Dragonfire

by Ted Bell

  When they’d reached the end of the headland, she veered left, onto a narrow lane that dropped off steeply with thick jungle crowding in on both sides. Hawke caught a glimpse of water, a secluded bay through the trees ahead. But before they reached the beach, China spun the wheel right and sped through open wrought iron gates that had seen better days.

  A moment later, he got his first glimpse of the house, a rather grand white affair perched atop a hilltop that had been cleared of jungle to accommodate it. It was what Hawke liked to call another “faded glory.” Quite old, probably late eighteenth century, classic, and really rather stately. It was the work of a gifted architect from the late British Colonial period: a wraparound porch on the second floor that would provide shade from the sun and great views of sunsets over the bay below, French windows on the ground floor, and stately white columns framing the front door.

  Faded pink garden walls surrounded the sloping green lawns and opened into a small private garden at the rear with a swimming pool. The pool ran the full length of a higher wall thickly covered in ivy. Not a breath of air back here, just the warm velvet touch of evening, the night filled with the blooming scents of Caribbean flowers. Bougainville, Barbados lilies, orchids, and claw crab. A chorus of cicadas was sawing away, celebrating a darkness punctuated only by a slim sliver of silver moonlight.

  “Pol Roger all right with you?” she said, going behind a splendid old bar made of Bermuda cedar.

  “Only if you’re having one.”

  “Mais oui, monsieur.”

  “Il n’y a pas de quoi. Une pour moi.”

  China, giggling, replied, “You still remember how we used to speak French in restaurants, darling? I mean, when you were telling me all your deepest secrets, eh, mon ami?”

  “I do. I hope I never told you all my secrets.”

  “And God knows you’ve got enough of them.”

  She had put a record on an old RCA Victrola player—something you never see anymore, more’s the pity. The Édith Piaf album Chansons Parisiennes filled the room with soft piano and that unmistakable smoky voice singing “La Vie en Rose.” Then China disappeared into the kitchen, and Hawke was left alone to explore the room. The furniture was English, probably Georgian, as in old, but still comfortable.

  There was colorful eclectic art on the walls, and prints of Matisse, Manet, Monet, and Picasso. On another wall, prints of lovely paintings by the American Impressionists Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. The place had been carefully furnished with the feminine touch. The choice of a pale white paint on the walls, paint that turned a rosy pink when sunlight filled the room the way it did during the late afternoon and early evenings in Paris flats. Also, ornate gilded mirrors and thick Turkish carpets that he’d helped her choose from a rug merchant in Bodrum.

  She was back, an open bottle of champagne and two glasses in her hands.

  Hawke took a glass, brimming with Pol Roger, raised it to her, and said, “As my late grandfather, Admiral Hawke, used to say, ‘I admire the catholicity of your art collection.’”

  “Hardly Catholic, dear. We’re all Buddhists under this roof, darling, dogs and servants included. My brilliant housekeeper, Priscilla, even made up a name for my art. She called it Impressionism, meaning it gives one the impression of a scene. An impression that is the result of color forces coming into contact with the retina. If you follow my logic.”

  “I do. I respect it.”

  “Yet, I distinctly heard you say the word ‘catholicity,’ Alex. Nothing at all to do with the Holy See in Rome.”

  “Yes, I did use that word. Nothing at all to do with the church. It means a collection of someone driven by various tastes and sensibilities. That’s all.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Your house is lovely. China by Limoges. Exquisite even. The Buccellati silver service is an opulent work of artisanal brilliance. Thank you for sharing it with me tonight. It’s a far cry from the demented opulence of Dragonfire Club. I much prefer this, to be honest. Why did you buy it?”

  “So I can hide from the world. Including this one.”

  “You? Hiding? I can’t imagine you hiding from anything.”

  “I’m going to serve dinner. I want you to set the table, the one in the rear garden by the pool.”

  She poured herself another glass of bubbly and returned to the kitchen.

