Dark Eye of the Jaguar

by Robert Mitchell

  There were suddenly more people in the room, some of the Chinese staff. Terrence snapped off a few rapid words in Chinese. One of the staff members hurried away. We waited until ropes were fetched and the three men were tied up. Two of them were led away by the servants, a rope linking their necks to each other. The one who had been armed with the knife was left lying against the wall where Terrence had flung him, his feet tightly bound. One servant turned and bashed him across the face with his fist. He drew back to deliver another blow but held back when Angelo spoke a few sharp words in Chinese.

  Terrence closed the door as soon as the two were taken out of the room, but before it closed there was the sound of another blow. There would be a few more before they reached wherever they were taking them. I drew Sue across to my bed and made her sit next to me. Her face was streaked with perspiration as was my own. I could feel the shaking coursing through her body. We both knew how close we had come to death.

  “Shall we take this mongrel, and leave you?” Terrence asked. “I can get one of the servants to stand guard outside the door, if you want.”

  “No!” Sue sobbed. “Stay. Please stay.” But she cringed back from the figure lying propped against the far corner.

  The five of us sat quietly, three priests and two lapsed Christians, waiting for the terror to abate, waiting for the adrenalin to be absorbed back into our bodies, waiting for calmness to return to this once quiet room within this once peaceful enclave. We had brought violence to their midst.

  The one who had used the knife lay hunched in the corner, not moving a muscle, only his eyes. They flashed from the priests back to me and then to Sue, but he wasn’t grinning this time. The situation had been reversed and he knew what should happen now. He didn’t know that these were men of God, and that to them life was sacred, and that maybe his life would be spared.

  “Have you called the police?” Sue finally asked.

  “No,” Father Angelo said weakly, his face pale in the dim light. It was then I saw the blood dripping down his fingers and falling to the floor.

  “You’ve been stabbed!” I cried.

  “Yes,” he replied, his voice soft, almost as if puzzled.

  “Oh, my God!” Sue moaned. For one terrible moment I visualised her neck as Angelo’s arm, and I could see the blood pouring from her veins as we were unable to staunch it. The room spun and I felt myself slowly falling.

  “Ben, Ben!”

  The sound of Sue’s voice brought me back, back to the sight of the blood pooling on the floor by Father Angelo. There was a knock on the door and we all jumped. Father Terrence went and opened it. It was only the staff reporting back. Terrence asked one of them to roll up Angelo’s sleeve. He had suffered a long gash in his upper arm; the whole side of his dressing gown was soaked in blood. Two of the servants led him away, one supporting him on either side. One of the remaining servants asked Father Christopher a question. Christopher pointed to the one who had held the knife to Sue’s throat. The servant walked across and kicked him in the chest. Christopher growled at him and the man walked meekly out the door, clearly admonished, but not repentant. I saw the smile forming on Christopher’s face as he quickly turned away. The Lord would have decreed a turning of the other cheek, or, in this case, the other arm. I felt like kicking in the rest of the guy’s ribs.

  “Did you call the police?” Sue asked again.

  “No, ma’am, not yet,” Christopher replied.

  “Well, what about Angelo? Can you call a doctor?”

  “We will attend to Father Angelo, ma’am. If it’s serious, we’ll take him to the hospital, otherwise we’ll attend to his injuries here.”

  “When will you call the police?” she asked once more.

  “Later, ma’am,” Christopher replied. “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. We will wait for Father Angelo’s instructions.”

  “What about the Bishop?” she asked, looked at me and then spun back to Christopher. “And stop calling me ma’am. My name is Sue, for God’s sake.”

  “The Bishop has left this matter entirely in the hands of Father Angelo,” Christopher replied, now totally uncertain as to how he should address her.

  “But shouldn’t you at least wake the Bishop and tell him what’s happened?” she asked.

  “It is two o’clock in the morning, Mrs Dunlop, ah.., Sue,” Terrence said, stepping in and trying to solve Christopher’s confusion. “When the Bishop wakes at six, it will be soon enough to tell him what’s happened.”

  “But that man’s arm is broken!” she said, jumping from subject to subject, pointing to the guy in the corner. “Surely he has to go to hospital! You can’t fix it here! He should be in hospital under police guard!”

  “No, Mrs Dunlop,” Terrence replied. “A hospital is not required. His arm is just dislocated. I will re-locate it shortly.” He smiled. “It will hurt much more than when I twisted it out a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh,” she replied.

  “In fact, I will do that now, if you will excuse me?”

  We both nodded. He spoke to the two staff members in Chinese and they grabbed the guy, untied him, and hauled him to his feet and out through the doorway. Terrence followed and closed the door. I heard them move down the hallway a few metres, and then heard Terrence speak harshly in Chinese. There was silence, and then a scream.

  “What was that?” Sue asked, her face going pale once more.

  “I believe that Father Terrence just re-set that feller’s arm,” Christopher said, and was unable to conceal a smile.

  There was another burst of Chinese from Terrence, partly muffled by the closed door, and another silence. Half a minute later he returned.

  “Did you learn anything?” I asked. There was a shake of his head. “What’ll you do with them?”

