Hawke smiled. “But we all know what to do with urges, don’t we, Lexi?”
“Yeah,” Scarlet said, stepping forward. “And I am actually in the room with you two right now, you realize that?”
Her words startled Hawke, who had apparently forgotten she was actually in the room with him and the beautiful Chinese agent.
“Sorry,” he mumbled unapologetically. “Lexi, this is Cairo Sloane, Cairo — meet Lexi Zhang, otherwise known as Dragonfly. She recently broke into my hotel room in search of information relating to Poseidon…”
“Pleased to meet you,” Lexi said.
“Likewise, and it’s Scarlet,” she said, frowning at Hawke. “No one calls me Cairo anymore. Now we’ve got that out the way, perhaps we can get to business?”
“Business?” Lexi said, turning to Hawke. “And here I was thinking you had flown to Hong Kong for pleasure.” She ran a gentle finger up the length of his arm all the way to his shoulder.
Hawke frowned. “Sorry Lexi, but this time it really is business.”
“This time?” Scarlet said, raising an eyebrow.
Lexi smiled. “Joe and I go way back. We met in Zambia where… well, let’s just say our interests collided.”
“Oh, God,” Scarlet said. “Is there a drink around here?”
Lexi glared at Scarlet for a second and then turned to a drinks cabinet. She poured three glasses of iced vodka with mint and handed them to the others. They sat down and Hawke tried hard not to notice the flash of her tights in the lamplight as she crossed her legs.
“Why did you kill Felix Hoffmann, Lexi?” Hawke was blunt and to the point.
Scarlet shot a glance at Hawke. “What are you talking about, Joe?”
”Let her answer.”
Lexi was unfazed. She sipped her drink and took a moment to watch the gentle whirring of the ceiling fan which cooled them silently from above.
“What makes you think I killed him?” she asked.
“Come off it, Lexi. A friend of mine sent me the Paris Métro CCTV — it has him being chased off a platform and into a tunnel by what is pretty obviously a woman of your height and build. Not only that, a policeman found a tiny origami dragonfly blowing along the tracks.”
“It looks bad, I know,” Lexi said. “But you know me, Joe. If I had killed him and wanted the fact to remain unknown then I would not have done those things.”
“Maybe, or maybe you just can't help yourself. The thrill of the hunt and all that.”
Lexi smiled. “You are such a cynic, Joe! But I’m being serious — I did not touch Hoffmann, I swear it. I would admit it easily enough if I had. You know me, Joe.”
“You mean you’re not exactly backward in coming forward?”
Lexi shrugged her shoulders and finished her drink. “I swear to you, Joe. I did not kill Hoffmann.”
Hawke evaluated her for a moment, using his NLP training to check for any small sign she was lying.
Lexi spoke next. “This friend of yours is Sir Richard Eden, right?”
Hawke nodded. “You know it is.”
“And he sent you after me, right?”
“No. He sent me here to find a missing friend. After I arrived he told me Hoffmann was murdered just after we spoke and I thought of you. He was chased out of a nightclub in Paris in the middle of the night and tried to flee into the Métro.”
“And I was here in Hong Kong the whole time. How could I have killed him?”
“Easy enough with a private plane at your disposal.”
Lexi said nothing, and sipped her drink.
“Well?”
“Obviously, someone framed me — presumably the same people who were tailing you in the city tonight. When Lao briefed me about Hoffmann’s death he told me he wants to know who’s behind all this as much as you and your boss. Tell me, how is the enigmatic Sir Richard these days?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Hawke said. “He’s not my boss.”
Scarlet leaned forward and joined the conversation. “You could say Hawke’s on probation, darling.”
Now it was Hawke who shot Scarlet the glance.
Scarlet ignored it. “Now, do tell us what you know about this poor Hoffmann chap, and why I was dragged from my bed in Dubai to fly to Hong Kong in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, I don't think I like you at all,” Lexi said, and turned to Hawke. “We’ve been watching Hoffmann for some time.”
Scarlet raised her eyebrow and sank back into the chair.
“And by ‘we’ you mean the Chinese Ministry of State Security?” Hawke asked.
“Many agencies were watching Hoffmann due to the nature of his research. He left a trail of flagged keywords behind him like a line of bread crumbs — he was probably oblivious to the attention he was drawing to himself.”
“And what were these keywords, my dear?” Scarlet purred.
Lexi continued talking only to Hawke, never taking her eyes off him for a moment and not once acknowledging Scarlet. “Mr Hoffmann was a private researcher of limited funds, and it was obvious someone else with considerable means was funding his research, Joe. He used those funds to fuel a lifelong obsession with ancient Chinese mythology.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Hawke asked flatly.
“Nothing… and everything.”
“Explain.”
“You see, Felix Hoffmann started digging too deep into something that has concerned certain — how shall I put it — powerful agencies here in China for a very long time.”
“Like who?” Hawke finally felt as if he were getting somewhere for the first time since landing in the city.
“My boss will explain more in the morning.”
“And what about Lea Donovan?” he asked firmly. “Have you heard anything about her?”
“Sorry, no. I didn't even know she was in Hong Kong.”
Hawke frowned and absent-mindedly scratched the back of his neck. He found this hard to believe, but either way it was another dead end for now.
“Like I said, you need to talk to my boss.” Lexi handed them a business card. “Be there on time.”
Outside, Scarlet lit a cigarette and exhaled a cloud into the warm air. “Interesting woman. If I could ask her, what would your little Nightingale friend tell me about the Dragonfly?”
“She would tell you that Lexi Zhang is a ruthless assassin working mostly for the Chinese Ministry of State Security but not above private contracts. Oxford-educated at Christ Church College, fluent in several Chinese dialects, Japanese and English. Family history unknown, at least to Western intelligence agencies. Probably responsible for the death of at least three presidents in the last five years.”
Scarlet nodded her head appreciatively. “And you think she’s the one who killed this Hoffmann guy?”
“Maybe. I know she protested her innocence, but Lexi Zhang could lie her way out of quicksand.”
“I have no trouble believing that. Listen, Joe…”
Hawke watched a wave of doubt cross Scarlet’s face — not an emotion that spent a lot of time bothering Cairo Sloane. “What’s the matter?”
“There’s something you need to know.”
“Don’t tell me… something about Sir Richard Eden?”
Scarlet looked at him sharply for a moment. “Why would you say that?”
“Just a crazy hunch…”
“Well yes, there is something you don’t know about Eden. In fact there’s something you don’t know about any of this, but I’m not authorized to tell you. It’s just that with Lea missing I think it’s important you know the truth.”