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."There's someone else? Someone who''Someone who loves me.' She sat down.'I don't have a problem with you or us, but neither of us loves the other, do we?'Tse Hung shook his head.'Tell him to bring fifteen thousand dollars to me at the Club Shanghai tonight.Then you're free, and I wish both of you well in your life together.'"That's it?' she asked, disbelievingly.'That's all you've got to say?''What else should I say? Neither of us loved the other.It's been fun at times, but in the end, it's just business.'Business inspires the same feelings in businessmen, whether they deal in stocks and shares, hookers and drugs or pirated software and hot cars.It was simple - get the job done, get the money and don't get caught.The very words Tse Hung lived by.The very reason he wasn't bothered by Bonnie leaving.He wasn't bothered at all.In fact, he'd spent the whole drive to the Pimms Building revelling in how not bothered he was, and how it meant nothing to him that she was ditching their cosy arrangement for some guy with a clean rapsheet.Fei and three other 49s were waiting for him in his office when he arrived.They didn't look happy or comfortable, and that set alarm bells ringing in Tse Hung's head.'Well? Did you enjoy yourselves?' Tse Hung asked.The 49s hesitated, looking at each other more as though they were nervous sheep than thugs who've just demonstrated their false courage with a forced gangbang.'They were expecting us.'"They?'Who?''Two men.A black guy with a gun, and this little white guy with an umbrella.'Tse Hung turned slowly, his drinking hand trembling."This gwailo with the umbrella what did he look like?''A white suit.Silly hat.He had an accent - Scottish or Irish, maybe.' A Scots accent.Tse Hung knew there must be more than one such person in Hong Kong at any given moment, but how many were small, carried an umbrella and knew these fools were going to abduct the girl? He could only think of one.He took a photo from his desk drawer, and put it face up so they could see it.'Is this the man?' They nodded enthusiastically, averring that it was.'All right.Get out.' They complied, undoubtedly glad to be leaving alive.Tse Hung lifted the photo of Pendragon, and crushed it slowly.There was blood, and there was fire.No matter how far or fast he ran.Yue Hwa couldn't get away from the heat and the screaming.Screaming and the ringing of a telephone.Yue Hwa woke up with an indrawn gasp, shaking like a leaf.When his heartbeat had settled, he lowered himself back on the sweat-soaked bed.Tradition had it that dreams were messages, while modern science said they were the mind's way of sorting through memories of both real events and fictions viewed or read.Yue Hwa didn't remember much of his dreams, just enough to know that he fervently hoped that, if they were memories, they were memories of fictions.If he had done any of the things his dreams suggested, he would surely have remembered, for they would haunt his every waking moment as well as his sleeping ones.Or so he hoped.He had heard that the mind could repress memories and bury them so deeply that only the subconscious could recover them.And he had been involved in some less-than-pleasant duties during his life.Perhaps the dreams were messages that he didn't know himself as well as he might?He shivered, despite the humidity.It was just as well there was no one he could ask about all this; he didn't think he'd want to know the answers anyway.The phone was still ringing, and he picked it up once his hand had stopped shaking.'Who is it?''It's Tse Hung.Meet me at the Shanghai Club.It's important.''What's this about?' It was unusual for Tse Hung to use a land-line, which could be more easily tapped.It must be very important indeed.'I can't tell you.Meet me in half an hour'The Shanghai Club wasn't open this early, of course, but such rules didn't apply to people like Tse Hung and Yue Hwa.Not if the club's owners wanted to keep it unburnt.Yue Hwa was cautious as he entered the bar.He knew about Borisovich's death and wondered if Tse Hung had planned the same thing for him.He couldn't think what might have made Tse Hung make such a decision, but then, victims often didn't.A few staff were mopping the floor and polishing the furnishings.Only Tse Hung was seated at the bar, with two drinks already set up.Yue Hwa perched on a stool beside him.'What's this about?''You know the Englishwoman we wanted to warn off?''Yes.''My men were intercepted before they could teach her that lesson.Two men were there - a black man with a gun, and' Tse Hung paused to break a popper into his glass and drain it.' Pendragon.''Pendragon?' Yue Hwa's face was a mask of disbelief.'How? Why?' That would answer a great many things.'I don't know, but the men I sent to deal with the Englishwoman identified him from a photo as the man who stopped them.He's going behind my back over this box thing, and now he's covertly interfering in my execution of his own orders.Why would he do that? I can only think of one reason -he doesn't trust me.He wants rid of me, and he's putting my replacements in place.''I can't believe that.''You better damn believe it; we came up together.If he's got it in for me, then he'll also have it in for you.We're of equal rank.If he gets rid of one of us, he must get rid of both.That's why I can trust you enough to talk about this.We're in it together.''Maybe he just changed his mind about the girl?'Tse Hung scowled."Then he's weak as well.'Yue Hwa took a few moments to sip his drink.'What are you suggesting?That we go up against him? Turn him in? Chop him?''I haven't decided yet.But we've got to do something.' He looked Yue Hwa in the eye.' And soon.'Chapter ElevenSeeking Here.Seeking ThereThere was a slight fizzing sound from somewhere high above and a bird fell, stunned, into the undergrowth.Major Russell Barry looked closer, and saw that although the lower and middle branches of the trees were waving gently in the breeze, the very top branches were splayed out and still.They looked as if they were either pressed against something or trapped in glass.Barry hated the jungle; it shows in all the files and reports about this particular mission.He hated most countryside.It was one thing to engage in urban warfare, where you only had to worry about the enemy, but quite another to have to watch out for wild animals and snakes or whatever as well.As far as he was concerned, the outdoors was for camping and fishing, not for warfare.Maybe he just felt out of sorts because he knew so little about the area he was leading his team into.The trees were thinning out, the ground was beginning to slope into a wide depression.He still couldn't see what was more than a couple of hundred yards ahead, and raised a hand to halt the group's march.They were quite close to where the bird had fallen.Tranh scooped up a stone and threw it on ahead.Its flight was curtailed abruptly and it fell to the ground.He looked nervous [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]