Gemini

by Mark Burnell

  I can't believe it.

  Brankovic.

  What's he doing here? Then again, where is here? Perhaps I'm back where I started.

  His nose is badly broken, his face burnt. I can smell the singeing; his eyebrows are completely gone, along with much of the hair from the front half of his head. In the ultraviolet his skin glistens, the eyelids grossly swollen. His blood looks as black as tar.

  Before I can shoot him he lunges at me with Figueiredo's knife. I recoil. The tip misses my wrist, clattering the gun, knocking it from my hand. For a large man he's incredibly nimble. I've come to think of him as a lumbering brute, but put a weapon in his hand – a bolt-cutter, a spoon, a blade – and he mutates into a dancer. The tapering crescent leaves incandescent arcs of light in the ultraviolet.

  He surges forward again, feints a swipe, then tries a jab. I throw myself to the right but the blade rips through my shirt and skin, just below the ribs. I crash into display cases, my face momentarily pressed to the glass, several dozen agitated legs stuck to the other side. He thrusts again, misses, hits the corner of a case, cracking it; a spider's web for the spiders inside. A shudder reverberates through all the shelves. An upward drive misses my nose by millimetres and allows me an open shot with my right foot. It catches him between the legs.

  Behind me there are shouts, voices echoing in the passage. The sound of reinforcements. The sound of time running out.

  Brankovic rides the pain and attacks. I throw myself back against the same cases as before. The cracked glass buckles. For a second he's off balance and I kick him with as much force as I can muster. He falls and crashes against the wall of glass on the other side. Several display cases shatter on impact. He falls to the floor, the knife spilling from his fingers. Serpents, spiders and glass cascade onto him. Destabilized, the aluminium support structure wobbles, then topples, all the cases sliding off all the shelves, burying him.

  Barefoot, I scramble for the door, collecting the Steyr TMP from the floor. I feel something biting into my feet. Not just once, either.

  No time to check. In the corridor I turn round. Brankovic has managed to get to his knees, rising out of the glassy rubble, clutching his dagger defiantly. In the ultraviolet he looks as though he's wearing a crawling cloak. The spiders shimmer on his skin.

  I shoot him, then empty the magazine into other display cases. I drop the gun and confront the passage. It's deserted, nobody around to indicate which way I should go. I'm completely disorientated. Left or right?

  Left. There's an open door at the end: an abandoned reception area, a small sign on the desk. It's a guest house. I smell burning as I go from room to room. All empty. The one at the end of the corridor has a window. When I look out of it I can see another building just yards away. I can also see that it's not part of Chungking Mansions. Which means I made the wrong choice.

  This is a dead end.

  Outside, it was pouring with rain, torrents sluicing from ledges. She wanted to lie down. Just for a minute. Just for a second. Her hands stung, her side stung, her feet stung. She saw blood trailing through the door way, potentially a trail for her pursuers. She sat on the edge of the bed and examined the soles of both feet: filthy and cut but not bitten, she decided, the glass to blame. She picked out the obvious pieces. She sneezed, clotted black blood spilling from her nose.

  Eight minutes past six, the broken watch, the same time forever.

  Time to move.

  She hauled herself off the bed. The window was bolted shut. She took the bedspread, wrapped it around her right hand and forearm, then punched the glass out of the window, before scraping clear the remaining splinters. Over the rain she heard the first siren.

  Using a chair, she eased her top half through the gap, then grabbed the exterior portion of the air-con unit to help herself onto the ledge. Curling toes over the bottom of the frame and fingers under the top, she leaned back a little, looked left and right, then up and down. Through two sheer walls of narrowing darkness she recognized a thin slice of Nathan Road to her left. Which meant the building on the other side of the drop was the Imperial Hotel.

  She looked for a route down and saw a diagonal descent over three storeys. After that she'd need to traverse. She looked up, in case a rise of a floor might lead to something more direct, but the pummelling rain and lack of light made it almost impossible to see.

