by Ciaran Nagle
'OK,' Fatty Lo sighed. 'It can wait till you come out. We'll have dim sum then and talk. But no later, OK? I'm a patient man, everyone says that. But even I have my limits.'
'You're the big fella Fatty. You're the boss of bosses. I'm looking forward to it already. I'll bring Ah Mui and Sai Chen, they're my two prettiest. You'll like them. They'll make you happy.'
'You know what will make me happy, Monkey. Don't let me down'.
'I won't, Fatty. See you in a few weeks.'
Monkey's Office, San Po Kong
But as Monkey replaced the receiver in its cradle he picked up the golden paperweight that lay on top of a pile of $100HK notes on his desk and flung it at his electric fan. He scored a direct hit and the fan toppled over, its protective spokes crushed in on the fan blades which ceased their whirring.
His male secretary Chu rushed in. 'What happened boss?'
'Fatty Lo wants to take over Golden Horse,' declared Monkey miserably. 'Big Brother wants to be even bigger Brother. I won't sell out to him. He's not getting Golden Horse without a fight.' Monkey stared at the broken fan on the floor.
'We can't fight Brother, boss. There are twenty of them for every one of us.'
'It's about honour, Chu,' declared Monkey sternly. 'Have you learnt nothing from me in all these years? Some things are more important than money. More important than life itself.'
Chu regarded his master calmly but with a strong sense of foreboding. He was completely loyal to his boss and would lay down his life for him if necessary, as he had pledged to do when taking his bonds of oath. But taking on the might of Brother was a move that could have only one possible outcome. There could be trouble ahead, he thought. There could be a whole dragon's breath of trouble ahead.
Banjul Airport, Gambia
It was midnight as the outer right wing engine of the C-130 Hercules kicked into life sending a cloud of smoke into the empty scrubland behind it. The 'Flying Hippo' as one of her former pilots had named her, had logged over 40,000 flying hours since she was built in 1960 meaning that she had been in the air for a quarter of her life. But her current masters, a group of ex-Israeli servicemen turned privateers, were determined that she should continue with her aerial travails for a lot longer yet. Israel had many secret friends around the world that needed her cast-off weaponry and these ex-servicemen were happy to carry out the role of distributing her out of date hardware to wherever it was most wanted.
The inner right now fired throatily followed closely by both of those on the left side.
Banjul airport was almost completely dark, only a few lights in the control tower showed that the airport was still working. At this hour there would be few suspicious eyes about and that was the way that both the Gambian government and the Flying Hippo's owners wanted it.
Co-pilot Jimoh Bah decided to have a last smoke before prisoning himself once more in the cramped cell of the cockpit for the night. 'I'm going outside, Adima,' he said to the pilot. 'For a last puff. Want to join me?'
'No thanks,' replied pilot Adima Ceesay. 'I'll finish the pre-flight checks. But don't be long. We'll be leaving in a few minutes.'
As Jimoh stepped into the plane's hold, Adima called over his shoulder. 'Looks like the little white girl didn't make it.'
'No,' replied Jimoh. 'And even if she did manage to do whatever Lafi wanted from her, he wouldn't bother to bring her back here. He'd leave her to walk. And there are plenty of other bad guys who'd make short work of a foreign girl walking the roads by herself.'
'Well, nothing we can do about it,' agreed Adima. 'It's not our business. We'll just have to tell Ilan that Habib has lost another one.'
'It's a big shame,' called Jimoh. 'She was such a nice little girl. Polite too.'
The ramp was still lowered so Jimoh strode down it and wandered onto the tarmac. The engines were at idle and Jimoh loved to hear their rumbling growl, a mere whisper compared to the roar they would give out in just a few minutes time when the plane was straining against the brakes at the beginning of the runway and the throttles were opened.
Truth was, he was more than a tad disappointed that the little white girl hadn't showed up. He had seen she was afraid even though she'd covered it up with a lot of bravado.
