Kowloon, Hong Kong
IT WAS AFTER midnight when Luke finally knocked on the door of their room on the nineteenth floor of the Landia Hotel, waited for a response from Jenny, then let himself in. She was still awake and sprang up when he walked in and closed the door behind him. ‘My God, Luke! You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you OK? What happened?’ She moved towards him and stopped short, her arms hanging loosely by her sides.
‘Nothing,’ he replied, sitting heavily on the padded stool beside the dressing-table and running his hands through his hair. ‘At least, not with the source. He’s given us a lead of sorts – you got my signal, right?’
‘About Macau? I did, yes. So did London. They think it’s worth pursuing. They want us to head there immediately.’
‘What – now? It’s the middle of the bloody night.’
‘No! In the morning. But come on, Luke, I know you too well. You’re holding back. Something happened out there, didn’t it?’
Luke swivelled towards her on the stool and returned her gaze. It was true, she knew him far too well for him to keep any secrets from her. This was the fourth operation they had worked on together and Jenny had a way of almost reading his thoughts. Yet on his way back to the hotel he had thought carefully about how much he should tell her. Getting jumped like that in a back-street within their first twenty-four hours in-country was not a good start and he had no wish to spook her. But he and Jenny were equal partners on this operation and she had a right to know.
‘I got jumped,’ he said flatly. ‘In a back-street. Three guys. One armed.’
‘Oh my God.’ She clamped a hand over her mouth, then placed it on his shoulder, searching his face. ‘Are you hurt? How did you get away? When did this happen?’
Luke got up from the stool before answering. ‘Does this place have a minibar?’ He started hunting around the room. ‘Yes! Found it.’ He opened the miniature fridge beneath the dressing-table and took out a tiny bottle of whisky. ‘Join me?’ Jenny shook her head, still waiting for answers. Luke poured the amber liquid into a tumbler, took a sip, and briefly closed his eyes. ‘Well, I have to say, hats off to Security Section,’ he said at last. ‘They were right about the Glock.’
‘Wait – what? Don’t tell me you used it! Christ, Luke! What were you thinking? This isn’t Afghanistan! How many bodies are we talking about?’ All her earlier concern had vanished and now she was looking at him accusingly.
Luke held out his free hand in a calming gesture. ‘Easy there,’ he said. ‘No one got shot. I just had to show them the weapon and they legged it straight away. And don’t worry, it’s disposed of now. Prints are wiped. Look … I’m fine. I’ve faced a lot worse, Jenny, you know that. But the bigger worry is this: was I a mark? Is someone on to us already? Are we compromised before we even start here?’
Jenny went to the window and pulled back the curtain slightly, as if somehow the answers were down there in those teeming twenty-four-hour neon-lit streets. She looked back at Luke, who was draining his glass. ‘Did anyone call your name? Ask you for ID?’ she said.
‘Nope.’
‘So it could have been a casual mugging gone wrong. This stuff happens.’
‘With a pistol?’ Luke replied. ‘I don’t think so. Nothing casual about that, Jenny. Besides, they never asked for money. They were trying to take me somewhere. An abduction, basically.’
‘Well, let’s look at it this way,’ Jenny said. ‘I doubt it was MSS. If the Ministry of State Security wanted to lift either of us they probably know exactly where to find us. Which means …’
‘Triads.’
‘Exactly. Somehow, God knows how, we’ve attracted the attention of the criminal underworld here. Luke, this is not good news.’
‘Tell me about it. Or, better still, tell me about this Rodrigues guy in Macau. Has the office come back with anything on him yet?’
‘They have.’ Jenny reached for her phone and began to scroll down. ‘Just the bare bones for now. Senhor Francisco Rodrigues is forty-two, a Portuguese national, born and raised in Macau. Father was in the drinks import business. Started working for a local underworld triad the same year Macau got handed back to China. He was only a teenager then. Worked his way up – if you can call it that – in the underworld there and made some powerful friends. He now owns a string of bars, hotels, some of which double as brothels and—’
‘Nice,’ Luke interjected. ‘I can hardly wait to meet him.’
Jenny put down her phone. ‘I agree. He’s quite possibly an odious piece of shit. But we know how this works, Luke. In this business you sometimes have to swim in muddy waters. Well, this is one of those times. If a white Western woman of Hannah’s description has been smuggled across the water into Macau then the chances are this guy will know about it. Um, Luke …’
‘What?’
‘There’s something else you need to see.’ She picked up her phone once more, found the message she was looking for and passed it to him without a word.
When he’d finished reading it they looked at each other in silence. So Blue Sky was dead. Murdered. Probably not more than a mile from where they were right now. The most highly placed agent the Service had ever had inside China in a generation. The defector who was supposed to be delivering them the mother lode on Beijing’s plans for Taiwan. Luke’s mind was already working through the possibilities. If someone had got to him so quickly, what were the chances that Hannah Slade was still alive? And had Blue Sky even been able to pass on the data to her before they’d got to him? Those questions and more, he knew, would keep him awake for much of the night.