The Solitary Man (7 page)

The British Customs official at the FANC meeting had announced that his bosses had decided to pull out one of 46 STEPHEN LEATHER their agents, a Taiwanese who'd been trying to infiltrate a team responsible for smuggling heroin into Manila. He'd been working in a Chinese restaurant near where the bodies were discovered and the Brits were worried that it might have been a warning. Carver had pointed out that generally the drug gangs didn't bother with warnings, but the Brits were getting jumpy. Hell, everyone was jumpy, thought Carver, and with good cause.

The traffic began to move again. Ahead Carver could see a brown uniformed motorcycle cop standing at the roadside wearing a cotton mask strapped across the bottom of his face. He'd flagged down a green Mercedes and was talking to the driver. Carver smiled wryly as they drove slowly by. Whatever the infraction, it clearly wasn't speeding. A motorcycle taxi scraped by the car, the rider nodding to Carver's driver, the driver noclding back. Simple everyday Thai politeness, thought Carver, even at rush hour The rider's skin was dark and leathery and he had his helmet tipped back as far as it would go on his head. His passenger was a middle-aged woman in a bright pink suit, sitting side saddle with her legs pressed together, a handbag in her lap. She held her bag with one hand and her long hair with the other, preventing it from blowing in the wind. She smiled at Carver and he smiled back.

Carver wondered why Jake Gregory was making an unplanned visit to Thailand and why the DEA executive had insisted that Carver meet him at the airport. Gregory had visited the organisation's Bangkok offices at least half a dozen times during Carver's stint in Thailand and he'd always made his own way in from the airport, usually spurning an office car in favour of a taxi. Gregory had worked his way from a front-line agent to the number two man in the agency but had never forgotten his roots, and was the last person Carver would have expected to use an agent as a porter. Not that Carver minded, it never paid to turn down an offer to earn Brownie points from a superior.

Carver got to the airport about fifteen minutes after Gregory's flight was scheduled to touch down, but he didn't rush to the arrivals area. It took an average of thirty minutes to clear immigration, with an hour-long wait not uncommon.

Carver bought a cup of black coffee and sipped it as he waited. A group of European tourists streamed out of the immigration THE SOLITARY MAN 47 hall, pasty faced and sweating, and lined up at the taxi counter with their suitcases. Carver wondered if they realised they faced a two-hour wait in the heavy traffic. So much time was now spent in traffic jams, the city's filling stations all now stocked small portable urinals which drivers could use while stuck behind the wheel. Carver had one under his seat, though thankfully he'd never had to use it. He could imagine the amused looks he'd get: a farang taking a piss in his car.

Two stunning Thai girls with waist-length hair walked hand in hand, each pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her. They had bright gold chains around their necks, glittering bracelets on their wrists, and lipstick as red as fresh blood. They were almost certainly exotic dancers back from working in Hong Kong or Japan, Carver decided. Or high-class hookers. One of them smiled at him as she went by and he smiled back. Everyone smiled in Thailand, it was practically a national pastime, but Carver got the impression that the girl meant it. He turned to watch her go, but she didn't look back and as she reached the exit a large Thai with bulging forearms emphasised by a too-tight short-sleeved shirt, stepped forward and took her suitcase.

'Hell of a butt, huh?' said a gruff voice behind Carver. He whirled around and found himself looking into the amused eyes of Jake Gregory. He was wearing a green polo shirt and grey slacks and was carrying a black leather holdall.

'Sorry,' said Carver, momentarily flustered. He recovered quickly and stuck out his hand. Gregory gripped it and they shook hands firmly. Carver looked at the holdall. 'Is that all the luggage you've got?'

'Flying visit, son,' said Gregory, running his hand through his crew cut. 'Hit and run.'

Carver reached for Gregory's bag, but Gregory swung it out of his reach. 'That's all right, son, I can carry my own bag.'

Carver nodded and turned towards the exit. Gregory put a restraining hand on his shoulder. 'Not so fast,' said Gregory, good naturedly.

'The car's outside . . .' Carver began, but Gregory shook his head.

