Necropolis

her. It made it difficult to breathe.
    They passed the Peninsula Hotel. Just a few days before, Scarlett had gone there with Audrey Cheng.
    They had sat down for tea and sandwiches. It felt like a lifetime ago. They turned into a wide avenue, and she found herself walking past a police station. Two men came out, chatting together in dark blue-and-silver uniforms. Both of them carried guns. Scarlett remembered what Lohan had told her — the Old Ones controlled the police as well as the government and the civil service. These two men would have her description. If they recognized her, it would all be over before they got anywhere near the ship.
    But they didn't. They continued past, and it was only when they had gone that Scarlett realized she had stopped breathing. She felt completely defenseless, waiting for someone to shout her name and for the crowd to close in. A few inches of padding and a handful of makeup was all that stood between her and capture. She was terrified that it wouldn't be enough.
    Harbor City lay ahead of them. It was just another shopping center, though much bigger than any she had visited with Mrs. Cheng. They strolled in as if that was what they had always intended to do, as if they were just three friends out for an evening's shopping. The interior was very ugly. It was brightly lit with small, boxlike shops standing next to each other in corridors that seemed to go on forever. They were selling the usual goods: jeans and T-shirts and sunglasses and souvenirs, with fewer famous names than could be found in Hong Kong Central and presumably lower prices.
    They continued past a luggage store and there, ahead of them, Scarlett saw a neon sign that read tsim chai kee herbal remedies and knew that they had reached the place where the exchange would happen.
    The shop was directly in front of them. It was filled with cardboard boxes and glass bottles. Three people were standing with their backs to the front door. A man, a woman, and, between them, a boy.

    The woman was plump with gray hair, dressed in black. The man was smaller than her, laden down with shopping bags, with a camera around his neck. Their son was dressed exactly the same as Scarlett. They were waiting while the shop assistant wrapped up a packet of tea.
    Scarlett walked in. Jet and Sing didn't follow her but continued on their way. At the same time, the boy walked forward, farther into the shop, and disappeared. The man and the woman stayed exactly where they were so that as Scarlett entered, there was a space between them. And that was it. A moment later she was standing between them. The woman paid for the tea. The shopkeeper handed over some change.
    The three of them left together.
    A mother, a father, and a son had gone into the shop. A mother, a father, and a son walked out of it. As they left, Scarlett glanced up and noticed a TV camera in the passageway, trained down on them. She wondered if there was anybody watching and, if so, whether they could possibly have seen anything that might have aroused their suspicions. Still, for the first time, she was feeling confident. She was no longer on her own. She was part of a family now. She would be joining hundreds or even thousands of tourists returning to
    The Jade Emperor.
    Even the Old Ones with all their agents would be unable to spot her.
    The family left Harbor City through a set of huge glass doors that brought them straight out onto Ocean Terminal. And there was the ship, tied to the quay by ropes as thick as trees.
    The Jade Emperor was massive, with at least a dozen decks, each one laid out on top of the other, with two smoking funnels at the very top. The lower part of the ship was punctuated by a long line of tiny-looking portholes, but farther up there were full-size sliding windows that probably opened onto staterooms for the multimillionaires on board.
    The Jade Emperor was entirely white, apart from the funnels, which were bright green. Crew members, also in spotless white, were hurrying along the corridors, mopping the decks and polishing the brass railings as if it were vital for the ship to look its best before it was allowed to leave.
    Scarlett examined her surroundings. The ship was on her left, blocking out the view over to Hong Kong, with a single gangplank, slanting down at its center. On the right, running the full length of the quay, was a two-story building lined with flags. This was the back of Harbor City, the shopping center she had just visited.