The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

Chapter Nine

A match was struck in the darkness and lit up a cold, sinuous face. Slowly it was brought nearer to the cigarette that dangled from a pair of thin, white lips — it lit the cigarette, which glowed with a red warmth and fizzled as it was sucked upon, then it was shaken and thrown to the ground. A voice whispered: ‘Do you know that for every one of those you have, you lose five minutes of your life?’

The man smoking just shrugged. ‘This life, I could do with losing a few minutes from it.’

They had been waiting for over two hours already and they could feel their fingers growing numb and their legs starting to give way.

‘You sure he’s coming?’

‘No.’

‘How did you hear he was here?’

‘He’s been coming here for a week now. He’s hooked himself up with some girl and her uncle. Every day he comes here, spends a few hours in the apartment and then leaves. I’ve had someone follow him but he just spends the night mooching around, going from place to place, bars, clubs — the usual thing with him.’

‘He not sleeping anywhere now?’

‘No, just going to that apartment every day, leaving every night.’

They stood in an alley facing the professor’s apartment, their expensive suits looking out of place in their tawdry surroundings. They had been tailing Joe for almost a week now and were ready to strike any minute. ‘You know the funny thing?’ the smoking man said to the other.

‘What?’

‘I think he’s being followed.’

‘Yes, by our guy.’

‘No, by someone else… look.’

The other man looked and, sure enough, outside the apartment block stood Kono, reading a newspaper, trying not to look conspicuous but, doing so, looking as conspicuous as hell.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Don’t know, haven’t seen him before.’

‘Is he part of Yuen’s mob?’

‘No, I would have recognised him.’

‘Lee’s?’

‘No, I think he’s from out of town.’

‘You think it means anything?’

‘Yeah, I think it means our friend Joe is about to go somewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘I have no idea. What’s that?’

The two men were suddenly quiet and still as they saw four figures exiting the door at the bottom of the apartment block.

‘What are they carrying?’ the one said to the other.

‘Bags. They look heavy. Go and get the car. We’ll keep close, see where they go.’

Over by the apartment block, Lisa was struggling with the bags. ‘Fraser, do you want to help me with this one?’

Fraser screwed his forehead up. ‘Lisa, that’s your bag. If you really want to take all that rubbish, well, I think you should be responsible enough to carry it yourself.’

Joe offered to help but was cut short by Fraser’s arm. ‘However, I can never bear to see a woman in distress,’ he said gallantly and picked up the bag, struggling under its weight. As they neared the pavement a cab pulled up with Joe’s cousin at the wheel. Quickly, they put the bags in the boot and clambered in. ‘To the airport,’ Lisa said, and they sped off. ‘The international airport?’ ‘No, the old airport at Kai Tak.’ Joe smiled at the thought of being re-united with his wings.

The city streets were packed, even at this late hour. The neon signs buzzed and blinked in the darkness and the jaywalkers and street walkers cluttered the pavements like ants around honey. Lisa put her face up to the window of the car and watched the world go speeding by. Everything had happened so fast but she had butterflies in her stomach when she thought about what was about to happen. Her eyes moved slowly around the car and rested on Joe, who was busy in conversation with his cousin; they both talked in a frenetic manner, pointing at things, becoming excited, acting crazy. It was his craziness that she liked most. She had spent most of her life with academics, writers and thinkers. Now here she was face to face with a doer, someone who took life and experienced all of it — the joys and the pains.

She liked the way Joe dived head first into everything he did: whatever it was he wrung the most out of it — danger, excitement, action, adventure. She hadn’t known him long but already she found herself being attracted by him — his easy manner and his sense of the unknown. Joe’s cousin suddenly addressed the car: ‘That blue Nissan’s back,’ he said, looking in his rear view mirror.

‘The one that was tailing you before, professor.’ Joe’s cousin craned his neck as he drove. ‘And you can call me crazy but… I think there’s someone following that!’

Joe looked round. ‘Ah!’ he said, guiltily. ‘I think the black Merc might be my fault.’

