Skyprobe (13 page)

He nodded. “It is. But I’m sure they’ll get them down somehow.”

“Oh, I hope so!” She looked past him, out of the window of the jetliner. The sky was a brilliant blue above them; below was the endless dark green of thick jungle, stretching away to the border with Viet Nam, and beyond to the South China Sea. “In this job . . . you have a kind of fellow-feeling, more than most. Perhaps it’s presumptuous to say that. .. but we’re all fliers basically, aren’t we? It would be too awful if what the papers say is true.”

He looked up at her, at the clean line of her chin as she went on staring out of the window. “What are you thinking about in particular?” he asked.

“About some outside interference, isn’t that what they said?”

“Yes, but that’s just newspaper talk. They have to fill the things with something, haven’t they? Personally, I wouldn’t say that was the case.”

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked doubtfully. “I’m not so certain. The Communists would do anything. I only hope somebody’s really doing something about it . . . and not just saying it couldn’t happen that way.”

Shaw smiled. “Sorry!”

She met his eye and flushed. “Oh, I didn’t mean that personally. I’m so sorry. After all, it’s not
your
job to. . . .”

“To do anything about it? No . . . and I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I expect the authorities have it well in mind, you know.”

The hostess nodded and moved away, going forward along the aisle. She stopped at a seat four up from Shaw’s and had a word with a girl who had joined the flight at Bangkok, a girl Shaw had recognized at once, a girl who had studiously avoided him but who was obviously just as aware of him as he was of her. Her presence intrigued him a good deal with its possible implications, for the girl was Ingrid Lange from the Savoy Hotel, London.

* * *

Shaw, who meantime had returned to his papers, looking in vain for any factual reports as to the progress on the launch of the second capsule, watched Miss Lange as they all fastened their seat belts for the Hong Kong arrival. What was she on this flight for? Why was she avoiding him—why was she so obviously anxious for him not to acknowledge her? He intended to find that out as soon as they landed. He glanced out of the window as the jetliner lost height; a mist cloud was touching Taimoshan and the mountain peaks on the Red China mainland, bringing to them a mantle of purple and blue as the sun went down the sky in Eastern splendour. All around, the sea was a darkening carpet of ultramarine.

Once they were down and the steps had been run into place, Miss Lange disembarked ahead of Shaw without a backward glance and preceded him to the customs and immigration check. There, while still totally disregarding him, the girl managed to get next to him for the customs examination, making certain he couldn’t miss her hand-case on which was prominently displayed a label bearing the address, Hotel Shanghai. The name on the label was Helma Tegner.

So—Miss Ingrid Lange, if even that was her real name, had a definite purpose in coming to Hong Kong at the same time as himself and he fancied that purpose wasn’t just to stand with him on some moonlit terrace and watch the harbour fights. Well—he would play it her way for now and not approach her just yet. He found a taxi and told the Chinese driver to take him to his own hotel, a somewhat less glamorous, if equally expensive, establishment where he had been booked in from London and which, as it happened, wasn’t far from the Shanghai. After checking in he kept a discreetly-arranged appointment with the Governor and the Commander British Forces. The Governor was clearly a worried man, his anxiety showing in the tired eyes and the jerky movements of his hand as he brushed continually at a close-cropped, grey moustache.

After the preliminaries Shaw asked, “Which areas have been covered by the reconnaissance forces so far, sir?”

The Governor waved a hand towards Fielding, the Forces Commander. Fielding said, “They’re sweeping north. Both our people and the Americans have flown all the missions possible, but. . . .” He shrugged.

“And the results?”

Fielding spread his hands. “Blank, Shaw. A complete and utter blank. We haven’t found anything out of place anywhere.”

“Uh-huh.” Shaw moved across the room towards a map similar to the one in Latymer’s flat. He studied it, his eye narrowed thoughtfully. A hunch was forming. He looked at the Sea of Okhotsk, fringed to the east by the chain of islands forming the Kurile group—islands that stretched away northward from Hokkaido, islands that in 1945 had been taken from Japan and handed on a plate to the Soviet Union. The area was Russian, yes—but it was utterly remote and lonely and probably totally unvisited. More often than not the islands were shrouded in thick, clinging fog. Much could go on there that the outside world would never know about. The Sea of Okhotsk itself would be icebound at this time of year, but not so the North Pacific which washed the eastern shores of the Kuriles . . . and a spacecraft could very well be brought down east of the Kuriles and then quickly be picked up and taken to those Russian islands, and thence to the mainland of the Soviet, where it would vanish from Western eyes. . . .

