Season One, Episode Twenty-Five: The Coral Tree

‘Sounds cool. Like something from a kungfu movie. The Garden of Temerity. What are we supposed to look for?’ Charlo’ asked as they left the Italian car under the trees.
The Garden of Temerity had a whitewashed wall with openings in various geometric shapes all around it, and a plaque on its main gate listing its name in English and Chinese.
Standing in the gateway, Markus Bentley and Charlo’ saw dense vegetation on the left, low shrubs and a pond on the right, and a sandy path going straight down the middle, leading to the back of the gardens. Not a soul in sight.
Markus produced a gun from under his T-shirt.
‘What is it with you and guns?’ Charlo’ asked.
‘Said the girl running a shooting range,’ he replied.
‘I leave my guns at work.’
They proceeded carefully, Markus keeping the gun to the right, ready to hide it but also ready to use it. Charlo’ walked to his right.
‘See that flower there?’
Markus looks in the direction Charlo’ is pointing.
‘Nice and red,’ he says.
Most of the plants have a small plaque giving name and origins. Charlo’ steps over a few bushes to read the explanation on the red flower dangling from a tree.
‘Coral flower,’ she reads. ‘Prevalent in Asia.’
‘What else does it say?’ asked Markus. He was still standing in the path, looking left and right for signs of life in the garden.
‘Latin names. Areas where it can be found, names of benefactors who gave the plant to the garden. Hey, your name is in here.’
‘Markus Bentley?’
‘Frederick Bentley. Is that one of your ancestors?’
‘My father.’
Markus walks into the green and joins Charlo’ in front of the coral plant to read the plaque.
‘You know what?’ he asks. ‘We need to do some digging.’

Camry was loosening up his tie.
‘What’s your problem?’ his interrogator asked.
‘I’m not used to spending my time sitting in dark rooms wearing a suit.’
‘If it depends on me, you might spend a lot more of your time sitting in dark rooms wearing a suit. Is that what you’d like?’
‘I need more money.’
‘Don’t we all.’
Camry was through another cup of water, only this time he didn’t ask for permission before walking over for a refill.
‘Thanks for the buffet,’ he said without looking at the man at the other side of the table.
‘What do you know about the police?’
The question froze Camry in his tracks. He turned around to face his interlocutor.
‘What should I know about the police?’
‘Don’t reply to my questions with another question. There was that murder at a restaurant recently. It has come to my attention that there might be a link with you.’
Camry sat down and drank some water before answering.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and I haven’t had any police visits lately. They don’t know I exist.’
‘You better make sure they don’t find out about the professor.’
‘I’m not letting him out of my sight. Unless he gets a fine for speeding, the cops will never find him.’
‘Do you know any police officers personally?’
‘I don’t get any further than watching The Wire.’
‘Fine, keep them in Baltimore.’

‘Did you hear that?’
Markus and Charlo’ were digging at the foot of the coral tree.
‘An engine. A car. People coming. We need to get out of here,’ he said.
‘They might just be visitors.’
‘I don’t believe in coincidence. Even if they’re just visitors, we’ll look awkward digging here. They’ll remember us.’
Markus speeded up the digging.
‘I’ve got something here,’ Charlo’ said.
‘Quick, get it out and let’s move.’
The contours of a metal safe box appeared. The thing was square, used to be green in a previous life. Markus tried to open it, but it was locked and there was no key. He pulled it out of the earth with one big pull and headed into the vegetation, taking Charlo’ by the hand.
Voices sounded from the garden entrance.
‘Fast, we need to get out,’ Markus told her.
Just before they reached the outer wall, the first bullet whizzed past their ears. Charlo’ ducked but Markus pulled her along.
‘Why don’t you shoot back?’ she said.
They reached a window in the wall. Too small to let them through.

