Dasyueshan Mountain Forest, Taiwan
DAWN IN THE Central Mountains, the lush green spine that runs the length of Taiwan, from north to south, and Luke Carlton was already up. It wasn’t the chorus of birdsong that woke him, or the faint grey light that crept in through the windows of the cabin. No, it was his mind, racing with myriad questions. And how exactly they were going to get out of this place alive was only one of them.
He looked over to the bed next to his. Jenny Li seemed to be asleep. Quietly, so as not to wake her, Luke got down on the floor in the small space beside his bed. Forty press-ups on his knuckles, enough to get his juices flowing for the day ahead. ‘Start switching on, Carlton,’ he could hear an imaginary voice telling him. He remembered the PTIs, the physical training instructors, down at the Commando Training Centre in Devon, yelling abuse and encouragement in the same breath. Pushing himself physically, Luke found, helped focus his mind.
So it was Bo’s organization that had seized Hannah Slade and she clearly had a price on her head. But where were they holding her? Surely not on that cargo ship, Ulysses Maiden. If everyone was doing their job in the UK she must have been raided at sea by now. And yet Bo was speaking about Hannah with the irritating complacency of a man who thinks he holds all the cards.
Then a shadow moved across the window. Footsteps outside the door and the sound of a key turning in the lock. A voice, a command: ‘Two minutes, people. Grab your things. Mr Bo wants to see you.’ It was Kreutzer.
Luke could hear an engine revving. Jenny, who had seemed moments earlier to be fast asleep, was up and out of the door before him. In the chill mountain air, a thick mist had descended on the forest and drifted eerily between the pines. Good cover for a getaway, he noted. Kreutzer was waiting by the Mercedes 4x4. He appeared to be making no concessions to the cold and wore a white T-shirt.
It was as Kreutzer held open the rear door of the 4x4 for them to get in that Luke noticed the hunting knife strapped to the American’s calf. He recognized it as a Yarborough, a knife that held a special place in the heritage of US Special Operations. Awarded to the elite few who passed the gruelling selection process for the Green Berets, each had a unique serial number engraved on the blade. So Kreutzer had passed ‘Selection’. Luke momentarily wondered what could have driven the American to turn his back on all that to work for a psychopathic triad boss in Taiwan. But he was more interested in something else. The knife and its sheath had a quick-release catch.
Luke felt every lurch of the vehicle as they drove, faster than usual, along the track up to the temple. Jenny, still silent, swayed and bumped against him. Ghostly shapes loomed out of the mist, gnarled branches reaching out as if to grab the passing vehicle before receding behind it. The moment they arrived at the temple, he sensed a difference from the night before. The atmosphere had changed. If anything, it felt even more sinister. No more people casually milling around. Now there was a reception committee waiting for them. Rows of people, all local, were lined up on either side of the entrance, bowing and smiling, forming a funnel through which he and Jenny were now expected to walk. And they were all wearing white – what was that about?
‘This doesn’t look good,’ he murmured to Jenny. ‘Isn’t white supposed to be the colour of death over here?’
She mumbled something back but so quietly he didn’t catch it. From inside the temple, the sound of a bell tolling and everywhere the intoxicating smell of incense. Then from far away down in the valley he heard the rhythmic thud of rotor blades. Luke looked up sharply. A search helicopter? A rescue attempt? But the sound faded almost as soon as it had begun. No one paid it any attention.
Side by side, Luke and Jenny entered the temple, past the stone lions with their gaping jaws, Kreutzer right behind them. If this was it, if this was the endgame, then Luke vowed he would go down fighting, and do his damnedest to let Jenny get away alive. Then came the clapping, a slow, rhythmic sound – the sort of mocking sound an audience makes when it doesn’t think much of a stand-up comic. They rounded a corner and there was Bo, dressed in a white silk robe tied at the waist with a crimson sash. Around his forehead, a white headband, inscribed with Chinese characters. Luke knew he should probably keep his mouth shut, but he had to say something.
‘You’ve been watching too many Bond films.’ He gestured at the whole theatrical scene around them. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love what you’ve done with the place, but can we just get on with the negotiation?’
‘Luke!’ Jenny hissed. ‘Show some respect!’ But he shrugged. He wanted this jumped-up crime boss to know he wasn’t afraid.
Luke caught the momentary flash of anger in Bo’s eyes but when he spoke the triad boss’s tone was calm, almost genial. ‘You will have guessed by now,’ he told them, ‘that I am not a religious man. This place …’ Bo gestured dismissively towards the temple walls and the coils of incense spiralling up to the ceiling. ‘… it serves my purposes. But for others, it is a spiritual place. And we must all play our part.’ He patted his white robe and sash, then pointed. ‘Even you.’
Bo held Luke’s gaze as he raised his right hand. Was this a prearranged signal for something? Oh God, Luke thought, please not more severed heads. He moved a step closer to Jenny in readiness.
More men shuffled into the inner sanctum of the temple, this time carrying a large wooden crate on poles. Setting it down in the centre of the room, a crowbar was produced and the lid prised off with a creak and a sudden snap. Luke had a terrible feeling they were about to see the headless body of Graham Leach, the SIS station chief in Taipei. He heard Jenny’s sharp intake of breath but he forced himself to watch as Bo’s people reached into the crate … and gently lifted out a living human figure.
It was Hannah Slade.