The General of Tiananmen Square by Ian Hamilton

Author:Ian Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2022-11-30T16:52:01+00:00

( 21 )

Ava couldn’t have imagined that being in essence blackmailed out of five million dollars would make her anything but miserable, but as she made her way to the twenty-second floor all she felt was a guarded sense of relief. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she told Viroj that they’d done well. The priority — the only priority — had been to get a deal done that she could live with. She thought she had accomplished that, and if everyone stayed true to their word, then the five million was irrelevant. Mind you, she thought as she entered the suite, the operative word was if, but for reasons that were more instinctive than cerebral she actually trusted Viroj. And following instincts when it came to granting trust was something that Uncle had practised and Ava had adopted.

As she rode the elevator, she started making a mental list of everything she needed to do, and that now included tying up some loose ends. Once in her suite, she went directly to the desk, opened her notebook, and wrote down the night’s tasks. When that was complete, she went to the bathroom and then changed into a T-shirt and her Adidas training pants. She eyed the mini-bar on her way back to the desk, and decided that a small bottle of Chardonnay would help her get through the next few hours.

Her plan after Viroj’s banking information arrived was to transfer three million to his account and organize the two million for Arthon. But before doing that, she needed to discuss the transaction with May Ling and Amanda. She had no doubt they would agree to it, but it was one thing not to tell them about Chen’s situation and to negotiate a settlement, and quite another to transfer money that was collectively theirs without their knowledge and permission. She called Amanda first.

“Wei,” Amanda answered.

“This is Ava. Are you somewhere you can speak freely?”

“I’m at home by myself.”

“Great, could you phone May Ling and hook her into a conference call with us? I need to speak to the two of you.”

“Sure, but you sound so serious you’re making me nervous.”

“There’s no need to be nervous, but we do need to speak.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back when I have it set up.”

Ava put her phone on the desk and poured a glass of wine. The phone pinged, and she saw she had a text from Viroj with his banking information. It was a numbered account at a bank in the Cayman Islands. She copied the details into her notebook and then opened Arthon’s text and wrote down his Bangkok bank information. Just as she’d finished, the phone rang and she saw Amanda’s number.

“Hey, is May Ling on the line as well?”

“I’m here.”

“Good, I didn’t want to have to go over this stuff twice. It will be depressing enough to do it once.”

“Are you still in Bangkok?” May asked.

“Yes.”

“There’s been a problem with Chen, hasn’t there?”

Yet again, Ava marvelled at how strong May’s intuition was.

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