Letter From Hong Kong |2| Temples Are Hard
Previously in Letter From Hong Kong, thanks to a series of careless lies and multiple bottles of Buckfast, Joe Kennedy has found himself in the back of a truck in the Brazilian rainforest heading towards an ancient temple with his contact Hadi, driver Pedro, and Mateus, who has so far functioned primarily as an ottoman but will no doubt do something soon.
“So,” I said taking my first sip of the tonic wine, “what do we do when we get there?”
Hadi turned to face me.
“Do you not remember the series of emails we shared? The detailed plans to recover Server No. 1 and bring it back?”
“Yes. Of course I do.” I lied very convincingly.
Hadi said a few words in Arabic which I assume were a prayer of some kind then turned back around.
I looked to Mateus and gave him a thumbs up, hesitatingly he gave one back. Encouraged, I did the same to Pedro, sticking my thumb in front of the driver’s face. Hadi smacked my hand. I was beginning to dislike Hadi.
I decided to lighten the mood with some old fashioned Irish bus singing.
“Thhhhheeeeeeeee wheels on the bus go round, round, round, round, round, round!”
“Shut up!” screamed Hadi. I complied.
A couple of hours and few bottles of Buckie later we arrived to the ruins of the city. We exited the jeep and took in our surroundings. To be honest there wasn’t much to take in. I mean once you’ve seen the ruins of one ancient civilisation in the middle of a huge rainforest you’ve seen them all.
Hadi was examining a tablet PC and was very annoyed when I walked up to him and poked the screen.
“What ya doin?” I inquired in a pleasingly sing-song voice.
“I’m attempting to locate the power source.”
“Oh right.” I looked around. “Would it be that building with the ESB poles going up to it?”
Hadi looked where I was pointing then scowled at me. Not even a word of thanks for doing his job for him. He put the tablet in his jacket pocket and marched towards the large stone building. I shrugged, made a couple of hand gestures I’ve invented myself at Pedro and Mateus and followed him.
We entered the ancient building, Hadi pulled out a flashlight while I held my phone up and took pictures with the flash on to get the mood right. We shuffled along the narrow, low corridor and soon entered the central chamber. In the middle of the room was a pedestal with a small old computer thing on it. I walked up to it and began trying to connect my phone to it.
“What are you doing you fool!” said Hadi. I was really getting sick of his shit.
“I’m trying to see if I can get connected to the wi-fi.” I lifted up the box assuming that the password would be written underneath. Unfortunately that caused the box to fall off the pedestal and smash into pieces on the floor.
“Whoops”
“You moron! Why did you do that! Why did I ever believe you were an expert in computer science?”
“Now in fairness, I never said that.”
“Yes you did!”
“Oh. Well I can’t be blamed for your lack of fact checking now, can I?”
Hadi pulled a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at me. As this was not the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me by an enraged bald man I immediately dropped to the ground and did a super cool ninja roll. Hadi fired at where I had been and unfortunately for him the bullet ricocheted back and hit him in the head. Killing him in a way that was totally not my fault. It was practically suicide.
I took the time to relieve his corpse of any valuables, which is a totally reasonable thing to do in these circumstances. This included his tablet, which had a number of pay for play games which were already linked to his credit card, which I enjoyed immensely. And for which I fully intend to reimburse his family if they ever track me down.
I went back outside, told our guides that Hadi was super busy inside and wanted us to go home and chill for a while and come back for him tomorrow or whenever. They were a little sceptical until I gave them some money from Hadi’s wallet.
They dropped me back at the waiting jet where I instructed them to “Get me the hell out of Chinatown!” which for some reason the pilot believed indicated that I wanted to go to Hong Kong.
So now here I am, in Hong Kong with a totally reasonable bill for a week’s stay in a five star hotel and an amazing exclusive story. Hoping to hear from you soon!
Joe
PS You never told me how the expenses system works but I’m sure you just take my word for the bills right?