‘Your fault? What do you mean your fault?’ Fraser asked. ‘Well, you know those guys in the club?’

‘Yes.’

‘They have been tailing me for a week now. I thought I might shake them off but it looks like they stuck.’ Lisa looked out of the rear window just in time to feel her head bang against the door jamb as Joe’s cousin sped off into the night. The screech of tyre on tarmac was almost deafening as the cab was thrown this way and that in order to lose the two cars that followed it. It headed down a side street and along by the docks, knocking baskets off into the harbour and causing people to sprawl on the ground; everywhere it went, the blue Nissan and the black Mercedes stuck to it like glue and followed its every move.

Inside the cab, Fraser, the professor and Lisa were being thrown about and were tangled up in each other’s arms. ‘Slow down, slow down!’ Fraser cried, feeling as if his teeth were being rattled out of his head.

The cab swerved out of the harbour district and into Hong Kong city centre. From his vantage point in the front seat, Joe could see the fear on the faces of the crowds as they found themselves face to face with a crazy cab driver and a cab full of scared passengers. His cousin

turned into an alleyway which led to a back street and there were sparks as the sides of the car brushed up against the brickwork. Looking back, Joe saw that the two cars were not following them anymore.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost them. They must have been too wide to fit through here. You’ve done it, you done it!’

Suddenly he felt the car come to a grinding halt. There was silence. The only noise that could be heard was the slight creak of metal as it cooled. They were stuck in the alleyway, which narrowed imperceptibly towards the middle.

Joe cursed the builders of Hong Kong’s streets. ‘What do we do now?’ Lisa asked.

‘All out the roof,’ Joe’s cousin exclaimed as if this sort of thing happened all the time (which it did). He opened the sunroof and climbed out onto the car, then casually stepped onto the bonnet and hopped down to the ground.

When he was safe, he looked back through the windscreen and beckoned to the others.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Hurry up.’

Joe placed a foot on the headrest of the driver’s seat and climbed out of the car. As the cold air hit him he felt a strange sinking feeling. Turning, he saw that one end of the alleyway had been blocked off by a blue Nissan.

Turning back, he saw the face of his cousin, apologetic but smiling.

‘I’m sorry, Joey boy, the taxi game is not what it used to be and these people have money.’

Joe sighed. ‘You could have given us a chance. You could have done at least that.’

His cousin shrugged. Joe noticed that Kono, Tanaka and about three others had exited their car and were walking towards them. From inside the cab Lisa pushed him.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded. ‘Why are we getting out?’

Joe called down to her. ‘We’ve been double-crossed,’ he said. ‘By a skunk.’ And he looked at his cousin. Suddenly, he felt a breeze blow past his ear, followed by a loud bang. He turned to see that at the other end of the alleyway the black Mercedes had stopped and the two goons inside were firing at him.

‘Great,’ Joe said and jumped back in the driver’s seat. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Lisa asked.

‘We have company that we really didn’t need at this moment,’ Joe said and his words were followed by a bullet smashing the back windscreen and almost parting the professor’s hair.

‘Well,’ said Joe. ‘Wish me luck.’ And he started the engine. It fired into life. He put it into reverse and pressed the accelerator for all it was worth. There was an infernal blast of smoke and sparks as the car desperately tried to free itself from the alleyway. The more he floored the pedal, the more the car churned and screamed, trying to get free. Through the windscreen he saw that Kono and Tanaka were running towards him; through the rear window, he saw the goons aiming to fire again. He closed his eyes and pushed down with his foot and almost immediately the car sped into life and zoomed backwards, causing sparks and smoke to be sent into the night sky. The cab got faster and faster towards the end of the alleyway, until it hit the black Mercedes and sent it spinning into the road. Joe spun the wheel round, changed gear and sped off, leaving the black Mercedes spinning and reeling on the damp road and Kono and Tanaka running back towards their Nissan.

Joe wrestled with the wheel of the cab, which was by now looking battered and bruised. He looked in the rear view mirror.

