arrived.’
‘Did you speak to your wife?’
‘She hasn’t noticed anything unusual.’
‘She wouldn’t if they were good, would she?’
‘My not being around is going to provide the confirmation,’ said Lu. ‘Why don’t I get back to Hong Kong; play the innocent?’
And get hold of those immigration documents, thought Charlie. He didn’t criticize the man for his eagerness. If Lu returned to Hong Kong it would put him by himself. But Cartright would be arriving sometime that day and being by himself was something he was accustomed to anyway. Providing Lu played his part convincingly, the man could actually send the Americans on enough wild goose chases to stock a dozen Christmas larders. And now that he had his entry permission, there was no cause to doubt Lu’s loyalty. Charlie said: ‘Any indication of their looking here, in Macao?’
Lu shook his head. ‘Just Hong Kong, at the moment.’
‘How sure are you?’
‘As sure as I can be: I trust my sources.’
Back in the colony, Lu would be able to monitor the Americans’ movements far better than he could here, thought Charlie, recognizing another advantage to the man’s return. He said: ‘Think you could carry it off?’
‘No problem,’ said Lu.
Too quick, judged Charlie: understandably the man was thinking more of getting out to the safety of England than he was about what it would be like to confront the Americans. He said: ‘It is. If they think you know something –get the slightest suspicion – they’ll put your prick through the mangle. Maybe literally.’
‘I can do it,’ insisted Lu.
‘It could be useful,’ conceded Charlie, in final agreement, setting out how he wanted the Americans watched and misled.
‘I can do that, too,’ assured the other man.
‘Just be careful,’ urged Charlie.
‘The balance had changed now, hasn’t it?’ said Lu.
‘What?’ frowned Charlie.
‘I said when you arrived that you owed me: I guess now that I owe you.’
‘I’m glad it worked out,’ said Charlie, vaguely discomfited by the man’s gratitude. Surprised, too: he hoped it was all as clear cut as it appeared.
Furthering the discomfort, Lu extended his hand and said: ‘Thanks Charlie: you’re a friend.’
Trying to lighten the mood, Charlie said: ‘It’s the last station on the Piccadilly Line.’
Now it was Lu’s turn to be confused. ‘What?’
‘Cockfosters,’ grinned Charlie. ‘The stop after Oakwood.’
Lu smiled back and said: ‘Visit us there?’
‘All the time,’ promised Charlie. He hesitated, considering the shoulder bag containing the material the Director had freighted from London and decided it was safer carried than left lying about in an hotel room. He picked it up and said to Lu: ‘Come on. Let’s give Irena the de luxe tour.’
In the bar below, Olga Balan finished the second drink and shifted in her seat, disconcerted at the limited view of the lobby. She decided to risk checking with reception that Irena was actually in Room 525 and not out of the hotel. Olga paid, gathered the unneeded protective magazines and was halfway back towards the desk when she saw them emerge from the elevator bank and the magazines ceased being unneeded after all.
There was a rank of taxis, so Olga let one go, to create a buffer over that solitary, easily identifying bridge, tensed forward on the seat to keep their car in sight. Only two protectors, which surprised her; one a shambles of a man, the other sallow-skinned, more aware of his surroundings: Irena in between, not actually dwarfing the two men but still noticeably big, just – but only just – deferring to their guidance. Olga’s worries at the actual practicality of what she had to do began to case away, confidence coming from the actual physical movement. She was undetected and stalking her quarry and crossing away from that impossible-to-operate peninsula. And Irena Kozlov was visible not more than twenty yards ahead. There was still the morality, but she felt it was becoming something she could lock away in the private safe of her mind, that strong – or was it weak? – room to which only she had the key, to open or close as she decided.
Where were they heading? Back to Hong Kong? The barnyard of a man had a shoulder bag but no one else carried cases, so that scarcely constituted luggage. And they had not paused at any cashier’s desk, after that so near confrontation close to the elevators, to pay a bill. She hoped it was a return at least to the colony. The pierhead had been jostle on her arrival, a melee of a place, ideal for the sort of … her mind blocked, refusing to go on … for what she had to do.
In the vehicle in front, Lu was playing the tourist guide to the aloofly unimpressed Irena, talking of the Floating Casino where the Chinese indulged their passion for
It relieved Charlie, who tried to remain alert to everything about him, realizing the impossibility of any practical trail-clearing once they entered the enclosed, street-on-top-of-alley-on-top-of-street part of the town and hoping Harry Lu’s informants had got it right about Macao being safe. They stopped near the genuine day-to-day street market, not any tourist creation, and as Irena got out from the car she said: ‘it smells.’
‘So does Moscow,’ said Charlie, who remembered that it did.
Olga was alert for the stop lights and managed to direct her driver into a side street, so that she was able to get out completely concealed. She returned to the corner cautiously, unsure it they would be walking towards or away from her, smiling when she reached it. It was Irena’s height, rather than that of the two men, which provided the marker: they were moving unhurriedly, sightseeing, their backs to her. She eased her way into the street, glad of the crowded market. She was trembling, willing the shaking to stop.
Irena halted at an open-fronted shop, fingering a Members Only windbreaker suspended from an outside rail, and said to Charlie: ‘What is this price, in roubles?’
Charlie grimaced at the conversion, making the most approximate of calculations, and said: ‘About fifteen.’
She looked at him disbelievingly and said: in Russia it would be four times that, on the black market.’
‘It’s a fake, counterfeit,’ said Lu, patiently. ‘That’s the business here. And in Hong Kong.’
‘The authorities do not stop it!’ she demanded.
‘Are the militia having a lot of success against the black market in Russia?’ asked Charlie, pointedly. Maybe she had to be indulged, but he did not see that they had to put up with patronizing, party-line crap: Irena was going to have to make a lot of adjustments.
Olga risked getting closer, only four or five people separating her although one, a woman, was surrounded by a family which increased the protection. Olga slipped her hand into the bag, feeling for the special pistol, her perspiration making the grip greasy. The compressed air had to be primed and she pumped the lever to make it operate, keeping on until the resistance was such that it wouldn’t depress any more. Inexperienced and with slipping fingers, she was unsure whether she had prepared it sufficiently: she tried to push the lever down another time but it wouldn’t move.
At the road junction ahead Lu indicated first left, then right and said: ‘That way to the casino, on the river, that way to St Paul’s church and the fort.’
Charlie, whose feet dictated that tours were for tourists, never for him, said: ‘Which is nearest?’
‘The church and the fort.’
‘The church and the fort,’ Charlie decided. For all the interest that Irena was showing, they might just have well stayed at the hotel and watched incomprehensible Chinese television, piped in from Hong Kong. Time soon to stop for a drink, thank Christ.
Olga stopped, at their pause. It had to be now, somehow: there wouldn’t be another opportunity so good. The shaking wouldn’t stop and the sickness had come back: she swallowed, again and again, fighting the need to retch, and the perspiration worsened, leaking from her. The gun was silent, any faint discharge hiss certain to be lost in the babble of the street hawkers: all she had to do was get slightly nearer – not more than a yard or two –
