The Trafficked (27 page)

71

 

It was like the lull before the storm. It was past three when Mann walked back onto the avenue. He could see Wo Shing Shing everywhere he looked. Like meerkats, locals who made their living on the Avenue bobbed in and out of doorways, stared up and down the street. They were preparing to scramble for cover, bracing themselves for the force of triad terror. Bars were closing, girls were being taken off stages, bar staff had stopped smiling. He got out his phone to text Becky.

He walked past the Tequila Station and looked inside. There were a few guys playing pool, two or three around the bar. The bar staff stared out of the window and watched him pass. The bodyguard had stepped inside and stood ready to bolt the door when necessary. Those inside would be grateful for it, even though they did not realise it—they were the lucky ones, they were off the streets. The residents of Fields Avenue would protect their livelihood and stop them from seeing the trouble that was coming. Trouble was walking across the street from Mann in the shape of a squad of five Wo Shing Shing members systematically working their way up
the street. Mann looked behind—there was another squad doing the same. There would probably be a hundred Wo Shing Shing on the Avenue tonight. But they wouldn’t be just any old hundred, they would be the elite fighting squad.

Mann came within sight of the Bordello and saw what he most dreaded. At the front, by the tables, Mann could see Father Finn. A large white marine type was holding his arms behind his back with one hand; in the other he held a semi-automatic. The Colonel sat at a table. He had Maya on his lap and was holding the mobile phone in his hand. He waved it at Mann as he approached them.

‘Texting—can’t beat it. It’s just like you—predictive. As you can see, we caught ourselves a prisoner.’ He gave his lunatic laugh.

The Colonel threw the phone down and it smashed on the pavement. Still holding Maya, he took out a knife from a sheath in his waistband and held it up to the Father’s throat and twisted it. Father Finn winced as the point of the knife drew blood.

‘Give me your weapons, Mann. I know you carry a fancy Kung Fu belt. Throw them down now.’

Mann undid his throwing-star belt, then undid his spikes strap from around his arm, and threw them on the side of the road.

‘I’m sorry, Johnny,’ the Father said. His head was bowed. He was breathing hard. He’d obviously taken a beating.

‘Shut the fuck up.’ Brandon slapped him across the head with his rifle butt. The father’s knees buckled for
a few seconds then he drew himself up with dignity. Brandon pushed him back on to his knees. ‘You can stay down there where you belong.’

The Colonel laughed. ‘Do you know how many years I have waited for this moment, Father? Now, of all nights, you give it to me on a plate. You walk straight into my arms. You kneel before me and await your execution on a night when there will be so many dead that your body will be just one. Whatever possessed you to trespass here tonight, Father? Could it be this?’ He held Maya aloft and shook her. ‘Is it this small, ragged thing that you want? Well, she doesn’t belong to you, Father. She is mine. You are in my world now, Father Finn. You will learn that you have no friends here. This is not a place for anything other than my type of religion. Who do you think all these whores pray to, Father? Who do you think?’ He leaned across the table and spat his words. ‘
Me
, Father, that’s who. I am their God here in this paradise.’ The Colonel licked Maya’s face. ‘I am God here. I decide what happens here in my land. I say who lives and who dies.’

‘Let the girl go. Do this one thing. Do not hurt an innocent child. Redeem yourself before it is too late.’

‘Redemption?’ The Colonel laughed for a full minute. Brandon shot a look at him and Mann knew that he was starting to worry—doubt was creeping into Brandon’s mind. ‘Why would I want that? She is not innocent. None of them are innocent. We live in a corrupt world, Father. You know that. She is just another whore born of a whore.’

‘You have come to look at life that way because you
are sick, dead inside. But it isn’t so. She is a little girl who wants to go and play with her friends. She is just a child.’

‘Shut the fuck up.’ Brandon kicked the Father in his back

‘She is
mine.
I made her. I created her. Her life is mine for the taking, Father. Don’t ever doubt it. One more word from you, Father, and I will snap her neck now.’

‘Hey, Brandon?’ Mann called over to him. ‘You’re a soldier, an ex-marine. You must be getting worried now. You are never going to make it out of here. Maybe you haven’t noticed the place is swarming with Wo Shing Shing tonight. By now they will have disposed of half of your hired help.’

