BLOOD DRAGON

by Freddie P Peters

  Pole found it interesting that Ollie’s electronic files had been locked so quickly. But perhaps the attempt on his life had spooked the people in charge of keeping the company secure against industrial espionage and cyber-attack.

  “I could ask Nikki for a drink or a coffee … see what she has to say.”

  “As long as it does not involve doing a Nancy Wu and getting into trouble. And as long as DS Branning is in the vicinity … why not?” Pole sounded more concerned than she had expected. It did not fit the relaxed and self-assured image she had of him. He was the second person to make her swear to be careful with Viro-Tech, perhaps she should listen.

  Someone knocked at the door. A small gap opened and Johnny’s head popped in.

  “I saw some light underneath the door. Just wanted to check you had not fallen asleep with candles burning around the room as Beth usually does.”

  Cora waved him in. He was holding two mugs of chamomile tea.

  “And what do you do then? Extinguish the fire hazard by throwing herbal tea over it?”

  “I wouldn’t, but Beth might.” He had changed from his work clothes into a brand-new pair of designer jeans and a tight grey T-shirt that showed off his well-exercised trim body. “I saw you talking to the builders when I left this morning … not that we don’t want to have you around. But what did they say?”

  “Six months … and I still haven’t been able to access the back of the room.”

  Johnny sighed, put both cups down on the bedside table and picked up her hand.

  “You tell us if we can do anything to help. Perhaps help you find a new studio or something until you can safely go back in.”

  Cora squeezed his hand and grabbed the mug with the other, bringing it to her lips. She blew off the steam and sipped the hot liquid. “Thank you.”

  “You’re not thinking about giving up the flat I hope? You’ve been here for as long as we have … and the studio part is ideal. Where else are you going to find high ceilings like these and … and … climb the beams of the flat to rehearse your performance?” Johnny’s arms were waving around, like a windmill.

  “Don’t panic … I’m not done yet with it … where else could I find so much space to erect my props and other apparatus?” Cora straightened up when she spoke the last words. Some of the hot beverage spilt over Cora’s hands. She pulled a face and put the mug back onto the bedside table. She disentangled herself from the blanket with difficulty, jumped out of the bed onto the floor in a single leap and stood next to Johnny. “I need to get back to the flat.”

  “In the middle of the night … with no electricity and holes in the floorboards … never. I gave my word to Nancy.”

  “I just remembered something … something I discussed with Nancy and that we never followed through.”

  “And what would that be that requires you charging out all of a sudden? Without mentioning the cops at the bottom of our building, or the fact that you will have to use the old fire exit stairwell …” Johnny had crossed his arms over his chest. The tattoos over his bare skin stretched as his muscles tightened.

  “There is something Ollie might have left for me there.”

  Johnny’s face switched from doubtful to inquisitive. “You mean like a clue … you mean like evidence?”

  “I don’t know, Johnny. I can only find out if I go there and check.”

  He rolled his eyes and threw a pair of dark jogging bottoms and the matching top to her. “Well then … I’d like to come with you if you’re going to break your promise to Nancy that fast.”

  * * *

  The email from his boss had popped into his mailbox just as he was on his way to the airport. Jack ignored it. He was cutting it fine and could always argue reception on the Heathrow Express was not at its best.

  Boarding was complete. The crew was going through the usual preparation ritual … the captain made his announcement. … the safety demonstration followed. Jack was glad he had chosen a seat in the Boeing 747 bubble at the top of the aircraft.

  It had been a good move. Nancy Wu was sitting only three rows in front of him. She had chosen the window seat and for some reason the place next to hers had remained empty.

  The aircraft pushed back from the docking bay and started rolling slowly along the lanes that led to the runway. The seat belt sign came on and within a few minutes they were airborne. The smooth rise of the plane almost made Jack uncomfortable. He had experienced the same discomfort on departure from JFK to London. It was not the usual rough lift of the large army planes he was used to. The man sitting next to Jack changed into the light jogging suit BA provided for its business class customers. He got himself organised, ignoring Jack as he extended the partition that separated the seats to give privacy. He put on a set of headphones and started browsing through the channels provided for entertainment.

  Jack sat back in his armchair. He would have preferred to be by a window rather than the aisle but there was enough room for him to read the documents he had scanned without being overlooked. He took out his laptop, pulled out the table from the holder in his armrest, sat the device on it and started logging in.

  From the corner of his eye Jack registered the drinks trolley approaching. He chose a cool beer and returned to his laptop. He hadn’t had time to go through the documents that Harris had forwarded from his source. Jack went through the titles of the papers, assessing which documents were the most relevant. Predictably, Jared Turner’s timetable of meetings in China came top of the list.

  He cast an eye towards Nancy Wu’s seat; she seemed to have settled.

  Laurie had completed a schedule of meetings too, combined with the tracking of Turner’s mobile phone. Jack called up the two documents side by side. There was no discrepancy with regard to dates, but the locations seemed to diverge.

