The network channels showed stills from the video – her fist connecting with Hanbury’s chin, her standing with the gun pointing at his head, Hanbury lying on the floor in a pool of thickening blood. The last had been taken later; there was yellow-and-black crime scene tape within the frame. Some of the other channels, including a Russian one, showed the doctored video. It caught Nadia’s harsh expression as she punched Hanbury, and then shot him. Impressive editing. Ninety-nine out of a hundred viewers would judge her a cold-blooded murdering bitch. A high-ranking Chinese official stated that she was armed and dangerous, public enemy number one. On BBC World a British official talked about this atrocious act, how no stone would be left unturned …
She slumped in the chair where Sakuro had been hours before. She felt like a pawn who’d just been flicked off the chessboard by a grandmaster. But Jake was still in play, for some reason she couldn’t fathom. Which meant she had to crawl back onto the board. She caught the Chef’s eye.
‘What did the Colonel say?’
The Chef interlocked his fingers. One of eight ninja signs that had multiple meanings. This one signaled conflict. It also meant they were stuck in the trenches of battle, and would have to wait. Patience. Not her strong suit. It had a third meaning, one she preferred not to delve into.
Defeat.
‘The Colonel will protect you as long as he can. But the British are already leaning on his superiors for answers.’
‘They know I saved their asses, right? Doesn’t averting a nuclear strike on London count for something?’
He gestured at the TV with the remote. ‘Would you like to watch it again?’
He was right. Salamander had played this well. Checkmate after only three moves into the game. Fool’s mate.
What made it worse was that Jake was missing. The Brits would be desperate to hear from him, to get his side of events. But he’d been unconscious, so couldn’t verify anything even if he was still alive. Which he was, she told herself, because otherwise … No otherwise. He was alive. Period.
‘We need to find Jake,’ she said.
‘We need to find Salamander,’ the Chef countered.
‘Then back to the original plan. Find Blue Fan.’
And that was where her plan tripped and fell flat on its face. Jake had intended to use police intel and Hanbury’s network to find her. When all was said and done, Hong Kong wasn’t that big, just very populous. Blue Fan was probably still in Wan Chai, not far from where they were right now. But that didn’t help locate her.
‘I may be able to help,’ Jin Fe said.
They both turned to her. Nadia had been wondering how to get the girl out of Hong Kong to … anywhere. Somewhere she could make a fresh start. She’d hoped to elicit help from Hanbury …
‘What do you know about Blue Fan?’ she asked.
‘Our line of business is run by the triads. Blue Fan is with the Green Dragon triad. We are owned by the White Tiger triad. They are rivals. You need to talk to the Judge. Then you will find Blue Fan.’
‘Just like that?’ Nadia asked.
‘Well …’ she lowered her eyes to the tablecloth, then lifted them and stared at the Chef. ‘You must go through the Judge, and offer to kill her. A challenge. That will get her attention. I’ve heard she rarely refuses.’
Nadia wondered how she knew so much. ‘And how do we get his number? Do you happen to have it?’
Jin Fe took out her phone, wiggled her fingers on its surface, then handed it to Nadia. ‘He will answer this number.’
Nadia stared at her.
Jin Fe shrugged. ‘The Judge likes girls who like girls.’ She fixed Nadia with her eyes. ‘Not just pretend ones, the real deal.’
Nadia recalled the way Jin Fe had stroked her arm back at the bar-brothel. She cleared her throat, and addressed the Chef. ‘What do you think?’
The Chef took the phone from Jin Fe, stared at the numbers for a few seconds, then handed it back to her. ‘Before I challenge Blue Fan, I would like to find out if she is as good as you say she is.’
Nadia considered the Chef at least a rook on the chessboard. She’d asked for his help, but he had no real obligation to her. ‘You already saved my life. I won’t ask you to get yourself killed. It’s not your fight.’
She thought she glimpsed his cobra eyes for a moment, then they were gone.
‘Salamander is your fight,’ he said. ‘The Colonel told me to come, and he is persuasive, but I am also here for my own reasons.’ He drifted to the door, as if gliding on ice. ‘But if I am to fight her, I also need to practise. Victoria Park is close. I have a couple of hours of light left. Stay here.’ With that, he got up and left.
‘How does he move like that?’ Jin Fe asked, once the lift had descended.
Nadia recalled how they used to joke about him back in the camp, because you had to joke about people who scared you that much. ‘They removed all his bones when he was a baby, and replaced them with tendons.’
Jin Fe laughed and went back into the kitchen, and then the full weight of what Nadia had been trying not to think about slammed into her like a truck. Jake. Salamander had Jake. He might be torturing him, killing him … FUCK! This was not supposed to happen. She was meant to die, not him. They’d only just started out, and Salamander had bloody kidnapped him. And they had no idea where Salamander had gone, where he’d taken Jake, or even why. She needed to do something, anything, but what, exactly? An idea struck her. A long shot. She went back to the kid’s room and fished around in her holdall, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found her phone. She came back to the lounge.
The phone had a stealth function, bouncing the signal off a minimum of six satellites. She activated it, found the number she wanted, and hit ‘Call.’ She knew she’d have forty-five seconds before any one of a number of agencies could trace it.
Somebody picked up. Inspector Chen. He answered with a barrage of antsy Cantonese. Not too happy about getting a call. A busy man.
‘It’s Nadia.’
His tone changed, and the background chatter in his office ceased. She imagined him drawing a line across his throat to make everyone else shut up, while he put the call on speaker, signalling someone to start a trace.
Ten seconds.
‘You must give yourself up, Nadia. We have orders to shoot you on sight. What you did to Hanbury –’
‘I didn’t pull the trigger, and they had a knife to Jake’s throat. The video skipped a few things.’
‘Who are they?
‘Blue Fan and Salamander.’
‘Nonsense. Salamander is not here. We would know.’
Twenty seconds.
‘Salamander has Jake. You need to arrest Blue Fan. Three of her men were killed two roads down from the house where Hanbury was executed, on a direct line to Repulse Bay. There must be blood. DNA. Empty cartridges. They shot at me.’
‘There was a downpour last night. Surrender now, Nadia, give yourself up, then we can talk, you can present your side of the story—’
He was stalling. Thirty seconds. What else was there to say?
‘Jake was unconscious. He never saw any of it. Just tell the Brits that Salamander has him.’
Forty seconds. She hung up.
Had it been pointless? Chen wouldn’t believe her. But she’d done it for Jake. Chen had put a trace on the call, which meant it was recorded and therefore non-deniable. He would jump at the chance