Hawke studied her expression, but she knew better than to give anything away. She kept calm and somehow even managed to yawn.
Finally she spoke. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it back in Greece, and if Eden says he’ll talk to you then so be it.”
“You can’t leave it at that, Lea. This is the second time I’ve risked my life for this guy. I respect you — you know that — and maybe…” he paused. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words I love you to her, not yet. “It’s just that I think I deserve some respect on this.”
Lea looked at him and kissed him. “Joe, it’s not for me to say. It wasn't back in Kefalonia and it’s not now. Back then when I started to speak with you I thought I was going to die and I wanted you to know something, but it’s not for me to tell you. It’s much bigger than that. I promise you this, when the time’s right Sir Richard will tell you just as he said he would, but please believe me when I tell you it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“That’s not good enough, Lea…”
Her face tightened, her old Rangers training kicking in. “It’s going to have to be, Joe, because it’s all you’re getting.”
Hawke saw something in her eyes change. She looked harder, like she had done the first time he’d met her back in London. Sometimes she was a beautiful woman, and other times she was a soldier again. He could forgive her that because once Liz had accused him of something similar — a great bloke one minute and a commando the next, she had said. Yet still the frustration grew in his heart, but he knew he had to trust her. It was all he could do.
“I just thought we had something,” he said. “And that’s not something I ever thought I would say again. Not after Hanoi.”
Lea turned in the sumptuous leather seat and brushed his arm with her hand. “We do have something, Joe. I want it too, but…”
Then Lexi returned from the cabin. “Bad news,” she said. “They just got a radio message from Jason Lao in Hong Kong. Apparently Johnny Chan was found dead in a shikumen lane about an hour ago. He’d been tortured for information and was missing several fingers. He’d been strangled to death. Jason says we should presume he told them everything about us taking the picture.”
“Great,” Lea said. “Sounds like they really went to town on the bastard.”
Lexi raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Lea said. “Did I say something funny?”
“It sounds like they went easy on him if you ask me. You obviously don’t know Sheng’s thug Luk if you think getting strangled to death is as bad as it gets.”
“However dangerous he is,” Hawke said firmly, his voice hardened by the vodka. “He’s up against the SBS now, and I’m in a very bad mood.”
“And the SAS and MI5,” said Scarlet from the back. She had woken up and joined them at the front of the small jet. “That should make up for the SBS, at least.”
Hawke smiled. He appreciated her support but her reference to MI5 only reminded him that she too was lying to him about her involvement with the Secret Intelligence Services.
“How is it that us SBS guys do everything you guys do, and then extra maritime training, and yet you still think you’re harder?”
“Glorified frogmen,” Scarlet said.
Hawke laughed. “Don’t forget the SBS went into World War Two first, with you guys finally joining in five months later…”
Lea changed the subject. “Either way it looks like we’re going to have a real war on our hands if we’re not careful. Remember, no one in the world knows what happened with Zaugg and just how close that nutcase got to the map.”
“Or experimenting with that damned trident,” Hawke said. He wondered where the trident was — maybe in some US underground facility surrounded by men in white coats and a shroud of secrecy.
Lea shuddered. “There was something very weird about that thing.”
Hawke nodded grimly and poured another vodka for himself. He offered some to Lexi who took it and drank straight from the bottle. She wiped her mouth and passed the bottle back to Hawke. “Thanks.”
“You’re… welcome,” he said, glancing at the amount of vodka she had taken without any apparent effect.
“So is this a problem?” Lea said.
“Not at all,” Lexi said. “I learned to drink in the Chinese Navy.”
“I meant Chan,” said Lea, rolling her eyes.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Hawke. “Chan didn’t know who we were, our names or anything about us. He couldn’t have given them any information that would put us in jeopardy, not for the time being, anyway — no matter how much they tortured him.”
“If I get my hands on this Luk character he’ll wish he’d never been born,” Scarlet said, and took the bottle from Hawke. “Anyone have a glass? It’s terribly uncouth to drink straight from the bottle, don’t you think, Lexi?”
Lexi made no reply, other than looking daggers at her.
“Certainly sounds like this Sheng character is serious about getting hold of that map,” Lea said.
“Sheng Fang is serious about everything,” said Lexi. “I told you that back in Shanghai. You should always listen to Lexi Zhang. That’s what I say.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ryan finished his coffee and walked to the minibar for something stronger. Years ago he’d filled his late night computer hacking with cannabis and super strength lager, but these days he was more sophisticated. He passed Sophie a cold bottle — Hart declined with a frown — and they settled back into the research. They all knew Hawke and the others were depending on them, maybe even placing their lives in their hands.
Hart stepped up. “So where are we, Ryan?”
“Apparently Anton Reichardt was Hoffmann’s doctoral supervisor, and he spent his entire life searching for the secret of eternal life until he died around twenty years ago, according to this he burned himself out in the search.”
“Talk about irony,” Hart said.
Ryan ignored her. “Reichardt had worked out that all of this revolves around something called the Secret History of the Mongols.”
“The what?”
“The Secret History of the Mongols. It looks like everything we’re dealing with here in China goes back to it,” Ryan said, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he unlocked more and more of Hoffmann’s most confidential research.
“Keep talking.”
“The Secret History has twelve chapters and famously disappeared hundreds of years ago, but Reichardt seems to have worked out that not only does it still exist but that there are thirteen chapters in it — the missing final chapter being the key to our puzzle.”
“How so?”
“There was a translation made and the secret message written on the back of the Xi Shi portrait in milk of tithymalus was actually put there by the monk who had been asked to make a translation into Chinese by the Mongolians, so the existence of the thirteenth chapter wasn’t lost forever.”
“Why would a monk do that?”
“This is where old Reichardt really hots up! As I say, the original Secret History of the Mongols is twelve chapters long, but according to this there was a thirteenth chapter, but the Mongolians forbade the monk from making a translation of it because…”
“Because it contained the part of Genghis Khan’s life when he was searching for the secret of eternal life?” said Sophie.
“Exactly! At some point the Mongolians must have made some kind of discovery with reference to the hunt for immortality and recorded it within the Secret History, but when they had the translations made they stopped the final chapter from being told to the rest of the world.”