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truth the chances of his being detained were excellent. Someone, somewhere along the line of authority, would surely be in jVlizo's employ.
Li was stirring within his arms, stretching. He put her gently on the deck. They were near land now, just a few yards and he would be on his own again. He felt a savage pang in his chest at the thought of leaving his new-found family. They had saved his life, fed him and, most importantly, accepted him. He did not leave them lightly.
Ping Po stood up, lifted his head. 'Wind's still not here.'
Tracy glanced at his watch, shrugged, produced one hundred HK, handed the bill over. 'Joss, eh?'
Ping Po laughed. 'Yes. Joss.'
The younger members of the Ping family were steering the junk towards the pilings. Ping Po's Number Three Son jumped onto the dock with the hawser, hauled in on it. There was no one about. The side of the junk scraped against the old wood and slashed tyres hanging against the side, rocking in the swell.
'Kung Hei Fat Choy,' he said.
'Kung Hei Fat Choy,' the old man answered, smiling.
Tracy was about to step off the junk. He turned back, saw Li awake, sitting on her haunches, staring at him, her dark eyes huge. He thought at that moment that he had never seen such a pure and innocent human being. He reached into his pocket, took out a roll of HK dollars. He folded them carefully, put them in to her small fist. He leaned towards her, kissed her forehead. 'A gift from the sea,' he whispered. 'From the fish who got away.'
She giggled up at him and the family around her sighed.
'Fresh Wind Po,' Tracy said and the old man nodded, delighted.
'Another one,' he said. 'Yes. I think I will use that name when the time is ripe. Oh yes I will.'
Tracy went off the rocking junk, nodded to Number Three Son, saw him leap back onto the deck, hawser in hand. The junk immediately began to back away from the pilings, manoeuvring around the way it had come, heading southeast towards the channel and Aberdeen. Home.
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He watched it out of sight. He could not bring himself to move until they had disappeared into the growing haze. Then he turned, walking rapidly off the quay.
There were still few people about and he quickened his pace. His mind was ticking over furiously. There was only one place within the Colony where Mizo's people could hope to pick him up again. The hotel. It was the one place left in the city that was a strict red sector and therefore should be avoided at all costs.
The hotel was where he headed now, taking a No. n bus, crimson with the posted admonition FIGHT CRIME emblazoned across it side down through the crushing jumble of a Kowloon morning. The doubledecker careered around corners, its metal frame shivering. He transferred twice before it got too crowded, checking and checking again, even though he was certain no one was following him.
Mizo had foxed him once, using a far larger team than Tracy had imagined. How many people did Mizo own? Tracy had no way of knowing but if the Japanese was truly White Powder Sun then he must have many. It would take only one of them cruising the packed, coruscating streets of Kowloon to identify Tracy and tag him.
On the third bus, he put his head back against the cool metal wall, watching the riot of colour and jostling movement drift past him like artificial clouds. The buzz and jabber of dialects: Cantonese, Shanghaiese, Chiu Chow, Yunnan, even Hakka washed over him like rough surf, the controlled cursing that was such an integral part of the language when Chinese spoke to Chinese, a constant stream of inventive invective.
As in all of Asia, eventually time ceased to exist, light melting into dark, sun into moon, Ying into Yang.
He got off the bus five blocks from the Princess, and insinuated himself into the throngs of people, adopting the rather rapid, short-strided walk of the Chinese.