'I'm just passing through,' said Gregory. Gregory glanced at his watch, a scratched driving model that looked as if it had been on his 48 STEPHEN LEATHER wrist for decades. 'My flight's in two hours. Is there somewhere we can talk?'

'There's a restaurant upstairs.' Carver led the DEA executive to the stairs, dropping his cup of coffee into a rubbish bin on the way.

Gregory looked surprisingly refreshed for a man who'd just spent almost twenty hours in the air, and he took the stairs two at a time so that Carver had to hurry after him. Gregory was thickset, almost heavy, but it was clearly all muscle, and he had the build of a Marine drill sergeant.

The restaurant was self-service. Gregory helped himself to a salad, a wholemeal bread roll and a Diet Coke while Carver chose a plate of pad thai - thin rice noddles fried with bean curd, egg, vegetables and peanuts. Gregory wrinkled his nose at Carver's choice but didn't say anything. He went over to an empty corner table and left Carver to pay. When Carver joined him, Gregory was breaking the bread roll apart with his hands.

'Rabbit food,' said Gregory, nodding at his salad. 'Had a bit of a heart scare a few months back. Doc told me to cut out red meat, Southern Comfort and cigars. I compromised and kept the cigars.' He popped a piece of bread between his thin lips and chewed without relish.

'You should try Thai food,' said Carver, digging his fork into the noodles. 'It's almost zero fat. The Thais have got the lowest incidence of heart disease in the world.'

'Yeah, maybe you're right,' said the DEA executive unenthusiastically. 'But as soon as my cholesterol drops to normal I'm having a fucking huge steak.' He grinned wolfishly and took a gulp of cola. 'Okay, let's get down to business,' he said. 'What do you know about Zhou Yuanyi?' He studied Carver with unblinking blue eyes.

Carver's fork stopped on the way to his mouth, suspended in mid-air. 'Zhou Yuanyi?' he repeated. Carver put his fork down. 'He's a Chinese warlord, based in the Golden Triangle. Strictly speaking he's in Burma, but the region is constantly being fought over by private armies who control the opium fields. They're unreachable. Unreachable and untouchable. And Zhou Yuanyi is the toughest of them all. The last time Zhou's people THE SOLITARY MAN 49 caught someone trying to infiltrate his network, they impaled the intruder alive at the entrance to their compound.'

Gregory nodded slowly. He popped another chunk of bread roll into his mouth. 'Not one of ours?' he said.

Carver shook his head. 'A Thai. Working for the Australians.'

'Impaled, huh?'

'A stake up the arse. Took him two days to die.'

Gregory frowned. 'How do you know that?' he asked.

'The Australians received a video. Just to ram home the point.' He smiled grimly at the unintended pun.

Gregory took another look at his wristwatch. 'You know we've no pictures of Zhou on file?'

'He's never been photographed. He's not political like some of the warlords, he doesn't give interviews. He's in it solely for the money.'

'What are the chances of getting a picture?'

'Zero. We can't get near the guy. He has a private army of more than five hundred soldiers, he moves from camp to camp within the area he controls and he's got an intelligence network that puts the CIA to shame. He's better protected than the President.'

Gregory nodded slowly. He speared a slice of cucumber and waved it in front of Carver's face. 'That might be so, son, but we're going to change all that.' Carver sat back in his plastic chair, intrigued, and Gregory leaned forward as if reluctant to allow the agent to put more distance between them. 'We're gonna get this Zhou. His chickens are coming home to roost.'

Carver raised his eyebrows. 'Great,' he said. 'It's about time we did something.'

'Yeah, I've read your reports,' said Gregory. 'You're getting pretty frustrated with the way things are going here.'

'We're just not making any progress,' Carver said. 'Sure, the Thais make arrests, but it's usually mules at the airports. They don't go near the really big guys, the ones that run the drug-smuggling operations. And the guys like Zhou - hell, in the Golden Triangle they reckon Zhou's a hero. Half the border guards, Thai and Burmese, are on his payroll and every undercover operation we've ever put together has been blown.'

Gregory put down his fork and clasped his hands together. 'This 50 STEPHEN LEATHER time it's gonna be different. I'm putting together an operation that positively, absolutely is not going to be blown. And I'm going to need your help.'

