The Sky Might Fall (Harry Vee, PI)
Page 17
“And you think you can still trust the Americans?”
“Oh don’t worry, Harry. I’ll talk to them. They’ll screw Jessica over just as readily as they’d screw me. I’m sure we’ll be able to make a deal.”
Harry stayed silent. Huang replaced the shard in its packing, put the lid roughly back on the box, and hefted the crowbar in his hands. He turned back to Harry, “And that brings us to the final problem. What should I do with you, Harry?” There was movement from the thug behind him, and Harry felt a gun barrel nestling against his liver.
“Okay, Huang, you convinced me. I’m in.”
“Really? You’d take a cut for your co-operation? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Not your money, Huang, I’ll take the girl. I’ll go with her to America, and you hand her over to me straight after the operation.”
Huang’s laugh echoed around the metal box. “I don’t think so Harry. What do I want from you? You had your chance to take the money, but you have no chips left on the table.” He raised the crowbar.
“Yes I do. Jessica Lee.” Huang paused. “She killed your son. I can find her for you, you know I can.”
Huang seemed to think about it for a second. Then he sent his laugh booming around the container again. “Ha! That’s good Harry, very good.” He turned back to the wooden crate, turning the idea over in his head, and absent-mindedly banged a nail back into the corner of the lid. When he turned back to Harry, he had a broad grin across his face. “Okay Harry. I think you also don’t like her. It makes sense to me. She crossed me, and that is not good.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“Oh no, Harry. The girl is being collected tomorrow. Until then she’s quite safe. You have until noon to bring me Lee, and then I’ll tell you where the girl is, after her operation. And if you don’t deliver by noon? Well, do as you wish, but if I see you again I will have to kill you.”
Harry nodded. It was the best deal he was going to get.
*
Harry walked out of the dockyard. There was little traffic this far out from the city, and it might be a while before he could find a taxi. In any case, he had nowhere to go. Jessica Lee wasn’t a little girl running away from home. If she wanted to hide in a city this size, then she wouldn’t be found. The sun was slipping under the horizon, and above him the stars shone down, as they always had. He looked across at the lights of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon City, bisected by the waters of the bay. She could be anywhere in that tangled mess.
There was one advantage he had. He knew that Jessica would be going after the girl. But she knew Huang’s operation better than Harry. Where to start? The clubs, the casinos, the warehouses? She knew it all better than he did, but Huang wasn’t about to tell him where the girl was, so he had to start from scratch.
He wondered how Jim James was doing. Must be in a hospital, getting plenty of attention from the police. It wouldn’t be the tightest spot he’d ever had to get out of. Maybe Harry could give him a hand, once Mui was safe. He lit a cigarillo from his pocket, and trudged slowly up the road on his aching legs, blowing smoke back up at the stars.
When he finally caught a taxi he asked it to go downtown, where his head would be covered by the bar signs and the electricity lines crossing from building to building. He went in to a PC room close to his original hotel, ignoring the strange looks of the guy at the counter. There was nothing in the papers about Chang. The shootout at the museum was being put down to gang violence, with the usual talking heads promising a crackdown. There was nothing about an American. Maybe James had already pulled some strings.
He looked up all the information he could about Fong’s Export’s premises, and Huang’s property holdings. There was nothing to link Mui to any of them, and far too many to search. He checked the time: nearly midnight. Twelve hours left on Huang’s timeframe, but who knew what the Chinese would be doing? Harry knew he couldn’t trust Huang, but did he have any other options left? He had to go along with it for now. With the deal Huang was getting from the Americans, there wasn’t much Harry could threaten him with.
Huang held all the cards and he knew it. But surely there was some way in, some way past his defences. Maybe Jessica Lee had some last trick to pull, to get herself back in on the deal. What would he do if he were Jessica? She must be getting pretty desperate now. She knew the Chinese couldn’t be far away.
He was still thinking about it when his phone rang. It was Huang, “Sorry to give you the bad news, Harry. But I think we may have a deal breaker here.”
10
Ten minutes later, Harry was back at the warehouse where Tony Huang had died. He walked in through the large aluminium doors at the end, to see three SUVs drawn up across the centre of the warehouse. Over a dozen of Huang’s men were taking cover behind them, on Harry’s side, as Huang directed them into position. They were heavily armed, with various automatic rifles all pointing down the far end of the warehouse. He walked up to Huang, “What’s going on?”
Huang pointed over the SUVs to the far end of the warehouse. A single car was parked up close to the wall. “Jessica Lee. She’s made her final play, Harry.” Harry looked. Jessica and another figure were huddled behind the car. Through the car windows, Harry recognised Huang’s wife from the party. Jessica’s small pistol shone silver, never far from the other woman’s head. “She kidnapped my wife from my house an hour ago. Killed three of my men doing it. You know, if my men take her out, then I’m afraid that breaks our deal Harry.”
“Wait. Give me chance to talk her out. I can save your wife.”
