The Dragon Head of Hong Kong (10 page)

Ava turned to Kung’s purchase order file and saw that he had issued POs to both companies and had been invoiced from the Bute address. It took her fifteen minutes to work her way through all the shipping documents, manifests, and inventory reports. When she was finished, she was convinced that either Kung had never taken possession of the goods or the goods had never existed.

She repeated the process with the China Agricultural Bank statements. Again Meridian and Bai had been paid for goods for which there were purchase orders and invoices but no other indication the goods existed.

Bute Street was where Ava had gone to find Kung in Kowloon. She knew it was no coincidence. The bank where both Meridian and Bai had accounts was the Kowloon Light and Power Bank. What were the odds that the two companies would share a bank?

He could have made more of an effort
, she thought.
Unless he was just trying to evade taxes, and purchase orders and invoices were all the Chinese collectors wanted to see.

Ava started to print the bank statements and put together the files she wanted to take, but then she thought of something else. She wrote down the account numbers for Meridian and Bai Trading and then logged on to the Kowloon Light and Power Bank website. She entered the account number for Meridian, and when the password prompt came up, she typed in
TRADER22
.

She hadn’t actually expected to get access to the account, so it almost shocked her when she did. The American dollars that had been wired to the Kowloon bank had been converted into Hong Kong dollars at an exchange rate of HK$7.50 for every American dollar. There was close to HK$5.5 million in the Meridian account.

Ava logged out of that account and then tried Bai Trading, scarcely believing that
TRADER22
would work again. It did. The account held HK$4 million.

She did a quick conversion from Hong Kong back to American dollars. Together, the two accounts in the Kowloon bank contained more than $1.2 million U.S.

( 1
4 )

AVA SAT AT
the desk and stared at the computer screen as she tried to figure out what to do.

Even before she had gained access to the accounts using Kung’s password, she had been convinced that Meridian and Bai Trading were shell companies set up by Kung to hide money. There wasn’t much doubt in her mind that the money in the Kowloon bank came from the sales of Mr. Lo’s and Royal Meats’ products. Kung could wave around his phony purchase orders and invoices, but without any shipping or inventory records they had zero substance. The only complete paper trail ran from the suppliers to Kung to his customers, back to Kung again, and then through the two banks to the Kowloon bank. As well, the dates showed that the money was sent to the supposed trading companies as soon as Kung was paid by third parties for the pork or chicken feet. That money should have been sent to Lo and Royal. Ava’s conviction that Kung was stealing became 100 percent certain after she had gotten into the Meridian and Bai accounts.

Now what to do? She could call Mr. Chow, or Uncle, as she was beginning to think of him, and explain what she’d found. Then what? He’d tell Andy and Carlo to start negotiating with Kung again. How long would that take? How much more money would they be able to get out of him? It was they, not she, who had Kung under control. What could she do if they decided to cut a bargain-basement deal that satisfied their client and then turned Kung loose?

The only leverage she had was the money. Rather than just knowing where it was, if she could bring it under her control, then she would have the upper hand in terms of dictating the final settlement. The problem was, to get control of the money, she would have to transfer it from Kung’s bank accounts to hers or someone else’s. She would have to steal it.

Well, not really steal it
, she told herself. Kung was the thief. All she was doing was trying to reclaim the money for her client. Still, she knew she was on shaky moral ground and probably even shakier legal ground. If she were at home in Canada, she would never consider what she was now contemplating. There were rules of law there, and a system that could be trusted to be fair. But what Chinese or Hong Kong laws had she already broken by looking into Kung’s bank accounts, even though he’d given her the password?

Worse, what Hong Kong or Chinese laws would she be breaking by transferring money out of the Meridian and Bai accounts? And even if she wasn’t breaking any laws, what kind of connections did Kung have? What kind of trouble could he cause? The idea of being detained at the Chinese border or at the airport in Hong Kong filled her with dread.

Maybe
, she thought,
I should discuss it with Uncle
. Maybe she should try moving the money to his account and let him deal with the local authorities, with whom he must be more familiar than she was.
No!
she thought savagely. Mr. Lo was her client. She’d found his money and a possible way to get it back to him. Not to go ahead and do so would be irresponsible.

