A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

Harry returned the smile. “How badly?”

  “So badly I walk you to the car park and give you the keys to my car.”

  “What about so badly you keep the keys, but drive the car for me?”

  “You really do want to have me shot, don’t you?”

  “Not at all, but I can’t do it on my own. We’re only going to have one crack at this. I’ve got the address of Chau’s villa …” He took Miller’s card out of his pocket. “But I don’t know how to get there.”

  Harry could see that Lin was engaged in a monumental struggle.

  “Once there, I’ll do the rest,” he added quickly, trying to reassure his friend. “I can get in, find Lisa, and get out. Finding the manifest will be harder. There might be a copy at the villa but I doubt it.”

  Lin took a deep breath, edging closer to a decision. “The ship will probably have docked in Tianjin. You said Chau has an office in the city. It could be there.” He glared at his friend. “To think I was so happy when I was sent up here to replace Fangzhou. I thought it was a promotion. Not the kiss of death.”

  “And it is a promotion,” Harry said. “Just not the sort you thought it was.”

  Lin checked his watch. “There’s no point trying to do anything tonight. It’ll be dark soon. Driving’s dangerous enough in the daytime.” He heaved a massive sigh as duty, honour and morality vied with a desire to survive.

  “Look, I’ll get a camp bed for you. Have some shut-eye and I’ll try to figure out what to do.”

  “There’s only one thing to do, David,” Harry persisted. “You must see that?”

  Lin held up his hand. “Leave it there, Harry. I need to sleep on this too. Clear that head of yours. We’ll speak in the morning.”

  Harry started to say something but Lin had gone. When he was alone, Harry slumped down exhausted.

  Thirty Seven

  The harsh neon tube flickered into life. “Come on,” a voice commanded. Harry started awake. For a moment he thought he was back in the Chengde police cell. Or was he at Chau’s villa? Through the glare he made out a face. David Lin. He relaxed.

  “So what’s the plan?” Harry’s mouth tasted awful and he felt as if he desperately needed a shower and a shave.

  Lin’s smile was brave but unconvincing. “Fancy a drive?”

  Harry sat up. “To?”

  “Up country. I’ve heard Chengde’s nice at this time of year.”

  Harry loved his friend’s stab at playing the cool hero. “Now you’re talking, padrone.” The least he could do was hand him a new word for his glossary.

  He hunted for his shoes and pulled them on, fighting with the laces. His bleary head struggled to regain control of his body which ached from the hard camp bed. “What’s the weather doing?”

  “Airport’s still closed. Nothing’s moving. Unfortunately not even the traffic on the roads.”

  The ease with which Harry escaped from the airport made his head spin. One moment he was incarcerated in the small, neon-lit room, a prisoner on the brink of exile. The next, he was walking down the corridor in the custody of the Head of Airport Security. The immigration officials who had taken him there would be far away by now. As far as they were concerned their duty had been discharged. Their prisoner had been consigned to airport security for expulsion from the country. Their forms had been signed. They had gone. Job done.

  Once out of the office and in the company of David Lin, Harry was just another person moving through the airport, clearly authorised to be there. No one even noticed. With flights grounded for the foreseeable future, everyone had other things on their mind. The terminals were filling up and there were a thousand problems to deal with.

  All the way down the corridor, Lin muttered to himself. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You’re going to get me shot. At the very least they’ll lock me up and throw away the key.”

  Harry laid a hand on his shoulder. “If this works out the way we hope, they’ll be giving you a medal.”

  “Let’s just hope it’s not posthumous.”

  Hardly believing his luck, Harry simply walked out of the secure area. They came to the final door, Lin swiped his pass card through the lock and pushed it open. As it closed behind them, Harry breathed in the air of freedom, coughing as it hit his lungs.

  They were at ground level. An airport tractor whizzed past, its long line of empty baggage carts rattling like the vertebrae of a wobbly spine. With no flights to load, there was mounting chaos in the storage areas as passengers continued to arrive at the airport. News of the closure was slow getting through to the travelling public and Harry knew the confusion would help him make good his escape.