‘They’ll still be after us,’ he said. ‘We’d better get to the airport and in the air.’

He drove at high speed to the small airport just outside of the city, conscious that all the way they were still being followed by the blue Nissan and the black Mercedes. As they neared the airport, they noticed that the gates were closed, but they were flimsy, only chain and aluminium. ‘We’re going straight through,’ Joe said. ‘Hold on.’ The cab crashed through the gates and sent them flying on their hinges. They hung limply for a moment and then fell to the ground like a prize fighter after a hard tenth round. Joe once again pressed on the pedal and sent the cab screaming round the empty spaces of the airfield. Behind him, the two cars that had been following kept on his tail, their tyres screaming on the tarmac, leaving a trail of sticky black rubber and smoke.

‘Where is it?’ asked Fraser.

‘Hangar 26b,’ Joe said.

Lisa pointed. ‘There’s 15, and there’s 16. We must be going in the right direction.’

Joe heard the sound of gunfire and ducked. ‘Don’t those guys ever give up?’ he said, and swerved the car so as not to make it an easy target. ‘I could get seriously fed up with this.’

Lisa screamed, ‘21! Come on, just a few more!’ Joe heard the engine of the cab splutter and looked down. ‘Damn, we’re overheating,’ he said, and watched as billows of white steam shot up from the bonnet. ‘Come on, come on, just get us there!’

‘25!’ Lisa shouted. ‘26a… 26b!!’

Joe drove the cab straight into the doors of the hangar. Inside it was dark and the air was musty. The cab screeched to a halt and the noise was sent shuddering round the walls. ‘Come on,’ he said, jumping out of the doors of the cab, which were bare metal now, into the plane.

‘We need the bags,’ Lisa shouted.

‘Forget the bags,’ Joe said. ‘Forget everything, we have to go.’

‘But we need the documents,’ the professor said — but as he felt a bullet pass nearby his left earlobe he corrected himself smartly. ‘You’re right Joe, as long as we have the map, we can leave the rest.’

He quickly made his way to the plane, opened the door and jumped in, followed by Fraser. Joe pulled Lisa by the waist and forcefully carried her towards the plane.

‘We at least need food and bedding,’ she screamed.

‘Will you get in the crate,’ Joe said. ‘Or you’ll get us both killed. Why don’t you just do as you’re told for once?’

‘How dare you!’ Lisa retorted. ‘I always have to do everything you or uncle or Fraser says, anything…’

A bullet whipped past her and she felt the first, warm drops of blood on her arm. She realised that these were not her drops of blood but Joe’s — he had been hit in the arm and was bleeding slowly.

‘You’re hit,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘I’m fine, it’s just a scratch, although you might have to carry yourself.’

Together they ran to the plane, opened the doors and climbed in. By this time, both the blue Nissan and the black Mercedes had braked to a halt and their occupants had climbed out. They ran towards the plane, where inside Joe struggled for the key.

‘OK, OK, I know I had it,’ he said, and furiously fumbled in his pockets.

‘Come on, come on,’ Fraser shouted.

The two thugs who had been tailing Joe for a week began firing at the plane, ripping holes in the edge of its wings. They tangled with each other as they tried to get near. Kono and Tanaka also struggled to reach it. As if some great beast were awaking inside its belly, the plane leapt into life, the engine spluttered and then caught with a roar that made the propeller turn with furious speed. Joe eased it forward through the hail of bullets. He turned the plane to face the hangar door and started it on its forward run.

Kono ducked this way and that trying to stop the plane and get out of its way at the same time; the men in suits ducked as the wings moved perilously close to their heads. Joe eased the plane forward and felt it go faster and faster along the gravel lined runway. Behind him he saw Kono running and puffing to keep up.

‘He’s tiring,’ Lisa said. ‘He can’t catch up.’

