“These are your friends?” Lexi asked, eyeing them suspiciously.
Hawke nodded. “Ryan saved my life once. I never forget something like that.”
They approached the table and smiled.
Scarlet smiled at Ryan. “Another two whiskies please, waiter.”
“Very funny,” said Ryan.
“No, I’m serious,” she said. “Go and get more drinks, boy. We have a serious job to do and I won’t work on an empty stomach.”
Ryan sighed and went to the bar with Sophie. They returned moments later with a bottle of whisky and five glasses.
Scarlet looked at the bottle and raised an eyebrow. “But what’s everyone else going to drink?”
They took a few minutes to catch up. It turned out that Ryan and Sophie had spent the last two weeks together at her place in the south of France in the hills just outside of Marseille. Apparently Lea Donovan wasn’t the only woman capable of falling in love with the world’s most annoying nerd, Hawke thought.
They talked about Lea’s disappearance, and how it was linking up to everything else, but the thought she might have been harmed, or worse, depressed them and they were silent for a long time, each staring into their glasses. If they were thinking the same thing as Hawke then they were wondering if she was still alive.
Ryan nodded his head and sipped his drink. “Then let’s get her back,” was all he said.
Hawke, Scarlet and Lexi then gave Ryan and Sophie a longer briefing about the last few hours in Hong Kong, and what they had learned about the murder of Felix Hoffmann and his links to the theft of the Xi Shi portrait and the disappearance of the secret Tesla machine.
Ryan’s eyes widened like saucers. “This is unreal!”
“Sounds like something from a disaster movie,” Sophie said, stunned as Hawke finished describing the potential of the device.
“Hardly,” Ryan said. “The US Government has been working on controlling the environment for decades, whether it’s tsunamis, floods, rain levels or even earthquakes, like in this example.”
“Here we go again…” Scarlet rolled her eyes and started searching her pockets for a cigarette.
Ryan ignored her and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Cloud seeding as a form of weather modification has been around a long time. They fire silver iodide into the cloud and this induces precipitation.” He turned to Scarlet and spoke very slowly. “That means it makes it rain.”
“I know what it means, boy. If you’re going to bore us to death then at least make it fast.”
Ryan was undeterred and sipped hurriedly at the Scotch before continuing. “The American Government’s HAARP facility in Alaska is one of the classic conspiracy theories.”
“HAARP?” Lexi asked.
“High-Frequency Active Auroral Research,” Ryan said.
“Oh, sure,” she said. “I know that one.”
Ryan continued. “It’s built of a massive number of antennas that are there ostensibly to research the ionosphere but theorists have blamed it for just about every disaster from earthquakes to exploding space shuttles.”
“Interesting,” Scarlet said. “And when you say theorists you mean those sad little wingnuts who sit in the dark with hats made from tin foil?”
Ryan gave her a sideways glance and continued. “All I’m saying is that the US Government, and others around the world, do have active research programs into altering the natural environment. The Tesla Oscillator is just a very early example of this.”
“Do enlighten us,” Scarlet said, sipping her whisky.
“Tesla invented his oscillator in the eighteen-nineties as a simple way to generate electricity, which at the time was a fairly new idea.”
“And what does this have to do with what we’re doing now?” Lexi said.
“He’ll get there in the end,” Hawke said, noting Lexi’s confusion.
“Like I said, it was used for generating electricity, but in his later life Tesla claimed he had used the machine to create an earthquake in New York. His comments were reported but largely ignored, and when the powers-that-be decided to discredit him and ruin his reputation, the earthquake claim, along with all his other ideas, simply faded away.”
“This is earth-shattering news, boy” Scarlet said.
“Yes, well… ah — very funny,” Ryan said. “But seriously…”
“A great album,” Hawke said, but urged Ryan to continue when confronted with so many blank expressions all at once.
“The thing is, the original Tesla machine that he claimed had caused the 1898 earthquake was actually very small, only seven inches long and weighing just a pound or two. If this picture is anything to go by,” he said, pointing at the size of the crate being loaded into the helicopter on the ambushed vessel, “this new device is tens of times bigger and would cause an earthquake big enough to destroy an entire city no problem at all.”
“And that,” Hawke said, downing his drink, “is probably the best news we’re going to get all day. Let’s go.”
Less than half an hour later they emerged from the bar and walked down Pottinger Street towards the nightclub. Halfway down on the right Hawke was the first to see the sign — a neon blue orchid, bright in the late dusk.
Groups of well-dressed people were already congregating outside the club on the sidewalk, pulling money from their wallets and purses and checking their hairdos.
Hawke surveyed the crowd. “This is the place.”
“More up-market than I was expecting,” Sophie said.
“My boss has good intel sources,” said Lexi. “If he says this is where we’ll find Li, then this is where we’ll find him.”
Inside was a plush entrance hall with stairs leading down to a luxury cocktail lounge and dance floor, behind which was a small door leading through to a smaller part of the club.
Hawke studied the busy club suspiciously. All they had to go on was the grainy picture of Victor Li that Jason Lao and McShain had given them back at the office, but already he was certain his man wasn’t in the main area.
“I think our man must be hiding through there,” Hawke said.
Scarlet nodded. “So let’s go in and find out.”
In the corner on a sumptuous semi-circular bench seat of white leather was a small crowd of people gathered around a central figure. He was dressed in black and regaling everyone with a lengthy tale, a Champagne flute in his hand.
Hawke recognized the man at once from the photo Jason Lao had given him and he felt the old buzz that used to come so often when he was on the verge of accomplishing a mission. Like a hawk swooping for the kill, he wasted no time in weaving through the busy nightclub on his way to Victor Li’s table.
The music was intense and the smell of expensive perfume and flavored vodka filled the room as Hawke neared his target. Lights flashed, and a glitterball sent sparkling flashes of silver all over the men and women dancing in the club. A place like this only made sense if you were pretty drunk, he thought, remembering his own turbulent youth back in London.
As they reached the dais with the private tables, two men roughly the size of walk-in wardrobes closed the pathway and raised their hands.
“That’s far enough,” one of them said.
“This is a private area, so go back,” said the other.
Scarlet fronted up to the first man. “I’ll kick you in your private area if you don’t let us past.”
Both men laughed. “I must weigh three times what you do, woman. How are you going to get past me?”
Hawke whistled and shook his head.
In a flash, Scarlet delivered her promise, and threw in a free Krav Maga inside chop on his collar bone for good measure. He collapsed in a heap on the floor with his hands all over his balls and screaming like a baby.