Still, when he caught his first sight of the hotel's beautiful Colonial white stone fa£ade his scalp began to itch. He gritted his teeth and got on with it because this was his only hope and if they already had a long gun waiting for him here there was precious little he could do about it but, oh, Christ, he could
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almost hear the brief whine of the bullet's speeding passage, the brilliant flare of pain as it embedded itself in his brain, the last of life flickering by like a chaotically unspooling film
Christ sake, he berated himself, get a grip on yourself Time ^as running out The thought of going to ground for another twenty-four hours was inviting indeed until he began to grapple with the reality of the police
They would have crawled all over Queen Elizabeth Hospital long ago, raising an unholy stink The Hong Kong Police Department was quite fussy about blood and corpses strewn all over their bailiwick and Tracy did not blame them one bit It was bad enough that Mizo wanted him dead, to have the police on his tail, too, within this compact warren was just too much to overcome indefinitely He was quai loh, after all If he had been Chinese, it would be a different matter entirely Over ninety per cent of the population here would be with him
Across the street, in front of the Princess's great front portico with its enormous white stone Foo Dogs flanking the glassdoored entrance, three black Rolls stood poised and purring
As Tracy watched from the shadows of the newly-built Space Museum doorway, a tall Caucasian in tropical business suit ushered his female companion through the glass doors opened for them by young livened Chinese boys The driver of the leading Rolls opened the kerbside car door as the couple emerged, ducking their heads at the bottom of the stairs as first the woman, then the man climbed into the car It drove off in a throaty roar
Tracy waited There was plenty of activity in and out of the hotel even at this fairly early hour the Princess's second floor dining room was a favoured place for Chinese and Westerner alike to talk business over breakfast
No one emerged to claim the other two Rolls At night, that might not be so odd but this time of the day it was One of the hotel's livened attendants came down the front steps, he was quite a bit older than the boys manning the doors themselves and he moved with a great deal of assurance
The man began to talk to one of the remaining dnvers Soon me chauffeur of the second Rolls had sauntered over, a Chinese
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in sunglasses. There ensued a heated discussion during which the hotel employee emphatically pointed towards the front entrance again and again. The first chauffeur shook his head and, when the other began to gesture a call of help, the driver extracted a roll of bills from his hip pocket, peeled off several for the other to see.
The gesticulations ceased immediately, calm was restored the money changed hands. The hotel employee nodded one curtly. He had lost interest in the two drivers.
Tracy moved with the crowds around the hotel to the re;, entering through the kitchen. He thought about what he h seen. No ordinary drivers, those, otherwise there would ha been no need for the argument followed by a sliding of t >( fragrant grease; all of that would have been prearranged in weekly amount. They were not waiting for patrons, might no. in fact be chauffeurs at all. It certainly had the look of one of Mizo's setups. It was very smooth. Tracy was beginning to know his adversary. Who would suspect limo drivers waiting outside Hong Kong's best hotel? They were part of the background scenery, as invisible as the potted palms in the lobby because one expected their presence.
Threading his way through the crowded din of the kitchen, he chose a bellboy to his specifications: young with quick, enterprising eyes, handsome. The kind of man who would understand the meaning of five hundred HK and who, more importantly, would respond to Tracy's story about wanting to ditch his current girlfriend in order to slip away with a Chinese girl he had met aboard Jumbo, the largest of the gaudy floating restaurants in Aberdeen harbour.
The young man caught Tracy's air of conspiracy at once and, guided by Tracy's explicit instructions and his folding money, grinned hugely, hurrying to comply. And within ten minutes he had returned with everything Tracy had requested: a change of clothes including a jacket and his case of'shaving and grooming' gear.
'Some girl,' the bellboy said in Cantonese, grinning as he handed Tracy all the items. 'Aaaa! Is her slit horizontal instead of vertical? Is her appetite insatiable? I ask these questions, sir.
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because it seems to me that it would take quite a female individual - such as you have told me you have met to create the uproar both in and out of the hotel she seems to have kicked
up-'
Of course he would say no more untilusurious entrepreneur that his father had taught him to be - he had extracted another five hundred HK from Tracy. Then he told Tracy that the management of the hotel had moved all of Tracy's belongings to another room to await his return. 'The police are not so certain of your reappearance,' the bellboy said. 'They have only two officers here and both are horse turds. They scratch themselves like monkeys and think their commanding officer a fool for assigning them to this post.' Apparently the police had not seen fit to impound his clothes. Yet.
Tracy thanked the bellboy, took his gear into the men's toilet where he washed, shaved and donned his new clothes. He checked the case to make certain nothing had been tampered with then stuffed his old smelly clothes in one of the trash cans in the kitchen. His wallet and passport, with him the whole time, were nestled safe in his jacket's inner pocket.
