Hong Kong

CHAPTER TEN

British consul general Sir Robert MacDonald spent a long afternoon with his staff writing a situation report for the Foreign Office. While so engaged he received a telephone call from the foreign minister in London, who was worried.

‘The PM wants to know what in the world is going on out there,” the foreign minister said after the usual pleasantries.

“The authorities are having some public relations difficulties,” replied Sir Robert, never one to overlook the obvious. He had gone to school with the PM, who loathed him. Forced to accept Sir Robert into the government, the PM had sent him as far from London as he possibly could. “A few technical problems too, I’m afraid,” the consul general continued. “Rather inconvenient when the power goes off at odd hours.”

“The Buckingham newspapers published a provocative piece in today’s U.K. and American editions,” the foreign minister informed Her Majesty’s Hong Kong representative. “I wonder if you’ve seen it?”

“Afraid not. The locals shut down the China Post, which was Buckingham’s little rag hereabouts. Of course, they shut down all the newspapers — I’m sure my staff sent you that information in the morning report.”

“Richard Buckingham signed this piece himself. He says that a revolution is about to sweep China, one that will overthrow the Communists.”

“His son was the editor of the China Post,” Sir Robert replied. Rip had been a thorn in MacDonald’s side since the day the man arrived from London. “Governor Sun tossed him in jail,” he said, unable to keep the satisfaction completely out of his voice. “He’s out now, of course. Perhaps he had something to do with the article.”

“I see,” the FM said slowly.

“It’s always a mistake to quarrel with a man who buys ink by the barrel,” Sir Robert continued, repeating a comment his wife had made to him on several occasions when he took offense at China Post editorials. “Richard Buckingham can say anything he wants in his newspapers and there’s jolly little the Chinks can do about it. But talk of revolution is rot, pure rot. The Communists are firmly in control. They have a division of troops in the colony.”

Sir Robert still referred to Hong Kong as a colony, which it had ceased to be in 1997, even though his staff and the Foreign Office had repeatedly requested him not to.

“The Orient Bank fiasco was very poorly handled,” the consul general told the foreign minister now. “I expressed our dismay at the senseless loss of life. Appalling. I told Sun that myself. Still, the Chinese brook no nonsense from dissenters.” That was a serious understatement. The authorities were positively paranoid about dissenters, which caused them diplomatic problems throughout the Western world, including the U.K.

The FM was not so sure about the Communists’ control of the political situation. “The world turns,” he said. “I seem to recall that a few years ago everyone thought that the Communists in Russia had a firm grip—”

“China is not Russia,” Sir Robert shot back, quite sure he was on solid ground. “The conditions are completely different.”

“I’ll convey your views to the PM,” the foreign minister said wearily.

“Do that,” Sir Robert said. “Good-bye.”

He was amazed at the credulity of the people in London. Of course, they were eight thousand miles from the scene of the crime, but still… a revolution? Here? Because Richard Buckingham said so in his newspapers?

Governor Sun also had a busy afternoon. Between calls from Beijing demanding detailed facts he didn’t have and issuing directives that made little sense, Sun huddled with key members of his staff, who were trying desperately to establish why the electrical power had failed last night throughout the

S.A.R. and why so many of the computers that controlled critical government functions were on the blink.

“Could it be sabotage?” Sun demanded. Like so many of the bureaucrats in Beijing, he had a healthy respect for the unvoiced anger of the people. Baldly, he feared the people he ruled. Repeatedly throughout Chinese history rioting mobs had overthrown dynasties and warlords. Anger and frustration could transform peasants into fierce giants capable of slaying dragons, and Sun well knew it.

Like so many Chinese officials who had held office as the dynasties rose and fell through the millennia, Sun instinctively wanted to control the people he ruled, ensure they stayed in their place, obedient and quiet. For that to happen in this day and age living conditions in China had to improve, which inevitably caused expectations to rise faster than they could be met. It was a vicious cycle with a bad ending; Sun didn’t want to be the man on the spot when the music stopped and the whole thing exploded.

Then there were the reactionary capitalist forces that the Communists had struggled against since the first day of the Long March. Always the reactionaries were there, waiting for a misstep, a mistake. Waiting.

