Same Disclaimer as before

Chapter 9

Early April 2009, somewhere in the airspace over Hong Kong

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain again. We are about to commence our descent into Hong Kong International Airport. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you where the local weather is concerned. Hong Kong is in the middle of a typhoon and there is also a rainstorm warning in force. We will be circling for a while in order to find an appropriate way to land. We expect a lot of turbulence so I would advise that you keep your seat-belts securely fastened and have all your hand baggage stowed in the overhead locker. If we are unable to land in these conditions, we may have to be diverted to Manila. We will let you know in due course."

There was a collective groan from the other passengers when they heard about the possibility of being diverted to Manila. Harry was annoyed, but for slightly different reasons. Bloody hell, what is it with the Chinese and storms? First they conjured up a storm to sink a few containers and now they're foisting a typhoon on me. They can't be that powerful, can they? If anyone did not want me to come, they should have simply said so. Harry was not really worried about the bad weather or bothered by the turbulence, having been through worse situations in his days with the army and in the early days with the Service, when he was out in the field a lot more than now. Maybe I was never meant to see her again! Then again, Harry believed that if there was a god, he probably did not arrange for him to come all this way only to kill him in a plane crash caught in a typhoon.

The pilot was an experienced Cathay Pacific pilot and had flown into Hong Kong in similar circumstances a number of times in the past. He managed to land the plane after executing a few clever maneuvers. All of the passengers gave the flight crew a round of applause when they felt the wheels of the plane hit the ground. Their flight was only about half an hour late.

As soon as Harry disembarked from the plane, he found the usual suspects waiting for arriving passengers outside the arrival gate for his flight. Each of them, all airline ground staff, held up a sign with information for passengers with onward connections or information about the baggage carousel where they could find their luggage. Harry did not see any signs for 'Harvey Patterson' and started to become a little worried. Then he noticed a pretty Chinese woman in her late twenties standing to one side. She did not hold up any signs but was smiling at him. Just when Harry thought that all the natives were this friendly, she approached Harry and greeted him in a very discreet manner.

"Hello Mr. Pearce. Welcome to Hong Kong. My name is Amy Chan and I have been assigned to assist you during your stay."

Harry noticed that Amy spoke with an American accent and wondered if she did any training at Langley with the CIA.

Amy had organized one of those electric carts for him so that they would not have to walk the long distance to passport and customs control. It also meant that they did not have to mingle with the other passengers. Harry told her that he did not have any check-in luggage. After the fiasco over Terminal 5 at Heathrow the year before, there was no way that Harry was going to travel anywhere with check-in luggage ever again. Amy directed him to a special counter in order to clear immigration formalities. She told Harry that he need only show his HK ID card and that it was not necessary to fill in any landing cards.

The HK ID card which Harry was given was the old version. The new style ID contained a microchip which carried the cardholder's personal information as well as images of his/her fingerprints. The cardholder simply had to slot the card through one of the readers, place his right or left thumb on the reader, let the machine verify the thumb print, and then he would be cleared to enter Hong Kong legally. The whole procedure would be over in one minute or less. Sherman could have arranged one of those new ID cards for Harry since it would not have been difficult to obtain Harry's fingerprints after their breakfast meeting. But Sherman did not want to show off and arouse Harry's suspicions or incur his wrath unnecessarily. In the end, he simply arranged an old style ID card without the microchip. The Immigration Officer was trying to be helpful when he reminded 'Mr. Patterson' that he really ought to make arrangements soon to change his ID card to the newer version. Harry smiled and thanked him.

After immigration, Amy led him led through one of the discreet doors in the baggage area and they exited the airport through an alternative channel, a passage which was usually reserved for visiting dignitaries or pop/movie/football stars who did not want to create a scene at the Arrivals Hall. Everything went quietly and unobtrusively.

Sharon the travel agent had suggested that Harry should pack lightly for his trip, in the sense that heavy suits were inappropriate for Hong Kong weather at this time of the year. Harry had always had a problem with sweating in hot conditions, so he wore the lightest jacket he had in his wardrobe and just packed a couple of shirts, a pair of khaki pants in addition to his suit pants and a couple of polo shirts for his trip. Just outside the door but before he climbed into the waiting (air-conditioned) Mercedes-Benz Maybach, Harry got a taste of the famous hot and humid afternoon Hong Kong air. Even with the impending typhoon, the wind felt warm against his skin. He loosened his tie and took off his jacket immediately. He also took out his handkerchief to mop his brow since he had started to sweat profusely.

