In the early morning hours of Australian time, Charlie wade landed at Melbourne Airport with Don Albert and Isaac Cameron.
Melbourne time was two hours ahead of the mainland, and it was still dark there, so Charlie wade refrained from messaging Claire Wilson for fear of disturbing her sleep.
Isaac Cameron had long since arranged for staff from the local Shangri-la Palace Hotel to deliver a Cadillac off-road vehicle.
After collecting the car, Isaac Cameron, who held an international driving licence, took the wheel, and Charlie wade instructed him to head straight for the hospital where Stephen Thompson was staying.
On the way, Charlie wade asked Isaac Cameron, “Old Cameron, are you certain Butler Stephen is still at that hospital?”
Isaac Cameron, ever cautious by nature, replied earnestly, “Young Master, the men I arranged reported back that they sneaked in three hours ago and confirmed he is still there.”
“Good.” Charlie wade nodded, sighing, “Once we see Butler Stephen in a bit, I’ll heal his injuries for him, then we’ll take him straight back to Shangri-la Palace. After I get some answers from him on a few matters, we’ll settle the score with those little punks.”
Don Albert pulled a small utility knife from his pocket, gritted his teeth and said, “Master Wade, as soon as we catch those little bastards, I’ll carve the word ‘bastard’ right on their foreheads!”
Charlie wade asked in surprise, “Where did you get that knife from? You couldn’t have brought it on the plane, surely?”
Don Albert chuckled, “No chance, the security checks at mainland airports are so strict, how could I sneak something like this aboard? I bought it just now at the airport convenience store while picking up some smokes.”
With that, he produced a pack of export-version Zhonghua cigarettes and grumbled, “I have to say, smokes are bloody expensive in this godforsaken place. A pack of hard Zhonghua sets you back nearly three hundred quid.”
Charlie wade smiled and said, “You never go anywhere without indulging in your little performance art.”
As the thought struck him, he reminded Don Albert, “That said, I must warn you in advance: once we find them, no matter the circumstances, you can’t carve ‘bastard’ on their foreheads.”
Don Albert asked, puzzled, “Why not, Master Wade? If we don’t give them a lifelong lesson to remember, it’ll be letting those little bastards off far too easy!”
Charlie wade replied seriously, “Why? Let me tell you, first of all, the local brats don’t recognise Chinese characters, so even if he goes out with the characters on his forehead, not everyone would identify them. Worse, the other little punks might think it’s some cool, trendy tattoo.”
“Secondly, we mustn’t give the local media any ammunition. Carving Chinese characters on their foreheads would give those unscrupulous hacks endless fodder to sensationalise the story, and who knows how they’d twist it against us? You know how these birds operate: their own lot shooting it out on the streets with guns, leaving seven or eight dead, that’s just a minor hiccup to them. But if a foreigner, especially an Asian, casually drops a bit of packaging paper on their pavement, it’ll be elevated to a national outrage with a mob piling on in condemnation. Better we keep a low profile. If we’re carving anything, make it not in Chinese characters.”
Don Albert chuckled, “Easy fix then, carve the Japanese ‘baka yarō’ on them, or the Korean ‘sae-ki’.”
Isaac Cameron, driving along, teased, “Don Albert, do you even know how to write the Japanese ‘baka yarō’ or the Korean ‘sae-ki’?”
Don Albert replied gravely, “No, but I can learn! Spot of on-the-job training, no bother!”
Isaac Cameron gave a thumbs-up and praised, “Fair play, still so keen to learn at your age, you’ve got a future!”
Charlie wade, laughing from the passenger seat, said, “Now’s not the time to sling mud at the Japanese or Koreans. These people harbour hostility towards all Asians right now, and Asians slinging mud at each other would only fuel their animosity towards us even more. I’d say English is the way to go, since it’s what they speak anyway.”
Don Albert snickered, “I hear this place, going back two hundred years or so, was where the Brits dumped their convicts?”
“Aye, that’s the tale.” Charlie wade replied offhandedly, “It wasn’t exactly prime real estate back then, or so they say: more rabbits than people, spiders bigger than the rabbits, over seventy percent of the land won’t grow crops, and more than half won’t even sprout grass. But the iron ore reserves are staggering, with iron content over sixty percent in many spots.”
Don Albert smacked his lips and said, “No wonder the Brits shipped their criminals here back then. Build a prison, and you could mine the ore on-site to forge the steel bars.”
Charlie wade knew he was just mouthing off, so he smiled and said, “Their early history might not be all that glorious, but they do have the minerals. In this era, it’s wealth that counts, not morality; whoever has the money is the beacon of modern civilisation.”
Don Albert’s expression soured a touch, and he muttered under his breath, “Plenty of so-called developed nations built their empires on invasion and plunder, then they rebrand as civilised societies overnight.”
Charlie wade shook his head with a smile and said no more; Don Albert’s black-and-white sense of justice, his blunt ways, were things he had grown accustomed to.
