Pangolin, p.17
Pangolin, page 17
Once there, they discovered that the mountain was not quite so golden as it had been painted. To start with, they were only six out of hundreds of thousands of refugees with no jobs and no roof over their heads. They lived in the great squatter camp at Shek Kip Mei for two years, surviving on government charity and the odd bits of money that her father could earn as an occasional coolie labourer in the docks. Eventually he settled into regular work—making plastic toys on an assembly line, a job he was still holding down now, at a thousand Hong Kong dollars a month—and the family were allocated a room, ten feet by twelve, in a resettlement block with communal standpipes and lavatories down the corridor. Canny’s parents did not find this degrading, but she did. At elementary and middle school, learning English and something of the world outside the great Middle Kingdom of Chinese culture, she began to understand the nature of the trap they were in. She had seen the chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce that took the owner of her father’s factory home from its gate; she saw the doctors arriving at the surgery every morning in their Mercedes and Mustangs, and when she phoned them at home she reached them through a succession of querulous amahs and house-boys. Her feelings were not revolutionary, not even resentful—merely hopeful, with the angry Chinese optimism that kept people working in sweatshops for sixty hours a week, as her father did, in the certain belief that one day they would be riding that Rolls out of the factory gates themselves.
Seymour had seemed, at first, a key to the fulfilment of some undefined ambition. Seymour, in the United States Navy, had been earning three times what her father pulled in, yet could talk about it disparagingly as ‘liberty bread’, spending it freely on girls and booze, supplementing it with his profitable deals in White Dragon Pearl. He got free chow, free lodgings, and yet was able to take them so much for granted that he could desert with the knowledge that something better was waiting for him—someplace, sometime. It was this optimism, born of the inherent wealth of his country, that had excited Canny, had made her believe in the possibilities of escaping from her trap. The disillusionment had taken a long time to sink in.
She found the burglar-proofing trellis outside the door unlocked, which meant he was at home. She opened the door and smelt the appetizing odour of frying chicken. Seymour rarely cooked anything, even for himself, but she saw as she entered the room a panful of chicken pieces sizzling on one of the gas rings. On another, a pot of noodles was coming to the boil. Quinn turned to her with a smile. ‘Hi! Thought you might like a little home cooking.’
She put down her handbag and stood looking at him. ‘What’s the occasion?’
‘No occasion, baby. Just me being domesticated for once. Appreciate it while it lasts. There’s some wine over there. Help yourself.’
Canny found the bottle of Australian claret standing with two glasses on a table beside the bed. She filled both glasses and carried one over to him.
‘I said, what’s the occasion?’
‘And I said no occasion. All right, I got a good little deal going, if it comes off. I’m celebrating in advance, okay? Just be grateful for a dinner you didn’t have to cook.’
‘What’s the deal? Something to do with that new friend of yours? The Englishman?’
Seymour Quinn prodded with a fork at the chicken pieces. ‘Listen, chick. You ask no questions, you get told no lies. That’s what my Irish grandmother used to say. Now let’s eat.’
They had dinner at a small, battered card table that stood at the foot of the bed. Quinn, who normally ate in single-minded silence, was unusually talkative and polite, filling up her glass whenever the level of the wine sank. The chicken was half raw but she was grateful for his gesture, lulled by the attention he was paying her. At the end of the meal, with the dirty dishes still on the table, they shared a rolled joint of Number Three mixed with tobacco.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Remember you got me those spikes from the surgery a few months ago? You figure you could get some more?’
Canny stiffened. The disappearance of a dozen disposable hypodermic syringes back in May had caused a problem—not because such small and inexpensive items would normally have been missed from the surgery’s storeroom, but because their usual suppliers had suddenly run out of stock and Dr Yang, the senior partner, had fussily insisted that he had seen with his own eyes a box full of them on their usual shelf only two days before. The argument had ended inconclusively but had left Canny unnerved. She said, warily, ‘Why d’you want more?’
‘Well, I know this punk kid, shooting amphetamines, can’t find enough spikes because all the guys in the drugstores are wise to him by now. Just trying to do him a favour.’