Sun’s aides knew his fears, and they thought they knew the seething maelstrom that was Hong Kong. They soothed him now, told him that there was no evidence of sabotage, when in fact they had no knowledge of why the computers had failed. “A voltage spike, the engineers think,” the aides told the governor, who wanted to believe.

“A voltage spike” was the message he gave to Beijing.

American consul general Virgil Cole was not telling his government the truth either. Unlike Governor Sun and Sir Robert MacDonald, who thought they were reporting the truth to their superiors, Cole was lying and knew it. He knew precisely why the power went out last night in Hong Kong and he knew why the airport and harbor computers had failed. He knew what had happened and he knew the plan for going forward.

Of this, he told the United States government precisely nothing.

The Chinese desk at the State Department wanted reports and updates and answers to specific questions, all of which Cole farmed out to his staff. He told the staff more or less what he wanted them to tell Washington, which was the truth as far as it went, but not the complete truth, not by a long shot.

Cole blamed the crisis on the Chinese government’s demand for loans at nominal interest rates, loans the government had no intention of ever paying back. The nongovernment stockholders in Hong Kong banks were taking their money and clearing out, which was the root cause of the Bank of the Orient failure. The shootings of unarmed civilians were directly due to the incompetence of the officers of the People’s Liberation Army and a government that was paranoid of any dissent whatsoever.

Subsequent problems — power and equipment failures — Cole cavalierly blamed on technical incompetence. When the CIA resident, Bubba Lee, told him of Sun’s “voltage spike” explanation to Beijing, Cole tossed that into his latest report to Washington.

During his tenure in Hong Kong, Virgil Cole had repeatedly told the American government that the Chinese government was a corrupt tyranny, with a gross disregard for human rights. The ruling oligarchy was paranoid, cowardly, greedy, technically incompetent, and devoid of personal honor. Cole had said all this so many times the people in Washington laughed about it, yet in the past he had made sure he didn’t make himself so obnoxious that the powers that be would fire him. Oh no.

He referred his staff now to some of his past missives on governmental incompetence. When they returned with drafts of the reports Washington demanded, Cole read them with interest, made a few corrections, signed the things, and sent them off.

Lying to the government was a bad business, of course, and he had fretted over it for a year. When you put garbage in, you got garbage out. His conscience used to trouble him more than it did now, although it still twinged him a little.

This evening his lies didn’t even make the long list. He was thinking of Wu Tai Kwong, Callie Grafton, and all the things that had to be done. The letter of resignation was also on his mind. It had been faxed off hours ago, and he was now awaiting an explosion from Washington.

It was time to go. He didn’t need the consulate anymore.

If the Chinese arrested him, they knew far too much and the revolution was doomed. But they didn’t know. So there was a chance, a good chance, he believed.

Time was running out. Lives were at stake, millions of lives. Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions!

He looked out the window. The frontal clouds had dissipated; blue sky was visible up there between the towering glass skyscrapers. Across the way was the Third Planet office. With the sky the way it was, the windows there were opaque.

Although Cole didn’t know it, inside those offices Kerry Kent and Wu Tai Kwong’s top lieutenants were holding a council of war. There were seven of them, each in charge of a specialized group of fighters. They were Wu’s friends… although perhaps disciples might be a better description.

They took the news of Wu’s kidnapping badly. Three of them were for finding Sonny Wong and demanding Wu’s immediate return as the price of Wong’s life.

Kerry Kent tried to dissuade them. “Sonny Wong has thought of that move,” she argued. “Virgil Cole will pay the ransom. If he doesn’t, we’ll get Wu back in pieces. Do you want Wu alive or Wong dead?”

“That’s Wong’s choice,” Hu Chiang said tartly.

“No, it’s ours,” Kerry shot back. “We’ve a revolution to fight. I want Wu back more than anyone in this room, but first and foremost, we must continue the fight that is his life. And ours. That is our first priority.”

Hu was not persuaded, but two of Wu’s other friends took up Kerry’s argument. “The hour is now,” Wei Luk argued. “Wu Tai Kwong is a general in our army, it is true, but even generals are soldiers. Our cause is more important than any one person. We must not jeopardize it by taking sides in an internal squabble.”

“Internal squabble?” Kent said incredulously. “Sonny Wong wants fifty million American dollars from Virgil Cole. That’s ransom.”

