by Mark Burnell
> The Fat Man? I thought he was in Moscow.
> He was. But Moscow was never permanent. His powerbase has always been the Far East. In Hong Kong he can be a big fish in a small pond. In Moscow he was a minnow. And as you can imagine, that never suited the Fat Man. The only thing larger than his waistband is his ego.
Stern gave her the address, then Stephanie telephoned Albert Eichner at Guderian Maier in Zurich on the Nokia. The bank had no electronic banking facilities. As Eichner had once told her over an eighty-year-old glass of cognac in his office on the Bahnhofstrasse, 'Our clients wouldn't … appreciate … that sort of service.'
The word appreciate had made him wince. But he'd been right. Petra had electronic access to accounts in Europe, the United States and Mexico, all of which she knew to be vulnerable, no matter what the banks claimed. For the same reason, all of Magenta House's most sensitive information was housed on computers that were hermetically sealed from the outside world. They weren't even connected to one another. There were no phone sockets in the rooms that contained the terminals. Just accessing a CD-ROM required special clearance, the disks themselves having been configured so that they could never be used on conventional equipment.
'For some of our clients,' Eichner had said, 'the technologies of the future are a thing of the past. They're looking for something much more remarkable: human trust.'
In that respect, banking with Guderian Maier was an expensive luxury that came cheap at the price. Just like the information she bought from Stern.
The Thomson Commercial Building in Wan Chai was wedge-shaped. Stephanie stepped out of the sun into the poorly lit lobby. Twenty-two floors of rented offices were listed on two notice boards. None of the plastic name plates looked permanent: Top Mind Promotion Ltd, Flourishing Engineering Co Ltd, Excellence Business Service Co Ltd, Friendly Press and Book Binders.
Polar Star Holdings shared the nineteenth floor with three other companies. The door was shut. Stephanie knocked on a pane of etched glass. No response. She tried the handle. It opened and she found herself in a small reception room: two cheap chairs against a flimsy partition, a desk, a computer terminal with no one behind it. A freshly lit cigarette was burning in a glass ashtray. To her right there was a grey door. Behind that, the sound of running water. She tried the door on the left and didn't bother knocking.
'Hello, Fat Man.'
Their eyes met. Instinctively he stood, as his jaw dropped. 'You? Fuck!'
'I hope that's not an offer.'
Viktor Sabin looked past her and saw the vacant desk. Stephanie smiled coldly, then closed the door.
'What are you doing here?'
'I'm on business.'
His mouth was still slack, and the colour began to drain from his soft cheeks. For a moment Stephanie thought he might collapse.
'Relax, Viktor. You're not the business.'
It took a moment for the assurance to register. 'No?'
She shook her head. 'The last time we met I saved your life. Remember?'
Panting, he sat, the chair squealing in protest beneath him, his bulk consuming the arm-rests. 'I remember. Just like I remember what you do. It's not easy to keep the two apart. One's status can change in a heartbeat.'
'How true.'
'I always imagined if I ever saw you again, you'd be the last person I'd see.'
'You must have made more enemies than I thought.'
'Sadly, in my line of work, that's an occupational hazard. We all live with the fear that one day a client will bring something more than custom to the door.'
'Today's not that day.'
'How did you find me?'
'Stern.'
Sabin's brow furrowed. 'The internet man?'
'That's right.'
'I've heard the name but I thought he was just … a rumour.'
'He'd die of pride to hear you say that.'
'How did he find me?'
'If I knew that I wouldn't need him, would I?'
Sabin's nickname was well earned. To describe him as obese seemed utterly insufficient. Standing, he looked like a mountain reflected on the surface of a still lake, his belt marking the shoreline. Chins sloped out of his head onto his chest. He wore chunky bracelets of fat on his wrists and ankles. No slack remained in his aubergine slacks and his navy polo shirt could have doubled for a spinnaker.
It was a crummy office: three grey filing cabinets, shelves stuffed with box-files, their edges frayed, a nylon carpet – once green but never cleaned – with faded sun-patches. On the desk, a Compaq monitor with brown cigarette burns marking melted plastic, two mobiles, an unconnected land-line, paperwork, two ashtrays, a glass and a large plastic bottle of Diet Coke.
