The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller (33 page)

     Inside the cavern another arch was guarded by fierce looking statues. Over the arch Chinese characters glowed lividly in the light cast by a single flaming torch. The scent of incense pervaded the atmosphere. A third entrance was similarly guarded by the celestial chaperones. The characters above this arch portrayed heaven and earth. This was the Heaven and Earth Circle. Jack knew now he had entered a Triad lodge. No westerner was ever allowed across these portals. He had no choice but to move on as the other two prodded him from behind.

     They came to a hall lined with red paper and stopped before an altar furnished with tablets on which white writing appeared against a black background. At the front a large, red-painted, wooden tub, filled with rice, stood on a sheet of red paper. The tub was flanked by two brass lamps with seven stems. An incense jar gave out an acrid smell. Five small flags, red-coloured with black borders, adorned the altar with the symbols of the Order: the Red Pole, the symbol of punishment; the Sword of Kwan Kung, the symbol of loyalty to the order; the Grass Sandal of Siu Lam monastery, the symbol of the messengers of the society; and the White Paper Fan, the symbol of great wisdom.

     Chow emerged. He had changed into a long flowing white robe with red stripes. He looked at Sze who nodded without speaking. Chow clapped his hands twice in the air and two fokis came in with a wire contraption. It was like a thin, wire suit of body armour. Then through the same door came a man, stripped to the waist, his muscles glistening as if they had been waxed. He dragged behind him by a cord tied to a ring round her neck a gagged Diana. Jack started towards them but the two heavies grabbed his arms and restrained him. Diana was dishevelled but looked none the worse for wear. Her captor had a black band round his head with a red dragon motif. He leered at Jack.  Sze was enjoying the drama immensely. Chow turned to the altar. He held out his arms as if embracing his god and bowed, making the offering.  "Take off the gag," he shouted in Cantonese. The gag was torn from Diana's mouth. Chow clapped his hands again and Tall Man Hung grinned savagely. He ripped off Diana’s gown in one swift movement and then heaving her up bodily he flung her on the floor at the foot of the altar. She tried to stand up but he stood with one foot on her belly, a cruel smile on his face. "Look, isn't she beautiful?" Chow exclaimed. The savage faces of the guardians grinned down. Tall Man Hung reached down and heaved Diana to her feet by the cord tied round her neck. "Put her in cage," Chow cried.

     "Hey," Jack said, "it's all right, I'll cooperate, you don't have to do anything like that." He turned to Diana and said, "I thought I told you to stay in the room!"

     "Jack, don't be a moron," she said, "now's not the time!"

     Chow seemed to like the interchange, "I know you cooperate but it necessary you see what will happen if not."

     "No need, no need!" Jack said frantically as Tall Man Hung, a cruel look on his snarling face, began to turn Diana round as if showing her off in a cattle market.

    "Oh there is need," Chow said. He picked up a large knife from the altar. Jack noticed with horror that under a red cloth lay a number of similar instruments. Sze moved forward with a smirk and chose a weapon too. One of the heavies picked up the wire cage; the other chose a short-handled knife. The blood lust was on all of them now, they shouted and screamed in a frenzied fashion, building themselves up. Diana looked terrified but she was trying to stay focussed.

     “Where are you guys?” Jack shouted angrily.

     The temperature was hotting up but everyone froze as, in those mediaeval surroundings, one of the heavy’s mobile phone rang, "Hai!" he shouted into it, obviously angry at being interrupted when the fun was about to begin. His brow creased and he shouted something to the person on the other end of the line. He started gabbling, trying to attract the Tung Chu's attention, but Chow had been abducted by aliens, he just wasn't on the same planet, the thought of what he was going to do to Diana had addled his senses.

     “Come in number nine!" Jack said.

     Sze looked at him suspiciously. "Stop!" he told the two fokis in Mandarin. "Siu Chi, did you test him out for a wire?"