  The downpour made filthy surfaces slippery; grease, dirt, oil, bird-shit, all smothering overflow pipes, aircon units, extractor fans. She spanned a five-foot gap to grasp a vertical drain. Only when she'd transferred her weight did the couplings start to pull free from the rotting wall. She made another transfer, propping one foot against a beige extractor outlet, the other against a corroded overflow pipe. With each move her cuts were investigated a little further.

  She climbed cautiously, aware that her judgement was as impaired as the rest of her. The chorus of sirens grew louder. So did the rain, as she neared the ground; it was hammering the corrugated iron and plastic awnings that partly covered the alley. She made her final drop from ten feet, her bleeding soles crunching onto filthy concrete. Above, thick black smoke billowed from a wound in the building.

  With Chungking Mansions rising on one side and the Imperial Hotel on the other, and with the awnings shutting out most of the remaining light, she could almost believe it was night. Out of this darkness, shapes emerged. From both ends of the alley, closing in on her.

  They were armed. And in uniform.

  Chapter 15

  Her face in the dirt, they closed in on her slowly. But Stephanie was too exhausted to hold any surprises for them. She placed her hands in the small of her soaking back, ready for the cuffs.

  Sirens everywhere, a helicopter hovered overhead, the thud of its blades reverberating through her. A searchlight flickered over Chungking Mansions, its penetrative beam occasionally lighting up the alley.

  There were two plain-clothed detectives among the uniformed officers. They marched her to Mody Road, which had been sealed off at the junction with Nathan Road. There were three police cars at the kerb, lights flashing, and two plain Toyotas. Stephanie was bundled into the back seat of the first of them. No handles, no locks, a perspex partition separated her from the front. One of the detectives sat in the passenger seat, the other rode in the brown Toyota behind. The driver of each vehicle was a uniformed officer.

  The cars pulled away, swishing through the rain. Time to regroup. For a while, silence would be the best policy. But not for long. Because she didn't have long. What she had was a name. Mostovoi. And the only other man to whom that would have meant something – Brankovic – was dead. So Mostovoi was still currency. For the moment.

  Goosebumps rose on her skin, bruised muscles began to stiffen. As the last of the adrenaline faded, so fatigue staked its claim, and the cuts began to sting.

  They headed into the Cross Harbour Tunnel for Hong Kong Island.

  She wondered about Raymond Chen. Was he the man to contact? A Magenta House source – and not one they trusted fully, either – but perhaps her only option. If Alexander had been angry over the death of Felix Cheung, he'd be beside himself with rage now. But she still had the bargaining chip. On the other hand, if she used Mostovoi now, that left her with nothing. But if she didn't, she might be left to languish in some police station while time slipped away and his value degraded.

  They emerged from the Cross Harbour Tunnel and ran into traffic.

  Other questions formed. Who'd sent Brankovic to Hong Kong? Milan sends his love. Savic's work? Or Dragica's? Why not? Stephanie wasn't blind to her true nature. She would have taken pleasure in betraying Petra to Savic. Pleasure in the consequences for Stephanie. Pleasure in the pain Savic would feel. Not that he'd sacrifice her lightly. He'd need to be persuaded. But who better than Dragica? She could persuade anybody of anything … one way or another.

  Finally free of traffic, they entered the Aberdeen Tunnel to the South Side. Which was when Stephanie began to pay attention. W
here were they going? On the other side of the perspex the detective and the officer seemed relaxed, the detective smoking, the officer laughing at something she couldn't hear. When they exited from the tunnel and forked left on Wong Chuk Hang Road, Stephanie took a guess.

  And was right.

  Gilbert Lai was dressed for golf, despite the torrential rain: cream slacks, lime shirt, red and black golfing shoes. He peered at Stephanie through tinted lenses and then at the marble floor onto which she was dripping. He made no attempt to hide his disgust.

  At first she'd been surprised. And was then surprised at herself. Of course Lai would have a presence among the Hong Kong police. How naïve to imagine otherwise.

