by Mark Dawson
“Looks like a rucksack. They’ve probably searched the boat,” he suggested.
Farrow continued on, passing the Lexus, and then, when they were around the corner, turning them around and sliding them up against the kerb. He let the engine run as Morley looked left and right: there was a bus shelter with two people sitting on the bench and the Bridal Tea House Restaurant with a customer smoking a cigarette outside it.
“Too many witnesses here to take them,” Morley said.
“So we follow them.”
Morley heard the sound of an engine starting up and just caught sight of the Lexus as it moved away.
He touched the gas and set off.
44
Navarro was frustrated. He stared at the phone on the table, fighting the urge to call Morley back so that he could update him on what was happening at the harbour.
It was obvious that Wang had sent his goons to the boat. He was going way beyond the limits of what they had agreed; his role had been to find PROSPERO and deliver him. He had found him, but that was as much as he had been able to manage. He had become a liability.
Navarro had already decided that Wang was selfish and venal, and that he would sell anything if he thought he could turn a profit. He couldn’t be trusted, and he already knew too much. He wouldn’t be able to name Navarro—Wang had no idea who he was—but he would be able to provide just enough information to an interested third party that the dots could be joined. That was a prospect that Navarro could not abide, and he had already decided that he would clean house as soon as TEMPEST was concluded and PROSPERO was in his custody. And if that meant that Wang had to disappear?
So be it.
Navarro snapped around as Mazzetti clapped his hands together and whooped.
“What is it?” Harker said.
“Got him!”
Navarro got up. “What?”
“PROSPERO,” he said. “He’s opened the email. The Trojan is installing.”
Navarro came up behind Mazzetti and watched as his fingers flashed across the keyboard. “What are you doing?”
“Taking control of his computer.” Mazzetti’s fingers danced over the keys. “Want to see him?”
Navarro leaned in closer as Mazzetti hit return and a new window opened on his screen. It was a video feed and there, frowning as he looked down at something just below the camera, was Danny Nakamura.
“That’s from his webcam,” Mazzetti said.
Navarro stared at his prey. PROSPERO was wearing what looked like a dressing gown, and the background of the image suggested that he was outside.
The computer’s microphone was switched on, too, and they heard a muffled voice.
“Danny? You in here?”
PROSPERO stood up and moved out of the frame.
“Where is he?” Navarro said.
“Hold on,” Mazzetti said.
He typed in another set of commands, hit return and then turned the screen so that he could see the map that opened in a fresh window. The map was of Hong Kong and, more specifically, Hong Kong Island. A blue dot was overlaid on Repulse Bay. Mazzetti zoomed in and identified the precise location of the dot.
“One hundred ten Repulse Bay Road,” he said.
“How long to get there?”
Mazzetti had already processed that. “Twenty minutes. South on Wong Nai Chung Gap Road. Minimal traffic. I’ll send you the route.”
Harker must have heard Mazzetti’s exclamation; he had come out of the bedroom.
Navarro turned to him. “Get the others,” he said. “We’ve found him.”
“What about Morley and Farrow?”
“Wang’s men went to the boat,” he explained. “Could be they took something off it. It could be the tapes. Morley and Farrow are following.” He gestured to the door. “Move. I want to be out of here in five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harker hurried out of the room. The others were downstairs in the rec room.
Navarro clapped his hands together. He felt the usual buzz of anticipation.
“Get me satellite images,” he told Mazzetti.
“I’ll send them while you’re on the road. I’ll mirror his hard drive, too. I’ll let you know if I get anything.”
Navarro grabbed his shoulder rig and slipped it on, unclipping the hammer strap that secured his pistol in the holster. He put his light jacket over the top of it. He knew the team didn’t need him, but he wanted to be there when they nailed PROSPERO.
He would call Lincoln as soon as it was done.
45
The Lexus followed Route 1, heading directly east. The driver cut inland and passed through Wong Chuk Hang and then Shouson Hill before turning onto Island Road and following that into Repulse Bay.
Farrow called Navarro.
“Where are you now?”
“Following. Heading southeast. Assume we have permission to take them out?”
“You do. Wang, too, if they go to him. Out.”
Morley saw that the Lexus had pulled away a little. He pressed down on the accelerator until the distance had closed again. There were three cars between them and the Lexus; he wasn’t particularly concerned that they would be made, but he didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances.
The Lexus turned to the south and took Repulse Bay Road, eventually turning inland and crossing the peninsula in the direction of Stanley. They followed to Hoi Fung Path. The road was a dead end, and, rather than give themselves away, Morley pulled in at the side of the road in a position where he could still see the car. The brake lights glowed red out of the gloom, and they heard the sound of a gate opening through the open window. The Lexus moved forward again, then swung around and disappeared into the property on the right.
They sat in the car for a moment, waiting to see if there was any movement from the house. The gates closed, grinding against the surface of the road. They heard the sound of two doors opening and closing, and then nothing more.
