The Trafficked

79

Mann called Stevie Ho.

‘I found him.’

‘Alive?’

‘No. The DDS got to him first.’

‘Pity.’

‘Better for him, I think. He wouldn’t find a safe place on the planet; he double-crossed just about everyone. What about the Colonel?’

‘He’s keeping a flock of vultures in food for a week as we speak.’

‘Did he tell you who Blanco was?’

‘No. I don’t think he knew. I have what I wanted from him, though.’

‘It’s not going to get you anywhere. CK’s daughter is back in school, inside the allotted deadline. CK will know by now. Your dreams of having the monopoly on sex trafficking in Asia are over, Stevie. You’d better run back to Hong Kong. There will be questions to answer. I don’t think CK is going to be best pleased with you.’

‘I won’t be going back to Hong Kong. I might be left licking my wounds, but they will heal. I am not going back.’

‘The world is too small to hide in, Stevie.’

‘Maybe, Mann, but it’s a changing world. A man must adjust. I have to make my own way in it now. I have plans. I have backers.’

‘CK won’t let you leave the Wo Shing Shing.’

‘My allegiance was never with him, it was with Chan. I would never leave my master.’

‘Your master died in the waters off Cheung Chau.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Are you telling me Chan survived? I watched him go under.’

‘I am telling you that, in one form or another, his legacy lives on.’

‘You were a good man once, Stevie. Now you have become as rotten as the man you served. I will hunt you down, just as I did him, if you pursue his aims.’

‘So be it.’