Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (27 page)

Teffinger
shrugged.

“I don’t know but I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “Whoever it was, I’m impressed. I’ve seen guys jump through windows on TV a million times, but that’s with safety glass and mats. This guy did it for real. You got to be a little bit nuts to do it for real. If it was me, I would have taken the extra half second to go through the front door. I wonder if he cut himself.”

He staggered to his feet, tested his balance and eased his way over to the window.

The glass was shattered.

They saw no blood
, n
ot a drop.

“Now I’m even more impressed,”
Teffinger
said. He felt something warm on his neck and touched it.

“
Nick
, sit down. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

FAN RAE’S PHONE RANG. She spoke in Cantonese and increasingly wrinkled her forehead as she talked. Two minutes later she hung up and said, “I’m going to have to bail on you for a few hours tonight.”

Why?

What’s up?

“I need to help someone with a project,” she said.

Teffinger
opened his mouth to ask another question
, t
hen he paused.

He suddenly realized what was going on.

Fan Rae and Tanna were going to kill d’Asia tonight.

He looked at her
, s
earching for something on her face to tell him he was wrong
, b
ut her face
was stone, c
old stone
, h
ard stone.

“What’s that look for?” she asked.

“I have a look?”

Yes.

He did.

“You’re looking at me with a look.”

“I guess it’s just that I pictured us together tonight,” he said.

She kissed him.

“I won’t be gone for long,” she said. “To make up for it, when I come back I’ll be your sex slave.”

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Afternoon

______________

WHEN POON CALLED KONG shortly after lunch and wanted to know what Kong was doing, he told him he was smack in the middle of planning the d’Asia project, which was going to go down tonight. Kong flirted briefly with the thought of telling Poon about Tanna, but didn’t see an upside to it. “Do you want to make some money this afternoon equal to the d’Asia project?” Poon asked.

“Are you serious?”

He was.

Dead.

“I’ll have you back in plenty of time for tonight,” Poon said.

A half hour later, the Predator picked Kong up at Aberdeen Harbour and whisked him to Macau. There, he was met at the dock by Jack Poon and Vance Wu.

“Do you know how to drive a boat like this?” Poon asked.

“You mean twin screws? Sure, no problem.”

“Good. We’re going to go on a little treasure hunt for our eyes only.”

“What kind of treasure hunt?”

“The kind you won’t even believe.”

Interesting.

They lashed a rubber dinghy to the swim platform and headed southeast into the South China Sea. Twenty kilometers later they hit the Dongoo Dao islands. Poon directed them to the smaller island, to the east, which was less than a half kilometer around. On the south side sat a sandy beach.

Deserted.

“I own this island,” Poon said.

“Nice.”

“Not nice, paradise,” Poon said. “I bring women here sometimes.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Kong said.

THEY ANCHORED THE PREDATOR in fifteen feet of clear aqua water, threw a shovel into the dinghy and rowed ashore. When they got there, Poon pulled a gun from out of nowhere and pointed it at Wu.

He made a mark in the sand with his foot, not more than a few meters from the edge of the water, and told Kong to start digging.

Kong was pr
etty sure what Poon had planned b
ut he didn’t know why
n
or did he perceive Poon to be in the mood to answer questio
ns, s
o he picked up the shovel and dug
, a
nd
didn’t stop until Poon told him to
.

Then Poon said, “Put him in.”

Kong pushed Wu in.

“Fill it up but let his head stick out.”

Kong did it.

Within five minutes, Vance Wu was buried up to his neck in the sand.

Poon squatted down and looked Wu in the eyes.

“I saw this once in an old pirate movie and promised myself I’d do it to someone some day,” he said. “Apparently, you’re the someone and today is the day.”

Wu wasn’t impressed.

“I heard about your scare club,” he said. “This isn’t going to work. You’re going to have to find another sucker.”

Poon looked out at the sea.

“The tide’s coming in,” he said.

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Afternoon

______________

THE FOOTSTEPS COMING FROM UPSTAIRS suddenly stopped. Prarie pictured the man with the tattoo staring at the broken window, stopping in his tracks, and listening for someone in the house. She pictured him tiptoeing to get a knife or a gun or a hammer. Instead, the front door opened and then closed. A few seconds later, a car fired up outside and drove away.

They tiptoed up the stairs
, l
ooked around
, saw no one and
got the hell out of there.

When they passed the gas station at the crossroads, the small green car was next to a pump. A strong man with a wild tattoo on his neck was filling the tank. He fixated on the women as they drove past.

“He recognized me,” Prarie said.

Emmanuelle pushed harder into the pedal.

“No way,” she said. “Not with your new hair.”

“No, he did,” Prarie said. “I saw it in his eyes. He recognized me but just couldn’t place it. Once he finds out the house was broken into, he’ll figure it out.”

The tires squealed.

The car drifted over the line.

Emmanuelle brought it back and said, “It doesn’t matter. He’ll never find us.”