‘Huh! I think not!’ said the Colonel. ‘We have sentries everywhere. We have set a trap for the Chinese. Let them make it so far up the street, then they will walk straight into it and be killed—all of them, everyone.’ He made a gesture towards Brandon, who handed him the rifle whilst he took out a walkie-talkie from his pocket. ‘Find out how many of our enemy are dead already, Brandon.’

Brandon punched in three different numbers, none of which responded. He closed up the walkie-talkie and looked up and down the street.

‘Think we should get you inside, Colonel. I need to go and find out what happened to the sentries.’

‘I can tell you what’s happened,’ said Mann. ‘They are chopped into bits. The Father and I have already found one. He was dumped on a pile of rubbish. Didn’t
you realise you couldn’t win? Didn’t anyone tell you that you have been set up to fail? You made the classic mistake of underestimating your enemy.’

‘We still have the government forces, Colonel. I will call them now. We made a deal, they have to be here.’ Brandon turned away and dialled. He didn’t speak, then he dialled another number and spoke to someone clearly. ‘Get your men moving, now. Something’s not going right down here. This is the time to put your plan into action.’ He snapped the phone shut. ‘Where is the fucking Teacher?’

‘Let me guess? The Teacher is late thirties, blond, blue-eyed, a Brit?’ Brandon stared blankly back at him. ‘Thought so. I met the Teacher, Alex Stamp we call him. He’s your double-crosser. He’s made deals with everyone. He’s left you in a weakened state just ready for the Chinese to come along and break you.’

Brandon flashed a look at the Colonel.

‘You shouldn’t have listened to him, Colonel…That’s why he killed Jed and Laurence…’

‘Don’t you ever fucking tell me what I should or shouldn’t have done.’ The Colonel was spitting out his words. ‘Now take this fucking gun and do your fucking job.’

Behind them the door of the Bordello opened and Comfort stood in the doorway.

‘Get back inside, you stupid bitch!’ the Colonel screamed at her.

She stood her ground. She looked a mess, dazed. Her hair was ragged and sweaty around her face. Her vest top stuck to her.

‘Let me take the little girl, Kano. Let me take her, it is difficult for you to fight with only one hand. She is making a problem for you. I will look after her.’

He thought for a moment. The news that the campaign might be faltering made him edgier than ever. He was glad to get rid of the weight of the child.

White froth clung to the sides of the Colonel’s mouth. His eyes were bulging out of his head and the veins stood out in his forehead and in his arms.

‘Take her. Take her, and then get out of the fucking way. Brandon, get fucking Terry here NOW. I want him HERE.’

Comfort went forward and lifted Maya from his lap, placed her on the ground and gently pushed her to one side, away from the Colonel. Then she took out a small handgun from her pocket. She moved away from the table, so that she was standing in front of Mann. She levelled the gun at the Colonel’s chest.

‘Let the Father go.’

Comfort’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. Her chest rose and fell.

‘What? Would you shoot me? Ha ha! Get back inside, you worthless piece of rotten meat.’

‘I am what you made me. I am a bad person. But I can do
one
good thing.’

‘Get out of the fucking way! You’re not going to fire that thing.’ He turned his back on her and laughed.

Comfort’s hand shook uncontrollably. She squeezed the trigger. The gun jumped in her hand as it fired one shot. She hit the Colonel on the shoulder. He lurched backwards in the chair, nearly knocking the table over
as he did so. Brandon let go of Father Finn, springing forward and out of reach as he grabbed Maya. Then Brandon fired a round from his rifle into Comfort. She was hit seven times. At such short range some of the bullets passed through her as easily as if going through cheese. The rest sprayed her flesh over Fields Avenue.

Mann dived at the same time as Brandon fired. He felt a sharp pain but he also felt the opportunity and reached for Delilah, hidden in his boot. He threw her hard and strong and straight into Brandon’s heart. He pushed Comfort aside and reached for her gun and fired at the Colonel—but nothing. Comfort’s gun had run out of bullets. The Colonel stood over him, Brandon’s automatic in his hand.