     Siu chi leaned over and grabbed the lapel of Jack’s Jacket. He recoiled in horror as he saw the tiny microphone. Philip Chan had been concerned enough about Jack’s change of demeanour on the telephone to turn up on his doorstep and not take no for an answer.

     “Close the passage,” Chow shouted and Tall Man Hung rushed off. Sze lost his cool. Suddenly like a dervish, he clawed at the microphone and ripped it away.  "Do you mind?" Jack said, as the jacket ripped, "I only got this made a couple of weeks ago." One look at Sze’s snarling face as he jumped on the tiny mike made him add, "oh bollocks!" with which he put his boot straight up the Chinaman’s backside. Sze went sprawling across the floor and smacked his head against a pillar.

    The two fokis were across in no time and Jack was about to be shredded as Siu Chi grabbed his arm and swung him round, his weapon raised. His eyes glazed over in shock as Diana nutted him. The head butt would have done a street fighter proud. Chow looked baffled. It had all been so ordered and now it was chaos. He was inching towards the door, uncertain whether this was a temporary change of circumstance or whether discretion was the better part of valour. Sze was still flat out, blood slowly congealing on his head. Jack looked round desperately. Where were the Police?  "No you don't!" he shouted as Chow retreated through the third entrance. He swung the Triad boss back into the room where he fell clumsily to the floor. Siu Chi was out cold. The other foki ran from wall to wall looking for the stage left sign.  He was screaming that the RHKP was swarming all over the building.

     Tall Man Hung returned from the outer passage. Jack had no doubt that this was the man who could have killed him in seconds at Dunstanburgh. Tall Man Hung looked at the last two standing and roared his anger. From the pocket of his baggy trousers he pulled the favourite weapon of the Hong Kong Triads, a huge meat cleaver

     "Oh shit," Jack shouted as Hung came at him carving geometrical patterns in the air. Chow staggered to his feet again and Jack smashed into him going backwards. He got hold of the Triad boss by the shoulder and hurled him round just as Tall Man Hung struck. The chopper caught K.K. Chow in the top of the shoulder, burying itself deep in the flesh and bone as if he were a side of meat. He howled in anguish and Tall Man Hung fell on top of him, sobbing, "Tung Chu, Tung Chu!"

    Sze started to come round.  The other heavy got to the door behind the altar and threw away his chopper so the Police wouldn't catch him with it. Jack grabbed it. It was long, sturdy and sharp, not unlike a marine's cutlass. Tall Man Hung stood up from his prostrate boss and howled in anguish. He turned, a murderous look on his face, and circled his victims slowly, weapon in hand.
He laughed as Jack came on guard. He hurled himself at them, sweeping the air in front of him with his long knife but, suddenly, a uniformed figure burst through the tunnel and shouted. Hung turned and seeing the newcomer broke off the attack and faced this new threat. Instinctively Jack threw his weapon to this newcomer, who took it out of the air deftly. Hung rushed at him with the machette whirling above his head. The newcomer, hand turned outwards, took his slash to the flank on the forte and, like lightning, riposted with a cut to the head. Tall Man Hung looked bemused as his scalp began to ooze blood. Only his athleticism had saved him from fatal injury. Quick as a flash the figure resumed on guard and Tall Man Hung attacked again. With a feint to the side, the newcomer pronated the hand and cut upwards underneath Tall Man Hung’s arm. The strike took off at the joint the fingers of his weapon hand. They dropped still twitching to the floor, the cleaver following them.

     "Mother Mary!" Jack exclaimed.

     The weaponless Tall Man Hung's mouth was agape. He looked even more witless a split second later when Jack dropped the wire cage over his shoulders - a perfect fit. Tall Man Hung screamed in the straitjacket. With a cruel smile Diana picked up the machette and slashed him straight down the front of the chest. The thin wire was quickly stained red. Momentarily, she admired her handiwork and was about to strike again when a sudden commotion down the corridor was followed by gunshots.

