Authors: David Wingrove
The sound could be heard ten miles away. A great cloud of liquefied ice was thrown out by the explosion, which, on contact with the air, hardened instantly.
It was as if someone had fired off a whole shower of crystalline, knife-sharp shards. Anyone within thirty
ch’i
was cut to pieces, but the worst fate befell those who were closer,
for they found themselves embedded in the ice.
It was like being buried alive in the very toughest kind of Perspex. There were special chemicals they could have used to ‘melt’ the stuff, but those in charge had decided that
they’d rather lose a few soldiers now and then, than let any of the chemical ‘ice-eaters’ fall into the wrong hands.
And wisely so, perhaps, only sometimes they would take hours to die, slowly suffocating and gasping for each breath, the hard plastic making it impossible to struggle.
On the occasion Jiang Lei witnessed, the guards were relatively lucky. They had lost two men and had three more badly injured, but most of them had got off relatively unharmed. It had all been a
bit of a mess, but it wasn’t a disaster. A disaster was when something happened that slowed down the construction work, like the earth subsiding beneath the big mechanisms.
The loss of a few men didn’t matter. Not in the greater scheme of things.
Right now, however, Jiang could not help but think that in this his country -men were wrong. The Han had always prided themselves on their ability not merely to plan but to deliver such great
projects – the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the First Emperor’s Terracotta Army, all were fine examples – yet he had come to question that. To challenge what it cost in human
lives, and in suffering. Why did they value the grandiose above the human? What was wrong in their make-up that they could not see how futile all of this was – this ridiculous, strutting
pride of theirs that needed always to be expressed in some massive, costly endeavour.
Then again, wasn’t this what they had always done? Wasn’t it just a new phase in the age-old process of destruction and regeneration? A physical manifestation of Yin and Yang?
Jiang looked about him. Old Sarum was gone. Only the brick outlines of its ancient chambers remained, embedded in the earth.
All of those lives. All those long generations of people, with their hopes and desires, their fears and anxieties…
He looked up, sensing a faint vibration in the air.
In the distance, beyond the edge of the regularly serrated white line that marked the city’s edge, one of the massive lifting craft made its slow way towards them. It was like some giant,
hovering beetle, its huge load suspended on great straps of ice beneath.
Everything on a giant scale…
At another time there might have been a poem in it; something about the ghosts of Old Sarum and the coming of the Han. Of cultures so diverse, so distinct and separate in their ways, that they
may as well have been different species. Only Jiang had other things on his mind, chief of which was how to cope with Wang Yu-Lai.
Wang. What he would like to do with Wang!
Mary stood in the queue, waiting to be seen. It was cold, and though most of them had been allowed to keep their blankets, two hours of standing outside had taken its toll.
People were beginning to look frail, especially the old and the young.
In front of her, Peter stood with Meg, his arms wrapped about her as they waited there, keeping her warm. He had been so good these past few days. In spite of all that had happened, he had kept
his chin up, worrying more about them than about himself. It was easy to forget that he was still only fourteen. Another of his age might have buckled under the weight. But not Peter. He was like
his father in that. He had an inner strength.
She would have smiled, only she didn’t think she would ever smile again. Not since they’d taken Jake that second time. It was hard enough getting through the day when he
was
there, but without him…
Mary turned, looking to Beth and Cath. There was a grim determination in their faces, only she knew they too were suffering. It wasn’t just the physical conditions, it was the uncertainty;
the not knowing whether they would get through all of this, or even what its purpose was. And in the back of their minds, at all times, was the dark shadow of the Holocaust. What if that was what
this really was? What if all the hopeful talk of resettlement was just one big lie?
She couldn’t even bring herself to speak of it. Only it never left her mind. Not for a single moment.
Mary went up on her toes briefly, looking past the heads towards the front. He was here again – the one in the silks who’d come to see Jake that time. He sat on the platform at the
front, quizzing each of them in turn then referring to the machine he carried. Jake had seemed to think he was a good man, only how could any of this be good? How could anyone who did this kind of
thing sleep at night, knowing the heartache and anxiety they caused?
Beth nudged her.
She turned, meaning to ask her what she wanted, and froze.
It was him. The one who’d come before. What had Jake called him? Wang… that was it. The one with the cold, sadistic eyes.
Her stomach turned at the sight of him. Only she realized now that he was looking directly at her and smiling, like he knew who she was.
The thought chilled her.
She turned back, hoping he’d go away. Only moments later, she had a sense of someone standing right behind her. She could feel his warm breath on her neck.
He spoke softly, quietly, as if to her alone.
‘You’re Reed’s woman, yes?’
Mary closed her eyes. What did she answer? What was
safe
?
She shook her head.
The voice continued softly, insinuatingly. ‘No? That surprises me. Because that was what you said, only the other day, when we questioned you. You said you were Reed’s woman
then… but now you’re not.’
‘He’s gone,’ she said, forcing the words out.
There was something awful, something almost satanic about him standing there, just behind her. Speaking in that soft, almost serpentine fashion. As for the other, who sat up front, did he
condone this?
She wanted to turn and slap the creature’s face. To scream at him to go away. But she was powerless, for if he knew who she was, then doubtless he knew who her children were, and it was
the way of such men to use such knowledge.
‘What do you want?’
The man laughed at that. A hideous, corrupt laughter. ‘Why should I want anything?’
Why, indeed? Only she knew he did. Knew that, for some reason, he had fixated on them. Was it something Jake had done? Or was it simply that – sociopath that he clearly was – he had
chosen
them?
It was too frightening a thought to entertain. Yet entertain it she must, if they were to survive.
She was about to say something more, when he stepped past her, his silks brushing against her arm.
