by James Quinn
It was behind the bedroom wall mirror where he confirmed what he suspected had been there all along. A small, penny-sized device, very slim with two short wires jutting out and sending a signal… to where? Not far away, he guessed. Probably the listening team were safely ensconced in an apartment above him, there to monitor his actions and see if he did anything that would be deemed suspicious by his paymasters inside the Raven organisation. So he did the wise thing and left it where it was. Now that he knew where at least one of them was, he could play them at their own game.
Being out of circulation for a while, he knew that he desperately needed to make contact with his case officer. Just to let them know he was alive and still in play. The sooner he could arrange a brush past, the better… he needed to get away from his watchers for an hour or so and write down everything the Japanese chemist had told him, before he'd blown his brains out. The opportunity came the next day, when a thunderstorm knocked out the power to the whole apartment complex. One minute he'd been staring out of the window at the ominous black clouds and lightning sparking out in the distance… the next, the lights had gone out and the gentle hum of the fridge stopped. He'd quickly jumped up and tried the switches, sockets and lights. Nothing. All dead. He knew from experience that reconnecting the power would be a long process, and he also knew that with the power gone, any bugging equipment and covert cameras would be knocked out too. It was an opportunity too good to waste.
He grabbed his jacket and a pen and paper from the desk and ran out of the apartment. He figured he had maybe an hour, at the most. He ran for the stairwell, jumping from landing to landing, pushing himself off from the railings and hitting the floor with a thud. On the ground level he rushed past the reception/security desk and out into the street. The wind and rain hit him at once and started to soak through his summer suit. Moving down the main road, he hit the corner and found a waiting dik si driver sitting in an old Humber. Grant pushed a wad of notes through the driver's window and climbed in. The man looked shocked that this soaking wet man had given him so much money.
“Wan Chai! And fast!” Grant barked at the driver, throwing himself into the back seat and waiting for the driver to gun the engine.
The driver knew a good deal when he saw one. Who cared what this angry foreign devil was up to, as long as he paid well? Maybe there would even be a tip at the end of it? The car skidded and pushed its way through the empty, rain-slicked streets, increasing speed in the long straight stretches. In the back seat, Grant was furiously writing down everything he could remember as concisely as he could from what he'd learned over the past few weeks. It was a bloody mess, he thought. Trying to write down Grade 'A' intelligence with a blunt pencil on two sheets of paper in the back of a dilapidated taxi in the dark. But try he did… he just hoped Penn would be able to decipher it in time.
He gave them as much as he could… the two men whom he'd killed in Brazil… the details of the Kyonshi virus… and the possible location of the pagoda, the Raven's sanctuary and safe zone…
They'd just passed Happy Valley Racecourse when the driver asked, “Where in Wan Chai you want?” His brow furrowed in concentration as he hurled the car around bends, dodging pedestrians.
“The Pussycat Club. You know it?”
“Ha! Everyone knows the Pussycat, mister,” grinned the driver. “Hang on!”
The journey took them about fifteen minutes and soon main roads gave way to the bustling and lively area of Wan Chai, filled with bars, hookers and sailors looking for a good time. The Pussycat Club sat on the corner of Lockhart Road and was a first floor den of iniquity. Its sign hanging outside displayed a topless woman bending down to stroke a Siamese cat. It was one of a myriad of identical bars in the Wan Chai red light district. Grant jumped out of the taxi and watched as it moved off into the traffic before he climbed the narrow stairs to the first floor reception. He could hear the beat of the music even from half way up. At the top stair, there was a smiling Chinese bouncer who directed him to the reception desk. A pretty young Chinese girl served him.
“Is Nancy about tonight?” Grant asked.
“At the bar… she's with a guy, I think,” said the receptionist, nodding toward the interior of the club.
The club itself was busy. The small dance floor already full with a melee of sailors, drunken businessmen and girls all eager to make a quick dollar. He spotted her straight away. It was hard not to. She had femme fatale written all over her. Gorilla thought she modelled her look on the old film noir heroines of the 1940's. She was small and slim and looked ten years younger than her true age. She would never see forty again, but she carried herself well and with grace. She wore a red, figure hugging dress, coiffed black hair and striking red lipstick. She had one foot balanced on the rung of her stool, which allowed her to reveal a touch of her slim thighs.
Jack Grant slid up next to her at the bar, where she was listening to her 'date' for the night, who by the look of it, had drunk too much of the cheap, knock-off champagne the club served to their clients. Her back was to him but he made a point of speaking loudly when the barman came over to take his order. “You serve any Sentinel Vodka here?”
The barman, to his credit, didn't look confused – he just shook his head and pointed to the house brand in the optics. “That will do instead,” said Gorilla and watched as the barman poured him a shot glass full. The stuff was foul… but it had served its purpose. It had caught the attention of the indomitable Nancy Lo, who cast a glance over her beautiful shoulder at the man who'd spoken her activation code word. Gorilla heard her say to her date, “Excuse me, darling, I won't keep you one moment,” before turning to fully face him.
