John Burdett - The Last Six Million Seconds

Chan dragged the spare chair from a corner and sat.

“What else do you know?”

Lee leaned forward. “I told you, half a billion dollars: it was for a few kilos of uranium. The 14K burned him in a big, big way. He’s not a total clown, though. How do you check the market price of weapons-quality uranium if you are a Communist general who has never been further west than Yunnan? Stealthily, of course. It takes weeks. By the time he was sure that he could have found another supplier to sell him the stuff for a mere few million, he’d already paid. Ever seen a megalomaniac lose his temper? I wish I’d been there; it must have been electric. He gave orders to kill the couriers as soon as the stuff was delivered, see?”

“Almost.” Chan thought about it. “Well, not really.”

“So whom does the richest and maybe most powerful man in Asia use to assassinate triad couriers in Hong Kong, all of whom are American citizens? Not the People’s Liberation Army; the situation is still too sensitive for that.”

“Other triads.”

“Correct. And this is where it gets beautifully Chinese. He paid the Sun Yee On ten million to shred the 14K couriers as slowly as possible: revenge in the name of the people. He’s a Communist with no sense of history. The Sun Yee On were the biggest supporters of the Nationalists in the Civil War and the biggest losers when they all had to flee Chongqing in ’49. The Sun Yee On hate the Communists even more than the other triads do. They took the money and leaked the deal to the 14K. The 14K, naturally, were disappointed. They’d had a commercial arrangement; if he hadn’t liked their price, he could have gone elsewhere. The 14K are passionate about market forces.”

“Market forces,” Chan repeated.

“They make the world go round. The 14K pay the Sun Yee On another ten million to forget their contract with him. The 14K will take care of everything. They promise the Sun Yee On that they won’t regret it. The Sun Yee On agree. The main point is that it will look just like the Sun Yee On carried out the executions.”

“Ah!”

“Probably the 14K would have gotten away with it if they hadn’t been so creative. The first thing they did was fail to deliver the uranium-they made it look like something went wrong and it had to be dumped-so they could pick it up later. But that’s not the best thing they did, is it? You have to admire their guts. Of course he suspected, but he had no proof, and for someone like him to act hysterically shows poor statesmanship. Even I admire their guts-can you believe I’m saying that?”

“It must have been pretty inspired, whatever they did to make you say that. And I need a cigarette before you tell me.”

Lee looked startled while Chan lit his Benson. “You mean, you still don’t know? The British didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“When the three couriers first disappeared, at the same time two of his best cadres were kidnapped in Guangdong.”

Chan spoke softly. “Say that again.”

“It’s true. It’s known. It’s probably even on the Internet. The bodies in the vat were unidentifiable, right?”

Slowly Chan exhaled. “Right.”

“So if the three couriers weren’t minced…”

Through smoke he saw a blinding light that illuminated the past few weeks: Xian’s clumsy approach on the boat, Cuthbert’s obsession, the tapping of his phone, the behavior of the coastguards, five grim SAS assassins specially flown in, the whole strange fraught atmosphere of the case; simplicity wasn’t always beautiful. This revelation was like looking in a shopwindow and seeing Fear, Greed, Loathing and Wrath as artifacts, carefully backlit.

“The third victim, the female? She wasn’t a cadre. She was Caucasian.”

“A backpacker they picked up in Thailand. Just some kid. They told her they were going to use her to smuggle heroin from Hong Kong to New York.”

“And now he knows for certain that his own men were shredded?”

“After today, when you found the real couriers? Of course he knows for certain. I phoned him and told him myself, gleefully. I couldn’t resist. I mean I really rubbed it in.”

“You know Xian?”

Lee shrugged. “We do a little business from time to time.” He spit on the floor. “So what? I do business with the 14K, but I still hate them.”

Chan buried his head in his hands.

Forty-nine was too old to feel girlish excitement at the bleep of a fax machine-unless you happened to be a child of the sixties. One advantage of belonging to the generation that never grew up is that you never grow up. Moira guessed the fax was from Charlie. For a start, he was the only person she knew on the other side of the world working at 2:00 A.M. New York time. Secondly, he was the only person who sent her faxes, junk mail excluded. There was no reason for him not to fax at this hour; the fax machine’s single ring would not have woken her. But she’d not gone to sleep. Maybe insomnia was contagious. Charlie never slept either. Maybe it was age. Just because you don’t grow up doesn’t mean you don’t grow old, unfortunately.

She stood by the machine which she’d installed in the tiny spare bedroom-Clare’s room-that she now called her office. With a sound between squeaking and rolling the thin, curly paper emerged into the tray. She started to read even before the guillotine chopped it. Surely there was more?

When the machine didn’t bleep again, she reread the stark, cruel message and trembled.

She went to the kitchen to find the bourbon, downed a glass in one swallow, poured another. So she was dead after all, and Charlie had turned cold. In a way Clare had died a long time ago, and there was only so much mourning you could do for a smack addict who wasn’t going to see forty. Even so, she could not stop the flashbacks. Clare had been such a cute kid, and so smart. In another city in another world she might have done something wonderful with her life. Moira went back to the living room, which was not much bigger than Charlie’s. She opened a window, looked down on the street. Jump or scream? She gave the world a lungful of abuse, closed the window, finished the glass of bourbon. There were choices, though, Clare. It wasn’t all the fault of the world. I begged you to quit, begged you.

Taking a fresh glass to Clare’s room, she yelled at the walls: I tried to save you. I gave you everything I had. Everything. I lied for you. I cheated for you. Why wasn’t that enough? Love is supposed to be enough, goddamn you. Whatever the circumstances, it was the smack that killed you. Did you have to be so fucking weak?

The glass was empty again. She returned to the kitchen, poured a fresh slug, collapsed into a chair. I did all I could to save her. In a way, losing Charlie was a crueler blow.

But Charlie was not cruel, merely very angry. How could she blame him? He’d caught her in another lie, a big one this time, those phony dental records they had persuaded her to take to Hong Kong. But it’s not the way you think, Charlie. I never joined the mob; I was only trying to save my baby.

Two more bourbons later she made a decision. She had told herself she wasn’t going to watch Mario die at Mount Sinai. He had had a whole life full of women who could do that for him. She didn’t need more grief because grief was what she’d had a whole life full of. But now she would. And before he died, he would talk because she needed him to help her save her last relationship. There wasn’t going to be anyone after Charlie. You knew things like that when you were pushing fifty.

Despite the hour, she telephoned the hospital. She used her old cop voice and her old cop manner to bully her way through to Mario, who wasn’t asleep anyway and was glad to hear from her. He appreciated the opportunity to say good-bye to the only real love of his life he said, that schmoozer.