  And so they had dinner in the garden with the illuminated swimming pool shimmering behind them and the ice-cold stars crowding the night sky. There was a silence between them, not altogether uncomfortable. Even the cicadas had finally decided that enough was enough.

  Hawke saw plainly that it was inevitable that they should become lovers once again. But perhaps he had confused the situation, something he might well come to regret. Putting it bluntly, it was still quite possible that she was his enemy. Perhaps even his deadly enemy. He decided to stay silent. He still needed information from her. He had decided to see this thing through to the bitter end.

  As if intuiting his thoughts, she locked eyes with him and said, emotionless, “Do you still want more information, Alex? Do you even believe a word I say?”

  “I enjoy hearing more about you. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to simply sit and talk to each other.”

  “What do you want to know, Alex? My God! Was I responsible for the disappearance of the prince? No. Do I know what actually happened to him? Why should I tell you if I do? You know nothing about my life now, and unless it’s connected to your work, you couldn’t care less.”

  “You’re wrong on both counts. If we’re both on the same side, it seems crazy to have secrets from each other.”

  “Tell me a secret, then,” China said. “Now. Right now.”

  “Only if you swear to reciprocate in kind.”

  “I swear.”

  “China, I’ve seen things here at Dragonfire Club. Things that go far beyond the possible kidnapping of the Queen’s grandson. I think this bloody island is just the tropical tip of an iceberg of a massive criminal international enterprise, based in China, whose tentacles reach all the way around the world and back.”

  Her eyes snapped into focus, and he knew he’d piqued her curiosity. Easy as she goes, he said to himself, protective barriers going up. Dangerous waters ahead.

  “Things? Such as?” she asked.

  “Dangerous things. Things that, if they should ever get out, could result in global destabilization or even world war.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “Quite,” Hawke said, and raised his flute of champagne to her.

  CHAPTER 56

  Dragonfire Club, the Bahamas

  Present Day

  So, for fun, tell me, just how big is the Tangs’ security force, including all the peripheral islands?”

  “I’d say very significant. Extremely well trained and heavily armed with the very latest weapon technology. Don’t get anywhere near these guys, Alex. They take no prisoners. Trust me.”

  “I see. Last thing: What is Zhang’s true role in this operation? Is she a coequal partner with the Tang twins? Does she really run the joint? Is she playing me? Does she have any idea what I do for a living?”

  China laughed out loud. “Alex, please! Tell me you’re kidding! Of course she knows! They don’t let anybody set foot in this place until they’ve been vetted, as you used to say, six ways from Sunday. What does she do here? I’ll tell you since you asked. She’s a whoremonger. A bloody pimp! On an international scale, of course.”

  “Tell me.”

  “She’s a human slave trader, on an epic scale. She holds slave auctions, televised live once a month on the dark web. The women are paraded out naked and interviewed live on camera. Zhang is the auctioneer. Then the women are auctioned off to the highest bidders. You have to pay a huge membership fee to even access the website. The men who know abo
ut this are sheikhs and swindlers, titans of industry, dukes and earls, captains and kings, movie stars and billionaires, Silicon Valley wonder boys and CEOs of Fortune Five Hundred companies. You remember Jeffrey Epstein, Alex?”

  “Who could forget him?”

  “Big Jeff was tight with the Tangs, very tight. Had a piece of the action. When he wasn’t banging cheerleaders and babysitters on Pedophile Island, his private island in the Caribbean, he was right here at Dragonfire Club, helping Zhang with the auctions.”

  “How do the women get here?”

  “Zhang and the Tangs have scouts who deal in human flesh all over the world. Mostly Russia and Eastern Europe, but everywhere. India, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, South America, you name it. Loaded aboard freighters in foreign ports in darkness and stowed down below in the bowels of the ships for the duration of the voyage. Not much water and a minimum of food and medicine. A lot of those poor women don’t survive those hellish voyages. Can you even imagine the scandal, the worldwide public outrage lavished on China if all this ever leaked? It would take Beijing decades to recover!”

