The Commissioner sighed and said, ‘Okay, proceed, but cautiously. And from now on I don’t want to hear or know anything more about it . . . Away with you.’
At the door, Inspector Lau turned and said apologetically, ‘There is one last thing, Commissioner.’
The Commissioner was looking down at his desk. He looked up grimly.
‘Are you sure it’s one last thing?’
‘On the sacred memory of my beloved grandmother, I make that promise.’
‘What do you finally want?’
‘I have been trying to read Tommy Mo’s mind and put myself in his place. The only real thing he knows is that Gloria Manners and Lucy Kwok Ling Fong are in the Presidential Suite of the Peninsula Hotel. For sure, he will not try to attack them there. They will be perfectly protected. But he will try to get one or both of them out.’
‘How?’
‘I have no idea, but knowing Tommy Mo’s power and his cunning, he will certainly try.’
‘So?’
‘So, there are four entrances to the Peninsula Hotel, including the service entrance. I want twenty-four hour surveillance on all those entrances, starting tonight.’
The Commissioner sighed yet again. ‘That means forty-two men on eight-hour shifts, in two-man teams.’
‘Exactly.’
The Commissioner thought for about ten seconds and then said, ‘Five days and that’s all . . . Don’t you realise how stretched we are when it comes to manpower?’
‘Yes, Sir. But I want to choose those men myself and have them directly under my command. Also, apart from the four normal unmarked police cars they would use, I want an extra two, in case of emergency.’
Again the two Chinese looked at each other through thick spectacles. Then the Commissioner turned to the console of his computer and started to punch buttons. He said, ‘I’m sending a signal to the Heads of Personnel and Transport, instructing them to be under your personal command for the next five days.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’
Chapter 52
‘Is he sure?’
Hung Mun nodded.
‘He’s a good man. We obtained a photograph of Lucy Kwok and circulated it around the hotels to our people. One of them works at the Sheraton Hotel as a room boy. He swears that he saw the woman in the corridor there last night. She went into Room 54 and stayed about an hour.’
Tommy Mo nodded in satisfaction and said, ‘Naturally, you found out who was occupying Room 54.’
Hung Mun answered, ‘The room is registered in the name of a Mr James Johnson for one week, as of two days ago. But apparently he almost never uses the room. I guess that he’s staying somewhere else and just uses the place as a love-nest.’
Tommy Mo smiled.
‘And that means that Lucy Kwok is his lover.’
‘We must assume so.’
‘Let us do that, Hung Mun, and let us assume that Lucy Kwok will visit him there again. We must have one of the teams on hand. Arrange that we have rooms booked on the same floor and our watchers covering every entrance.’
Hung Mun asked, ‘If she goes back there, do we break into the room and grab them both?’
‘No . . . We must be more subtle. She must be taken as she comes out of the room and before she reaches the street. It must be very quiet and with no fuss. I don’t want the police involved. Meanwhile, try to get a description of this man, Johnson. He may be one of the men working for the Manners woman.’
Hung Mun stood up, bowed respectfully and left.
Chapter 53
They were gathered at the safehouse in Braga Circuit. It was the final strategy meeting before the assault on Tommy Mo’s villa the next day.
They sat around the large oval dining room table. On the wall, in front of Creasy, was an enlarged ordnance map of the Sai Kung peninsula, showing every building, road and track and the contours of every hill and valley. Various arrows, crosses and circles had been superimposed with felt-tipped pens in a variety of colours. Beside the map was a diagram of the villa and its surrounding compound. Creasy was flicking through the pages of a notebook, the surveillance log of the various watchers over the past few days.
