Authors: W.J. Stopforth
Six Months Earlier
Lily had everything ready for her Grandmother. She’d been working
night and day over the last month to get everything in place and now it was
time. Now Lily sat in the drawing room of her family home, the midday sun
pouring through the framed windows. Lily looked around her and allowed herself
to relax a little. She loved this room. Everything was so familiar and
comfortable, and relatively unchanged over the years.
She had chosen to sit on one of the comfortable mink
coloured
shot velvet couches that faced the
centre
of the room. Behind her on the vast back wall hung
panels of painted silk with dramatic mountain scenes, and sunsets all hand
painted. They had started to yellow slightly with age around the edges, but the
paint was as vibrant as the day the brush touched the ink. Under her feet was
an elegant carved carpet. It had been in the house for as long as Lily could
remember. Rich with red, gold and yellow exotic birds and bordered with ornate
oriental flowers that climbed and twisted across the floor.
She had placed her laptop on the low Elm wood Kang table in front of
her. The exact place where years before she had knelt on the floor to do her
homework. To her left, toward the main entrance of the room, stood a large
wooden tea chest that held a pale grey stone sculpture. Lily knew this piece so
well. It was the Goddess of Mercy. Her Grandmother had been named after this
Goddess and her Grandfather had bought the ancient sculpture for his wife as a
birthday gift one year. Towards the French windows that led onto the terrace
was a large antique lacquered screen in black and ornate gold. She remembered
hiding behind this as a child and being scolded by her Grandmother when the
Amah and cook had searched the house from top to bottom, only to eventually
discover her there.
The door opened and one of the maids came in carrying a bamboo tea
tray. She placed it on the low table and smiled at Lily. “Your Grandmother is
just coming.” The young girl said and smiled.
Lily nodded and replied with a ‘thank you’ and busied herself with
preparing the tea. Her Grandmother was very traditional and insisted on tea
ceremonies during every family visit. Lily had been taught from a young age and
it was expected that each time she came, a ceremony would take place.
Today they had Jasmine tea, one of Lily’s
favourites
.
Not too strong, unlike some of the other bitter black teas that her Grandmother
liked, but a gentle fragrant tea, pale yellow in
colour
and easy to drink.
Lily slid down onto her knees in front of the low wooden table and
picking up a small clay teapot, scooped in the dried tealeaves, until it was
three quarters full. The fragrant smell was already potent in its dried form
and Lily took in a full breath of its aroma. She took a larger clay teapot that
contained the hot water and poured it into the smaller pot, raising the pot up
at a full arm’s length so that water poured out like a narrow waterfall filling
the pot below until all the leaves were covered.
The door of the room opened a second time and instead of the maid,
her Grandmother walked in.
“Just in time”, Lily said as she continued with her pouring being
careful not to lose her focus.
Her Grandmother sat heavily on the couch just to the right of Lily.
Her old body was slow these days, but she still held herself as upright as she
possibly could, always elegant and graceful despite her age. Dressed in her
usual Mandarin attire, with her silver hair perfectly coiffed, she rested her
hand on Lily’s right shoulder for a moment before placing her hands demurely in
her lap.
“Continue”. She said to Lily.
Lily emptied out the first of the tea into small teacups resting on a
bamboo tray and filled them until the water overflowed. She re-filled the
teapot again, this time emptying the teacups over the small teapot. She did
this three times, each time allowing the tea to brew for slightly longer
causing the
flavour
to infuse even further.
Finally she poured the tea into the two teacups, and placed them onto
a small bamboo holder. Holding one with two hands she passed the first teacup
and holder to her Grandmother bowing her head slightly as she did so. Her
Grandmother took the tea with two hands and took a small noisy sip. Lily sat
back up on the couch and picked up her own tea, enjoying the warmth of the cup
in her hands.
Lily finished her tea first and she placed the teacup back on to the
tray.
She moved the tray towards the back of the table and made space for
her laptop in front of them. Then she waited.
Soon her Grandmother had finished her tea. Lily helped her to place
the teacup back onto the tray.
“Your challenge as a new
member of The Family was to bring us fresh new business opportunities. I
remember that I told you that you must first attain the skill, and the
creativity comes later. You have studied hard, you have been privy to every
aspect of the society and understand us well. All of the Masters have been
impressed with you, most of all myself. Now I am interested to see what
creativity you can provide for us.” She smiled at Lily.
Lily started to feel a little nervous presenting to her Grandmother,
but this was no trial run. This was her one shot to show her what she could
bring to the table.