  The two detectives and the two uniformed officers stood behind her, by the front door. Behind Lai were two bodyguards, dressed in black Mao suits with purple collars, both armed. Her hands were still cuffed. She could feel blood oozing from the slice in her side and the cuts on her feet. Small puddles were forming around her toes. But she stood as upright as she could, returning Lai's stare with interest.

  'It's very considerate of you to try to destroy Chungking Mansions. Demolition is long overdue. It's not only a revolting eyesore but an excellent development opportunity. Sadly, you don't seem to have succeeded.'

  He twisted a Philip Morris cigarette into a tortoise shell holder. One of the bodyguards stepped forward to offer a light. Lai smoked a while. What am I going to do with you? The view through the wall of glass behind him could not have been more different from the last time she'd seen it; then, a brilliantly sunny day, now, a solid slab of slate grey.

  'I didn't expect to see you again.'

  'The feeling's mutual.'

  'I imagine it is.' He spoke in Chinese and one of his bodyguards disappeared. Then he said, 'Are you injured?'

  'I'm standing.'

  'By the look of it, only just.'

  'I'm fine.'

  'Are you fit enough to travel?'

  Not the question she was expecting. 'Where am I going?'

  He took a drag from the cigarette, then exhaled theatrically and returned his gaze to the dark puddle on his marble floor. 'I hope you're not going to leave a stain.'

  A maid showed her to a bedroom, then waited for her outside. On a clear day there would have been a spectacular view of Deep Water Bay from the window. The king-size double bed had a gold bedspread. The bedside tables were carved from large blocks of solid soapstone, lamps rising seamlessly from the centre of each. The floor was still marble but there were three huge Persian carpets on it. Stephanie avoided them. In the bathroom the walk-in shower was polished granite with gold taps and a bronze dragon for a showerhead.

  Twenty minutes later she emerged, pink and steaming. Bandages and plasters had been left beside the sink. The slice below her ribs was still bleeding. Some of the cuts on her feet had stopped, while others persisted. She dried herself, then did the best she could, slipping into the blue silk robe provided, pressing a bandage between the material and the cut. There were black silk slippers. Putting them on hurt.

  The maid was waiting for her and took her to Lai's study. Teak floors and walls, a dozen vases, none of them the same size, all of them creeping with jasmine. On top of a huge rosewood desk there was a plain white pot with a wicker handle and two small cups. He poured tea for both of them.

  'A doctor will be here shortly. Someone is fetching you something to wear.' He handed her one of the cups, then sat down in a large swivel chair on the opposite side of the desk. 'You and I have something in common.'

  Looking at him, it was hard to see what.

  'We are both people of our word,' Lai said. 'These days that's increasingly rare. A man like Milan Savic wouldn't understand the value of that. Over the years our arrangement has been mutually lucrative but we have never enjoyed each other's company. Fortunately we've never had to, and so we've never pretended to. We differ in many ways, generally, but in one aspect, in particular: I have evolved and Savic hasn't.'

  'He's come a long way from Belgrade.'

  'On the contrary. He's still there, on the street-corner. An ignorant thug. He just has more money.'

  'What's on your mind?'

  'As I've grown older I've attempted to leave my past behind. For a man like me, with my history – not to mention my fortune – that's a natural instinct. In Hong Kong I'm almost respectable now.' His bloodless smile took her by surprise, the lop-sided droop parting for yellow teeth. 'But it's taken nearly thirty years. Now that Alan Waxman and Felix Cheung are no longer with us, he's the only one left to bind me to the past.'

  'This is starting to sound like a sales pitch.'

  'It's a trade. You live and Milan Savic dies.'

  'And if I say no?'

  'I can have you on an aircraft to Europe tonight, no questions asked.'

  'And at the other end?'

  'You're on your own. My influence is local, nothing more.'

  'You're too modest.'

  'Local is Asia. My interests have evolved. Europe is no longer a priority. It's better for me to focus on regional ventures and to let others take care of business further afield.'

