The King's Tomb

CHAPTER FIVE

When they landed at Hong Kong International Airport out on the Zhujiang River Estuary, they stepped out of the crushing humidity and into the air-conditioned cool of the airport arrivals terminal. Hawke glanced around at the impressive building and remembered all the times he had been through here on his travels.

The memory that stuck in his mind most was the week he spent here with Liz not long after they met. They had flown in on a Friday night and met with some of his Royal Marines friends. They’d visited the Ladies’ Market and Temple Street. Joked all the way around Disneyland and ridden the funicular railway to The Peak. As the past always seemed to be, it was a more innocent time with easier laughs and less stress and when he thought about it he started to feel like someone had hollowed him out with a combat knife.

After some confusion about where to go, they met with the MI6 agent who used his diplomatic status to expedite them through the customs process. He gave them the names of the SDU men and told them they would meet them at the Jockey Club. Then he casually slid his Panama hat back on and vanished into the crowd.

They stepped outside back into the humidity. Eden’s recent fight with a coma hadn’t dulled his senses or affected his planning skills, and an Escalade was waiting for them outside the airport exactly as he had described.

They climbed inside and before they had even buckled their belts the driver was whisking them along the north coast of Lantau Island. Endless high-rises flashed past them, the view of the apartments obscured by laundry drying on poles hanging out of the windows. Neon signs blinked in the haze, their Chinese symbols making unknown promises to the Westerners as they moved through the bustling metropolis.

As they crossed the Tsing Ma Bridge on their way east into the New Territories, Hawke took in the breathtaking view of the ships out on the water. He lowered the window and felt a rush of hot, humid air on his face. Yachts and container ships fought for space out in Victoria Harbor as they swept south along Route 3. He saw the luxury high-rises of Tai Kok Tsui tower over them and then they slipped into the Western Harbor Crossing tunnel.

They emerged on Hong Kong Island and the driver weaved them east again through the dense traffic until turning south on Route 1. Glimpses of the city’s underworld flashed by, offering a tantalizing view of the metropolis’s exotic underbelly teeming with life in the hot night.

Hawke saw the escorts hanging off the arms of overweight businessmen and the triad gangsters busy with their extortion rackets and their trafficking. He’d seen it all before, but it never failed to turn his stomach. He was woken from his thoughts by the sensation of the car slowing down. He looked up to see the driver pulling up in the taxi rank of the racecourse. He killed the engine and turned to face them, propping his elbow on the top of the leather seat for support.

“This is your stop.”

They checked their weapons, climbed out of the Escalade and scanned the building’s exterior for any sign of trouble. None of Hawke’s many trips to this part of the city had ever brought him to the Jockey Club, but everything he’d ever been told about it made the place almost recognizable.

Happy Valley was one of the greatest racecourses in the world. Planted in swampland at the north of the island back in 1845, it rapidly grew into one of the most famous horse-racing tracks in Asia and later anywhere on earth. Today the course is surrounded by towering apartment blocks and the lush, steamy slopes of Mount Cameron to the south.

Safely inside the grounds, Hawke realized for the first time just what a task lay ahead of him and the rest of the team. The place was an enormous, sprawling venue stretching out ahead of him in all directions.

Hemmed in by dozens of towering skyscrapers, it felt like they were ants in a bowl, and the added pressure of the intense humidity only made things harder. With sweat pouring down his back, they met up with Officer Eddie Cheung and his SDU men, made brief introductions and then Hawke ordered his team to break into sub-units and make their way to the agreed positions.

Spectators holding cocktails or pitchers of cold lager bumped into each other as they jostled for the best views of the track. The horses and their riders were coming into view now, and preparing to start another race around the course. Excitement rippled through the growing crowd of people, many of them anxiously gripping betting stubs in their hands as they stared up at the screens and made their wishes.

From the position he had taken up, Hawke surveyed the seven-storey stands running along the western edge of the track. Capable of taking well over fifty-thousand people, these stands gave the perfect view of not only the course, but also an inner field containing several hockey and football pitches as well a rugby field. Running along the tops of the stands were numerous arc lights blazing down on the course.

“Anyone see him yet?” Hawke asked.

Scarlet was the first to speak. “Not from where I am.”

“Nor me,” Devlin said. “But I’ve been watching a very beautiful woman over in the bar on the Pavilion Stand so he might have slipped by me.”

“Stop being a tit, Danny.”

“Sorry, Cairo. You know me.”

“Unfortunately that’s true.”

“What about you, Reap?” Hawke said.

“Not yet.”

Hawke called Eddie Cheung over the comms. “Eddie?”

“We think we have something, Hawke — a potential sighting in the Grandstand. I’m just getting verification now via facial recognition software.”

Hawke kept his eyes peeled. “Stand by everyone.”

Eddie’s voice crackled over the comms. “It’s him, Hawke! I repeat, we have conformation via the facial rec system. Rat is at the rear of the Grandstand, wearing a black denim jacket and a white t-shirt.”

“I have him!” Reaper said.

Scarlet said, “Me too.”

“Okay everyone,” Hawke said. “Close in on him, and keep it subtle.”

With the crowd hysteria reaching a peak, Hawke moved down through the stands with the men from the SDU close behind him. He reached the bottom of the stands and made his way toward the exit. The roar of the crowds boomed all around them as people cheered their racehorses on and willed them to finish ahead of the rest of the string.

He weaved through the crowd of spectators, keeping his weapon out of sight in the holster. The last thing he wanted now was a mass rush for the exits as people fled what they believed to be a terror attack.

He turned into the bottom access aisle of the Grandstand and started to walk up the steps to the top. He and Scarlet looped arms and tried to look like a couple as they meandered closer to the Zodiac agent. Only the closest inspection would reveal the earpieces they wore, and the guns beneath their jackets were imperceptible to all but the most skilled observer from the world of law enforcement and espionage.

Hawke let go of Scarlet’s hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“I love it when you take charge,” she said with a wink. “Who says we couldn’t have made it?”

“Pack it in, Cairo.”

“We’re almost there,” Reaper said over the comms. He and Devlin were on the other end of the Grandstand now. The SDU agents attached to them were a few paces behind.

“He’s on to us!” Reaper said. “I repeat, he knows we’re here.”

“Dammit!” said Hawke. “He must have recognized one of the SDU men in the crowd.”

“He’s on the move!”

“Everyone get after him!”