Free Nine Dragons - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories Book 2) by Mark Dawson Page A

Grace. I’m the only person who knows where you are. The triads won’t find you if you stay here. Can you do that?”
    “How long will you be?”
    “An hour. No more.”
    The girl’s jaw stiffened and she nodded.
    “Stay in the room,” Beatrix repeated. She took the Do Not Disturb sign, opened the door, and hooked it over the handle. “Don’t open the door, not for anyone. Okay?”
    She nodded again.
    Beatrix smiled at her, patted her pocket to confirm that she still had the thumb drive, and left the room.
    #
    THE HOTEL was at 139 Bonham Strand. Beatrix asked for directions to a place where she could access the Internet. The woman behind the desk suggested the business centre, but Beatrix asked for somewhere outside the hotel. The woman shrugged, and, with a little buzz of amused disdain, pointed out of the front door and south to Aberdeen Street. Beatrix thanked her and walked the six hundred metres to the 908 Cyber Café.
    She paid for a terminal. There was no time to use the Facebook dead-drop. There was a payphone on the wall in the back of the café and she used it to call Chau, telling him where she was and that she needed to see him.
    #
    CHAU ARRIVED thirty minutes later.
    “What is happening?”
    She explained how the triads had visited the apartment block again and how, after they had forced their way into her flat, she had killed them all and escaped.
    “All?”
    “I didn’t have much choice, Chau.”
    His face went pale and she saw his fingers begin to tremble against the table.
    “How many?”
    “Six.”
    “ Six! ”
    She nodded.
    “I cannot clean six triad!” he hissed.
    She leaned forwards against the table. “I don’t want you to clean them, Chau. They will have been found by now. I’m not proposing to go back there.”
    “Then you must leave Hong Kong.” He frowned for a minute, becoming even paler as he recognised the consequences. “Maybe I must leave Hong Kong.”
    She reached across and gripped his wrist. “Calm down, Chau. I need you to relax.”
    “How can I relax—”
    “Because it’s not very likely that Ying will know who I am. He’s never seen me. The men he sent to find the girl are all dead. They can’t describe me to him, and, even if they could, how would he know who I am?”
    “Blonde Western woman, very dangerous, good with a gun? I think he will guess.”
    “He won’t know yet.”
    “Then he will ask your landlord.”
    “My landlord has never seen me.”
    “Then he will ask your neighbours. They will have noticed. You are different. You will stand out.”
    “We’re fine for now, Chau.”
    “For now?”
    “For now.”
    He looked at her with suspicion. “Why do I think I am not going to like what you are about to say?”
    “Those men were looking for something at the flat. That’s why the first man was there. I think I have it.”
    She reached into her pocket and pulled out the thumb drive.
    “What is on it?”
    “I have no idea.”
    She took the stick and pushed it into the computer’s USB port. It detected the drive and displayed the single file that had been stored there.
    It was labelled in Mandarin:
    趙
    It had a .mov extension and a suggested duration of three minutes.
    “What does it say?”
    He squinted at the screen. “It is a name. Zhào.”
    “Mean anything to you?”
    “No. It is a common name.”
    Beatrix had chosen a computer in the corner of the room that was not overlooked and, after glancing over her shoulder to double-check, she clicked the file. The default video viewer opened and the video played.
    The footage showed a bedroom. Beatrix paused for a moment before she realised that she recognised it. It was the bedroom in Grace’s apartment. She recalled the patterned sheets on the futon and the picture of a vase of flowers that had been hung on the wall. The camera was placed in the corner of the room and was at a low height. She guessed that it had been concealed in something, a bag, perhaps. A blind had been pulled down