The Mountain Master of Sha Tin, page 16
“Seven-thirty?”
“Better make it seven,” she said. “And Andy and Carlo, I’d like you to go over to Green Hill Lane now and nose around the area. If they add more lookouts or if the Wings surround the place with more men, I want to know before Ko’s crew starts to arrive.”
“Okay, boss,” Andy said.
They separated when they reached the car park, Andy and Carlo heading for the MTR. As Sonny drove the Mercedes out of the lot, Ava said, “I’m very lucky to have so many good friends.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Sonny said.
“You know what I’m trying to say.”
“I know . . . ” Sonny said, his voice trailing off. “Are you going to take the Beretta with you tonight or do you want me to get you something more powerful?”
“The Beretta fits in my bag, but a silencer might be a good addition if for any reason I have to use the gun on the lookout. Can you get me one?”
“I’ll try.”
Ava looked out the car window as they made their way to Tsim Sha Tsui. She didn’t want to fixate on what the next few hours might bring, but as she tried to focus on other things she found herself flooded with memories of a similar event. “When we were talking to Ko about the garage, it reminded me of the time we had to break into that house in Macau to rescue Simon To. Andy and Carlo were with us then as well.”
“And May Ling Wong. And, as I remember, Amanda was helping,” Sonny said. “We were a good team.”
“Let’s hope tonight works out as well.”
“Ava, I hope it works better. Macau was far from perfect. We got Simon but you got shot.”
“Only in the leg. It left a rather long scar that Fai says makes me intriguing.”
“One scar from a bullet is one too many. I don’t want to have to visit you in the Kowloon clinic.”
“Speaking of the clinic, I meant to tell you that Lop seems to be on the mend. Ko told me earlier, but with everything else going on it slipped my mind.”
“It would have been great to have Lop with us tonight. He gives the men confidence.”
“Ko is a good man. He’s solid.”
“But he isn’t Lop.”
“Who is?” Ava asked.
Conversation stopped as they found themselves in heavy traffic. They inched forward for about ten minutes, and as Ava looked ahead she could see traffic wasn’t going to improve anytime soon. She noticed the Yau Ma Tei MTR station in the distance and knew the subway would be much faster. “Sonny, I’m going to get out here. I’ll take the MTR to Central. That will give both of us more time to get prepared.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said.
She opened the car door. “If anything comes up, you can reach me on my cell. Otherwise I’ll see you at the hotel at seven.”
She left the car and walked to the station. As she entered and started down the stairs, a flood of people came at her from the opposite direction. It was rush hour, but thankfully she was going against the flow. She took her Octopus card from her bag and made her way to the platform. A train soon arrived, and five stops later she was walking up the stairs of the Central station and heading for her hotel.
It had been a long and emotionally draining day, the kind she liked to end with a couple of glasses of wine and a good meal. How this one would end was a mystery, she thought as she reached her suite. She looked at the room phone and saw no one had tried to reach her since she’d been gone. She went to the desk and opened her laptop. There was an email from her mother that could wait, and some spam. That was all to the good. She didn’t need sectionersions.
She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face; it was refreshing and helped her to focus. She looked into the mirror and tried to make her first decision — should she wear her hair up or down? She normally wore it up, particularly when there was potential for violence, since she didn’t need flyaway hair impeding her vision or giving her opponent something easy to grab. But this was different. She had to make sure the lookout recognized that she was a woman, and an attractive, harmless-looking one at that. So she undid the ivory chignon pin, shook her hair free, and brushed it until it hung like a silky ebony frame around her face and down to her shoulders. When she was satisfied, she put on lipstick and mascara — both a little more thickly than usual. Now, what to wear?
Ava had worn black slacks and a plain white shirt to the meeting with the Wings, but they were hardly feminine enough for what she had in mind tonight. In the bedroom she opened her Shanghai Tang Double Happiness bag and took out a black skirt and a powder-blue silk blouse. The blouse was a little snug across the chest, which made it perfect. Those clothes, combined with black pumps that had a three-inch heel, shouldn’t leave much doubt — even in bad light — that she was a woman.
She stripped down to her underwear and then, as she turned sideways, caught a glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror. Her body was still toned and firm, a result of regular jogging, rigorous bak mei workouts, and her mother’s remarkable genes. Ava glanced at the scar on her hip. There was a round brown mound where the bullet had entered, and emanating from it was a scar that looked like a long, fat pink worm — the handiwork of an effective but not gentle-handed surgeon. She looked at the bandage around her arm. It was holding up well, but what kind of mark would be left when it finally came off? The good news was that the wound didn’t seem to have affected her ability to use the arm. It might hurt if she had to, but the pain would pass.
She put on the blouse and skirt and was adjusting the waistband when her cell rang. She sat at the desk to answer it.
“Suen, I thought Ko was going to call you,” she said.
“He did. I just want you to know that I’m at the airport in Shanghai. I’m scheduled to land in Hong Kong around ten.”
“How many men are you bringing with you?”
“I’m not sure exactly how many are on this flight, but by this time tomorrow I’ll have about a hundred there.”
