The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (53 page)

“It’s seized, but if we were to take it apart and put it back together again I think it’d work. Again, I’ll be happier with it replaced. The swashplate mechanism is okay, and so is the main rotor mast. Rotor blades, too. I’ll tell you, Colonel, they really knew what they were doing when they built the Huey. You could just about get this bird in the air as it is. I’m not saying that you’d get me up in it, but …”

“That’s great, Bart, just great.” He clapped Lewis on his back. “What’s the main job at the moment?”

“The electrics,” said Lewis. He took Tyler over to a large, green tarpaulin which had been spread out on the ground. Yards of wiring were laid out on the tarpaulin like the blood system of some strange prehistoric monster. “It’s basically sound but we’re checking it inch by inch and renewing the contacts. We’re looking good though, Colonel, we’re looking damn good.”

“Glad to hear it, Bart,” said Tyler. He looked at Lewis and frowned. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

Lewis gave him a beaming smile. “Never felt better,” he said. He went over and supervised Horvitz and Carmody as they painstakingly checked the wiring. Doherty was sitting in the cockpit of the Huey, his hands and feet on the controls and a faraway look in his eyes. Lehman was standing at the side of the helicopter watching him. Lewis took another sip at the beef soup, but he had no appetite. Tyler was right, he had been losing weight, though he hadn’t thought it was noticeable. He simply wasn’t hungry, and any food he forced down seemed to increase the pain a hundredfold. At first he’d put off taking the painkillers the doctor had prescribed for him back in Baltimore, but now he was taking the maximum dose, six tablets a day. He had said that once Lewis had reached the maximum dose he should go back for another check-up and he’d prescribe stronger medication. Yeah, right, thought Lewis. All I have to do is pop on a plane back to the States and get a new prescription. Colonel Tyler would just love that. A searing pain ripped through his stomach and he winced. His arm began to shake with the effort of not screaming and the beef soup slopped over the side of the mug. He took deep breaths and willed the pain to subside so that he could take another pill, fighting to stop himself from bending double. The tablets were back in the section of the office he used as a bedroom and he walked slowly over to it.

He sat down on the end of the camp bed and used the beef soup to wash down one of the tablets. He looked at the label on the plastic bottle then spilled them out into his palm. He counted them one by one. There were twenty-one. Enough for three and a half days. What then? Just the pain, the gnawing, biting, searing pain. The thought made him shudder. He’d lied to Tyler about how bad the pain was; he didn’t want him to think that he wouldn’t be able to go through with the mission. He slid the tablets back into the bottle and screwed the cap on, then sat with his head in his hands while he waited for the pain to subside.

He was disturbed by a knock on his door. “Bart! The parts have arrived.” It was Dan Lehman.

“Yeah, okay, I’m coming,” said Lewis, slipping the bottle under his pillow. He stood up and went out into the corridor where Lehman was waiting.

“You okay?” asked Lehman.

“God, I wish everyone would stop asking me if I’m okay,” snapped Lewis.

“Hey, cool it,” said Lehman, holding his hands up as if blocking a blow. “It’s me, remember?”

Lewis glared at Lehman but the tension visibly drained from his body and he apologised. “I’m not feeling good, Dan. It hurts.”

“I know,” said Lehman, not knowing what else to say. He had no idea of the pain Lewis was going through.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Lewis. They went along the corridor and out into the warehouse. The small door was open and they headed for the oblong of bright sunlight. Outside was a small truck which had been reversed up to the sliding door. The truck was painted green with white Chinese characters on its wooden sides. There was a metal framework over the back of the truck which could be covered with a tarpaulin when the weather was bad but it had arrived uncovered and the two men saw two large wooden crates. As they got closer they saw that they both had “Machine Parts” stencilled on the side in black capital letters and an address in Manila.

“Close the door, Dan,” said Tyler. He was standing at the end of the truck and watching three bare-chested men with dark skins trying to push one of the crates with little success.

“How did they get them on?” asked Carmody.

“Fork-lift truck,” said one of the men in heavily accented English. “You no have?”