Like most men, Harry was a bit of a car buff and judging by the choice of vehicle which was being used to transport him, he knew that Sherman was pulling out all the stops to make him feel like a VIP. The Maybach was not your ordinary Mercedes-Benz.

"Mr. Pearce, we have reservations at the Mandarin Oriental for you."

"Where is Ms. Evershed?" Harry was not interested in putting off this meeting any longer. He remembered that he left London on Thursday evening, which meant that this was already Friday afternoon in Hong Kong. The last thing he wanted was to wait over the weekend before seeing Ruth.

"Ms. Evershed teaches at The Chinese University of Hong Kong." It was clear that Amy had done her homework and knew exactly who Harry was referring to. "Its now 2:45 pm. She should have finished her last class for the day. If you like, we can take you over to the University right away and hold the hotel reservation for you. With this typhoon coming, I don't know how long Ms. Evershed will stay in her office before she goes home for the day."

"If its not too much trouble, I would like to go the University first."

"Of course, that's not a problem." Amy Chan gave instructions to the driver in Cantonese. She tried to suppress a smile. Amy had read the file well and had no doubt where Harry wanted to go first. Some of her colleagues decided that for a crusty old spook, Harry might want to go to the hotel and freshen up first before … Well, what did these men know. She decided that she already liked this Harry Pearce fellow even though they had just met.

The ride from the airport to the university took almost an hour, and this was quite a long trip by Hong Kong standards, Amy explained to Harry. Initially, there was not much of Hong Kong to see, until they got off one of the longest suspension bridges in the world and Harry saw the urban, built up areas for the first time. On the right hand side, Harry saw the busy container terminals with rows and rows of gantry cranes, all ready to load and unload millions of containers a day. Amy informed him that Hong Kong had been consistently the busiest container port in the world, in terms of throughput, for the last 10 years. On the left hand side, Harry could see banks and banks of apartment blocks. Amy explained to him that those were mostly government housing estates for the low income groups. She told him that a family of eight could fit in an apartment which was no more than 100 sq. feet in size, maybe not comfortably but they would fit.

They were mostly on a couple of highways, but at one stage of the journey, they had to change from one highway to another and in doing so, passed through one district on normal roads. For the first time, Harry saw how packed the streets were with people, almost exclusively Chinese. Although Harry had been to Chinatown in London, he had never seen so many Chinese people congregating in one place at the same time. Sherman Tang was right. This place was his turf. Any foreigner walking around would stick out like a sore thumb. For a moment, Harry felt grateful that the Chinese had been watching Ruth's back.

Amy Chan tried to be a gracious hostess and gave Harry a great deal of information about Hong Kong during the trip, but Harry was nervous and anxious and did not retain a lot of that information. When he heard that the city had close to 9 million people stuck together on less than 500 sq. miles of land, he thought that Hong Kong gave new meaning to the word 'congestion'. He could not imagine a worse living environment and felt bad that Ruth had to put up with this kind of living condition. If it were up to me, Ruth should be ensconced in some tastefully decorated mansion set in acres of greenery and shrubbery in the country, complete with people waiting on her hand and foot …

As they approached the university, Amy pointed out to Harry their eventual destination and told him that they were now in Shatin, a district in the New Territories. She explained to Harry that the airport which he had landed in was located on one of the outlying islands of Hong Kong, and they went through parts of Kowloon before ending up here. Harry could see that the campus was spread over widely on one side of a hill. After they drove through the main entrance, the driver took them through what looked like a labyrinth of narrow roads, some of which were one way streets and some were not. It was all very confusing. It took a few twists and turns before the driver stopped at what appeared to be a remote corner of the university, in front of a low rise building of no more than four storeys high. If Harry had not been driven here, he would have found it quite difficult to locate this building in a hurry.

When they got out of the car, Amy looked up at one of the windows on the first floor, saw that the light was still on, and told Harry that it looked as though Ruth was still in her office.

"Mr. Pearce, Ms. Evershed's office is on the first floor. Take the stairs and turn right after you go through the doors on the first floor. Her name should be on the door. Her current name is 'Rachel Everton'. I will go and get a coffee and come back for you in say, half an hour's time?"

