Typhoon Read Free

the area over the weekend. To take the opportunity to look for the egrets that are native to the inlet at this time of year. Perhaps you have seen one on your patrol?”
    “No,” Anderson said. “I haven’t.” He wouldn’t have known what an egret looked like. “Could you show me some form of identification, please?”
    Wang managed to look momentarily off ended. “Oh, I don’t carry that sort of thing.” As if to illustrate the point, he made a show of frisking himself, patting his hands up and down his chest before securing them in his pockets. “It is a pity you have not seen an egret. An elegant bird. But you enjoy our surroundings, no? I am told—although I have never visited there myself—that the hills in this part of the New Territories are very similar in geographical character to certain areas of the Scottish Highlands. Is that correct?”
    “Aye, that’s probably true.” Anderson was from Stranraer, a pan-flat town in the far south-west, but the comparison had been made many times before. “I’m sorry, sir. I can see that you’re carrying binoculars, I can see that you’re probably who you say you are, but I’m going to have to ask you again for a passport or driving licence. Do you not carry any form of identification?”
    It was the moment of truth. Had Angus Anderson been a different kind of man—less certain of himself, perhaps more trusting of human behaviour—the decade of events triggered by Wang’s subsequent capture might have assumed an entirely different character. Had the professor been allowed, as he so desperately desired, to proceed unmolested all the way to Government House, the name of Joe Lennox might never have been uttered in the secret corridors of Shanghai and Urumqi and Beijing. But it was Wang’s misfortune that quiet April morning to encounter a sharp-eyed Scot who had rumbled him for a fake almost immediately. This chogie was no birdwatcher. This chogie was an illegal.
    “I have told you. I don’t usually carry any form of identification with me.”
    “Not even a credit card?”
    “My name is Wang Kaixuan, I am a professor of economics at the university here in Hong Kong. Please telephone the department switchboard if you feel uncertain. On a Wednesday morning my colleagues are usually at their desks by eight o’clock. I live at 71 Hoi Wang Road, Yau Ma Tei, apartment number 19. I can understand that the Black Watch regiment has an important job to do in these difficult months but I have lived in Hong Kong ever since I was a child.”
    Anderson unclipped his radio. It would only take ten seconds to call in the sighting. He seemed to have no other option. This guy was a conman, using tactics of questions and bluster to throw him off the scent. Leung’s unit could be down in a police patrol boat before seven o’clock. Let them sort it out.
    “Nine, this is One Zero, over.”
    Wang now had a choice to make: sustain the lie, and allow the soldier to haul him in front of Immigration, which carried the risk of immediate deportation back to China, or make a move for the radio, engendering a physical confrontation with a Scotsman half his age and almost twice his height. In the circumstances, it felt like no choice at all.
    He had knocked the radio out of Anderson’s hand before the soldier had time to react. As it spun into the sand Anderson swore and heard Wang say, “I am sorry, I am sorry,” as he stepped away. Something in this surrendering, apologetic gesture briefly convinced him not to strike back. For some time the two men stared at one another without speaking until a crackled voice in the sand said: “One Zero, this is Nine. Go ahead, over,” and it became a case of who would blink first. Anderson bent down, keeping his eyes on Wang all the time, and retrieved the radio as if picking up a revolver from the ground. Wang looked at the barrel of Anderson’s rifle and began to speak.
    “Please, sir, do not answer that radio. All I am asking is that you