Dragon Head - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories Book 3) Read Free Page B

surgically improved. As one of the girls put her hand on his elbow and said something to him, his smile did not crinkle his brow.
    They paused at the desk. Beatrix went by them, nodding her thanks as the doorman opened the door for her. She took the cigarettes from her bag.
    A stretch Hummer was bullying its way to the front of the queue of taxis. She scoped it quickly: a black paint job that glittered in the light, big truck tyres and twenty-inch custom chrome rims, blacked-out windows to all aspects, hazard lights blinking on and off.
    A Land Rover Discovery followed.
    Chau’s gaudy Mercedes CLA was parked half a block away. She saw the flash of red paint against the side of the road.
    Beatrix lit the cigarette and put it to her lips as the door of the hotel was opened for the group, the doorman giving a full bow. She stayed twenty feet away. A driver emerged from the Hummer and opened the door. Gao and the two women got inside. The Discovery pulled up behind the limousine and the two guards got inside.
    Beatrix took out her cell phone and called Chau.
    “Yes?”
    “Gao’s on the move. You see the Hummer?”
    “Yes.”
    “Follow it. I’ll be behind.”
    She put the phone away and strolled to the two cars before they could pull away. The Discovery was new, and immaculately clean inside and out. The three men were big and she heard them speak in German as she passed the open window. Private security, she thought. Would they be armed? Very likely. She would need to neutralise them regardless of whether they were or not. She reached the Hummer just as it was rolling away. The back windows were opaque, but one had been opened a little. She could hear raucous conversation from inside before the vehicle pulled into traffic and the laughter was absorbed into the constant hum of the city.
    Chau followed. He was completely unsuitable to mount a successful surveillance pursuit, but, since he would have been even less suitable to run the surveillance inside the hotel, she had concluded that it was the lesser of two evils.
    She dropped the cigarette into a drain, flagged down a cab, gave the driver a fifty, and told him to follow Chau’s car.

CHAPTER FIVE
    CHAU RELAYED the location of the Hummer. They were headed north. He told her that he had guessed their destination when they were half a mile away. When he reported that the Hummer had stopped outside the Lisboa, he did so with some satisfaction. He said that it was a triad gambling club, tolerated by the police because the management was exceptionally generous in the size of the kickbacks that they made so that they would look the other way.
    “What about the Land Rover?”
    “There is parking lot. It is there.”
    “And the men?”
    “There are street vendors. Men have stopped for food. Must be hungry.”
    “Fine. Drive on, park up and then come back on foot. You know what to do.”
    “Yes, Beatrix.”
    She told the driver to stop, got out and walked the rest of the way.
    #
    BEATRIX SAW the three men. They were sitting at a picnic table, eating from three cartons of noodles. They had arranged themselves so that they were facing the casino, able to observe the comings and goings. She heard German again. They were laughing and joking. They had the look of soldiers, with large builds and short cropped hair. One of the men had a cell phone on the table. Beatrix guessed that they would wait here until Gao needed them. The casino would have its own security. They would only be required again when he came out. He would call and they would resume their duties.
    The parking lot was behind them. The Discovery was taller than the other cars around it and she found it without difficulty. It was parked so that it could not be obstructed should they need to drive away quickly, but it was far enough away that she knew that they wouldn’t be able to see her if she was careful.
    There was a Mercedes SLK parked alongside it. She ducked down to a low crouch and made her way between the