committed against British citizens, and one on some visiting officials from Beijing. What is your opinion of the nature of these attacks?”
Li stood slowly, his face flushed with anger. “I know nothing about those attacks. They were unfortunate and tragic. I hesitate to speculate on who might be involved with those incidents. This interview is over. You are lucky that I do not take away that notebook. Mr. Bond, my name had better not appear anywhere in your story.”
“Are you threatening me, Mr. Li?”
Li leaned forward and whispered in English, his voice laced with menace. “Mr. Bond, I allow you to leave with your life. You are now in my debt. You have your story. Now leave!”
Bond gave a slight bow of his head. “Thank you, Mr. Li.” He stood up and walked away from the table. He walked around the dance floor to the club’s exit. Sunni Pei was walking towards him, carrying a small tray of drinks to a trio of Chinese businessmen. She held out her hand and said a little too loudly, “Thank you for coming. We hope to see you again soon!”
Bond shook her hand and felt a small piece of paper. He palmed it and said, “Thank you, Veronica. I’ll be back.” She smiled nervously, then went on to serve the drinks as Bond left the Zipper. The neon lights from the street were blinding at first after the darkness of the club.
He unfolded the note and read: “Help me! Meet me on the street behind the club in five minutes! Please!”
Bond looked around to see if anyone was watching. He ripped the note into bits and let them scatter on the street, then walked round to the back of the large building. He waited in a small nook in the wall near an employee entrance. In precisely five minutes, Sunni came out of the door. She saw him and rushed to him, her eyes full of fear.
“James!” she said. “They think I told you that Li Xu Nan is Cho Kun of a Triad. This is considered a betrayal.”
“So you
She nodded. “They will kill me. You don’t understand.”
“No, Sunni, I do understand.”
“Please, can you hide me in your hotel until I can figure out what to do? I beg you!” She was truly frightened.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. They rushed out of the alleyway and into the street.
TEN
WHEN THEY WERE CLEAR OF THE CLUB, SUNNI SAID, “WE NEED TO GO TO Kwun Tong.”
“I know a safer place,” Bond said. He wanted to call Woo at the antiques shop. They could get a car just by speaking a code word and an address into the phone.
“My mother,” Sunni said. “They’ll come to hurt my mother. We have to get her out of there.”
“Can you phone her?” Bond asked.
“She never answers. She’s not well.”
Bond wanted to wash his hands of the woman right then and there. She was going to drag him into a situation with the Triad that he couldn’t afford to be in. The mission could be compromised.
“Look,” Bond said, “I’ll help you. I’ll get you to a place of safety. But we do it now, and we go where I say.”
Sunni suddenly looked at him with a mixture of fear and anger. She swore at him. “Fine, I’ll go alone. I should have known. You just want to get into bed with me.” She started to run up the street. Bond let her go. She would only complicate things. He’d turned around and begun to walk the other way when a black sedan tore up the street and screeched to a halt in front of the girl. Two young Chinese men jumped out of the car and grabbed her. Sunni screamed.
Bond immediately ran back to her. She was putting up a great struggle as they attempted to push her into the back seat of the car. “Leave her alone!” Bond shouted at them. The men looked at him.
“James, help!” Sunni cried.
One man reached inside his jacket. Bond was a second ahead of him, drawing the Walther and drawing a bead on the man’s head.
“Let her go!” he shouted. “Keep your hands where I can see them!”
The other man must have had a pistol behind Sunni’s back, for he rolled away from her and shot at Bond, just missing him.
Bond swung his aim to the shooter and fired. The bullet caught the gunman in the chest, knocking him to the pavement. The other man suddenly let Sunni go and got in the car. Sunni fell to the ground, terrified. The sedan’s wheels squealed as it sped away, leaving the dead man for all to see.
Bond ran to Sunni and helped her up. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, visibly shaken.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to your mother. Is it close?”
“It’s northeast, near the airport.”
“Right, let’s go.”
They heard sirens in the distance and Bond knew they needed to disappear before the police arrived. He grabbed her hand and ran into a side street, thinking they might be safer for the moment mixing with the crowds. After they had sprinted a couple of blocks, he pushed her into a shop selling a variety of handmade bamboo birdcages. The screeches and whistles of the parakeets and budgerigars were completely disorienting.
“We’ll rest here. Catch your breath,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Bond said, but he was angry with himself. He shouldn’t have got involved. Now he was in it up to his neck.
“Who are you really?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Are you a policeman? A detective?” she asked.
“Something like that,” Bond said. “I work for the British government.”
“Drug enforcement?”
He shook his head. “Just a troubleshooter, you might say.”
“Right,” she said. “Your shooting is certainly going to get us into trouble!”
“It was either him or me. Now, where’s your flat?”
“Kwun Tong. We can take the MTR, that might be safe.” The Mass Transit Railway was Hong Kong’s efficient underground system.
Bond knew it was a risk taking her home, but he had already promised. “All right, show me.”
She led him outside and down an MTR stairway.
The underground was impeccably clean. Bond was surprised by the shiny, unmarked surfaces of the trains and the lack of litter anywhere in the station. Unlike London, Hong Kong had no problems with graffiti and vandalism.
Sunni bought two tickets from a machine and led Bond through the turnstiles to the Tsuen Wan line. They had to wait only a few minutes for a train heading north. The rush hour was practically over, so it wasn’t as crowded as it could have been. They left the train at Yaumatei station and changed to the Kwun Tong line, which would take them east.
Finally reaching their destination, Sunni and Bond got off at the Kwun Tong station. The area was a little different here, Bond thought. Kwun Tong was near the airport, so there was a mixture of industrial and residential streets. They walked to Hong Ning Road and into a housing complex called Connie Towers. It was a twenty-one- storey structure that was modern, clean, and secure. The windows were “decorated” with laundry hanging on flagpoles, as is so often the case in Hong Kong tenement buildings.
“If you don’t mind my asking, how much does a flat in a building like this cost in Hong Kong?”