Lily opened up her laptop and pressed the on button. Whilst she
waited for it to boot up, she began her presentation.
“I started out by looking at our strengths and what we are good at,
and also looked at the Society like you would do any major company. The two big
income areas for us are money laundering and security, but we’ve faced some
difficulties with both of these over the last few years. We know that our
rivals in Hong Kong are starting to compete with us, and they have managed to
lure some of our less loyal members and are encroaching on some of our
territory. We are lucky that we are cash rich, but we need new ways to move our
money, so that we can clean it quickly and get it re-invested elsewhere. I also
believe that we must step up our security offer, and I think I’ve found a way
to do both.” Lily said, and positioned the laptop screen so that it faced her
Grandmother.
“What I can offer, and what the Society is lacking, is technology.”
She stated. “I did some work on digital video technology as part of my studies
and managed to build a unit that can be manipulated by me, or people that I
train, remotely.” Lily tapped on her keyboard and pulled up a black and white
image that filled the screen entirely.
Lily’s Grandmother leaned in and squinted at the image for a few
seconds, and then sat back in her chair.
“Where is this?” She asked Lily, observing the moving image of people
going back and forth into a building.
“It’s the entrance to one of our busiest strip clubs in Wan Chai.
We’ve had trouble with some of our rivals threatening the staff, getting past
the security on the door and as you know, last week, we had a small fire
breakout. Our CCTV camera’s can only record, but can’t help us to stop what is
happening, we can only watch it unfold after the event.” Lily could see her
Grandmother lose interest, so she quickly continued.
“Keep watching. I installed this camera system last week after we
received the first round of threats.”
Lily pressed the play button. The footage that now came up showed a
full club, people were queuing up outside in their hundreds and slowly people
were being allowed in bit by bit. They watched as the video showed a man slowly
pushing his way to the front of the queue, and after a short while was given
entry to the club. Shortly afterwards smoke could be seen billowing out of a
small side window. The same man could be seen slipping out of the door and
calmly walking away from the building, whilst everyone else around him panicked
and shouted. Lily clicked another play button. This time the footage began in
the same way, but the date on video indicated that it was recorded the day
before. Lily’s Grandmother watched the same man begin to push his way through
to the entrance of the bar. The camera zoomed in and locked on to his face and
zoomed out again. Seconds later a security guard walked to the front of the
club and grabbed the man, hauling him inside the building.
Lily pressed the off button and closed her laptop.
“What this means is that I’ve been able to develop the technology so
that we can incorporate facial recognition. We can start to build our own
database of rival society members, and pick them out one by one to prevent this
kind of thing from happening. We can monitor and control who comes in to our
clubs, our restaurants and our territories.”
“You said that you can assist the Society in two ways. What is the
second way exactly?” Lily’s Grandmother asked.
Lily could sense that her Grandmother bored easily when it came to
technology, so she would have to make her sell to the point to hold her
interest.
“We are always looking at ways to generate income. Using the same
camera technology I’m able to cloak video imaging from a remote location and
replace it with another image.” Lily said, hoping that she was holding her
grandmothers attention.
“And how exactly would this be useful to us?” She asked.
“It’s a way of protecting us whilst we gain access to funds.” Lily
replied.
“Funds as in….”
“Funds as in, cash.” Lily finished the sentence for her Grandmother.
“Potentially, a lot of cash.”
“If we are able to get past all of the usual security measures in a
bank, for example, cloaking the camera’s is relatively simple. That gives us
the flexibility to carry out the work, without detection. It would be as though
we were never even there.” Lily said.
Lily’s Grandmother sat in silence absorbing all of the information.
“I know that we normally try and gain funds through reputable means,
but Banks have insurance measures against this type of thing. So we’re actually
going up against the insurance company and not the bank or it’s customers. We
would be removing the funds from the right people.” Lily explained.
“Just enlighten me with how you expect to bypass all of the security
measures?” Her Grandmother asked out of sheer curiosity.
“Well, as always it’s about who you know.” Lily said.
“An old friend of mine works at the World Asia Bank. I think that
through him I could gain all of the knowledge that I need to get into the
building. I’m fine on the technology side. It’s the removal of the funds that I
would need help with.”
“I can help you with men, if that’s what you would need. That’s no
problem, but how will you gain access to the actual cameras, even if you can
get through all of the security? I’m assuming that you would have to do
something to them to get them to work as you wish.”
“Well this is where fate has played a big hand. One of my other
contacts that
helps
me on the tech side of my
development has heard that the bank is planning an upgrade. I think I can bid
for the contract and I’ll make sure I win it. That way we can legitimately go
in and make all the changes to the camera’s that we need.”
