After the preliminaries Shaw asked, “Which areas have been covered by the reconnaissance forces so far, sir?”
The Governor waved a hand towards Fielding, the Forces Commander. Fielding said, “They’re sweeping north. Both our people and the Americans have flown all the missions possible, but.…” He shrugged.
“And the results?”
Fielding spread his hands. “Blank, Shaw. A complete and utter blank. We haven’t found anything out of place anywhere.”
“Uh-huh.” Shaw moved across the room towards a map similar to the one in Latymer’s flat. He studied it, his eye narrowed thoughtfully. A hunch was forming. He looked at the Sea of Okhotsk, fringed to the east by the chain of islands forming the Kurile group — islands that stretched away northward from Hokkaido, islands that in 1945 had been taken from Japan and handed on a plate to the Soviet Union. The area was Russian, yes — but it was utterly remote and lonely and probably totally unvisited. More often than not the islands were shrouded in thick, clinging fog. Much could go on there that the outside world would never know about. The Sea of Okhotsk itself would be icebound at this time of year, but not so the North Pacific which washed the eastern shores of the Kuriles… and a spacecraft could very well be brought down east of the Kuriles and then quickly be picked up and taken to those Russian islands, and thence to the mainland of the Soviet, where it would vanish from Western eyes.…
Shaw turned to the Governor and asked casually, “What about the Sea of Okhotsk?”
The Governor shrugged. “That’s Russian territorial waters, my dear fellow.”
“I was aware of that, sir. I know the risks, too. I still think the area would be worth attention.”
“There is no authority to violate Russian territorial airspace, Shaw. Both the British and American Commanders-in-Chief of the searching forces are quite powerless to act in that direction.”
Shaw nodded slowly. He was convinced such authority would never be forthcoming. Latymer, for one, would himself be dead against it; the department was accustomed to working in other ways, and Shaw was their man on the spot. He believed in his hunch, so it was up to him to find a way to get inside the Sea of Okhotsk — and he hadn’t much time left now.
After returning to his hotel Shaw called the Shanghai. He said, “I’d like to speak to a Miss Tegner, Miss Helma Tegner.”
“Yes, sir,” a polite Chinese voice answered, speaking excellent English. “I will have the lady called. What is your name, please, sir?”
“Smith.”
“Please will you hold the line, sir.”
Shaw waited. He waited a full five minutes and then there was a crackle and the girl’s voice said, “Smith? Is it really you?”
“As if you didn’t know. I’m waiting for an explanation.”
“It is so nice to hear you again. I was in the bath. I am so surprised! What is it you want, Smith?”
He answered impatiently. “I’ll give you three guesses. That ought to be two too many.”
Her laugh came light and silvery along the line. Suddenly he wanted her very badly. She said, “Yes, I think one will be quite enough, certainly, Smith!” She paused as if expecting some further comment but when none came she went on, “As you are in Hong Kong also, Smith, you may take me out to dinner somewhere nice. That is, if you would like to, Smith?”
“I’d like nothing better,” he assured her, conscious of the blood racing in his veins, but more than that, conscious that the girl must have something important to talk to him about. “Where shall it be? I’m out of touch with Hong Kong life these days. I don’t know about you, of course. If you haven’t any other suggestions, let’s meet—”
She said quickly, “I am told there is a nice place, offering very excellent food, and not too expensive you will be relieved to know, Smith… in the Ho Teh Road, which is off Ch’ung Street, across the harbour in Kowloon. It is called Mi Ling’s. I will be there at nine o’clock.”
She didn’t give him time even to say he’d be there too. The phone clicked in his ear. He shrugged and went across the foyer into the bar, where a Chinese barman smilingly mixed him a Manhattan. He was vaguely irritated by the girl's reference to the place in the Ho Teh Road being not too expensive. He had a very generous expense account and he enjoyed spending it on a contact when the contact happened to be as intriguingly beautiful as Ingrid Lange… and Latymer had never been known to query an item in the account. Yet.
He finished the Manhattan and glanced at his watch. Time was getting on. He went up to his room, showered in his private bathroom, then changed into a white dinner jacket. He checked the slide of his Beretta and went down into the street where the doorman signalled up a ricksha.
“The Kowloon ferry,” he told the boy. The Chinese nodded; Shaw climbed in and the coolie started off, jog-trotting between the shafts of his vehicle. They passed along streets brilliantly lit with blazing neon signs, along other streets of hanging banner signs — the new Hong Kong and the old, criss-crossed with roads and alleys, all packed with young and old, with pretty, feminine girls, with virile young men and ancient, worn-out beggars. After crossing in the ferry Shaw picked up another ricksha. Here in Kowloon he had largely left the bright streets behind him and was passing along dark, dingy roads where vaguely-seen, shadowy forms flitted in and out of doorways, where now and again a cry was heard and where young Chinese girls smiled invitingly from the few lighted windows along the way. This was a different side of Hong Kong life from the millionaires’ paradise he had left across the harbour. Hong Kong was a strange but thriving medley, a place where East and West met, a busy port and a frontier garrison — with Red China vast and implacable and mysterious on its doorstep, a place still of mystery and intrigue and violence behind the trimmings, behind the wealth on the one hand and the poverty on the other.
SIXTEEN
The Ho Teh Road was a squalid, unlit thoroughfare of decayed, ricketty buildings, mostly private dwellings of an exceedingly doubtful-looking character with a handful of shops here and there, shops that were still open, hopefully but without custom, their seedy proprietors sitting motionless behind their wares, beneath the usual banner signs hanging from the upper storeys. The tops of the crumbling buildings seemed to touch overhead to shut out the clusters of friendly stars. There was a curious, almost overpowering smell, compounded of rotting vegetables and human sweat, and probably opium and many other things besides. Shaw was deposited at the door of Mi Ling’s establishment, where he paid off the ricksha and for a moment watched the coolie as he turned and ran his vehicle back into more auspicious surroundings. Mi Ling’s was a crummy-looking place, with rotting shutters and peeling paintwork, set a little back from the line of the other buildings. A sound of tinny music came to Shaw’s ears as he walked past a muscular custodian and pushed open the swing door. He stepped into an entrance hall and found that the outside appearance of Mi Ling’s was, to say the least, deceptive.
The floor of this hall was of mosaic tiles of brilliant colouring; around the walls, in niches, were set figures of men and women, the women mostly naked, the men old and venerably bearded… it was symbolic of something, that juxtaposition, Shaw fancied, and it probably set the tone of Mi Ling’s… some of the figures were made of compressed silk by a process known only to an older generation of Chinese, others were of purest jade. They must have been worth a small fortune in any man’s currency. The air was filled with an erotic incense, a warm, heady pervasion that seemed to be wafting through grilles set in the walls. As Shaw looked around with interest, a door opened behind a screen. There was evidently some system of warning when anyone entered from the street— not surprisingly, in view of those jade and silk figures. A tall Chinese, a waiter, came through, bowing low as he saw the Englishman.