Shaw turned to the Governor and asked casually, “What about the Sea of Okhotsk?”

The Governor shrugged. “That’s Russian territorial waters, my dear fellow.”

“I was aware of that, sir. I know the risks, too. I still think the area would be worth attention.”

“There is no authority to violate Russian territorial airspace, Shaw. Both the British and American Commanders-in-Chief of the searching forces are quite powerless to act in that direction.”

Shaw nodded slowly. He was convinced such authority would never be forthcoming. Latymer, for one, would himself be dead against it; the department was accustomed to working in other ways, and Shaw was their man on the spot. He believed in his hunch, so it was up to him to find a way to get inside the Sea of Okhotsk—and he hadn’t much time left now.

* * *

After returning to his hotel Shaw called the Shanghai. He said, “I’d like to speak to a Miss Tegner, Miss Helma Tegner.”

“Yes, sir,” a polite Chinese voice answered, speaking excellent English. “I will have the lady called. What is your name, please, sir?”

“Smith.”

“Please will you hold the line, sir.”

Shaw waited. He waited a full five minutes and then there was a crackle and the girl’s voice said, “Smith? Is it really you?”

“As if you didn’t know. I’m waiting for an explanation.”

“It is so nice to hear you again. I was in the bath. I am so surprised! What is it you want, Smith?”

He answered impatiently. “I’ll give you three guesses. That ought to be two too many.”

Her laugh came light and silvery along the line. Suddenly he wanted her very badly. She said, “Yes, I think one will be quite enough, certainly, Smith!” She paused as if expecting some further comment but when none came she went on, “As you are in Hong Kong also, Smith, you may take me out to dinner somewhere nice. That is, if you would like to, Smith?”

“I’d like nothing better,” he assured her, conscious of the blood racing in his veins, but more than that, conscious that the girl must have something important to talk to him about. “Where shall it be? I’m out of touch with Hong Kong life these days. I don’t know about you, of course. If you haven’t any other suggestions, let’s meet—”

She said quickly, “I am told there is a nice place, offering very excellent food, and not too expensive you will be relieved to know, Smith . . . in the Ho Teh Road, which is off Ch’ung Street, across the harbour in Kowloon. It is called Mi Ling’s. I will be there at nine o’clock.”

She didn’t give him time even to say he’d be there too. The phone clicked in his ear. He shrugged and went across the foyer into the bar, where a Chinese barman smilingly mixed him a Manhattan. He was vaguely irritated by the girl's reference to the place in the Ho Teh Road being not too expensive. He had a very generous expense account and he enjoyed spending it on a contact when the contact happened to be as intriguingly beautiful as Ingrid Lange . . . and Latymer had never been known to query an item in the account. Yet.

He finished the Manhattan and glanced at his watch. Time was getting on. He went up to his room, showered in his private bathroom, then changed into a white dinner jacket. He checked the slide of his Beretta and went down into the street where the doorman signalled up a ricksha.

“The Kowloon ferry,” he told the boy. The Chinese nodded; Shaw climbed in and the coolie started off, jog-trotting between the shafts of his vehicle. They passed along streets brilliantly lit with blazing neon signs, along other streets of hanging banner signs—the new Hong Kong and the old, criss-crossed with roads and alleys, all packed with young and old, with pretty, feminine girls, with virile young men and ancient, worn-out beggars. After crossing in the ferry Shaw picked up another ricksha. Here in Kowloon he had largely left the bright streets behind him and was passing along dark, dingy roads where vaguely-seen, shadowy forms flitted in and out of doorways, where now and again a cry was heard and where young Chinese girls smiled invitingly from the few lighted windows along the way. This was a different side of Hong Kong life from the millionaires’ paradise he had left across the harbour. Hong Kong was a strange but thriving medley, a place where East and West met, a busy port and a frontier garrison—with Red China vast and implacable and mysterious on its doorstep, a place still of mystery and intrigue and violence behind the trimmings, behind the wealth on the one hand and the poverty on the other.