‘It’s Judgement Day, Sonny.’

72

 

‘What, a street party and no one invited me? It’s a good thing I was in the neighbourhood.’

Stevie Ho and ten Wo Shing Shing deputies were spanning out across the street. ‘Check it,’ he ordered; and they scattered to take up their positions either side of the Bordello. No one would pass down Fields Avenue again that night.

Stevie walked towards the Colonel. ‘Put that gun down, old man.’

The Colonel stood panting like a rabid dog trapped in a corner.

‘You may not have noticed, but your kingdom has been overrun by the enemy.’ Stevie mimicked his accent.

‘You have not seen the real might yet. The troops are on their way.’

‘Which troops? Do you mean the government? They chickened out. We saw them driving away in a trail of dust. Your government took off in the other direction. We saw them when we were on the way in here. New day—new deals—get the picture? They decided this
wasn’t for them. The men in black got an urgent call back at the mother ship.’ He sniggered.

Mann kept still. He was lying behind Comfort’s dead body. He realised he had been hit. A bullet had passed right through Comfort and into Mann’s side. It had lodged in the muscle there.

‘And here we have—Johnny Mann. What about you? I bet you wish you were somewhere else right now? We seem to find each other wherever we go, don’t we? Now I have come to tell you that you have failed your mission.’

‘The time isn’t up yet. I still have another five hours to find Amy Tang. The Teacher knows where she is, and so do others.’

‘We believe that the little girl is dead.’

‘Has CK ordered this strike?’

‘No one will tell him it started early, and he doesn’t care as long as he gets something out of it, and he will. He will take over all. It starts now.’

Two Wo Shing Shing officers held on to the Colonel. Stevie Ho spoke to a third officer.

‘Tie the madman to the chair and keep an eye on Mann and that priest. No one moves from here until I say.’

Mann looked at Father Finn to see if he was all right. He nodded back an affirmation.

‘Can I help Johnny? Is he badly wounded?’ Father Finn asked Stevie.

Stevie looked Mann over. He knelt down beside him and lifted his jacket with his finger. He saw the splintered rib that was protruding out of Mann’s shirt and
he saw his side drenched with blood from the wound at his waist.

He got up, unimpressed. ‘He’s had worse. Stay where you are.’

Mann tore away the material that was frayed around his broken rib and pressed it into the wound on his side. He held it tightly closed with his fingers. He couldn’t afford to pass out. He might never wake up. He stayed as still as he could. From his position on the ground he watched as Stevie walked away from him, past Comfort and Brandon, over to the Colonel.

‘Strip him,’ he ordered his officers. ‘Make sure you tie him tightly.’

The Colonel began shouting—cursing and spitting out his hatred of all things Chinese and foreign. It was as if the act of tying him in, of restraining him, had finally brought his predicament home to him. His madness had reached full pitch now. He was dribbling and spitting and his eyes boiled in his head.

Stevie held out his hand to his deputy, who placed a rolled-up long leather roll into it. Stevie took out the long thin-bladed knife from inside. He came to the Colonel’s side, reached across him and cut him, a long, smooth, precise cut across his chest with the blade. The Colonel let out a howl of agony as the flesh parted and the cut bled along its entire length in a smooth line. Large globules of dark blood peeled down his chest and spread around the folds of blanched skin on his stomach.

Stevie stood back to admire his handiwork. He was in no hurry. He took hold of a roll of fat on the Colonel’s
abdomen and sliced through. The Colonel screamed in his agony. Stevie dropped it from his hand.

‘Now, I want you to understand what is happening to you,’ Stevie said. He dug the point of the knife into the Colonel’s shoulder, where Comfort had shot him, tugged it in an upward movement to open the wound further, then he twisted it until it scraped on the shoulder bone. The Colonel had to be held down. He was shaking the chair apart.

