THE KING OF MACAU (The Jack Shepherd International Crime Novels) (21 page)

The Portuguese built a fortress on Guia Hill in the 1600’s to defend their hold on their little colony, and in the 1800’s they had also built the first western-style lighthouse on the China coast up there. The fortress is now a largely ignored tourist attraction, but the lighthouse still sends out its beam every night exactly as it has for a hundred and fifty years.

As I watched the light etch lazy circles into the thin winter fog lying over the city, I thought about the generations of sailors on the South China Sea who had seen that light in the last century and a half and looked upon it as a signal light beckoning them toward safety. I wanted very much to feel the same way right then myself, but these days safety was a far more complicated concept than it had been for some eighteenth century sailors. I allowed myself a moment of pure envy, and the feeling passed.

On the other side of Guia Hill we turned south on
Estrada do Reservadrio
and the Macau Ferry Terminal was right in front of us. The ferry terminal had been Macau’s sole connection with the outside world until the airport opened in 1995. It was still its most important connection. Every few minutes a giant hydrofoil slipped its moorings and set out on a rapid passage to some part of Hong Kong or up the Pearl River Delta to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. There was even a regular helicopter service from the roof of the ferry building that ran back and forth to Hong Kong every half hour. Someone once told me that the one way fare for the fifteen minute flight was more than $500. That sounded crazy to me when a first class ticket for the one hour trip on the hydrofoil was about $40, but I suppose Chinese high rollers who push $10,000 or $100,000 onto the baccarat table every time the cards are dealt don’t really care what it costs to get to Macau as long as it gets them there fast and gives them more time at the tables.

I looked up at the roof as we passed and saw a blue and white helicopter with its rotor blades idling lazily. It sat in a pool of white light so blinding that the landing pad looked as if were suspended weightlessly in the blackness of the night sky. I cranked down the window and listened to the noise of the blades. Archie looked at me strangely, but he said nothing.

That was probably a good thing. I didn’t really want to admit to Archie I was thinking that all I would have to do was tell the taxi driver to stop, climb up to the roof of the ferry building, get into that helicopter. Then I could fly away from Macau and leave behind the MGM and the triads and the bales of laundered money and Freddy and whoever was trying to kill him. Just like that, I could be done with them all.

But of course I didn’t tell the taxi driver to stop. I just rolled the window back up and sat quietly as the taxi continued on to the Sands.

AT THE MAIN ENTRANCE
to the Sands, Archie paid off the driver and we stood together in silence watching him drive away. After the taillights disappeared into the traffic on
Avenida da Amizade
, I turned to Archie and asked what seemed to me to be the obvious question.

“Why are we are the Sands instead of the Grand Lapa?”

“What did you expect to do, Jacko? Walk into the lobby of the Grand Lapa, ask for Freddy’s room number, then go up and tap politely on his door?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“We have no idea what we’re walking into. Don’t you think we ought to do a reconnaissance before we blunder in there?”

“How about reconnaissance by fire?”

“What’s that?”

“We shoot at him. If he shoots back, we know he’s there.”

“Very funny.”

Archie may have said that was very funny, but I noticed he didn’t laugh. Too bad. I thought it really
was
funny.

“ARE WE AT LEAST
somewhere close to the Grand Lapa?” I asked.

Archie pointed at a white building right next door to the Sands. It was about eighteen stories high and looked as if it had been built in the sixties. I tilted my head back and saw on the top a gold neon sign that said THE GRAND LAPA.

Between the Sands and the Grand Lapa there was a sort of lonely looking plaza with a few concrete benches scattered around in it. It was shadowy and empty in the darkness, and tentacles of fog twisted through its grey half light like smoke from unseen fires. We walked to the nearest bench, sat down, and looked up at the lights that were on in about half the rooms of the Grand Lapa.

“You sure he’s there?” I asked.

“I know a guy who has access to most of the hotel reservations systems in Macau.”

“You hacked the Grand Lapa’s computer system?”

Archie gave me a long look. I shrugged and gestured for him to continue.