Prarie grunted.

“He’ll be calling every hotel in Hong Kong within the next half hour,” she said.

“Relax,” Emmanuelle said. “You worry too much.”

ON THE DRIVE BACK, Emmanuelle made a phone call to her P.I. friend in Paris and gave him a new assignment. He said, “I’m on it,” and called back in twenty minutes. “Okay, that house is titled to a man named Dick Jin Lin. Just for grins, I ran a preliminary background check on him. Stay away from him.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Yes she did.

So he told her.

“Do me a favor and dig deeper,” she said. “I want to know who his friends are.”

“How am I supposed to find that out from Paris?”

“I don’t know. I only know that I need you to.”

WHEN THEY GOT BACK to the hotel, the elderly woman at the reception desk frowned when she saw them.

They sensed trouble.

“What’s wrong?” Emmanuelle asked.

“You were right,” the woman said. “Someone came looking for you.”

“Who?”

The woman handed her a black and white printout of a man’s face. “I printed this off our security tape for you,” she said.

Emmanuelle studied the face.

Prarie did too.

It was a man in his mid-thirties, good looking, with a square chin, jet-setter eyes and a refined-slash-rugged look. He’d be right at home dining at the finest restaurant or trekking through the wettest rainforest. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted in life and had figured out how to manipulate the world to get it.

“Is that Gustave Sevenette?” Prarie asked.

Emmanuelle shook her head.

“No.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” Emmanuelle said. Then to the elderly woman, “Did he speak French?”

“He spoke English but had a French accent.”

Emmanuelle retreated in thought.

Then
she
said, “Is there a back way out of here?”

The woman pointed. “Down that hall until it ends, then to the right until it ends, then to the left. You’ll be in an alley.”

Emmanuelle gave the woman another bill, $500 HKD.

“You did good, thank you.” Then to Prarie, “You go to the alley. I’m going to get our stuff and then I’ll meet you there.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“It’s better if you don’t, in case he’s up there.” 

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Afternoon

______________

TONIGHT WAS THE NIGHT. Fan Rae and Tanna would set out into the darkness to kill d’Asia. All afternoon,
Teffinger
kept a normal face and spoke normal words, but it was a major effort. Everything he had built with Fan Rae would shatter and collapse in matter of hours.

She was a bad girl
, a
bad girl who made him love her.

That’s right, he loved her.

He probably still would, even when everything was over.

God
, w
hat a mess.

Late afternoon, he made an excuse to get out for an hour, rented a blue Honda Accord, and parked it where he’d be able to follow Fan Rae when she left tonight.

He thought about confronting her
b
ut knew only bad could come of it.

She’d deny everything.

She’d abort tonight.

Then she’d kill d’Asia later when he wasn’t around.

No, words wouldn’t work.

He needed to catch her in the act.

He needed to s
top her in the act, to be more precise.

That was the only way to save d’Asia.

And that’s what he came here for.

HIS PHONE RANG. The incoming number belonged to
Sydney
Heatherwood
.

He didn’t answer.

She was probably calling with bad news.

He didn’t need it
, n
ot right now.

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Afternoon

______________

JACK POON SAT DOWN in the sand next to Vance Wu’s face, patted the man on the top of his head, and stretched his legs out. A cool breeze rolled off the ocean. Three seagulls flew over and landed ten steps away. “Humans mean food,” Poon told Kong. “That’s why they just came over here, the birds. Every living thing on the planet is looking to survive.” He chuckled. “Not me, though. I’m way past surviving. I have enough money to survive a thousand lifetimes. Now I’m a man of taste and culture. But that’s not without its own set of problems. Taste and culture can get you in trouble. Do you want to know how?”

Kong nodded
, c
urious.

“Sure,” he said.

Poon looked at him.

“You’re going to go far in my organization,” Poon said. “You have the qualities I’ve been looking for. You’re moving up, even as we sit here, you’re moving up. Is that what you want?”

Yes, i
t was.

“Good,” Poon said. “Anyway, getting back to taste and culture, a man approached me a while back, a man by the name of Guotin Pak. Have you ever heard of him?”

No
,
Kong hadn’t.

“I hadn’t either at the time,” Poon said. “He said he was an artist and had a proposition for me. He said he could paint exact replicas of some of the old impressionistic paintings in Musee d’Orsay in Paris, France. Have you ever heard of that museum?”

Yes, h
e had.

“Everyone has,” Kong said.

“That’s what I like about you Kong,” Poon said. “You’re got education. Anyway, he said he could paint these replicas and that they could be hung in place of the originals and no one would know the difference, if someone could figure out how to get the originals out and get them in. I said, That’s interesting, and that was basically the end of it.” Poon smiled. “That brings us to that taste and culture problem I was telling you about. I started to think how cool it would be to own a few priceless pieces from the old masters. You see, that’s the kind of thing you can’t buy. And I came up with a plan to get the originals out and the replicas in.”