NEXT: Markus and Charlo' try to escape from the Garden of Temerity in Episode Twenty-Six before July 16.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Four: The Garden of Temerity

The room was way dark compared with the sunny day outside. The curtains had been completely drawn, only a handful of small spotlights had been switched on, showing the ominous dark paintings on the wall.
Camry sat with his back to the polished oak door. The table in front of him was wide enough for eight people to take part in a medieval banquet, but right now there was no food, and there was only one person in the room in addition to Camry.
‘You’re going to tell me about the Russian,’ the other man said.
Camry looked so surprised he even stopped fidgeting with his tie for a second.
‘What Russian?’
‘Don’t even pretend you don’t understand me,’ the man said. ‘I’m talking about the man with the initials V.O. and you have been stalking him for a long time.’
‘He’s of no harm to me anymore,’ Camry said. ‘Can I get something to drink in here?’
The man pointed at a water dispenser in a corner of the room. Camry went over and got himself a paper cup full of the stuff. Back at the table, he inspected the water before taking a sip.
‘You don’t trust our water supply?’

Camry’s driver was kicking the tires of the Mercedes 700 and kicking the ash off his cigarette. He was standing with his back to the villa, so he couldn’t see the slight move in the curtain on the second floor.
‘He’s of no harm to me anymore,’ a voice came from behind Inspector Mondeo’s back in the room. ‘Can I get something to drink in here?’
Mondeo turned away from the window and the driver and looked at the laptop showing the image of Camry walking across the room below to get some water.
Mondeo smirked as he watched the man inspect the paper cup.
‘Scared of the water, you’d better be,’ Mondeo said to himself.

The expensive Italian car was driving at a speed just below the official limit on the main coastal road.
‘Fascinating story, but do you believe it?’ Charlo’ asked.
‘About the water? I think he has something else up his sleeve. But I wasn’t in a position to ask,’ Markus said.
‘Turn left, eight miles ahead,’ the GPS voice told them.
‘I wish I could turn this thing off, it gives me a headache.’
‘Will this be our final destination, or will we find another key?’
‘It can’t be. I don’t know what we’ll find, but two things it won’t be. A key and an ambush,’ he said.
‘I was aching for an ambush. We haven’t been shot at since Taiwan, remember?’
‘Turn left, six miles ahead.’

‘We agreed on two months,’ Camry said, finishing his water. He held the cup up in a gesture asking for more. The man at the other side of the table waved his agreement, so Camry stood up and walked away.
‘Tighten the screws,’ Mondeo whispered in his microphone on the second floor.
‘He can do it in less, he’s just stalling us for more money,’ Camry heard the man at the table say.
‘I can be very persuasive if I want to, but less than two months? That’s going to be a stretch,’ Camry said walking back with a new cup of water.
‘Then stretch.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Camry said.
‘You’ll do what we want you do.’
‘No need to go all Mister Nasty over me.’
‘Then stay away from the Russians and persuade your professor to work faster. We need the technology.’
‘He’s your professor too. Which reminds me I need some more money from you if I am to convince him to bring up the schedule,’ Camry said, standing up as if he wanted to leave the room.
‘Money, that’s all what you people think about.’
‘Water doesn’t come cheap in my part of the world.’
Mondeo turned away from the screen and looked out the window. Camry’s driver had moved under the trees to seek respite from the sunlight.
‘I’ll be Mister Nasty all over you sooner than you expect,’ Mondeo mumbled to himself as the computer screen behind him went blank.

‘Turn left.’
Markus was driving up the intersection at 40 miles an hour. Instead of braking, he just pulled a hard left and cut off the cyclists coming in the other direction. The move earned him loud angry words and a couple of obscene gestures.
The car was now barreling down a dusty road, throwing up a huge cloud.
‘Can’t you take it down a few notches?’ Charlo’ said.
Markus slowed down enough for them to see the scenery. Long, wild, dry grasses, olive trees, and beyond, the blue horizon of the ocean.
‘Turn right at next intersection.’
They weren’t expecting any intersection on a dust road, but there was. Markus turned right as the voice said, and one mile of meandering country driving further, the voice gave its final instruction.
‘You have reached the Garden of Temerity.’