‘Last time there was trouble.’
‘It was bad luck they were missed. That wouldn’t happen again.’
‘That’s easy for you to say, Seymour. It’s not your job that would be at risk.’
‘Okay, forget it. It’s not important.’
But later, when they were undressed and lying side by side in the narrow bed, he returned to the subject.
‘This kid is in a bad way, Canny. Next thing, he’ll wind up with blood poisoning or something, using the shitty needles he’s got there. It wouldn’t have to be a whole dozen this time. Just three, maybe four.’
‘And then? When he’s used the three or four, is his problem solved? He’ll be back asking for more.’
‘He’ll find another source. It’s just to see him right for a few days.’
‘All right, Seymour,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But I don’t promise anything, I will not take chances.’
‘Thanks, kid.’ He gave her an affectionate kiss. ‘By the way, you heard of some stuff called Pentothal?’
‘Sure.’ She looked at him in puzzlement. ‘It’s a short-acting barbiturate. Why?’
‘Can you get me some?’
‘But what—what the hell for?’ Canny was not a trained nurse, but working at the surgery she’d become familiar with the uses of many drugs. ‘You got the right name, Seymour?’
‘Pentothal, the guy says. This guy I know, he wants some.’
‘It’s a general anaesthetic, Seymour. It’s what they use for knocking people out before operating on them. You can’t get high on it. Maybe if you diluted it down a lot it would make you drowsy, that’s all.’
‘So maybe the guy wants to knock himself out. How the hell do I know? You gonna get me some?’
‘You’re crazy, Seymour.’
18
‘They want what? Pritchard said in a fierce, explosive whisper. Baxter gave an unhappy shrug.
‘They say it’s that or nothing. And this Diaz, he’s pretty stubborn.’
‘But why, God damn it? What’s the point?’
‘I can’t be sure. Partly a matter of pride, I think; if the job is going to be pinned on them they want a bigger part in it than we were ready to give them. And Diaz is an idealist, you see: a committed revolutionary. I don’t think he likes the idea of being used for mercenary motives. In effect, he’s turning what was supposed to be a hoax into the real thing—a genuine political kidnapping.’
‘Jesus-Christ-all-fucking-mighty,’ Pritchard muttered. ‘Less than a week to go and we’ve got to find a way to get him to the Philippines—and for no bloody good reason whatever.’
He took a hard pull at his whisky. They were sitting at a quiet end of the bar counter in the Quill. Baxter had got in from Zamboanga, via Manila, at nine that evening and had phoned Pritchard and arranged to meet him at once. He was sweaty, travel-weary, despondent at the news he had to bring. Pritchard had been in a buoyant mood after a third successful day of practice runs through the tunnel with Quinn and Fong. Now his expression was bleak.
‘We’ll have to call it off, that’s all. I just can’t see a way round it.’
‘Maybe if we think very hard . . .’
‘Did these cunts have any helpful suggestions about how to get him there?’
‘They mentioned the junk.’ Baxter stopped; Pritchard looked puzzled.
‘Go on.’
‘They said, since we were using the junk to take him to Basalt Island, why didn’t we just keep going and head for the north coast of Luzon?’
‘Well? Would that be feasible?’
‘Alan,’ said Baxter patiently, ‘that would be a trip of over four hundred miles across open sea. And this is the typhoon season.’
‘Just say we didn’t run into any typhoons.’
‘You’re as crazy as they are, you know that? You can’t take the chance at this time of year.’
‘Listen, Bax, this is an emergency. Be honest, now: we don’t get typhoon warnings more than once every few weeks, do we? Even in the height of the season? Assuming the weather was okay—’
‘You can’t assume that!’ Baxter said excitedly. ‘Those tropical storms come up from nowhere. Do you have any idea what they’d do to a boat that size? She’d be smashed to matchwood!’
‘Assuming it was okay,’ Pritchard repeated, ‘could the junk make it or couldn’t she?’