And then it occurred to her that she might not be able to transfer the money. She was looking at the Bai records. She clicked on the link that said
MANAGING YOUR ACCOUNT
. One of the options it offered was electronic transfer. Maybe Kung hadn’t signed up for that service. And if he had, maybe there were limits on the amount that could be moved from the account at any given time. She chose the transfer option and a blank form opened up.

Ava looked at the information required about the recipient and quickly filled in her own company name, address, phone number, and contact person. She reached for her bag and took out a card from her Canadian bank manager. The bank’s name, address, phone number, account number, and swift
code were all on it.

The sender portion wasn’t as straightforward, since she wasn’t sure if the information Kung had provided to the bank was legitimate.
What the hell
, she thought, as she typed in
BAI TRADING
, the Bute street address, and the phone number on the invoice. Finally she added Johnny Kung’s name as the contact and authorizing officer. She waited for the form to disappear or for asterisks to appear next to her entries or for any other indication that she was about to be rejected. But the website took her to the next page.

Now the question was, how much could she dare send to Canada? She didn’t want to empty the bank account entirely but she also didn’t want to send some minor amount on a test basis, in case transfers were restricted to one a day. She decided to try to send herself HK$3.6 million. Even though she knew it was highly unlikely there would be any negative backlash if she failed, she felt the slightest tremor in her fingers and a cold sweat on her brow as she typed in the numbers. She stared at the amount and then repeated the numbers aloud to make sure they were correct. Then she hit the
SUBMIT
button.

The web page disappeared. Ava’s cold sweat turned hot. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, expecting the worst, she saw a line that read:
Your transfer has been completed. We will send confirmation to your email address. You can print a copy from our website
.

She pressed the
PRINT
button, closed the account, and switched over to Meridian’s.

Five minutes later she had dispatched HK$5 million from Meridian to her Canadian bank account. She tried to imagine what her branch manager would think when he saw the overnight deposit reports. Since she’d opened the account, the largest amount she’d ever had in it was $8,000. When the Hong Kong dollars were converted to Canadian, her account would contain more than $1.2 million.

She pushed the chair back from the desk and took a deep breath. She had just stolen more than a million dollars. But any guilt or anxiety she had was quickly swamped by a rush of almost sheer joy as she contemplated Mr. Lo’s reaction. He wouldn’t care how she’d got the money. Why should he? And why should she? But there was still one more loop to close.

She headed out the door and was at the top of the stairs when she saw Andy at the bottom. “I need you,” she said.

“You sound excited,” he said, and began to run up.

“You have to call Carlo and get me Kung’s email address. If he has more than one, I want them all. And obviously I’ll need his passwords.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

“There is no ‘let me see.’ I have to have them. I don’t care what Carlo has to do. Tell him to cut off Kung’s balls if he has to.”

“You are excited,” Andy said.

“Sorry.”

“
Momentai
,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket as he walked into the office.

Ava went back behind the desk. “I’m waiting,” she said.

Andy smiled as he called Carlo. “Hey, our new boss lady needs some information from Kung. Get us all of his email addresses, with passwords . . . Yeah, right now.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Carlo’s talking to him.”

“What a ride this has been,” Ava murmured, and then realized she had landed in Hong Kong less than thirty-six hours before. “What a day.”

“[email protected],” Andy said to her.

“Capital letters?”

“All small.”

“And is that the only email address he has?”

“According to Carlo it is.”

“Kung has almost no imagination, and thank God for that,” she said as she logged in to Kung’s email. Again she felt a flicker of anticipation mixed with fear as she waited for the inbox to load. When it did, she saw two emails from the Kowloon Light and Power Bank at the top of the list. Ava opened them, read the confirmations, sent them to the printer, and then deleted them.

She took several deep breaths. “We’re done here,” she said. “I think we should go back to your apartment and chat with Johnny Kung.”

As they walked down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to her that $400,000 was still sitting in the Guangzhou and China Agricultural bank accounts that Kung had acknowledged were his. In all the excitement of raiding the Kowloon accounts, she had forgotten about them. For just a second she thought about going back to the office, but then dismissed the idea. She didn’t want to press her luck. Besides, Carlo and Andy had already negotiated that amount to be paid. As long as they held Kung and he didn’t find out about the Kowloon withdrawals, he’d pay that too.
Let the guys have that victory,
she thought.