He looked up at Tom Sawyer across the table and said, ‘You got it exactly right, Tom. The way in for Guido and myself is in the back of the rubbish truck.’ He turned to Do Huang. “We’ll hijack it shortly after it leaves the town, and Do will drive it. The routine is that they open the gates to let it in and then close the gates as soon as it’s inside the compound. It drives down the side-road past the villa to the service building behind. Guido and I come out there. Guido will cover me with an SMG and grenades while I head straight for the villa, and then he’ll follow me to the villa,’ He turned to Eric. ‘You’re the mortar-man. From your position, you’ll not be able to see over the wall, but Tom will have a view from higher up the hill. The moment we cross the gap between the service building and the villa, you open up with your mortar and range in between the two buildings and try to keep the fighters from getting to us, while we deal with Tommy Mo and his people in the villa.’ He glanced at Maxie. ‘Meanwhile, Maxie and Frank will move in with the RPG7s and breach the wall on each side. The moment that happens, the mortar fire has to end. Both teams enter the compound through the breaches.’ He stood up and walked around the table to the map and pointed. ‘The beach is here, about eight hundred metres away. There will be two large Avon dinghies waiting, one for each section. The motor launch will be a hundred metres off-shore, covering our embarkation with two heavy machine-guns. We head straight for the Philippines.’
Guido was studying the map. He asked, ‘Substitution?’
Creasy nodded and glanced around the table.
‘If I get hit, Guido takes command. If Guido gets hit, Maxie takes command, if Maxie gets hit, Frank takes over.’ He pointed at the tiny mobile phone on the table, with its earplug attachment. ‘We’ve tested those things and they work damn well. We’ll have a conference patch and be able to talk to each other and listen to each other — but let’s keep the talking to a minimum, especially when the action starts.’
Creasy moved back around the table and sat down. He glanced at Eric Laparte and said, ‘The mortar barrage is vital. You have to be dropping those bombs between those two buildings within seconds of Guido and me exiting that rubbish truck.’
For the next hour, they discussed the strategy and their movements until Creasy and Guido were satisfied.
Chapter 54
They had finished dinner and were watching television when Rene’s mobile phone rang. He picked it up, moved across the suite to the windows and spoke into it quietly.
Lucy called out, ‘Is that Creasy?’ When Rene nodded, she said, ‘When you’ve finished, can I speak to him?’
Rene had been speaking in French. He continued speaking into the phone and then said to her, ‘Yes, but he needs to talk to Jens first.’
Jens pushed himself up and walked over. The phone conversation turned to English. Above the noise of the television, Lucy could hear one part of the conversation. It was obvious that Creasy was briefing Jens on their final dispositions for the attack on the villa the next morning. After five minutes, the Dane beckoned to her. She walked across and took the phone, moved further away and spoke quietly into it.
‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine. How are you coping?’
‘Well, we’re just sitting and waiting . . . I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.’
‘You must try.’
‘I will, but I think it’s hopeless . . . I’m frightened.’
The tiny receiver next to her ear still managed to carry the deep resonance of his voice.
‘Lucy, you have nothing to be frightened about. Rene has got that place buttoned up.’
‘I’m not frightened for myself, Creasy. I’m frightened for you . . . the twilight man.’
His laugh was soft. ‘Don’t worry. This twilight man always sees the sun in the morning.’
‘But I s
till worry . . . Are you going to bed now?’
‘No. I have to make a couple of calls at midnight to tie up the last details.’
There was a sudden urgency in her voice, ‘It’s only ten o’clock now. Can I see you?’
There was a pause, then he said, ‘Lucy, I can’t come to you and you can’t come here.’
‘What about the place we met last time . . . Do you still have the room?’
‘Yes, but I would need to have some cover on you when you move from one hotel to the other.’
‘Can’t you arrange cover?’
He sighed and said, ‘Lucy, I know what’s going through your mind. It happens all the time with women who are involved with men about to go into battle. You think you have a premonition that we might never see each other again. But Lucy, there are no such things as premonitions. It’s just a matter of apprehension.’
‘Creasy, I’m Chinese, We have premonitions but no apprehensions . . . I would just like to spend an hour with you, and if you have cover for me, then surely there’s no danger. This is the busiest place in Hong Kong.’
There was another silence, then he said, ‘There’s always danger.’