Huang laughed out loud. He didn’t seem too concerned. “Okay Harry, whatever you say. You’ve got sixty seconds, and we open fire. Let him through boys.”
Harry strode past the SUVs and into the space between the two sides. His back prickled at the thought of the gun barrels lined up behind him and pointing his way. He stopped fifteen yards out from Huang’s men, twenty-five yards from Jessica, pulled a cigarillo from the box in his pocket, and lit it, blowing the smoke up into the cool air of the warehouse.
From behind the car, Jessica saw him coming. Holding tightly on to her hair, she pulled Mrs Huang’s head up above the car and placed her small pistol against the woman’s temple. Mrs Huang was scared out of her mind. She squealed, “David! David, help me. She’s fucking insane!”
Jessica cracked her across the back of the head with the pistol, just hard enough to shut her up. Mrs Huang subsided into panicky sobs. “Hello, Harry. I thought you kept better company than these sorts.”
“Needs must, Jessica, needs must. Did you really think Huang would just give you the girl?”
“Have you seen it Harry? Did he show you what all this is about?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.”
“Then you know. You know why I have to do this Harry.”
“No I don’t, Jessica. I don’t understand any of this.”
“But Harry this is the future. This technology will decide the balance of power for the next fifty years or more. It’s too important. Sometimes a little sacrifice is needed.”
“The future can take care of itself. It’s just the same story over again. The rich guys jumping all over the poor guys to get what they want.”
“No, Harry. You saw it. This is something else. We can still save her Harry, you and me. We have to get her to America.”
“Huang will send her to America anyway. Why does anybody need you, Jessica?”
“Huang’s a dead man, he just doesn’t know it yet. I’m the best chance that girl’s got, you have to see that.”
“The game’s over Jessica. You lost. Let the woman go.”
“It’s not over yet, Harry. Not by a long shot.” She pulled Mrs Huang’s head up again, and called out, “Huang. I want the girl. You want your wife. Let’s make a deal.”
Huang shouted back over the SUVs, “Time’s up, Harry.” He spoke to one of his men, who had been carefully picking his shot down the long sniper sight on a rifle. “Okay
. Take that bitch out.”
Harry shouted, “No!” Mrs Huang screamed, for a second, then the rifle report deafened everyone. It echoed around the warehouse for an age, until Mrs Huang’s body, a tiny red dot above her eye and half her brains decorating the wall behind her, slumped from Jessica’s grasp onto the floor. Jessica was stunned into silence. Harry turned to face Huang, feeling suddenly even more exposed.
“Today I am a millionaire in Hong Kong. Tomorrow I become a billionaire in America and leave all this behind for my son. Did you really think I wanted to take that piece of trash with me? And now I’m afraid I have no further use for either of you.”
Harry started backing away, towards Jessica’s car. “We had a deal, Huang.”
“Well I’m afraid you have nothing left to offer me, Harry Vee. I would rather you both just disappeared. I am fortunate enough to be in a position to make that happen.”
Jessica had recovered her composure. Her face was spotted red with blood. “There’s one thing you’ve missed Huang. One final little detail.”
Huang laughed again. “I don’t think so, Jessica. But why don’t you give us a clue.”
“I already know where the girl is Huang.” This stopped his laughter dead in his throat. For the first time he wasn’t so sure of his plan. “I already know where the girl is. This little meeting was just about leading you and the Chinese away from her.”
At just the right time for Jessica, a screech of tyres sounded from behind Huang. Harry, finally knowing which way he had to jump, made a run for cover behind Jessica’s car. Automatic rifle fire lit up the far doors and filled Harry’s ears. Half of Huang’s men were cut down before they could adjust their cover. A few tried to return fire, but when a couple of grenades took out one of the SUVs, that didn’t leave many for the Chinese to mop up.
Harry couldn’t see Huang, which probably meant he was already lying dead on the other side. He looked over at Jessica. She was speckled with gore from Mrs Huang’s head, the blood now smeared across her face. He shouted to her over the gunfire, “You led them here.”
“They get what they want, I can collect what I want.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“We have to get her to the doctor in America, Harry. It’s the only chance she’s got to survive this.”
“Okay I’m with you. Where is she?”
“I heard the Chinese were making their move, so I had to draw them off here, or they would have hit the house and the yacht first. I had to promise them that everyone they wanted would be out here. Now’s our only chance to snatch her.”
“Do you really think they’re gonna let you walk away?”
“That was the deal, but no actually, I don’t.” Still crouching, she jumped into the driver’s seat of the car. Harry looked over at the battle taking place down the other end. Six of Huang’s men were holding their position. They could keep the Chinese busy for a little while yet. He jumped into the back seat as Jessica fired the engine.
“Jessica, tell me where the girl is.” The tyres screeched on the warehouse floor, then Jessica let it out. She twisted the wheel left and right to line them up, and Harry saw they were headed for a pair of steel emergency doors in the centre of the warehouse.