  “This way,” Lin said. He led Harry to a car park reserved for airport staff. His car stood in a bay marked for him, a suitably anonymous Honda Civic. Perfect for Harry’s purposes. Lin pressed his key fob and the indicator lights winked.

  “So you’re not driving a Chinese car?”

  “You must be joking. Perhaps in a decade or two,” Lin replied.

  They got in. “The address?” Lin said. Harry handed him Miller’s card. Lin read it then punched it into his satnav.

  “What about the expressway?” Harry said. “Won’t that be clear by now?”

  Lin shook his head. “People are still pouring in. They all hope their flight’s the one that makes it out. You can tell them till you’re blue in the face that nothing’s leaving, but it’s a waste of time. The expressway’s choked solid.” He slipped the automatic to Drive and set off. “I know a back way. Nothing like a bit of local knowledge.”

  “Even for a boy from Shanghai?”

  “I worked here before I got the Shanghai job. This is like coming home. Smog and all.”

  He shot the car out of the airport grounds and down a narrow road that cut underneath the expressway. Above them Harry could see lines of immobile cars jamming it in both directions. Even the hard shoulders had been used so the traffic was solid. No one was going anywhere on the main routes. To all intents and purposes the airport was sealed off.

  The narrow road led past sprawling housing estates. Built with borrowed money, most of them were empty, massive speculative enterprises waiting for occupants who might arrive one day, but in the meantime gathering thick layers of dust. They arrived at a junction, waited for the lights to turn green, then veered left and shot along a clear lane heading out of the city. Buildings on either side of the broad thoroughfare were barely visible. Where pedestrians bravely ventured, they did so hunched over, masks clamped to faces. The whole city was drowning.

  They drove in silence, Lin’s face grimly set. He had stepped off the well-trodden path and was moving through jungle terrain where all manner of predators and booby traps waited. Harry could imagine the doubts coursing through his friend’s mind. He half expected him to pull over to the kerb, resolve broken, and turf him out. Or spin into a U-turn and take him back to the airport and the locked office. He could still not believe his luck to have found his friend in post, rather than his predecessor. He’d have to pay a visit to church some time and pass on his thanks to the Almighty.

  He recognised a dilapidated farmstead at the side of the road. They were on the motorway that he and Lisa had taken aboard the bus some days before. It was hard to believe how much had happened in the meantime.

  Harry sat back and let the miles roll past. They pulled over and while Lin refilled the tank, Harry bought a couple of rolls for breakfast which they munched during the next stretch of the journey. Coffee too, the paper mugs propped in the car’s plastic holders.

  “Do you have a plan for when we get there?” Lin asked when he had finished eating.

  “I’m working on it,” Harry answered.

  “I didn’t think you had.”

  Harry laughed. Okay, think. He recalled the layout of Chau’s villa. At least the part of it he had seen. Where would they be keeping Lisa? Hardly in the same apartment as before. Most likely she would be locked up somewhere in the main building.

&
nbsp; From bitter experience he knew that the dogs were let loose at night to roam the grounds. So he either had to go over the wall in daylight, or else prepare somehow to take them on.

  “What time do you reckon we’ll get there?”

  “Noon?” Lin estimated.

  “Good.” So long as he was right about the dogs it would just be the guards he had to worry about. Just. Yeah, great. That said, Harry was the last person they would be expecting. As far as they were concerned he would be airborne now, coming to the end of his long-haul night flight back to the west. If things had gone as planned, he would have spent the past hours high over Mongolia, then Siberia and Russia, arching towards Europe at nearly forty thousand feet, crammed into Economy, eaten away by frustration.

  Harry smiled. He couldn’t wait to see their faces when he confronted them. He was going to enjoy this.

  Thirty Eight

  The wall looked higher in daylight. Harry stood in front of it, hands on hips. This wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he had hoped. There didn’t appear to be wire or spikes on top of it, just a run of ornamental tiles. Ryder Chau considered himself secure in his domain. No need for anything as vulgar as that. The Great Wall of Chau itself was sufficient. Who would be so stupid as to dare to tackle him on his home turf?