Harry noticed that the winds appeared to have picked up and there were now more angry dark clouds hanging overhead. He could not remember the last time he had seen the weather take a turn for the worse so quickly within a couple of hours. He was not sure how long he was going to spend with Ruth. He only knew that he did not want this woman hanging around to see his disappointment if Ruth yelled at him and told him to go away, forever. He reminded himself that everything this woman saw or heard would be reported straight back to Sherman Tang. Where is he, anyway? Does he intend to show his face at all?

"It looks like its going to rain quite heavily very soon. Maybe you should take the car back to town. I will make my own way to the hotel. I wouldn't want to inconvenience you …"

"No, not at all. I'm supposed to be your security detail during your stay here." Amy then exchanged words with the driver and was told something in Cantonese.

Harry had to stop himself from smiling at the thought Amy was his security detail. Like most of the other locals he had observed from his ride from the airport, Amy looked as if she had not eaten for days and her waist could not have been more than 20 inches. How could this slip of a girl protect me? Then again, Harry knew all about Chinese martial arts and would not be surprised if Amy was an expert in one of those disciplines and could probably stop a speeding bullet with two fingers, or something like that. Harry was not sure whether she was carrying a weapon, or indeed whether she was allowed to carry a weapon in this city. The suit which Amy had on was a tailored suit and hugged her curves. The bulges which showed did not resemble a weapon.

"Here's my card, Mr. Pearce. It has my cell number on it. Please call me at any time, day or night, if you need any assistance. The University has its own security crew and they hate to see the likes of me hanging around. As long as you remain on campus, you should be alright. So if you think you will be okay for transport to the hotel, I will head back. Oh, I almost forgot, here's a cell phone you should use whilst you are here." Amy handed to Harry a mobile phone with a local sim card. "It will save you incurring exorbitant roaming charges if you used your own phone. I'll touch base with you later to make sure that everything's alright."

Harry understood exactly why he had been given a local mobile phone, and it was not only because of the roaming charges. The mobile phone doubled as a tracking device. It would be so much easier for the Chinese to track his movements if they already had a lock on his local sim card. Harry did not mind this at all, since he was not intending to snoop around the place anyway. As long as he was dependent on protection from his hosts, he thought that it was only fair that he should let them know his exact movements at all times.

"Is Sherman …"

"Did you need to speak with Mr. Tang? I'm afraid he's in Beijing, attending the annual National People's Congress. I can give him a message, if you like." The National People's Congress was China's equivalent of a parliament and met each year between March and May.

"No, that won't be necessary. Thank you. Have a safe trip back." Harry was relieved to hear that he would not have to see Sherman during this trip.

When Amy got back in the car, she told the driver that they should leave the university but park the car in one of the side streets just outside the university gates. She was not really going to abandon Harry Pearce on university grounds. She was not sure whether Harry would call her in the next hour or so and change his mind about needing that ride to the hotel after all. Amy might be prone to having flights of fancy, but she knew that she still had a job to do.

When instructions about Harry's visit were handed out in Amy's section, she started to fantasize out loud to her colleagues what she thought had happened to Harry and Ruth. She had developed this stupid habit during some very boring stakeout missions. She would see a passerby or hear a noise in the next apartment and start to create a back story for the people in question. This used to amuse her colleagues but lately it had become annoying to the more serious minded agents on her team.

When Amy told her colleagues she thought that Harry and Ruth might have had a past, some of the men on her team told her that she had an overdeveloped sense of romance and that perhaps she should consider changing professions and become a screenwriter instead. Others told her that she should put her money where her mouth was. They knew that Amy was rather tightfisted with her money. She never bought a round when they went out for drinks, and she never sprung for cakes and sticky buns on any happy occasions such as her birthday. So her colleagues thought that if they could make her lose some money, that might shut her up once and for all. Someone agreed to be bookkeeper.

There were two parts to the office pool related to Harry Pearce's visit. The first part was where Harry would be headed after he arrived, and the second part was whether he would end up using his hotel reservation at all. To make things more interesting, the person who was running the books offered a bonus to anyone who got both parts of the pool right. When Harry indicated that he wanted to go to the university right away, Amy gave a silent 'squeee!' because she had just won the first part of the pool. She now sat waiting in the car to see if she would receive a call from Harry which could determine whether or not she was going to win the second part of the pool.

Amy had no idea how on the money her speculations were where Harry and Ruth were concerned.

As always, I am grateful for any and all reviews.