Bond allowed himself to be guided outside and into a Rolls-Royce. So far, the operation was going smoothly.
“All the hotels were booked because of the July the first transition,” Corinne Bates said. “We’re putting you up for the night in a corporate flat in the Mid-Levels. Is that all right?”
“Sounds fine,” Bond said.
The car drove through the Cross-Harbour Tunnel to the island, made its way through Central and up into the Mid-Levels, an area of some social prominence but just a step down from the elite Victoria Peak. It finally entered a complex on Po Shan Road, just off Conduit Road.
They let him into the flat, a lovely two-bedroomed affair with a parquet floor and a view of Central.
“We’ll pick you up at 6:30 in the morning, Mr. Pickard. The train leaves from Kowloon at 7:50,” Ms. Bates said.
“We’re taking the train?” Bond asked.
“It’s the easiest way,” she said. “And that way you can see a bit of the Chinese countryside. It’s about a two-and-a-half hour ride to Guangzhou.”
Bond nodded. After the couple had made sure he had everything he needed, they left him alone. He picked up the phone and dialled a number that Li had given him. Li himself answered.
“How is the view from Po Shan Road?” Li asked.
His men must have followed them from the airport. They were very efficient. Bond thought that for a criminal outfit they were as wellorganized and effective as any major intelligence outfit in the world.
“It’s fine, Li. Just make sure your men watch my back, all right?”
“Don’t you worry, Mr. Bond. Just bring back my document in one piece.”
“Mr. Li?”
“Yes, Mr. Bond?”
“I’d like to know what happened to T.Y. Woo and his son. Can you find them?”
“As a matter of fact, we found the boy safe and sound at one of Mr. Woo’s private flats. We did not bother him. Mr. Woo is probably attempting to find you, so we left word with the boy that you are safe. I would hate for Mr. Woo to blow the whistle to your government before your job for me is completed. Do not worry about him, Mr. Bond. Have a nice trip tomorrow. Enjoy southern China.”
Li hung up before Bond could say anything else. Bond stood in the centre of the living room and stared out of the window at the postcard view. He could easily get away from this place, but it would jeopardize Sunni. At times, Bond wanted to kick himself. Why did he have such a soft spot for women? Sunni meant nothing to him, really. She was just another in a long line of affairs which provided a few fireworks for a while and eventually fizzled out. His pattern with women was so predictable that he could chart the liaison’s progress on a blackboard. He intentionally stayed as far away as possible from any kind of commitment to a woman. It seemed that whenever he allowed himself to get seriously involved, something terrible happened. He would never forget Vesper Lynd, the first woman he had ever really loved. She had tried to accept his love for her, but that affair ended in guilt and tragedy. There were others he had lost in recent years because of their association with him, including fellow agents and companions Fredericka von Grüsse, Harriet Horner, and Easy St. John. By far the worst disaster was when his lovely wife of fifteen minutes, Tracy di Vicenzo, was gunned down by bullets meant for him. Now here was Sunni Pei, a condemned Triad member looking for a way out of her wretched life. Bond could easily walk away from this job and from her.
“Bloody hell,” he said aloud. He knew he wouldn’t do that. He had already put himself on the line for Sunni. Bond stubbornly justified his actions by telling himself that this little visit to General Wong in Guangzhou was an essential part of his mission. After all, he had learned that Wong was involved with Thackeray and Li. Wong was the number one suspect in Thackeray’s murder. Wong was now calling the shots with regard to the EurAsia/Triad connection. It was an essential step in his mission. He wasn’t veering off on some wild goose chase just to save a female. This was business, and the journey just might provide him with the means to complete his job in Hong Kong.
Bond searched the kitchen and found a bottle of vodka. Pouring a double helped him accept the fact that he was really doing this for that lovely girl with the almond eyes.
ZERO MINUS FIVE: 26 JUNE 1997, 8:00 A.M.
The Kowloon-Guangzhou Express left precisely on time. Corinne Bates and Johnny Leung saw “James Pickard” to the station and made sure Bond got through Immigration and aboard the right train. Apparently General Wong had insisted that the new solicitor from Fitch, Donaldson and Patrick come to China alone. The train was surprisingly comfortable, with plenty of room in the aisles. Bond sat by the window and watched as the several stops within the New Territories came and went, and they finally crossed the border into southern China.
Shenzhen was the first major city just beyond the border, and at first glance appeared to be just another part of Hong Kong. Something was different, though, and Bond couldn’t put his finger on it until the train had travelled a few minutes into the country: there was a lack of English signs. Throughout most of Hong Kong, public signs were written in both Chinese and English. Here, the world was strictly Chinese.
A large portion of southern China had become a “Special Economic Zone.” This meant that the Chinese government was allowing free enterprise to exist to a certain extent. If a family was able to make a living selling their own goods, then they were welcome to do so. Only eligible people were permitted to live in the Special Economic Zone. For example, in the city of Shekou, women outnumbered men eight to one. This was because it was primarily a manufacturing community in which intricate work could only be performed by small hands. When Hong Kong became part of China on 1 July it, too, would be a part of the Special Economic Zone. Whether or not it would retain any semblance of autonomy remained to be seen.
Shenzhen looked extremely commercial and urbanized. Bond expected to see an obligatory McDonald’s or two along the way, but when he saw the famous Playboy rabbit logo on a building, he was quite surprised.
The train stopped briefly to let passengers on and off, then continued northwest towards Guangzhou. The scenery flashing by the train window alternated curiously every few seconds—one moment it was rural farmland that looked archaic, then in a flash there was a sudden patch of built-up suburbia. It was not uncommon to see a wooden shanty alongside a newly built tenement high rise. Bond’s impression of the farmlands was that time stood still. The rich, green rice paddy fields were still being irrigated by hand-held water poles or crude machines pulled by water buffalo. Yet, a hundred metres away from a farm would be fifteen- or twenty-storey brick buildings, many with an uninteresting mosaic tile pattern decorating the exteriors. Bond had read that the government was making room for more high rises. China’s one billion people needed homes.
Bond couldn’t help feeling that it was a world of incongruous contrasts. The urban areas were stark, white, and depressingly drab. He was sometimes unsure if many of the buildings he saw were empty or abandoned, or if they were simply not yet completed. They were either soulless ghost towns or they were isolated pieces of a soon-tobe booming metropolis that was not yet occupied. It was quite strange. Just when Bond thought that many of the homes reminded him of what he had seen in poor Latin American countries, or Mexico, a large, modern warehouse or factory would suddenly dominate a circle of shacks made of plywood and grass.
The train sped through smaller cities like Pinghu and Shilong, and finally pulled into Guangzhou Station, a sprawling monstrosity built in the 1960s. As Bond stepped off the train, he was met by a soldier wearing a light blue tunic, navy trousers, a red armband on his left arm, and a navy cap with a gold star on a red circle. He held a sign on which was poorly scribbled: “James Pickard, EurAsia Enterprises.” The man didn’t speak English, and Bond’s Mandarin was terrible, so they compromised with Cantonese—which the soldier blatantly regarded as an inferior language. The soldier saw Bond through Immigration and into a government minibus. As he walked through the railway station, Bond was struck by the hundreds of rural migrants camped in the station’s vast courtyard, surrounded by bundles of clothing and bedding. Some of them looked as if they had lived there for months or even years, eating, sleeping, and carving out a life for themselves right there on the pavement. Some were peddling goods and services to tourists. It was a stark contrast to the clean, metropolitan station in Kowloon.