Milton was soaked to the skin by the time he found the motorcycle shop on Wanagiri. There was a lay-by beyond the tin-roofed shack that passed for the shop. The shack looked to be held together by the rust on the metal slats. Leather straps held the roof to the rest of the structure. The wind had worked beneath one panel and was lifting it up and dropping it back down, the sound of the metallic slaps ringing out through the howl of the weather.

The lay-by marked the entrance to a network of dirt roads that led into what looked to Milton like run-down residential areas. Ragged signs advertising local hotels fluttered in the wind, and a pack of stray dogs stared at him from underneath a wooden lean-to shelter. The downpour had cleared the streets of most foot traffic, with only a few hardy souls braving the wet. Milton sloshed through rain-filled potholes before dismounting and pushing the scooter to the end of the line of mopeds that had been arranged outside the shop. He jogged over to a car that had been covered with a tarpaulin and sheltered as best he could under a canopy of palm fronds while he waited for Victoria.

* * *

Katsuro couldn’t stop thinking about the consequences of letting his father down. Their relationship went beyond the familial; the Nishimoto-kai was a shadow of what it once was, but Takashi was the head of the family, and Katsuro’s standing within it would not insulate him from the consequences of failure. His father was traditional to a fault, and the notion of being discredited filled Katsuro with dread. Would his father make him apologise in the traditional way? Katsuro knew that he would. Yubitsume—the removal of a fingertip—would be painful, but the pain would pass.

The shame would not.

He reached down for his bag and pulled out a small folder full of individual sheets of paper that were, in turn, protected by plastic sleeves. He leafed through the papers until he found the one he wanted. Across the top of the sheet were two crests: the first had a building within a circle, surrounded by laurel leaves with a black banner underneath, and was the official crest of the Hong Kong Police Force; the second crest belonged to Detachment 88, the much-feared counter-terrorism unit of the Indonesian police.