‘You had the audacity to think that you could form your own triad society. You don’t know the meaning of the word triad. You know nothing of its history or its sacredness. But, a triad you claim you are, and you will die a triad’s death. I will bestow on you a fitting honour, ling-chi, death of a thousand cuts. It is an ancient and a ceremonial death reserved for traitors and motherfuckers and triad pretenders like you. I will carve your body up bit by bit. Until, in the end, when you are begging for me to end it, I will make a decision either to bury you alive or give one final piercing into your heart and end your agony. Lucky for us that you are a Shabu addict. Oh yes—I have studied you and your habits—it is well to know one’s enemy. You will be with us to the end. You will be wide awake to feel every cut.’

He laughed, and so did his deputies.

‘Do you think I fear you? Go to fucking hell you chink bastard,’ the Colonel laughed. ‘I fear no man. You want to kill me, go ahead.’

‘Fighting talk, old man. Soon you will have less to say.’

He cut the Colonel again, ten neat slashes that
opened his back and crisscrossed the spine from across the shoulders downwards. Stevie slipped the knife beneath the skin and slid it along to separate it from the flesh. The Colonel began choking on his vomit. Stevie lifted sections of flesh from his back.

‘I hope somebody’s counting: fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and let’s make seventeen a good one.’ He cut off his ear. ‘The only place I will not cut is your vocal cords—I want to hear you beg for mercy, beg for the end.’ Maya began whimpering softly.

The Colonel had the strength of a bull. He dragged the men with him that held him on the chair. The blood ran down his neck. His tendons stood out like tightened cables in his neck and shoulders. His face was a puffy red mash of anger as he screamed obscenities skyward. When he had stopped cursing he moved his head slowly back towards Stevie, breathing so hard that at every breath he sprayed blood and mucus out.

‘Wait. Wait,’ he said. ‘We have only just begun here. We have the richest, most powerful, most corrupt contacts from around the world in with us. You can be a big part of it. I can share what we have.’

Stevie laughed cynically.

‘We do not need
you.
We have followed your every move. We know every move you’ve made since the beginning. We have spies everywhere. You thought you had been so smart. The truth is…’ Stevie cut deep into the chest fat as he spoke ‘…whilst you were busy raping children, we were busy buggering you.’ He twisted the knife and scooped out the flesh. The deputies laughed.

Mann lay still. He had to keep movement to a minimum. He could feel the blood wet and sticky on his clothes. The pain was beginning to kick in. Mann watched the Colonel’s world collapsing. His Angeles—a few dirty streets were his kingdom. The whores and the whorists were his subjects. Angeles—for the sad, the lonely and the screwed. The Colonel’s world, was turning against him. His subjects were in hiding. His paid help had had a better offer.

‘Do not forsake me!’ he bellowed to the corners of his kingdom.

From a parallel road came the sound of girls laughing and dogs howling all to the boom-boom of the bar music. Father Finn started to pray.

Stevie went around to the front of the chair. He dragged a heavy wooden palm plant-pot with him. The Father scrabbled out of the way as Stevie rested the Colonel’s leg on it. An officer came forward to hold it in position. He held his hand out to one of his men, gesturing that he wanted what the man held secreted in his jacket. He was handed a razor-sharp small chopper. The Colonel’s face pulled and contorted as he screamed. He was snorting like a bull, chained and about to be castrated. Every sinew in his body fought the restraint and screamed with anger as he twisted and writhed.

Stevie came around to the front. He pressed the Colonel’s foot flat onto the wooden rim of the pot and chopped off each of the Colonel’s toes.

‘Please. Please.’ The Colonel’s head was down.

‘You beg too soon. You are a coward. What you fail
to realise, my white brother, is that the world is a small place and CK already owns a lot of it. You have only begun to scratch the surface. You think you have created this super-group of powerful allies. Think again. CK has been building his up for fifty years. He can call in any favour he desires. Whilst you, white boy, you are just a little boy wearing his big brother’s trousers.’

The Colonel groaned. He had fallen quiet. His sweat and blood glistened in the lights from the Bordello. Kenny Rogers was singing about Lucille. The few people in the bar had the sense to huddle over their drinks and pretend that they did not hear the sound of a man being tortured to death.

Stevie reached over and tipped the Colonel’s chair backwards. He tutted. He let the chair drop back. The Colonel shuddered. His body shook uncontrollably. Maya walked backwards away from the table. Father Finn beckoned her to him.

