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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.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_11a7ea17-9596-57fa-b9f6-b285213b6fad)
The pizza delivery man arrived, and placed the box on the coffee table in their suite overlooking the harbour. He didn’t wait for payment.
‘Four cheese is my favourite,’ Nadia said, recalling how Katya used to poke her forefinger down her throat in disgust at the very thought.
Jake lifted the cover of the box. ‘How about Quattro Pistoleros?’
‘This slice is mine,’ she said, plucking the matt black Beretta Cougar from the box. She sprung the cartridge, checked it, then re-inserted it. ‘Zero cholesterol.’
Jake delved into the box, and picked at his metal food a moment. ‘A classic Marguerita for me,’ he said, retrieving an M9.
She knew he didn’t really care about guns like she did. Knives or spear guns were a different story. And on that point, she fished out a knife. ‘Dessert,’ she explained. And then she wondered. There had been another knife in the box, and she hadn’t seen Jake take it. She folded her arms.
Jake shrugged. ‘An MI6 move. Old habits die hard.’
She pocketed her knife. She had to admit she’d almost been hoping to find a pizza in there. She was having difficulty eating, what with the nausea gnawing at her guts, and pizza always smelt so good. To make it worse, Jake had been stealing glances at her when he thought she couldn’t see. He knew something was going on – going wrong – with her. He’d probably figured it out. MI6, as he’d said. She’d rehearsed various ways to tell him. They all sucked.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Jake said. ‘Check out the place where Hanbury sent his men yesterday.’
It seemed like a long shot, but why not. She grabbed her lightweight jacket, partly in case it rained, mainly to cover the Beretta handle sticking out of the back of her jeans.
‘Ready.’
Tonnochy Road lived up to its seedy night-time reputation. At one end were the hotels, including the one where Nadia and Jake were staying. But towards the middle it took a downturn. They passed a couple of busy bars, one where a band was playing, the singer doing an impressive rendition of Sinead O’Connor in her heyday. But those treading the sweating pavement slowly shifted from small groups of tourists and Western couples, to single men, some arm-in-arm with attractive, mini-skirted Asian girls in cliff-edge heels. Nadia and Jake walked briskly past the girly bars, where typically an older woman sat outside with two young, very attractive girls, as if in easy conversation. The straggling parade of single guys continued to crawl along, checking out the merchandise, sometimes moving on, other times stopping to chat with the girls. Occasionally this ended with the man walking into the bar with a girl, or even both girls, whereupon new girls would emerge.
A smooth operation. A straightforward business model. Nothing that didn’t have its counterpart in most major cities in the world, though not always so blatant. But something made her stop. Katya. Nadia’s sister had been forced into prostitution for five years. She’d never complained about it, but right now it was as if her dead hands rose up through the uneven paving slabs and seized Nadia’s ankles, anchoring her to the spot. This was a bad idea, she needed to focus on finding Salamander. But she owed her dead sister. Part of the deal that had gotten Nadia out of prison the first time, meant that Katya had been trapped into being – the word stung her – a whore, for five years. She’d see Katya soon, maybe. She wanted to be able to say, ‘hey, I did something for you’. It wouldn’t make it right, but it would be something.
Jake continued a couple of paces then stopped and gave her a quizzical look.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she said.
The older woman who’d been nursing a cigarette, chatting to one of the girls, jerked her head up.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. He walked up to Nadia, and spoke quietly. ‘We’re kind of on the clock here. Whatever the reason you want to go inside, it’s not going anywhere. It’ll still be here tomorrow.’
Exactly. She breezed towards the entrance. The older woman rose quicker than Nadia would have given her credit for, and intercepted her at the doorway. The two girls watched with big eyes.
‘I help you?’ she said. She glanced toward Jake, as if to enlist him. A single woman entering such an establishment was clearly out of the norm.
‘I’d like to go inside.’
‘Like girls?’ the older woman asked. No judgment, just a business question.
One that put Nadia on edge. ‘I’d like to go inside.’ She turned to Jake. ‘Come with me?’ she said.
The older one beamed, a sly smile. She gestured for both of them to enter. As soon as they were inside, everything changed. Super-strong aircon, dazzling purple-white lights that fluoresced the underwear of all the girls inside through their schoolgirl white blouses and short pleated skirts. Four of them danced – well, gyrated – on top of the bar, while half a dozen others milled about with the three punters inside. Ice buckets filled with bottles of champagne – cheap labels she’d never heard of – cluttered the place. The girls with the men were all smiles and giggles, focused on their clients. The others wore faces on a sliding scale between bored and wary.
