Sad Wind From the Sea - Jack Higgins [14]
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