  “They’ll be locked in a storeroom at the back of the building for the time being. The door is strong and there’s no window. They’ll remain there until we’re ready to deal with them.”

  “What do you mean by deal with them?” Sue asked.

  “Don’t worry, Ms Dunlop,” Christopher replied. “We’ll hand them over to the police, but not until this little old fight is finished.”

  “Can you find out who they’re working for?” I asked.

  “We can try,” Terrence replied. “But we are men of God, men of peace. I’m afraid that they’ll not tell us much without being coerced to do so.”

  “Well,” I replied, remembering the savage kick the servant had given to the knife wielder. “Maybe some of your Chinese staff could get something out of them.”

  “No, Mr Dunlop. That, we could not condone.”

  “Perhaps the police could get more from them,” I suggested, hoping that the Chinese police might have a few methods they would prefer we didn’t know about. “If we turned them over to the police tonight we might have some answers before morning, and be able to get Father Joseph back unharmed.”

  “Perhaps,” Terrence said. “But then these men might disclose something to the police that we would prefer was kept quiet for the time being.”

  I thought about it for a moment, and then lifted Sue’s chin up, wiped away a tear from her eye, and said: “He’s right, Suze. They’re better off where we can keep an eye on them.”

  “We’ll question them further, of course, Ms Dunlop,” Christopher said. “We may learn somethin’, but I sincerely do doubt it.”

  “How did you know they were here?” Sue asked before I could offer my services in helping to cross-examine them. I’d have had no compunction in belting them about the head a bit more. I picked up the knife, still with Angelo’s blood on it. The bastard had been prepared to cut Sue’s throat, and would definitely believe that I would do the same to him. Christopher could see the rage in my eyes. He reached forward and gently took the knife from my fingers. I turned my head to him.

  “Yes, Christopher,” I asked. “How did you know they were here?”

  “The monks watchin’ the hotel saw the men leave, so
one of them followed and saw them go around to the back of the seminary. He rode his motorcycle back to the hotel and told his superior and his superior telephoned us.”

  “Why didn’t the guy on the motorcycle just telephone the seminary?”

  “The battery of his mobile telephone was no longer workin’.”

  I went to reply, and held my tongue. Christopher could tell by the look on my face what I was thinking.

  “Unfortunately,” he continued, “Father Angelo is a sound sleeper and didn’t hear his phone when they called, so they called us on our house phone. One of the staff woke me and I woke Father Angelo. I then hollered for Father Terrence. We checked the doors and windows and discovered that a door at the rear of the seminary was unlocked. We realised then that they’d come for you and Ms Dunlop, and not for any of us priests, so we hurried here and listened at the door for a few seconds before realisin’ that there was not a moment to be lost.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I heard the phone ringing out in the hall somewhere. Thank God somebody answered it.”

  “Yes, Ben. We must indeed thank God.”

  “His mobile phone!” Sue suddenly blurted. “That’s it!”

  Christopher looked puzzled and then asked: “Do you require my phone, Ms Dunlop?”

  “No!” she exclaimed again. “Not your phone. That man, the one they just took away, the one who was doing all the talking before you got here. His mobile phone!”

  “Don’t worry, Ms Dunlop, we’ve taken his phone, and the phones from the others as well. There’s no way they can contact whoever hired them.”

  “Oh!” she said angrily. “I’m not worried about them using their phones. I was wondering whether you can trace any of the people who called in on any of the phones, or the calls those men made on them. It might be a quick way of finding out who we’re dealing with and where they are.”

  “We could do this, Ms Dunlop, but not without bringin’ other people in, people neither of the Church nor of the temple,” he replied. “And anyway, it would take time, more time than we have.” He turned his head back to me. “No, we’ll hold on to these fellers. If someone tries to call them on their cell phones, we’ll just let them ring. Their boss will just have to wonder.”

  “Why not answer their phones?” she asked. “And pretend to be them? We might find out something useful.”

  “Not smart,” I said. “One slip of the tongue and they’d know these guys were history.”

  She thought about it for a few seconds and realised she was outnumbered, but that didn’t stop her flow. “Okay then, so how did they get in?” she asked.

  “We don’t know, ma’am,” Christopher replied.

  “You don’t know!”

  “We know which door they entered through, but we don’t know whether they had a key, or whether they just picked the lock.”

  “Or whether someone let them in,” Sue replied quietly, looking firstly at Christopher and then at Terrence.

  “All of our staff have been with us for many years, Mrs Dunlop,” Terrence replied, somewhat taken aback, his brow furrowed. “Some of them have been at the seminary even longer than Father Angelo. No, I’m almost certain that they picked the lock.”

  “What about Father Joseph?” I asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Did he have a key?”

  “No,” Terrence replied. “None of us carry keys to the seminary. The door to the front is always kept unlocked during the daytime, and is securely locked at night. There is a member of staff by the front door at all times. He unlocks the door for us if we return after nightfall.”

  “So, what about Father Joseph?” Sue said.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Dunlop?” Terrence replied, still smarting from her suggestion of an inside job. I suddenly saw what she was getting at.

