Chapter Forty-one

The next morning, shortly before ten o’clock, two of them went to Hong Kong Island by ferry and three went by car. The two who took the Star Ferry were Georgia Blue and Booth Stallings. She wore a serious dark gray dress and a black leather shoulder bag. Stallings wore the tan suit Otherguy Overby had picked out at Lew Ritter’s in Los Angeles. He also carried a slim brown leather attaché case that looked new.

Georgia Blue noticed the case and said, “Window dressing?”

Stallings shrugged. “I don’t want to walk in, ask for five million dollars and then have no place to stick it, except my hip pocket.”

“It won’t be in cash, Booth.”

He grinned. “Still.”

They took seats forward in the first-class section of the ferry during the crossing from Kowloon. The only time they spoke was when Georgia Blue asked, “What’ll you do with your share, Booth?”

“Endow myself,” he said.


The car the other three rode in was a rented Jaguar sedan. Artie Wu drove, of course, and much too fast as always. Durant, seated next to him, kept closing his eyes at the near misses and close catastrophes. Otherguy Overby sat silent and relaxed in the rear, looking out the window.

Wu turned to look at Overby. “Do you think—”

“For Christ’s sake, Artie,” Durant snapped.

Wu turned back just in time to avoid a bus and then finished his question. “—Booth can handle it?”

“I kept him up till two this morning practicing,” Overby said.

“How was he?” Durant asked.

“I don’t think he’s got his heart in it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“He did okay.”

“Why don’t you think his heart’s in it, Otherguy?” Wu said, keeping his eyes on the road.

“I think he’d rather fuck Georgia again instead.”

“Instead of going for a million?” Wu asked, sounding more interested than surprised.

“At sixty, that could be a tough call, right, Quincy?”

Durant smiled slightly. “With her, it’s a tough call at thirty.”


Booth Stallings, who doted on anachronisms, grinned at the 88-year-old double-deck streetcar that dinged and clanked its way down Des Voeux Road past the silver and gray Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’s startling new 60-story headquarters.

He and Georgia Blue had walked the two or three blocks from the Star Ferry terminal to Des Voeux Road and were now waiting for a green light. Staring up at the towering bank building, which seemed to be mostly glass and exposed girders, Stallings said, “You can’t tell if it’s supposed to cash a check or launch a space probe, but I sure like that two-story Toonerville Trolley going by in front.”

“Where’s Toonerville?” Georgia Blue asked.

Instead of answering, Stallings said, “Light’s green.” They crossed the street and rode an escalator up to an entrance that led into an atrium 17 stories high. A bank guard directed them to the desk of Mr. Henry Pow, an assistant cashier.

Pow’s desk was in an open space just off the main banking hall. The bank apparently liked to do its business in full view of its customers. Confidentiality was assured by spacing its officers’ desks ten feet apart. Pow, a Chinese in his late thirties, wore a genial look and a dark blue suit. He glanced up at Stallings and Georgia Blue with what seemed to be genuine pleasure.

“Miss Blue and Mr. Stallings — am I correct?” he said as he rose. Stallings replied that he was and Pow waved them to chairs beside his desk. Stallings made sure he got the chair closer to Pow and sat down, his new attaché case on his lap.

“We’ve been expecting you,” Pow said with another bright smile that displayed a gold crown far back on the left.

“Any problems, Mr. Pow?” Georgia Blue asked.

“No problems, none at all,” he said and chuckled. “Unless you forgot to bring along identification.”

“Passports do?” Stallings asked.

“Perfectly.”

Georgia Blue handed hers over first. Pow inspected it with care and made a few notes. Stallings opened his attaché case, took out his passport and gave it to Pow who examined it even more closely than he had Georgia Blue’s, glancing from the passport photo to Stallings and back to the photo at least three times.

With yet another smile and another small chuckle, Pow said, “You are what you are.”

“Like Popeye,” Stallings said.

“Yes. Quite. Now if you’ll just sign these release forms where the red check marks are. All three copies, please.”

