by Robin Cook
Before he entered the Mandarin Hotel, he took advantage of his reflection in a store window to straighten his clothes and comb his hair. Once he felt he looked presentable, he went into the lobby. Downstairs, in a room just outside the men’s room, he found a bank of telephones affording some privacy. Taking a deep breath, he rang Charles Lester.
“The Blumenthal woman is here,” Willy said as soon as he had Lester on the phone.
“I know,” Lester said. “Ned found out through emigration. She took a flight from Brisbane.”
“I tried to have a conference with the interested parties a few minutes ago,” Willy said, using their established patois in case they were overheard. “But things went badly. I failed. The Williams fellow was uncooperative and actively canceled the meeting before I could use my material.”
Willy held the phone away from his ear as a string of Australian expletives sizzled over the line. Once he heard Lester revert to a more normal pitch, he put the phone back to his ear.
“The situation keeps getting worse and worse,” Lester complained.
“It will be much harder to have a conference now,” Willy admitted. “Everyone will expect us. But if you would like, I’ll do my best to arrange another meeting.”
“No!” Lester said. “I’ll have Ned come and have the meeting. He has more practice. All I want you to do is make sure that these customers don’t get away. Watch the hotel. If they change hotels, follow them. It would only exacerbate the problem if we lose contact with the Blumenthal woman in Hong Kong.”
“I also lost the material I was going to show them,” Willy said. “It was left at the conference site.”
“Then you’ll have to get some more,” Lester said. “Was what you had adequate?”
“It was perfect,” Willy said. “Absolutely perfect.”
The Royal Hong Kong police inspector was what Tristan called a “bloody pom” when he described him to Marissa later on. He even looked British with his gray skin tones and his baggy English suit, complete with a vest and fob. He and Tristan were sitting in the manager’s office of the Peninsula Hotel.
“Let us go over this again,” the inspector said in his clipped English accent. “You’d just handed over your safe deposit key when you became aware of this gentleman of Oriental appearance approaching you.”
“That’s right, mate,” Tristan said. He knew his jocular Australian phraseology would grate on the inspector’s nerves. It was purposeful torture. The police inspector had been grating on him for almost two hours.
Tristan tried to be patient. He knew that the reason the inspector was making a fuss over the incident was because the police didn’t like to have trouble in an area so crucial to tourism, particularly tourism in a place as posh as the Peninsula Hotel.
“ . . . At that point you turned around and saw the man coming at you,” the inspector continued.
“That’s right,” Tristan said. It was the twentieth time they’d gone over this.
“How did you know he was approaching you rather than someone else?” the inspector asked.
“He was looking directly at me,” Tristan said. “Giving me the evil eye.” Tristan glowered at the inspector in mock imitation.
“Yes, of course,” the inspector said. “But you had never seen this man before?”
“Never!” Tristan said with emphasis. He knew this was the point of particular interest to the police. But Tristan had not been willing to divulge that it had been Marissa who had recognized the man. As long as the police failed to question Marissa, they’d never find out. Tristan didn’t want to admit to everything he knew, fearing that if he did so, the meeting with the Wing Sin the following morning would be compromised.
Finally, after two hours, the inspector gave up, but he concluded by saying that he might want to question Tristan further and that Tristan should stay in Hong Kong until further notice. Immediately upon his release Tristan went to the house phone and called Marissa.
“I’m free at last,” he said. “Let’s celebrate by going out and replacing our watches!”
They went back to the same jewelry store where they’d gotten the first replacements. The second time around, Tristan insisted on an even better deal than before. After a brief protest, the clerk obliged.
Returning to their rooms, they locked themselves in. They decided to stay in for the remainder of the day. Not having eaten since breakfast, the first thing they did was order food.
While they waited for room service they sat by the window in front of the spectacular view.
“Hong Kong’s beauty reminds me of the Great Barrier Reef,” Marissa said, gazing out the window. “Its splendor masks its violent eat-or-be-eaten core.”
Tristan nodded. “As the man in the white suit said, everything is for sale. Everything!”
“Do you think he’ll still show?” Marissa asked. “I wonder if the Wing Sin will learn of your two hours with the police?”
“I don’t know,” Tristan said. “But you can bet that episode in the lobby will make the newspapers. So he’ll read about it and at least we’ll have an excuse.”
Marissa sighed. “What an experience Hong Kong has been. I know you warned me, but I could never have imagined what we’ve had to go through. I’m a nervous wreck. I’m afraid to leave the hotel. Heck, I’m afraid to go down to the lobby. Just getting these new watches was an ordeal. I kept expecting something dreadful to happen.”
“I know how you feel,” Tristan said. “Remember, we can always just leave. We don’t have to see this through.”
“I suppose we could,” Marissa said halfheartedly.
For a few minutes Marissa and Tristan watched the harbor in silence.
“I think I want to keep going,” Marissa said at last. She straightened up in her seat. “As much as all this terrifies me, I can’t give up, not now. I’d never be able to live with myself. I can’t help but feel we’re close to figuring it all out. Besides, every time I close my eyes, I see Wendy.”