  “No wonder MSS sent you here. This powder keg is just a nightmare waiting to erupt. One that must be keeping President Irby’s pal Xi Jinping awake at night.”

  “Now you’re starting to get it. You ever hear of Ellis Island, Your Lordship? I doubt it.”

  “It was the island in New York Harbor where, between the year eighteen ninety-two and nineteen fifty-four, all the masses of foreign immigrants were processed and interrogated. Either judged disease free and admitted or sent back.”

  “And?”

  “Are you listening to me? Dragonfire Club is the Ellis Island of the twenty-first century, Alex! The women arrive by the boatload at Nassau Harbor every month, unloaded out onto the docks in the dark of night, and bused in vehicles with blacked-out windows to a remote hangar complex located farther inland. There they are processed and interrogated by Zhang and surrogate representatives of Dragonfire Club, LLC. All under the watchful eye of that filthy rich bitch girlfriend of yours.”

  Hawke said, “Look here, China, pay attention. She’s hardly my girlfriend. And besides, I thought you two kissed and made up the other night.”

  “Look. She’s bad news right down to the bone. I’m just waiting for her to fuck up royally so that I can take that fat ass of hers off the chessboard. The Tangs, for all their money and power, are not beyond the reach of the MSS, the Chinese government’s secret intelligence network. People like me, for instance.

  “Alex, if the Tang brothers didn’t pour billions into the Beijing government’s coffers every year? Believe me, the whole Tang family would end up in reeducation camps somewhere in Western China, maybe even land appropriated from the Russians in southern Siberia.”

  Hawke looked at her and said, “You know why I’m here, China. So, tell me, why are you here?”

  “I’m a paid agent of the Chinese government, MSS. Wherever in the world China has an interest, there go I. I buy houses in these places to secure my personal comfort.”

  “What’s their interest here in the Bahamas?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “No secrets, remember?”

  “Give me a cigarette,” she said. Hawke did, then lit it for her with his old steel-case Zippo.

  “Thanks. All right, here you go. Xi Jinping and the government of the People’s Republic of China grow weary of the criminal excesses of the Tang Dynasty, at home and abroad. At a time when China is trying to facilitate better trade relationships and political partnerships with the West, the United States, the Tangs continue to give China a black eye everywhere they go. Enough is enough. Should they fall—and they will—I am being groomed to take over the entire enterprise. Clean it up. Take it legit. It will make me my fortune. Happy now?”

  “And the twins? When are they coming back?”

  “They’re not coming back anytime soon, I can tell you that. They’ve already been— Shall we say, detained?”

  “Does Zhang know all this?” Hawke said, lifting his wineglass and swirling the honey-colored liquid in the palm of his hand. Puligny-Montrachet was one of the few wines that could trace its origins back to Roman times, and he drank it as much for its age and antiquity as for its taste.

  “Good?” China asked.

  “Quintessentially delicious. Thanks for remembering.”

  “To answer your question, no, Zhang does not know. But she will when I tell her.”

  “My God, what have I stumbled into here?”

  “A horde of fire-breathing dragons, my boy. Careful you don’t get burned!

  “Do you burn, China?”

  “Yes. But only in your bed, my darling man.”

  Hawke paused to light another cigarette and gather his thoughts. He felt that she was being at least somewhat honest with him. And he was tempted to ask about the submarine pen. And the POW camp. But he instinctively held back from going there. If he opened that giant can of worms, it could quickly spiral out of control before the United States could confirm what he’d given to Brick. And there could easily be hell to pay on a worldwide scale.

  An international crisis, to be sure. Battle of the Titans, Heavyweight Division. America versus China. A bare-knuckle fight that could escalate far beyond the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The world had trembled on the brink of all-out nuclear war with Soviet ships carrying more missiles headed straight into the teeth of the United States naval blockade.