“She’s in the yacht. There’ll only be a couple of guards left after this.” A burst of automatic rifle fire hit them, shattering the side windows. Harry ducked down below the seat as the car hit the heavy iron doors, blowing them clean out the wall. He heard another burst of gunfire and the front windscreen scattered glass over the inside of the car.
The car lurched to one side, then the other, and then they hit something solid. The car jumped up, for a moment Harry and the fragments of glass were suspended together in the air, suspended in time, the shards around his head catching the light like tiny stars. Then they all crashed back to earth, hard, together, and Harry blacked out.
*
When he came to, he found himself jammed in the well behind the front seats. It was silent outside, and still dark. He half sat up, pain tearing through every nerve. His left knee was really gone this time. In the front seat, Jessica was dead. A bullet had torn through her cheek, and there were more holes in her chest. Through the remains of the windscreen, he could see the wall they had hit. He crawled up on to the rear seat. Fifty yards away to the left, the Chinese were loading the bodies of Huang’s thugs into vans. The gunmen had left, and the cleanup crews were doing their job. If he was going to get away, now was his only chance.
He silently opened the door on the far side, away from the Chinese, and slipped out into the dark, keeping low to the ground. Then he opened the driver’s door, and pulled Jessica’s body out onto the dusty ground. The Chinese could deal with her. The driver’s seat was wet with blood. He crawled inside, finding her pistol on the floor under the two pedals of the automatic. He slipped it in his pocket and prayed the car would start.
A glance at the Chinese told him he hadn’t been spotted yet. He turned the key in the ignition. The motor coughed, but didn’t fire. He heard shouting from his left. He tried again, the engine turning over and over but refusing to spark. The shouts were getting closer. One last chance. He turned the key and the starter motor turned over and over, whining in effort, and then it caught and the engine roared under his one good leg.
He threw it into reverse, spun the car ninety degrees, and roared off towards the fence as gunshots barked behind him. The car burst the outside fence, bouncing over it, and then he was speeding through the deserted backstreets between industrial parks and warehouses, skidding left and right until he hit the highway. He couldn’t see anyone following him, but didn’t let up speed for a second.
Taking the tunnel he was soon heading under the bay, weaving in and out of the few other cars on the road as the overhead lights flashed off the bonnet. The dashboard clock said nearly two. He had been out for an hour or more, and couldn’t afford to waste any time.
Soon his tyres were squealing around the hilly roads on the south side of Hong Kong Island, past the rich estates, the brand new sports cars parked up for the night, past the golf club and the towering private homes of the richest men in Hong Kong, men like David Huang. As he skidded to a halt outside the yacht club he heard the distant sound of sirens. Well, that couldn’t be helped now.
He shot the padlock off of the gate in the wire fence – no need to worry about the noise now - and rounded the clubhouse to the small marina at the rear. Scores of small yachts and plenty of larger ones filled the docks around the small bay, but Huang’s took pride of place, anchored one hundred yards out, a clearly outlined black shadow against the lights reflected off the waters.
It didn’t take him long to untie a motor launch and head out across the water. He was fifty yards out when he saw the red and blue lights from behind him, and heard the voice through the megaphone, but he didn’t take his eyes off the yacht for a second. And there was something else, too. The distant hum of a helicopter.
Climbing painfully up the ladder, supporting himself with his one good leg while the other hung in the air, the pistol dropped into the water below him. It didn’t matter. He pulled himself over the side. One of Huang’s men lay dead on the deck, with three neat puncture holes in his chest. Heading to the larger, downstairs deck he hit all the lights and saw two more guys who had ended up on the wrong side. They had been shot in the head and the chest, their blood pooling together on the floor.
Harry limped through the door he had seen Fong and Huang come out from at the party. The lock was busted open. A small corridor with three doors. On the left was the kitchen, on the right a storeroom. Just the door at the end.
The lock was broken on that one, too. Inside was a luxury bedroom. Wardrobes and TVs, a drinks cabinet and an ornate Chinese chest and other things lined the walls. A huge bed took up the centre space, and Mui was lying on the bed, her hands tied behind her back, wearing the jeans and sweater that Harry had bought for her. A single hole had been put in her head.
Back up on deck, the helicopter was getting closer, its powerful search beam seeking out the yacht. Feeling the wind gathering up and looking south over the open sea from the open back of the boat, Harry looked up to the stars. They shined down on the world as they always had, as they always would.
He supposed the chopper held the Chinese cleanup crew. They would be there soon, or the police. It didn’t really matter who got there first, everything would be neatly swept under the carpet. Harry felt in his pocket and pulled out the cigarillo box, but it was empty, so he dropped it over the side, to sink out of sight in the inky blackness of the water.
The End
About the Author
Michael Young is author of the Harry Vee Novel(s). He lives in East Asia, drinks scotch, smokes cigarillos, wears a lot of black and doesn’t believe in UFOs, or doesn’t think they matter all that much.
Otherwise, he’s not like Harry at all, really.
http://harry-vee-pi.blogspot.com/
mike_young_99@yahoo.co.uk