88° North

A man in a crumpled beige suit hustled over to them, his brow sweating despite the aircon, dampening the wavy fringe of unkempt rusty-grey hair, his belly protruding far over his belt. When he spoke, it was in the Queen’s English.

‘Inspector Chen, no need for that, these are my guests.’ He held out his palm as he approached, and bowed with such an amiable face that Chen had no choice but to shake his hand.

‘Mr Hanbury,’ Chen said, for the first time his voice slowing to a normal pace.

‘So sorry I’m late. Traffic, you know, and I had to take the dogs to the vet again, well you of all people know how it is, with Biyu and Da Chun, how they fuss over their Boxer.’ He turned briefly to the three men. ‘Guiren, Jun, so good to see you again. And you, young sir, I don’t believe we’ve met?’ He offered his hand to the third policeman who still held his pistol, his eyes darting between his colleagues to know how he should react.

Chen spoke again. ‘Mr Hanbury, we have a situation here—’

‘Oh come, come, I think not. I have a letter here from the Embassy, and an email from the HK CEO’s office, granting these two good people diplomatic immunity. It just came through an hour ago, so how could you possibly have known.’ He showed his iPhone to Chen. Nadia caught sight of it. A sea of Chinese characters.

Hanbury was good. And prepared. Nadia noticed two male baggage handlers who were taking their time, stealing occasional glances in Hanbury’s direction. She doubted they were armed, but they belonged to Hanbury.

Chen took and read the letter, quickly scrolling down the iPhone, stabbing it with his forefinger, knowing he’d been outplayed. He turned to Jake, his face breaking into an award-winning fake smile.

‘Welcome to Hong Kong. Enjoy your stay.’ He glanced briefly towards Nadia. His smile evaporated, and he and his men marched off. The baggage handlers melted into a group of tourists.

‘So sorry about all that. Alex Hanbury, at your service., but just call me Hanbury, everyone does for some reason.’ He offered his hand to Nadia. She shook it. Clammy and limp. Somehow it suited him.

Hanbury led them towards the express train, then at the last moment they veered off towards the taxi area. As soon as they passed through the automatic glass panels to board one of the red and white taxis, whose door and boot automatically swung open, the heat and humidity smacked into her. Hanbury said some words in Chinese, then spoke again as the driver seemed not to understand.

Catching her inquisitive eye, Hanbury explained. ‘I always try Cantonese first, in case the driver is local, then if that fails, I switch to Mandarin, which is what the influx of Chinese mainlanders speak.’

She climbed in next to Jake, Hanbury in front. As soon as the doors closed, she was washed in cool air. The taxi pulled out of the underground car park into eye-blistering sunlight that made her wince, until they descended into a long tunnel full of red tail-lights.

She leaned her head towards Jake. ‘You like changing your mind.’

‘The sooner we disappear the better.’

She nodded towards the front of the cab, to Hanbury. ‘We could do with some local knowledge.’

Jake asked, and Hanbury filled the role of a cosy radio station, covering weather, politics, where to eat, where not to go – he spent rather a long time on that. All in all, he was an entertaining and jovial tour guide. Eventually they came out of the tunnel, and she got to see the bottom halves of the skyscrapers she’d admired a couple of hours earlier, most of the cloud cover burned off by the sun. Each tower was an architectural marvel, but also a middle finger to nature, and in the case of the tallest, to all its shorter contemporaries. On the Hong Kong skyline, size mattered.

At ground level, everyone walked fast, termites swarming around their metal-and-concrete mounds. There were a number of religions in China, but in Hong Kong the undisputed one was work. The taxi driver veered right and climbed a zig-zagging road, revving through the lower gears. Abruptly he stopped by a railing, and they piled out into the morning heat. The sign at the entrance said ‘Zoological Park’ and Hanbury wandered inside, his handkerchief already drawn to mop his brow.

‘So few places to meet and not be overheard,’ he said. ‘We don’t kid ourselves at the embassy. Besides, once there, they’d track you easily.’ He turned to Nadia, eyes suddenly bulging with excitement, like an overgrown kid. ‘Have you ever seen a snow leopard? Can you imagine, a snow leopard in this heat?’

Without waiting for a reply, he strode up a winding pathway towards metal cages containing shrieking birds, some monkeys, and … the snow leopard didn’t look too happy.

Suddenly she felt nauseous. Not the common garden variety. This was the clawed-animal-in-your-colon kind. She walked as calmly as she could towards a bench.

‘You okay?’ Jake asked.

She didn’t meet his eyes. ‘It’s the heat.’ Second lie. She made a promise to stop at ten.

‘It’s the humidity,’ Hanbury interjected. ‘Over ninety per cent in August. Poor little bugger.’

