Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (29 page)

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Afternoon

______________

AS SOON AS PRARIE STEPPED INTO THE ALLEY, a man grabbed her and held a knife to her ribs. “Just give me a reason,” he said in French. She stared into his eyes to gauge how serious he was. Those were the same eyes she saw just seconds ago in the printout of the man who had been asking about them. How did he know she would be coming out this way? Did he pay the elderly lady off? Was it a trap?

“Just do as you’re told,” he said. “I’m here to protect you.”

“Bullshit!”

“Just give me two minutes and you’ll understand.”

He led her to a car and made her get in the passenger seat.

“Don’t even think about shouting. I’m sorry to be so rough,” he said. “I need you to listen while I tell you what’s going on. The woman you’re with—Emmanuelle Laurent—killed your father. You’re next unless you come to your senses.”

“Bullshit.”

“Let me show you something,” the man said. He pulled a picture out of his wallet and stuck it in Prarie’s face. It showed him and Emmanuelle with their arms around each other, smiling. “She used to be my lover,” he said.

PRA
RIE FLASHED BACK TO MOMENTS AGO, in the lobby w
hen she asked Emmanuelle if she knew the face in the printout.

Emmanuelle said, “No.”

That was a lie.

Emmanuelle had just lied to her, n
ot more than two minutes ago.

“What did she do, to get you to cooperate?” he asked.

Prarie didn’t know whether she should actually talk to the man or not. Then, suddenly, something about him felt right. Here was actually here to help.

She could tell.

“She told me she was with an insurance company,” she said.

The man grunted.

“That’s so like her,” he said. “She’s a genius when she needs to be. Trust me, there is no insurance company. That’s nothing more than a blatant lie. She’s out to get five original paintings and stick them in her own pocket. Once you outlive your usefulness, she’s going to do the same thing to you that she did to your father.”

Prarie swallowed.

“She’ll be coming out any minute.”

The man cranked over the engine.

“Too bad for her, we’ll already be gone.”

HE PULLED INTO THICK HONG KONG TRAFFIC and said, “I can’t believe you’re still alive.”

“Me too, actually.”

“You’ve had close calls?”

Prarie nodded.

The man shook his head in disapproval. “Emmanuelle would put your life on the line a hundred times if she thought it would be to her advantage.” A pause, then, “Trust, me, I know from firsthand experience.”

Prarie studied his face.

It was a good face.

“What’s your name?”

“Sebastian,” he said. “Sebastian Dexteau. I’m from Paris.”

“I already figured that much. Me too.”

He smiled.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “You can’t believe what I’ve gone through to find you. And I can’t believe I actually did. My suggestion is that we go straight to the airport and put you on a plane right away.”

“Good idea.”

They drove that way.

“What are you going to do, after I leave?” she asked.

He grunted.

“I don’t even want to tell you,” he said. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

She cocked her head
, c
urious.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, “but no laughing out loud. You can do it quietly, to yourself, but don’t do it out loud. You need to promise.”

She promised.

“What I’m going to do is try to save her,” Sebastian said, “before she gets in so deep that she can’t get out.”

Prarie studied him.

“You still love her,” she said.

“Regretfully, yes.”

Silence.

Then Prarie said, “You’re going to need help.”

HE LOOKED AT HER SKEPTICALLY.

“You want to stick around to kill her, for killing your father,” he said. “She’s crazy and she deserves it, but I can’t let you do that.”

Prarie exhaled.

He was partly right.

“I need her to look me in the eyes and apologize,” Prarie said. “That won’t bring him back, I understand that, but maybe it will bring me some closure.”

Sebastian looked skeptical.

“It won’t,” he said.

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Night

______________

MONDAY NIGHT IT STORMED. A monsoon rain poured out of a black Hong Kong sky. Fan Rae gave
Teffinger
a kiss shortly after dark, handed him some rope, reminded him she was going to be his sex slave when she got back in a couple of hours, and then left.
Teffinger
followed her in the Honda quite a ways to a place called Aberdeen Harbour. There, Fan Rae parked her car and headed towards the water on foot.

Teffinger followed, silently w
ith a heavy heart
, k
nowing that life as he knew it was minutes away from ending.

The rain was hard.

But it was also warm.

He didn’t care about it.

Fan Rae took a position in the shadows and stared across the water.
Teffinger
wasn’t sure what she was fixated on. The boat at the end of the dock, directly across the water, appeared to be an old decommissioned steel vessel that had been converted into living quarters.

Lights were on inside.

The rest of the boats on the dock were dark
and a
bandoned.