Kono made a final desperate leap for the plane and managed to grab hold of the landing gear just as they left the ground. Joe pulled back on the joystick and sent the plane skywards. What he didn’t see was that while underneath them, Kono had attached a small device to the undercarriage. Then he had fallen to the ground, where he lay bruised and breathless watching the tail lights of the small plane disappear into the night.

Joe smiled. ‘There,’ he said, and patted the control board of the plane. ‘Knew we’d do it.’ He turned and saw the terrified faces of his three passengers all staring, white as sheets, out of the cockpit widow. ‘Come on, now, it wasn’t that bad, was it? I mean, I have had better take-offs, but at least we are still alive.’

The professor had caused ten finger indentations on the back of the pilot’s seat. Lisa was clutching on to her seat belt and Fraser was wiping a tear away from his cheek.

‘I think it went rather well, actually. We are in the air, that’s all that counts. Look at that down there, that’s Hong Kong, right? Look at it. Isn’t it beautiful? It looks like a million diamonds shining. We are on our way. When we come back, we are going to be rich.’

He banked the plane, a move which caused Fraser to groan from the back seat.

‘All we really need is to keep to our course and we’re home free.’ He reached in to the map compartment of the plane, pulled out an old aviation map and threw it at Lisa. ‘You’re navigator,’ he said. ‘Just keep us on course.’

The sea below was black and inky as they skimmed above its surface. There was very little to navigate by, only the map and the compass, but Lisa found that navigating was a skill she took to quite easily. Before long, Fraser and the professor were snoring in the back seats, lulled to sleep by the sound of the engine and the vast expanse of nothing outside the window. In the dim light of the cockpit, Joe and Lisa chatted.

‘So, how did you get to be a pilot?’

‘Ah, you know, family.’

‘Family?’

‘Yeah, my dad was a pilot in the US air force. He met my mom when he was over here and bingo, a few months later she had me. They say I was born with a pair of wings on my shoulder.’

‘You like it, then?’

‘Look around you. There isn’t anyone who will bother you up here. There ain’t no one going to shoot at you or tell you what to do. You’re free.’

‘Sometimes, it’s good not to be free.’

‘Yeah? You say! That’s all I ever wanted — to be free, to just be able to go wherever I choose.’

‘Have you ever been married?’

‘Nah, I been close once or twice, I am a sucker for a hard luck story, especially if it’s told by a girl but fate always steps in — don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, probably good. I wouldn’t want to marry. What about you? You ever want to marry? Settle down?’

Lisa thought. ‘Maybe, but I want to do a lot first. Everyone I went to school with, every girl, is married and settled down now. They all have their homes or their children or their small jobs, they all go out at the weekend to the theatre or to see family in the country, they all drive new cars that are never more than three years old and all have grey hairs and big asses.’

Joe laughed. ‘Not for you, eh?’

‘Well, I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Yep, you are here all right, but why are you here? That’s what I want to know.’

‘Well, I guess for the same reason you are.’

‘The money?’

‘You’re not only here for that, are you?’

Joe looked at her, her big eyes shining under the dim bulb of the cockpit lamp. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘No, I guess not.’

‘All of that gold is stolen from somewhere. We can’t forget that, none of it is ours or the Japanese army’s or Yamashita’s — it’s the people of Manila’s, the Buddhists of Japan’s, the Chinese merchants’, who knows? It could have come from anywhere in Asia. The things in the tunnels have real importance to real people’s lives; it can’t be just left there forever. Once, people worshipped the Buddha there, kissed the statues, drank wine from the cups and wore the jewellery; once they revered the icons and handed down the artefacts to their children. It can’t be left in a tunnel, never to be seen again, never to be freed.’

Joe was quiet. He thought for a moment. ‘You make it sound like a calling you have.’

‘Haven’t you got a calling?’ she replied. ‘Is that not what part of this is about?’

Joe didn’t reply, he just looked out of the cockpit window at the stars shining overhead. In the dim distance he saw the sun begin to rise; its slow orange beauty was just beginning to infiltrate the sanctity of the purple and black sky.

‘Look,’ he said to Lisa. ‘The sunrise.’