“I want my son released, then I will cooperate.”
Sung sighed, cackled.
“You find it funny?” Ho asked coldly.
“You don’t?” the younger brother butted in. His voice was oddly effeminate, completely at odds with his macho stance.
“Ho’s hanging tough,” I whispered to Mary who was standing beside me in the police van.
“Hope he doesn’t overdo it.”
I turned back to the screen and saw Lin Sung take a step closer to Ho. “We have the boy,” he said slowly, “but we need assurances. Surely you understand that? If we return him to you, what is to say you will cooperate?”
“You have my word.”
It was the younger brother, Lin Jing’s turn to produce a half-assed laugh. “Ah! Your word!” he said, nodding his head. In an instant his mirth had vanished and he pulled a gun, a Type 64, from his waistband. His brother, Lin Sung, saw it and glared at him, but he didn’t flinch.
Ho looked from one man to the other.
“This isn’t going well,” Mary hissed in my ear.
Yender’s voice came through the comms. “Hold positions. No one move ’til I say.”
Sung deliberately moved closer to his brother and slightly in front of him. “We are all reasonable men,” he said and tilted his head slightly as he appraised Ho Meng. “I understand you want your boy back, but you have to put yourself into our position, Mr. Ho.” Then he turned and snapped his fingers at the man standing by the hood of the Merc. He walked to the back door and opened it.
“You may see your son.”
The driver leaned in and helped Ho Dai climb out. The young man’s hands were tied behind his back and he looked petrified. He had a bloody wound where his left ear had been. He caught sight of his father and went to speak. “Say nothing!” Lin Jing barked, then whirled round to Ho again, his gun raised.
“There. Your brat’s safe. Now we talk.”
“What is it you want from me?”
“At last …!” the younger gangster exclaimed, but his brother cut over him.
“Your business provides a perfect cover for one of our … trade plans.”
“Drugs … You want me to get heroin in.”
Sung smiled, nodded.
“And in return?” Ho flicked a look at his son who was still standing by the car, the driver gripping his right arm.
“When you have proven your worth, he will be released.”
Ho gave Sung a venomous look. “No deal,” he said and started to turn.
“You mother-fuc …” the younger brother bellow
ed and began to squeeze the trigger of his Type 64.
“GO!” yelled Yender through the comms.
Chapter 90
FOR A COUPLE of seconds it was sensory overload. Shouts from the assault team, yells and thuds from the warehouse floor. On the screen, a smudge of movement through the night vision lens. Ho fell to the floor. I couldn’t tell if he’d been shot or dived to avoid a bullet. Then Sung spun on his brother. Ho rolled to one side as the younger brother fired a second bullet. Sung was just yanking Lin Jing’s arm down when the assault team in full body armor burst through into the warehouse from two different directions, screaming as they went, Enfield SA-80s leveled.
The younger Lin reacted instinctively. Pumped up, he dived for cover, headed for a pile of metal drums to his left and fired at the approaching cops. Before he could reach the barrels he was ripped open by at least three different weapons and crumpled in a heap.