“Well?”
She stopped herself. He sensed something powerful was preventing her from going any further. “I really can’t. I shouldn’t have brought it up. That was very unlike me. Talk to Eden about it if it’s really stressing your nuts off.”
Hawke sighed. So near and yet so far. “What I love about you most is your finesse.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The following morning, the cab raced through the tunnel under Kowloon Bay and emerged on Hong Kong Island just as the sun was breaking through a thick bank of clouds to the east. Hawke’s mind once again turned to Lea Donovan, and he wondered what was happening to her at this moment — if she was still in Hong Kong… If she had read his text telling her how he felt about her — and who had taken her, and why.
He was knocked from his speculation by Scarlet Sloane nudging him in the ribs.
“Pay the man, Joe.”
Hawke paid the fare and moments later they were taking the elevator to the tenth floor of the skyscraper Lexi had described the previous evening.
Jason Lao’s office was stark and professional. One framed picture of a woman Hawke guessed was his young wife, and a couple of simple pot plants, both plastic. The main attraction was the breathtaking view of the bay and the humming chaos of Kowloon rising up behind it.
For a few moments after Lexi had made the introductions, the atmosphere in the office was awkward, and things got even worse when Lao buzzed through on the intercom and had his personal assistant bring another person into the room.
The man was roughly the same dimensions as a grizzly bear and by the look on his face shared many of the same personality traits. He had a straight-forward crew-cut, silver at the sides, and wore a blue blazer with cream-colored chinos.
“Please meet General Frank McShain, he’s with the US Army and is here representing certain interested parties inside the American Government.”
“Just what the hell is going on?” Hawke asked.
“Take it easy, Joe,” Lexi said.
Lao and McShain shared a concerned look.
“We only wish we knew,” Lao began. “All we know is we’ve picked up chatter pointing to something big that’s about to reach boiling point in the underworld here and on the mainland.”
“Something big?” Scarlet said. “Gee, thanks. Now we know that we can get to work.”
Hawke shifted awkwardly in his chair. “How does this tie into the disappearance of Lea Donovan and the murder of Felix Hoffmann?”
“Very recently,” Lao continued, “not long after the death of Hoffmann, a piece of famous artwork was stolen from a gallery here in Hong Kong. The picture was a portrait of one of the Four Beauties.”
“The Four Beauties?” Hawke asked.
Lexi rolled her eyes and sighed.
“The Four Great Beauties are part of Chinese legend, Mr Hawke,” Lao said. “They were four women from various ancient dynasties reputed to be the most beautiful women in the world.”
“Never heard of them,” said Scarlet.
“Your ignorance of our culture wouldn’t surprise any educated Chinese person,” Lexi said sharply.
Hawke coughed. “So who were they?”
McShain shifted uneasily in his seat and scratched his stubble as Lao continued.
“The first was Xi Shi from the famous Spring and Autumn Period. She lived during the time you would call the seventh century before Christ. The second was several hundred years later, during the Western Han Dynasty, and her name was Wang Zhaojun. The third was Diaochan, who lived around eighteen-hundred years ago and the fourth and final beauty was Yang Guifei who lived during the Tang Dynasty, a mere twelve-hundred years ago.”
“And whose portrait was stolen?” Hawke asked.
McShain cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair. His voice was deep and coarse, and his Brooklyn accent heavy. “It was a picture of Xi Shi, but the significance of that we just do not know.”
Scarlet smoothed the leather on her pants with a slow-sliding hand, cream white, black fingernail polish. “And who took it?”
Lao once again took over the briefing. “The identity of the thief is not known, but we do have a lead. His name is Victor Li, a small-time scumbag pushing heroin around the bottom of the city. His day job is working as a fence for smuggled diamonds and rumor has it he knows something about the missing portrait. He’s also worked as a pimp.”
“A missing picture is hardly a threat to world peace,” Scarlet said.
“Maybe you should listen more and talk less?” Lexi said.
“You what?” Scarlet turned in her chair to face Lexi.
Hawke sighed. “Leave it!”
“The point remains,” Scarlet said, winking at Lexi and returning to face Lao, “that a stolen portrait is not exactly the plot of Goldfinger.”
Another glance between Lao and the American general.
“No, but it doesn’t end there,” McShain said. “Our intel is pointing to a major and devastating attack on an unspecified city.”
Scarlet wished she had listened more and said less.
“What kind of attack?” Hawke asked, straight to the point.
McShain fixed his eyes on Hawke. “We don’t know that either, but we’re pretty sure it’s got something to do with an earthquake.”
“I’m sorry,” Hawke said, confused. “An earthquake is a natural phenomenon. How can that be used to attack somewhere?”
McShain started to turn a strange greenish-white color and looked distinctly uncomfortable. “What I’m about to tell you is the highest level of Top Secret imaginable and I wouldn’t even consider breathing a word of it to you had Sir Richard Eden not instructed my superiors that you should be told.”
“Good old Dickie,” Scarlet said, and crossed her long legs.
A flick of the eyes from McShain. “The US Government has for some time been able to trigger earthquakes artificially and…”
“Wait a minute,” Hawke said, suddenly alert. “You’re not telling me those nutcases on the internet were right all along and it’s been you guys causing all these quakes everywhere?”
“No, I am not telling you that,” McShain said firmly. “The technology has only been used in strictly controlled test conditions on an American island in the Western Pacific, far, far away from the prying eyes of the rest of the world.’
Scarlet laughed. “From the human race, you mean?”
McShain ignored her. “The technology in question was evolved by our scientists from an earlier design by Nikola Tesla.”
“This just gets better and better,” Hawke mumbled.
“I’ll say,” Lexi said.
“Very recently, and around the same time as Hoffmann’s death and the disappearance of your agent and the portrait, the US Navy was transporting the device from the test island to Japan where it was going to be transferred to a ship in the fleet at Yokosuka.”
“And don’t tell me,” Hawke said, “you guys accidentally lost your new toy?”
McShain sighed and looked to Lao, who responded coolly.
“The device in question was taken in a daring assault as the transport vessel crossed the Philippine Sea. The only clue we have was sprayed on the side of the American ship during the raid.”
“And that was what?” Scarlet said.
Lao held up a photo of the graffiti. It was two Chinese characters totally unintelligible to Hawke and Scarlet.
“What does it say?” Hawke asked, his interest officially captured.
“These are the characters for Lei Gong.”
“I’m still lost, Jason,” Hawke said. “What does it mean?”