He handed the forms and a ballpoint pen to Stallings who signed and passed pen and forms to Georgia Blue. After signing, she handed them back to Pow, along with the pen. He compared the signatures with those in the passports.

Satisfied, Pow handed the passports back, unlocked his center desk drawer and took out five buff checks. He examined each one deliberately before passing them to Georgia Blue. As she looked at them, one by one, Pow said, “You’ll notice they are certified checks for one million U.S. each and are made out to cash as requested.”

Georgia Blue nodded and handed the checks to Stallings for inspection. He looked at each one and then at Pow. “Got an envelope?”

“Of course,” Pow said as Stallings handed him the five checks. The envelope Pow removed from his desk drawer was a white number ten that bore the bank’s logo. It was also an exact duplicate of the one Lt. Cruz had given Quincy Durant the night before in the YMCA restaurant.

Stallings watched, almost mesmerized, as Pow slowly counted the checks again, slipped them into the envelope, ran his tongue across the mucilage on its flap, sealed it carefully and, with only a moment’s indecision, handed it to Stallings. The expert on terrorism raised the lid of the attache case, as Otherguy Overby had instructed him, just enough to slip the hand with the envelope inside. It was then that Stallings went into the rest of his act. Frown first, he thought. So he frowned, as if struck by a sudden thought, and looked at Georgia Blue.

“Maybe it’d be better if you carried them,” he said.

“If you like,” she said, her relief nearly invisible. He brought his hand out of the attache case. In it was a sealed white number ten envelope that bore the bank’s logo. He handed it to her and watched as she tucked it down into her black leather bag.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Pow,” she said, rising and offering the assistant cashier her hand. Pow also rose, his smile at the ready as he shook hands with her and Stallings. “Thank you for your custom,” he said. “And whenever you have other banking needs, please keep us in mind.”

“We’ll do that,” Booth Stallings said.


Stallings stepped onto the down escalator first, Georgia Blue only two steps up and behind him, her right hand now deep inside her shoulder bag, her eyes back into their Secret Service mode and darting from face to face, classifying each one at a glance.

She didn’t spot them until she and Stallings were across Des Voeux Road and walking through the park that was bounded by the Prince’s Building on the left and the courthouse on the right. She was walking one step back of Stallings and to his right. He couldn’t see them but he knew she had when her left hand took his right arm just above the elbow, as if she needed some slight support. Iron fingers dug into the elbow nerve then. The pain was immediate and awful. Stallings sucked in his breath, making a hissing noise.

“See them?” she demanded.

“Who?”

“Two at eleven o’clock and three at one.”

Stallings looked. He saw two Chinese men in their thirties, wearing casual clothes and bent slightly forward, right hands back on their right hips. To the right at one o’clock he located three more men, two Chinese and one European. The Chinese were young, not yet 30, but the European was at least 45. He wore a gray suit. He also had a red face and well-chilled blue eyes that drilled into Georgia Blue. Stallings thought he might as well have had cop tattooed across his forehead.

“See them?” she demanded again.

“Sure.”

“Notice my bag right against your gut?”

“Hard not to.”

“Just keep walking, Booth, and shake your head no at the guy with the red face.”

Her fingers again dug into the elbow nerve and again Stallings sucked air at the pain. The red-faced European was staring now at him instead of Georgia Blue. As they drew near, Stallings shook his head no. After what Stallings knew was a week or ten days, the red-faced man jerked his chin down in an abrupt and angry nod.

Once past him, Stallings said, “What the fuck’re you doing, Georgia?”

“Catching a boat,” she said as she steered him into the crowd that was heading for the Star Ferry.

It was at that exact moment that Booth Stallings, whose life study had been terrorism, came to a profound and utter understanding of his chosen topic. He even settled on a definition, which, although not particularly original, was immensely satisfying. Terrorism, he decided, was that which terrifies. The headline for his soon-to-be-printed obituary seemed to write itself: Terror Expert Slain By Ex-Secret Service Terrorist.