‘This could be a long night.’

The Colonel began weeping.

‘Please. Please. Please don’t kill me. I had nothing to do with kidnapping CK’s daughter. The Teacher is the one, not me. It was all his idea, him and Blanco’s.’

‘Who is Blanco?’

‘I do not know. I only receive my orders by email and through the Teacher. He knows who Blanco is. I don’t.’

‘Is the Teacher here?’

The Colonel looked up at the windows and back at Stevie and nodded.

‘Go through the rooms and find him,’ Stevie ordered two of his men to go inside and search.

Mann waited—the pain had really kicked and he was losing his ability to concentrate. He mustn’t pass out. He had to stay alert.

Ten minutes later they re-emerged.

‘All gone, boss. The rooms up there?’ One of the men pointed to the windows above them. ‘Nobody in them.’

‘Let the Father and me go, Stevie. I know what he looks like and I think I know where he’ll be. We have a chance of finding him.’

Stevie stared hard at Mann. There were few people’s word he could trust in this world but he knew Mann’s was one of them. If Stevie wanted to break away from CK and the Wo Shing Shing he could not afford to have Amy Tang’s blood on his hands. If it looked like they had acted too hastily and not waited for the agreed hour, if it came down to a matter of honour, CK would save his own face and Stevie would be sacrificed. He must be seen to do all he could to find her. He must let Mann fail rather than himself.

‘You double-cross me, Mann, and this will look like a practice run for what I will do to you.’

‘Save your threats for someone else. I came here to get Amy Tang released. Let me do my job. I will find him. I will keep him alive if I can.’

Stevie thought about it for a few seconds. He nodded to his deputies.

‘Let him go. I am going to let you see this thing through, Mann. One of us will achieve his goals and CK will know I did all that I could. Besides, I haven’t finished with the Colonel here yet. There are a lot more
questions I want answered. I will have everything I need by the end. Fetch some Shabu for him. Stick it up his nose; make sure he gets a good load of it. I want him to stay awake now, right until the last minute, until he begs for the end.’

Father Finn picked up Maya and walked quickly over to where Mann was trying his best to stand. He helped him up.

‘You find him, Mann, I want him alive. I want to parcel him up and give him as a present to CK—my goodbye gift,’ Stevie called as Mann walked away, holding on to Father Finn for support.

They walked back along Fields Avenue. When they were out of sight, the Father stopped.

‘Where will we go, Johnny?’

‘I saw Alex Stamp earlier—he was with some heavily armed friends, they were dressed in black. They were DDS and their leader was a man I know—Fredrico. He used to be mayor of Davao. He’s gone up the government ranks,’ He’ll want the boy. They’ll be heading for the refuge.’

‘Wait here, Johnny. Maya, you stay too. I’ll fetch the car.’

Mann propped himself against the wall and waited the eight minutes it took Father Finn to sprint down the road and drive back up. Maya stood silent, unmoving. Mann winked at her.

‘It’ll be okay now.’

Her big eyes stared back, unblinking. Father Finn pulled up and put Maya in the front whilst he helped Mann to lie down in the back. As he started driving,
Father Finn began rooting around in the medical kit one-handed.

‘There are some dressings and bandages in here, Johnny. We’ll stop when we are on the edge of town and get you strapped up.’

There was a sharp intake of breath from the back seat as Mann bit the top of the dressing pack and gingerly peeled away the soaked fabric of his shirt as he pressed the new dressing on top of the cloth inside the wound. He pulled open another two dressings and covered the exposed rib, drawing in sharp breaths of pain as he did so.

‘No, don’t stop, Father.’ He took the bandages handed back to him. ‘Drive like hell.’

The Father was driving like he had never done before. He spun in and out of the night-time traffic, all hooting their horns and shouting out of their windows at the mad priest who was weaving around the road.

‘Jaysus! I’m going to kill us all if I don’t watch it.’

‘Don’t slow down, Father, you’re doing a good job. Keep that foot flat to the accelerator pedal. We need to get there first and we need to finish it now, Father. It ends here.’