The text of the letter introduced Katsuro to whoever was reading it as a senior member of the Hong Kong Police Force. According to the text—in both English and Indonesian—Katsuro was seconded to Detachment 88 on an important national security mission and was to be afforded every professional courtesy available. It was complete fiction, but the letter looked official enough to pass muster by a local policeman, particularly when it was accompanied by the excellent forged identity card that Katsuro had in his wallet. He knew that he could pass for Chinese, and the chances of meeting anyone who spoke Cantonese better than he did were rare, especially here. He wasn’t fluent in the language, but when he was younger, he had studied in Hong Kong for a semester. Good enough.

His plan was simple: he would walk into the police station and take Sakura into his custody. The chances of a local policeman having the gall to question a Detachment 88 order were slim, but, in the event that he was unfortunate, he had his Glock. Either way, he would be leaving with her this evening. And then he would find out what she had done with the shipment.

He had just reached for the door handle, ready to turn it and step out into the rain, when a white Toyota Hilux rumbled past. The truck pulled off the road, emptying the potholes as it splashed through them. It came to a stop perhaps fifty feet away and, as Katsuro watched, a white Western man—six feet tall, bearded, dark hair plastered to his scalp by the rain—stepped out from next to a corrugated metal shack and walked over to the truck. Katsuro didn’t recognise him, or the vehicle into which he had climbed, but there was something about the incongruence of it that gave him pause. Why was a Westerner waiting outside the police station in the rain? It was curious, and he wondered whether he could have anything to do with Sakura.

And then he remembered what he had seen at the airport. Sakura had been assisted by a dark-haired, bearded Western man of around the same height. The visibility in the rain was such that it was impossible to say that this might be the same man, but it didn’t seem as if it was such a stretch.

Katsuro reached for his Glock. He would watch for a moment. Perhaps he had been fortunate and found a way to redeem himself in his father’s eyes. He would find Sakura, murder whoever it was who had involved himself in family business, and deliver the drugs to the premans as arranged.

Perhaps he would be able to absolve himself of blame after all.

36

Milton wiped the rain from his face. The driver’s window slid down and Victoria looked out.

“Hop in,” she said.

Milton made his way to the passenger side and pulled the door open, climbing gratefully into the cab.