Scarlet sniffed. “That’s how.”
The other guy raised his hands and smiled. “Be my guest…”
Lexi and Sophie covered the second bouncer while Hawke, Scarlet and Ryan stepped up to Li.
“Victor Li?”
The man looked from his crippled bodyguard over to the strangers in front of him with nervous eyes. “Yeah, who’s asking?”
Hawke said no more, but smashed the Champagne glass out of his hand and grabbed him by the throat. Li panicked and went red, and the women around the table screamed and scattered.
“Who stole the Xi Shi portrait?” Hawke asked, his hand tightening around Li’s throat.
“Please, I can give you money. My employer has more money than you could ever dream of spending. Please, let go of my throat and I’ll give you all you want.”
“Do I look like the kind of man who would fly from London to Hong Kong to rob a little scrote like you for money?”
No response.
Hawke shook him violently. “Well?”
“I guess not…” the man whispered.
“One more time and then I’ll squeeze your throat until you pass out. When you wake up you’ll wish you were dead. Who stole the Xi Shi portrait?”
“Okay, okay…please, just let me breathe.” As he spoke, and his concentration was focused on Hawke, Scarlet reached inside his jacket and surreptitiously got his iPhone and passed it to Ryan who uploaded something onto it. Thirty seconds later it was back in Li’s pocket.
“A name, now.”
A look of surrender appeared in Victor Li’s red, bulging eyes. His remaining bodyguard looked on in silent horror as Sophie pushed a concealed pistol into his stomach and Lexi traced her fingers up his neck at the same time.
Li spoke quickly. “His name is Johnny Chan.”
“Johnny Chan?”
Li nodded. “I swear it. He’s the best thief in Hong Kong.”
“Is he really?” Scarlet said.
“But he doesn’t like it if you call him that. He calls himself a cat burglar.”
“How the hell would you burgle a cat?” Ryan said. “Sounds like it might be illegal.”
Scarlet turned and faced Ryan. “I told you never try to be funny.”
“Sorry.”
“Thanks for that image, Ryan,” Hawke said. He returned his attention to Li.
“And where can I find this Johnny Chan, famed burglar of cats?”
“You can make jokes now,” Li said, his voice hoarse with the effort of speaking through Hawke’s iron-grip, “but you mess with a man like Johnny Chan and you end up in Kowloon Bay.”
Hawke tightened his grip and pushed his knee down on Li’s stomach, compressing his diaphragm. “Listen, I don’t give a damn about Johnny Chan and Kowloon Bay. All I care about is finding the portrait he stole and fast because it’s going to help me find someone I care about a great deal. Sadly, I do not care about you and I will hurt you if you do not help me. Where can I find Chan?”
“If you have a death wish that’s your business,” Li said. “But you won’t find him in Hong Kong. He took the portrait out of the city as soon as he stole it.”
“Where did he go?”
“Shanghai.”
Scarlet sighed. “Great. One of the biggest cities in the world.”
Hawke tightened his grip. “That’s no problem, is it Victor?”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re going to tell me how to find him in Shanghai.” Hawke pushed down with his knee until Victor’s eyes were about to pop out like Champagne corks.
“I’ll give you what you need,” Li said.
Hawke grinned. “I thought you might.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The man known only as Mr Luk watched the distant sea crash against the rocks of Dragon Island. Somewhere above him, high in the subtropical canopies, was his master’s house. From there the view stretched three hundred and sixty degrees, from Hangzhou Bay in the west and the East China Sea in the east.
But down here, on the docking platform, things were less salubrious.
Luk fixed the motorboat to the mooring post and told two guards to take the prisoner into the boatshed. Normally he would take his work into the master’s basement where the slaves waited in terrified silence, but on this occasion time was short and the boss had told him to make it fast.
Luk knew why the man had to die. He was a criminal investigator in the Special Branch of the Shanghai Municipal Police. Such a man would be feared by most, but in this case Luk knew this dynamic would be very much reversed. The inspector knew only too well who had kidnapped him from his apartment in Nanhui. He had already begged for his life very convincingly.
All of this meant nothing to Luk. He couldn’t feel emotions. Some had called him a robot, but never to his face. He thought of himself simply as pure and neutral. Whatever he was, his master appreciated it and he was paid very well for his unique talents.
They dragged the inspector into the boatshed. His screams were muffled by the oily rag they had stuffed into his mouth when they piled him into the hull of the boat. The men tied him to an old engine block while Luk half-closed the door, but not completely. He liked to watch the Nankeen night herons flying in and out of the Xixi wetland park. They offered him solace in a brutal world.
Then Luk lit the portable paraffin blow lamp.
Yes, the fools had failed in the West, but that was in the past. Now the quest had been passed to him things would be different. He would not make the same mistakes as the others had. His master’s desire would bring the sort of savage reforms to the global system that it so badly needed.
Problems like the inspector simply had to go away.
He ordered one of the men to remove the rag, and the inspector gasped for breath. His desperate, babbled pleas for mercy were silenced by a casual wave from Luk’s index finger.
“Tell me all about Jason Lao,” Luk said quietly, as if he were asking an old friend about a mutual acquaintance.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the inspector said. “Please, my wife is pregnant! Please don’t kill me.”
“Shhh, inspector. You will disturb the herons.”
“All I can tell you is Jason Lao contacted the SMP from his base in Hong Kong and I was ordered to put a tail on you. That is all. They didn’t tell me why I was to follow you.”
Luk smiled gently and stroked the inspector’s sweat-soaked face. “That was very rude of them, and very unfortunate for you.”
“If I knew anything, I swear I would tell you.”
“Inspector, believe me when I tell you that in the next hour you will tell me everything you know and a lot more you don’t…”
The men laughed. One of them lit a cigarette and leaned against the boatshed door. The bay was especially hazy today, Luk considered.
“Who were the Westerners that Lao met in his Hong Kong office recently?”
“How should I know? I was told nothing by my superiors except I must follow you.”
“The problem I have with that is that a man of your rank is always involved in the strategic planning of such operations. So now you will tell me with whom and why Lao had that meeting. We know the American was a US Army general by the name of McShain, and we know why he’s here in China, and of course we know about Zhang Xiaolu, naturally. I want to know who the others were, and who they are working for.”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t know!”
Luk contemplated the man’s desperate pleas. They meant nothing to him.
He did the kind of jobs other men preferred not to do, but this kind of work had never kept him up at night. When he was nine, the care home where he was growing up in Kowloon had referred him to a psychologist for evaluation after he had stoned a wounded kingfisher to death.