     Siu Chi was still unconscious. Chow had got to his feet again and, despite his wounded shoulder, he stamped up and down on the microphone as if he believed that would erase the earlier exchange. Jack rushed through to the first entrance and found the switch, which opened the passageway. He returned to find Sze holding his head, looking dazed. "You can't touch me, you can't touch me," he shouted, "I'm General Sze's son."

    "You must be joking, pal," Diana shouted. She went right up to him, in his face, "No way are you going to walk!"

     As if on cue, the RHKP burst in, armed to the teeth and bristling with aggression. Sze tried to smile, ready to bluff it out but Jack wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at their saviour as she removed her helmet. It was Amie Chow.

CHAPTER 7

     Johnny was nowhere to be seen outside. He’d done a runner as soon as the RHKP arrived. Diana, decent again in her Mandarin gown, led Jack though the carnage. “We don’t want to get involved with this,” she said, “let’s get out of here!”

    Looking back at Amie, his eyes wide open with an unanswered question, he needed no second bidding. They’d done their bit and getting tied up in the Hong Kong Government's red tape didn't appeal in the slightest.  They sneaked past police officers rounding up suspects and headed for the street. “Jesus!” Jack exclaimed. The rain was torrential and the wind screamed round the skyscrapers. There wasn’t a taxi to be seen.
“Star Ferry!” he added. They ran through the deserted streets of Tsimshatsui, past the Ocean Terminal, until they came to the Star Ferry wharf. The Ferry had been cancelled because of the weather. “Blast!” Jack said. He shaded his eyes and looked out towards the highway and he could see the traffic snarled up on the main thoroughfares as people rushed home before the storm hit the city.

    “Oh no!” Diana said.

     Jack looked at her sharply, “What is it?”

     “Something they said yesterday. I wasn’t properly conscious. I may have been hearing things. But I’m sure they said they were going to kill Philip Chan.”

     “It’s okay, I know of the plan to kill Philip. It’s come from China. It’s going to be all right, the Governor knows. It’s under control.”

     “No, Jack, that’s the point. They’ve brought it forward because Gerry stole those papers. They’re going to do it today.”

     “What!” Jack exclaimed. “There’s not a moment to lose! We may already be too late! We‘ve got to go back!” He turned and looked behind him. They were already a good mile away from the scene of their rescue.

     “Do you know the way back?” she asked. Yet another problem, getting through that maze of streets and assuming the police were still there.  But how to get over to Hong Kong side was the problem. None of the red taxis circled the streets, there wasn’t even a pak paai plying for illegal trade. The ferries had stopped running; the channel was a mile in diameter. The sky was a seething maelstrom of storm clouds, glowing black and volcanic red, like an apocryphal vision of the end of the earth.

     “Hey, mister you want ride?” A tiny Chinese boy with a cherubic face and a mouth full of white teeth sculled his sampan into view and waved to the sodden couple on the bank. A couple of drenched passengers sat in the bow of the small vessel as the boy pointed to Hong Kong side.

     Jack didn’t hesitate, “Yes, yes,” he shouted as he rushed to the waterfront.

     “Twenty dollar,” the boy said, the big grin creasing his face as he held the boat just out of reach until the extortionate deal had been done.

    “Done!” Jack said as he rummaged in his pockets.

     “Each!” the boy cried, chancing his luck.

     Jack had only a 100 dollar note. He held it up. “This is yours!” he said in Cantonese, “now bring your sampan alongside!”

     The boy’s eyes lit up in delight and expertly he sculled the vessel into the wharf.

     “Jack!” Diana said anxiously.

      He turned to reassure her. “Been there, done it, several times,” he said, “the only way home after a drunken night on Kowloon side!”

     “Of which there were many in your misspent youth, no doubt?”

     “I had my moments,” He helped her gingerly aboard.

      “I swore I’d never get back in a boat after the Philippines,” she groaned.