  “Well, when these three characters fail to get back to that hotel,” I said. “And don’t answer their mobiles, won’t their boss start to worry? He’ll know that something’s gone wrong. He just won’t know what it is.”

  “What are you suggesting?” he asked.

  “Well,” I replied. “They might shift camp. Jackson Lee won’t know what’s happened to the men you’ve got locked up down below. He might think I told them where the chest is and they’ve gone off and taken it for themselves, but more than likely he’ll know we’ve caught them, and believe that they’ve told us where Joseph is being held. He’ll be thinking like a Chinese gangster. He’ll think we’ve forced the information out of them. They’ll get Joseph out of there, fast.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean,” he replied. “Well, if Joseph is at the hotel and they decide to take him somewhere else, the monks will be ready to follow.”

  “But what if they decide to murder him and leave him at the hotel?” Sue asked.

  “I don’t think they’ll do that, Mrs Dunlop. We are still in the same position that we were in yesterday. Things haven’t changed as far as they’re concerned; and we still aren’t certain that Father Joseph is in the hotel. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Just then Christopher’s mobile phone trilled. He put it to his ear and listened for half a minute without interrupting.

  “Yes, Father,” he said. “Of course, Father. That is good news Father.”

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “The monks have Father Joseph! You were right!”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “The monks?”

  “That was Father Angelo,” Christopher replied. “He just had a call from the monks positioned outside the hotel. A few minutes ago two of the gangsters came out of the hotel supportin’ a man who appeared to be drunk. They were takin’ him towards an automobile parked a little way along the street. The monks felt certain that it was Father Joseph because this drunken person was much taller than the men who were supportin’ him. They rushed the men, overpowered them and have taken them into custody at their temple. The automobile drove away before they could chase after it. They think that there was only one man inside.”

  “How is Joseph?” Sue asked.

  “He doesn’t appear to be injured, but he’s been drugged somehow.”

  “Drugged?” I said.

  “Yes,” he replied. “He’s quite incoherent. He’s got no control over his limbs.”

  “But is he okay otherwise?” Sue asked. “Have they hurt him in any way?”

  “I don’t believe so,” he replied. “The monks are bringin’ him here.”

  “Did any of the monks go into the hotel and see if any of the gang were still inside?” I asked.

  “Yes, but there was nobody in the two rooms that they’d been usin’.” He got up from the chair and started pacing around the room, the relief clearly showing in his face. “They’ve gathered up the men’s personal possessions and will bring them to us later. They’ve questioned the men, but learned nothin’ about Jackson Lee, or the other man who spoke to you on the telephone. It seems that these people took all their orders from one of the men we have in the storeroom, the man who was questionin’ Ben.”

  “So, how did they know to move Father Joseph?” Sue asked. “Someone must have called them.”

  “Maybe, but the monks say that those two fellers aren’t talkin’ at the moment. We might learn a bit more later this mornin’.” The indication was that the monks might be more forceful in their questioning of these two guys.

  The situation had improved considerably. Jackson Lee no longer had Father Joseph to hold over our heads, and we had somehow managed to overpower most of his men. Jackson Lee was still out there somewhere, as was his associate, and the driver of the car, who might have been Lee himself. The monks might have missed him by only seconds.

  “Do the monks know how many men were coming and going from the hotel?” I asked.

  “They believe there were six fellers,” Christopher replied. “Or, at least that’s what they told us earlier today.”

  “Did any of them have the appearance of a middle class Chinese?”

  �
�Why do you ask?”

  “I was wondering as to whether Jackson Lee or his associate might have been amongst the six.”

  “I shall ask the monks,” he replied, and speed-dialled a number on his phone. There was a short delay and he shot off a rapid spurt of Chinese.

  “No,” he said, closing the mobile and turning to us both. “All of the men they saw were from the lower strata of Chinese society. I do sincerely doubt as to whether any of them was Jackson Lee.”

  “So there were six gangsters at the hotel and we’ve taken care of five of them,” I said. “There’s the three in your storeroom. The monks have two, and the sixth one is presumably the guy who drove off in the car. But none of them are Jackson Lee, or the other guy, his partner, his backer, or whatever.” I got up off the side of the bed and started to pace about. “It’s going to take Lee time to organise more men. If we’ve got the man Lee and his partner were dealing with, then they’ve got to find another underboss, someone who can hire men to do Lee’s dirty work.” I stopped, turned to Christopher, and asked. “I wonder if they’re both here in Beijing, or whether Lee’s still in Hong Kong?”

  “I think they’re here,” Christopher replied. “One of the men the monks questioned said somethin’ about their boss meeting face to face with Jackson Lee and a businessman only yesterday.”

  “Did he see them together?” I asked.

  “I’ll find out,” he replied, speed-dialling his mobile again.

  Two minutes later we had the answer. It was only something he had heard.

  “Just a minute,” Sue said. “If the boss of these gangsters, the man who was questioning Ben, had a meeting with Jackson Lee and his partner, or whatever, then he should be able to tell us what Lee and his friend look like. He should be able to confirm whether they’re here, or in Hong Kong. Why can’t we question him? I’m certain a couple of your staff members could do it. How about the ones who rushed into our room to help? They hate his guts. They’d make him talk.”