‘Well, sure, she’s a seagoing boat, as seaworthy as they come. She’d take twice as much punishment as any Western boat the same size. But a typhoon—’
‘Listen,’ Pritchard said quietly, and his expression was more intense and serious than Baxter had ever seen it. It reduced him to silence. ‘I’ve put everything I’ve got, and everything I am, into the Project. I’m at the end of the line now, and I’m living on nothing except the thought of making it work. If the Moros insist on having our man delivered to the Philippines, then I’ll find a way of doing it, believe me. Right now, your junk seems like the only way of making it work. But there must be other ways. If you want to call it quits, okay, I’ll cut you out now. I’m going to do it, Bax, with or without you. What do you say?’
Baxter stared morosely into his glass. ‘What about the others? Fong? Quinn?’
‘I need them, of course, I’ll gamble on getting them to go along. Right now it’s you I’m concerned with, you and the Lady Belinda.’
‘Well, it’s quite possible, physically. Matter of fact, last year I thought of taking a trip down there—not at this time of year, of course. November or December, perhaps. You could do it in forty-eight hours or so.’
‘What would we need?’
‘A hell of a load of extra fuel. The tanks aren’t big enough to give more than twelve hours’ straight steaming. Then there’d be charts, life jackets, pyrotechnics, as well as extra stores: food and water, mostly. She’s okay for navigational equipment: there’s a decent compass, radar, echo sounder, direction finder, marine-band radio with longwave for weather forecast. But look—’
‘Look nothing, Bax. You want a million and a half or don’t you?’
‘Well, of course, but . . . we can’t just change the plan like that and take off for the Philippines with him.’
‘Not right away, no. Partly because once the balloon goes up, they’re going to do their best to intercept every boat leaving Hong Kong; partly because you and I have got to be around when question time begins. But if we follow the plan, take him to the island for just a couple of days, till the immediate heat is off, then slip away in the dark . . . In fact, what you ought to do right this minute is decide that you’re going to do that trip to Luzon that you were thinking of taking last year, and invite me along. We’ll tell a few people we’re planning it, prepare the ground. That’ll give us the excuse to load up supplies later this week.’
‘Liz won’t understand. She’s suspicious of me as it is, taking all the time off work that I have been, and the trip to Simpang—’
‘You’ll have to make her understand,’ Pritchard said, his voice hard-edged. There were times when Baxter’s snivelling infuriated him. ‘Now listen. You say they mentioned the junk. Did they suggest any arrangements?’
‘They said, if we agreed, to contact them through this Osman Khan fellow. They would suggest a place to make the landfall on the north coast of Luzon, and we’d tell them when to expect us. They’d make sure it was safe. We’d have to come in by night, and they’d set up lights to guide us in.’
‘All right. Then let’s do it, Bax.’
‘But—’
‘Let’s phone this man Khan, now.’
19
The taxi driver had loaded Ailsa’s baggage and stood holding the door of the cab open for her. In the doorway of the apartment she turned to face her husband. The gap between them had never seemed wider. She was talking to him across a million miles.
‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘For the last time, are you going to follow me to Sydney?’
He had been reading papers from an unmarked file cover, which he was still holding as he came out of the living room into the hallway, preoccupied even as she prepared to depart.
‘I’ve tried to explain that it’ll be difficult, honey. There was a hell of a backlog of work waiting when I got back from Wash—’
‘There’s always a backlog, Rod. Always has been, always will be. One day you’ll have to learn to live with it. I’ve warned you, though; don’t expect me to stick around until then.’
‘There’s also a date I can’t break, on September third.’
‘Every date is unbreakable, isn’t it?’
‘This one really is.’
‘What’s more important to you, Rod? Some lousy meeting or your marriage? Go on, be honest.’
He looked at her steadily for several seconds, with the cool blue eyes that never grew angry. Then he said, ‘Ailsa, I know you find my job difficult to live with. But I don’t have it any too easy myself. What you call some lousy meeting happens to be absolutely vital. I shouldn’t tell you this, but perhaps it will help convince you. We have an asset in China, a very highly placed agent who sends important material out to us by personal courier. I am running this agent myself; both he and the courier refuse to deal through anyone else. I have a meeting with the courier the first week of every month, when he comes back from Peking. It’s him that I am seeing on the third.’