“Between noon and six today only nine single males traveling alone checked into Macau hotels. We talked to the front desk managers in each of the hotels involved and the single male who checked into the Grand Lapa more or less matches the description you gave me of Freddy. The others don’t.” Archie shrugged again. “That’s as close to sure as I can get you.”

“What name is he registered under?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not. As long as you have the room number.”

“1801.” Archie lifted his arm and pointed. “It’s on the top floor. Left hand corner of the building.”

I looked where he was pointing. The lights in that room were on.

“How do you think we ought to do this?” I asked.

“It seems to me there are two distinct possibilities here. Either he’ll be happy as hell to see you since you could be his protector from whoever is after him. Or he thinks you set him up in the first place and will put a bullet in you the moment you knock at his door.”

“I don’t think he’s armed.”

“Look, Jack, you don’t know a damned thing about this guy except that he’s the older brother of the kid who runs North Korea and periodically threatens to blow up a couple of million people. Maybe he has a private security team. Maybe he’s surrounded by a squad of crack North Korean commandos.”

“He was alone both times I met him.”

“How do you know?”

“I looked. I didn’t see anything that looked like a security detail.”

“Was he under surveillance?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If he wasn’t under surveillance, where did the two shooters come from?”

It was a good question and I didn’t have a good answer, so I said nothing.

“How did you come to the conclusion he wasn’t under surveillance? I’ll bet you sat somewhere looking around for a few minutes like we’re doing now and then you walked right up to him, didn’t you?”

Archie knew me too well.

He stood up and brushed off the seat of his trousers with one hand. “We’ll try to do a little better than that this time.”

THIRTY MINUTES LATER WE
had walked all four sides of the building without seeing anything unusual. We went into the hotel through the main entrance that faced a circular driveway off
Avenida da Amizade
and Archie led me across the quiet lobby and up the stairs to the mezzanine where we took seats in an uncrowded bar with a view straight down to the entrance of the hotel. Archie dumped the envelope with the security photos into the seat of an empty chair and ordered a double Johnny Walker on the rocks. I ordered a Coke. Archie shook his head in disgust.

“What now?” I asked after the drinks had come and the waiter had disappeared again.

“We watch the lobby,” Archie said and slumped back into his chair with his whiskey glass balanced on his stomach.

“For what?”

“We’ll know if we see it.”

We watched for nearly an hour and I didn’t see anything that looked unusual to me. Occasionally people wandered in and out of the lobby, but mostly it was pretty quiet. There were several couples who were checking in with their luggage and a few who were checking in without it, a group of four women headed out for a night on the town, a lone male who looked like he had much the same thing in mind, and a couple of hookers who were obviously on duty. None of them looked to me like part of a North Korean hit team.

After a while Archie ordered a second double Johnny Walker, but I passed on a second Coke. You can only drink so much before it affects your judgment.

When the waiter left, I looked at Archie’s drink as pointedly as I could. “If we have to shoot somebody, I guess it’s going to be up to me to handle that now.”

“Nope,” Archie shook his head. “I’ve got the gun, and I’m keeping it.”

“You’re carrying a gun?”

“I’ve always got a gun, mate. Never know when something unhappy might come up.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, ARCHIE
finished his whiskey, tapped the empty glass smartly against the table, and pushed himself to his feet.

“Time to rock and roll, Jacko.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t see any signs of either surveillance or security, so we’ll go with your original plan.”

“My original plan? I never had a plan.”

“Sure you did. You were just going to take an elevator upstairs and knock on his door.”

That wasn’t exactly what I’d said, but I didn’t bother arguing with Archie. I only reminded him of what he had told me before. “I thought you were afraid he’d shoot me if I did that.”

“I am,” Archie grinned, “but as long as he doesn’t shoot me I figure we’ll be okay.”

He winked at me, scooped up the envelope with the security photos in it, and walked out of the bar. I dropped some money on the table and, not having any better idea what to do, followed.

