The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (49 page)

“Chung, that’s Chung the son, was in Beijing for several months before the demonstrations, though we have no evidence that he was one of the ringleaders. He went into hiding on the day the troops opened fire and it appears that the French got him out two months later. His father was arrested on June 6.”

Coleman put his head in his hands and tried to come to grips with what McNeil had told him. As McNeil had said, Hong Kong was the last place Chung should be. The Chinese secret police would have no qualms about grabbing Chung and taking him back over the border if they located him.

“Thing is, Neil, he’s not exactly your run-of-the-mill car thief, is he, this Anthony Chung? He’s political rather than a law-breaker. Is there any other reason you’re suspicious about him? Anything I should know about?”

Coleman cursed himself for having raised the subject of Chung with Special Branch. There was no way he could tell McNeil or anyone else that he’d been using police time to investigate a rival for his girlfriend’s affections.

“No, I just saw him in the Ferrari, that’s all,” said Coleman. “It was the car rather than the man. Maybe he’s just here on holiday or something.”

“Possible,” said McNeil, not convinced.

“Maybe he’s got friends in Hong Kong.”

“That’s likely,” said McNeil.

Coleman got to his feet. “Anyway, I’m going to drop it right here,” he said, hoping that McNeil would do the same. “As you say, he’s not a car thief. I’ll leave it.”

“I guess so,” said McNeil, looking at the frozen television picture. His head jerked up as if he’d just thought of something. “Hey, good bust by the way. That car smuggling gang was a good one.”

“Thanks. I was pleased with the way it went,” said Coleman as he opened the door.

“Didn’t see you at the press conference, though,” added McNeil, but Coleman had already left.

Tyler’s portable telephone bleeped and he answered, speaking quietly with his back to the rest of the vets. When he finished the call he turned round, a wide smile on his face.

“The Huey will be here in less than an hour,” he said. “The container has just been cleared from the Kwai Chung container terminal, unopened.”

“Great!” said Lewis. He gave Lehman a high five.

“I’m gonna make coffee while we wait,” said Carmody. He threw away the old grounds and replenished the filter machine. When the coffee had brewed he filled mugs and handed them out and they drank as they waited. Forty-five minutes after Tyler had taken the phone call they heard a horn sound outside.

“Okay, that’ll be it,” said Tyler. “Bart, Dan, open the sliding door, we’re going to back the container right inside. I don’t want the delivery men to know what they’re delivering. Eric, Larry, can you drive the cars out? We’ll park them outside until we’ve got ourselves organised.”

Tyler went through the small door and walked over to unlock the gate while Lewis and Lehman pushed the sliding door back. A large truck with three men in the cab was waiting by the gate, a long, red container on its back. The driver waved at Tyler and he waved back before unlocking the padlock and slipping the chain. He pulled the gate open and held it back as the truck slowly turned in and drove towards the warehouse.

Once the rear of the truck had passed through the gate, Tyler closed it and jogged after it. He flagged it down and explained to the driver that he wanted him to reverse the truck so that the rear half was inside the building. The man wasn’t wearing a shirt and he had a huge tattoo of a tiger across his chest, its claws out, ready to strike. He grinned and told Tyler he understood. He carefully steered the truck and backed the container through the open door. The driver and his two companions made to get out of the cab but Tyler told them to stay where they were.

“We could use their help, Colonel,” said Lewis. “It’s going to be heavy.”

Tyler shook his head. “No, it’s enough that they know we’re here. I don’t want them to know about the Huey. I’m told they can be trusted, they’re triads and have sworn an oath of secrecy, but I don’t want to take any risks.”

“Okay, Colonel, it’s your call.”

“Besides, Josh had the skids removed and the Huey mounted on trolleys, as you suggested. He slid it in and all we have to do is to slide it out. Bring over some ropes while I open up the container.”

Tyler took a pair of pliers and cut the metal seals around the padlocks. He fished his set of keys from the pocket of his trousers and unlocked the padlocks one by one. “Josh gave me a duplicate set of keys before I left Bangkok,” he explained. Once he’d removed the locks he pulled open the rear of the container to reveal the cockpit of the Huey, staring out at them like an insect emerging from a chrysalis.

“That’s one hell of a tight fit,” said Lewis, scratching his head.

