Hungry Ghost (21 page)

‘Easy, easy,’ said Lin through clenched teeth. A flying insect buzzed close to his ear but he ignored it. Ng opened the car door and stepped out, black shoes gleaming in the sunlight. Lin heard the door clunk shut and watched as Ng walked past the painter, briefcase swinging, and headed for the stone steps. Lin knew that Ng’s gun was in a holster in the small of his back, under the Italian jacket, and that he had a wicked hunting knife taped to the calf of his right leg. In his inside jacket pocket he had a small walkie-talkie but it was switched off. A blast of static or a careless broadcast could spoil the whole thing. The painter and the fisherman were also under orders to keep theirs switched off. They were too close to the action.

Lin looked at his watch for the hundredth time that morning. Five minutes to go. That surely ruled out a boat, for there was no sign of activity in the bay at all. Lin radioed to the men at the roadside telling them to get ready, that it looked as if the gweilo would be coming by road.

He steadied his binoculars and checked Ng. He was still standing at the top of the steps, looking out to sea.

Howells bit on to the rubber flanges of the mouthpiece and ducked down under the water, the taste of salt on his tongue. He kicked his flippers and hugged the seabed as he headed towards the base of the stone steps. As he covered the fifty yards or so from the pier he unclipped the handcuffs from his belt. The water got shallower and shallower and once or twice his knees banged into sand as he swam, scraping his skin. Then he saw the steps ahead and he slowed to a halt. The water was about five feet deep so he kept his knees bent as he surfaced so that only his head was in the air. Ng was still at the top of the steps and hadn’t seen him. Howells removed the mouthpiece and took a deep breath.

‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he said, firing the words in sharp staccato fashion, like bullets from a machine-gun, knowing that Ng was more likely to obey the authority in a strong voice than a weak-willed whisper. ‘Don’t look down. Put the briefcase down on the floor.’ Ng did as he was told, then stood still with his hands at his sides. ‘Now do the same with your gun.’

Ng hesitated. Howells was sure he would be armed, and wired. Neither the gun nor the communications equipment was likely to function under water but it would be safer to get rid of them straight away.

‘Do it or she dies,’ said Howells, and he saw the fight drain out of Ng. The triad leader reached behind his back and removed the gun, then bent down and placed it next to the briefcase.

‘Now the radio.’

Ng took out the walkie-talkie and dropped it on to the concrete steps, where it clattered down and plopped into the dark water.

‘Now, walk down the steps towards me,’ said Howells.

Lin caught his breath as Ng put the gun on the floor. ‘What are you doing, Lung Tau?’ he said to himself. Ng straightened up and a few seconds later he took something from inside his jacket and threw it down the steps. Even through the binoculars, Lin could not see what it was. He checked the pier. Nothing – and the road was clear. What the hell was going on? He called up the launches on the radio. No, they hadn’t seen anything. There were no boats on the way to Hebe Haven. Ng began to walk down the steps, slowly. Suddenly Lin understood, like a bolt of lightning streaking through his consciousness. He pressed the radio to his lips.

‘He’s in the water,’ he barked. ‘He’s in the fucking water. Get those boats in now.’

Lin began to run down the hill, slipping and sliding through the undergrowth, not caring about the branches and thorns that tore into his trousers. As he ran he called up the teams by the cars, ordering them to get to the pier, and then he shouted instructions to the men in the boatyard. He didn’t wait to hear their acknowledgements, he concentrated on running, on covering the quarter mile to the pier in the shortest time possible. The hillside levelled out and he burst through the trees, vaulted over a wall and crossed the road in three strides, his arms pumping up and down as his feet slapped on the tarmac. As he hurtled down the approach road to the pier he heard the Red Poles hard on his heels.

Ng was confused. He took four steps down and then stopped.

‘What about the money?’ he asked.

‘Keep moving,’ said the gweilo. ‘Keep moving or she dies.’

Ng took another couple of steps, his mind whirling. The whole point of this was the money, yet the gweilo wanted it left behind. It didn’t make sense.

‘Where is Sophie?’

The man gestured with his hands; something metallic, a chain perhaps, glinted wetly between his fingers. ‘Faster,’ he said. ‘Keep moving.’