  'But isn't that precisely what Savic does for you in Europe?'

  He narrowed his eyes while he considered how much to say. 'I've formed a partnership with Russians in Vladivostok. They take care of everything. They're represented from the Russian Far East through to Moscow and beyond. I don't need Savic's contacts in Europe any more. Which means I don't need to tolerate him here. He's outlived his usefulness. What's more, I can't risk being associated with the kind of chaos we've seen today. Not even by insinuation. You, of all people, will understand this. After all, in your profession, as in mine, reputation is everything.'

  There was a car to meet her at Heathrow, eighteen hours later, at quarter to six in the morning. The cabin crew made sure she was first off the aircraft. She was escorted out of the umbilical, down the steps to a waiting black Range Rover; two men in front, one in the passenger seat beside her, none of them familiar. From the aircraft to Magenta House in thirty minutes, London still wrapped in slumber.

  She'd made the call at the airport in Hong Kong, just before boarding, knowing it would give Alexander no option. He wouldn't risk her at Immigration. Not if he thought she was unstable. Who could predict how she'd react?

  Now, in a subterranean conference room, she wasn't sure what she felt. Other than tired, sore, confused and anxious.

  She'd been waiting alone for twenty minutes. There was a tray at the centre of the oval table: a pot of coffee, croissants, rolls, a jug of orange juice, four glasses, four plates. She didn't have an appetite but she helped herself to coffee.

  They came in together. Alexander wore grey flannel trousers, a crumpled white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. There was no sign of a tie. Or a razor; for the first time, Stephanie saw stubble on his jaw. Despite the early start, Rosie looked less tired than when they'd last met.

  Stephanie braced herself.

  Both of them looked at her, both startled. Her right hand was bandaged, two stitches in the largest cut on her palm. Her right eye was grazed and swollen with a bruise beneath. Under her shirt there were three stitches in her side. On her skin she wore a girdle of black and blue. The sixth stitch was on the sole of her right foot, the other lacerations treated with plasters.

  Alexander poured himself coffee, sat in his customary position at the head of the table, and lit a Rothmans.

  'It's over, Stephanie.'

  No outrage, which was a surprise. Just the basic fact. She nodded. How could she dispute it? Alexander didn't say anything. The longer the silence persisted, the more apprehensive Stephanie became.

  'Is one of you going to tell me what's going on?'

  Rosie glanced at Alexander, who gave the merest nod. She said, 'It's Mark.'

  'Sorry?'

  'He's okay.'

  Which she took to mean, he's not okay. 'What do you mean? What's happened to him?'

  'Step
hanie, are you listening to me? He's okay.'

  'What are you talking about?' Her voice was rising with panic.

  'He was attacked.'

  'What?'

  'Yesterday afternoon.'

  'Attacked?'

  'He's fine, Stephanie.'

  'What happened?'

  'There were three of them.'

  'Where?'

  'At his clinic on Cadogan Place.'

  'Who were they?'

  'Savic's people, we think. Anyway, they tried to rough him up and …'

  'Rough him up? What are you talking about? Rough him up?'

  Rosie told her to calm down and listen, then told her how it had happened. The men had barged into the practice in the middle of the afternoon, terrorizing the other patients. They said nothing. When one of the receptionists tried to intervene she was punched. When they found Mark they tried to break his hands.

  Stephanie felt sick. 'His hands …'

  'They failed, Steph, because they underestimated him. He fought back and gave them a real beating.'

  Just as he had that night in south London. Rosie filled in the blanks. The police had been called, which was how Magenta House had been alerted. Two of the men were in hospital, the other was under arrest. None of them was saying anything. Rosie assured her they would, just as soon as they could be transferred to Magenta House custody. Stephanie didn't doubt that for a second.

  His hands. Of all the things they could have chosen. Which was precisely why they'd chosen them. Premeditated violence dressed up as a casual act, the fear almost worse than the act itself. Nothing spontaneous about it, it was a message for her.

  'How is he?'