“They have it,” he said.
On the second page was the headline: Do You Know This Woman? Below the caption was a badly reproduced photograph, taken by an uninspired police photographer of a blonde woman who could be any age from twenty to thirty who stared fixedly out of the smudgy newsprint. But in spite of the crudeness of the reproduction, her beauty came through.
Dorey grunted as he read: Chinese symbols, as yet to be translated, have been found tattooed on the mystery woman’s body.
“How did they get hold of this?” he demanded angrily.
O’Halloran lifted his shoulders.
“How does a vulture find a meal twenty miles away?”
Dorey leaned back in his chair. He thought for a brief moment, then he said slowly, “This could mean nothing I suppose: a lot of women...” He stopped and shook his head. “Three Chinese symbols! No, this is too much of a coincidence.” He sat upright. “Tim, we’ll treat this as a top level operation. If we are wrong, we are wrong, but if this woman...” He drummed on the desk. “What action have you taken so far?”
O’Halloran settled more comfortably in his chair.
“I have taken precautions.” He spoke with the confidence of a man who knows his job. “It so happens General Wainright is in the hospital for a check-up so that gave me the excuse to put a guard in the corridor. Wainright and this woman are on the same floor. I have called Dr. Forrester and warned him she might be a security risk and no nurse unless known to him should attend to her. The guard has instructions to let only the nurse in the woman’s room. I have alerted the reception desk to refuse any visitors calling on her.”
Dorey nodded.
“Nice work, Tim. Okay, you can leave this to me. The first move is to find out just what these symbols are on the girl’s body. If by some extraordinary bit of luck she is Kung’s mistress, she becomes more than a V.I.P., and we’ll be answerable for her. Get out there, Tim. Make sure nothing goes wrong while I get this organised.”
O’Halloran got briskly to his feet.
“We could be wasting our time, sir.”
“But if we aren’t?” Dorey smiled. “I’m lucky to have a man like you working for me. Get moving. I’m starting something this end.”
As O’Halloran left the office, Dorey thought for a moment, nodded to himself and reached for the telephone.
In a dingy courtyard off Rue de Rennes, there is a small restaurant called Le Temple du Ciel. It is not to be found in any guidebook although it serves the best Chinese food in Paris. Should any tourist discover the restaurant, he would be told with a sorrowful smile that all tables had been reserved. Le Temple du Ciel was strictly for the Chinese.
While Dorey was talking to O’Halloran, Chung Wu, the owner of the restaurant was sitting behind the cash desk, supervising his team of waiters as they served lunch to a couple of dozen or so habituées, hidden behind high silk screens that surrounded each table. The clatter of Mah-Jongg tiles, the raised voices and the blare of swing music made a deafening noise without which the Chinese feel isolated and unhappy.
The telephone bell shrilled. Chung Wu picked up the receiver, listened, spoke softly in Cantonese dialect, laid down the receiver and walked to a table where Sadu Mitchell was about to begin his lunch.
Sadu’s chopsticks were hovering over a dish of King-sized prawns done in a light, golden batter as Chung Wu appeared around the screen. Chung Wu bowed, then turning slightly, he bowed to the Vietnamese girl who sat by Sadu’s side.
“Regrets, monsieur... the telephone... immediate,” Chung Wu said in his atrocious French.
Sadu uttered an obscenity that made his companion giggle. He threw down his chopsticks and waved Chung Wu away. ‘
Sadu Mitchell was tall, slim and thin-faced. His jet black hair was taken straight back, his clothes were immaculate, his almond-shaped eyes were as hard as jet beads. He was the illegitimate son of an American missionary who, thirty years ago, had been a conspicuous failure in Pekin. When he finally came to realise that he was making no impression on his so-called flock, he found consolation in whisky and an attractive Chinese girl who considered it her duty to help relieve the stress and strain of his unsuccessful fight to convert the heathen. The result of her administrations was Sadu — half-Chinese, half-American — who resented his illegitimacy so bitterly that he had come to regard the United States of America as his personal enemy.
For the past ten years, Sadu had made a successful living from a small boutique which he owned on the Rue de Rivoli where he sold jade and expensive antiques to American tourists. He was a man lost without a woman. During the past year he had found, after several discards, a Vietnamese girl who called herself Pearl Kuo whose beauty completely captivated him as it was meant to captivate him. He discovered her hatred of America made his own bitter dislike a pale and flabby affair. She had lost her family and her home during an American air attack in North Vietnam. She had fled to Hanoi where she had become an agent working for the Chinese. They finally sent her to Paris. Before long she had persuaded Sadu that it was his duty to work also for the Chinese movement. Since he was in constant touch with Americans in his shop, she explained to him, he had the opportunity of picking up scraps of information which he was to pass on to Yet-Sen, an elderly Chinese who worked at the Chinese Embassy. Sadu found this amusing since it gave him the chance to damage American prestige. It was surprising how Americans talked when in a foreign country as if they imagined no one around them could understand English, and sometimes their indiscretions were startling. Sadu’s scraps of information helped to feed the Chinese propaganda machine. He felt he was doing something tangible towards levelling the score against his father who had died some ten years ago. What he didn’t realise was that he was being carefully groomed for more important and more dangerous work. Pushed gently by Pearl and drawn carefully by Yet-Sen, Sadu was about to reach the point of no return.
This telephone call was to make him into a fully-fledged agent.
Pushing aside the screen, he walked to the telephone and picked up the receiver.
“Yes? Who is it?” he demanded impatiently, thinking of his cooling prawns.
“I am at your shop. Come immediately.” He recognised Yet-Sen’s guttural voice.
“I can’t come now. I...”
“Immediately,” and the line went dead.
Sadu cursed, then returned to his table. Pearl looked inquiringly at him.
“Yet-Sen,” Sadu said, his face dark with fury. “He wants to see me at once.”
“Then you must go, cheri.”
“I’m not his damned servant,” Sadu said, hesitating.
“You must go, cheri.”
Sadu was now so under her influence that he hesitated no longer.
“Well, wait for me here,” he said. “I shouldn’t be long,” and he left the restaurant.
It took him a little under ten minutes, driving his small red T.R.4 aggressively through the heavy traffic to reach his shop. As he pulled up, a fat Chinese who had been staring sightlessly at the jade displayed in Sadu’s window turned and moved to the car, got in and said quietly, “Go somewhere where we can talk.”
Sadu edged the car out into the traffic and drove rapidly down the Rue de Rivoli. He battled his way around the Concorde and started down along the Quai.
Yet-Sen said, “This is an emergency. You have been chosen to handle it. It is a great compliment. Find space to park in the Louvre gardens.”
Sadu felt a qualm of uneasiness. He glanced at the fat man, sitting in his thick city suit, his yellow face blank, his small hands, like ivory carvings, folded across his bulging stomach. He drove into the gardens and found parking space, as it was lunch time, in front of the Ministère des Finances and turned off the car engine.