Morley looked over at Farrow. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
They both pulled on nitrile gloves, rolled their balaclavas over their faces and stepped out of the car. Morley took out his key fob and blipped the trunk; the lid popped open, and Morley pushed it up all the way so that they could get at the contents. There were two large canvas flight bags that had been brought into the country as sealed diplomatic pouches, part of a consignment that contained equipment for each member of the team; they had been delivered to the safe house once they were in situ. Morley unzipped his bag. Inside was everything that he could possibly have needed during his stay. The armaments included an M4 that was fitted with a PentagonLight and a SOPMOD fore-grip; six 5.56 magazines; an M9 pistol with holster; and a Mossberg shotgun with twelve-gauge double-aught buckshot rounds. There were grenades—smoke, flash and frag—flex-cuffs, a penflare gun and flares, a pistol belt with a knife, a blood chit, a compass, an IR chemstick spinner, a red-light LED, and a survival tin. There was a medical pouch with tourniquets and dressings and a MilTech carrier vest already fitted with soft plates in the front and back.
Morley put on the vest, put two flash bangs into the pouches and clipped the M9 onto his belt. He took out the M4 and pressed in a magazine. He pulled back on the cocking handle and then held on as he allowed it to go forward, just fast enough for the bolt to strip a round out of the magazine and load it into the chamber. He held the bolt assist on the right side of the upper, pushing forward three times to make sure that the bolt was locked in place and the round was seated in the chamber. He clicked the selector to safe.
Farrow put on his own vest and selected the shotgun to go with his sidearm.
The two men shared a quick look. This was a standard operation: breach and clear. They had done it many times, mostly in the Killing House that the SAD used for training back at Fort Bragg. They had performed the operation in real life, too. This would likely be easier than usual; on this occasion, the bad guys didn’t know that they were coming.
&nbs
p; Morley pushed down on the trunk until it clicked and locked. The two of them made their way to the side of the road, using the wall as cover as they approached the gate.
46
Navarro sat in the front of the SUV, his eyes fixed to the road ahead. Harker was driving. Millman and Schroder were in the back.
“Five minutes out,” Harker announced.
Navarro rested his fingers on the stippled butt of his Browning. He had his phone in his left hand and was scrolling through the images that Mazzetti had sent through. One hundred ten Repulse Bay Road was owned by a corporation that was in itself owned by a Mr. George Soto, a banker and venture capitalist who had had the means to meet its ten-million-dollar purchase price in cash five years earlier. Mazzetti had found pictures of Soto from his fund’s website: he was older, the same age as PROSPERO, and obviously not a threat, although his money had probably bought significant security. Mazzetti had pulled images from the most recent overpass of the National Reconnaissance Office’s Misty satellite and had forwarded those, too: they showed a large estate that was built on the slope of the terrain as it descended to the bay, with a large main property and a smaller cottage nearer to the edge of the cliff.
“What do you think?” Schroder said from the back. “We going to be done with this tonight?”
“Please, God,” Millman replied.
“We get PROSPERO. Then we can bug out.”
“My boy’s quarterbacking the championship match on Saturday,” Millman said. “My wife was ready to kill me when I said I wouldn’t be able to go. Maybe we’ll get back in time after all.”
“Focus,” Navarro snapped. “I want to get out of this shithole as much as you do, but we are going to do our jobs with absolute professionalism. We are not going to mess this up. Anyone who drops the ball answers to me personally. Are we clear?”
They replied that they were. Navarro wasn’t worried; they were experienced and thorough. Collecting a seventy-year-old man who didn’t know they were coming would be a walk in the park.
Harker slowed down as they curved around a sharp bend. He glanced at the satnav and then out to the left.
“In there,” he said. “Behind the gates.”
He drove on and then pulled into a space at the side of the road. A large building was under construction, and there was enough room for the SUV to pull in next to the Porta-John and the building material.
The men didn’t need any encouragement to start work. They disembarked, collected their equipment and made their way back up the steeply sloping road to the driveway that led to number 110.
47
Morley and Farrow waited and watched.
The road that led down to the house was unlit save for two illuminated globes that sat on either side of the gate into which the Lexus had just disappeared. The property was set back from the road and encircled by a whitewashed wall. The wall was around eight feet tall, with a flat top that had been made more secure by the addition of broken glass that was set into the concrete. There was a set of iron double gates topped with decorative bronze finials. Morley glanced through the metal latticework at the large house that stood beyond them. The property was two storeys tall, with a grey slate roof and whitewashed walls. There was a large porte cochere with a brand-new Mercedes and the Lexus that they had been following parked beneath it. A further set of gates behind the Mercedes looked as if they opened out onto the garden; the house sat in an elevated position, and Morley could tell that it would come with an impressive view of Tai Tam Bay beyond.
Expensive, he thought. Is this Wang’s place?
Morley scoped out the house itself. The windows on the first floor were obscured by blinds, but light leaked out around the edges. The ground-floor windows were not covered, and he could see silhouettes moving behind the glass.