“No, we no have,” said Carmody, clicking his claw.

“Easy, Larry,” said Tyler. An old Chinese man, small and plump, was standing next to Tyler with his arms folded across his broad chest. The skin on his head was sprinkled with small purple birthmarks, each separate and distinct from the others, like a map of the world where the continents had been separated. There were folds of skin along the back of his neck and around his waist as if he were a couple of inches shorter than he used to be and his skin hadn’t taken up the slack. He was wearing faded blue denim overalls with a bib which seemed to be straining to hold in his pot belly.

The old man turned to Tyler. “You have a which inside? A pulley perhaps?”

“Good idea, Mr Tsao,” said Tyler. “Could you tell them that we’ll back the truck inside and unload it, and then drive it out. I’d like them to wait at the fence.”

Tsao nodded and spoke to the men in quiet Cantonese. They grinned and seemed happy to leave the work up to the Americans. They jumped off the truck and swaggered over to the fence. As they walked their tattoos rippled on their backs as if they were alive: a screaming eagle, a scorpion preparing to strike, and a dragon breathing fire. The tattoos looked old, the colours were fading and the edges blurring as the inks seeped through the cells of their skin, but the men themselves couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. One of them took a pack of Marlboro from the pocket of his jeans and handed cigarettes around and they squatted together by the fence, smoking and laughing.

“Larry, can you drive the truck in?” asked Tyler. “Dan, Eric, will you two get the door?”

Horvitz and Lehman closed the small door and then pushed back the sliding door until the space was wide enough to drive the truck through. Tyler motioned to Carmody and he started the truck and began reversing. Tyler guided it under the largest pulley system and told Carmody to stop. Lewis clambered on to the truck, fixed a thick chain under and around the larger of the two crates, and fastened it to the metal hook below the pulley. He began winching it up, grunting as he pulled on the chain which ran through the pulley, and Lehman climbed up to assist him. Together they heaved on the chain and soon the crate creaked and groaned and lifted off the truckbed. Once they had it six inches above the truck Lewis and Lehman clambered down and shouted to Carmody to move the truck forward. He jerked the truck forward ten feet and stopped it with a squeal of brakes. Lehman and Lewis lowered the crate to the floor then slid the pulley over so that it was poised above the truck again. They repeated the process with the second crate and when it was also on the concrete they banged on the tailgate of the truck and Carmody drove it out of the warehouse and up to the fence where he climbed out of the cab and handed over the keys to one of the Chinese labourers. They drove off, still smoking and laughing, black fumes belching from the exhaust.

Tsao picked up a large black holdall and walked with Tyler into the warehouse as Lehman and Lewis pushed the sliding door shut. When they’d finished Tyler asked them all to gather around. “This is Mr Tsao,” said Tyler, by way of introduction. The old man nodded and put his bag on the floor. “Mr Tsao will be helping us get the helicopter ready.”

Tsao shook hands with each of the men in turn. He had a round face and his plumpness smoothed out any wrinkles he might have had. He reminded Lewis of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. When Tsao smiled at him Lewis saw that his back teeth had been replaced with gold caps and one of his canines was also gold. After he’d shaken hands with all of them he went over to examine the Huey.

Tyler took a crowbar and pried the lid off the smaller of the two crates. The Americans watched as Tyler began scooping aside handfuls of polystyrene shells as if he were looking for something. “Here we are,” he said triumphantly. He pulled out four thick books wrapped in clear plastic. There were also four dark green plastic binders which he held out to Lewis. “A little bonus courtesy of the Philippine military machine,” said Tyler.

Lewis took the books and flicked through the pages. “Workshop manuals,” he said. “They’re all here: Operators Manual, Airframe Manual, Parts Manual, and Engine Manual. The full set. Terrific.”

“I thought they’d make your day,” said Tyler. “Look, will you show Mr Tsao around. There’s a cot for him in the office next to mine.”

“He’s sleeping here?” said Lewis.

“It’s the best way to maintain security,” said Tyler. “He lives in Shatin but he’s told his family he’s working on a contract over the border. He’s being well paid and he comes highly recommended by one of my contacts here in Hong Kong.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Lewis.

