down the knife. ‘Okay, Mark,’ he said. ‘Come back tomorrow. Not too early, not too late. I’ll think about it.’
Hagen kept his face straight as he left the office and clattered down the stairs and out into the crowded street. A tiny finger of excitement moved inside him and his face broke into a broad grin. Charlie had bitten. The whole thing was set. A feeling of tremendous confidence and hope surged through him. Very soon now, perhaps in a matter of days, he would be on that ferry going over to Kowloon. Then there would be a plane winging its way across the Pacific and then suddenly he knew that he didn’t want to go back to the States. There was nothing left there for him. He considered the point and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Ireland was the place. A country house with plenty of liquor and good horses.
It was thinking about Ireland that made him remember O’Hara and he decided to find the old man. He worked his way along the waterfront calling in all the bars and gin-palaces. He spent an hour in this way and was about to give up the search when he found O’Hara in one of the worst dives in Macao. A large French sailor with a Marseilles accent had the old man half over a table, holding him firmly with one ham-like fist while he poured beer over him with the other. Hagen pushed his way through the laughing, drunken crowd of spectators, picked up the nearest chair and crashed it down on the Frenchman’s head and shoulders. The chair splintered a little and the man sagged to the floor without a sound. Hagen slung O’Hara over his shoulder and the crowd respectfully parted to let him through.
He called a rickshaw and dumped O’Hara in it, then walked beside it until they came to the seedy hovel the old man called home. He carried him upstairs and dumped him on the bed in his room. From the looks of him O’Hara had been on the bottle for at least two days. Hagen locked the door from the outside and put the key in his pocket.
Night was beginning to fall when he reached his hotel. There was a new desk-clerk on duty, a thin, vicious-looking Chinese. ‘Any messages?’ Hagen asked.
‘No, Captain Hagen. No messages,’ the man replied.
Hagen was half-way up the stairs when it suddenly occurred to him that the man had known his name and then he began to wonder what had happened to the other desk-clerk. He walked softly up to his door and stood listening for a while. He decided that he was being silly and unlocked the door and went in.
When he turned on the light there was a man sitting on the bed gazing pensively at the wall. He was small and dark and impeccably dressed in white sharkskin. His gloved hands were folded over a silver-topped Malacca cane. Hagen leaned against the door, lit a cigarette and waited. Small, black, shining eyes had swivelled to a position from which they could observe him. The man half-turned his body and, still remaining seated, raised his panama and said in clipped, precise English, ‘Have I the honour of addressing Captain Hagen?’
Hagen decided that he was too charming. The eyes were deadly and unwinking like those of a puff-adder, despite the polite, birdlike expression on the face. Hagen blew a cloud of smoke in his direction and said, ‘Look, I’m busy, so kindly state your business and then get the hell out of here.’
The little man half-lifted his cane reprovingly and smiled like a father dealing with a recalcitrant son. ‘Captain Hagen, how would you like to earn twenty thousand American dollars very easily? No risk, in fact no trouble at all’
Hagen walked into the bathroom and came back with the gin bottle and two glasses. He poured the drinks and they sat side by side on the bed without speaking. He knew that this must be someone very special. A Russian working for the Reds in China would hold a very high position. They must be pretty determined to get their hands on that gold. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. ‘How are things in Moscow these days?’ he said.
The Russian smiled and inclined his head. ‘I bow to your perspicacity, Captain. However, I have not been in Moscow, or indeed in Russia, for ten years, and between ourselves’—and here he lowered his voice with a conspiratorial air—‘the arrangement suits me perfectly. I find the Oriental way of life very appealing, Captain. The standards, the moral values, even the food, are all infinitely more preferable. What comparison can be made between a brawny collective-farm girl and the fragile Eastern blossoms that are to be found in various parts of this city?’
The Russian’s eyes became smoky and a dreamy look came over his face. Hagen shuddered with distaste but he had to find out what the other side were up to. He schooled his face to smile. ‘How do I earn twenty thousand so easily?’
The Russian’s face broke into a radiant smile and he stood up and formally clicked his heels. ‘Ah, so we can do business? My name is Kossoff, Captain Hagen.’ He extended his hand formally and then went on, ‘My principals will pay you the agreed sum of money if you will lead them to the position of a certain boat which sank, I believe, somewhere in the vicinity of the Kwai Marshes.’
Hagen put back his head and laughed. ‘What do you take me for?’ he said.
Kossoff smiled thinly. ‘I take you for many things, Captain, for you have been many things to many people. British naval lieutenant, American naval commander. How do you like your new role as protector of innocence?’
It was with difficulty that Hagen held himself in check. He said calmly: ‘Your proposition stinks. Why should I tell you where the boat is for a paltry twenty thousand when I can get the gold myself?’
Kossoff squinted along his cane. ‘Ah, but can you, Captain? I think not. In the first place you must raise the money necessary to retrieve your boat. Have you had any success, by the way? Secondly, you must leave Macao and enter the Kwai Marshes without being observed. An impossibility, my dear sir.’ He smiled charmingly. ‘However, as I cannot do business with you I must of necessity pay a call on Miss Graham, Women, I find, are so much more co-operative.’
Hagen was on him before he reached the door. He grabbed him by the lapels and twisted the collar about his neck until the little black eyes protruded. ‘You dirty little rat,’ he cried. ‘If you lay a finger on that kid I’ll—’ Instinct made him jerk his head to one side as he sensed a presence behind him. A leather, shot-filled sap grazed his shoulder and he jerked Kossoff round and into his assailant.
They must have been waiting on the balcony, he thought, as he turned to meet them. There were two of them, flat-faced Mongolians, not as big as Lee but large enough. He ducked under the arm of the nearest one, dug his right fist into the man’s belly, and vaulted over the bed.
For a moment there was quiet, the lull before the storm. One of the men sat Kossoff in a chair and gave him a glass of water while the other faced Hagen across the bed, the leather sap twitching nervously in his hand. Finally Kossoff became articulate again. He fingered his throat gingerly with one hand and then pointed at Hagen and said softly in Cantonese: ‘Beat him. Beat him but do not kill him.’
Hagen decided he had waited long enough. From the look of them Kossoff’s apes would draw a very thin line between a beating and a killing. He gripped the edge of the blankets and, as he lifted them, sprang on to the bed. His hands spread and he threw the blankets as a fisherman casts his net, so that they enveloped Kossoff and the man who was standing beside him. Almost in the same motion he jumped feet foremost at the other man. The force of that terrific blow sent the Mongolian backwards, through the window and on to the balcony.
Hagen landed on his forearms in the classic Judo manner and twisted to face the other thug. In his effort to avoid the blankets the man had stepped back and fallen over Kossoff’s chair bringing them both to the floor. As he cast the blankets aside and started to get up, Hagen kicked him in the face as he would have kicked a football, beautifully judged and timed.
Hagen stood breathing heavily