“Hopefully, by the time you land the immediate crisis will be over, and by the time all of your men have arrived, we’ll have reached some kind of deal with Sammy Wing.”
“I wish I had your optimism,” Suen said. “All I can think of are the things that can go wrong. There are a lot of them, and all it takes is one to make things worse than they are now.”
“Does Xu feel the same?”
“He doesn’t know what to think. He was ecstatic when I told him you’d located our men, and then worried when I told him it was going to be complicated and probably bloody to get them back,” Suen said. “He’s still not completely himself. He’s better, but not one hundred percent.”
“Did Ko tell you about our plan?”
“He did, but I was here at the airport when I spoke to him, so I haven’t been able to tell Xu. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Why?”
“The last thing he said to me today was that I’m to make sure you don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”
“I don’t think I am,” Ava said.
“That’s not what it sounds like to me,” Suen said. “According to Ko, your plan boils down to the hope that there’s only one lookout. What if there are more?”
“Then we’ll reconfigure our strategy. I don’t have suicidal tendencies.”
“I know you don’t,” Suen said quickly. “And I apologize for sounding so negative. It’s just that Xu wouldn’t accept an excuse if something happened to you.”
“I will take every precaution to make sure nothing happens to me. Why don’t we leave it at that.”
“Okay, but one more question. Do you have to go in so early? Why don’t you wait until I get there?”
“Suen, we’re organized and ready to go. Having the men hanging around after they’ve been given a go time will only increase their stress. Besides, like I told you earlier, we can’t be sure you’ll be here before midnight. That’s a risk I don’t want to take, and I don’t think you should either.”
He became quiet, and Ava knew he was absorbing the reality of what she’d said.
“Good luck. I’ll call you when I land,” he said finally.
“Call Ko. He should be your first contact.”
“Point well taken,” he said.
Ava ended the call, feeling exasperated. Suen was even less nuanced than she’d thought. She knew that might make him a great Red Pole when muscle was the only thing required, but there was a broader picture that had to be looked after, including the level of trust he imparted to his own people.
She got up from the desk, putting Suen behind her, and began to think about the lookout. How was she going to eliminate him quietly and efficiently? She knew she would use bak mei, but to what degree? Bak mei wasn’t a pretty martial art but it was brutally effective. There wasn’t a lot of dancing about or posing; it was about concentrating all the power the body could generate through the torso, hips, and legs and transferring it to a striking point. The most famous bak mei weapon was the phoenix-eye fist, the knuckle of the first finger on the striking hand. When all the power Ava could generate was concentrated in that knuckle, it could kill, maim, or paralyze when driven into the nose, eye, ear, or various clusters of nerve endings in the upper body of the target. What she needed to do was paralyze and silence the lookout for at least a few seconds so she could get behind him and apply pressure to the carotid artery. Ava had dropped men three times larger than her to the ground that way. I’ll hit him in the ear, stun him. They always take some time to react to that and they don’t usually yell or scream, she thought.
Her cell rang, interrupting her thoughts. She wanted to ignore the call, but when she glanced at the screen, she saw it was Fai. “Hey,” Ava said.
“Hi, babe. I don’t want to disturb you, but I thought you’d like to know that the hospital just called Auntie Grace. They’re moving Xu into a private room in the regular ward later tonight,” Fai said.
“Thank goodness. She must be so relieved.”
“She cried when she got the news.”
“What a wonderful woman.”
“I’m going to take her out to dinner. She didn’t want to go, but I insisted and she finally gave in. I saw a bistro near the bakery we went to yesterday, and I figure that if she likes the bakery so much, the bistro won’t disappoint.”
“You’d better hope they have some Chinese food on the menu.”
“If they don’t, I’m sure she’ll be kind enough not to complain.”
“I am so happy that you two are getting along,” Ava said.
“Well, we have so much in common.”
“Like what?”
“Like you.”
“Now who’s being kind?”
“If you’d heard me fifteen minutes ago, you wouldn’t have said that.”
“Why?” Ava asked.
“Chen called me. He’s been to see Lau Lau.”
“And?”
“The son of a bitch has agreed to go into rehab.”
“You don’t mean that — I mean, calling him a son of a bitch — because he’s agreed to go into rehab?”
“No, of course I don’t. I hope he comes out clean and stays that way. I’m just nervous about your getting more involved with him. He could cost you a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak.”
“It isn’t just my money. May Ling and Amanda are on board too. As for my heart, he won’t touch it.”
Fai paused. “Well, anyway, he’s agreed to go into rehab and Chen — Mister Cynical — is thrilled about it.”
“Fai, let me make you a promise,” Ava said. “We’ll finance the rehab and, if Lau Lau comes out in one piece, we’ll finance a script. But that script won’t turn into a film unless you and Chen think it deserves to be one. “
“You’ll let me make that decision?”
“You and Chen. I want both of you to agree. You for a whole bunch of obvious reasons, and Chen because you told me he has tremendous judgement.”
“I can live with that,” said Fai.
“But first we have to get Lau Lau through rehab.”
“Which won’t be easy.”