Normally, the labored irony would have made him chuckle or at least smile. But he did neither because of the new wave of fear and terror that rolled over him as he realized with absolute certainty that he would never make it back to Kowloon. Not alive anyhow, he decided. And dead doesn’t much count.


Artie Wu and Otherguy Overby stood on tiptoe on the green iron bench in the park between the Prince’s Building and the courthouse and watched Stallings and Georgia Blue lose themselves in the crowd heading for the ferry.

“Well,” Wu said, almost approvingly, “she made it.”

“Told you she would.”

“We listened to you, Otherguy — Quincy and I.”

“The Hong Kong cops wouldn’t.”

“They’re only trying to avoid a massacre,” said Wu as he stepped down from the park bench, frowning and puzzled. Overby also stepped down. “But why the ferry?” Wu asked. “She must know it’s a floating death trap.”

“Well, that’s his problem now, isn’t it?” Otherguy Overby said. “That fucking Durant’s.”


As the Star Ferry pulled out, Georgia Blue and Booth Stallings stood outside the enclosed first-class section, their backs to the rail. Georgia Blue was on Stallings’ left, her hand down in her shoulder bag, the bag still pressed against his side.

“Artie set me up?” she asked, her eyes jumping from passenger to passenger.

“Durant.”

She didn’t seem surprised as she glanced quickly at her watch. “This is what you do, Booth. You count to sixty, very slowly and just loud enough to let me hear you. When you reach sixty you hand me that nice new attaché case.”

She glanced at him briefly and resumed her vigil, smiling at the surprise that had splashed across his face. “That was about the worst switch I ever saw,” she said.

“I thought I was pretty good.”

“You’re an amateur,” she said, turning the noun into an epithet.

“Now start counting.”

When Stallings’ low soft count reached 16, a man’s voice shouted, “Look out, Georgia!”

Stallings felt himself being grabbed, pushed and then pulled back against something hard which he knew was Georgia Blue’s gun. Now out of her bag, the gun was jammed into the small of his back.

He found Durant then, no more than 15 feet away, the five-shot revolver that had been furnished by the retired Colonel held in an unwavering two-handed grip and aimed right at Stallings’ chest. The ferry passengers had also seen it and were yelling, screaming and scrambling away.

“Let go the case, Booth,” Durant said.

“If you do, you’re dead,” Georgia Blue promised Stallings in a quiet tone. He believed her promise.

“I’ll blow right through him, Georgia,” Durant said.

Stallings also believed Durant. He dropped the attaché case to the deck and kicked it toward him. Durant didn’t glance down. Stallings drew in a deep breath and turned slowly to face Georgia Blue. Her pistol was aimed at his belt. Her dollar-green eyes, steady and unblinking, were aimed at Durant over Stallings’ shoulder.

“Back again at death’s front door, right, Georgia?” Stallings said.

“Could be, Booth,” she said, not taking her eyes off Durant.

“Better make your jump.”

“You blocking for me?”

Stallings nodded.

She backed quickly to the rail. In one smooth flowing motion she was over it, holding on with her left hand, her right hand still aiming the Walther at Stallings. Her feet were braced on the edge of the deck. She bent her knees slightly and then used them to propel herself back and away from the ferry.

In four strides, Durant was at the rail. Stallings joined him. Below they could see Georgia Blue treading water. An open speedboat was bearing down on her. She waved at it. The hard-faced Chinese at its helm reduced speed.

It was then that Quincy Durant raised the revolver, aimed carefully and fired five shots at the speedboat. He hit only water, but the speedboat swerved away and sped off, leaving Georgia Blue in its wake. Stallings and Durant watched her, bobbing up and down in the water.

“How do we stop this thing?” Stallings asked.

“The ferry?”

“Christ, yes, the ferry.”

“We don’t,” Durant said.

It was then that the ferry changed course slightly. A few seconds later they could see only dirty water and nothing at all of Georgia Blue.

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