  Turner’s mobile drifted out of Beijing on almost every visit he had made to China in the past six months. His mobile reappeared in Chengdu, in Sichuan province.

  Laurie had made further in-roads in identifying the location of his visits. She had found a small industrial estate on the outskirts of the city. She was drilling down into the site details to find out what was being produced there.

  Jack set the idea on one side. In itself, visiting an industrial site for a company head was acceptable, but why not record it on his business planner?

  The aeroplane encountered a patch of light turbulence. The seat belt signs might come on at any moment. It provided him with the perfect opportunity. Jack left his seat and went towards the bathroom. The plane started shaking even more when he was on his way back. He lost his balance and fell into the back of the seat next to Nancy’s.

  Her face was illuminated by the light of a laptop … fine regular features, high forehead, and beautiful slanting eyes. Jack noticed the quirky notepad she had placed to one side, yellow with ruled pages.

  He took a moment to recover his balance and apologise just as Nancy lifted her eyes to check what the commotion was. The disgruntled businessman sitting in the seat behind mumbled a complaint. Jack apologised again and returned to his seat to take stock of what he had just seen.

  Ms Wu was perusing the same document as he was … Jared Turner’s schedule of meetings in China.

  * * *

  “Rubbish …” Pole threw a cushion across the room and leaned back further into his favourite armchair. Andy had sent a flurry of emails.

  The bank account trail had gone cold. In the chain of accounts Andy was trying to identify, the last account had been closed. No doubt everything was being done to wipe out records of who had opened it.

  The other email he had received from Yvonne Butler’s lab confirmed the drug used on Ollie Wilson came from Afghanistan, Herat province. Tomorrow he would have to call the drug squad and let them know.

  All this was neatly leading to one conclusion. Ollie Wilson had been involved with a Russi
an trafficking gang and had paid the price for it. It was very tidy, evidence rolling in, one piece after another, wrapped with a bow.

  His gut thought otherwise, but the only possibility to counter the argument was the pile of documents from Cora which Branning had delivered to him.

  There was, of course, Harris’s opinion, but Pole was in enough trouble with Ferguson to mention industrial espionage or the sale of sensitive biotechnology research to a foreign power.

  For all they knew, the biotech Viro-Tech was researching and selling to China was completely legal. Unless national security was endangered by the research or sale, the company was free to deal on the market as it wished.

  Pole poured himself a large glass of red wine and took a mouthful. He had not yet allowed himself to dwell on Nancy’s decision to leave for Hong Kong. He had witnessed her resourcefulness first hand, but when it came to her father’s story, her brilliant mind succumbed to a whirlpool of emotions. His best plan of action was to push Harris to produce more evidence and persuade Marsh that he had to take a trip to the former British colony.

  His burner phone rang. He let it go to voicemail.

  “Pole … I know you’re listening. No, I don’t have cameras in your home. Call me back. It’s about Ms Wu and her Hong Kong trip.” Harris sounded unusually serious.

  There was no point in delaying the inevitable … Pole snatched up his phone.

  “Harris … to the point please.”

  “I presume she told you she’s on her way to Hong Kong.”

  “Why, yes.”

  “That’s a good move … Ferguson is going to jump at it and Marsh will follow his lead, because he has no other choice.”

  “I’m not sure I agree to …”

  Harris interrupted. “It gives us a bit more time to tell our story about the burner phone.”

  Pole remained silent. As predicted, Nancy had become the bait and he was not happy to fall in with Harris’ suggestion.

  “Besides, she won’t be on her own in Hong Kong. My CIA contact is with her on the same flight.”

  “What?” Pole sat up. “She’s already got the counter-terrorist squad after her. I’m not having the CIA involved too.”

  “Relax, Jack is a good guy. He’s not the sort to shoot from the hip and ask questions afterwards. He’s got me out of a tight spot or two in the past.”

  “Does he think she’s involved with Viro-Tech?”

  “That’s the premise … I’ve tried to indicate he might want to reconsider, but …”

  “… but you bloody well haven’t because you need something else from him.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that. He hasn’t told me what he knows about Ollie Wilson … so I need to bide my time.”

  “I thought he was a trusted friend?”

  “And he is a good spook too, but I can’t expect him to disclose everything to me. Hell, I wouldn’t either. That’s the way it works, and don’t tell me the different teams at Scotland Yard always work together like a happy family.”

  “So is that all your news? A CIA agent is chasing Nancy across the globe, believing she’s involved in some goddamn conspiracy when all she’s trying to do is find out what happened to her father.”

  “Not quite … her good friend Yvonne Butler has facilitated a bit of information gathering from my service and MI6 has been happy to oblige. At the moment, Ms Wu is aware of a possible connection between her father’s family and Deng Xiao Ping. They share the same Sichuan ancestry and, surprisingly, Chengdu in Sichuan is also of interest to a certain Jared Turner, CEO of Viro-Tech Therapeutics.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “But it’s true. I have been doing a little homework on Turner’s schedule. So perhaps a visit to his offices would not go amiss. I have sent you the list of visits he made, complete with the airline bookings. If your DS Andy looks a bit more closely, he should be able to find the same information. Don’t tell me I’m not a nice guy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  She had been extravagant in booking two seats in business class for the sake of enjoying a little extra peace during the flight. Nancy moved the food tray to the adjacent table. She pressed the remote control and the seat started to slowly unfold underneath her. It was gradually transforming itself into a bed. Another hour of work and she would get some rest.