      Once they were aboard the youngster stood in the stern and expertly turned his boat back towards Hong Kong island. With an expertise born in the genes he sculled the little boat through the seething current, its occupants clinging on to both sides for dear life. Jack alone stared towards his destination, the others just kept their eyes tight shut and wished the journey was over.

     “Can you put us off near Legco?” Jack asked the juvenile skipper in rough Cantonese. The boy replied that it was no problem and Jack passed him the red note with a wink. Grinning cheerfully the lad pocketed it and headed towards the tall white buildings, which flanked the Hong Kong Legislative Council Chambers.

     Jack looked behind him and the Lion Rock on the border of the New Territories came into view through a rent in the clouds. Turning towards Hong Kong Island, he watched the clouds scud through the sky as if rushing to their doom. Flecks of azure mingled with stratus like white and red smoke in the foreground and in the distance, approaching swiftly, came a denser bank of cumulonimbus, tinged with red on the outside then turning a deeper blue and finally black as, like great ravines cut in the sky, they roared ever closer.

    “Jesus!” Jack exclaimed, not for the first time, as the weather rolled inexorably in. The spinning top and the elongated tail of the storm were now visible. “Twenty minutes to hit,” he said as the boy redoubled his efforts. The current was running them down the channel in the direction of the Legco building and Jack was perhaps the only one on the boat who cared where landfall was made on the Hong Kong side. He ruminated, as the boat rode the high rollers, plying its way in and out of static ships in the Hong Kong channel sea lanes, that the upside of the weather might be that the assassination squad would have had to cancel its plans. The contrary could of course be true. The weather formed the perfect shield for their activities.

     Everyone greeted landfall with a sigh of relief, as the boy helped them all ashore and then, with a wave at Jack, disappeared down towards the old Macao Ferry wharf. People began to take shelter as the storm’s outwinds struck, hurling rubbish and masonry through the streets. Jack and Diana ran through torrential rain towards the Legco building just as an icy blast swept them up. They had a glimpse of a black van parked outside the building then they were both hurled through the air as if by an invisible puppet master and deposited, none the worse for the experience of weightlessness, on the grass of Connaught Square. Jack looked up towards Battery path as the wind’s giant hand plucked two trees from the shrubbery above and flung them towards Queens Road. They smashed into the lion’s couchant of the Hong Kong Bank building.

     “God! Look at that!” Diana cried. Jack followed her pointing finger just as two abandoned taxis, both twenty feet off the ground, rounded the corner of the street and spun down towards Sai Ying Pun in a slow, ghostly dance. They pirouetted like ballerinas round the corner into Des Voeux Road and disappeared. Jack gazed after them wide-eyed wondering how he and had been left unharmed. An eerie stillness had settled on them. There was no noise, not even the sound of the wind; there was no rain, it wasn’t cold, it was just still.

     “Thank God that’s over!” Diana said.

      “Don’t you believe it girl! We’re inside the eye. The worst is yet to come.”

     Seizing the moment of calm before the opposite wall of wind hit them from behind they headed towards the Legislative Council. “He won’t be there, he’ll have gone home!” Diana shouted.

     “Philip won’t have gone home,” Jack replied. “Not with what he’s got to accomplish over the next few days. He’ll have stayed here to get his campaign work finished off. It’s the perfect opportunity for him.”

     “Then we’re either too early or…….” Her words dried up as they saw a number of men emerge from the black van which they had already observed, parked outside the Council offices. Dressed in dark costumes and hooded masks, the men looked like ghosts as they merged into the black weather and sprinted, in regimented fashion, for the stairs of the building.

     “It’s not too late, yet,” Jack said grimly.

      Feet pounding the pavement they followed the ghostly men into the building. Jack stopped in the lift lobby. One lift was moving. It headed upwards and stopped on the 10
th
floor. “Quick,” Jack said, “they’ve headed for the committee floor. I think he’ll be up on the top floor.”