“Hi Nancy, so good to see you! It's been a while,” said Grant, to the complete stranger in front of him. “I see they stopped serving that Sentinel Vodka I liked.”
Nancy Lo regarded the man in front of her with a critical eye. She was a street-wise, no-nonsense hooker of the old school, so she trusted no man at face value. She'd been an old SIS asset who had, on more than one occasion, coerced a businessman or diplomat into giving her a few titbits after her efforts between the sheets with them. She'd thought her spying days were behind her, until she'd been approached by a Major Meadows of the British Secret Service, offering her a cash in hand, no risk job. Listen for the code word and pass messages, nothing that she hadn't done a thousand times before, for one spy or another. They were mostly smartly dressed elderly men, 'prim and proper', her amah would have called them. Occasionally, one of them would make a feeble effort to seduce her, but she always kept them at a distance… after all, business was business. But this stocky, bearded man in front of her didn't look like her usual contact. He looked like a thug, like some of the rougher sailors who came into the club, except that he was wearing a suit of good quality and style.
“Sentinel?” she asked. “Sentinel Vodka… I haven't heard of that brand in a while.”
“I hope the company is still trading. I'd like to write to their head office. Maybe I could give them some customer advice. I don't suppose you have their address?” asked Grant. He was keen to move the trade on, eager to get back to The Peak before his absence was noticed.
“I can always be persuaded to pass on a message for my friends,” she said, opening her purse discreetly. Grant quickly reached into his inside jacket pocket for the envelope and slipped it into the purse. She clicked it shut with a discernible snap. Grant looked her directly in the eye. He was trusting this bloody woman, not only with the success of this operation, but with his fucking survival. He leaned forward to offer her a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “Nancy, love, I know you're a busy lady, but this message needs to get to my people quick… as fast as you can.”
She accepted the brush of his beard against her cheek and smiled back at him. “My darling… I always look after my friends. You have nothing to worry about. You are in safe hands… maybe when you have some free time, you can come back and buy Nancy a drink?”
Grant
nodded and walked away. He just hoped that Nancy Lo was good to her word and she would get the message back to Penn and Sentinel before the next round of bullets started to fly. He found a taxi cab outside and was back at the apartment complex thirty minutes later, happy to discover that the power was still out. The Raven surveillance operators secreted somewhere in the floors above him would be pacing furiously, waiting for the power to come back on to kick start their live feed. Yeah well, fuck them, he thought. He'd slipped out of the net, right from under their noses and for those few hours he'd been one lucky son of a bitch.
* * *
By the end of the second week he was bouncing off the walls, not so much because of his isolation in the apartment, but because he was tied to Hong Kong. He wanted to get out and find his own place… anywhere, were eyes and ears didn't have him under surveillance. It was like being smothered and he was sick of it.
He trashed the apartment, upended the sofa, smashed the crockery in the kitchen and generally went on a violent spree. That would give them something to listen to, the bastards. It was by the end of the third week, when the surveillance listeners thought that the 'Gorilla' was going to go on another one of his rampages when a visitor arrived. There was no fanfare, no VIP reception. The big man simply walked into the apartment, his bulk filling the doorframe, walked up to Jack Grant who was laying naked on the bed, half-drunk from the night before, and stared down at the little Redactor.
“So Mr. Grant, I hear you've been busy,” said Hokku, looking his most fearsome. “We need to talk. We have some serious questions that we need you to answer.”
“Go away,” snarled Grant, playing the part of angry drunk. He propped himself up on his elbow and glared at the huge Japanese man at the end of the bed.
Hokku smiled slowly and Grant knew he'd gotten under his skin. Hokku wasn't used to having subordinates talk to him like that, especially 'foreign devils' like this. “Mr. Grant, forgive me, but if you don't get up, get dressed and tell me what I need to know, I am going to lift you from that bed and take your head in my hands and I'm going to crush your skull until your eyes pop.”
Grant looked at the giant's hands and knew that would be the least those hands were capable of. “Where the fuck is Trench,” he barked, determined to regain some initiative.
“Trench is away for a while, a little job he is doing for us. You can deal with me for the time being.”
“I work for Trench. I'll talk to him,” growled Grant.
Hokku shook his head and laughed. “No, Mr. Grant you work for me, as does Trench. I pay you your fees and I make the decisions. Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way.”
Grant smiled; it was the type of line he'd used himself on the unwary. So having it thrown back at him by this formidable opponent was a bit disconcerting. “Okay, let's talk,” he said, lifting up the dining table and chairs that he'd thrown across the room the night before in one of his 'rages'. Both men sat by the window looking out over the bay, the early morning sun bathing the room a cloudy orange colour.
“You didn't complete the terms of the contract,” said Hokku, composed once more. The giant killer had been put away and the reasonable accountant was once again in control of the negotiations.
Grant was confused. He hoped that confusion would mask, even momentarily, the fact that he knew he'd made an error by letting the girl, Maria, go in Brazil. “You've got two dead targets haven't you? Jobs complete.”
“But there was a witness Mr. Grant, one whom you failed to eliminate.” Hokku forced a cool glare in the little man's direction.