He stole out the way he had come. Along Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui's major thoroughfare, he stopped beneath one of the brilliantly coloured signs, neon at night, so huge they overhung the entire width of the sidewalk, turned into the White Peony.
He asked for a table against one wall, took the chair that faced the restaurant's door. The place was enormous, filled in its centre by round tables seating twelve or long ones seating more. The room was brightly lit not only by the six hundred separate bulbs set in the balcony's overhang but by a central chandelier as large as any of the circular tables beneath it.
Tracy dined on tsung-yu ping, onion cakes fried in oil and Chengtu paichieh jou, thinly sliced pork strips inundated with chillies, vinegar, garlic and the inevitable soy sauce and immediately he tasted the food he was certain he had lucked into a restaurant with a Ta Shih Fu, one of the Great Master chefs °f Hong Kong.
Movement at the rear of the room, caught his eye. His heart
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began to pound in his chest. It was the chauffeur he had seen handing over the money in front of the Princess.
Tracy turned his head slightly, made out the form of a Mongol on the move towards him. It was a pincer movement and he cursed out loud.
There would be no bloodshed here, no guns visibly drawn, certainly no shooting. The men would merely converge on Tracy's table. One would no doubt sit down in the empty chair opposite and using the cover of the table draw his pistol in order to induce Tracy to leave the restaurant with them.
There was little time. They were halfway to the tabk threading their way through the narrow aisles, having to sto now and then for waiters, shouting and gesticulating, with lade . trays. They were intent now, closing in.
Tracy flagged down his waiter. The old Chinese, obviousl harried and overworked in the throng, was necessarily abrupt
'This is outrageous,' Tracy said in Cantonese. He gestured at the food. 'This stuff's not worth feeding to the hogs.'
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
"TiKJood,' Tracy said menacingly. The Mongol was in the lead. He had been forced to take the long way around a round table of celebrating Chinese but he was very close. 'What d'you take me for, a tourist?' Tracy deliberately used a disrespectful inflection and the waiter winced.
'Sir, there must be some mistake. You cannot mean -'
'Mistake!' Tracy howled. He leapt to his feet. 'There's no mistake! This food's slop! I demand to see the manager!'
'Sir, this food is among the finest in all Hong Kong.'
'I won't pay a penny, I tell you!' Tracy saw his time had run out. The Mongol was two tables away, the chauffeur not far behind.
'You have no manners, sir!' The waiter had raised his voice now, offended more by the inflection Tracy used in his speech than by what he actually said. His cheeks were flushed. You could get away with a lot in Chinese if you know how to say it.
Tracy leaned forward, summoning up all the anger he felt a' Mizo and his plight here, bellowed, 'Wu kupufen!'
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The waiter recoiled as if he had been physically struck. He flailed out, cursing. Tracy had delivered to him one of the worst insults one can hand a Chinese. 'You can't distinguish the five grains!' Wheat, rice, sesame, barley and beans. These were the staples of any Chinese's life. To tell him that he cannot tell one from the other was to mortally offend the man.
And under cover of the screaming, lunging scuffle, Tracy got out. Amid the tables jammed with rising customers, straining to see what all the commotion was about, the waiters converging on the spot, the managers hurrying from their posts near the raised entranceway, Tracy slid, veering and skidding in an attempt to lose himself in the throng.
The floor of the restaurant was now flooded with people, all moving and shouting at once. The aisles lost their boundaries, and chairs, pushed backwards by curious patrons as they stood, created a jigsaw puzzle of extreme complexity.
Out the front door he flew, turning right on instinct, then right again to get away from the bright glow of the main street that would point him out to his pursuers. He was on Cornwall Avenue, a narrow street jammed with mean storefronts topped by dark apartments on the upper floors. Above, the sky was blotted out by the criss-crossing lines of wash hung out to dry. He pounded down the street, came out onto Mody Road. To his right, he knew, was the Holiday Inn, to his left Hanoi Road was coming up - no place for quai loh to hide. Ahead he saw the crossing of Chatham Road and, beyond, the railway station and he thought, I've had enough of this. It's time to see Golden Dragon, thefeng shut man.