“Cole should have donated his money to the cause,” Wei Luk replied stoutly. “If he had, he would not now need us to stop the revolution to save his pocketbook.”

“His pocketbook? You fool! Wu Tai Kwong’s life is at stake. Sonny Wong is threatening to murder him!”

“Perhaps he merely threatens. I think Cole is too worried about his money.”

Hu Chiang managed to stop this fruitless argument. “Enough!” he shouted. “Enough! Kerry Kent said the revolution must be our first priority, and I agree. We cannot stop the revolution to search Hong Kong for one man. We must strike now. If we do not, for any reason, we endanger the lives of every member of the Scarlet Team. Let Cole pay the money. There will be time later to deal with Sonny Wong. There is nowhere on this earth he can go to escape us.”

Wei Luk agreed with that, and so did the others.

Around sunset two men came to the door of the stateroom — it was a stateroom, Callie had decided, in a yacht or small ship. She and Wu had tossed and turned on their bunks all afternoon. Worried as she was, she still fell asleep for an hour or two, which she attributed to the drug they had injected her with. She still felt groggy, unable to focus properly.

One of them stood in the door and motioned to Callie. “Come with us,” he said in Cantonese. She went. Pretending she didn’t know Chinese would require some serious acting. She didn’t feel up to the effort, so she didn’t try.

One in front, one behind, they led her along a narrow passageway lined with doors. She got a glimpse out a porthole, saw that this deck was six or eight feet above the waterline and that the yacht was tied to a pier. It was some kind of yacht, she decided, an old one, though still maintained in excellent shape.

The man in front opened a door off the passageway, held it and motioned her through.

A man sat behind a small desk. He was not Chinese; European, perhaps, of medium height and weight, perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds. With a bony head and thin face and pinched nostrils.

“Sit,” he said in English, and she took the only empty chair.

The two men who had brought her came into the small room — which was no bigger than the stateroom where she had spent the day — and stood with their backs to the door.

“Mrs. Grafton,” the man said and pushed a sheet of paper and ballpoint pen an inch or two toward her. “We wish you to write a statement.”

Russian. With that accent, he was a Russian.

She made no effort to pick up the pen.

The Russian waited a few seconds, then said, “Pick up the pen. You will write with it.”

When Callie failed to obey he reached across the desk and slapped her, a stinging slap. He was remarkably quick with his hands.

Tears came to her eyes, which infuriated her. She sat there staring into his face through her tears.

“Perhaps I should explain. Pick up the pen or we will break your left arm.”

She reached for the thing, got it in her right hand, put both hands back in her lap.

“Very good,” the Russian said. “A first step. We make progress.”

He leaned back in his chair and made a steeple with his fingers. “Before you begin writing, I will explain what we want. You listened to a tape that was recorded in the library of China Bob Chan the evening that he died. There were various conversations on the tape. Who were the people talking and what did they say?”

She looked at the pen in her right hand, so she didn’t see the slap coming. God, the man was quick as a cat.

“Look at me, Mrs. Grafton. I am not nice. Nice is not a thing I have. I want something from you and I will hurt you to get it. I will cut your face, break your bones, break your head, cut out your eyes, watch men rape you… whatever it takes. I do not care if you live or die. Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

“Good. Very good!” the Russian said. He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “Did you listen to the tape?”

She decided not to talk. If you don’t resist evil you become a part of it, she told herself. She saw the slap coming and went with it, but still the blow numbed her face. And another. And yet again.

She felt herself starting to go out, slipping away. Her eyes refused to focus.

Hands grabbed her roughly, held her in the chair. When she could focus again Wu was there, with a man on each side holding him. Wu’s hands were bound by plastic ties and the ties were secured to his belt.

“Mrs. Grafton,” the Russian said carefully. “Listen to me. I want to know what you know. If you do not talk, I will kill this man who spent the afternoon with you.” That said, he drew a knife and inserted the point into Wu’s arm. The color drained out of Wu’s face, but he said nothing.

“He is very tough,” the Russian said, grinning at Callie. “But he bleeds.” He made a lengthwise cut in the man’s arm about four inches long and wiped the knife on her blouse. “If you do not answer my questions I am going to cut him into little pieces and feed him to the fish.”

He was as good as his word. He slowly inserted the knife into Wu’s bicep, at least an inch deep, and slowly drew it down toward his elbow as the blood welled from the cut.