Carver's eyes widened. 'Whatever it takes,' he said.

THE TWO THAI TECHNICIANS grunted as they manhandled the metal drum off the fire, using pieces of wet sacking to protect their hands. They eased it on to the soil and stood back to allow it to cool.

The boiling mixture contained raw opium, water and lime fertiliser. The fertiliser had been brought across the border from Thailand, driven across in trucks and then loaded on the backs of donkeys for the thirty-mile treck through the jungle to Zhou's camp.

The Thais worked outside, downwind from the main part of the camp because the fumes were unpleasant. Not as dangerous as the later stages of the process, but the technicians weren't trusted to do that. The technicians were paid to turn Zhou Yuanyi's raw opium into morphine, nothing more. He used an industrial chemist to transform the morphine into heroin. It was a loss of face for the technicians, but secretly they were glad not to have to be involved. They'd heard stories of technicians being blown up when the process went wrong. Blown up or burned alive. Better to work with the drum and the open fire, better to be outdoors so that if anything happened they could run like the wind.

One of the technicians, a twenty-three-year-old former soldier in the Burmese army called Em, nodded at two boys who were sitting in the shade of a spreading tree and fanning themselves with banana leaves. They scampered to their feet and ran over to help. The four of them carried the drum over to a nearby stream. The boys picked up the filter, a metre-wide strip of flannel cloth which had been stretched across a wooden frame, and held it a foot above the flowing stream while Em and the other technician lifted the drum of opium suspension and carefully drained off the water.

The technicians took the container over to another drum, one the boys had scrubbed clean earlier, and emptied the opium solution into it. The technicians left the dirty drum by the side of the stream for the boys to clean later.

When the solution was boiling again the technicians took half a dozen plastic bottles of concentrated ammonia from a hut and poured them in one by one after tying strips of cloth across the lower half of their faces to protect themselves from the fumes.

The morphine began to settle out, sinking to the bottom like a snowfall. Em nodded at his older colleague Ah-Jan and they lifted the drum off the fire. He shouted over at the boys to get the filter ready again.

Em and Ah-Jan took the drum over to the stream and as the boys held out the flannel filter, they drained off the water. Left behind were globules of morphine, glistening wetly on the filter. Em would leave the boys to press the morphine into blocks and then wrap them with banana leaves. He and Ah-Jan had more opium and fertiliser to prepare. They would face Zhou's wrath if they didn't meet their daily quota. And Zhou's anger was a fearful thing to behold; the body of an informer was still decomposing on a stake at the entrance to the camp, his flesh eaten by ants, his eyes pecked out by birds.

MICKEY AND MINNIE MADE soft growling noises as if they realised that it was the last time they'd see Hutch. He knelt down and the two Dobermanns licked his face eagerly.

'How long will you be gone?' asked Chau-ling, his head kennel maid. She'd worked with him for almost five years and had been invaluable in building up the business. Her father was a shipping tycoon and he'd wanted her to join the family firm, but Chau-ling loved dogs and she'd pouted and sulked until he'd let her have her way. Despite having a multi-million-dollar trust fund and the sort of looks that had suitors queuing up to take her out, she worked long and hard and was one of Hutch's most loyal employees. He hated having 52 STEPHEN LEATHER to lie to her, but there was no way he could tell her what was wrong.

'A week. Maybe longer. You don't mind holding the fort?'

Chau-ling smiled broadly. Hutch knew she relished being left in charge and she'd regularly demonstrated how capable she was. As well as having killer cheekbones and the longest, straightest hair he'd seen outside of a shampoo advertisement, Chauling had a business studies degree from Exeter University in the UK and an MBA from Harvard. Hutch had already decided that once he'd left Hong Kong, he'd write and let her know that the kennels were hers.

'And I can't reach you?'

'I'll call you.' He put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her oval brown eyes, as trusting as any of his dogs. He felt a sudden rush of guilt, so overwhelming that he caught his breath. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'What? Sorry for what, Warren?'