Macomber was peering into the flickering lambent-green heart of FIRST when Khieu walked into his second-floor study on Gramercy Park South. Macomber did not hear his son's approach at first, primarily because part of his mind was on the current printout displayed on the computer monitor, the auxiliary of the main terminal in his office at Metronics, Inc. Another part was halfway across the world, thinking of the Monk and his promise to find Tisah, to bring her back to Macomber. He itched to pick up the phone and call the pre-
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arranged business drop number the Monk had given him at the outset of their dealings; he longed to dash off a telex under their mutual code name: OPAL FIRE, but of course he could not. Where the hell is she, you bastard! his mind raged silently. What's taking you so long?
Briefly, he felt again the chill press of the despair he had first experienced when Khieu had returned from Kampuchea without her. Then a tiny sound from behind made him whirl around and, seeing Khieu standing there, he immediately depressed a stud along the console that wiped the printout off the monitor. FIRST was another of his in-house acronyms. It meant Flexible Information and Retrieval System and it referred to the vast Metronics computer linkup. That Macomber and Khieu referred to it only as the system was a measure of its incompleteness. Until the laser-activated circuitry that powered LITLIS was fully tested and modified into the system, Macomber had vowed not to use the full acronym.
'Don't just stand there, Khieu,' he said standing up and stretching, 'come on in.' He made the windows in two strides He looked out, saw a slice of the park. 'I was just checking the system for last-minute changes against the event-horizon on th<
Thirty-first.'
'That's three days from now,' Khieu said calmly. 'How did
your meeting with Findlan go?'
'Ah, yes, Findlan,' Macomber said turning. He was desperately thinking of a way to introduce Kampuchea into their discussion. What in Christ's name, he thought, happened to hin over there? 'Findlan presents no real problem.' He was lookinj covertly at Khieu. 'However, that may change. He's ai ambitious man, our Marcus Findlan, and very clever to boot I think there will come a time when he won't be satisfied with the throne on which he currently sits.'
'Where would he go next?' There seemed very little animation from Khieu and Macomber's senses quested for emanations.
'Where else?' he said. 'He will seek Gottschalk's position.'
'Would that be so bad?' Khieu sat on a cane-backed chair.
'I think yes,' Macomber said seriously, 'and the system backs me up. It's in Findlan's past history. He's a violent man by
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nature. Men like him can only go so long before giving in to vvhat has become so natural for them.' He regarded the other levelly 'We both understand the inevitability of such urges, jChieu, do we not?'
'Out,' Khieu said, shuddering.
Macomber was taken aback. 'Are you all right? Since you returned from Kampuchea I've ... become concerned with your health. Perhaps you picked up some kind of bug there'
Yes, Khieu thought, but not in the way you mean. 'I'm fine, Father,' he said softly. 'My sleep has been . erratic of
late.'
Macomber's concern deepened. 'Have they come back again? The nightmares?' He recalled the nightmares Khieu was prone to getting early on after he had been taken back to the States Macomber had taken him to the doctor who, after an intensive examination, had reported nothing physically amiss. He had prescribed rest and relaxation. After that the nightmares had slowly faded away.
Khieu smiled What would his father think if he knew that they had never really gone away, he wondered. 'No, of course not It's just.. the jet lag. It... it was hard going back.' Khieu had not meant to let that last come out.
'Harder than you had imagined?' Macomber asked, probing.
But Khieu had a tight rein now. 'I hadn't thought about it one way or another.' With an effort, he kept his voice level. 'It's not my home anymore, after all. They're all dead ... my family '
His voice drifted off and Macomber dived into the breach. 'All that slaughter. I knew in '69 that it was already over for us. The way we went in ... the way we went about it .. was all wrong And now there's still war.' There was no response from Khieu and he thought, I can't push it.