NEXT: Markus Bentley and Charlo’ enter the Garden of Temerity in Episode Twenty-Five before July 1.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Three: Dead Lines

‘That’s what deadlines are. Dead lines. You cross the line and you’re dead.’
The expensive suit jacket was hanging over the rickety chair, the black tie folded neatly on the seat. Even in the flickering neon light, you could still tell these were expensive clothes, not the kind one wears to an ordinary daily office grind.
The professor had his hands tied behind his back on the other chair. He was wearing his white lab coat, but the cloth looked soiled, raspy, as if it had been scraped along a rough and dirty pavement.
Sweat covered his face as he looked up at the man leaning over him. Camry looked even more devilish up close, with his white shirt unbuttoned half way down.
‘You’re lucky I have an important meeting scheduled, so I can’t use this tie to explain to you what a deadline is. But the people I am meeting are very serious about deadlines, and so should you.’
‘It’s a chemical process,’ the professor said in a voice laden with suppressed agony. ‘If it’s three months, it’s three months. There’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing the brightest chemist or engineer in the world could do about it.’
Camry spat in his face.
‘I’m paying you to work. Not to find excuses for not working.’
‘Working with water is a complicated process. I need to get the balance right.’
‘You need to get the balance right,’ Camry said slowly. ‘The balance you need to get right is the one between obeying my orders and receiving a mighty bit of punishment. Do you understand that?’
Before the professor had a chance to reply, Camry smashed a fist in his face, causing his head to pop back like a basketball in some game.
‘Two months,’ Camry said. ‘Do you know what that is?’
He pointed at a table in one corner, away from the neon light. The professor strained his bloodied head to look in the direction.
‘A jug filled with your three-month water,’ Camry answered his own question. ‘Wouldn’t it be ironic if I asked you to drink it, or if I poured it over you?’
The professor shuddered and looked down.
‘Please. Let me work to develop it.’
‘Two months.’
‘Two months.’

‘It was a three because I was not in shape.’
Camry was relaxing in the rear seat of the Mercedes 700 with a glass of French Cognac. They were driving through a high-class residential neighborhood, mansions, trees, lawns with signs telling you you could get shot if you tread on the grass.
‘Our professor is going to work harder but he’ll need an extra set of eyes watching him just in case his feet get itchy.’
‘I’ll take care of him,’ the driver said.
‘That’s where we’re going.’ Camry pointed at a Spanish-style mansion, yellowish walls, red roof tiles, a round tower at one end. The wrought-iron gate turned open without them even saying or doing anything. Camry put his glass down on the fold-out table surface.
‘I’ll put a word in for our friendly professor. Such a nice and hard-working man.’

‘Camry’s the most dangerous man this side of the ocean,’ Riot said. He was leaning against the expensive Italian car as Markus Bentley and Charlo’ were standing in front of him. ‘I can only assume it was him who had the video recording on the laptop delivered to your place. He focused your attention on the guard, and you went running after the Russian.’
‘Wasn’t the Russian the man who killed my sister?’
Riot looked away over the ocean.
‘Let’s just say we shouldn’t feel sorry about this Russian passing on to another life. If there’s any justice, he will suffer miserably. The problem is, you took the bag I gave you and you drew the wrong conclusions.’
Bentley looked at the objects displayed on the roof of the car.
‘You saw the Three Elders, so you rushed off to Taiwan,’ Riot continued.
‘How do you know about Taiwan?’
‘Remember, I was your sister’s friend and colleague.’
‘I still don’t believe too much of that.’
‘You saw the red doll, and you traveled to Macau. Wrong again.’
‘So what are you saying, what should I have focused on?’ Markus asked.
Riot grabbed the bottle of water from the roof and held it upside down.
‘This magic baby.’

NEXT: Camry meets some Very Important People in Episode Twenty-Four before June 18.