  It was already 6am in Hong Kong and her experience of jet lag told her she was better off adjusting straight away to the local time of her destination.

  She had connected her laptop to the onboard Wi-Fi system. A great improvement from a few years back when in-flight mode meant no internet access.

  Her fingers coursed over the keyboard and the information appeared on the site she had discovered a few hours ago. It was a simple genealogy research tool, a record of family and ancestors. Something that had taken China by storm.

  The previous site she had visited was of little help. But it seemed that this one, designed to be used by the middle classes looking to evidence their lineage was easier to use.

  She had struggled to filter the large number of hits her father’s name had generated. It seemed that Li-Jie Wu was a rather common name, generating results in the thousands, but adding his birthplace and date of birth had whittled them down to a manageable number.

  Nancy sat back on the comfortable bed, brought a cup of tea to her lips, eyes closed. She had ordered Chai without milk, since she doubted she could ask for traditional Sichuan tea. She inhaled deeply the scent of spices and let her mind wander down the alleyways of the past.

  A few images slid into her mind. She caught glimpses of her grandfather. A small man, dry as a stick, so proper … he wore the typical round glasses encircled by a gold frame that most educated Asian men wore in the 1940s.

  There was nothing else to remember, apart from the memory of the exquisite gift he had given her on one of her birthdays. She couldn’t recall which. She couldn’t remember his name either. She must have been told but it was just out of reach.

  She returned to the site and continued narrowing the options, searching each possible name and, so far, following dead ends.

  She had revisited the page that gave her a more in-depth account of Deng Xiao Ping’s life. The Sichuan and Chengdu connections were strong, despite a period of absence. Deng’s family had spent most of their lives there until he started University.

  Nancy jotted down a few names that she needed to investigate further. The site was good enough, but the absence of pictures held her back. She had managed to find a way to translate the Chinese, but progress was slow.

  She stretched her arms overhead and yawned without holding back.

  One of the stewardesses was clearing the trays. She offered Nancy a fresh cup of tea which she accepted with a smile. She stood up and walked to the galley that stood at the back of the 747 bubble. A man in the last row had passed her a few times when using the restrooms at the front of the aircraft. She could have sworn he had leaned heavily on purpose over the back of her armchair during a spate of turbulence.

  She walked past him, slowing down a little. The stewardess was coming her way with her fresh tea.

  “I just needed to stretch my legs.” Nancy smiled again.

  The man lifted his head. He looked at the interaction between the two women in a neutral way that displayed neither interest nor annoyance.

  Nancy walked back to her seat. “Can’t become paranoid just yet … I’m not even in Hong Kong.”

  She settled back in her seat, brought the blanket over her legs and sipped her tea. The light had gone off in the cabin. Passengers across the aisle were turning on their seat lamps. She lifted the window shade which she had lowered when the light had started to disappear. The aircraft had reached its cruising altitude a while ago.

  There was not a single cloud in the sky and the starry night felt restful. She had k
ept herself busy until now, putting off the inevitable moment of reflection.

  She had made a rash decision, using her intuition, judging it was the right thing to do. Unleashing the counter-terrorist squad against her was almost reckless, but she couldn’t let Pole down. She wondered why MI6 had been so keen to help Pole collect information about her father. But there was Henry Crowne’s escape from Belmarsh. How much had Pole known about that?

  Yvonne had warned her that MI6 would want something in return for the information she had requested. It was clear that Pole’s own contact had already received his dues. Henry had disappeared over six months ago. But if they had wanted help only for Henry’s escape, then the flow of information would have dried up. But here they were, still feeding Pole information.

  Whatever they wanted, she was somehow a part of it … she couldn’t fathom why the search for her father was still of interest to them. Had he been involved in something that continued to be worth their while investigating?

  It would have seemed ridiculous only a week ago, but what Nancy had learned about his political involvement now made it more plausible.

  She remembered him with a mixture of awe, respect, love and excitement. She had buried her feelings in the months following his departure. The attempts her mother had made to talk to her about him had fallen on deaf ears. As the year passed her mother stopped talking about him until his existence had become shrouded in silence.

  Nancy’s mind drifted again towards the vast expanse outside her window. She bent forward and brought her face up against the plastic double glazing. The world below was plunged in darkness. There was no sign of light nor life. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Whatever it is MI6 want, they’re not having it until I am sure Pole is safe.”

  * * *

  “Call me.” Two words that felt like a shot across the bows. Jack knew he was in trouble. His boss, Robert (Bob) Hunter III, was usually rather more forthcoming in his emails. Short was not his style. Thankfully the 12 hour time lag meant that he was probably still fast asleep at 4am.