“And I see my wife,” Tristan said. “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but being with you reminds me of her. Please don’t take offense; I’m not making conscious comparisons. It’s not that you look like her or even act like her. It’s something else, something about the way you make me feel.” Tristan surprised himself. It wasn’t like him to be so up front about how he was feeling.
Marissa gazed into Tristan’s blue eyes. She could only imagine the anguish the man must have suffered when his wife died. “I won’t take offense,” she said. “In fact, I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one,” Tristan said. Then he smiled self-consciously and looked away toward the door. “Where the devil is that food? I’m famished.”
During their meal, they remembered Freddie, the limo driver. They wondered what had happened to him. They hoped he was all right. They couldn’t believe that he was complicit in their kidnapping, but then again, in Hong Kong everything had its price.
“Talking about Freddie reminds me,” Tristan said. “If we’re going to persist in this, I think we should hire another car and get a driver who could double as a bodyguard.”
“And who speaks Cantonese,” Marissa added. “There’ve already been several times when that would have been helpful.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll let us ride in the trunk,” Tristan teased.
Marissa smiled. How Tristan could keep his sense of humor through all this was beyond her.
After they finished their meal, they pushed the table aside and returned to the chairs by the window. Marissa sipped the remains of her wine while Tristan enjoyed another can of Foster’s Lager the hotel had managed to find for him.
Marissa’s thoughts had drifted back to the incident in the lobby. “If that Chinese man downstairs was the same one who threw the chum in the water back in Australia, then he must be in the employ of Female Care Australia.”
“That’s what I assumed,” Tristan said.
“They must really want us
out of the way. They must be desperate, especially to try to shoot us in public like that. With Wendy they went to great pains to make it look like an accident.”
“The irony is they must think we know more than we do,” Tristan said. “If I were they and I knew how little we know, I wouldn’t bother with us.”
“Maybe they’re not as afraid of what we know as what we could find out,” Marissa sighed. “I wonder how he tracked us down.”
“That’s another good question,” Tristan said.
“Maybe we should change hotels.”
“I don’t think it would make much difference,” Tristan said. “This city seems to have an information underground. Take the proprietor of that tea shop, for instance; obviously he let the Wing Sin know we were there. I bet that if we change hotels, it wouldn’t remain a secret, not for long. At least here the security people are on the alert and will recognize the fellow who tried to attack us if he tries to come back.”
“And we’ll have to be very careful,” Marissa said, “especially tomorrow morning when we rendezvous with the man in the white suit.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Tristan said. “I think we can assume that his loyalty will lie with whoever pays him the most squeeze. We might have to take more than the agreed-upon ten thousand Hong Kong.”
“Can you afford this, Tris?” Marissa asked. Tristan laughed. “It’s only money,” he said.
15
April 19, 1990
8:47 A.M.
Dressed in his Sunday best and carrying a bouquet of flowers, Ned Kelly walked along Salisbury Road taking in the sights. He’d been to Hong Kong on a number of occasions. As always, he enjoyed the colorful scenery. He’d gotten in late the night before and had stayed at the Regent Hotel, thanks to Charles Lester. Ned had never stayed in such luxurious accommodations. His only regret was that he’d arrived so late, he’d not been able to take advantage of any of the sizzling nightlife the Tsim Sha Tsui had to offer.
As he approached the Peninsula Hotel, he began to look in the parked cars for Willy Tong. That had been the instructions. He found him sitting in a green Nissan Stanza parked in front of the Space Museum directly across from the hotel. Ned opened the passenger door and slid in on the front seat.
“You look smashing, mate,” Willy said. “The flowers for me?”
“I do look good, don’t I?” Ned said, pleased with his Harris tweed jacket, gabardine slacks, and brown loafers. He laid the flowers on the backseat. “What’s the lay of the land?”
“It’s been quiet since the uproar I caused,” Willy said. “I don’t know what could have happened. It was a perfect setup. The lobby was crowded just the way you told me was best. I was no more than two or three paces away from Williams when he whirled and attacked me!”
“Bad luck!” Ned said. “Was the woman there?”
“Of course,” Willy said. “She was standing right next to him. In another ten seconds I’d have shot both of them.”
“Maybe she recognized you from the boat,” Ned said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. They still in the hotel?”
“Yes,” Willy said. “I’ve been here most of the night. I tried calling again and was immediately put through. They haven’t moved.”
“That’s nice,” Ned said. “What about the gun?”
“I got it,” Willy said. He leaned in front of Ned and snapped open the glove compartment. He took a handgun out and handed it buttfirst to Ned.
Ned whistled. “A Heckler and Koch!” he said. “My, my, this is first class. What about the silencer?”
Willy reached back into the glove compartment and handed Ned a small rectangular box. Ned opened the box and unwrapped the silencer.
“There’s something nice about using new equipment,” Ned said. “One thing about FCA. They go first class on everything.” Ned screwed the silencer into the pistol. It lengthened the barrel by a third. Then he snapped out the magazine and checked the shells. After making sure the chamber was empty, Ned cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. It had a nice, full-bodied click. “Perfect,” he said.
Replacing the clip and ramming it home, Ned cocked the pistol. It was ready for action.