  When President Alton Irby and CIA chief Brickhouse Kelly got wind of a secret Chinese nuclear submarine pen located just hours off the coast of Florida, all-out war with China was a distinct possibility, should China refuse to back down and accede to America’s demand that they get those three subs out of America’s hemisphere. And the equally disturbing news of a reeducation camp for Chinese dissidents, undesirables, and political enemies? Worldwide rage at China’s human-rights violations would go through the roof. In short, Hawke had somehow managed to suddenly find himself in a dire situation way over his head with no obvious way of getting out of it!

  It was plainly time for him to keep his head down, to keep his mouth shut, and to follow Brick’s instructions. Namely to find the prince within three days, free him, and get the hell out of town. Hand this mess off to the Yanks. Aside from the Tangs’ kidnapping the prince, Britain clearly had no dog in this fight.

  If Hawke were President Irby, he’d have the U.S. Navy sail the world’s most technically advanced attack submarine, the USS South Dakota, right into the maw of Dragonfire Club and kick the vile Tang Corporation and the Chinese gangsters the hell out of America’s backyard.

  And while he was at it, he’d get COMPACFLT—the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet—to issue orders that a U.S. carrier battle group from the Pacific Fleet would sail directly into the heart of the South China Sea and form an impenetrable naval blockade located the exact same distance from the Chinese coast as their secret sub pen was located from the coast of Florida.

  Then he’d go home to England, fly away to that sceptered isle, home to his beloved Cotswolds family estate at Hawkesmoor, and thereupon attend to his beautiful boy, his son, Alexei, and his gardens.

  And perhaps a round or two out on the links at Sunningdale with his dearest old friend and the world’s best worst golfer, the inimitable Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard!

  CHAPTER 57

  Dragonfire Club, the Bahamas

  Present Day

  As the lovely alfresco dinner wound down, Alex Hawke noticed that China was making ever-more-frequent trips out to the kitchen to refill her wineglass. Clearly, she’d been under a good deal of stress, leading what was essentially a double life here at Dragonfire Club. She knew she was always only a whisper away from Zhang and her brothers uncovering the real reason she was living here now. To spy on them. And that would merit a death sentence or a lif
e sentence to a four-by-eight-foot cell deep undergound.

  She wasn’t exactly drunk, but she was getting there.

  Hawke got to his feet and said, “Dear girl, this has been absolutely lovely, a perfect evening. But as I may have mentioned, I promised my friend Stokely Jones that I’d look in on him up in the Castle’s nightclub, where he’s dining with a friend of ours, chap just arrived tonight from Miami. Would you like to come? I’d love it, but only if you’re not too tired. . . .”

  “You really think you can be rid of me that easily, Alex?”

  “Don’t be silly, woman. I never want to be rid of you.”

  She looked at him, searching his eyes for the lie behind them, but not finding it, and her own eyes glistened with tears that threatened to spill over.

  China essayed a cheery smile but didn’t quite pull it off. “Oh, Alex, I’d adore to go! I’m not anywhere near calling it a night this early. Let’s go. Do you mind driving?”

  “I’d kill for the chance to drive that beast of yours. Put it through its paces and see what she can do.”

  Half an hour later they entered the long driveway that snaked up the hill to the Castle. When he pulled up at the entrance, valet parking boys rushed to welcome China Moon back to the Castle.

  “Come here often?” Hawke said, teasing her.

  “Oh, do shut up, Alex,” she said, and made her way through the milling crowd and inside the Castle’s walls. Hawke was right behind her. “I need a drink,” she said.

  “Coming right up. I’m just trying to see if I can spot my friends. Is there a separate dining room apart from this lounge?”

  “Yes, one flight up. See the curving staircase on the far side of the room?”

  “I do. All right, let’s get you a big fat cocktail, honey. I may even join you. What will you have?”

  “A Don Julio margarita, fresh lime juice, salt. Napoleon, the tall Bahamian over there, knows how I like it.”