Hutch forced a smile. 'For leaving you in the lurch like this.' He faked a slow punch to her chin and she grinned. 'I'm going to have to give you a raise.' He picked up his black nylon holdall and patted his jacket pocket to check that his passport and ticket were there.

'Got everything?' Chau-ling asked.

Hutch looked around the room. His books, his CDs, the statues and trinkets he'd collected on his travels around the region, all the things that he owned, he was going to have to leave them all behind. 'Yes,' he said, almost to himself. 'I've got everything.' A change of clothes, his washbag, his electric razor, and his Filofax. Not much to show for six years, but he'd left with less before.

A red and grey taxi was waiting for him outside his front door. Chau-ling waved goodbye as he got into the back of the cab. Hutch closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his seat. He was surprised at how guilty he'd felt when he'd lied to Chau-ling, surprised because ever since he'd arrived in Hong Kong he'd been living a lie. Even the name she knew him by wasn't real: Warren Hastings just happened to be the name that Eddie Archer had chosen for the paperwork he'd put together in his Tower Hamlets workshop.

He was going to miss Chau-ling, and the dogs, and his friends. He would have liked to have been able to have said a proper goodbye to Davies and Metcalfe but there would have been too many questions. Hutch couldn't afford to let anyone know what his plans were.

'Shit.'

'Huh?' grunted the taxi driver.

Hutch opened his eyes. He hadn't realised that he'd spoken out loud. 'M ganyu,' he said. Nothing important, in Cantonese. He'd gone to a lot of time and trouble to learn the language, and now it would all be wasted. He'd have to run far away from Hong Kong, he'd have to cut all the connections with his old life, just as he'd done seven years earlier. It would be like a rebirth, but first he'd have to kill off Warren Hastings, kill him off so unequivocally that no one would go looking for him. He'd have to find a new occupation, too, and that was a shame because he'd loved training dogs. Chris Hutchison had been a locksmith, Warren Hastings had been a dog trainer; God alone knew what he'd end up doing in his next life. He was thirty-two years old and he was running out of options.

He patted the holdall. The Filofax in the bag contained details of the half-dozen bank accounts he'd set up in various offshore locations: Jersey, Guernsey, the Cayman Islands and Gibraltar. He wouldn't risk touching his two bank accounts with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank but he'd be able to transfer his money out of the offshore accounts as soon as he was out of the territory. It wasn't a fortune, most of his assets were tied up in the kennels and the house, but it would be enough to buy him a new identity.

The taxi dropped him in front of the airport terminal and Hutch strode into the departures hall. He went up to the Cathay Pacific sales desk and asked for a ticket on the next flight to Singapore. He planned to fly from there to the United States, and then he'd drive across the border into Mexico where he would kill off Warren Hastings. He'd be able to buy a new passport there and head south into Central America. It wasn't much of a plan, but bearing in mind it had only been eight hours since he'd been confronted by Billy Winter, Hutch reckoned he wasn't doing too badly. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and took out a 54 STEPHEN LEATHER credit card. He wouldn't need to start covering his tracks until he got to Singapore; Winter had said that he'd be at Hutch's house at noon. Even if he carried out his threat, Winter would have to call London. Hong Kong was seven hours ahead of the UK, so Winter would have to wait until three p.m. Hong Kong time, maybe four, and the police would have to check out his story before contacting the airlines. That was assuming that Winter went straight to the police, and Hutch doubted that he'd do that. Winter needed his help, so it was more likely that he'd try to track him down first.

'You won't be needing that, old lad,' said a voice behind Hutch. It was a gruff Geordie whisper.

Hutch's stomach lurched. He nodded at the Cathay Pacific salesgirl and slid the credit card back into his wallet. Only then did he turn around.

Billy Winter stood behind him, a big smile on his face. It was a predatory grin, like a shark preparing to strike. Winter picked up Hutch's holdall. 'The motor's outside,' he said.

Hutch put the wallet back into his pocket and followed Winter out of the terminal.

A green Rolls-Royce was waiting and the two men climbed into the back. Winter nodded at the liveried chauffeur and the Rolls-Royce pulled away from the kerb.