He should have brought binoculars and cursed himself for not having the foresight. Someone was on board the steel vessel. Every so often, a dark silhouette passed behind one of the window coverings.

Teffinger
’s heart pounded.

D’Asia?

Was
the silhouette d’Asia?

A dog laid on the deck, quiet
but not asleep
; u
nfettered by the storm
and m
aybe even liking it after the heat of the day.

SUDDENLY A DOOR OPENED and a woman stepped out, holding a bowl in her hands. The rain was coming down too hard to get a good look at her, but she had the same posture and size as d’Asia. She set the bowl in front of the dog, patted him on the head and went back to the door. Just before it closed, the light caught her just right.

D’Asia!

It was definitely d’Asia!

“I’ll be damned.”

Then something unexpected happened.

The black silhouette of a man appeared on the roof of the boat. He jumped down on cat feet, directly next to the dog, and stabbed a knife in the back of the animal’s head before that head even raised halfway up. The canine flattened without making a sound.

Then the man crept towards the door.

The door that d’Asia had just gone in.

He opened it, stepped inside and shut it behind him.

Teffinger
ran as fast as his legs let him to the end of the dock and dived into the water. As soon as he got to the surface he broke into his most powerful overhand stroke.

SECONDS LATER, he muscled his heavy soaking body onto the dock, bounded onto the boat and busted through the door.

D’Asia was on her back.

Her face was bloody.

Her eyes were terrified.

A man was on top of her, s
traddling her chest.

He had a knife to her face, t
aunting her before he killed her.

Teffinger
took two steps towards him and hurled his body through the air.

The man recoiled
l
ightning fast.

Teffinger
felt the knife sink into his chest.

He twisted.

The knife came with him.

As he pulled it out, the man ran towards the door.

Teffinger
got a better look at him.

He was big, a
lmost as big as
Teffinger and s
trong as a python.

Teffinger
’s instinct was to let him go

His other instinct was to kill him.

The man was on the deck by the time
Teffinger
got to him.

He hurled his body through the air and caught the man on the back.

They tumbled over the side and fell into the water.

The entire world went black.

Teffinger
heard nothing.

He saw nothing.

Then the man had his head in a stranglehold.

He pushed him even farther underwater.

Teffinger
fought and twisted and pulled frantically at the man’s arms. It did no good.

Air.

Air.

He needed air!

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Night

______________

TEFFINGER
WENT INTO SOMETHING like a crocodile death roll and broke free. Then rage took over. He held the man underwater with every ounce of strength he had. After a long time, the man stopped moving.
Teffinger
didn’t care. He kept him there, under the surface, for second after second, making absolutely positive he was dead.

Then he let go.

To his surprise, he was quite a ways from the boat.

He swam towards it, on his back, keeping his head above water where the air was.

Air.

Air.

So sweet.

He barely had enough strength to drag his beaten body out of the water and onto the dock.

Then something weird happened.

He heard noises, d
esperate noise
s, c
oming from inside the boat.

He went in and what he saw he could hardly believe. Fan Rae and d’Asia were locked together on the floor, bloody, trying to kill each other with their bare hands.

D’Asia saw him
a
nd shouted, “
Nick
! Help me!”

Fan Rae turned her head
, saw him a
nd shouted, “
Teffinger
, help me!”

He stood there f
rozen.

Then he made a split-second decision
a
nd punched Fan Rae in the face.

She made a terrible gurgling sound, tried to get to her feet, and then collapsed.

Teffinger
pulled d’Asia to her feet.

She hugged hi
m t
ighter than he had ever been hugged before.

Her body felt so absolutely perfect against him.

Then she cried.

Teffinger
stared at Fan Rae.
She laid there
n
ot moving
w
ith her eyes closed
, e
ither unconscious or dead.

Day Eight—August 10

Monday Night

______________

TEFFINGER
BENT DOWN to see if Fan Rae was breathing. As he kneeled over her, an insane pain suddenly exploded on the back of his head and then everything went black.

He awoke some time later.

Everything was pitch-black.

He was sitting in water.

He couldn’t move.

He realized he was tied and struggled against the ropes until his skin ripped.

It did no good.

There was no getting out.

He was dangerously close to engines.

They were running
a
nd pumping water into the boat.

He was in the engine compartment and the boat was sinking.

“
Nick
, are you conscious?”

The words startled him.

He thought he was alone.

“Fan Rae?”

“Yes,” she said. “D’Asia did this. She’s killing us.”

Teffinger
shouted.

Help!

Help!

His voice bounced off the walls and got sucked into the engines. No one would be able to hear him. He was in the bowls of the boat, with the compartment door shut, surrounded by a steel hull.