FREDDY WAS EXPECTING SOMEONE
to pick up his dinner trolley so he opened the door without bothering to look through the viewer. He was surprised to find a middle-aged western male standing there rather than a room service waiter. The man was big, well over six feet tall and stoutly built, and he was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. Freddy’s first impulse was to slam the door and double lock it, but he would have felt so stupid doing that so he didn’t.

“You have the wrong room.”

“No, man, this is where I’m supposed to be.”

The fellow had a half smile on his face and spoke softly in what sounded like an American accent. He seemed friendly enough and Freddy began to relax even if he still couldn’t understand what the man was doing here. Perhaps it had something to do with whoever had been in the suite before he checked in.

“Can I come in?” the man asked.

Before Freddy could say anything, the man stepped forward, gently moved Freddy aside with one hand, and walked into the suite.

Now Freddy was more pissed off than scared. His voice rose. “I said you have the wrong room.”

The man seated himself on a green and white upholstered chair, crossed his legs, and pointed to the matching couch. “Sit down, Freddy. You did tell Shepherd to call you Freddy, didn’t you?”

Freddy’s mouth dropped open as surprise turned to shock.

“Come on, sit down,” the man repeated. His voice was still soft and pleasant and he pointed toward the couch again. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Freddy was so stunned he couldn’t think, so he walked over to the couch and sat down exactly as he had been told to. The man was sitting there in that chair, leaning back, legs crossed, smiling at Freddy like an old friend who had unexpectedly dropped in for a cup of tea.

Freddy’s mind raced. He was desperately trying to remember if he knew this man from somewhere, but he was drawing a complete blank. The man had long reddish-blond hair, a pale Nordic complexion, grey eyes, and a prominent nose. There was a boyish quality about his face, but he was at least in his mid-forties, maybe older. Freddy was sure he had never met him before. Pretty sure, at least.

And even if he had met him somewhere, what difference did it make? Not remembering the man wasn’t the problem at the moment. The problem was that he somehow knew Freddy had talked to Shepherd. Nobody knew Freddy had talked to Shepherd. Nobody except Raymond, and Shepherd himself, of course. Could Shepherd have sent this guy? Or Raymond? No, that didn’t make any sense…

Freddy remembered the two guys with guns who had interrupted his meeting with Shepherd at the Ah-Ma temple and finally admitted to himself that somebody other than Raymond and Shepherd did know. And that was when he began to smell the fear coming off his body in waves. If his brother had somehow found out that he was trying to get political asylum in the United States…well, he wasn’t certain exactly what his brother would do, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Would his brother go so far as to issue orders to have him killed? Surely not. They were brothers, for God’s sake. Assuming that mattered anymore…

And obviously this man hadn’t been sent by his brother to kill him. If he had, why was he sitting there smiling like an old friend? That didn’t make any sense.

But there was something else that made even less sense. How had this man known where to find Freddy? Freddy himself hadn’t known he was going to the Grand Lapa until a few hours ago, and he had only been in this particular room for a couple of hours. Did that mean his brother had had him under surveillance?
Oh God
, Freddy thought to himself, if he had been under surveillance for very long, they knew absolutely everything.

FREDDY KEPT WATCHING THE
man, waiting for him to say something that might give him some clue how he knew about Shepherd and why he was here now, but the man said nothing. The silence stretched out to the point it made Freddy want to scream.

“Who are you?” he finally asked, mostly to break the goddamned silence. He wasn’t all that sure he actually wanted to know who this man was.

“My name is Harry Pine. Well, it isn’t really, but your name isn’t Freddy either, is it?”

His brother had sent this man. He had no doubt now. He didn’t know for sure how his brother had found out what he was doing, but what difference did that make now? His brother knew. That was what mattered. And he was never going to let Freddy go to the United States. Something like that would be far too embarrassing for him. It was that simple.

Freddy eyed the door to the hallway. Maybe he should make a break for it right now. Pine wouldn’t pull out a gun and shoot him here on the top floor of the Grand Lapa Hotel, would he?