Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

“Yes,” Matt admitted.

“Where is he now?” Matt didn’t answer and she continued. “They’ve killed him, haven’t they?”

Matt nodded. He didn’t want to remember what he had seen in the last moments before he had been taken out of Wisdom Court.

Scarlett’s face didn’t change but suddenly there were tears in her eyes. “It was all his fault,” she said. “He thought he could make a deal with these people – the Old Ones – but they would never have got me if it hadn’t been for him.” She paused. “I don’t know, Matt. I suppose that’s the way they work. They get ordinary people to do evil things for them. They used him. He really thought he was helping me. And now he’s betrayed you too.”

The building shivered a second time. It wasn’t as strong as it had been before but they both felt it.

“You know that Hong Kong is dying,” Scarlett said. “The chairman told me. They’re doing it deliberately. They want to turn it into what they call a necropolis. A city of the dead.”

“I saw some of it last night,” Matt said. “It was horrible.”

“Don’t tell me. I lived in it. I can’t believe I didn’t see what was going on.” She sighed. “What will happen to us, Matt? Are we going to be killed?”

“They don’t want to kill us,” Matt said. “It’s complicated. But killing us doesn’t really help.”

“Then what?”

“They think they’ve beaten us, but they haven’t. The others are still out there. And you and me…”

“What about us?”

“They put us together because they want to crow over us. But that’s their mistake. Because…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

There was an explosion. It was loud and immediate – and it came from somewhere inside the building.

“What…?” Scarlett began.

Then the light went out.

Lohan had used the storm as cover, closing in on the prison through streets that had quickly emptied as the weather had become more intense. He had only been given one night to prepare the attack, but he had still managed to assemble a small army. He had a hundred men with him, all of them well-armed. The Triads had been smuggling weapons across Asia for many years, supplying anyone from terrorists to mercenaries. Lohan had simply taken what he needed. He had plenty of choice.

Meanwhile, Jet and Sing would be arriving at the Tai Shan Temple. They both had the rank of 426, Red Pole as it was known, making them fighting unit lieutenants. They had another fifty men with them and both operations were to begin at the same moment. There was one door out of Hong Kong. The way there had to be cleared.

Lohan knew where Matt had been taken because he had followed him. This was what Matt had been unable to tell Scarlett. He had played a trick on the chairman. Just for once, he was the one pulling the strings.

Matt had contacted Lohan the night before, the call forwarded through the Kung Hing Tao firework company. The Triad leader already knew what had happened. Richard and Jamie were with him. The two of them had made it out of the water and over to Kowloon. They were standing next to him, worrying desperately about Matt, when the phone rang.

“We have to find Scarlett,” Matt had said. “And there’s only one way to do it. We have to let the Old Ones capture me.”

“How will you do that?”

“Paul Adams – Scarlett’s father – will call them and tell them I’m at Wisdom Court. They won’t suspect anything. They know that he wants Scarlett back and they’ll think he’s still trying to help them.”

“And then?”

“You have your men outside. You follow me wherever they take me.”

“How do you know they’ll take you to Scarlett?”

“I don’t… not for sure. But my guess is they’ll probably hold us together. I know the way these people think. They’ll want to parade us, to boast about how they’ve beaten us. Having the two of us together will make it more fun for them. Anyway, I haven’t got any other ideas so we’ll just have to risk it.”

Richard had come onto the phone. He had heard what Matt was suggesting. “You can’t do this,” he pleaded. “It’s too dangerous. Please, Matt, think what could go wrong.”

“We don’t know where she is, Richard. There’s no other way we’ll find her.”

“What about Paul Adams? Once they have no further use for him, you know they’ll kill him.”

“He’s prepared to risk it. He knows what he’s done. And he’ll do anything to get Scarlett freed.”

It had worked out just as Matt had hoped. Six police cars had arrived at Wisdom Court just after seven o’clock. Lohan – with Richard and Jamie crouching next to him – had watched the police go in. They had seen the chairman arrive and leave and they were still there when Matt, semi-conscious and in pain, had been dragged out. Jamie had started forward at that moment, wanting to go to him. But Richard had grabbed hold of him, forcing him to remain still. This was Matt’s plan. It was all or nothing.

Matt had been driven across the city, never out of sight of Lohan’s men. They had seen him disappear into the prison close to Hollywood Road. So now they knew where he was being held. Hopefully, Scarlett would be there too. As the storm had worsened, Lohan had surrounded the prison, his men closing in from all sides.

The storm.

Lohan was beginning to think that it was getting out of control. In all the years that he had been in Hong Kong, he had never experienced anything like it. When he stood up, he could feel the wind trying to batter him down again. Dust and dead leaves whipped into his face. He could hear the air currents howling as they rushed through the streets. If it got any worse, it would be dangerous out here. But then, of course, it was dangerous anyway. If the storm destroyed the city, it would only be finishing what the Old Ones had already begun.

A crash of thunder. Rain lashing down so hard that he could see it bouncing off the parked cars, turning into miniature rivers that coursed along the side of the road. In seconds, he was soaked. Richard was next to him. “What’s going on?” he muttered.

“We must move now,” Lohan said.

Victoria Prison was a huge, solid building with barred windows and a single, massive door – the only way in. Six armed guards stood outside it in the rain, dressed in uniforms, with their faces partly obscured by their caps. Lohan, Richard and Jamie were watching from the doorway of an antique shop across the road. Lohan’s strategy was simple. There was no time to be clever. He knew he had to break in as quickly, as decisively as possible. Once the enemy knew he was there, they would fight back.

He gave the signal.

There was an explosion – the same explosion that Matt had heard – as a rocket launcher, concealed in a parked van, fired a 40mm shell at the main door. The prison hadn’t been built to withstand such an attack. The doors were blown apart in a ball of flame. Half the guards were killed instantly. The rest were cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire as the Triad fighters surged forward, pouring out of alleyways and rising up from behind parked cars. Further down the road, two of Lohan’s men, disguised as construction workers, cut off the main power supply, isolating the prison and short circuiting the alarms.

“Move!” Richard and Jamie were unarmed but they ran forward with Lohan and in through the shattered doors.

And then they were inside the prison. Lohan’s people were spreading in every direction, through the upper floors, smashing open the doors to reveal the empty cells behind them. Some of them were armed with guns and grenades. Others carried swords and chain-sticks. It was pitch black inside the building now that the electricity had been cut, but they had brought electric torches with them, strapped to their shoulders, the beams slicing through the dark and showing the way ahead. Lohan’s orders were clear. Kill anyone who gets in your way. Find Matt and Scarlett. We have only minutes to get them out.