“Flashlights, Larry,” said Tyler.

Carmody went over to one of the workbenches and returned with two flashlights. He turned them on and handed one to Tyler. The other he gave to Lewis who had already climbed into the back of the container and was carefully squeezing alongside the helicopter.

“They had to take the tail assembly off, like I thought, Colonel,” said Lewis, his voice echoing inside the metal box. “Skids are off too and it’s on flat trolleys. The wheels on the trolleys have been locked so that they wouldn’t move while the container was in transit. The rotors are off, we should unpack them first.” They heard the crash of metal and after a few seconds Lewis emerged from the container. “The main rotor mast has been taken out, and there’s a bag in the pilot’s station which I guess contains all the bolts and things. They’ve done a good job taking her apart. There are reinforced metal sheets on the side which must be what they used to slide the Huey in. We can use them as a ramp to get it out,” he said.

“Josh thinks of everything,” said Tyler. “Let’s do it.

“Dan, can you pull the slide out of the other side? I’ll get this one.”

“Sure,” said Lehman. He scrambled up into the container and, while Tyler directed the beam of his torch down the length of the container, pulled on a long, thin metal sheet, about three feet wide and twenty feet long. “No way, Bart. It’s going to take two of us to handle one of these.”

Lewis clambered down to the rear of the Huey, ducked under the tail, and helped Lehman manhandle the heavy metal sheet out. Once the end of the sheet projected out of the container Horvitz and Doherty helped slide it. They leaned it so that it sloped from the edge of the container down to the concrete floor.

When he was satisfied, Lewis had Lehman help him manoeuvre the sheet on the other side of the container. They were all sweating by the time the two lengths of steel were in position.

“I think we should clear the rest of the stuff out first, the rotors and the skids,” said Lewis.

The vets pulled out the main rotors, the rotor mast and the tail rotors and the metal skids and put them carefully on the ground by the workbenches. The tail assembly was locked behind the main fuselage and would have to be taken out last. When they’d cleared the floor of the container Lewis instructed the vets to tie the ropes to the Huey, looping them around the cockpit and through the cabin.

“Now what?” said Carmody.

“I’ll unlock the brakes on the trolleys, then Chuck and Larry can go to the rear of the fuselage and push. The colonel and Eric can push the middle and hold on the rope through the cabin, Dan and I will take the front and hold the ropes around the cockpit. As soon as it gets to the top of the ramps we stop pushing and put all our weight on the ropes. It’ll have more than enough momentum to keep it moving; all we’ll be able to do is to slow it. Watch out for rope burns, don’t let it slide through your hands.’

The men took their positions. Lewis released the brakes and at his command they began straining against the helicopter. The wheels grated and gradually the Huey began to move, the trolleys rattling against the metal floor of the container.

“Careful, we’re almost there,” said Lewis. The trolleys banged against the steel ramps and for a moment it looked as if they’d stick there but the small wheels rolled over the join and the front of the Huey began to dip down. “The ropes!” shouted Lewis. “Hold the ropes. She’s going.”

All of them stopped pushing and pulled back on the ropes as if they were in a tug-of-war contest. Horvitz grunted and wound his end of the ropes around his waist. Lehman could feel the rope slide through his hands and he gripped it tighter. The Huey picked up speed and Lewis shouted for them all to pull harder. The wheels began to skid on the ramp and Lehman strained against the load.

Tyler’s feet began to slide along the metal floor and Lehman could feel his own begin to lose traction. He bent at the knees and tried to push back with all his might. The rear of the Huey bobbed up as the nose dipped down and it banged against the roof of the container before it slid out. Lehman was pulled to the edge of the container and he released his hold on the rope as the Huey reached the bottom of the ramp; he watched as the two trolleys supporting the helicopter rolled on to the concrete floor. The stub of tail section scraped along the ramp in a shower of sparks as the Huey levelled off and then it was clear and the helicopter came to a halt under the overhead fluorescent lights.

The six men stood at the open end of the container and looked down at the helicopter.

“Looks really bizarre without its tail,” said Carmody. “It really just fixes on with four bolts?”

“That’s all,” said Lewis. “Come on, let’s get the tail section out.”

The tail assembly was surprisingly light and the men carried it easily out of the container and down the ramp. Lehman had both hands on the stinger at the rear, the long metal spike which prevented the tail rotor from chopping into the ground. They placed the tail section carefully on the floor next to the rotors.