Jimoh slowly turned 360 degrees, scanning the perimeter for any sign of movement. A couple of large stag beetles flew close. He blew a cloud of smoke at them and they turned and lumbered off, like insect versions of his own fat-bellied plane. He flicked his cigarette away. Then he walked back up the ramp, located the prominent 'Close' button in the side of the fuselage and pressed it. As the motor grinded and the ramp began to lift he flicked on his torch to light his way back through the hold, looking behind him as he went. The cavernous interior was entirely empty. Even a beetle couldn't hide in here. Not a profitable trip for the Flying Hippo's owners.
In the cabin Adima turned his head back and called out to him. 'We're clear for take-off, Jimoh. Let's be on our way so these control tower lightweights can get to their beds.' But as Jimoh entered the cabin he cried out like he'd seen his grandmother's ghost. Little white girl was sitting in his seat. Not only that, she was holding his coffee flask in one hand and drinking from his cup in the other.
She held it out to him. 'Would you like a sip?' she asked sweetly.
Nancy had slept soundly for nearly eight hours at Doreen's compound just a hundred yards from the centre of the village. When she woke, Doreen gave her some fish stew and rice with some fresh coconut water to wash it down.
'Thank you,' said Nancy 'I don't know the last time I ate. I'm so hungry and I feel like a washed-up rag doll. What do I look like?'
'Well I don't know how you normally look, Nancy,' smiled Doreen. 'But I'm guessing you proba'ly scrub up a lot better than you look right now.'
Doreen tenderly handed her a mirror and Nancy was shocked to see the wild hair, cracked lips and parched skin staring back at her. Her clothes had dried but they were straight off a scarecrow and wouldn't have made it to the shelves of a charity shop. She put on her feet some plastic sandals that Doreen gave her as a present.
'So tell me Nancy,' she began, now the pleasantries were over, 'who is - or rather was - that man and how did you get mixed up with him?'
'Oh him? Yes. What will happen to him, I mean his body, will the police..?'
'We take care of our own affairs,' said Doreen firmly. 'It's not like Bristol where I used to live. No sense in bothering the police here. They only get in the way. We can do our own justice.'
'Oh, right. Was there anything on the lorry?'
'No.' Doreen looked intently at Nancy. 'And if there had been something on the lorry, what might it have been?'
'Oh, nothing.' So Lafi had handed off the drugs before coming to look for her at the village. Street dealers all over Europe would be very happy about that.
'You were saying?' Doreen knew how to be persistent.
'Well...'
But as Nancy played for time and tried to think up a story about being abducted by Lafi while walking around Banjul as an ordinary tourist, she absent-mindedly picked up the mirror again. Only instead of her own face, the mirror showed a small letter 'd', as fine and neat as if made from cut glass, with bevelled edges and a rainbow-like prism of light around it.
'Oh,' gasped Nancy as she pulled her hands away and the mirror fell to the floor.
In the same moment, Doreen drew back in her chair as if Nancy was radio-active.
'My dear,' she said, her eyes wide in fear and her hands held up in front of her like a barrier. 'My dear, there's something going on with you that I haven't ever seen before.'
'What do you mean?' replied Nancy innocently, while trying not to think. 'R', 'e' and now 'd'.
'I mean that there's stuff, spiritual stuff around you that's intense. I've seen ghosts and other strange goings-on in my time but what's around you is much too big for me to meddle with. I don't know what you're about, my dear, but I think you best be on your way as soon as you can.'
Red.<
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And with that, Doreen sent a messenger to summon Happy Face and Jonah to come to the compound. When they arrived they seemed a little disappointed to hear that Nancy was leaving them so soon.
'Take miss Nancy to Banjul, anywhere she wants to go, in the market van,' ordered Doreen. 'You two brought her to the village so it's appropriate that you two see her safely away from the village. Understand?'
The two fishermen regained their smiles. 'I'll take you anywhere you want to go,' laughed Happy Face to Nancy. 'So long as you promise not to go swimming in the sea again.'
Nancy laughed, relieved that there were no hard feelings. 'Are you going to keep the lorry?' she asked of Doreen.
'No, we don't need it,' replied Doreen. 'We'll probably sell it and use the money to buy packaging equipment. For the fish. We can sell more fish if they're properly wrapped and labelled.'