A local girl, petite with smoky, bedroom eyes, and a tall, vivacious blonde with perfect skin joined Jake and Nadia at a round, stand-up table. ‘Hello handsome,’ the blonde said to Jake, with the hint of a Scandinavian accent, while the dark-haired one came close to Nadia, and stroked her upper arm.
Nadia shut her eyes a moment, clamped her lips together, and imagined Katya. How she must have felt, so many times. Her stomach tightened into a knot, nothing to do with her sickness. Why hadn’t she gotten Katya out of there sooner? Five. Fucking. Years. She opened her eyes.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ she said, addressing both girls, barely keeping her voice under control. Jake stared at her, like he had no idea what she was doing. That made two of them.
The blonde threw her head back and laughed. ‘It’s customary to have a drink first.’ She waved a lazy finger towards the bar, and a young girl, barely a teen, grabbed a metal bucket, rammed a bottle into the crushed ice, and brought it over. She popped the cork like a pro, deftly filled four glasses, shoved the empty bottle upside-down back into the bucket, and disappeared behind the bar again.
‘I mean get out of this life,’ Nadia said. The other girl was still stroking Nadia’s arm. Her smile had gone, but she said nothing.
The blonde pouted. ‘Oh baby, you’re not going to be a bore, are you? If you’re not here to fuck, you should leave.’ She leaned into Jake, her crimson lips close to his, her breasts pushing against his chest. ‘Be honest, baby. Don’t you want both of us? I only go with Western tourists, never with the locals.’
Jake’s eyes remained locked onto Nadia.
None of this was on her agenda, which was simply ‘Kill Salamander’. But the more she thought about it, about how few days she had left, the more she wanted to rescue at least one person from a dismal life. Jake had said these places would be here tomorrow. There was the problem. No one acted. And soon, for her at least, there would be no tomorrow.
Nadia turned to the smoky-eyed girl. ‘What about you?’
The girl glanced around furtively, and spoke in a low voice. ‘No way out,’ she said, taking a glass. Nadia seized her wrist before the glass reached her mouth.
‘What’s your name? Your real one.’
More furtive glances. ‘Jin Fe,’ she said. She stared at the bubbles in her glass. ‘It’s a joke. My mother was bilingual, Cantonese and English. Jin means swallow, like the bird. Fe means coffee. Swallow coffee.’ She tried to smile, failed, and took a sip.
The blonde’s eyes hardened. She put down her glass, and pointed four fingers in the air. ‘Have it your way,’ she said, and left the table.
It was well-choreographed. Three of the dancers got down from the bar, joined the girls chatting up the punters, and led them to a back room, champagne bottles and ice buckets and all. Four men in cheap black suits and shoelace ties appeared out of the woodwork, two in front of Nadia and Jake, two behind. All of them were thick-set, heads shaved at the front, ponytails at the rear of their scalps. The one directly in front had a dragon tattoo rising from his collar, coiling up over his chin onto his left cheek, a scaly claw poised next to his left eye. It looked fresh. Must have been bloody painful.
‘Five hundred dollars,’ he said, in a measured, oily voice. ‘And you get to leave on your own feet.’ The way he said it, he was hoping they didn’t have the money.
‘Sure,’ Nadia said, and pointed at the Asian girl. ‘But she comes with us.’ The girl began to back away, but Nadia held onto her wrist.
‘Two thousand for the night,’ the guy said, routinely. ‘And she comes back in the morning.’
‘Ten thousand,’ Nadia counter-offered. ‘And she never comes back.’ The girl stared at Nadia, her eyes a cocktail of fear and surprise, with just a dash of something surrendered long ago.
Hope.
Tattoo-man folded his arms, and put his thumb to his lips, as if considering the offer, but Nadia reckoned he wanted to rumble more than he wanted the cash. Probably didn’t like being upstaged by a woman. Then again …
‘One hundred thousand,’ he said, with a lop-sided grin, ‘and you keep the girl. But I’ve been there. She’s not worth it. Maybe you’ll like the taste better.’
The older woman came in from outside. She watched and listened, her narrowed chin making her look like a bird of prey in the stark lighting. No, not a bird of prey. A carrion bird. A crow. She perched at the bar.