Season One, Episode Twenty-Two: The Water

‘If it’s another key, I’ll kill you with my bare hands,’ Charlo’ said.
Markus was driving her car along the coast, away from the city.
‘How do you know where to find the car?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Once you have the car, where are you going to take it?’
‘It will tell me.’
‘I followed you half way around the world and I still can’t figure you out.’
‘That’s the beauty of me,’ Markus said.
‘You got away with killing your sister’s killer, what more do you want?’
‘She left me those messages from beyond her death.’
‘The Three Elders?’
Markus nodded as he steered the car round a sharp bend.
‘Leaving me the three elders told me I had to go to their source, Taiwan. There I found the one surviving elder, Lass, and the son of the other, Trick. The red doll then told me to travel to Macau, to find the key.’
‘But where is the end of the journey? Or isn’t there one?’
‘There it is.’
Markus pointed at an empty space to the left of the road, above the ocean. A dark blue car was parked under the trees. He braked hard and swung the car across the main road on to a dusty track.
‘What is it?’
‘An Italian luxury car.’
‘What’s so special about that?’
‘It’s rare, so it’s easy to find. And it’s preprogrammed to take us to our destination.’
Markus parked their car right next to their target. The Italian car was obviously brand new, but it had gained a layer of dust standing here exposed to the wind from the sea.
‘You’ll think Riot will find us?’ Charlo’ asked.
‘If he does, we’ll be ready.’
Markus flashed the key at the car and the doors popped open. He took the driver’s seat, crammed his bag behind his feet, and turned his attention to the screen at the center of the leathery dashboard.
‘You know what a GPS is, right?’ he asked her.
‘It’s not because I don’t need one that I don’t know what it is.’
An intricate web of streets flashed up on the screen.
‘This baby will tell us where our destination is.’
‘I hope it’s somewhere closer than Macau.’
‘Stop.’
A heavy sports ute screeched to a halt right behind the car, blocking their exit. The car they had come in was to their left, trees to their right, and the ocean straight ahead.
Markus saw a man walk up to his side of the car. The face that leaned down against the window was Riot’s.
Markus rolled down the window.
‘So I finally caught up with you,’ Riot said, without a look at Charlo’. ‘Are you shock-resistant?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? First, you do your dying-man routine, give me my sister’s things. How do I know you didn’t kill her and this is all a conspiracy to use me to get at your enemies?’
‘What did you tell Mondeo?’
‘Who?’
‘The black cop.’
‘How do you know?’ Markus asked.
‘I had friends at the airport.’
‘Show me what I gave you,’ Riot said.
Markus pulled the bag from behind his feet and put it across the mid-section, out of Riot’s reach. He started taking his things out of the bag. His sister’s things. He pulled out the red faceless doll, the Three Elders, the bottle of water.
‘Did you drink from this?’ Riot asked.
Markus shook his head.
‘Just like we thought. You’re very conscientious …’
‘Who is we?’ Markus asked.
Riot grinned. ‘You’re smart. My friends and I.’
‘Do I get to meet them?’
Riot’s grin vanished.
‘Do you know a man named Camry?’ he asked.

NEXT: Riot tells Markus Bentley about Camry in Episode Twenty-Three before June 3.

Season One, Episode Twenty-One: The Second Tile

Markus and Charlo’ were stepping across a campus. Palm trees, camphor trees, parks, stately buildings not old enough to be historic, but imposing nonetheless.
‘Have you ever thought that maybe he just wanted to talk to you?’
‘The Riot character?’
‘He didn’t look that threatening to me.’
‘You’ve got a character coming at you who knows where you are even if you’ve never told him, you better get moving.’
‘You know the meaning of the word paranoia?’
‘I never studied French.’
Charlo’ giggled.
Markus took her by the arm and led her into the garden. A large square garden enclosed on all sides by a covered walkway. He pulled her under the roof.
‘Anything looks familiar?’
She looks around, up at the ceiling, down at the walls beneath the pillars. At regular intervals, tiles showing buildings are mixed with regular colored ones.
‘How did you know?’
‘Family secrets.’
‘Those three elders again, right? Did your father tell you to find all this after your sister’s death?’
Markus frowned.
‘This is my own destiny. Let’s find the tile.’
He walked rapidly along the pillars and tiles, looking at them one by one.
‘Which one are you looking for? Let’s split up and each take half the area,’ Charlo’ suggested.
Markus shook his head.
‘I know where to look.’
He pointed at the first corner.
‘Round that way, it’s close.’
A tile showing the Montmartre basilica in Paris. The next one showed medieval European buildings in white and brown.
‘Where is that?’
‘It doesn’t matter, all I care about is what’s behind it.’
He pulled a knife out of a pocket in his cargo pants and hit at the cement surrounding the tile. Charlo’ looked around, expecting scandalized teachers to shout abuse at them. They were the only people around. In the distance, she saw a young man play guitar under a tree in the park.
Markus ripped the tile out and laid it out on the floor, face up. He reached his hand inside the cavity and pulled out a red cloth, similar to the one they found in Macau.
‘Surprise, surprise, what’s the mystery object this time?’
Charlo’ crouched by Bentley’s side, but he waved her away.
‘Keep a look out. We don’t want to be jumped on.’
She stood back up and looked around. The young man with the guitar had gone. She watched Markus untie the cloth, and carefully deposit an object in his left hand.
‘Another key? Boy, this is getting predictable. So now, we have a second key, and no doubt, we now have to look for a third key hidden behind another tile somewhere.’
Markus didn’t smile.
‘Let’s leave,’ he said.
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘We have what we want, let’s go to the next stage.’
‘Ever considered I might be getting tired of following you around the world and not getting any answers? Someone killed your sister, you killed them, but now you’re still hopping around. What is your aim?’
‘I’ll tell you when we find the car.’
‘What car?’
Markus waves the key in front of her face.
‘This is a car key. You’re driving us to find that car.’
‘You’re not as charming as you used to be.’
‘Believe me, if Riot is on to us, we’re better off completing this as fast as we can.’