The Ho Teh Road was a squalid, unlit thoroughfare of decayed, ricketty buildings, mostly private dwellings of an exceedingly doubtful-looking character with a handful of shops here and there, shops that were still open, hopefully but without custom, their seedy proprietors sitting motionless behind their wares, beneath the usual banner signs hanging from the upper storeys. The tops of the crumbling buildings seemed to touch overhead to shut out the clusters of friendly stars. There was a curious, almost overpowering smell, compounded of rotting vegetables and human sweat, and probably opium and many other things besides. Shaw was deposited at the door of Mi Ling’s establishment, where he paid off the ricksha and for a moment watched the coolie as he turned and ran his vehicle back into more auspicious surroundings. Mi Ling’s was a crummy-looking place, with rotting shutters and peeling paintwork, set a little back from the line of the other buildings. A sound of tinny music came to Shaw’s ears as he walked past a muscular custodian and pushed open the swing door. He stepped into an entrance hall and found that the outside appearance of Mi Ling’s was, to say the least, deceptive.

The floor of this hall was of mosaic tiles of brilliant colouring; around the walls, in niches, were set figures of men and women, the women mostly naked, the men old and venerably bearded . . . it was symbolic of something, that juxtaposition, Shaw fancied, and it probably set the tone of Mi Ling’s . . . some of the figures were made of compressed silk by a process known only to an older generation of Chinese, others were of purest jade. They must have been worth a small fortune in any man’s currency. The air was filled with an erotic incense, a warm, heady pervasion that seemed to be wafting through grilles set in the walls. As Shaw looked around with interest, a door opened behind a screen. There was evidently some system of warning when anyone entered from the street— not surprisingly, in view of those jade and silk figures. A tall Chinese, a waiter, came through, bowing low as he saw the Englishman.

Politely he asked, “Mr. Smith?”

Shaw nodded. “Correct. I’m expecting a lady. . . .”

“The lady is already here, master, and is waiting for you. If you will please follow me?”

The Chinese turned away through the door, holding it open for Shaw who followed him along a corridor and up a flight of stairs to a landing. From a door ahead of the stair more music came faintly. The waiter went towards this door and bowed Shaw through. He walked into a dimly-lit room partitioned into private cubicles. At the end of this room some kind of intimate cabaret-in-miniature was taking place and, apart from candles set in lanterns, one in each cubicle, the light from the stage provided the only illumination. In this light Shaw could see that most of the diners were elderly men of varying nationalities, some of them closeted with young women, some of them alone.

The waiter bowed himself past Shaw. “Excuse, please,” he murmured deferentially. “This way, please, master.” He led Shaw to a cubicle half way along on the left of the room, and stopped, bowing once more. From the shadows a voice said, “Smith, you are late, but how nice it is to see you,” and he saw the lantern’s gentle light falling on fine, very blonde hair curling round a pair of shell-like ears, and a thin, clinging, deeply slit dress—a jade-green cheongsam that suited her perfectly.

He said, “It’s nice to see you too. I’m sorry I’m late.” The waiter disappeared. Shaw sat down opposite the girl. “Now perhaps you’ll explain,” he said accusingly.

She said at once, putting a finger to her lips, “No. Here we must not talk—even with the cubicles, it is not entirely safe. Soon we shall talk of the important things.”

He shrugged and said lightly, “All right. For now I’ll just spend the time telling you how beautiful you are!”

She laughed. “Oh, that is corny, Smith, but I shall like it very much indeed! And in return I shall tell you how intriguingly handsome you are, in a craggy kind of way, and how much I admire your kind of man, who is tough, and probably quite ruthless with women. But there are other things you can talk to me about also, Smith .. . about Hong Kong, of what I can see while I am here—of the places I must visit, of Hong Kong’s history since the British came, of typhoons and pirates and beautiful, seductive women who lured British sailors to their doom . . . all that sort of thing, you know?” She gurgled with suppressed laughter, looking into his eyes in the lantern’s light. “It interests me so much, all that. And now, Smith, here is the waiter. Are you good at ordering Chinese food, Smith?”