She glanced up sharply, but Hanbury was staring at the snow leopard. ‘Sometimes I think about coming here in the small, wee hours and putting it out of its misery. You see, animals can’t kill themselves. This one never even moves. Animals don’t realise when the game is lost, don’t know when to call it a day.’ He turned to her, and the playful, avuncular veneer was gone. He looked into her, through her, as if she was already gone.

He knew. Possibly through his embassy connections, maybe via the Colonel back in Moscow. But he knew.

Jake was squatting on the pebbles, staring at the leopard. It got up and came over to sniff his fingers through the wire mesh. Jake stroked its nose. Hanbury raised an eyebrow.

‘Are you talking about Salamander?’ Jake asked, standing up.

‘Who else?’ Hanbury replied, smoothly.

The nausea ebbed. Nadia needed to get her head into the game. ‘So, can we talk here?’

Hanbury plonked himself down next to her, with a middle-aged sigh, and the wooden beams under her bottom lifted a few centimetres. He pulled out a smartphone, touched it a few times then surveyed the blue and white sky. ‘Definitely.’

‘Do you know the location of Blue Fan?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

She and Jake exchanged a glance. They hadn’t expected that particular answer.

‘Then why isn’t she in custody? Someone knock her off her number-two-most-wanted pedestal?’

Hanbury leant his head back to survey the sky through the tree cover. ‘Not quite.’ Some locals meandered towards the snow leopard enclosure, a giggling toddler in pigtails riding her father’s shoulders while his beaming wife shouldered the cluttered pushchair up the slope.

Hanbury hauled himself upright, his paunch leading the way, and headed down towards the central gardens. Nadia and Jake followed. They walked past two elderly women doing their morning exercises. Nadia realised the park was full of people doing warm-ups and tai chi. One tall, reed-thin woman of indeterminate age was practising sword-fighting, her ponytail waving behind her as she executed a flawless series of complex movements, while a younger woman kneeling on the dusty ground, watched with sharp, unwavering eyes.

‘The serious martial artists are over in Victoria Park, the exhibitionists are in the Hong Park over in Central, but there is some real local talent here and it’s more relaxed,’ Hanbury said, wiping sweat from his brow with a second handkerchief. They all sat on a stone bench, and Nadia studied three separate groups of teachers and students learning the tai chi long form. Yang style – she recognised it. She’d seen the Chef practice once.

Hanbury sighed. ‘We sent people in at 4 a.m. SAS.’

Jake spoke first. ‘And?’

Hanbury flourished his hands like a conjurer. ‘And nothing. They disappeared. Dead of course. There’s quite a prosperous organ market here. Being fit young men, they were probably sliced, diced and iced, then shipped in polystyrene to Mumbai.’

Nadia winced. Hanbury was so matter of fact about it. There was more to him than met the eye. He wasn’t standard embassy material. Jake had shown her Hanbury’s file on the plane. Contractor for Her Majesty’s government in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Was he a killer? Hard to tell. Probably one step removed. Not the one to pull the trigger, but the one who set up the target. Which made her wonder …

Hanbury continued. ‘Blue Fan’s location – at least that particular one – is an underground maze of tunnels and chambers. Many homeless live there at night, not to mention it’s a sanctuary for the remnants of a Falun Gong circle. The police won’t enter, they say it will cause a social storm, be used as political capital by those who oppose re-integration, trigger another Umbrella Protest.’

It wouldn’t stop her and Jake going in. Besides, her organs were too irradiated to make any money on the market. Her mind stalled. She’d promised not to think about it. Find Salamander, kill him, then give Jake a good time. That was Plan A. Plan B was take down Salamander and get killed in the process. Plan B, statistically speaking, was Plan A. Plan C was simply get killed in an exotic location.

Nadia switched her attention to the central group of Chinese locals near a dry fountain. Most were sitting in a circle, watching a young man who moved more fluidly than any other she’d ever seen, except the Chef, her taciturn trainer back in Russia who should be coming to their aid soon. This man, though, was something else; it was as if he had no bones or joints, like he was a human snake. The two other groups at opposite ends of the park quickly finished what they were doing, and scuttled over to join the growing audience. Hanbury was mid-sentence, but was mainly addressing Jake, and the tail-end of the nausea still tugged at her guts, so Nadia got up and walked over to watch. She’d been trained in martial arts, and knew a bit of tai chi, but this guy had obviously popped out of the womb doing it.

He finished a complicated routine, where he crouched down and leapt up and spun and kicked, all in a heartbeat, landing soundlessly. Everyone around burst into applause, Nadia included. Some of the people clearly knew him; a local tai chi hero.

The crowd was beginning to disband, when a young woman cut through and walked straight up to the man. She had short, rough-cut black hair, and wore a tight-fitting black one-piece suit with an open Chinese collar. Her features weren’t quite Chinese, they were thicker set. She was slim, not an ounce of fat. The only non-black item on her person was a rectangular grey pouch strapped to her outer right thigh. Sticking out the top were six thin silver handles, with a metallic blue sheen. Blades.

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

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.’