“Now the hard work starts,” said Tyler. He walked down the ramp and the others followed him. They all pulled the ramps clear of the container and Tyler relocked the door. He went round to the front of the truck where the three Chinese men sat talking and smoking. He told them they could go. The driver scratched the mouth of his tiger tattoo and put the truck into gear. It lurched out of the warehouse and out of the main gate as Lewis and Lehman rolled the huge sliding door shut.

“Now, push the Huey to the back so that we can drive the cars in as well,” said Tyler.

All six of the men pushed the helicopter on its two trolleys until it was just ten feet away from the offices, leaving more than enough room for the Toyota and the Jeep. Carmody and Horvitz drove the two vehicles inside and parked them just inside the warehouse.

“What’s the first step, Bart?” asked Tyler.

Lewis gestured at the overhead pulleys. “We rig up a system for pulling the turbine and the gearboxes out. Then I plan to strip her completely. Everything comes out and we’ll lay it down on the floor over there. I want to go over all the electrics and strip the hydraulics down. We can get to work on that while we’re waiting for the new turbine to arrive.”

“Let’s get to it,” said Tyler.

Neil Coleman popped a couple of painkillers into his mouth and washed them down with his coffee. A uniformed constable opened the office door without knocking and dumped a stack of files into his in-tray before leaving without saying a word. Coleman groaned and picked the files out one by one. A blue Mercedes. A green Mercedes. A white Toyota. Another blue Mercedes. Another green Mercedes. A red Nissan. A black Mercedes. Coleman scratched his nose. What the hell was it with Mercedes Benzes, he thought to himself. They were usually a popular choice with the car smugglers, but the rate of Mercedes car thefts was getting ridiculous. In the past month at least fifteen had gone missing, which was well above average for the time of the year. Almost double, in fact. In the past the increase in car thefts had coincided with booms in the Chinese economy: when the cadres and mainland businessmen had money to burn they usually put in orders for cars with the Hong Kong triads, but he’d seen nothing to suggest that the country’s economic woes were anywhere near being solved. And something else was worrying Coleman – the thefts of other car makes were pretty static, it was just Mercedes thefts which were on the increase.

He decided to go over to the Central police station for a chat with CID there and ask them if they had any thoughts about the spate of car thefts. Most of the Mercs had been taken from their patch. He caught the Mass Transit Railway to Central. During peak periods the MTR could be hell on earth. He hated being packed shoulder to shoulder with office workers: nobody smiled, nobody apologised for physical contact, nobody stepped aside to allow passengers on or off. It was every man for himself and all he could see were unsmiling, inscrutable faces. He hated it and always planned his journeys so that he avoided rush hour. During early afternoon the MTR was a totally different experience, fast, efficient and clean with no more than a couple of minutes between trains and a ticketing system that put the London Underground to shame. The only thing that spoiled the Hong Kong system was the people, thought Coleman, not for the first time, as he left Central MTR station and stepped into the burning hot sunshine.

He took off his lightweight jacket and slung it over his shoulder but he was still sweating after a few steps and he decided to cool off in the Landmark Centre. He sat down by the fountain and looked around the multi-level shopping mall, home to some of the most prestigious names in the world: Chanel, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Bally, Nina Ricci – a roll-call of the shopping favourites of the rich and famous. The Landmark was busy, as always. As far as Coleman could tell, the average Hong Konger had only two interests: making money and spending it. If they weren’t at work they were walking around the city’s shopping areas, even if they weren’t actually planning to make a purchase. In Hong Kong, window-shopping had been elevated to an art form. Coleman sat by a bubbling fountain while he got his breath back. He looked up at the second and third levels of shops and boutiques. The shoppers were a mixture of sunburnt tourists in shorts and cheap dresses and rich Hong Kong wives, expatriate and Chinese. Long escalators ferried people up to the different levels. A young Chinese girl with waist-length hair caught his attention. She was on the down escalator and as Coleman looked she swished her hair like a horse shaking its mane. She was wearing a leather miniskirt and a white silk jacket and her legs seemed to go on for ever. Coleman smiled as he saw the number of men who turned to watch her go by on the escalator. Several were rapped on the shoulder by their wives.