'I don't care about your bank. I don't care about the other investors. You lied to us. You took the Triad's twenty million dollars and you fucking lied to us.' Wong looked at Deng dispassionately, tapping the barrel of his silenced gun against his lips. 'How can I convince you how serious I am?' he asked. He slowly pointed the weapon at Deng's left foot. 'Perhaps if I gave you a limp. Do you think then you'd realise how important this is to me and my associates?'
Deng drew his foot back. Wong grinned malevolently and pointed the gun at Deng's groin.
'Or maybe I should blow something else off? Something a little closer to home? Do you have children?'
Deng nodded. 'Two.'
'Boys or girls?'
'Two boys.'
Wong nodded thoughtfully. 'Two sons? You are a lucky man. It's good to see how flexible the motherland is regarding the one family, one child policy.' He tightened his finger on the trigger. Deng's hands went across his groin in a reflex action.
'There's no flexibility here in Hong Kong, Deng. We want our money. All of it.'
'I told you, you'll have it. Every last penny.'
'That's good. Because if we don't, I'll kill you, your wife,
your two precious sons, and every other member of your family I can find. That goes for you and the rest of the members of the board. I want you to tell them that, Deng. Tell them from me.'
Deng nodded furiously. 'I will. Of course I will.'
Wong shook his head. 'But I have to do something to show you how serious I am.'
Deng shook his head even faster, his breath coming in ragged gasps. 'Please don't,' he whimpered.
Wong grinned scornfully. He pointed the gun at Deng's chest, then quickly moved his gun arm in a smooth motion around to his right and shot Summer in the face. Blood and bone fragments splattered across the wall behind her, a smear of red across the Alpine snow scene, and she fell backwards without a sound, what was left of her face staring up at the ceiling.
Deng put his hands up to his mouth, horrified at what the Triad leader had done, but relieved, too, that it had been the prostitute who had died. It could so easily have been him.
'I'll leave the mess for you to clean up,' said Wong, putting his gun back inside his jacket. 'I'm sure you know the right sort of people.'
169
Andy woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the office door. It was Green-eyes, with a mug of coffee and a croissant.
Andy had spent the night on a leather sofa with one of her pullovers as a pillow. She sat up and took the coffee and pastry.
'We finished the drying a few hours ago,' said Green-eyes.
'You haven't slept?'
'I'll catch a few hours once we've started on the next stage.'
Andy put her coffee mug down and ran a hand through her hair. 'I could do with a shower.'
'You and me both. But the washrooms are all we have. A full washbasin is the best we can do. Sorry.' Green-eyes looked at her wristwatch. 'Ready in ten minutes, right? The troops are waiting.'
Green-eyes went back to the office floor. Andy drank her coffee and ate half the croissant, then went to the washroom to clean her teeth and wipe herself over with a damp flannel.
Green-eyes and the two men were waiting for her in the office area. The temperature had dropped to a more bearable high seventies now that the ovens were switched off. The four electric woks had been taken out of their cardboard boxes and were lined up on the desks. Andy went over and examined them. They were Teflon-coated, with dials that controlled the heat settings.
'Right,' said Green-eyes. 'What do we do?'
Andy picked up one of the five-gallon cans of alcohol. 'We use this to wash the ammonium nitrate. It gets the impurities out of it.'
She went over to the pile of black garbage bags and dragged one of them over to the woks. 'You need a container. The Tupperware'll do. Half fill it with the ammonium nitrate, then pour in just enough alcohol to cover it. Stir it well for about three minutes, then pour off the alcohol. It should go a dirty brown. You can use it a few times. Okay?'
Green-eyes and her colleagues nodded.
'Okay, so then we have to evaporate off the alcohol. Pour the wet ammonium nitrate into the wok and sort of stir-fry it.
You've got to keep it moving, at a low heat. The same applies as when we were drying it in the ovens -- try to keep the temperature around one hundred and fifty degrees. You've got to keep watching it. If it gets to four hundred degrees, it'll blow.' She looked around the office. 'The fumes can be fierce.
I'd suggest we spread out, and use the fans.'
'What about the respirators?' asked Green-eyes.
'No use. The respirators are for particles, not fumes. The best thing would be to open the windows, but that's not possible, so we'll have to make do with the fans. I warn you now, it'll give you a headache.'
'How long do we heat it for?'
'Three or four minutes should do. It's just like when you stir fry food -- keep it hot and keep it moving.'
Green-eyes grinned. 'You might have to give the boys a demonstration. I don't think they're particularly at home in the kitchen.'
She laughed, and Andy started to laugh along with her.
She stopped suddenly when she realised what she was doing.