  “Stop staring at it and get over.” David Lin had found a secluded spot to pull over and dump Harry. His car sat on the opposite side of the road, engine idling. “If you take all day someone will see us.”

  Harry glared at him. “If you want to help, put the car alongside the wall.”

  “If I want to help?” Lin glared. “Don’t you dare. I’ve already put my neck on the rail tracks.” He slipped the car in gear and manoeuvred it into position alongside the wall as close as he could get without scratching the paintwork.

  Harry climbed onto the boot then carefully onto the roof, keeping his feet as close to the edge as possible to try and avoid denting it.

  Lin winced as he watched Harry’s enormous shoes. “Please be careful. I’ve only had it a month.”

  Harry muttered something back. He placed his hands flat on the wall, fingers reaching up towards the summit. The tiles on top of it were rounded making it difficult to get a purchase. Eventually he found a groove and locked onto it. With a heave he pulled himself up. His knees scrambled until he was on top of the wall. He looked back at Lin. “Park somewhere you won’t be seen.”

  Lin waved. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to make like I don’t exist.”

  Harry swung his legs over the wall and considered the drop. Too far. To jump down would be to risk a broken ankle. Instead, he lowered himself until he was hanging with arms at full stretch, feet as close to the ground as they could reach. With a spring, he pushed off from the wall and let go. He landed smack centre in the narrow dog track that he had encountered before. Branches slashed at his face on the way down. As he hit the ground, the force of the drop knocked the breath out of him. He lost balance, toppled over and lay in a heap, winded but listening. Everything was as still as the grave. Sultry, with not a breath of wind.

  The undergrowth around him was wet from old rain. He studied the track for signs of fresh prints. Nothing. He opened his mouth and popped his ears, straining for any sound of dog. Only the stillness of the woodland covering the borders of Chau’s estate.

  Harry got up and shook himself straight, brushing bits of leaf and twig from his clothes. Unlike the wall spot he had visited by night, here the ground sloped down from the wall, though similarly tracking through thick bush. Moving through it was easier than it had been in bare feet. He took care to avoid stepping on twigs or anything that would make a noise and alert Chau’s guards to his presence.

  Step by step he made his way through the undergrowth. He felt naked without a gun. Nothing but his fists to protect him. All the bits of wood on the leaf-strewn floor looked rotten, nothing that might serve as a cudgel.

  He reached the edge of the woodland and looked out across the lawn. The view was of a part of the estate he had not seen before. For a moment he was disoriented, trying to work out which buildings were which. It was anybody’s guess where they might have taken Lisa, if indeed she was even here. Miller had said she would be, but things might have moved on since then. Harry reckoned it was pointless searching through the outbuildings. That would take all day and merely risk him being discovered. He decided to go straight for the main residence. Even if Lisa wasn’t there, he might come across Miller. He brightened at the prospect, feeling his knuckles itch with anticipation.

  So, how to do this? He would have preferred the cover of darkness except for the bloody dogs which would have screwed everything. So daylight it was. Watching the buildings, there didn’t seem to be anyone about. Harry supposed that with Chau in Tianjin then on his way to Beijing for the National Congress, his minders and staff had probably gone with him. No doubt there would be someone left behind at the villa. House staff and at least the two underpass thugs. And Miller. And Lisa.

  Okay then. Harry set off across the grass. Might as well do this openly. Act as if he was meant to be there. That way he might get past the first encounters with house staff without alarming …

  There was a shout from a flank. Harry whipped round. It was a gardener with a rake working at a flowerbed. He stared at Harry from thirty yards away. How had Harry not seen him? You slovenly officer, Sir.

  Putting his modus operandi into effect, Harry waved cheerily and strode on. The gardener looked around anxiously, seeking back-up. He called again so this time Harry barked back in Mandarin. “Lovely flowers.”

