An argument in the back of the warehouse suddenly got Broken Tooth’s attention. He turned to see one of the triad guards standing in the doorway, jamming his palm into the chest of a Chinese man. The man wore a Bluetooth earpiece and waved an envelope in the air as he tried to maneuver into the warehouse. “I have a delivery for Mr. Lao,” the infiltrator said loudly.

“There is no Mr. Lao here. Go away,” Broken Tooth said, but the deliveryman was insistent.

“Mr. Lao! Mr. Lao!” he cried out.

Triad soldiers covered in gang tattoos began circling the deliveryman, shielding his view of Broken Tooth and Cobus and the illicit activities happening behind them. The deliveryman froze. “Please, I know nothing. I will just leave,” he pleaded.

He tried to step toward the door, but a triad blocked his path.

Cobus feared for the deliveryman’s life as the triads turned to Broken Tooth, waiting for him to decide the man’s fate.

Broken Tooth instructed his men to search their captive. They found only a wallet, which they handed to Broken Tooth.

Broken Tooth took out the frightened man’s driver’s license and photographed it before returning the wallet. “There’s no Mr. Lao here,” he grunted. “Now, go.”

The deliveryman turned, still clutching the envelope, and departed. Walking back to the car, he resisted the urge to break into a sprint, for fear that it might get him shot in the back.

It seemed an eternity before he reached the end of the block and got back in the front seat of his taxi, ashen and trembling. Earlier that evening, just after he picked up the American at the Sands, his fare had asked if he wouldn’t mind hand-delivering a package for him. The driver had suggested he could wait while the American dropped it off himself, but the man had insisted he didn’t want Mr. Lao to know he was in town. He then sweetened the deal by offering an extra thousand Hong Kong dollars for the errand.

When the driver stopped at the warehouse on the docks as directed, the American had upsold him once again, insisting that he wear a Bluetooth earpiece with a hidden camera to confirm that Mr. Lao had received the package personally. The driver protested, but the American insisted that he provide proof if he wanted the reward for delivering the letter to the fictional Mr. Lao.

Knight sat behind the driver, letting him catch his breath. Disinterested in the driver’s fragile emotional state, Knight asked him for the earpiece so he could review the footage of the delivery.

“Mr. Lao wasn’t there,” the driver muttered as he handed back the earpiece with the camera.