'Classy place you got here. What does Polar Star do, Viktor?'
'Import-export.'
'Of course.'
He lit a Camel Light with a trembling hand.
Stephanie sat down and said, 'I meant what I said. It's not you.'
He began to look as though he might, in time, believe her. 'What do you want?'
'Hardware. Discreetly delivered.'
He puffed out his chest. It goes without saying. They discussed details, then he punched a number into one of the mobiles and put it to his ear. The Rolex on his wrist looked tight enough to stem his circulation.
The last time they'd been together had been nine months earlier in a room at the Hotel Lisboa in Macao. There had been two other men in the room. An Algerian and a Saudi, both clerics. The Ether Division had followed them from Hamburg to Damascus, then to Beijing and beyond. They'd recruited Sabin clandestinely, setting up a ghost deal, factoring him into it to give the proposition legitimacy. As bait, he'd been a success; the men had been lured to Macao from their safe haven in China.
With no need for subtlety, the Ether Division had handed Stephanie the job. Make it messy so that it looks good for the papers. In other words, it wasn't enough to kill them. They had to be discredited too.
And so they were. Two Islamic extremists who'd slipped down to Macao for a weekend of gambling, prostitutes and alcohol. That was how it had been reported. The papers preyed on the gross hypocrisy of the clerics and weren't too concerned with the police investigation that followed. Local organized crime took the blame, but nobody faced a charge. Including Sabin, who, having been the only witness, was released in return for his silence. The alternative he was offered made it no choice at all. Within thirty-six hours he'd arrived in Moscow, badly shaken. Now he was back in Hong Kong, his nerve partially restored.
When he'd finished the call, they didn't negotiate. Instead Stephanie asked for a price, Sabin gave it and she agreed to it. Unlike Mostovoi, the supermarket arms trader, Sabin was a specialist. There were no bulk purchases, so no discounts.
'Let me ask you something.'
'What?'
'Your presence out here … is there a German in the equation?'
Stephanie aimed for inscrutability but fell short.
'A fake German?' Sabin persisted. 'From the Balkans?'
'You should be careful, Viktor. You might lose your reputation for discretion.'
Relaxing into a smile, Sabin said, 'I heard about Mostovoi and Marrakech.'
'From?'
'This is a small community. Everyone talks.'
'Go on.'
'I've known Max for years. After all, although we operate in different areas, we're in the same trade. It's inevitable.'
'You've spoken to him?'
'Not since then. He's gone even deeper into hiding than before. But I spoke to an associate of his. Marcel Claesen.'
'Ah …'
'You know each other?'
'He'd say we did.'
'And you?'
'I've had the misfortune to be in his presence on two or three occasions.'
Taking his cue from Stephanie's expression, Sabin nodded. 'I have to confess I feel much the same way about him.'
'What did he tell you?'
'That Mostovoi was a cat who used up eight l
ives when you were with him.'
'Claesen said that?'
'Yes.'
'How poetic. Especially for a man who wasn't there.'
'Is it true?'
'The basic facts, maybe.'
'He also told me that Lars Andersen was in Marrakech. And that the two of you met.'
'You know about Andersen …'
'Being Savic? Of course.'
'And Claesen?'
'No, I didn't get that impression.'
'So your conclusion, is … what?'
'Well, it's so soon after Marrakech. First you're there. Now you're here. And it can't be for Mostovoi. So …'
'So you add two and two together and come up with any number you like.'
Sabin's secretary wandered into the room without knocking and seemed astonished to find Stephanie sitting opposite her boss. She blushed, then apologized. Sabin waved her out of the room. Once the door was closed he said, 'Can I ask you something else?'
'If you choose your subject more carefully than your last, sure.'
'That night at the Lisboa. What stopped you?'
'You weren't the target.'
'I could have identified you.'
'You could have, yes …'
'Most of those in your profession wouldn't have taken that risk.'
'Probably not.'
'So why did you?'