Gorilla Grant went with the dumb pupil look. Gave nothing back. Just silent insolence.
“The driver. The girl? You had orders to kill her after the hits were carried out,” explained Hokku.
“I don't kill non-combatants. I got the targets, the two men. That was the deal, the contract.”
Hokku smiled. “Mr. Grant do you think we care about non-combatants? We care about our people fulfilling the tasks they've been given. It is not complicated.”
“I'd do the same again. You don't like that, then you let me walk, we go our separate ways,” said Grant.
Hokku stared at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses. “Do you think that would ever happen? That we would just let you wander off, after you had been a part of something that we were involved in? No, we would kill you.”
“So, why haven't you then?”
“Because I see great potential in you, Mr. Grant; you could go far in our organisation, you have a talent. Your reputation, as provided by Trench has shown me that you would be a valuable asset to us. And I don't throw away talent. I keep it close, nurture it, and guide its potential. I even admire your stance on not killing innocent bystanders, it is to be commended. We are after all, civilised and not barbarians,” replied Hokku cautiously.
Grant inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment.
“Of course, it didn't change anything – you not killing the driver,” Hokku said smoothly.
“What do you mean?” asked Grant, dreading what he suspected was coming.
Hokku smiled. “One of our people picked up the girl, about an hour after she left you. They killed her and dumped her by the roadside out in the country somewhere. It was for the best. She would have been a danger to you.”
Grant's face held, he betrayed no emotion, but his stomach churned with revulsion and rage.
“But that is the past… now to the future,” said Hokku. “Sufficient time has passed and the investigation in Brazil has been stalled, thanks to our contacts hindering police procedures. Two small-time criminals have been arrested for the crimes. Both were shot while trying to evade arrest. So you are in the clear, Mr. Grant.”
“Great.” It was all Jack Grant could manage by way of gratitude. He could feel bitterness and bile rising in his throat and swallowed heavily against it.
Hokku stood to leave. “Get yourself cleaned up. I will send a car for you in one week's time.”
“Why? Am I going somewhere?” Grant asked, confused.
Hokku turned and straightened his suit jacket fussily. “You are to be honoured with an audience from our Oyabun. He has expressed a desire to meet the man who has resolved our recent problems. Your work has impressed him greatly.”
“What? The Raven, here? Here in Hong Kong?” Grant was astounded. Maybe this hit was going to be easier than he'd thought.
Hokku laughed loudly. “No, the Raven rarely leaves the safety of his homeland. All the arrangements have been made. You are to travel to Japan. To the pagoda.”
* * *
The next evening, Grant took a stroll into town. He felt free, as if there had been a weight lifted off his shoulders and the long walk helped him to relax. He had no proof, but he suspected that following Hokku's arrival, the surveillance in the apartment had been called off. Nothing concrete… just a feeling, a gut instinct. He didn't know how much longer he would be in Hong Kong – could be hours, could be days, but he guessed no more than a week. Grant was heading to a little bar he knew near Kowloon bay to celebrate. He was going anywhere except to Wan Chai, just on the off chance that there was still some kind of street surveillance on him. So while the walk was a good way of stretching his legs and bleeding off the confines of the past few weeks, it was also a crafty way of him running some counter-surveillance on the off chance that Hokku had set some local leg-men onto him.
He dined at a Dim Sum place off the Kowloon Road, downed a couple of expensive scotches and made a couple of phone calls from the restaurant's private phone. The first was to the Pussycat Club, where he asked to speak to Miss Nancy Lo, regular hostess on the evening shift. The rest were just random numbers… tailors, a shoe shop, a taxi rank… anything to hide the Pussycat Club's number in a forest of numbers and anything to slow down any trackers running traces or surveillance.
“Nancy, it's Jack… from the other week… likes a tipple of Sentinel Vodka when you have it at the bar… how are you? Sorry I won't b
e able to make our date next week… going on a little business trip… Japan, yes, really! So don't worry, but please feel free to let the lads over at Sentinel Vodka know that I'm away… maybe they could get the old team together and we could meet up. Yes, if you could pass the message on word-for-word, I'm sure the bosses will give you some free samples… maybe the Pagoda brand that they carry?”
And that had been the end of the call. He'd placed the phone down gently, paid his bill and jumped in the first cab he found. He was drunk and ready to crash. But the moment he thought of Japan and what it might entail, the alcohol in his system seemed to dissipate. He just had to trust, again, that Nancy Lo, hooker and spy extraordinaire would be his lifeline once more and get the message through.
Book Three: Ronin
Chapter One
EUROPE/ASIA - MARCH 1968
It was the middle of the night when the team finally received the code sign that was to bring them back to life. Following the 'hits' on the Raven players they'd reconvened to a safe house in Paris, a large apartment on the Rue de la Paix. They'd lived frugally, quietly, as if mentally preparing themselves for what was about to come. The men had shared the main bedroom, the 'barracks' as Hodges called it, whilst Miko had exclusivity over the second bedroom. The phone had rung and Masterman barked down the line. “Sentinel is a go!” They had a location: Matsumoto, Japan. They had a rough time frame: within the week.
