The Captain laughed, a laugh that turned into a cough. “I really must give up these cigars,” he said.
“Bless you.”
“No, bless you, Ava Lee. You are indeed a clever girl. Does the presence of this Mr. Liang mean you won’t need our physical assistance on that end?”
“Not after I get Seto on the plane.”
“Can I ask just how you intend to get him to sleep?”
“I had coffee with Patrick at the doughnut shop a few days ago. Check the tape,” she said.
“I have,” he said.
“So you know.”
“I know.”
“Then why ask?”
“I wasn’t sure I believed it.”
“You can.”
“Evidently. Well, now that we have landed you safely and you have taken a very passive Seto past Immigration without any fuss or bother, that leaves us with the small matter of money. You can understand that the plane is expensive. And our friends in the Virgin Islands have a grossly superior standard of living. They won’t be satisfied with just a few dollars for turning a blind eye to what is essentially a kidnapping.”
She had thought of taking a different approach, of giving him a choice between a set fee and a percentage of what she would recover. If she was unsuccessful collecting the money, then giving a percentage would lower the hit she and Uncle would have to take. But that would make it necessary for her to tell him how much money was involved. And if she did, she would tell him the truth; she didn’t discount the idea that his BVI contacts were good enough to enable him to find out. And of course, if she was successful he would make even more than he could with a set fee. It would be found money, of course, but it was still coming out of their pockets. It all boiled down to how confident she felt about her chances at Barrett’s.
When she was leafing through Seto’s records, she had noted that Jeremy Bates seemed to be a recent arrival at the bank. His name didn’t crop up until the past year. Before that Seto had dealt with a Mark Jones. This meant that Bates hadn’t been involved in establishing the withdrawal procedures. He would know about them, for certain, but maybe he would find them as cumbersome and old-fashioned as she did. Maybe he’d take a more flexible attitude if she could establish the right framework. It felt right, she decided. It would work.
“Name your fee,” she said.
“We’ll need $200,000,” he said.
“Captain, you’re killing me,” she said.
“Ms. Lee, this time we are not negotiating with you. That’s the sum. Pay it or enjoy your vacation in Guyana with Mr. Seto, because I assure you he is not leaving this country under any other circumstances.”
She knew he meant it and she knew she was going to wire the money, but it wasn’t in her nature to capitulate so readily. She sighed. “I’ll have to talk to my people. I can’t agree to this without their permission. Can you give me ten minutes?”
“Take twenty if you need it.”
She switched to her own phone, but not before checking the previous calls made on Patrick’s. She wrote down in her notebook the number she presumed was the Captain’s direct line.
Uncle took her call on the first ring.
“We’ll need to send $200,000.”
“Same banking information?”
“Exactly.”
“It will get done in the next half-hour,” he said without hesitation.
“Have the wire confirmation scanned and emailed to me, please.”
“It will be done at the same time.”
She knew how hard this was for him. “Uncle, this will work,” she said.
“How much extra money do you think there will be?” he asked, simultaneously confirming his trust in her and letting her know that his decision to wire the $200,000 wasn’t based on a potential windfall profit.
“About two million.”
“Do you have any sense of the timing?”
“It will take Derek at least twenty-four hours to get to the Virgin Islands. I can’t do this without him, so there’s no point in my leaving here until the day after tomorrow. They want us to arrive in the evening, so the soonest I can get to the bank is probably three days from now.”
“Keep in touch.”
“Every day,” she said.
Ava checked her emails for the next half-hour, catching up with her family and friends. The weather was brutal in Toronto, and her mother was making her usual winter threat to move back to Hong Kong. As she was reading her sister’s plea for Mummy to stay put — why Marian took these threats seriously amazed Ava, as her mother had no friends there anymore, and besides, if she did show up their father would cut her off financially — an email arrived from Derek. He had booked a flight through San Juan that would get him into Tortola at six o’clock the next day, sooner than she had thought possible. He had struck out with hotel suites but had found a three-bedroom serviced apartment with a one-week minimum stay and had booked it.
An apartment is perfect, she thought. Maybe Derek was going to be her good luck charm. She figured he must have gone straight home from karaoke after her call. She seemed to be the only thing in his life he took seriously. Ava phoned him at home. He didn’t seem surprised to hear from her so quickly.
“The place sounds great,” she said.
“It wasn’t easy to find.”
“Derek, I may try to fly into the BVI tomorrow night as well. I would try to structure it so I’d land around ten. That would give you time to get organized.”
“What do you want done?”
“I’m coming in on a private plane. I’d like you to meet me on the tarmac with a wheelchair.”
“I’m sure I can find a wheelchair somewhere,” he said.
“They’ll have them at the airport.”
“But how do I get to the plane? You know what security is like these days.”
“That’s being arranged. BVI Customs and Immigration will have your name. They’ll let you come and meet me. I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll get them and a contact name for you in case you have any problems.”
“Sounds simple.”
“Doesn’t it always — just before things get screwed up.”
“Ava, can we trust these people?”
“I’m paying them enough.”
“Still…”
“They also think I’m triad.”
“You mean you’re not?” he said jokingly. Even if she wasn’t, the idea that she might be connected to the triads was enough to give most people second thoughts about screwing around with her. More than once she and Derek had been faced with the threat of violence, only to have Ava short-circuit it with, “We’re the nice ones. You really don’t want to meet our friends.”
“Not that I know of,” she said. Then she asked him about his departure the next day and said she’d call him before he left to confirm her schedule and to give him the other information he needed.
Now it was time to call the Captain. She punched his number into her phone. No harm in letting him know she could contact him directly.
He didn’t answer until the fifth ring, and Ava wondered if he was playing with her. “Ms. Lee, I see you have my number. I’m assuming you also have some heart-warming information for me.”
“The money is in the process of being wired. I’ll have a copy of the transfer in a few hours. With any luck the money will be in your account tomorrow,” she said.
“Do you mean today? It’s already well past midnight.”
“Today. And I’d like to get out of here today as well. Do you think that’s possible?”
