LITMIR.BIZ

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then sat smoking a cigarette and thinking about it. After a while he opened a drawer and producing a map unrolled it on the desk. ‘Look at this, boy,’ he said. ‘From here to the Kwai Marshes the coast is alive with gunboats and on top of them you’ve got the pirates. You wouldn’t stand a chance.’

      Hagen nodded. ‘All right. It’s going to be difficult, but it could be done.’

      Charlie lit a cigarette thoughtfully and then said: ‘Wouldn’t you be better off in a motor sampan? You’d look like an ordinary fisherman from one of the coast villages.’

      Hagen shook his head and said decisively: ‘No, I don’t agree. This whole thing has only one chance of success—speed. It’s got to be done so fast that we’re in and out with the gold before they know what’s happened. To do that successfully I need a fast boat and mine’s the best on the coast, as nobody knows better than you.’

      Charlie Beale grinned. ‘All right! So your boat saved my neck once. I’ve paid for that favour a long time ago.’

      Hagen nodded. ‘I know, but I’m not asking for favours now. This is a business proposition.’

      Charlie shook his head. ‘Is it hell a business proposition. It’s a gamble, but on the other hand I’m a gambler as well as being a business man.’ He studied the map for a couple of minutes without saying anything and Hagen sat with sweating palms praying for the right reply. ‘What would you need in the way of equipment?’ he said at last.

      Hagen had his answer off pat. ‘Next to nothing. The boat is lying on a sandy bottom at a depth of twenty-five feet. The job should be easy. I’ve got an aqua-lung. A block and tackle to haul up the gold is easily rigged. The main thing is the money to pay that damned fine so I can get my boat back.’

      Charlie nodded. ‘That’s not so bad. The whole thing could be done for peanuts.’

      Hagen suddenly remembered something. ‘One thing more,’ he said. ‘Important! I’ll need some good automatic weapons and possibly a few grenades.’ Charlie frowned and Hagen added, ‘It would be silly to lose the gold simply because of an inability to defend the boat properly.’

      ‘All right,’ Charlie said. ‘That would be difficult, though. It’s pretty hard to get that kind of stuff these days. Who would you take with you?’

      Hagen had the answer to that one, too. ‘The girl, of course. She might get suspicious otherwise, and I need a deck-hand. O’Hara would be best. A Chinese boy might be a Commie plant.’

      Charlie Beale snorted. ‘What good would that old rummy O’Hara be? He gets the shakes if he doesn’t have his two bottles of rot-gut a day.’

      Hagen grinned. ‘I know, but when he’s sober he’s a damned fine sailor and at least he can be depended on to keep his mouth shut.’ Besides, he’s a friend of mine.’

      There was a long period of silence and a light breeze rattled the slats of the bamboo window-blind. Hagen lit a cigarette nervously and waited. Charlie studied the map and fiddled with an ivory-handled paper-knife. Suddenly he straightened up and put down the knife. ‘Okay, Mark,’ he said. ‘Come back tomorrow. Not too early, not too late. I’ll think about it.’

      Hagen kept his face straight as he left the office and clattered down the stairs and out into the crowded street. A tiny finger of excitement moved inside him and his face broke into a broad grin. Charlie had bitten. The whole thing was set. A feeling of tremendous confidence and hope surged through him. Very soon now, perhaps in a matter of days, he would be on that ferry going over to Kowloon. Then there would be a plane winging its way across the Pacific and then suddenly he knew that he didn’t want to go back to the States. There was nothing left there for him. He considered the point and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Ireland was the place. A country house with plenty of liquor and good horses.

      It was thinking about Ireland that made him remember O’Hara and he decided to find the old man. He worked his way along the waterfront calling in all the bars and gin-palaces. He spent an hour in this way and was about to give up the search when he found O’Hara in one of the worst dives in Macao. A large French sailor with a Marseilles accent had the old man half over a table, holding him firmly with one ham-like fist while he poured beer over him with the other. Hagen pushed his way through the laughing, drunken crowd of spectators, picked up the nearest chair and crashed it down on the Frenchman’s head and shoulders. The chair splintered a little and the man sagged to the floor without a sound. Hagen slung O’Hara over his shoulder and the crowd respectfully parted to let him through.

      He called a rickshaw and dumped O’Hara in it, then walked beside it until they came to the seedy hovel the old man called home. He carried him upstairs and dumped him on the bed in his room. From the looks of him O’Hara had been on the bottle for at least two days. Hagen locked the door from the outside and put the key in his pocket.

      Night was beginning to fall when he reached his hotel. There was a new desk-clerk on duty, a thin, vicious-looking Chinese. ‘Any messages?’ Hagen asked.

      ‘No, Captain Hagen. No messages,’ the man replied.

      Hagen was half-way up the stairs when it suddenly occurred to him that the man had known his name and then he began to wonder what had happened to the other desk-clerk. He walked softly up to his door and stood listening for a while. He decided that he was being silly and unlocked the door and went in.

      When he turned on the light there was a man sitting on the bed gazing pensively at the wall. He was small and dark and impeccably dressed in white sharkskin. His gloved hands were folded over a silver-topped Malacca cane. Hagen leaned against the door, lit a cigarette and waited. Small, black, shining eyes had swivelled to a position from which they could observe him. The man half-turned his body and, still remaining seated, raised his panama and said in clipped, precise English, ‘Have I the honour of addressing Captain Hagen?’

      Hagen decided that he was too charming. The eyes were deadly and unwinking like those of a puff-adder, despite the polite, birdlike expression on the face. Hagen blew a cloud of smoke in his direction and said, ‘Look, I’m busy, so kindly state your business and then get the hell out of here.’

      The little man half-lifted his cane reprovingly and smiled like a father dealing with a recalcitrant son. ‘Captain Hagen, how would you like to earn twenty thousand American dollars very easily? No risk, in fact no trouble at all’

      Hagen walked into the bathroom and came back with the gin bottle and two glasses. He poured the drinks and they sat side by side on the bed without speaking. He knew that this must be someone very special. A Russian working for the Reds in China would hold a very high position. They must be pretty determined to get their hands on that gold. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. ‘How are things in Moscow these days?’ he said.

      The Russian smiled and inclined his head. ‘I bow to your perspicacity, Captain. However, I have not been in Moscow, or indeed in Russia, for ten years, and between ourselves’—and here he lowered his voice with a conspiratorial air—‘the arrangement suits me perfectly. I find the Oriental way of life very appealing, Captain. The standards, the moral values, even the food, are all infinitely more preferable. What comparison can be made between a brawny collective-farm girl and the fragile Eastern blossoms that are to be found in various parts of this city?’

      The Russian’s eyes became smoky and a dreamy look came over his face. Hagen shuddered with distaste but he had to find out what the other side were up to. He schooled his face to smile. ‘How do I earn twenty thousand so easily?’

      The Russian’s face broke into a radiant smile and he stood up and formally clicked his heels. ‘Ah, so we can do business? My name is Kossoff, Captain Hagen.’ He extended his hand formally and then went on, ‘My principals will pay you the agreed sum of money if you will lead them to the position of a certain boat which sank, I believe, somewhere in the vicinity of the Kwai Marshes.’

      Hagen put back his head and laughed. ‘What do you take me for?’ he said.

      Kossoff smiled thinly. ‘I

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