Twisting in his seat, he eyed Willy. “This is not going to take long. I want you to pull the car over there in front of the hotel and have the engine running. Give me about five minutes before you come over, understand?”
“Righto,” Willy said eagerly.
“I’m off,” Ned said. He moved forward on the seat and slipped the gun into his belt at the small of his back. Reaching into the backseat, he lifted the bouquet. Then he got out of the car. Hesitating before he crossed the road, he leaned into the car through the open window.
“I haven’t seen this Williams fellow for several years,” Ned said. “Will I recognize him?”
“I think so,” Willy said. “He’s about your height, sandy blond hair, angular features. Looks more like a stockman than an MD.”
“Got it,” Ned said. He was about to leave when Willy caught his attention.
“You won’t have any trouble recognizing the woman, will you?” Willy asked.
“Especially not if she’s in her bathers,” Ned said with a wink.
Ned dodged the traffic on Salisbury Road, mindful of the gun tucked in his belt. He didn’t want to dislodge it.
At the Peninsula, the doorman opened the door for him, and he entered the lobby.
At that time of the morning, the lobby was relatively busy with international travelers checking in or checking out. Luggage was piled in heaps near the bellman’s desk, where the bell captain was struggling to keep order. It was to the bellman’s desk that Ned walked.
Ned singled out one of the younger bellboys and approached him as he was piling bags onto a bellman’s trolley. Kelly had learned a smattering of Cantonese through his dealings with the Chinese over the years. In Cantonese he asked the young man for a favor. The boy seemed surprised to be addressed by a gweilo in his native tongue.
Ned slipped the boy a thousand dollars Hong Kong, more than many months’ wages. The boy’s eyes widened.
“Some friends are staying here,” Ned said. “I want to know their room so that I can surprise them. But I don’t want them to know. Understand?”
The boy nodded, then flashed a broad smile.
“The names are Williams and Blumenthal. I don’t know if they have separate rooms or a single.”
The bellboy nodded again and dashed over to the bell captain’s desk. Peering past the captain, who was busy on the phone, the bellboy perused the master guest list. In a flash he returned. Ned had lighted up a cigarette in the interim.
“Pleased to say that it is 604 and 606,” the bellboy said with another smile and multiple bows. Ned reached out and stopped him from making a scene. Ned thanked him and walked over to the newsstand. While he leafed through the latest Time magazine with the flowers tucked under his arm, he kept his eye on the bell desk to make sure his dealings with the bellboy didn’t arouse any suspicions. But they hadn’t. The ecstatic bellboy had gone back to loading his cart as if nothing had happened.
Ned replaced the magazine. He switched the flowers to his right hand. With an expert eye, he picked out the hotel security people in the lobby. There were two, but neither one had particularly noticed him.
Walking directly to the elevators, Ned pushed the Up button. Things were going smoothly. So far he was pleased. He anticipated giving Lester a call in about fifteen minutes. He was looking forward to the substantial bonus Lester had promised him for a job well done.
By the time the elevator doors opened on the sixth floor, Ned’s pulse was racing. Despite his conscious attempts to keep himself calm, when he got this close to action, he got tense.
Familiar with the customs of Hong Kong luxury hotels, Ned waited by the elevator once he was on the sixth floor. He gave the hall porter a chance to approach from his cubicle. Ned smiled broadly. “Hello, friend,” he said in Cantonese.
The hall porter was an
elderly Chinese. He smiled weakly, confused as to who this man could be. He wasn’t expecting any new guests that morning.
“I have a present for you,” Ned said. He handed the man a thousand dollars Hong Kong.
The man’s toothless jaw dropped.
Ned smiled again. “I need you to help me for a moment,” he said. “I want you to open my sister’s door. 604. It’s her birthday.”
Slipping the bills into his pocket, the hall porter led Ned down the corridor to 604 with a shuffling gait. He was about to knock, but Ned grabbed his arm before his fist hit the door.
“No,” Ned said. “It’s a surprise.”
The porter nodded, then fished in his pocket for his keys. Selecting the proper one, he slipped it into the lock.
As the porter pushed in the key, Ned glanced up and down the corridor. Then he reached behind his back and extracted the long-barreled gun.
The door opened a crack. The porter started to step aside, but Ned put his hands on the man’s back and shoved him forward with as much force as he could muster. The porter’s body collided with the partially open door, pushing it open with a bang. The porter sprawled head first on the carpet inside the room.
Instantly, Ned leaped into the room. He dropped the flowers and held the Heckler and Koch in both hands, elbows locked. His quarry was sitting on the bed with light from the window backlighting his sandy blond hair.
From Ned’s position, looking down the sights of his automatic pistol, Tristan Williams looked confused as he sprang to his feet. Ned shot him twice in the forehead, just above the eyes. The gun made only a spitting noise. Tristan went backward over the bed. It was easy as pie.
Wheeling around, Ned looked for the Blumenthal woman. She wasn’t in the room. Then he noticed the open connecting door. From within, he could hear the sound of water running.
Ned turned and silently closed the door to the hall. Then he pointed the gun at the hall porter, who was frozen with fear on the middle of the carpet. Ned motioned with the gun for the man to move toward the closet.
