- So. The boy was eighteen and it was his second academic year. He went to his mother, got the regular bus, got out alone of the bus at night, he was remembered by the couple of witnesses then he utterly disappeared. His name was Tursubek.

It was a dull and a strange story. The main problem was that the son was from the top circle not just the local “man”. He was wearing brown velvet trousers, a bright shirt, brown shoes and he had a dark sportive bag behind his back. He had the newest and sophisticated cool cell-phone Nokia. That’s all.

There were three main versions. The loot, theft for the purpose of ransom and a politician order.

Colonel had studied the dossier. The folder was extremely thick. The report of the bus driver’s interrogation was that he got out the bus alone. There were dozens of people left in the bus each of them was looked for. There were dozens of pages of cell-phone printouts. Tursubek called a lot of times and talked for a long time. Main calls were from his bride but there were many other calls.

Dux automatically examined the dossier, smiling the girl in his thoughts and was thinking over a strange general’s order for him.

It was foolishly to get out joker from the block. His intuition was telling him that he would have to use his own joker.

- Aida, let’s drink a coffee. You are an amazing vision of Bishkek! Show me some good places. We will be working together for a long time.

Aida was a very good, cheerful interlocutor and Dux suddenly felt “a real Colonel” with her.

It was already dark when he led the girl by the taxi to home. He had again this familiar rough boring feeling as if somebody was watching attentively at his neck. He looked the rows of the parked cars over and felt that there were agents in two cars.

It was easy to understand that he was shot with the camera and his cell-phone was heard in these two cars.

- If I am stay alive today I will surely call the Shade, - thought Dux.

He took off the safety device, the newest Mossad’s development, a miniature smart gun with the remote laser induction then he found the bench with good vision. He has been preparing a surprise for them for ten minutes. Then he came up, rolling a little bit, to the second car and asked to light up a cigarette. The agent smiled and two guns were aimed at Dux.

-Take away the gun. Call Bakaev. We have to meet.

While the agent was calling his boss, all the gadgets from these two cars have already been secretly scanned. The newest equipment was stolen last year from the Mossad and copied. Colonel heard a typical intense crash and buzz in the agent’s cell-phone. Another agent got out the car in embarrassment. And while Dux continued to depict a drunk simpleton, both cars feverishly started in a strange direction. “Yes, I imagine what they had to suffer with their equipment”, - thought Colonel and laughed with all his heart.

*

The club de Hong Kong, a black double cube, is famous by its dull stories. It wasn’t in any guide-book. And even information about it in the Internet was enough scant. It was founded in the middle of 19th century at the height of opium wars when the isles were changing hands at high speed. At last, the Englishmen won and seized Hong Kong. The peninsula and the isles system with a good harbour, being like a modern big London by their size, they became the biggest town of smugglers, opium kings and pirates of all sorts. The weather-beaten club of one hundred fifty years old had an aristocratic Shade, smell of opium money and terror of war conflicts. There was a good spacious casino in the club, cozy halls, four ones for conferences: a dark-violet one, an orange one, a green one and a white one, discipline service staff which could answer any questions.

- A stupid story, - sighed Paul. He had to prepare the conference for four hundred participants, a small showroom for one thousand square metres, maximum food and a spare room for tree hundred square metres.

Paul was born in a small village Schwarzwald not far from Stuttgart where there are fairy hills, calm decent satisfying life, eternal Lutheran churches with bells and peacefully co-existing a catholic cathedral with the copulas of organs.

He has graduated from the polytechnic university in Stuttgart then he studied at the department of advertisement and exhibitions. He was a technical manager of foreign international exhibitions. The boss of the Asia department has been explaining him for a long time that was a small special exhibition with little space. The main revenue of the exhibition was the tickets.

Then there were started some strange things he couldn’t understand.

Firstly, this awkward slow talk with the client with long pauses for forty minutes. Then the boss has been mumbling something for a long time. Then that mug. He was in low spirits. A Chinese face named Fen Man shown the restaurant, dishes and other trifles. While that day was dragging on one brought black boxes into the room. Paul knew that only the insurance of those displays was fifty million dollars. Suddenly, he felt an ardent desire. The boxes weren’t sealed. One of those boxes was lying unevenly and Paul instinctively tried to put it straight. He glanced stealthily back and opened the lid of the box. In several seconds he awfully and monotonously yelled and fatal fear seized him.

*

At last, at three AM Colonel reached the hotel room. He has been listening attentively for a long time to the deceptive silence. Then he quietly opened the door and entered the bathroom. Other smells were interrupting his animal instinct but something continued quivering in his red-hot subconsciousness. It’s a good result for a trained body to turn on the light and to take out the gun in four seconds. He could saw her eyes widen with fear and that she didn’t have a gun in her hands.

- Ooh! – Dux sat down.

A grey double-breasted jacket, a dark tight skirt and big black eyes. She was sitting on the chair and probably was nodding. There was a grey leather bag with many useless thins on the bedside table.

- Can I smoke here?

She took out a long thick cigarette. She had detached view. She has been silent for a long time. He began falling asleep. Dux understood that everything wouldn’t be in his favour. She began telling. That semidarkness, almost a dream, big eyes.

- Would you like drink something?

- Why not?

About herself: the fourth academic year of the law department, the second year in divorce, she doesn’t have a baby, that divorce was awful. Her warmth melodious voice and amazing aroma began to drive him crazy.

- Do you think I’m a prostitute?

She laughed. Pain in her eyes, a black Kirghiz night, some scraps instead of normal conversation like autumn leaves.

Colonel lied down on the bed. She sat next to him near the chair. To tell the truth, he has almost dreamt but some part of him heard and felt her.

In a flash, he realized that there was a death which came for him in this appearance. And he felt that she was also a victim of those who tried to kill her.

There were several seconds for thinking everything over. Colonel grabbed her in a way like carrying out the battlefield. She screamed, tried to break away and take the bag but iron-hard Dux’ hands didn’t give her any chance.

- You’re a maniac! – she shouted and tried to kick him. He took her to the emergency exit but when he started to professionally touch her in the street she furiously bit his shoulder.

Piercing shriek harmoniously blended with awful explosion.

She became flabby and cuddled up to him with the whole body.

- I left my passport there!

“She is fool”, - he thought.

It was useless to look for something in the room.

The door fell out, having disrupted the hinges. Dozens of splinters flew about the corridor. That explosion was professional and was equivalent to 1000 grams of trotyl. Dumbfounded half-dressed people darted out their rooms, guards and policemen were running. The panic is about to start. Colonel was dragging out those invaluable seconds. His habit of many years told him that the couple with the microphone and a camera was about to appear. He smiled to the rightness of his speculation. The couple merged with the night crowd of the went mad and running out of the hotel guests.