“I really think that it could work.” Lily said, excited with her
plan.
“How much income do you think this could generate?” Her Grandmother
now asked.
“Enough to keep the money launderers very busy for a while.” Lily
replied.
Motel 186
Ryan looked up at the cracked neon sign above the Motel entrance.
It’s flickering bright pink light spelling out the name in cursive writing, the
only source of illumination on the dark street. Each flicker was accompanied by
a low buzz as the electrical current surged and waned as he stood on the
doorstep deciding whether to go in or leave. A few drops of rain landed on
Ryan’s shoulder making up his mind. Ryan pushed open the old wooden door and
peered down the dimly lit corridor. The grey marble floor that led Ryan towards
the reception was cracked and dirty. Litter formed small piles in unsuspecting
corners. Old food wrappers, yellowed newspapers and cigarette ends made up the
majority of the collection.
An old metal fan whirred
overhead,
its outer
cage set slightly skew causing
the
metal blades to tap, tap, tap against the metal
rods as the blades spun past.
As he drew closer, Ryan could see an old TV standing on a table top
at the reception. There was no sound, just the reflection of the TV picture
forming shapes, and casting shadows across the face of the sleeping Chinese
security guard.
Ryan watched the old man sleep for a moment. His face was soft with
sleep, but carried deep-set wrinkles. He had fallen asleep sitting upright on
his chair. His feet remained flat on the floor and his hands rested gently on
his thighs. His head was positioned slightly to the side and his mouth was
relaxed and slack. His breathing was raspy and faltered slightly with each
exhalation, as though he had something caught in the back of his throat.
Eventually Ryan shook the guard gently by his shoulder.
The guard awoke with a start. Disorientated by his sudden
consciousness he looked around trying to find what had woken him so abruptly
and his eyes finally rested on Ryan. The panic in his eyes changed to guarded
suspicion.
“I need a room.” Ryan said pointing to the keys on the wooden board
behind the guard.
He spoke to the guard slowly and used his hands to mime a key turning
in a door.
The
guard looked to where Ryan was pointing and
then back
towards Ryan, his face completely blank.
“I need to sleep.” Ryan said, this time placing his two hands
together and resting his head on one side with his eyes closed in an attempt to
make the guard understand.
“Ah.” The Guard said and
gestured back to Ryan, by showing him a key.
Ryan nodded, relieved that he would soon be able to lie down and
rest.
Ryan stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out some crumpled
notes and showed them to the guard.
“How much.” he said, spreading out the money on the desk.
The guard looked at the cash, then took a calculator and tapped in
the amount, turning the small screen to show Ryan.
“OK, $200, that’s fine.” He took the two red one hundred dollar notes
and flattened them out before passing them across the counter to the guard.
The guard nodded, then turned to the hooks behind him and pulled off
a key with a long bottle green rectangular plastic fob with number 241 etched
in white.
He placed the key on the table and pointed to a stairwell just down
the hall from the reception desk. Ryan nodded.
The guard gave Ryan a toothless smile and waved him off down the
corridor, before settling himself back in to his chair.
Room 241 was basic. A single bed stood underneath the only window in
the room framed by heavy brown curtains that didn’t quite reach the floor.
The deep red carpet covering the floor smelt musty to Ryan. He
covered his nose with his shirt as he made the short walk to the bathroom.
The bathroom was not much better. Two white towels, grey with over
washing, hung stiffly on a metal rail on the back of the door.
Ryan brushed his hand across them only to feel the crunchy hard
fabric underneath his fingers.
A single bulb lit the bathroom sending a yellow glow across the room,
and highlighting the dusty sink and low bath. The toilet lid was down, and Ryan
wasn’t ready to check out how clean it was. He looked at his reflection in the
mirror, the dull light more gentle on his complexion than before, but he could
still see the dark circles that had formed underneath his tired bloodshot eyes.
Ryan noticed a small shelf above the sink, and saw that there was at
least a free toothbrush and small pot of shampoo that he could use.
He walked back through to his room. He had no change of clothes and
just the few crumpled notes he’d managed to grab before fleeing his apartment.
He sat down heavily on the bed and was surprised at how soft the
mattress was. Trying not to think about the smell of the carpet, Ryan lay back
and covered his eyes with his forearms, pressing them closed. All that he could
think about was sleep. The desire tugged and pulled at Ryan until eventually he
hauled himself fully onto the bed, kicking his shoes off as he did so. He drew
a corner of the bed sheet across his body and allowed himself to become
consumed by exhaustion.