She almost whispered into the phone. ‘Please . . . just this time . . . Do it for me.’
Again, he hesitated. Then she heard him talking to somebody in the room. His voice came back. ‘OK. Maxie and Frank have agreed to give you cover . . . But be careful, Lucy. I’ll see you in half an hour. Put Rene back on the phone.’
She called to Rene and handed him the phone. He listened and then said, ‘OK. Will do. I’ll arrange things at this end.’
He went to the hotel phone and called the security manager and informed him that Miss Lucy Kwok would be leaving the hotel in half an hour and returning approximately one hour later.
She passed the time by making sure that Gloria was comfortable in bed and about to fall asleep. Rene opened the door for her, checked the corridor and, as she passed through the door, said, ‘Be careful. If anyone approaches you, just run.’
She gave him a smile and said, ‘Don’t worry, Rene. I can run very fast.’
It went very smoothly. She dodged the traffic across Nathan Road, knowing that Maxie and Frank were close to her. But she never set eyes on them. A few minutes later, she was knocking on the door of Room 54, And a few minutes after that, the phone was ringing in the villa in Sai Kung.
An hour later she gave Creasy a last kiss and ran her hand down his naked chest. From the moment she had entered the room they had hardly spoken a word, simply held each other and made soft slow love.
She dressed quickly as Creasy picked up his mobile phone and started slotting the last pieces of the puzzle into place.
He cupped the phone and said to her, ‘Maxie will be waiting in the lobby. I’ll see you in a few days.’
She went to the door, turned and gave him a last look. Then she moved out into the corridor and towards the lifts. It was a long corridor and she was close to the lifts when two doors on each side of her opened. It was over in seconds. A hand around her mouth and another around her waist. She could make no sound. She realised that there were four or five of them. She tried to bite the hand across her mouth and was stunned by a blow to her head.
Chapter 55
Inspector Lau was the first to receive the information.
He set up a mini-operations centre in his own office, together with a young constable who was a protégé as well as an electronics wizard. The constable had arranged a loudspeaker link to the banks of mobile phones, and every conversation between the mobile phones of Creasy’s team was channelled through that loudspeaker. Another loudspeaker relayed the special police network set-up between the police surveillance teams and head-quarters. It was ten minutes past eleven when the first message came through the police loudspeaker. It came from the police car which had been keeping a watch on the Nathan Road entrance of the Peninsula Hotel.
A woman had been seen coming out of the entrance at eight minutes past eleven. She resembled Lucy Kwok Ling Fong. They had observed her crossing Nathan Road and entering the Sheraton Hotel. In the meantime, Inspector Lau had listened to the conversation between Creasy and Lucy Kwok and Rene Callard, and knew that Creasy and Lucy were having an assignation somewhere nearby.
There had been no other communication for an hour, and then one of the speakers came to life. It was Creasy calling Callard, telling him that Lucy was on the way back and should be with him in five minutes and asking Maxie and Frank to copy, which they did. Three minutes later Maxie’s voice was coming through the loudspeaker. He was telling Creasy that Lucy had not come out of the lift.
Seven minutes passed, and then Creasy was issuing instructions, and from those instructions Inspector Lau realised that Lucy Kwok had been snatched by the 14K between Creasy’s room and the lift. Definitely snatched by the 14K.
The constable turned on his swivel chair to look at his Inspector.
Inspector Lau shrugged and said, ‘We don’t interfere.’
The constable thought for a moment and then remarked, ‘If the 14K have her, they will almost certainly take her to the Black Swan at Hebe Haven. They’ve done that kind of thing before.’
Creasy’s voice came through the loudspeaker: ‘If they’ve got her, they are probably taking her to the Sai Kung villa.’
A series of clicks came through the loudspeaker in Inspector Lau’s office. A voice said: ‘I’ve been listening in. I’m a hundred metres overlooking the road to the 14K villa. No vehicle has passed in the last twenty minutes.’
