The Black Dragon Read Online Free Page A

anyway,” Laura adds quickly, “I’ve got an inside source in the Hong Kong Police. Organized Crime and Triad Bureau. Going to meet him tomorrow. Decent guy. Not like some of them, bent as old nails.”
    A stewardess is working a trolley down the aisle, pulling level with them.
    â€œWe’ve got English or Chinese for you today, young man,” the stewardess says. “Which do you feel like? Sausage and mash, or a lovely selection of dim sum . . .”
    â€œSausage and mash,” Danny says quickly, the image of Laura’s severed finger still sharp in his head. But then he changes his mind. “No. I’ll have the dim sum. Thanks.”
    â€œGood choice,” Laura says. “After all, at least a part of you is going home!”

    After dinner he lifts the blind on the porthole and stares out into the dark. Laura is rattling away on her laptop, humming like she does when working a story. Dad would have been able to read so much in her eyes from micro-muscles you can’t voluntarily control, which betray memory, emotion. Or by the exact way she’s set her shoulders. Danny knows how it’s done in theory, but hasn’t enough experience to be sure of anything.
I’ll just have to wait and see
, he thinks.
    As the engines pulse, he watches ice crystals form in the glazing of the window and slowly he drifts into a reverie: not quite awake, not quite asleep, eyes half closing. He slips in time, memories playing again in vivid color. When his guard is down they come back, unbidden, in bits and pieces . . .
    Now, in his mind’s eye, he’s there. He’s at the Mysterium again. Kaleidoscopic images well up into consciousness: he sees the Aerialisques tumbling on their red silk ropes from high in the hemisphere, finishing their burlesque-like act to a chorus of wolf whistles, applause, cheering.
    Half asleep, he drifts with the memory and sees the bearded electric guitarist, the pretty tattooed cellist, climb to their places high in the rigging and start the hypnotic riffs that signal Dad’s great new escapology routine. The amplified music throbs around the arena.
    And there’s Mum watching from the performers’ entrance, peeking between the curtains, her bright- green eyes fixed on Dad as he is fastened into the straitjacket and chains. She doesn’t normally watch, but this is a first performance. She can’t help herself. Maybe more tension in her face than normal.
    And there, bright in the spotlight, Danny sees the water torture cell waiting for its prisoner. Every detail clear, as if he is still standing in front of it. A reinvention of Houdini’s famous escape: a glass tank—full to the brim with water—the size of a small elevator. Its wooden frame is freshly painted red, the water inside reflecting the strobing lights, a projected image of Houdini’s own garish publicity poster.
    And then Dad’s feet are fastened into the ugly-looking stocks and hoisted up above his head by the winch. He dangles upside down at the end of the chain, smiling out over the expectant faces of the crowd, spotlight bright on his powerful figure, over the head of Zamora, who waits, axe poised “just in case” for dramatic effect. But there will be no need to use it. Nothing ever goes wrong for Dad.
    The straitjacket and padlocks confine his arms tightly to his side as he hovers for a moment in the air. And then down he goes,
kerploof
, head first into the water . . .
    Bubbles stream from his mouth and nose as he twists and writhes in the tank. Time runs through the animated hourglass now projected on the tank. The music picks up, insistent. Dad’s hair waves like seaweed in the churning water, his face a mixture of concentration and effort. Two minutes left to free himself, or he will drown.
    The tank is visibly shaking as he puts all of his effort into the escape, body flexing and straightening as he usually does to start to loosen the