Chapter Three: The Deeds The rain began as a fine mist, blurring the moon’s reflections on the wet tarmac, but by the time you arrive at the edge of the canal district, it was a persistent, cold drizzle. The arduous and dangerous journey to the wrong end of town took just over an hour. Plenty of time to take in the sights—the slow decay of grand colonial façades, the flickering signs of dubious massage parlours, the watchful eyes in shadowed doorways. The instructions had been clear, delivered in a coded phrase over a crackling line: you would find the deeds hidden between two ornamental stones making up the gigantic foot of a sitting Buddha. Come alone, you were told. As if you had anyone trustworthy enough to be your companion. You got there just before midnight. The place was deserted and silent, save for the drip of water from corroded gutters and the distant hum of the city you’d left behind. The air smelled of stagnant water and wet stone. The silent, looming Buddha with its vacant smile was a monstrous, serene silhouette against the bruised sky, seated next to a narrow footbridge that arched over the black canal. You approached, your footsteps unnaturally loud. The giant foot, each toe the size of a suitcase, was a mosaic of hundreds of carved stones. Your fingers, numb with cold and a creeping anxiety, probed every possible crevice, every gap wide enough to conceal an oilskin-wrapped document. Nothing. Only lichen and the grit of ages. A cold knot of terror tightened in your gut, spreading through your disappointed bones. This was a set-up. Or a double-cross. Or worse. Then a shadow, detaching itself from the deeper darkness of the bridge. Not a phantom, but a shape you know too well. Second Mate Angela, her face a pale oval in the gloom, the rolled parchment of the deeds held loosely in her gloved hand. Not a flicker of surprise in her eyes. She’d been waiting for you. Her usually sharp, efficient features were hardened into a mask, illuminated by the sickly yellow glow of a distant streetlamp. In her gloved hand, she held a slim, rectangular package. The deeds. She had got there before you. “Waiting for someone?” Her voice was calm, almost conversational, but her eyes held a deadly stare. All the pieces now clicked into place with a sickening finality. Her relentless fascination with your affairs, her constant, probing questions masked as patriotic duty—it wasn’t loyalty. It was treason. She hadn’t been building a case for your superiors; she’d been conducting her own private audit, studying your every move, eavesdropping on every correspondence, collecting evidence not for your demise, but as currency. She wanted the deeds for herself, along with the astronomical price they would fetch on the wrong side of the Pacific. Her patriotism was a costume, and tonight, she’d finally taken it off. You approach carefully, the rain soaking through your coat. “Angela. What are you doing with those?” A thin, triumphant smile touched her lips. “Securing my future darling. Mervan Kifman was surprisingly amenable. A man of simple needs. A favour or two, and he was willing to part with them.”  But her moment of gloating was a flourish very short lived. The name was the key. She had mentioned Mervan Kifman. It unlocked the fatal flaw in her elegant, treacherous plan. You knew Mervan Kifman from way back, in the grimy port bars of a different life. You know the small-time hustler with the slicked hair and the eyes that dart like startled fish. You know his world is one of pilfered cargo manifests and bribed dockyard clerks, not high-stakes diplomatic theft. He deals in whispers and petty blackmail, not documents that could redraw borders. He doesn’t have the resources, the backing, or the sheer nerve. He’s a minnow who dreams of sharks. Which means Angela, for all her careful study, her treacherous patience, has been played. Mervan has sold her a beautifully crafted lie, a forgery good enough to pass her initial inspection. The realisation should bring relief, but it only tightens the coil of anxiety in your gut. If Angela has a forgery, then the real deeds are still in play. And if Mervan is brazen enough to con a player like Angela, who is he really working for? Or what has he stumbled into? The surrounding windows are streaked with rivulets that distort the sleeping city into a watery nightmare. You see it now—not a single betrayal, but layers of them. Angela watching you. Someone else, someone far more dangerous, watching Angela. Using Mervan as a cut-out, a disposable middleman to field the first wave of pursuit. They let Angela believe she was the spider, when all along she was just another fly walking into a much larger web. Your instructions were clear: come alone. You had no one trustworthy enough, you’d thought. Now, the terrifying question isn’t about companionship, but about purpose. Were you sent to retrieve the deeds, or were you sent to be seen trying? To draw out the Angelas of the world? The cold seeps through your coat, deeper than the damp. “Mervan,” you said, the tension in your shoulders easing a fraction, replaced by a cold certainty. “He doesn’t have the resources. Or the backup, or the brains, frankly. He certainly doesn’t have the tenacity to win a game like this.” You took another step, watching her smile falter. “If Mervan gave you those deeds, Angela, he’s taken you for a ride. There’s no way he could have gotten his hands on the real ones.” The confidence in her eyes flickered, replaced by a darting uncertainty. She glanced down at the package in her hand, as if seeing it for the first time. The forgery would be good—it had to be, to pass her inspection—but it would be just that: a clever fake. The real deeds, the ones that could alter the balance of power in a faltering empire were still out there. “You’re bluffing,” she hissed, but the conviction was gone. “Am I?” You took a final step, now close enough to see the rapid pulse in her throat. “Then you won’t mind if I walk away. You have your prize. Enjoy it.” You turned, the movement deliberate, your back a calculated target. The silence stretched, filled only by the rain. No shot rang out. No demand to stop. She was already doubting, already calculating her next move, trapped in a web of her own spinning. As you melted back into the labyrinth of alleys, leaving her standing alone in the rain with her worthless treasure, only one thought hammered in your mind with the force of a prophecy: Where are the real deeds? Mervan was a pawn. Angela was a dupe. You had been led to a dead end for a reason. Someone else was playing a deeper game, and you had just been a piece on their board, moved to draw out the competition. You needed to get back, to your sparse, secure room, to contact your one remaining connection in the shadowy world of Shanghai. You must go back to the static-filled voice on the shortwave, the man who knows the currents beneath the city’s calm surface. You needed to find out who had really made the switch, and what ghost was now holding the keys to a fortune. The night’s failure was merely the first move in a much longer, more dangerous night. You need to know what Mervan has been doing, who he’s been seen with and if this was a theft, or an auction. The night swallows you again. The journey gave you an hour to take in the sights, but all you saw were ghosts and reflections. Angela, holding her prize, confident in her treason. Mervan, counting his coins, oblivious to the storm he’s invited. And the real deeds, somewhere out there in the dark, moving silently towards a destination you can’t yet see. The game hasn’t been lost tonight. You’ve just finally seen the board, and it’s vast, and you are frighteningly alone upon it. The real work begins now. The mystery had just begun. |
