For The Death Of Me

44

By the time Maddy had been convinced, with Prim’s help, I have to say, that she had run out of healthy options, it had gone eight thirty. We ordered room-service sandwiches and ate them in virtual silence.

Pretty soon, the effects of the beer started to show on Madeleine. I motioned to Dylan that we should leave the girls to settle down for the night, and led him back to my room. I did a quick calculation and reckoned that it would be mid-morning in Singapore; Sunday morning, granted, but the guy I was planning to call wasn’t the type to go off watch, ever.

As we’d done in the Stamford, I put the hotel phone on hands-free mode and dialled Jimmy Tan’s mobile number. I’d been wrong: there was no answer. We watched some baseball on TV, then I tried him again an hour later. This time I came up lucky.

‘Who this?’ he asked suspiciously. The readout on his cell-phone wasn’t giving him any clues.

‘Oz Blackstone and Benny Luker,’ I told him.

‘Ah, you guys. You still chase the lady? If you find her tell her from me there no problem with that thing in Malaysia.’

‘We have found her, Jimmy.’

His chuckle filled the room. ‘There no escape from you bad boys,’ he said. ‘But so what?’

‘So plenty,’ Dylan cut in. ‘She has something you’ve been trying to get your hands on for years, and she’s ready to hand it over.’

‘What she got that I would want?’

‘The picture that started all this off: the one of Tony Lee and the Triad chieftain. We assumed that he had burned it with all the rest, and maybe he did, but Maddy made another copy, on computer.’ We could hear Tan’s gasp.

‘You serious?’

‘Never more so,’ I told him.

‘This is great news; I tell the prime minister about this.’

‘You don’t tell anybody, Jimmy,’ Mike insisted, ‘until you have the pictures in your hands and until Maddy’s well clear of pursuit.’

‘Okay, he can wait. Where are you?’

‘We’re in the US; Trenton, New Jersey. How soon can you get to us?’

‘Oz, I never leave South East Asia. I send someone, my most trusted person.’

‘Jimmy, we want to deal with you.’

‘I send you my right hand. You want me cut off real one, send that as proof?’

I looked at Dylan. He shrugged and nodded. ‘Okay,’ I conceded. ‘What do we do?’

‘Where is nearest airport?’

‘There’s one in here in Trenton,’ Dylan volunteered. ‘I saw a sign for it as we came into the city.’

‘Then that where we meet; you find meeting room in terminal, my person find you, give you letter of introduction from me. You hand over photos and have plane waiting; soon as it’s done, you all get hell out of there, you, woman. .’ he paused ‘. . and Mr Luker.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Simple precaution, Oz,’ Mike said. ‘Jimmy doesn’t like to admit it, but the Triads are everywhere and there’s an outside chance they’ve penetrated his organisation. If his messenger has been followed, well, we don’t want to get caught there. Right, Jimmy?’

‘Right,’ Tan growled. ‘But only very outside chance.’

‘We won’t risk it, though,’ I decided. ‘I’ll have a private jet on the ground ready to move. When?’

‘It long flight, Singapore to eastern seaboard.’ He was silent, calculating. ‘Sunday morning here now, maybe can’t get on a plane tonight. Make it six, Monday evening, USA time.’

‘Right; we’ll be ready.’ I frowned, as if he could see me. ‘When you get these photographs, Jimmy, you will shut these people down, won’t you?’

‘Oz,’ he chuckled, ‘they not know what hit them.’