It was midafternoon when they left the office building. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun should have been visible. It was there, Ava could see, but looked like it was behind a veil of dust and floating debris.

Andy went to a vacant taxi stand and looked up and down the street as he tried to hail a cab. Then Ava saw Kung’s men walking towards him. “Andy, be careful,” she said.

He didn’t have time to turn around before one of the men hit him from behind, driving his fist into the nape of his neck. Andy staggered forward, and the man kicked him in the back. Andy collapsed onto the street, directly in front of the oncoming traffic. The man reached down, grabbed him by the T-shirt, and dragged him onto the sidewalk. Then the man kicked him so hard in the ribs that his body seemed to jump in the air.

“Stop that,” Ava yelled.

Both men turned to look at her.

“Now it’s your turn,” the man Ava knew as Li said.

“You’re making a mistake,” Ava said.

Li shook his head. “This time you won’t surprise me.”

“No, I mean we’ve reached a deal with Johnny Kung. There’s no need for this.”

“That’s him. I’m me.”

“He’s not going to be happy.”

“Who gives a fuck?”

“He’s the one paying you.”

“By the day. We’re freelancers. No Kung, no money.”

“So why are you bothering with us?”

“We changed the plan. We figure we’ll trade you and the little asshole for Kung.”

The two men were directly in front of her, about ten metres away. Ava glanced quickly to her right and left. A group of pedestrians had stopped to take in the confrontation. They seemed more curious than concerned.

“That won’t work,” she said.

“Maybe not, but while we’re waiting for an answer, I’ll at least have the satisfaction of beating the shit out of him and you.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said.

“I don’t remember giving you a choice,” Li said, taking a step forward.

She took a step back, studying the two men as she did. Li’s partner had slid to one side, and Ava figured they would come at her from two directions. In the light of day, they looked even larger than they had when she saw them in the hotel and Li in the restaurant. But they also seemed bulkier, less agile and quick.

“Don’t try to run,” Li said.

“I’m not going anywhere without my partner,” she said.

“That’s true enough, so why don’t you make it easy on everyone and come along quietly,” Li said, and then waved his arm at the spectators. “We don’t want to scare all these people, do we?”

“Fuck off,” Ava said, not sure how the words had found their way out of her mouth, and surprised by their intensity.

Li’s face contorted and then he forced a smile. “Take the bitch from the left,” he said to his partner, as he took steps to the right.

They were still anticipating that she would run and were cutting off her escape routes. Li’s partner, looking uninterested and bored, started towards her almost casually. When he was a couple of paces away, he reached out to grab her arm. Ava retreated until her back found a wall. He leaned forward, slightly off balance, and his right hand gripped her left arm. The instant she felt his touch, her right hand crossed her body and latched onto his elbow. She dug her thumb into the soft flesh on the underside of the elbow and found the nerve she was seeking. She pressed hard, and he screamed and pulled back, his arm dangling uselessly by his side. She thought about hitting him, but Li had already moved in. She swivelled to face him.

He ran at her as he had in the restaurant, and she wondered why he thought that strategy would work this time. But as he drew near, he twisted to one side, and the phoenix-eye fist that Ava had aimed at his stomach hit him in the ribs. He groaned but didn’t stop. He threw a punch at her head. She ducked, only to have his fist smash into her shoulder and knock her against the wall. Li turned quickly to look at his partner. Beyond the two of them, Ava could see Andy trying to get to his feet and reaching into his pocket.

“Don’t use your gun,” she shouted at him.

Li flinched and took a quick look back at Andy. As he did, Ava drove her knuckle into his nose. She heard it pop, and was splattered with gushing blood. Li reeled, his left hand holding his nose, his right fist flailing at her. She leapt to her right and was about to bring him down with a kick to the back of his knee when her legs were swept from under her and she crashed onto the sidewalk. She looked up. Li’s partner loomed over her, his arm still dangling, a maniacal look on his face. She rolled away from him and then saw Andy limping towards them, his gun pointed.

“No,” she yelled.

Then a whistle screeched and she heard the sound of heavy boots on the sidewalk. Two policemen emerged through the ring of spectators.