Ng walked down to the water’s edge. The frogman stood up, his shoulders rising above the water. ‘I’ll take you to see your daughter,’ said the gweilo. The voice was powerful but controlled, each word carefully enunciated and projected.

Ng was still unsure. Behind him he could hear shouts and the sound of men running. He turned to look up the flight of steps and then he felt a hand close around his ankle and pull. He fought to regain his balance but the pull was too strong and he toppled forward, arms flailing. He hit the water, the shock forcing all the air from his lungs, and as he gasped for air he took in salt water and fought back the urge to retch. The gweilo’s arm was round his neck, his face pressed close to his ear.

‘We’re going under the water,’ the gweilo said. ‘Put this in your mouth and breathe slowly. The water will sting your eyes so keep them closed.’

Ng saw a silver cylinder with a black mouthpiece thrust towards his face. He didn’t want to obey but in his confusion he did as he was told. As soon as his teeth were closed on the mouthpiece the gweilo pulled him under the water and his ears were filled with a roaring noise. The salt water stung his nostrils and Ng reached up to hold his nose. He could feel the gweilo kicking his legs and the sensation of water passing over his body. He opened his eyes, but the salt water burned so he clamped them shut and concentrated on breathing. He felt something hard lock around the wrist of his left hand and then his ears popped as the gweilo continued to drag him down to the seabed.

Lin bellowed like a bull as he ran. The walkie-talkie slipped from his sweating fingers and he ignored it as it smashed on to the tarmac and broke into plastic pieces. One of the Red Poles, Kenny Suen, caught up with him and it gave Lin the adrenalin boost he needed to speed up. The two ran together, chests heaving and arms pounding. The painter looked up and saw the men running towards him, stopped painting and straightened his back. The fisherman at the end of the pier stood up, his line forgotten.

‘The water!’ yelled Lin. ‘The water!’ He pointed at the stairs but both men just continued to look at him, totally confused. Suen had pulled ahead and was certain to get to the steps first so Lin stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Get Lung Tau. He’s in the water,’ he roared. The painter realized first and he dropped his brush on to the floor and sprinted to the top of the steps. Once he started to move the fisherman followed, running at full pelt down the pier. Lin started running again, and as he passed the bollards he pulled his gun out of the holster. Suen reached the steps first, closely followed by the painter, and both had guns in their hands and were looking down at the water by the time Lin got there.

Lin pushed them apart and looked left and right before he realized they were alone. He opened his mouth to speak but could see that the two men were as baffled as he was. He’d expected the gweilo to be in the water, probably with diving equipment, but there was no way Ng could be under the water. There was no blood, there had been no gunshot, no sign of violence. Nothing.

Suen picked up the briefcase and flicked the catches open. He showed the money to Lin.

‘What is happening, Elder Brother?’ he asked. Franc Tse and Ricky Lam arrived then, followed by more of the Red Poles in ones and twos until there were a dozen men standing together, all of them armed with nothing to shoot at. They looked at Lin for guidance and he knew with a sickening surety that he had no idea what to tell them.

Ng struggled at first, making it difficult for Howells to make any progress through the murky water. He kept low and kicked the flippers hard, wide scissor-kicks that made his calf muscles ache. Ng’s free hand, the one that Howells hadn’t handcuffed, groped around, throwing them both off balance, then his head jerked from side to side in panic. But soon he began to calm down, and reached up to hold his nose shut against the water. Howells let go of the small cylinder and allowed Ng to hold it at the same time as pinching his nostrils. At least that way Howells knew that both of Ng’s hands were occupied. He rolled Ng over so that he was underneath him, which made it easier for him to swim in a straight line, though it meant that Ng was continually banging against the sea bed. Howells’ ears began to hurt and he squeezed the soft rubber either side of his nose and blew gently to equalize the pressure until the pain eased. If Ng was smart he’d do the same, or burst an eardrum. Ng’s feet dragged along the sand, clouding the water even more, and first one shoe slipped off, then the other. They were about twenty feet below the surface now so Howells began to level off and the sea bed gradually fell away. The visibility began to improve as they stirred up less sand and in the distance Howells could see the hull of a yacht. He steered Ng towards it.

