Then he heard the voice. “You can’t escape, Felix!” It was cold, and emotionless, and bounced icily from the tiled walls of the grimy tunnel.
“Why can’t you people leave me alone?” he screamed, his voice hoarse with the effort of sprinting and the sheer terror he now felt coursing through his veins. “Haven’t you taken enough from me?”
“You have given us very much, yes,” said the voice. “But it is what you are keeping from us that we are more interested in. Where are the papers?”
Hoffmann’s mind raced with indecision. In one direction was certain death, brought by the crushingly heavy twin steel bogies of the Métro train now rumbling toward him with terrifying speed. In the other direction was also certain death, brought by the people he feared more than anything.
The train driver sounded the horn. It was shrill and deafening in the enclosed tunnel.
“Give us this one last thing, Felix,” the voice said, calm even in the face of the on-coming train. “Join us!”
“Never! I will never involve myself with such sacrilege!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Felix. This is what you’ve always wanted. Now is your chance! Help us, and you will taste eternal life.”
Hoffmann stared at his pursuer’s silhouette. He looked at the train — thousands of tons of metal racing towards him. He knew what acquiescing to them would mean. It exhilarated him, but it terrified him more.
“Last chance, Felix! Give us what we need and join us. Join the Gods!”
One more look at the train and Felix Hoffmann obeyed his deepest instinct and ran away from it, sprinting closer to his pursuer with every step. He might stand a chance on the platform, but if he stayed here on the tracks his life was certain to end in seconds.
“You made the right decision, Felix.”
“Somehow I doubt that…” he said. He would live today, he thought, so he could run tomorrow.
But he didn’t have long to think about tomorrow, because then his future took a drastic change for the worse.
As he crawled up on to the edge of the platform to get out of the tunnel, he felt his assailant move quickly behind him, and then suddenly it happened.
The cord flicked around his neck and tightened, cutting an agonizing groove into the soft flesh of his throat and cutting off his air supply. In vain, he tugged at the cord, but it was too tight around his neck for him even to get his fingertips beneath it.
Behind him, the train raced past in a howling gust of grit and grime.
“Where are the Reichardt Papers, Felix?” the voice said. Cool, authoritative. In complete control.
“Please!” he croaked hoarsely.
“Where are they?”
Hoffmann flailed about in a vain attempt to free himself, but he grew weaker with every missed breath. His eyes were bulging so much he thought they might burst from his head, but he somehow managed to get the words out. “You said I could join you…”
“I lied. Give me their location or your family will die just like this.”
“They’re… they’re… here! I have them on me now. Please don’t harm my family!”
As Hoffmann felt his pursuer reach into his jacket and pull the papers from his pocket, he knew he had betrayed not only himself but the entire world. “I’ve told you now, please… please just let me breathe and let my family live!”
But the assailant didn’t let him breathe. Hoffmann struggled but there was no escape. The last thing he saw was the glowing strip lights of the Métro station through his painful, bulging eyes, and then he felt himself slip away. They had won at last, and the world would pay a terrible price for his failure.
CHAPTER THREE
Hawke knew when he was being followed, and now was one of those times. He and Scarlet Sloane had been in Hong Kong less than one hour and already there was someone tailing them. For all he knew, they could have been watching him on the plane from London — the first flight to leave London for Hong Kong after Sir Richard Eden had woken him to tell him about Lea’s disappearance.
They cut through an alley and entered the Temple Street Night Market in a bid to lose their pursuer. Years ago, Hawke was stationed in the city as a commando in the British Forces Overseas Hong Kong. The Royal Marines had been stationed in the city since the very first days of British colonization, and it was a great posting loved by most of the military who went there.
But as Hawke looked for a way to lose the tail, he saw things had changed. For one thing, the night market was different. Once it offered excellent food, a great atmosphere, singers on the sidewalks — but now not so much. It looked tacky and tired, the singers had disappeared into the cool, subtropical night and the food was cheap and salty.
And the man was still behind them.
The tourists in the market grew in number as the night grew older and the familiar smell of fried meat and plum sauce filled the air. All around them people laughed and took selfies of their night in the exotic city.
They passed some prostitutes outside a noodle bar and moved deeper into the crowd to consider their situation. Only one person knew they were in Hong Kong — Sir Richard Eden. Hawke knew he would never betray him.
They crossed Saigon Street. Red bunting flapped in the wind and a man was arguing with a fortune teller, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of a nearby karaoke bar.
News of Hugo Zaugg’s death less than two weeks ago had been presented to the world as a tragic suicide, but how many knew the truth outside of Eden’s official circle and certain elements of the American Government was unknown.
When he’d landed in Hong Kong things had gotten even worse. Eden had contacted him to brief him about another murder. A private researcher in Paris who was somehow linked to Lea’s disappearance was killed shortly after Eden’s first phone call to Hawke, and of grave concern to Eden was the simple fact that Lea had been tasked with putting this particular man under surveillance while he was recently in Hong Kong.
Hawke wondered if the death of Felix Hoffmann and now his new friend a few hundred yards behind him were connected to the Zaugg affair, but instantly put it out of his mind. He was in Hong Kong to find Lea and now work out the Hoffmann connection, and he knew where he had to start.
“Check out the guy in the black shirt.” Hawke jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.
“We’re being tailed?”
“Pretty sure we are, yeah. He’s been keeping around a hundred yards behind us since we turned into the market.”
Scarlet turned slowly and pretended to look at a passing 747 as it climbed into the orange clouds above the city. It looked like it could rain at any minute, and as she followed the path of the aircraft she covertly surveyed the street.
“Black jeans and shades on his head?” she asked.
“That’s the chap.”
“If it’s a tail he’s not very good,” she said dismissively. “Could be anyone.”
“Or he could be someone,” Hawke said.
“So, make him sing for his supper, darling.”
They stopped walking and pretended to check the menu in the window of a Nepalese restaurant.
“Definitely a tail,” Hawke said, watching the man’s reflection in the window. “He’s pulled up outside that jewelry store on the other side of the street. If he’s half as smart as he should be, he’s looking at us in the reflection of that window the same way we’re using this one.”
A moped puttered down the street, weaving in and out of shoppers and tourists as it spewed a cloud of filthy blue smoke into the air behind it. People were going about their business in the early evening like any other night in the city.