathering saliva noisily before continuing. ‘At Kai Tak airport. Before you were born. I held her in my arms as she bled to death.’
Another pause. Forty years ago, give or take, Jake recollected. Most people would have moved on by now. But a scar you pick at never heals, and eventually turns septic. Salamander seemed to carry his wife’s corpse around with him.
‘With her last breath, she begged me to run, to escape. Would you have run, Jake Saunders of MI6, if Nadia was dying in your arms?’
Jake knew the answer.
‘Fifteen years of daily torture in a work camp on a remote Chinese island shithole. You suffered a few days of torture.’ The trousers tightened again then loosened. He’d stood up. ‘You want to kill me. I understand. But imagine if you had fifteen years in prison to think about it, and then another two decades to plan your revenge. You would look deeper, beyond the betrayer, Gideon Lorne, and his Russian and Chinese confederates who asked me to do the impossible, then disposed of me. You are an analyst, Jake Saunders. You would look beyond those people. You would look for root causes to the system, the system that created those men and allowed them to do those things with impunity. You would realise those roots needed to be destroyed.’
A hand appeared. Large, muscular fingers, holding a computer tablet. Salamander set it in front of Jake’s line of vision.
‘Do you play chess, Jake Saunders?’
Jake knew that Salamander had long ago mastered Go, the Chinese game that apparently made chess look like a simple card game of beat-your-neighbour.
‘A master in chess thinks no more than five moves ahead. You know why. You were a champion once.’
True. One reason MI6 hired him. Thinking more than five moves ahead was inefficient, due to the uncertainties. The options were too many to handle unless you were a supercomputer. Five moves ahead was a sound enough strategy to win. Jake had taken on a computer when he was fifteen, and managed to win. But they’d advanced now. Today he’d probably last a dozen moves.
‘I plan six moves ahead,’ Salamander said. ‘You are smart, Jake Saunders. Perhaps you can work out the endgame before it arrives.’ A finger reached down to the tablet. It sprang to life. Salamander walked off, the red light following behind, as if he carried hell with him.
Jake watched the video. Nadia punched Hanbury hard in the mouth. Jake winced. It looked like she’d meant it. And then she had a gun in her hand. No, no NO! Fuck. She shot Hanbury. Executed him. Blood everywhere. Jesus, Nadia! Jake fought for breath. What the hell had happened?
The video ended, and re-started, on a loop.
He could have closed his eyes, but he didn’t, his guts like snakes trying to strangle each other. But he was an analyst, so he did what analysts do. He distanced himself. The video told a compelling story. But the video had to have been spliced. The action was too smooth, making Nadia out to be a vicious killer. These weren’t shots taken from security cameras, the angles were too perfect.
It had all been staged.
Jake studied Hanbury. On the tenth rerun, he spotted it. A look in Hanbury’s eye, of resignation. No, more than that. He watched it again. And again. Acceptance? Acquiescence? Even more than that. He wanted her to pull the trigger.
Why?
Next he studied Nadia’s face, over and over. Anger was there. Hatred. But just before she firmed her arm for the kill-shot, there was a slight glance to the left, and her lips parted, as if she wanted to say something, or curse.
At someone off-screen.
He watched the punch again. Before, she did a good job, bloodlust in her eyes. She wanted to hit him, to break his jaw. But immediately afterwards, she glanced down and left, that look in her eyes, uncertain, worried. Who would pick it up except someone who knew her?
Both times she was glancing off-screen. Because at least two others had been there, as well as two cameramen. One person she hated – Salamander, most likely – and another she cared about …
He closed his eyes. Shit. He’d been there. Unconscious, probably with a gun to his head or a knife to his throat. Nadia had done all this, on video, to save him. And Hanbury had known the stakes too, and had been complicit in his own demise. Selfless, and pragmatic to the bitter end.
He opened his eyes, and felt as if he was being tortured again, but this time he’d already done the factual analysis, step one, and now vaulted over step two – humour, because there was none to be found – straight to step three. He raged each time he watched it, then he closed his eyes to think. This had been Salamander’s first move, at least the only one he knew about. If the video had gone public, then Nadia was wanted for murder, though he wasn’t sure why Salamander had let her live. Perhaps a live fugitive was a more effective distraction. Maybe it was also about Hanbury, a last kick in the nuts for the dwindling remnants of the British colonial influence in Hong Kong that had ruined Salamander’s life.
Six moves, and Jake could only see the first. But he’d studied the scant records of Salamander over the past two years, and each move had multiple objectives, converging on a strategy that only became apparent at the end. He was indeed a grandmaster.
The thrum of the propellers softened. They were descending. His ears popped, and the propellers grew loud again. As the plane banked, Jake rolled slightly, and through a porthole he glimpsed barren brown hilltops flecked with snow, and a small airfield. The plane levelled off before banking one last time for final approach, and Jake glimpsed steel-grey sea, something man-made on the horizon. It didn’t look like a ship. The whirr of hydraulics, followed by a loud thunk, announced the undercarriage descending and locking into place, and he imagined the runway rushing up to greet them. A matter of hours ago he’d been in sweltering Hong Kong. He must have come a long way north. The plane bumped onto the runway, the tyres squealing as rubber was flayed from their surface.
The plane rattled along the runway, slowing. Salamander returned and took the tablet away. ‘I apologise, Jake Saunders, for what will happen to you, but it is a necessary precaution.’
Once the plane stopped, Jake squinted as bright light flooded the compartment. Salamander hauled him upwards. Two burly men in fur-hooded parkas swam into view and took hold of him.
‘Prep him for surgery,’ Salamander said.
Jake tried to struggle, tried to shout ‘No!’ but nothing came out. They put him on a stretcher, snapped restraints around his legs and arms, and wheeled him away.