The moment had arrived. Nancy made a tearful good-bye with Doreen who, although keen for her to continue on her journey, had also become a little mumsy.
'You take care, you hear,' encouraged Doreen. 'You've got a strength about you like a tree in a storm. Stay true to your roots and you'll be all right.'
Red. Red flag? Red squirrel? Red bus?
'Thanks Doreen, I'll always remember you,' said Nancy who kissed her on the cheek and followed the two men out into the night.
Heaven's Shore
'Red. It could be anything. But it's starting to look like this adventure is taking Nancy to Hong Kong. I know we've said it before but we need to stop just following events and get ourselves ahead of this game.'.
Jabez was hosting the meeting and the other three were present on his shingle beach by way of their globes. This time Jabez insisted they make themselves comfortable rather than roughing it with him. So Ruth was curled in her feather air chair, Agatha lay in a softcane swing seat and Luke sat cross-legged on a vast leather armchair the size of a small room.
'African proportions,' he said with a cheeky grin. 'It's a cultural thing. You wouldn't understand.'
They didn't try to.
Jabez retained his rock saying that anything else would disturb the ambience of his environment. He was doing his best to look relaxed but the others could see he was tense.
Ruth had volunteered to provide the refreshments however and decided to introduce the team to a new range of drinks.
'Got sump'n special for y'all,' she declared with a smile as wide as a cotton field. 'Take 'em out and fill 'em up.'
Each one opened a container she'd sent over and took out a tall crystal glass. A second container produced a jug of elderflower and ginger cordial while a third disgorged thin coconut cookies.
'The fourth container is the one that makes it all come together.'
Jabez was first. The door of the tiny freezer container, barely the size of his fist, opened and jettisoned several ice cubes into his glass. As the cubes melted, they freed up little peppercorn-sized butterflies that leapt into the air and hovered above his drink for several seconds, flapping their wings before disappearing in a puff of mist. Soon the space above everyone's glass was filled with dozens of these diminutive fliers, spinning dizzily and vaporising in front of their eyes.
'Who made those Ruth? They're so beautiful.' asked a delighted Agatha.
'My friend Valentine makes them over at his ranch in Eternal Springs,' replied Ruth with a hint of pride. 'The water there has a unique chemistry that allows a short bio simulation. He makes all kinds of butterflies and miniature birds out of the minerals in the water and then chills them into ice. While they're frozen he calls them 'still life'. Course, they're not really living, they're just crystals with miniature heat-exchangers in their joints. The crystals absorb the ambient warmth of the passing air at different rates and that causes the wings to flap and rotate.'
Silence reigned for a few moments to the accompaniment of several faint drumbeats of Music.
'I liked them better before you told me that,' declared Luke.
'Oh, I'm sorry y'all. I just done and took the romance out of the whole thing. Tush, what a thing to do,' laughed Ruth stirring her drink. The last of her butterflies leapt from her glass, took flight upwards in a lazy spiral and abruptly evanesced in a vapour rainbow.
Jabez stirred his drink to allow several butterflies to escape together. As they rose from his glass he opened his mouth and gulped them in. 'It's better than sparkling wine,' he exclaimed.
Soon they were all trying to capture the insect sparklers in their mouths and the air was thick with exclamations and hoots.
Finally Jabez called a halt.
'This is great but it's not getting the children to school.' He was still laughing as he put down his glass. 'At least I feel less anxious than I did before. Laughter is a great way to begin a meeting. I have a feeling we're going to be more productive than we otherwise would have been. Well done Ruth. Thanks to your friend Valentine. Tell him he's got a great product line.'
He looked around the shore at the others who saw that his face was still holding onto his smile. 'Right, let's get started on our strategy. But first, has anyone got any questions?'
Agatha put her hand in the air. 'I have.'
'Fire away, Aggy.'
'Remind me, Jabez, how we got to Hong Kong,' said Agatha, brushing coconut crumbs from her knees. 'Because the last we saw, Nancy was in West Africa by way of Israel but lives in England.'