She was laughing with the woman responsible for kidnapping her daughter, the woman who was forcing her to build a four-thousand-pound bomb in the City of London. Green eyes stopped laughing too. She stood looking at Andy, as if sensing her confusion. 'Go on, Andrea,' she said. 'What then?'
Andy clenched and unclenched her hands, bunching them into fists and then relaxing them. What could she be thinking of?
These weren't her friends, she shouldn't be enjoying herself, she shouldn't be letting her guard down. How dare she laugh with them? It was a betrayal -- she was betraying Katie and she was betraying Martin. They both deserved better.
'What then, Andrea?' Green-eyes repeated.
'You have to grind it up into a fine powder,' said Andy, her voice shaking. 'In the coffee grinders. A couple of minutes should do it. Then seal it back in the Tupperware containers as quickly as possible. Every second it's exposed to the air, it absorbs water.'
The Wrestler held up a hand, pointing a finger at her. 'Wait one fucking minute,' he said. 'We've already treated all three thousand and odd pounds of it. Pound by pound. Are you saying we have to do it again?'
'That's right. It all has to be treated. It has to be uniformly pure, uniformly fine. If there are wet spots, or rough spots, the detonation velocity won't be consistent.'
'It's going to take for ever,' moaned the Runner. The Wrestler and the Runner stood looking at each other, clearly unhappy at the prospect of the work that lay ahead.
Green-eyes went over to Andy. 'Why don't you get yourself a coffee, Andrea. I want to have a word with the boys.'
Andrea went off to the meeting room, knowing that Green eyes was going to give the men a talking-to. She closed the door behind her, poured herself a mug of coffee and set it down on the table. She looked through the glass panel at the office opposite. She had just about plucked up the courage to open the door and tiptoe across the corridor when she heard footsteps.
She rushed back to the table and picked up her mug of coffee just as the door opened. It was Green-eyes. 'Right. Come on,'
she said to Andy. 'Let's get started.'
Martin Hayes telephoned the Strand Palace Hotel from a call box at Belfast airport ten minutes before he was due to board his flight to London and asked to speak to someone on reception. A girl answered, and Martin explained that his wife had stayed there the previous Wednesday night and asked if she'd left a message for him. The girl checked and said that no, there was no message. Martin thanked her and cut the connection. He called Padraig's mobile and his partner answered. Martin thanked him again for driving him up to Belfast and for waiting with him in the airport carpark until dawn broke. He reminded his partner to check on his dog, thanked him again, then hung up and went to catch his flight.
He arrived at Heathrow at nine o'clock in the morning and caught a black cab to the Strand. He figured that whoever had answered the phone would have been at the end of the night shift and had probably gone home. To make absolutely sure that he didn't speak to the same person, he went up to a young man in a black suit. Martin wasn't sure why he was in the hotel -- he just knew that it was the only link he had to Andy. She'd have known that too, so if she'd left any sort of trail it had to have been at the hotel. He leaned forward over the reception counter and smiled at the man. 'My wife lost an earring when she was staying here last week. Can you tell me if anything was handed in after she checked out?'
The man tapped away on his computer and shook his head.
'Nope, nothing was handed in,' he said. 'And Housekeeping haven't reported finding anything.'
Martin sighed. 'Damn. It was hellish expensive. Diamond.
Cost me an arm and a leg. Look, I don't suppose I could have a quick look around, could I? Just to check?'
The man consulted his computer again. 'The room's empty.
I don't see why not.' He look around. 'I'll get someone to go up with you.'
'That's okay, I don't want to trouble anybody.'
'Security, sir,' said the man. He waved over a teenage bellboy in a beige uniform and handed him a key before explaining the situation.
The bell-boy took Martin up to the fifth floor and opened the door for him. 'An earring, huh?' he said, bending down and looking under the bed.
'Yeah. Gold with a diamond.' Martin went into the bathroom and looked around. If he'd been Andy, where would he have hidden a message? The toilet cistern was boxed in and there was no way he could see of removing the base of the bath or shower. There was a small ventilation grille close to the ceiling but the screws holding it in place had been painted over and there was no sign of it having been moved.
He went back into the bedroom and put his briefcase on the dressing table. The bell-boy was still on his hands and knees, peering under the bed. Martin took his wallet out and gave the teenager a twenty-pound note. 'There's no point in me holding you up, lad,' said Martin. 'I'll have a look around myself, yeah?'
'Are you sure, sir?' said the teenager as the note smoothly disappeared into his pocket. 'I don't mind helping.'
'Nah, you go on down. I won't be long.'
The bell-boy left, closing the door behind him. Martin stood in the middle of the bedroom. 'Come on, Andy,' he whispered.
'You must have left me something. You must have.'
He looked at the bed. She couldn't have left anything there -- the bedding would be changed after every guest. He went over to the desk and checked the drawers. There was a wallet of hotel stationery and Martin went through it piece by piece. Nothing.
