Avenger by Chris Allen Read Free Book Online

of here?’” Morgan said.
    “Pretty much,” replied Sutherland. “She’ll probably need to extract within the next twenty-four hours. Now, she sent the code late last night, around eight pm. And if I know her, she sat on that decision for as long as she could before she decided to send it. That in turn prompted the general to pull you in from Tanzania. Hence, the late notice. I’m not expecting to hear anything from her again unless she actually needs to be extracted. Meanwhile, she has a scheduled meet with Inspector Lam at the Mong Kok Ladies’ Market this morning. It’s about twenty minutes’ drive from here, depending on traffic. If she shows as arranged at nine-thirty then all’s well. If not, Lam will contact me, and you and I will get our asses in the car, get into that goddamn sweatshop she’s been working in, find her and get her the hell outta there. Until then, we sit tight and wait.”
    “OK,” Morgan said, hoping they’d get the “all’s well” option rather than the alternative. He didn’t know how much fight he still had left in him.
    Sutherland’s cell phone buzzed. He checked the number. “It’s Lam,” he said to Morgan, then answered: “Go ahead.” Sutherland’s eyes remained fixed on Morgan as he listened.
    Morgan’s fists clenched and his right leg began to tap involuntarily as he watched Sutherland’s expression change from attentive to concerned. So, not the “all’s well” option then. Wordlessly, as Sutherland continued to listen, the two Intrepid agents left the room, heading for the hotel car park.

CHAPTER 8
Mong Kok Ladies’ Market
Kowloon, Hong Kong
    Inspector Victor Lam sat chain smoking and drinking too much coffee. To any passerby, he was just an average middle-aged man, thin and unremarkable, with a thatch of gray-black hair, wearing a cheap dark blue suit, shiny from overuse and smelling of old tobacco. He sat balanced precariously on a rickety metal chair, shoulders hunched, outwardly unconcerned by anything going on in the vicinity. His appearance belied his mental state. He noticed everything.
    Lam’s eyes, hidden behind unfashionable sunglasses, were feverishly studying the scene before him. He’d been in the game long enough to know that there was never a time for complacency and his unexpected run-in with Chan that morning had unsettled him. Lam had seen too many friends and colleagues lose their lives as a result of a momentary lapse of attention and he wasn’t about to join them. Underestimating Chan and the power and reach of his associates would be a fool’s mistake. In circles inhabited by crooks and cops – and crooked cops like Chan – life was cheap. Killing was nothing more than a thrill for the apprentices of the criminal class in the Kowloon underworld and, for someone like Chan, arranging for some street kid to put a knife in Lam’s back would be no more significant than stubbing out the cigarette he’d helped himself to earlier. While Lam was in no hurry to die, the thing that had caused him the most anxiety about their encounter that morning was Chan’s reference to “his little girlfriend.” So, although to all outward appearance he was calm, Lam was at the very limit of his composure. The phrase “dead by lunch” kept playing over and over in his mind.
    Fat Freddy Chan, a chief superintendent of police. Christ! What a joke – a dangerous joke.
    Lam waited anxiously for the girl to appear. Their operation was blown, that was clear, and it was time to pull her out – but what if she didn’t show? What if Chan and his associates had already got to her? No, he wouldn’t contemplate it. That kind of thinking was bad for morale. Lam reassured himself that making the call to the Interpol contact and telling him about his run-in with Chan, emphasizing his superior’s exact words, had been the right thing to do. It wasn’t panic, it was a legitimate action because, despite his sloppy appearance and general uselessness as a police