“I’ll talk,” Callie said, unable to watch.

“Where is the tape now?”

“My husband has it.”

“Who brought you the tape?”

“Tommy Carmellini.”

“Is Carmel — is he CIA?”

“Yes.”

“Does your husband work for CIA?”

“Navy. He is in the navy.”

“Why did Carmel bring him the tape?”

“Because I speak Chinese and Carmellini doesn’t.”

The Russian thought about that for a moment, then went on. “Did you hear China Bob Chan on the tape?”

“I think so.”

“Virgil Cole?”

“Yes.”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know.”

He lunged for her, his hand swinging, and she jerked back. One of the men behind her grabbed her hair.

The Russian slapped her, then said again, “Who else?”

“I didn’t recognize the other voices.”

The Russian glanced at the man behind her, and he released her hair.

She had cut her tongue on the inside of her mouth. The blood tasted coppery and felt slimy, and she had to swallow it.

“I am going to ask a question, Mrs. Grafton. I want the truthful answer. No lies, please. Lies will be very bad for you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” This time it came out a whisper. Blood was still streaming from Wu’s wounds and dripping on the deck.

“Who killed China Bob Chan?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, Mrs. Grafton, I hoped I would not need to hurt you, and now you lie to me. Too bad, too bad.”

The Russian came around the desk and reached for her. Callie spit blood in his face. When he blinked and drew back to avoid it, she slashed at his face with the ballpoint.

One of the men behind her jerked her half out of the chair, turned her, and hit her so hard she passed out.

When she came to she was in a cold, cold place, in absolute darkness. She felt around her… and felt something cold, like cold, dead flesh.

She was in a meat locker.

And she was freezing. Sore, not completely conscious, she curled up in a fetal position to try to conserve her body heat.

Rip Buckingham wanted to talk. He had been carrying this great burden in his breast for months and months and finally here was someone he could tell, someone who also had a huge stake in how the tale would end, someone with whom he could share his fears.

He started by telling Jake everything he knew about Sonny Wong, and then he couldn’t stop. He told him about Lin Pe and Sue Lin and Wu Tai Kwong, about Wu’s romance with the British SIS agent Kerry Kent, told him how Kerry approached Virgil Cole and asked for his help, how Cole agreed to help fund the revolution and teach key cell members the fundamentals of cyberwarfare.

“Soon,” Rip said. “Very soon. The revolution will start and the world as we know it will come to an end.”

Jake Grafton listened without saying a word. He knew some of it, surmised more, but Rip filled in the gaps and made the story whole.

“They are going to find out who Wu really is and come for Lin Pe and Sue Lin. They are going to drag them off to prison, strangle them. The Chinese think like that. If I can’t shoot you I’ll piss in your well and strangle your mother.”

“And the women refused to leave,” Jake suggested.

“How did you know?”

“If they had agreed you wouldn’t still be here, would you?”

“I suppose not.”

“How soon is soon?”

“Tonight maybe. Tomorrow. Tomorrow night. I don’t know, but it’s got to happen quickly.”

“Does this Sonny Wong know the timetable?”

“Only if he has a spy at the very top levels of the Scarlet Team. Each cell has a name. The top one is the Scarlet Team.”

“How do you start a revolution, anyway?”

“Wu never told me. He didn’t want me to know too much.”

“Well, let’s you and me go see if we can find Mr. Wong.”

Rip didn’t think much of that idea. “He won’t have Callie or Wu with him,” he objected.

“I want to see him.”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to the man,” Jake explained. “Give him a reason not to harm Callie.”

“Sonny isn’t the kind of man who is easily convinced of anything,” Rip explained. “Especially where money is involved. Talking won’t do any good.”

“That depends on what we say,” Jake said patiently. “And how we say it. You’ll see. I’m fairly good at delivering messages.”

“I can’t see how this will help,” Rip protested, but Jake’s mind was made up.

They rode the tram up the mountain — because the first cable car was going up — and got a taxi at the visitors’ center on top. “Wong has a floating restaurant in Aberdeen,” Rip told the admiral, who wondered if it was the same one that he and Callie had eaten at yesterday. He hoped not. The thought that Wong might have made a dollar off him rankled.