  The gardener looked down at the flowerbed he had been raking then back at Harry, the struggle for understanding written across his leathery features. Harry pointed up at the sky. “Rain coming. Good for garden.”

  The gardener got the drift of Harry’s unfamiliar pronunciation. Still staring after the newcomer, he slowly went back to his work, casting one more glance for help but finding none.

  Still congratulating himself, Harry marched round the side of an outbuilding and found himself in a paved courtyard. A large extractor fan protruded from a ground floor window, and an array of bins against one wall told him he had arrived at the kitchen. He tried a door handle. It opened. Two steps and he was inside the sprawling villa’s main building. Mother Hen.

  His nose tested the air. The smell of stale food told him that nothing had been cooked there for a while. The counters looked clean and unused. Stainless steel cooking utensils hung by their curled handles above two long benches like dozing sloths. Harry took note of a row of knives stuck by their blades to a magnetic strip fixed to the wall. They were arranged in order of blade length. He was on the point of passing by when he thought again. He chose a suitable one and removed it, testing its balance in his hand. Was he prepared to cross a line? Would he really use it?

  He weighed the blade for a moment longer then put it back. So far he had not killed anyone. The villager had been winged only, thank goodness. He would recover. Harry resolved to try and get this done without taking a life even though he doubted the opposition would extend him the same courtesy.

  Moving away from the knife rack, he crossed the kitchen.

  The shout stopped him dead. Next to the shout, a gunshot. The air snapped in two. There was the smack of a bullet into plaster. Shards of it stung Harry’s cheek. He dropped to one knee, hunting for the firer. In the doorway ten yards off, a man in black trousers and black roll-neck jumper hunted for him for a second shot. He took it. The bullet struck the floor beside Harry’s leg.

  God, you’re a lousy shot. Two rounds from ten bloody yards. You’d have been on a charge for that.

  Harry prepared to rush him. No chance. He was too far. Even this joker couldn’t miss a third time. He spun back to the knife rack, snatched the first one that came to hand and hurled it at Roll-Neck Man. He was severely disappointed with the result. Had it been a movie, the knife would have skewered Roll-Neck Man point-first through the
chest. Or pinned his gun arm to the door by the sleeve, leaving Harry free to stroll past with a glib one-liner and a right hook.

  Instead the knife tumbled out of control, bashing into the door frame handle first and tinkling to the ground.

  He snatched up another and threw that too. Same result.

  A third hit the man centre chest, but still handle first. Harry swore with frustration. A fourth did the same, and the fifth and last missed altogether.

  But Roll-Neck Man had been forced to duck and dodge. For all he knew Harry was a circus knife-thrower, in spite of the dismal results. Then again, being hit in the chest by anything metallic flung with force was enough to put anyone off their aim.

  Before he could recover, Harry was on him. He burst across the ten yards and threw himself at Roll-Neck Man. Seizing him by the shoulders, Harry spun him round, pinned him against the wall and let rip. The gun fell to the floor as he tried to shield himself from the rain of punches. Two to the gut bent him double, then three in vicious succession to the side of the head. Roll-Neck man went down and stayed there. Harry stood over him breathing hard.

  He bent and picked up the gun. The good old Type 77 again. Dull as ditch-water but better than knives he couldn’t throw. He popped out the mag and pressed the topmost round with his thumb, trying to count the number of rounds underneath it. About five. He slid it home and racked back the slide, cocking the weapon. He left the safety off. A quick rummage through the man’s pockets produced a dirty handkerchief, some loose change and a boiled sweet. No spare mag though.

  Why the gun, Harry? He walked away from his handiwork sprawled out cold on the floor. Because my fist took it.

  It was as if something was taking possession of him. The punches he had used. Muscle memory was kicking in. He hadn’t trained for ages, yet all the old skills were there. Packed in ice. Waiting. Just a pity knife-throwing had never been one of them. How cool would that have been?

  He would try not to kill anyone. Yeah yeah, said muscle memory. If you say so, Harry.