“Just don’t forget what I said about talking in front of him,” warned Tyler. “The less he knows about what we’re doing, the better.”

“Understood, Colonel.”

Tsao stood at the side of the Huey, gently stroking the war machine, wonder in his watery eyes.

Michael Wong put his knife and fork together on the empty plate and patted his stomach. “An excellent meal, Anthony. Truly excellent.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” said Chung, dabbing at his lips with a starched white napkin.

A waiter appeared as if by magic and whisked away both plates. “Have you noticed how much better food tastes when you don’t have to pick up the check?” Wong asked.

Chung grinned. “Not recently, no.”

Wong laughed good-naturedly. He was about five years older than Chung, and looked more like a successful businessman than a triad leader, or Dragon Head. His hair, like Chung’s, was expensively cut, and he wore spectacles with Yves Saint Laurent frames. His face was squarish and he had a prominent dimple in the centre of his chin. The one clue to his violent background was a small raised scar which ran for about two inches down the side of his chin but he always held his head so that it couldn’t be seen. Chung knew that under the light blue suit there were worse scars, laying testament to an attack on his life ten years earlier when Michael Wong was a simple triad foot-soldier, a Red Pole. Wong had taken Chung to a high-class Chinese-only sauna in Wan Chai and as they’d sat together in the steam he’d seen Wong’s scars stay white as the rest of his skin went pink. They were wicked wounds, hatchet cuts that ran from his neck to his waist, criss-crossing like the tramlines at Kennedy Town tram terminal. Michael Wong was lucky to be alive, and he lived life to the full, as if every day was his last.

“Dessert?” offered Chung as the waiter pushed over the sweet trolley.

Wong patted his trim waistline. “Got to keep my figure, Anthony,” he said. “Amy won’t let me into the bed if my waist is an inch over thirty-three.”

Wong had been happily married for almost fifteen years and had three children, all girls. He doted on them all.

“Coffee then?” asked Chung, waving away the trolley.

“Coffee would be good,” said Wong.

Chung nodded at a waiter who was hovering with a silver coffee pot and he stepped smoothly forward and began pouring. They waited until he’d finished before continuing their conversation, which up to that point had been about the forthcoming races at Shatin, the relative merits of Taiwanese girls compared with Japanese, and whether Wong’s daughters should go to school in the UK or the States.

“So, Anthony, how is everything going?”

Chung nodded and smiled. “Very smoothly,” he said. “This man Tyler is a true professional. I must confess to having some misgivings when you suggested that we use a gweilo, but he is every bit as good as you said. His idea of using the helicopter was genius, sheer genius. And the team he has put together, it’s perfect, absolutely perfect. I tell you, Michael, if you really wanted to mount a raid on the Happy Valley racetrack, Tyler would pull it off. He really would. Your man Tsao has started working with them, and the helicopter will be ready in plenty of time.”

“Good,” said Wong, stirring his coffee. “You have the names for me?”

Chung slipped a folded piece of paper across the table and Wong pocketed it, unread. “There are five,” said Chung.

“I shall make enquiries,” said Wong. “You had a good look at the security arrangements?”

“You should have been there,” said Chung, leaning back in his chair and toying with his saucer. “Their head of security is a racist gweilo. He was an arrogant pig who was more than happy to lord it over an ignorant Chink. He told me more than he should.”

“They do love to underestimate us, don’t they?” mused Wong. “I’ll arrange for my man Lee to come round and talk to you. He is an alarms specialist, and he can brief my men. But you envisage no problems?”

“None at all,” said Chung. He waved at a waiter to attract his attention and made a quick scribbling motion with his hand. The waiter rushed off to get the bill. “I already have eight drivers lined up. I am going to meet another right now. What about the vehicles?”

“I have nine so far,” said Wong as the waiter arrived with the bill. Chung took it off the silver plate, scanned it, and put it back with his gold American Express card. “I should have the last one within a day or two. Five are already modified, the rest will be completed well in time.”