‘Give me your radio,’ Lin told Suen. The two launches came round the headland a mile away in a shower of spray. Lin called them up but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

‘Don’t talk, just listen,’ he said. ‘Head for the pier. Head for the pier now. He’s wearing scuba gear, he’s under the water. I repeat, he’s under the water and he has Lung Tau.’

Tse and Lam were kneeling at the bottom of the steps, shading their eyes and trying to peer through the water but the light reflecting off the surface obscured everything. Lin handed the binoculars to Suen and told him to stand at the end of the pier and watch out for tell-tale bubbles.

‘The rest of you come with me,’ he said, and he led them towards the boatyards and one of the small wooden piers where there were several dinghies tethered together like goats.

As they got close to the yacht Howells began to dive down, clearing the pressure from his ears again. The anchor was lying on its side, a thick chain leading up from it to the white hull above. He moved towards it, the two men scuttling along the seabed like a crippled starfish. Ng’s eyes had become more used to the salt water and he was looking around, his right hand still pinching his nostrils closed and holding the small cylinder. His suit was floating grotesquely around him and his tie had come loose and was drifting over his shoulder. Howells pulled him down hard, closer to the heavy anchor. The motion turned Ng on to his back and his legs rose above his head. He kicked in an attempt to right himself and then Howells tugged him again and locked the handcuffs to the metal ring at the top of the anchor. Howells let go of the cuffs and drifted away from Ng, using his arms and slow kicks of his fins to keep himself standing virtually upright a few feet above the sand. Ng saw him and began trying to swim up to the surface, but realized he was fixed to the anchor. He pulled himself down to it and tried to get free, panic obvious in his movements. He began to breathe faster, his head shrouded in bubbles. Howells doubted if there could be much air left in the cylinder now. There was hate in Ng’s eyes, and fear. He put his shoeless feet either side of the anchor and grabbed it with his hands, then heaved up. He managed to get it up to his waist and then tried to push himself up to the surface and its life-giving air. It was too heavy, and dropped back to the side, plumes of sediment scattering around his feet like escaping snakes, while the cylinder swung to and fro from his mouth.

Howells watched, and waited. Getting a gun in Hong Kong would have been difficult, and he hadn’t been certain of getting close enough to kill the triad leader with a knife. But here, thirty feet under the waves, he’d know for sure that the man was dead. That’s what he told himself, anyway. But in his heart of hearts, in the dark place in his mind where even he was frightened to dwell too long, Howells knew that he wanted to watch, to see the man run short of air, to see water rush into his gasping lungs and to see the eyes milk over as he died.

Ng’s chest heaved and Howells knew it would soon be over. He steadied himself with small circular movements of his hands, eyes fixed on Ng’s face. Ng bent double, his hand going for the knife strapped beneath his trouser leg. On dry land maybe, just maybe, he’d have managed to do it, to have grabbed the knife and slashed and cut before Howells could have reacted, but with Howells’ reactions it would have been a million-to-one shot. Under water it was a non-starter. Howells had all the time in the world to watch as Ng brought out the knife and tried to slash him across the stomach. Howells drifted back in the water, kicked once lazily to move out of range, and then righted himself.

It was better when they fought. Sometimes, when they knew death was inevitable, they gave up, they relaxed and just let it happen. Sometimes they closed their eyes and pretended it was a bad dream and that by wishing hard Howells would go away. Sometimes they called on God for help. Sometimes they called for their mothers. And sometimes they fought to the very end – they were the best. Animal against animal, eyes bright with the fire of life and teeth snarling, one on one. To the victor the spoils, and life. Howells knew how the gladiators of ancient Rome must have felt in the arena, and he knew too why those who were prepared to die gloriously often had their lives spared, while cowards always got the thumbs-down. There was a nobility in dying well that deserved to be rewarded.

Ng tried hacking at the chain with his knife but it was useless. His whole body was heaving as his lungs fought for air, his cheeks blowing in and out as he tried to breathe. He lunged again but the anchor held him back. He turned away from Howells, knowing that it was futile, knowing that it was important to conserve what little air was still in his lungs. His shoulders sagged and then he looked at Howells, straight in the eye. It was impossible to see the look on Ng’s face because of the mouthpiece and the cylinder that hung from his face like an elephant’s trunk, but it seemed to Howells that the man was smiling. Then the contact was broken as Ng sank to his knees on the sand, as if in prayer.