He flicked through the pages of the Gideon Bible. Nothing.
Most of the drawers were empty. There was a picture above the writing desk. A banal watercolour, probably reproduced in its hundreds specifically to hang in hotel bedrooms. Martin reckoned he could probably have done a better job himself. It was a gondola with a young couple cuddling in front, a bored gondolier in a large black hat standing at the rear. The perspective was wrong -- the buildings at the far side of the canal seemed to be leaning to the right, and the shadows weren't consistent. It didn't even look like Venice. Martin's breath caught in his throat. Venice? What had Andy said when she phoned? Going back to Venice. A place she'd never been to. He ran his hands around the frame. It wouldn't move. It was screwed to the wall. There were four screws, two on the right,
two on the left.
With trembling hands, Martin searched through his pockets for a penny. He found one, and used it to take out the screws.
He pulled the painting away from the wall and a sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. Martin tossed the painting on to the bed and picked up the sheet of paper. As he straightened up, he was startled by an angry voice behind him.
'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
The receptionist in the black suit was standing in the doorway,
the key to the room in his hand.
'I'm sorry,' said Martin. He folded the piece of paper and thrust it into his jacket pocket.
The receptionist looked at the picture, and at the space on the wall where it had been hanging.
'I'll pay for the damage,' said Martin, taking out his wallet.
'You'll stay right where you are,' said the man, holding his hands up as if warding off an attack. 'I'm calling Security.'
'There's no need for that. All I did was take the painting down.' He pointed at the desk. 'Look, the screws are there. Hell,
man, I'll even put it back for you.'
The man went over to the phone by the bed and picked it up. 'Don't touch anything,' he said.
Martin tossed two twenty-pound notes on to the bed,
picked up his briefcase and headed for the door.
'No you don't,' said the receptionist, grabbing for Martin's arm.
Martin hit the man across the head with his briefcase and he fell to the floor. He kicked the door shut, then pulled the bed cover over the man and roughly tied him up with the phone cord before running out of the room. He dashed down the emergency stairs, knowing that the man wouldn't stay tied up for long.
He reached the ground floor and burst through into the reception area. Heads turned as he dashed over to the main doors and out into the Strand. He kept running as hard as he could, the briefcase banging against his leg, his chest heaving with the effort. He didn't know whether or not he was being pursued, but he didn't care -- he just wanted to put as much distance between himself and the hotel as he could.
He barged through a group of tourists and sprinted down a side road. He ran in front of a black cab and the driver slammed on his brakes, cursing him through the side window.
Martin looked over his shoulder as he ran. There was no one following him, and he slowed to a jog, then a walk. He was sweating and his heart was pounding. He took deep breaths,
trying to calm himself down. He looked over his shoulder again.
Nothing. He began to relax.
He walked across the main plaza in Covent Garden, where a clown was walking along a broom handle suspended across a pair of stepladders. A dwarf in a clown suit was walking around a crowd of onlookers, collecting money in a red plastic bucket. Martin threaded his way through the crowds and went into a large cafe. There were plenty of empty tables outside,
bordering the plaza, but Martin chose a table inside, close to the toilets. He ordered a cappuccino from a pretty blonde Australian waitress, then took the sheet of paper out and carefully unfolded it. It was a piece of hotel notepaper. The writing was Andy's.
Dear Martin My love. If you've found this it can only mean something's gone terribly wrong and that you've called in the police. Dear God, my hands are shaking so much as I write this. Please, just know that I love you, I love you with all my heart. If it has gone wrong, you must never stop looking for Katie.
They've told me to go to a carpark in Bedford Court and to get into a van. A dark blue Transit van. They say it's got the name of a landscaping company on the side. I don't know where they're going to take me or what they plan to do. I'll do whatever it takes to get Katie back, I promise.
Martin, if the worst has happened, if you've had to go to the police or if I'm dead (God, it feels so strange writing that), then there's someone I want you to call. Someone who might be able to find out where Katie is. His name is Detective Chief Inspector Ham Denham. He works for Special Branch in Belfast. Tell him it's about Trevor. Tell him what's happened. He'll help, if anyone can.
Please, my love, never, ever forget that I love you.
At the bottom of the letter was a Belfast telephone number.
Martin reread the letter several times, his mind in a whirl. A Special Branch detective? Trevor? What in God's name was Andy talking about?
The waitress returned with his coffee. Martin left it untouched as he sat staring at the letter. Who was this Liam Denham? And who was Trevor? In the ten years he'd known Andy, she'd never mentioned either name. Special Branch?
They dealt with terrorists. They were the elite of the Northern Ireland police. Why on earth would Andy have been involved with them?