Hutch sat back, his hands clasped together in his lap. 'I didn't realise I was so predictable,' he said quietly.

Winter flipped open a drinks cabinet and poured himself a brandy. 'You want a snifter?' he asked Hutch.

'Bit early for me,' said Hutch.

Winter sipped his brandy, all the time watching Hutch with amused eyes. He warmed the glass between his hands. 'You're a runner, Hutch. That's what you do. When you're faced with a crisis, you run.' Hutch shrugged but didn't say anything. 'The only time you stand and fight is when you're in a corner. Like the guy you killed. You couldn't run then, could you?'

Hutch sighed. 'Where are we going, Billy?'

Winter's eyes hardened. 'I'm going to paint you into a corner, Hutch, old lad. I'm going to show you that there's no point in running.' He raised his brandy glass in salute. 'Cheers.'

The Rolls-Royce drove smoothly through the streets of Tsim THE SOLITARY MAN 55 Sha Tsui, past luxury hotels and expensive shops. The pavements were so densely packed that there appeared to be no space between the people: men in dark suits carrying portable phones rubbed shoulders with bare-chested labourers; sunburned tourists in shorts stared into shop windows while schoolchildren hurried by in neatly pressed uniforms, weighed down with stacks of schoolbooks in small rucksacks.

'They're going to rule the world one day, Hutch,' said Winter. 'Take my word for it.'

Hutch stared out of the window with unseeing eyes. He felt sick and took deep breaths to try to steady his stomach. He wondered what Winter had planned for him.

'There's a billion of them,' Winter continued, lighting a cigar. 'A billion. And they work together, Hutch, that's what makes them unbeatable. Not like us and the Krauts and the Frogs, always fighting wars, always trying to fuck each other over. There's no one big enough to stand up to the Chinese -- not the Americans, not the Japanese, not even a united Europe, even if there was such a thing. We're fucked, Hutch. Fucked and we don't even know it.'

The Rolls-Royce pulled up in front of the Peninsula Hotel. Winter took his cigar out of his mouth and jabbed it at the building. 'Look at that, old lad. That's class. They use Rollers for their punters, nothing but green Rollers. Costs an arm and a leg.'

Hutch didn't reply. He wasn't even listening. He was looking for a way out. He still had his passport, he could still run. There was no point in trying the airport again but he could get the hydrofoil to Macau and fly from there. But first he had to find out what it was that Winter thought he could use against him. Hutch wracked his brains. What could be worse than turning him in? What could be worse than going back to Parkhurst and spending the rest of his life behind bars?

A white-uniformed bellboy with a pillbox hat pulled open the door and Winter strode into the foyer. He surveyed the luxurious interior as if he owned the building, and put his arm around Hutch's shoulders. 'It don't get much better than this, do it? 'A chauffeur-driven Roller to one of the world's top hotels. I bet you never thought when we were banged up on the Isle of Wight, that we'd end up here, huh?'

He ushered Hutch over to the elevators, and stabbed at the button for the fifth floor. They rode up together in silence and walked along the plush carpet to Winter's room.

The view was spectacular but Hutch barely noticed it. He stood in the centre of the room and glared at Winter. 'Well?' he said defiantly.

'Sit down, Hutch,' said Winter, indicating a chair by the window. 'Sit down and shut up.' He stubbed his cigar out in a large crystal ashtray. Hutch stayed where he was, his hands on his hips, while Winter went over to his suitcase and took out a video cassette, then opened a cabinet to reveal a large television and a video recorder. 'Sit down,' he repeated. This time Hutch did as he was told.

Winter tapped the video cassette on his leg. For a moment he looked as if he wanted to say something, but then he shrugged and slotted the cassette into the recorder. He sat on the bed as the screen flickered. 'Don't look at me, Hutch. Look at the TV.' (

Hutch stared at the flickering screen. It had obviously been filmed on a small camcorder; the picture wobbled and shook as if the person filming wasn't used to handling the equipment. It was a football match, boys eight or nine years old running after a bouncing ball, shrieking and yelling. The camcorder focused clumsily on a blond-haired boy with red cheeks wearing shorts several sizes too big for him.