Dorey thought for a long moment, then he got to his feet.
“I’ll see you again after I’ve talked to my Chinese expert. Thanks, doc, for your cooperation. I’ll try and get her moved as soon as I can organise a place for her.”
Thirty minutes later, Wolfert, a squat balding man whose pink and white complexion belied his forty-six years, came into the small room Forrester had put at Dorey’s disposal. With Dorey was O’Halloran.
“Well?” Dorey asked, getting to his feet.
“She’s Erica Olsen, Kung’s mistress,” Wolfert said. “I’ve seen his initials on his various possessions too often to mistake the marks on this woman. This is a very special kind of tattoo... a special colour, almost impossible to fake.”
Dorey looked sharply at this man who was considered to be the top expert in Chinese customs.
“Almost?”
“I suppose a very clever tattoo artist could just fake it, but I doubt it. I’m covering myself.” Wolfert’s fat face lit up with a knowing smile. “No one can ever be absolutely certain, but I am willing to bet my pension she is Kung’s mistress.”
Dorey looked at O’Halloran.
“Watch her, Tim. I’ll have to alert Washington. I can’t do anything without their say-so.” He rubbed his forehead as he thought. “More delay, but this could be something big. I’ll get back to the Embassy.”
“You don’t have to worry about her,” O’Halloran said. “She’ll f be right here, safe and sound, when you want her.”
But he was not to know that in a few hours Malik would be arriving in Paris. Even when Malik finally arrived, the Divisional Head of M.I.6 was so furious that his man had been knocked on the head and had lost Malik that he neglected to warn O’Halloran that the most dangerous of Russian agents was now roaming, unwatched around Paris. Had O’Halloran known this, he would have guarded Erica Olsen more closely. But he didn’t know. He assumed a patrolling guard, armed with an automatic rifle, was good enough.
But when dealing with Malik, nothing was good enough.
A few minutes after 6 p.m., a delicately built youth walked into Sadu Mitchell’s shop. He carried a small suitcase, shabby with metal corners, the kind of suitcase a door-to-door salesman would use. His complexion was unhealthy, the colour and texture of dead, stale fish and his small, black eyes flicked to right and left with the suspicious restlessness of a man who trusts no one. He could have been twenty-five, even thirty, but was in fact eighteen. His coal-black hair was cropped close and lay over his small head like a skullcap. His movements were as supple and as sinuous as those of a snake.
Jo-Jo Chandy had been born in Marseilles. His father had been a waterside pimp: his mother unknown. When he was ten years old, his father had been killed in a knife fight. This hadn’t bothered Jo-Jo. He was glad to be free and he soon made a reasonable I living working as a drummer for a Negro prostitute whose sexual technique gained her Jo-Jo’s admiration and many clients. When he had saved enough money, he decided Paris would offer many more opportunities for his evil talents. But here, for a time, he found he was mistaken. The police were unsympathetic to pimps and after being arrested and beaten up several times, he gave up and took a job in a Chinese restaurant as a plongeur. Here he met a Chinese girclass="underline" one of Yet-Sen’s agents. She was quick to recognise in this thin, vicious boy a potential and useful weapon. Yet-Sen took charge of him. Jo-Jo received training and money. A year later, he became one of Yet-Sen’s most reliable hatchet men.
Completely amoral, with no sense of right or wrong, Jo-Jo existed only for money. There was no task, no matter how dangerous or vicious, that he hesitated to undertake providing the final reward was money. Life for him was the spin of the roulette wheel. His philosophy was what you put in you took out, and never mind the risk.
Pearl Kuo, who was completing a sale of jade to a fat American woman wearing an absurd flowered hat and an equally absurd pair of bejewelled spectacles, looked for a brief moment at Jo-Jo as he came into the shop. She knew who he was. His arrival excited her. At last, she thought, Sadu was to take an active part in the Chinese movement: something she had been waiting for with longing and impatience.
When the American woman had left the shop, Pearl smiled at the waiting Jo-Jo. Her almond shaped eyes sparkled, and looking at her, Jo-Jo felt a wave of hot lust run through him.
“He is expecting you,” she said. “Please... this way,” and she opened a door behind the glass counter.
Jo-Jo continued to stare at her, his little eyes moving over the flowered cheongsam she was wearing that revealed her perfectly proportioned body. Then he walked through the doorway into Sadu’s living room.
During the hours that Sadu had been waiting, he had told Pearl what Yet-Sen had said.
“He expects me to kill this woman,” Sadu had said, his pale face glistening with sweat. “This would be murder. What am I to do?”
“You are only to arrange the affair. You don’t kill her yourself,” Pearl replied soothingly. Her slim fingers touched his face. “This is for China, Sadu, and besides, now it is too late to turn back. You must obey. If you do not, then I must leave you and they will kill you. I know that. But there is no need to speak of that. If they ordered me to do it, I would do it. You should be proud to have been chosen.”
Realising his position, Sadu decided to be proud. He hated the Americans. They had harmed him. This was, when one thought about it, not murder, but revenge.
So he received Jo-Jo with arrogant disdain.
“Sit down. I understand you are to kill this woman and I am to see you do your work correctly.”
Jo-Jo sat down. He rested the small suitcase on his knees. A faint, but unmistakable smell of dirt came from him which made Sadu grimace.
Sadu went on, now very sure of himself, “First, we have to find out where in the hospital this woman is... on what floor... in what room. Once we know that, it should be easy for you. You might have to climb to her room.” Pleased with his planning, he regarded Jo-Jo with a patronising smile. “I suppose you can climb?”
Still clutching the suitcase, Jo-Jo asked, “Is this your first job?” His thin lips curved into a sneering smile of amusement. “Don’t lean on it. You drive the car... I’ll take care of the details. You will get the credit... I’ll get the money. That way, everyone will be happy.”
Sadu stiffened. A flush of fury spread over his face. He moved closer to Jo-Jo, towering over him.
“You don’t talk to me like that! I am handling this!” he exploded, his voice choked with rage. “You will do exactly what I tell you...”
“Sadu... please.” Pearl’s soft voice made Sadu jerk around. “I think he should handle it. After all, he has the experience. Please...”
Jo-Jo looked at her, then he opened the suitcase. From it he took a .25 automatic and a silencer. He screwed the silencer onto the barrel of the gun, then he thrust the gun down the waistband of his trousers. The sight of the gun arid Jo-Jo’s professional, deliberate movements deflated Sadu’s rage. For a long moment he stood hesitating and staring.
“We’ll now go to the hospital,” Jo-Jo said. Again his eyes moved over Pearl’s body, then he looked directly at Sadu. “First, as you have said, we have to find where this woman is to be found. It won’t be dark for another three hours so we have plenty of time.” He tossed the suitcase into a corner and walked out of the room.
Pearl touched Sadu’s arm. “Do what he says. He is a professional. You will gain experience from him.”
Sadu hesitated, then controlling his fear, suddenly aware of his utter incompetence, he followed Jo-Jo out onto the busy Rue de Rivoli.