Three blocks away, along a tree-lined avenue, a BMW X7X moved into a shaded parking slot.
Riot cut off the engine and took a PDA-like device from the breast pocket of his jacket. He touched the screen with his right index three times.
‘So that’s where you are, my dear friend. Playtime is almost over now.’
Riot immediately started the engine up again and drove off.

NEXT: Markus Bentley runs riot in Episode Twenty-Two before May 15.

Season One, Episode Twenty: Riot Runs

Markus walked out of the airport toward the taxi rank. He saw Charlo’ hanging around but he gave her a stern look. She took the first cab up. He boarded the next one and told the driver to follow her.
After she left her cab in a neighborhood he wasn’t familiar with, he told his driver to continue for one block, got out and walked back. From a distance, he saw her enter a renovated building. He brushed past the old lady with all the paper bags stepping out into the street.
There were four floors and he hadn’t seen one familiar name on the bell list of residents. He was about to ring the bell on the third floor with the name C. Gabal on it when he heard a whisper above him. Charlo’ was leaning over the balustrade while waving at him.
‘I live up here,’ she whispered. ‘I thought I had told you the fourth floor.’
‘That was way back, before we went traveling,’ he said.
Inside her apartment, they crashed. He held her and kissed her, ferociously.
‘They let you go,’ she said. A statement of fact.
He didn’t reply but accompanied her to the bed. They fell on the top while extricating themselves from their clothes.

‘What do you think?’ Riot asked as he was observing the blue plastic cup filled with water. He took it and went into the bathroom, putting it next to a tile from Holland that had been worked into the wall.
‘About what?’ the woman asked from the dinner room, where she was eating a raspberry waffle.
‘Our precious guy. I think it’s time I paid him another visit.’ Riot looked at the water from different angles.
‘You won’t betray me, will you?’
‘We’re not there yet. First I want to know what he got out of Asia and what he’s planning on doing about it. I also want to know how far Mondeo has come in understanding all of this.’
He walked up to her and tore a piece off her waffle.

Markus and Charlo’ were resting. In bed. Naked. They didn’t know how long they had been here. The flight from Asia took 12 hours. The interrogation by the black cop. Markus was the first to budge. He took a quick shower, then she joined him.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing.’
‘They fell for that?’
‘My sister is dead and they blame me because I’m the only link they can find.’
‘They haven’t found out about the Russian you killed at the Brother Hotel, then?’
They went back to bed for another round of horizontal passion.
Two hours later, Markus walked over to the window for a look at the street.
‘Bloody screaming murder.’
‘What?’ She immediately sat up in bed.
‘The guy I told you about, Riot? He’s crossing the street and coming here right now. Get your clothes on, we’re moving out.’
Charlo’ pulled her jeans on.
‘You think he knows this place.’
‘He must have had me followed from the airport.’
‘What does he want?’ she asked as she pulled a yellow T-shirt over her head.
‘I don’t want to be here to find out.’
Markus picked up a sports bag, threw all the stuff in he deemed necessary, and grabbed her hand.
‘You have the car keys?’
She ran back into the bathroom and plucked the keys off the washbasin.
‘What a funny place to keep keys,’ he said.
On the way out, he noticed the name next to her doorbell. Ch. Whiggs.
‘Not there, let’s go out the back.’ He went for the rusty structure outside the hall’s back window. The fire escape. Just as they clambered out the window, he heard doors slam downstairs. Riot was probably on his way up. Markus led the way, but kept Charlo’ close behind him. On the second floor, he heard movement, so he stepped back and pressed her against the wall next to the window. Inside, Riot was on his way up. He looked at the rear window but didn’t stop.
Markus counted to five and continued the run down.
‘Where is your car?’ he whispered at her when they had reached street level.
She didn’t utter a word but pointed at the other side of the street, away from the building. They crossed the street, and that’s when Riot saw them.
‘I just missed the bleeding hearts,’ he told the woman on his cell from the fourth-floor window.
‘Follow them and see where they hang out,’ she said. ‘Don’t show yourself until Markus shows us what he has.’