The constable was looking at his computer screen. He turned and said, ‘Voice recognition . . . that’s the Frenchman, Eric Laparte.’
Inspector Lau was looking at the loudspeaker as though it was the Holy Grail. He turned to his constable and said, ‘This is better than any game invented by Nintendo . . . And definitely more exciting.’
Creasy’s voice came over the loudspeaker: ‘Eric, move down to the road. Try to get to a bend, where a car would have to slow down. If a large black car — probably a Mercedes — comes by, use your SMG and blast its tyres. What’s Tom’s location?’
‘Two hundred metres further down the road.’
‘Link up. Put Tom on the other side of the road.’
‘Will do.’
In Inspector Lau’s office, the constable said, it’s almost certainly the Black Swan.’
Inspector Lau leaned forward, cupped his hands to his face and thought with great speed, imagining the scenario in the suite at the Peninsula Hotel. He could almost see the Dane, Jens Jensen, crouched over his laptop computer, punching in the files that showed the known and suspected safehouse of the 14K. There were half a dozen scattered around the Colony. One of them was a luxuriously converted twenty-metre fishing junk, which the 14K used in their legitimate business to entertain visiting customers. It was spacious and contained a fully-stocked bar, two huge cabins with four-poster beds, and a saloon and a galley which could cater for up to ten customers. It had a permanent crew of four, all members of the 14K. It was berthed at the marina at the Hebe.
Haven Bay. Its location and description were contained on the disk that he had given Jens Jensen. Inspector Lau’s mind was moving into high gear. His fingers itched to reach for the phone and call his counterpart in the Marine Police, but he resisted the temptation.
He began to struggle with his conscience. The Commissioner would definitely not approve, but he could not help himself. He decided that the odds were still enormously in Tommy Mo’s favour. He put down the microphone and picked up another phone on his desk and punched in a number. Seconds later, he heard the Dane’s voice answering.
Inspector Law said, ‘You will recognise the voice of the man who gave you the disk.’
‘I do.’
‘Right now, you’re looking at your computer screen and you’ve just put up the file. “14K . . . Safehouses”.’
There was a pause and the Dane’s voice said, ‘You’re right . . . How
do you know this number?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just be confident that your network has not been compromised by anybody else but me and my personal assistant. We have surveillance on the car containing Lucy Kwok. It is heading for the Black Swan. There will be no police action.’
He hung up before the Dane could answer, and then sat back again and looked at the loudspeaker which would relay, in detail, the coming events. The call came three minutes later. It was from the Dane to Creasy, at the safehouse. Inspector Lau marvelled at the brevity of their conversation, and would continue to marvel throughout the night.
The Dane said: ‘We have location of our woman.’
‘Where and how?’
‘Heading towards a converted luxury fishing junk in the marina at Hebe Haven. Information from the man who gave me the disk.’
There came a thirty second pause and Inspector Lau could imagine Creasy in the safehouse at Braga Circuit, studying the map.
Then Eric Laparte’s voice came over the airwaves: ‘We’re eight kilometres from Hebe Haven marina. We can get there in about twelve to fourteen minutes.’
Another thirty seconds silence and then Creasy’s voice: ‘You go, but leave Tom on the road, just in case it’s a diversion.’
The constable turned from the screens and looked at his boss. He said, ‘At last, Lau Sinsan. At last . . . after all these years . . . at last.’
The Inspector held up his hand again, as another voice came through the speaker.
‘I’ve been copying . . . I can be off Hebe Haven in twenty minutes.’
The constable’s head jerked back to his screen. He studied it for a few seconds and then said, ‘It came from the sea. It must be Tony Cope from the MV Tempest.’’
The Inspector was nodding in satisfaction.
‘Yes. Ex-Royal Navy, ex-Special Boat Service. They’re waiting to take Creasy’s team off to the Philippines after the assault on the villa.’
The constable reached for the thermos flask of black coffee, but his ears were locked on to the loudspeaker.
Black Horn (A Creasy novel Book 4) Page 23
