The Beijing conspiracy

CHAPTER 26

D r Richard Halliwell waited impatiently for the man from the City Pound. It was not yet 6.30 a.m. and apart from the occasional jogger, the park in downtown Atlanta was deserted, or at least Halliwell thought it was. This was a meeting that, if the worst happened, had to be deniable and could not be delegated. Halliwell smiled to himself. It appealed to his sense of justice that he might employ someone from the City Pound. They were, after all, no better than mangy dogs.

Halliwell thrust his gloved hands into the pockets of his expensive cashmere overcoat and tapped his Italian leather shoes in frustration. He was not a man who was accustomed to being kept waiting. His planning was, as usual, meticulous. The previous month he had tasked his long-time private investigator to report on several of the city’s employees. His private detective had understood the sensitivity of the task perfectly. As he always did, Halliwell had insisted on a verbal briefing and payment was in cash, which meant there was no paper trail. Halliwell had decided on a Mexican illegal immigrant. Married to a fiery wife, with two children, the man was a regular visitor to one of the city’s seedier bars where he was often seen in the company of equally dubious women. Why anyone would bother with him was beyond Dr Halliwell’s imagination as he watched the fat, dark-haired little Mexican make his way furtively across the park. Some women obviously had no taste, he thought, but in the end, the more disgusting his private life the better. Richard Halliwell liked to have control over people. When the man was 45 metres away, Halliwell slipped a thin balaclava over his face.

‘You took your time,’ Halliwell challenged.

The Mexican jumped, a startled look on his face.

‘In here,’ Halliwell commanded, appearing from behind the hedge that encircled a small private area of the park.

‘Why all the secrecy?’ the Mexican asked.

‘Because that’s the way I like it,’ Halliwell responded curtly. Leaving his fine leather gloves on, he withdrew a plain envelope from his cashmere coat. ‘Inside there is a thousand dollars cash. There will be a lot more where that came from, provided you cooperate.’

‘And if I don’t?’ The Mexican was now very wary of the tall, well-dressed man behind the mask, but he sensed he had the upper hand and his coal-like eyes gleamed with greed. Whatever he was about to be asked to do was important enough to be cloaked in extraordinary secrecy. His sense of the upper hand did not last long.

‘If you decide not to take the task on, this meeting never took place and you don’t get your thousand dollars. If you do take the task on, which is a relatively simple one, you will be very handsomely rewarded. Either way you keep your trap shut. There are some photographs in the envelope as well. Taken in the motel behind Hungry Jacks. They are copies. If you don’t remain silent the originals of the photographs will be delivered to your wife.’

The man’s dark face went pale. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he rasped.

‘That’s none of your concern. Do you want the money?’

‘Depends on what you want me to do,’ the man replied glancing around, like a large rat cornered at the end of a sewer and looking for a way out.

Richard Halliwell gave the man a quick outline of what was required.

The man paused, as if something was bothering him, as well it might. ‘$5000 a delivery?’ he asked.

‘Cash.’

Again he paused before answering. $5000 dollars would buy a lot of women and a lot of hooch, and it would keep that bitch he married in order too, he thought hungrily.

‘No skin off my nose,’ he said finally. ‘When do you want your first delivery?’

‘The barman will give you a message to contact your uncle. That will be the signal for you to come here. Your instructions will be in purple ink on a piece of paper at the bottom of that bin.’ Halliwell pointed to the refuse bin he had chosen as the dead-letter drop. ‘There is an entrance to the laboratory compound that is normally kept locked. You will be given the time for delivery and you are to stick to it exactly.’

Richard Halliwell waited until the man had driven away in his van before he removed the balaclava, then he walked out of the park in the opposite direction.

Unseen by either Halliwell or the Mexican, a shadowy figure on the far side of the hedge waited a full five minutes before he too walked out of the park.