Jabez bedded his cordial glass into the sand at his feet. 'OK, quick recap. Ruth discovered that Nancy comes from a Russian Jewish line but her great great grandmother was Chinese. That ancestor, Mya Ling, was a member of a triad society. The other side tried to erase visibility of her membership of that organisation by covering up her triad tattoo when she was on the Manchur. It's as though they didn't want us seeing the triad connection and following the logical trail to Hong Kong.'
'Or else,' put in Luke, 'very cleverly teased us in order to make us think it was important so we would waste time on a dead end.'
'That's possible,' admitted Jabez, 'and we'll have to watch out in case it's a false trail. But it was very subtly done. Too subtle, in my view, to have been a deliberate ruse to send us in the wrong direction.'
'Probably right. I don't disagree,' concurred Luke.
'Also,' continued Jabez, 'Brother is based in Hong Kong. If Inferno has big plans for Nancy, doesn't it make sense they'll bring her there sooner or later?'
'I agree, it's possible that it's a false flag,' added Ruth. 'But right now it looks the most obvious next step for Nancy if they're going to continue her education. We'd be crazy not to prepare for it.'
'OK, that's fine by me,' agreed Agatha. 'I just wanted to check.'
Ruth looked at Jabez sitting on his uncomfortable rock, his empty glass at his feet. 'You mentioned that you might have to get close to the enemy at some point, Jabez.'
'That's right.'
'I just may be able to help you with some risk management solutions. It's some technology that might help you keep out of trouble.'
'You have the floor Ruth,' invited Jabez.
'Well, while I was working on exposing the Skajj defection as a fraud, I encountered some angels working on an exciting project in the Ninth. It's a lightship that can't be seen by demons. It creates barely a ripple in Fourth Dimension spacetime. You could be inside this craft and be right next to a satyr and he won't know you're there. If you're going to have to do as much interference on Earth as I think y'all are, the lightship will help you stay hidden. Plus, it's real comfortable. What do you say I take you to meet my friends Chan and Jo and see if they'll let y'all play with their new toy?'
'Ruth that sounds amazing, I'd love to see the lightship. And meet Chan and Jo. Thank you.'
'No problem, amigo.'
'Well, that's a step in the right direction,' continued Jabez. 'But we still need to find a way that we can start to influence Nancy in our direction. The enemy has this 'red' business and whatever they plan to follow that with. We've followed her thought
waves and they've already got her thinking about what it might mean. That means that they're gaining traction on her mind. We need to counter their evil, downward strategy with a positive, healthy one that will lead her upwards to freedom and victory.'
'Actually, I've been thinking along those lines already.' Agatha.
'You have?' asked Jabez gratefully. 'What have you got Agatha?'
'Well,' began Agatha coyly. 'I was thinking about the murky world of Hong Kong criminal triads. And I was wondering what kind of people triad members encounter in their daily lives. And it struck me that we have a friend in place who could be a most valuable asset.'
They all nodded, knowing that by 'friend' Agatha meant a mortal who was destined eventually to arrive in Paradise.
'We might be able to arrange that this 'friend' I'm thinking of could meet Nancy in Hong Kong. We'd have to think carefully how we could engineer such a meeting. But, if it could be done, he could give Nancy a message that will block the 'Red' code they're trying to infect her with.'
Agatha paused to see if the others were on her wavelength.
'Go on,' encouraged Jabez. 'This is interesting. But tell us more. What is this message that you're thinking of.'
'It's a message that all of us here know very well.' Jabez noticed that a delicate smile was playing on Agatha's mouth. She was quietly confident about what she was about to say.
'But the thing is, we don't just tell her the message,' Agatha went on. 'That won't work at all. We have to build it up. We have to get her intrigued so that when it's finally explained to her, she's desperate to hear it.'
Luke was leaning forward, almost falling out of his oversized seat. 'And…how do we do that? How do we build it up?'
'Easy,' said Agatha, now smiling like a Cheshire cat. 'We do what the other side are doing. We give her a mystery. We give her a mind game that she's impatient to solve. We give her a riddle that she wants to understand. But we take our time over giving her the solution. Then when she does finally get the answer, it will mean so much more than if we told her straight out.'