“Whenever I want to talk to the guy I leave a message there,” Rip continued. “For all I know, Sonny sleeps there sometimes. One other thing I forgot to mention: He has an associate, not a partner, but a chief lieutenant. The man is Russian, Yuri Daniel. Avoid him if you can. Just being around him makes my skin crawl.”

To Jake’s relief, Wong’s was not the restaurant where he and Callie had eaten. It was the next one down, gaudy as a painted whore, sporting enough lights to decorate the White House Christmas tree.

Jake and Rip lined up at the same little wharf and took a sampan across the choppy black water to the restaurant. The main dining area was almost empty.

“With air traffic screwed up and all the electrical problems, the tourists are staying in their hotels,” Rip opined.

The maître d’ let them have their pick of window seats, then left them.

“I’m not hungry,” Jake said. “Let’s go see if Wong is around. Where are the offices?”

“The second floor, or deck, I think.” Rip pointed to a small black door near the kitchen entrance.

“Lead on.”

The door was unlocked. Rip pushed it open. There was a man sitting inside. Rip spoke to him in Chinese, asked if Wong were around.

The man looked Rip over, asked his name, then went upstairs.

In about a minute a medium-sized Chinese man in his fifties came down the narrow stairs. He broke into a grin, which revealed crooked teeth. “Rip Buckingham, as I live and breathe,” the man said in English. “This is a surprise. Who is your friend?”

“Jake Grafton.”

“I’m Sonny Wong,” the Chinese man said but didn’t offer a hand. “Come upstairs. We’ll talk there.” He turned and led the way back up the narrow staircase. Rip and Jake followed. The man who had been sitting in the foyer also came along.

Wong’s office was roomy enough, furnished with a practical desk and some overstuffed chairs, and decorated with the stuff curio stores sold to tourists, stuff that looked valuable but probably wasn’t — carved elephants, ivory pagodas, here and there a hand-carved chess set.

Sonny Wong turned to face his guests. “So, Mr. Grafton, did you come to buy your wife back?”

“I came to explain why you should release her unharmed.”

“Oh, no harm come to her if Virgil Cole pay the money I asked. If not…”

“Cole will pay,” Jake said, looking around, then focusing on Sonny. “You got a nice life here in Hong Kong. Rip tells me you’ve got a lot of stuff, a restaurant, houses, apartments, boats, money, women … Virgil Cole is going to pay you. If you send my wife back alive and in the pink, you can continue to live your good life here in Hong Kong. We’ll chalk this little episode up as an adventure and go on down the road.”

Sonny smiled. He looked at Rip. “Do you think Cole would pay more to get you and Mr. Grafton back alive?” He turned toward the telephone on his desk. “Why don’t we ask him?”

Jake Grafton drew Cole’s .38 snub nose from his right trouser pocket, turned, and shot the guard at the door square in the heart. The shot was like a thunderclap in that small space.

Wong turned, quick as a cat, but too late.

Jake Grafton rammed the barrel of the snub nose against his lips.

“If you even twitch, I’m going to blow your brains all over that desk.” He stared into Wong’s eyes, trying to see if the man would do something stupid. Then he felt his pockets.

Rip Buckingham was standing frozen, staring at the dead man by the door, his jaw slack.

Jake marched Wong backward around the desk, opened and closed drawers. Sure enough, in one he found a pistol, a small automatic. It felt heavy enough.

“Rip.”

Buckingham turned toward him. Jake tossed him the automatic with his left hand.

“See if this is loaded.”

“I don’t know…”

“Pull the slide back, see if there is a shell in the chamber.”

Rip bent over slightly, his long hair falling across his face. He used both hands on the pistol. “It’s loaded,” he reported.

“Find the safety, put it to the off position.”

After several seconds, Rip said, “Okay.”

“Fire a shot into that chair.”

Rip extended the pistol to arm’s length, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The shot wasn’t as loud as the boom from the snub nose, but it was loud enough.

“You’re armed,” Jake told him. “Go search all the rooms on this deck. Make sure Callie and Wu aren’t here. Shoot anyone who looks at you cross-eyed. No conversation, just shoot them. Go!”

To his credit, Rip Buckingham went.

Keeping the snubbie against Wong’s teeth, Jake began searching his desk. The papers were written in Chinese, which was no help to Jake. He tossed the stuff all over as he scanned it, looking for… well, anything. Anything at all.