The answer, she suspected, depended on a point of view that could change in a moment. Because she was human, after all? Because Sabin fell outside the strict remit of the contract? Because her instinct told her that he wouldn't betray her?
'I don't know.'
The answer seemed, nevertheless, to satisfy him. 'Whatever the reason, I feel I owe you something, so let me offer you this: a little information, free of charge. Whether it is of any use to you, I have no idea.'
'One can never be too well informed.'
'You're not the only one here looking for Savic.'
Whatever she was expecting, that wasn't it.
'Go on.'
'A Bosnian, I think. Certainly from the Balkans.'
'How did he find Savic?'
'I don't know.'
'Does he have a name?'
'Like you, he probably has many.'
'Where can I find him?'
Chapter 5
Victor Sabin's Bosnian, Asim Maliqi, was staying in room 512 at the Shanghai Hotel on Nathan Road in Yau Ma Tei, an establishment run by the China Travel Service. The head-and-shoulders photograph of Maliqi provided by Sabin looked official; gaunt, with several days of stubble adding to a shadow cast by sharp cheekbones, black eyes staring directly at her, messy black hair shot through with silver.
The Shanghai's lobby – a brown zigzag carpet, smoked glass tables, a tinted chandelier – was too small to allow her to linger anonymously, so she loitered on Nathan Road. An hour later, at half past eight, Maliqi appeared. A couple of inches shorter than her, with a sinewy build, he was dressed in jeans and a khaki T-shirt. He carried a small knapsack over his left shoulder.
Stephanie followed at a discreet distance. First stop, Flower Market Road, flower shops running down one side of the street, the large, blue corrugated iron perimeter fence of the Mong Kok Stadium along the other side. The scent of flowers struggled against the stench rising off an open drain belonging to the Drainage Services System. Half way along the street Maliqi stopped and opened his knapsack. Stephanie pretended to examine the stall closest to her: lilies, carnations, azaleas and sunflowers assorted in orange and green plastic tubs. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Maliqi photographing shop fronts. Once he'd moved on, Stephanie inspected the two he'd picked: the Good World Flower Trading Company and Wing Fat Flower Wholesaler. Neither looked particularly different to any of the others: smallholdings opening onto the pavement, interiors crushed with colour and fragrance, residential blocks above street level, the concrete cracked and stained.
After Flower Market Road, Maliqi visited a jewellery store on Lock Road. From the street Stephanie watched the silent conversation between Maliqi and an old man behind the counter. It became increasingly animated. There was a sign stuck to the window: Hippopotamus tooth and mammoth tusk carvings a speciality – CITES legal export certificates available. All Stephanie could see was jade.
Later Maliqi crossed to Hong Kong and headed for the mid-levels, where he spent two hours in the bustling grid of Lyndhurst Terrace, Peel Street, Gage Street and Graham Street. Here he was easy to follow, the congested markets offering natural cover, squatting women stacking vegetables, butchers up to their elbows in blood, hacking cuts of dripping meat on wooden slabs. She noticed a pharmacist selling traditional Chinese remedies, modern medicines and cigarettes. In the time it took Stephanie to pass his shop, a fishmonger reached into a polystyrene tank, grabbed a grouper, decapitated it and began to scale it. With every step the smells changed: poultry, incense, fruit, diesel.
Maliqi dipped into three buildings but Stephanie was unable to follow him for fear of being noticed. It was after midday before he emerged from the last of them. Late in the afternoon he headed for the Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal at Sheung Wan. When Stephanie entered the terminal she saw there weren't enough passengers boarding the TurboJet hydrofoil to offer her cover, so she dropped him.
Hot and frustrated, she was returning to her hotel when it occurred to her that she could visit his. The crossing to Macao took about an hour. Even if he caught the first return he'd be away for at least a couple of hours.
Back at the Shanghai the lobby was crowded: a package tour from the mainland, two dozen or so, all wearing red plastic name badges. Unchallenged, Stephanie took the lift to the fifth floor and found room 512, two doors from the end of a gloomy corridor lit by dim wall-lamps; the frosted glass was green, giving off a creepy glow. The lock was operated by a Ving card. Stephanie looked around. There was a small plastic hemisphere protruding from the corridor ceiling; a security camera, most likely. With no chance of a direct entry, she passed by his door, made a pretence of discovering that she was on the wrong floor and turned back, memorizing the position of his room.