Ailsa was unmoved. ‘That may be true, Rod. Then again, it may not be. You live in a world of deceit, and I guess even I am not immune to it. You haven’t answered my question. Which is more important, it or me?’
‘I don’t want to have to answer that, Ailsa.’
Without another word she turned and walked out of the apartment.
On Friday they took out the Lady Belinda—just Pritchard and Baxter; the other two stayed at home. They had the twin excuse of loading the stores they had bought over the past few days and taking her out to sea to run a check on the instruments. When they arrived at Hebe Haven, Baxter spoke to the boatboy, Ah Leung.
‘My friend and I are taking her on a cruise—Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.’
‘This time of year?’ Ah Leung asked doubtfully.
‘We’ll only be at sea forty-eight hours. If there’s a typhoon warning we’ll have plenty of time to get back.’ Baxter spoke somewhat unconvincingly, but the boatboy made no further comment. He helped them unload their stores from the car and ferry them out on his sampan: the chemical toilet, crated in cardboard so that it might have been anything (he couldn’t read the English labels on the sides anyway), the camp beds and sleeping bags, similarly boxed, the crates of food and jerrycans of water. If he thought there was a lot of equipment for two men on a short trip, he did not remark on it. They, in turn, relied on his studied lack of interest in the affairs of gwai-los. When they had loaded everything aboard Baxter tipped him a hundred dollars Hong Kong and asked him to look out for the oil company lighter that would later be delivering their supply of reserve fuel. Then they set out for Basalt Island.
They dropped anchor off the beach shortly before midday and rowed ashore in the rubber dinghy. Pritchard was relieved to find it had not been visited in their absence. Rain and tides had obliterated footprints on the sand and other signs of their earlier visits, but otherwise nothing had changed. The same rusty beer can lay in the same corner of the pillbox; the footprints on the sandy floor were their own.
They returned to the junk and carried the supplies for the pillbox ashore, stacking the crates in one corner of the building. There would be plenty of time for Quinn and Fong to unpack them once they were here. Indeed, there would be little else for them to do. One item, however, Pritchard fished out of the top crate before they left: a six-foot length of heavy chain with a big anchor shackle on one end; he pulled the other end over towards the wall, produced a strong padlock from his trouser pocket, and fastened the end link of the chain to one of the rusted brackets which had once held the vertical mountings of a heavy machine gun. He tested its strength by lying down with his feet against the wall and hauling on the chain with all his weight and strength. The bracket gave no sign of budging. He stood up again, red-faced with exertion, grinning.
‘That’ll hold him. That’s one facility that needs to be in place for him on arrival.’
‘Do we really have to do that to him?’ Baxter asked.
‘Bax, there are going to be spotter planes out over these islands soon after his disappearance—or so we have to assume. The last thing we need is to have him running out there waving at them.’
When they got back to the jetty the diesel fuel they had ordered was waiting for them—six forty-four-gallon drums which they hoisted aboard with the block and tackle mounted on the Lady Belinda’s stout little boom. They manhandled them aft and lashed them separately, upright on the deck, to the stern rail. Then they took the junk back to her mooring. In the sampan, going ashore, Baxter said to Ah Leung, ‘We’ll have to come back on Monday, to check the compass again.’
‘Monday I’m not here.’
‘That’s all right. Just leave the sampan, like you said.’
20
Sunday morning, twenty-four hours before target time, arrived hot and damp, the heat lying over the colony like a thick, choking blanket. In the built-up areas that faced each other across the harbour it was specially intense, with the air trapped in the canyons between apartment blocks and tenements, and residents flooding out to enjoy their weekly day of leisure. Those who had cars, or could at any rate afford bus, minibus and taxi fares, headed out of town towards the beaches or the rural New Territories, but that still left enough of them behind to crowd the sidewalks and markets, the parks and open spaces of the residential zones.