     Calling one of the lifts they jumped in and the supercharged vehicle hurtled upwards.  Coming out on the top floor Jack found he was right. A skeleton crew of the campaign team was still hard at work but most had left before the storm had begun to rage around the building. The four or five hard core veterans left gaped as Jack and Diana, in their sodden, dishevelled state, appeared from the lift and ran down the corridor. A security guard stepped out in front of them and held up a hand.

     “Philip Chan’s office,” Jack gasped, “please take us there quickly.”

     The blue clad official, a handgun obtrusively holstered in his waistband, gazed at them suspiciously and demanded i.d.

     “Do I look like I’m carrying i.d?” Jack shouted, his temper beginning to get the better of him.

     Activity further down the corridor made them look up and Philip hove into view, blinking down the corridor, almost owl-like in his glasses. He recognised Jack despite his forlorn state and shouted out, "Jack! How wonderful to see you intact, my dear friend!” He rushed forward and, to the consternation of his minders, greeted the Englishman like a long lost brother. “And this must be Diana!” he exclaimed as he took her hand. “You are even lovelier than Jack’s portrayal!” he said gallantly.

     Diana didn’t feel too lovely as she stood there in her drenched Mandarin robe but she returned the handshake readily enough.

     “Philip, there’s not a moment to lose,” Jack said, “you’ve got to get out of here now!”

     “My dear chap, what are you talking about?” Philip replied, “if it’s the communist threat, we are in control, there is nothing to worry about.”

     “No,” Jack said, “they’ve brought it forward, because Gerry stole the papers from Chow.” He put his hand on Philip’s shoulder, “I’m sorry, it’s today, they’re in the building, searching the tenth floor as we speak.”

     Briefly, and as calmly as possible, Diana repeated the conversation she had overheard. A frown began to crease Philip’s high forehead.  His eyes blazed a fiery defiance.  “They’ll be after the disks too,” he hissed, “you haven’t seen them Jack.  We have only just managed to crack the code. They’re dynamite. Bank codes for the whole of the Triad organisation in just about every country in the world. We have the lot. The secret numbered accounts, the signatories in each country, even the names of the officials in the Peking Government who are being paid off. There’s more too. Triad plans to control western economies through money-laundering, Red China’s plans for here and Macao. And Taiwan!”

     “Taiwan?”

     “Oh, yes, Jack.  Invasion is not far off. Believe me, Taiwan’s annual ninety billion surplus will inject some fire into the communist economy!”

     “Why hasn’t the Government provided you with a bodyguard?” Diana asked.

     “Britton said it wasn’t necessary, now that the plot has been discovered. He believes diplomatic exchanges will result in the withdrawal of the threats.” The face he pulled spoke more eloquently than any verbal denunciation of the wishful thinking of those in Government who had no genuine experience of the Dragon. He rushed his visitors into his room, barking orders to his staff to find them a change of clothing.

     A few minutes later they emerged into Philip’s private chambers, freshly dressed in dry if ill-fitting clothes. Their host spoke fiercely down the phone to the Governor’s aide-de-camp. “The weather is likely to delay any rescue attempt,” he said grimly to his guests as they walked in, “the Ghurka regiment is stationed in the New Territories. An agreement was recently made with China that no British troops would be garrisoned in the city.” He nodded at Jack grimly as if endorsing the latter’s unspoken comment that the manouevre seemed oddly convenient.

     They didn’t have time for any further exchange. Shots from the end of the corridor signalled the arrival of the triad hit squad. Dropping down to their knees the three of them peered out through the glass partitions and studied the corridor. A frightening sight met their eyes. The group of black-robed, masked men had emerged from the stairs and were now firing at will into the computer room. The solitary security guard bravely returned the fire but he was hopelessly outnumbered and his pistol was no match for the semi-automatics wielded by the invaders. He was cut to ribbons in a rain of fire, his body, as the deadly hail struck, performing movements which no dancer could have emulated.