He led the way along the road to the end. Cars had been parked on both sides, with barely enough room between them for the vehicles at the back to make their way out. The dead end was hemmed in by lush vegetation. Morley made his way to the trees and looked around the corner of the wall to see if there was another way into the property. There was: the vegetation had been hacked back to clear a path, leading to a door that was set into the wall. The door was less secure than the main gate, observed by a camera set on a bracket above it, but not—at first glance, at least—as substantial.
Farrow was behind him. Morley pointed to the door, Farrow nodded his understanding, and they made their way down the narrow track in single file.
Morley reached down to his belt, took out a can of black spray paint and aimed the aerosol at the camera. He pressed down on the activator, covering the lens with a film of paint. He put the can back into its pouch, took out his lock picks and knelt down to examine the lock. It was a simple pin tumbler device. He slid the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole and applied just the right level of torque in a clockwise direction. He used a Bogota rake as his pick, using the three ridges to scrub against the pins. He pulled the pick back and lifted it up to apply pressure, setting each of the pins so that he was able to turn the wrench and unlock the door.
The door opened; he held the edge with his fingers and listened intently. He heard the sound of muffled music and the hint of voices coming from the inside of the house, but nothing to suggest that there was anyone on the outside.
Morley clicked the M4’s selector twice to put it into full auto, and, gripping the carbine, he opened the door a little more and slid through.
48
Danny stood on the balcony of the guest cottage and looked out to Repulse Bay. He had been in Hong Kong a long time, but all good things had to come to an end. He wanted—needed—to leave. He wanted to see his daughter. He wanted to go home.
“You want another?” George said.
They had already finished a quarter of the bottle, and Danny was starting to feel a little light-headed. But it had been a pleasant evening, and, as the Scotch had flowed, so too had their conversation. There had been a lot to catch up on, and Danny found that he regretted that they had not seen each other for so many years.
“Your friend,” George said. “Caprice?”
“What about her?”
George looked at him over the rim of his glass. “What did you say that she did again?”
“I didn’t,” he said. He sipped his drink, wondering what Beatrix would want him to say.
“She’s… interesting,” George offered.
“And you’re old enough to be her father,” Danny retorted, seeing where the conversation was headed.
George laughed. “I’m also very rich.”
“Trust me. She’s not your type.”
“Really?”
“Trust me.”
Danny walked to the edge of the balcony and, from there, looked back up the slope. There were lights set on either side of the path that led down to the cottage, but, beyond them, the vegetation was dark and thick, and nothing could be seen. The main house shone brightly, though, and Danny thought he could see movement up on the terrace.
“There’s someone up there,” he said.
George stretched out his legs and sipped at his drink. “It’s probably Li.”
“Who’s that?”
“My housekeeper. He’s closing the house down for the night.”
Danny took a sip of his drink. George was a lucky man to have all of this. He had always been smart, but how much of it had been luck? Being in the right place at the right time and armed with the right kind of knowledge to make a life-changing call? It would have been easy to be jealous of the life that he had built, but Danny was not materialistic, and jealousy had never been in his nature. He was grateful that his friend had loaned them the cottage; things would have been much more difficult without it.
He turned his face to the water. Standing on the balcony, looking out over the bay at the lights of a boat as it hugged the shoreline, he thought about his life since he had fled Vietnam. He had had no expectations before he came here. He remembe
red it well: he had lived minute-to-minute, making choices on the fly. Going to ground in the Walled City was an accident, his decision based on a chance conversation with two strangers with whom he’d shared a table in an egg waffle shop near the airbase after he had landed. Finding a boat and living in the floating village had been the same. He had bought the Constance from the cousin of a neighbour in the Walled City who was selling the vessel for next to nothing because he was emigrating to Canada. It was a wreck. He had rebuilt it. The thought of never seeing it again was hard, but perhaps that was for the best. The thought of having a family—finally—was suitable compensation.
He put the glass to his lips and sipped at it again. Twists of fate, all of it.
“You all right?” George asked him.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You look like you’re a million miles away.”
“Just thinking about life.”
Things were going to change. He wanted his life to be deliberate from now on, not dictated by whim or chance. Maybe it was too late to build a relationship with Melissa, but, then again, maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t matter; he was still going to try.
Below him, further down the slope, he saw the turquoise square of the pool. It was lit from beneath, and the glow undulated against the trees that fringed it as the water was caressed by the gentle sea breeze. It was hypnotic, and he had almost allowed himself to be lulled by it when he saw the silhouette of a person.
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s who?”
“Someone’s down by the pool. Would it be Li?”
“No,” George said. “Not at this time.”
Danny heard the sound of footsteps on the terrace behind him.
Beatrix?
He turned.
It wasn’t Beatrix.
It was a man. He was white. Old. He was tanned, and his skin was weathered from being out in the sun for too long. His hair was thick, despite his age, and worn long, falling down beyond the collar of the leather jacket that he was wearing. He had a pistol in his right hand and it was aimed straight at Danny’s gut.