Jake spoke. ‘We don’t have—’
Nadia felt Katya watching her. If there was an after-life, then maybe they’d soon be reunited. Or not. It didn’t matter. Nadia needed to right a wrong. This one act was a gift and a penance. In the bigger scheme of things, it didn’t amount to a piss in the ocean. But right here, right now, for Katya, for Nadia, and maybe for this girl, it was everything.
‘She’s coming with us,’ Nadia stated, like it was a done deal, because whatever else happened, that was the way the future was going to play out.
The guy’s grin twisted. ‘American Express?’ A metal rod slid from the sleeve of his suit into his right hand.
Nadia reached around behind her, to snatch her pistol from her waistband, but the crow arrived first.
‘We accept your offer of ten thousand American dollars,’ she said.
Tattoo-man’s grin crawled off his face, then he reeled off a machine-gun volley of protest in Cantonese. The crow talked just as fast, but in a lighter tone. Silk versus bullets. His onslaught faltered in the face of her firm rebuttal. His eyes flicked between her and Nadia, and then to Nadia’s waist, and the fact that she’d been reaching for something, and he did the math the crow had already computed. The other three men said nothing, waiting for their cue from the real boss. And then the crow beckoned someone from the shadows. The blonde. The crow said something, and the blonde’s face flashed disgust, then quickly recovered. She escorted Tattoo-man to one of the cubicles at the back.
The crow gestured to the bar, and Nadia, the girl and Jake walked over. The same young girl who’d delivered the champagne deposited a credit card machine on the counter.
Nadia nodded towards Jake. He pulled out his wallet, and selected one of two gold cards. Not the company one. His own. The three men hung back, but kept their eyes on the trio.
‘I’ll pay you back,’ Nadia said quietly.
‘Birthday present,’ he replied. His phone buzzed, and he cupped his hand over the mouthpiece while he confirmed the transaction.
‘She needs to get her things,’ the crow said, indicating the back.
Nadia shook her head. ‘We’ll be back to pick them up later,’ she lied. She still held the girl’s wrist. But the girl wasn’t resisting any more. ‘But she needs her passport. Send one of your men to get it.’
The crow stared at Nadia for a moment, then nodded to one of the monkey-suits. She then made a phone call of her own, presumably to confirm the money had been transferred. It took five minutes for the passport to arrive.
It felt like an hour.
Nadia, the girl and Jake left. ‘Taxi?’ Nadia said.
Jake shook his head. ‘No, the tram, then up to the Peak, then a taxi back to the hotel.’
Nadia faced the girl. ‘Don’t run, okay?’
She shook her head. ‘Where would I go? If I go back there I will be punished, and any other bar will just send me back to this one.’ She glared at Nadia. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘Do you have family?’
She shook her head in a way that Nadia figured it was a lie – the truth being not anymore. Perhaps her family had sold her into prostitution. She thought of her name, Jin Fe, and its origin. Forget ‘perhaps’.
She handed Jin Fe her passport. ‘I’m trading one life for another,’ Nadia said, not expecting her to understand. She imagined Katya nodding and then walking away. Nadia felt as if a weight had dropped off her shoulders.
She spotted the tram bustling down the road towards them. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.
On the other side of Central, close to the zoological park where she’d encountered Blue Fan, they took the funicular. It trundled upwards at a fifty-degree angle to the Peak, making the skyscrapers to the side look like they were leaning, and Nadia had the weird sensation she was falling uphill. Then they arrived at the highest point on Hong Kong Island. It was cooler at the top, and Nadia felt she could breathe for the first time since leaving Moscow.
They got a window-side table at the Peak restaurant, looking down over the skyscrapers competing in light shows; one that slowly shimmered up and down its body from red to blue to purple to green and back to red, another a massive spire straight out of a science fiction film, blazing a beacon of white light into the night sky. She gave Jin Fe two hundred dollars to spend in the shops, and the girl sped away like a ten-year-old with pocket money to burn.
‘She might not come back,’ Jake said.
Nadia shrugged. ‘The whole point was to get her out of her cage.’
‘Have you thought this through?’
She shook her head.
‘It’s about Katya, I get it. But we should be looking for Blue Fan and Salamander, Nadia. We don’t need complications right now—’
‘I’m dying, Jake.’
He said nothing. And the only reaction she could read was one of resigned relief.
‘You knew?’