Ava looked at the time. “Also not easy is the fact that I have to get going. I have a meeting I need to attend.”
“Call me when it’s over. I doubt I’ll be asleep early.”
“If I can, I will,” Ava said. “I promise.”
( 17 )
Ava arrived at the front doors of the Mandarin Oriental at five to seven, expecting to see Sonny and the Mercedes-Benz waiting at the curb. When there was no sign of them, she walked over to the doorman. “Have you seen my driver?” she asked.
“No, Ms. Lee.”
“I’m going to wait in the lobby. When he arrives, could you come and get me?”
“Of course,” he said, and then paused. “No need for that now. Here he comes.”
Ava looked off to one side and saw the car slowly approaching, but to her surprise, Sonny wasn’t alone. A neatly groomed grey-haired man was sitting in the front seat next to him. The car stopped and Sonny rushed over to Ava. “Am I late?”
“I’m a bit early,” Ava said. “But Sonny, who is that man?”
“His name is Jimmy and he’s an old friend of mine. Uncle knew him too and used his services a few times. If you have no objections, I thought I’d bring him along with us.”
“Bring him along to do what?”
“He’s a sniper, an incredible shot,” Sonny said softly. “He’s ex-British military. I want to position him at the end of the lane. If anything strange happens, if you’re in any danger, he’ll be a real asset.”
“Sonny, I’m not sure this is necessary.”
“Maybe it isn’t, but it would make me feel more comfortable. The weapons the rest of us are carrying aren’t precise from any kind of distance. Jimmy can hit a dollar coin from a hundred metres away,” Sonny said. “He’s a precaution, some additional insurance.”
She could see on his face how strongly Sonny felt. “I guess it can’t hurt,” she said finally. “But make sure that he doesn’t freelance. If he has to shoot at anything, I want it to be because you told him to.”
“I’ll make that clear,” Sonny said, opening the back door of the car for her.
She slid in. “Jimmy, I’m Ava. Thanks for joining us,” she said.
He turned his head halfway and smiled. “Uncle told me about you. I’m glad I’m finally getting to meet you,” he said.
Sonny climbed into the driver’s seat, picked up something wrapped in a piece of cloth, and handed it to Ava. “Here’s the addition you wanted for your Beretta,” he said.
She waited until the car had pulled away from the hotel before unwrapping the cloth. The silencer was almost as long as her gun, and she wondered if she could manage to get it into her bag once it was attached. Ava took out the Beretta, held it on her lap while she screwed on the silencer, and then put it in the bag. It did fit, but only at an angle. Given where she was going, that didn’t seem to matter.
Sonny drove east towards Causeway Bay and entered the Cross-Harbour Tunnel near the Hong Kong Yacht Club. A few minutes later they exited at Hung Hom, on the Kowloon side, and started north to Sha Tin.
“Sonny explained to me what’s going down tonight,” Jimmy said, this time turning around completely to look at Ava. “My rifle has a range of almost two kilometres, so a hundred metres or so is child’s play. Still, I’ll be using a scope with night vision built in, and I won’t take anything for granted.”
“Jimmy, I don’t want you to shoot unless I give you a direct order,” Sonny said.
“That’s fine. I’ll have the rifle zeroed in on Ava anyway, and my reflexes are still sharp for a man my age. If you see danger, I’m sure I’ll have time to react.”
“How old are you?” Ava asked.
“Sixty-one.”
“And what do you do when you’re not assisting women in distress?”
“I’m retired. I was with the British Special Forces for twenty-five years. Now I live in Sai Kung with my daughter and her three kids. She’s a widow, so I do a lot of babysitting.”
“His daughter is a bank manager,” Sonny said.
“She manages a small branch,” Jimmy said. “She’s a smart girl.”
Ava sat back in her seat, now quite content to have Jimmy going with them to Green Hill Lane. His attitude, like his appearance, was neat and modest, and he exuded a sense of quiet confidence and competence.
Sonny entered Sha Tin, followed the signs for New Town Plaza for a few minutes, and then turned into a street Ava didn’t recognize. He drove down it for several blocks, made a left, and pulled into a parking lot. Ava saw Carlo and Andy waiting for them at the pay station.
“Green Hill Lane is only two streets away,” Sonny said as he parked.
They climbed out of the car and Sonny and Jimmy walked around to the trunk. Sonny took his gym bag and Jimmy lifted out a long leather bag. He put it on the ground, butt end first, before slinging it over his shoulder. Ava guessed he was about five foot four; the rifle bag was almost as tall.
As they walked over to the pay station, Ava saw that Carlo and Andy were carrying bags she knew contained their guns. They both wore running shoes. She hadn’t told them to and suddenly felt foolish for not having made that point. She looked down at Sonny’s feet and saw that he was wearing soft-soled shoes as well. They know what they’re doing, she thought, and I’m a bit out of practice.
“You look really great, boss,” Carlo said. “Wearing your hair long like that suits you.”
Ava stared at him until he sheepishly averted his eyes.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Andy said. “Glad to see you’re along.”
“How’s it going, guys?” Jimmy said.
“Not so bad,” Carlo said.