NEXT: Markus Bentley uses the key from Macau in Episode Twenty-One before May 2.

Season One, Episode Nineteen: Mondeo

Markus and Charlo’ split up again on arrival, just in case some nasties were lying in wait, he said. They didn’t have much luggage so passing through customs was easy, though Markus had some trouble with officers staring at his bare feet. He told them some story about losing a bet with a Chinese fellow passenger on his way to Vegas.
He was finding his way to the parking garage when he noticed the tall black guy staring at him. He came up on him so fast there was no time to avoid him.
‘Welcome home, Mister Bentley,’ the man said. He had cop written all over him.
‘This is not about my shoes, is it?’ Markus asked.
The black guy flashed a badge because he had to, but Markus had no time to read what was on it. The man guided him into a small, bare room. On the wall were the portrait of the new president, hanging slightly askew, and a leftover piece of Christmas decoration nobody had bothered to remove.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Markus.
The black guy didn’t reply but immediately adjusted the portrait’s angle and sat down at the end of the table in front of the two objects. He pointed out the chair in front of him and waved at a uniformed cop entering the doorway.
‘Give this man a pair of shoes.’
‘Inspector,’ Markus said.
The big black man raised his eyebrows.
‘What is your name?’ Markus asked.
‘Asking for names is my job, not yours.’
‘Shall I call you Larry Fishburne then?’
The big man broke out in a loud laugh.
‘You’re funny for a suspect under investigation for the disappearance of his sister,’ he said.
‘You must be joking,’ Markus said.
‘Crime and jokes don’t go together well. Your sister vanishes. Naturally, we think the suspect must be the boyfriend or the husband or something. But there is no boyfriend or husband. There is only a brother. You. And you vanish to Taiwan or some other pretty distant island. Taking the money to safety?’
‘Taiwan isn’t the Caymans. There is no money. I hadn’t met my sister for ages.’
‘Gambling it all away in Macau because it’s safer than Vegas?’
‘I told you, I don’t have any money. And I’m not a gambling man.’
‘That’s not the information we have. What if we searched you? I mean, really strip searched you?’
‘So what, I have nothing to hide.’
‘Nothing is not what I came here for.’
‘Why do you keep saying my sister disappeared? She was murdered, so you should be looking for her murderers.’
‘If you’re so sure she was murdered, why don’t you show us where the body is, Mister Bentley?’
‘Wasn’t she murdered in the parking lot of her office?’
‘You seem to know a lot about the alleged murder of your sister, Mister Bentley.’
The uniformed officer interrupted the conversation by bringing in a pair of sneakers.
‘Don’t worry, Mister Bentley, we didn’t take it from the airport morgue,’ the inspector grinned.

Charlo’ phoned Riot.
‘They’ve got him,’ she said.
‘Who? Camry?’ Riot asked.
‘A tall African-American guy in a suit. Am I supposed to know him?’
Riot looked over his shoulder. The woman shook her head.
‘Don’t worry, but stay away from him. And let us know what happens to Bentley. If he leaves, follow him but don’t approach him until you’re sure he’s not being followed.’
‘I’ll keep hanging out around the airport, then,’ Charlo’ said.
‘You do that,’ Riot replied before ending the connection and turning round to face the woman. ‘Mondeo’s got him,’ he said.
‘Is he working on his own or for the …,’ she asked.
Riot put his finger on her lips.
‘Is doesn’t matter. It looks like Markus has been compromised. Can we allow him to meet you?’

NEXT: Riot is looking for Markus Bentley in Episode Twenty before April 15.