Out on Nathan Road again, amid the roaring traffic, Stephanie looked at the front of the Shanghai. 512 was at the rear. There was no break in the frontage so she headed for the nearest turning, which was to the left, and discovered, almost instantly, another left turn. More of a passage than an alley, it was so dark that at first she thought she was inside. The two buildings backed onto each other so closely that where air-conditioning units protruded from both at the same level, there was barely a metre between them. Looking up, her view was obscured by water-pipes, outlets for old ventilation flues, electric cables, swaying cord. Through this filthy lattice, fifteen storeys above her, she saw fragments of grey sky, the afternoon descending into dusk.
She trod cautiously, the ground ankle-deep in rubbish and alive with rats. There were doors set into both walls. Most were bolted shut, but she passed two that were open; the first offered only darkness, the second opened onto a kitchen, heat surging out. She paused in the shadows and caught glimpses of three men, one of them smoking. It sounded like an argument. Her back against the wall, she drifted past the door and came to the rear of the Shanghai.
As a climb, it could hardly have been easier for her; there were so many gaping toe-holds, so much clutter to cling to. But there was no pleasure in it. Every pipe seemed crusted with bird-shit, every ledge coated in sticky grime. The air was not just still; it seemed to have died. She could taste decomposition. It was so dark she didn't worry about being noticed.
Looking for an implement, she was spoilt for choice, eventually selecting a piece of rusted pipe dangling from a section of net that had become snagged on an overflow outlet. She reached the fifth floor and perched on the slippery sill, one foot in front, one tucked beneath her.
Maliqi had left his curtains half drawn. Stephanie rubbed her fingers on the window and peered in. Empty. The bed had been made, his clothes piled on a chair in the corner. S
he swung the pipe against the window. In the confined space between the buildings the echo of breaking glass sounded unreasonably loud, but she knew the rumble of traffic on Nathan Road would swallow it.
She knocked fragments clear of the frame, then entered the room, her shoes grinding splinters into the beige carpet. It didn't matter to her whether Maliqi knew of the intrusion so she took no measures to conceal it.
It was a smoker's room, stale tobacco clinging to fabric. Peach walls, peach bedspread, peppermint curtains and plastic peppermint frames for prints of fishing boats navigating deep gorges. In the cupboard the safe was open and empty. Stephanie was surprised. She patted down the pockets of a brown jacket, went through the clothes in his drawer and checked his bathroom. Nothing.
His suitcase – shiny brown plastic imitating leather was under the bed. She lifted it on top, felt the shift of objects inside, and used the mini-bar corkscrew to break its catches.
There were two large maps – one of Hong Kong Island, the other of Kowloon East and West – three used rolls of 35mm film, a plastic folder with a zip and a large guidebook. Stephanie spread both maps across the floor. There were markings in red ink on both, including the places she had seen in his wake: Flower Market Road, Lock Road and several in the mid-levels. On the Hong Kong map there was one circle at Deep Water Bay on the south side of the island, as well as crosses in Wan Chai, Happy Valley and Causeway Bay. The guidebook was German and well used. Maliqi's air ticket was inside the plastic folder, issued by a travel agency in Berlin, Dardania Tours; the return flight wasn't for a week.
Sabin might have been right about Maliqi. Equally, he could have been wrong. Between the places she'd followed him to and the belongings in his room, the only thing that could link the Bosnian to the Serb were the shops on Flower Market Road; as unlikely as it seemed, Dassler was involved in the flower business. On the other hand, perhaps Maliqi was in Hong Kong as a tourist.
She checked the room again, more thoroughly than before, and still came up with nothing. In the bathroom she washed off the worst of the dirt, having decided to leave by the door. Maliqi was a dead end. He'd report the broken window. And the fact that nothing was missing. As for the mystery woman coming out of his room – that was precisely what she'd remain.