“You want to call the police?” Jake asked Wong.

Wong didn’t reply.

“We can tell them about the kidnapping, have them call the American consul general, who will verify that the wife of an American flag officer was kidnapped by you and you personally demanded a ransom. American trade being what it is with China, I think the authorities might take a damn dim view of your activities, Mr. Wong.”

Jake didn’t call the police because Callie would probably be dead by the time the police got to her. He didn’t say that, of course, but that was the nub of it.

He marched Wong back around the desk and made him sit in a chair while he searched the dead man. This man was also armed, another small automatic. Jake pocketed it.

He sat across from Wong, kept the .38 in close to his body, and pointed right at Wong’s solar plexus.

“I misjudged you, Mr. Grafton.”

“If I knew where she was, Wong, I’d kill you here and now and go get her.”

“I believe you.”

Jake sat silently, staring at the Chinese. For his part, Sonny Wong kept his mouth shut and didn’t move.

The minutes crawled by. The telephone rang. Jake didn’t answer it. After four rings the noise stopped.

Jake heard no shots, no shouts, no loud noises. Which was a good thing for Sonny Wong, because he would have been the first to die. Jake thought the man knew that, for he sat silently and still.

Eight minutes later, Rip returned. He had put the automatic in his pocket. “There were some living apartments,” he told Jake, “some men who looked at me curiously, but your wife and Wu aren’t here.”

“Let’s go,” Jake said, rising from his chair. “Wong, you’ll lead the parade. The thing you’ll feel in your back is the barrel of this pistol. Honest to God, if there is any trouble from anyone, I’m going to empty this thing into your back. Now let’s go.”

Down the stairs they went. They went out into the dining room, then into the kitchen. Five people were there, four men and a woman, preparing dishes for the patrons. Jake stood so they couldn’t see the pistol he had on Wong and had Rip get everyone out of the kitchen.

When all five had left, Jake told Rip, “Go out into the main dining room. Announce that there is a small fire in the kitchen and everyone should leave in an orderly way. Customers and employees, everyone. Don’t let them panic. Just herd them off this barge.”

“A fire?”

“A small fire.”

Rip looked around the kitchen, looked at Sonny standing there with a blank face, looked at Jake. “What about the people upstairs?” he asked.

“Working for Sonny Wong, they take their chances. If they have time to get out, good for them. If they don’t, too bad. Now do as I say.”

“What about Wong?”

“He can leave with me or die here. His choice.”

Rip Buckingham took a deep breath. “When you deliver a message, you really deliver, Grafton.”

Jake walked Wong over to the stove, a large gas burner with blue flames from several of the jets. Nearby was a deep-fat fryer full of hot grease. Jake turned the flames under it up as far as they would go.

He traced out the gas lines, which were routed along the junction of the deck and bulkhead. Through a door, into a storage room. There it was, a tank of bottled gas or propane, Jake couldn’t tell which.

Jake led Wong to the door to the dining area. He pushed it open a crack, watched Rip getting the small crowd off the floating restaurant onto sampans. Some of the employees kept looking toward the kitchen, but Rip insisted that Sonny himself wanted everyone to leave.

“Give me your shirt,” Jake said to Wong.

The Chinese unbuttoned the short-sleeve shirt and handed it over. With the pistol right against Wong’s neck, Jake marched him to the deep fat fryer and dipped the shirt in. When it had absorbed a fair amount of grease, he tossed it onto the stove. The grease flared up.

Taking a step sideways to get a good view, Jake thumbed back the hammer of the revolver and aimed at the gas line. He missed with the first shot, but his second was rewarded with a loud hissing of escaping gas.

Jake eared back the hammer one more time, put the pistol against Wong’s lips.

“There is no place on this planet you can hide, Mr. Wong. If any harm comes to my wife, I’m declaring war on you.”

Then Jake ran. Out the kitchen door, across the dining room as fast as he could scramble toward the sampan dock at the main entrance. He heard Sonny Wong running behind him.

The kitchen exploded with a dull boom.

Rip Buckingham was standing alone on the dock. There were no boats.

The fire came out the kitchen door; the dining room quickly filled with smoke.

Jake said, “Shall we?” to Rip, took a last look at Wong, then dove into the black water. Rip was right behind him.