Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

“Good,” Tian said, curtly, as though Bennett were too unimportant to care about. Entering, he said, “Afternoon, Mr. Curtis.”

“Hello, Jackie, we’ve had a little problem here.”

Tian looked at Bennett as though assuming he was the cause of the problem, and said, “What’s that?”

“The people who’ve been bothering me are here in Hong Kong. Colin found them in one of the bank tunnels, but they didn’t see him.”

Surprised, Tian said, “In the tunnel? You mean, they know what we’re doing?”

“They can’t know everything,” Curtis said, “or they’d be in this room with us right now, and a number of policemen as well. But they know something , they know too much to risk waiting anymore. As I just told Colin, we’ll have to change our plans, cut back on what we hoped to accomplish, and run the operation tonight.”

Tian frowned down at the construction plans on the table, though Bennett doubted the man could read them. “Will that work?” he asked. “We aren’t everywhere we wanted to be, are we?”

“We’re close enough,” Curtis told him. “There’ll still be plenty of profit for all of us, Jackie.”

“Good,” Tian said. “I’m ready to go live somewhere else for a while.”

Curtis laughed, sounding a bit shrill. “I think we all are, Jackie,” he said. “Now take a look at this.”

The three men bent over the table as Curtis moved a finger along the various tunnels. “Jackie,” he said, “your job is the bulldozer and the vaults. Is the submarine hooked to the bulldozer?”

“It’ll trail me like a geisha,” Tian said, “everywhere I go. It’s on the wheeled carriage.”

“All right. Once we start, we’ll have to move very fast. They’ll know something’s happening, their alarms will be going mad, but they won’t know where we’ve come from and they won’t know where we’re going and they won’t be able to come down to interfere with us.” Turning, he said, “Colin, that’s where you start. The first set of explosives are in position—”

“Yes, sir.”

“—and you’ll set them off when Jackie says he’s ready. He’ll radio you as he moves, and you’ll be in here with the controls.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When the submarine’s full,” Curtis said, “Jackie, you’ll come up out of there, with your crew. But moving fast, Jackie.”

“Count on me,” Tian said.

“When Jackie radios you that he’s clear,” Curtis said to Bennett, “you fire the explosives, to breach the seawall at the ends of the tunnels.”

“Right, sir.”

Curtis said to Tian, “Is the new diver here?”

“He’ll be here tonight,” Tian promised.

“He stays in the tunnel with the submarine,” Curtis said. “Once the tunnel fills with water, he uses the external controls to guide it down the tunnel and into the harbor. Then he switches it to radio control, and I guide it from there.”

“Right.”

“Then he comes back through the tunnel and up here.”

Tian said, “Why doesn’t he just go out across the harbor, come out anywhere?”

“And be questioned?” Curtis shook his head. “The only safe way in and out, Jackie,” he said, “is this construction site. That’s what it’s here for.”

“Fine,” Tian said.

Curtis turned back to Bennett. “Now, the second set of explosives,” he said, and tapped the plans here and there, “we’re going to have to move. We’re in fewer tunnels, the physics changes, and to be honest, I’d feel more comfortable if I had George here to look at my figures. But I’ve done it, and I know I’m right.”

Bennett hadn’t the first idea what Curtis was talking about, but that didn’t matter. “Yes, sir.”

Curtis said, “I’ve marked the new positions. They all move, all six of them, slightly. But the exact position is important, all right, Colin?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Bennett said. He frowned at the plans as though to memorize the new positions of the explosives, though in fact he’d be carrying a set of the plans with him when he made the changes.

“Once the tunnels are flooded,” Curtis said, “you trigger the second explosives with the radio.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will then have thirty minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When those explosives go,” Curtis said, and turned his bland eyes on Bennett, “they will destroy every bit of evidence of what we’ve done. I think it possible there’ll be some damage even here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t try to leave the island,” Curtis said, “but do get away from this neighborhood. Maybe east, over toward Wan Chai. I want you all safe,” Curtis assured them.

“Yes, sir,” they both said.

They were all gathered around Inspector Ha’s table. After the inspection of the tunnel under the bank building, and the disappearance of Luther Rickendorf, they’d come back here to police headquarters and this conference room, where they sat around the long oval pale-wood table on gray swivel chairs with black plastic arms.

Inspector Ha shook his head ruefully. “I have always been proud of how large and important our city is, how dense, how many people we have put together on this small island. More here than in Manhattan. But now, to find one man in it, one wealthy man, here illegally, with who knows how many people working for him, paid to keep him hidden...” He spread his hands, to show the complexity of the task.

“An army,” Tony said, feeling glum. “That’s what Curtis has, an army at his disposal. Of course, we have an army, too, or you do, Inspector, but Curtis also has time on his side.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” George said. “If he has Luther, and I guess he must, then he knows we’re here. He knows we’re close. So if he can speed up what he’s doing, he will, even if it means he loses some of the loot he’s after.”

Ha said, “Mr. Manville, I agree with you that he must be using one of the current construction projects to cover his activities. He’s probably staying on the site when he comes to the city, and when he leaves he’ll do so late at night in a small boat. If he does that, we’ll never find him, and never prove anything against him. So we are trying now to learn which construction site is the front for Richard Curtis.”

Tony said, “There can’t be that many. And they’re controlled by the city, aren’t they?”

“Yes, of course,” Ha agreed. “The buildings department must give permits, do inspections. The trouble is, none of these large construction projects are done by one company, it’s always a consortium, some of the same people but not all, shifting groups becoming involved. The corporate names are always new. We have to search through the records, track down every principal on every site, make sure the developers are who they’re supposed to be. The buildings department is working on that right now.”

Tony said, “How long to complete the search?”

“They estimate they’ll have gone through everything by Thursday.”

George, looking ready to jump out of his skin, cried, “Thursday!”

“That’s what they tell me,” Ha said, and spread his hands. “I don’t like it either.”

Tony said, “Inspector, they aren’t doing clerks’ hours, are they? Nine to five? We need them at work round the clock.”

Ha looked dubious. “The civil service...”

“Will also drown,” George said.

Troubled, Ha said, “It’s difficult to explain that without telling too many people too much about the circumstances. We don’t want to cause panic.”

“If this isn’t a good time for panic,” George said, “when is?”

Tony felt the need to assist his fellow inspector. He said, “George, I understand what the inspector is saying. We don’t want a panic because in fact a panic would be worse. A million people trying to leave this island all at once would be a disaster.”