Taking a look at the waiting hotel men, he randomly selected one that he knew was over on Hong Kong island. Apologising that he had no reservation, he flashed the attendant a hundred dollar bill and was soon being whisked away to a liveried driver in an awaiting limousine, with assurances that there were rooms available.
The hotel was new: a massive towering glass structure on the other side of the Hong Kong convention centre, between Causeway Bay and the central business district. As soon as Quayle had taken his room, he stood at the window and gazed out upon the city below. The location was perfect; Wanchai, the old red light quarter, the famous world of Suzie Wong, sprawled like an old slut out behind the complex. And there, in amongst the food stalls and girlie bars, the street traders and massage parlours, the noise and spitting and exhaust fumes, was the small flat that Steve Chung had found.
Steve Chung was a moon-faced laughing little man who seemed perpetually pushing his glasses up his nose, and had over the years provided Quayle with what he lacked on the streets: language, contacts, access to the black market, forged documents and information. He was a curious individual, one who claimed to do nothing for free and anything for money, but consistently broke his own rules by being loyal to his friends. That night he would meet Quayle at the flat in Wanchai while Cockburn and the others waited at the MI6 safe house overlooking Aberdeen Harbour. The first meeting here in the hotel was with a dour Scots Hong Kong Police Special Branch officer and, later, his MI6 counterpart.
Quayle welcomed the first into his room, a big beefy solid square block of a man called Jamie McReady, and they got right into it.
“You what?” he growled.
“You heard me. It’s the only way,” Quayle replied looking him straight in the eye.
“I have sworn to uphold the law,” the Scot replied. “I will countenance no such thing!”
“Crap. You’re SB. You spend more time breaking the law than upholding it. Anyway, the law is a mockery here and you know it. These people are untouchables. Too big, too rich, too powerful for you to get at. We do this my way.”
“Nevertheless,” he countered, “it’s the law. We may bend it a little to make a case, but never like this.”
“That’s shit, McReady. Besides, I don’t want to charge them in court. I want to get Holly Morton back. All you have to do is make sure I’m not compromised by one of your more zealous types. I’ll tell you when and I’ll tell you where. You file an SB operation blue sheet on the area and keep the uniform people the hell out of the way.”
“I don’t like it.” The rough burr rolled off his tongue.
“You don’t have to. Just do it,” Quayle snapped. Then, softening, he offered McRerady a bonus. “I’ll get him for you. Signed sealed and delivered. He’ll be your grass forever.”
“For Christ’s sake man, Fung Wa dines out with half the board of Jardines. He’s a consultant to the Swires! He’s one of the most respected business men in the colony. You can’t just deliver men like that…” He waved a ham sized fist out over Kowloon.
“Business set up on filthy money. He’s also in with the drugs dealers, with the extortion racketeers and, without a doubt, is a kidnapper. Twenty years ago he would have been a Triad warlord!”
“None of it provable in any court in the world,” McReady said. “Look, if he’s kidnapped someone, then give it to the Serious Crimes Squad. Let them deal with it.”
“No. I want this over in the next forty-eight hours.”
“There’s more to this than just a kidnapping, isn’t there?” he said. It wasn’t truly a question. “Level with me Quayle. What’s going down here? If this is political or subversives I want in. This is my patch.”
But Quayle just looked him straight in the eye.
“Just keep your people clear.”
As darkness fell, the MI6 man was given a list of instructions to take back to Cockburn at the safe-house and Quayle, slipping into jeans and a sweatshirt, disappeared into the throngs of people emerging from the conference centre and began to walk into bustle and noise of the Wanchai. His method was established. Now all that remained was the plan and its execution.
Quayle used the walk to come closer to the streets and the people that had made Fung Wa what he was. Fifteen minutes later, he pushed through a doorway. There, an old man in a tattered blue jacket squatted on thin haunches, stirring noodles on a primus stove. He barely glanced up. This was a place where many men came and went. Quayle stepped past him and took the filthy stairs upwards, the only light the garish red reflection of a neon sign outside, and the smell of urine strong.
The rooms were on the third floor. He paused on the landing to read the number on a door. An old metal ‘5’ hung at an angle from a screw held in place by peeling blistered paint. From the other side of the door came the smells of cooking, the coarse laughter of a woman – and, somewhere, the cry of a baby.
Moving down the passage to the place where the silhouette of a long-gone number ‘7’ glared down, Quayle pushed against the door. When it swung back,