Seeing him standing there, directly behind Meg and Peter, Mary felt an overwhelming aversion. The way he stood there, cold and threatening, so close that his breath mingled with theirs. She had
never seen its like. Never experienced it. If she’d had a weapon she would have killed him, there and then, and damn the consequences. Only she had no weapon. And it mattered what she did.
They had to come out of this alive. All of them. If they didn’t she’d have failed.
Wang reached out, touching Peter’s shoulder.
Peter jerked away, surprised, looking round as he did, his eyes growing wide as he saw who it was.
‘
You!
’ Wang barked, all the softness gone from him. ‘What’s your name?’
‘P-p-peter,’ he stammered, taken aback by the violence of the query. ‘P-peter Reed.’
‘And your father… is he here
with
you?’
‘No… no, he’s…’
The man was sneering now. Leaning over Peter threateningly and sneering.
‘He’s dead, that’s what he is… fucking dead! And you would be too, if I had my way. Scum like you…’
Mary stared at Wang, both astonished and horrified. Where did that come from?
At the front, someone was shouting now. Soldiers were making their way towards them, pushing through the crowd now to get to them.
‘Come on,’ Wang was saying, pushing Peter back viciously. ‘Just give me a reason…’
‘Peter, no!’ she screamed, seeing how Peter had stepped back, raising his fist.
Only right then, someone else pushed through and, shoving Peter to one side, took a swing at Wang.
There was the crack of bone and Wang went down, holding his nose and howling.
Frank Goodman stood there, the big Swanage man towering over the fallen Han, gesturing for him to get up and fight him like a man.
Only Wang wasn’t going to get up. As the guards arrived, a couple of them lifted him and carried him away, while others grabbed hold of Goodman and dragged him towards one of the huts on
the far side of the camp.
Mary looked to Peter. He was looking down now, at the ground, his chest rising and falling.
‘We don’t know,’ she began.
Peter shook his head. ‘We do. He’s dead. And I bet that bastard was the one who pulled the trigger.’
Someone else was pushing through towards them now, people moving out of his way. It was the tall Han in the silks.
‘What’s happening here?’
Mary looked to him, disappointment in her eyes. ‘It’s nothing…’
‘Nothing?’ The man’s eyes seemed concerned, but who was to tell? It all felt like subterfuge to her. And if Jake
were
dead…
‘Come,’ the man said. ‘Follow me. Let’s get you processed now.’
Mary hesitated, not knowing whether he meant just her or all of them.
‘Come on,’ the man said, as if he read her mind. ‘Yes, all of you… But quick now, before I change my mind and leave you in the cold.’
Sometimes it’s best not to know.
Jake sat there in the belly of the cruiser, mulling over what he’d seen. When he’d asked Jiang Lei if he knew the fate of his friends, it was an altogether vague enquiry, the kind of
question you ask because it’s been in the back of your mind for years. The kind you think you’ll never get an answer to.
Only there
was
an answer. In fact, there was a file on each of them, subfiles to the greater file headed up ‘Jacob Reed’.
He had not read the full files, not seen more than a few minutes of the hours of taped material of their interrogations. He hadn’t wanted to, not once he’d realized what it was.
They had been tortured – taken to what looked like an abattoir, stripped and strung up. There, while the cameras rolled, they had been asked all manner of things about their good friend
Jake. Where he went, what he did, who he saw, where he was likely to go.
Endless questions, while between times they ‘softened them up’.
He’d not watched those bits. He hadn’t the stomach for it. Especially what they did to Jenny. Not in his wildest imagination would he have thought they could be so foul. And to what
end? To get to him. To find out where
he
was.
If he’d known…
No, even that was a lie. If he’d known he’d have stayed where he was, in hiding and safe, for they would surely have done the same to him.
He had seen the final photos of them, laid out on the slab, their bloodless, lifeless bodies pocked with scars and burns, each mark the token of a separate agony. But it was their faces that
haunted him; those pale, ravaged faces with their sightless eyes and damaged mouths. Lost, they were. Abandoned and despairing. Knowing that no one would come. Longing for death, long after hope
had fled.
It had made him weep. How could one human being do that to another? And for what?
After all, what threat had he been outside of the datscape?
Or was it just some obsessive sense of tidiness on their part?
And how could that not sour him? How could he now go forward, trusting them, having seen what they were capable of? How could he believe in their brave new world, when it was built on such
foundations?
The trouble was, he had no choice. It was conform or die. There was no third option. Jiang Lei had told him as much. One did not have a say in things.
His instinct to flee had been right. Only it had also been futile. There was no running from it. No hiding.
When China comes…
Jake sighed, then stood, pacing the cabin, restless now.
The writing had been on the wall for a long time. Only none of them had seen the danger. None of them had seen just how ruthless China could be when woken. They had thought that to share a world
with them, to trade with them and buy each others’ goods, would somehow change them, make them more democratic, more Western in their ways. Only China was China. And when it came, it came
like a swooping dragon, fiery-breathed and vengeful.
Jiang Lei had told him much that he hadn’t known. Tsao Ch’un, it seems, had overseen it all. Had played it like a game, never for a moment considering the suffering he caused, the
death and desolation. For him only one thing was important: to destroy America without triggering a nuclear war. Geoff Horsfield had been right.
It was an immensely difficult and risky strategy, yet it had worked.
Huge fleets of submarines had shadowed their American counterparts, ready for the day, while teams of special agents, set in place and trained to hack into US defence systems, bided their
time.
Coordination had been the key. An attack on the Market had been followed within hours by a lock-down of key computer systems throughout the West. Whole cities had lost their power and thus their
working infrastructures, while the removal of key personnel by assassination made the decision-making process grind to a halt.
It was, as Tsao Ch’un had termed it, ‘like cutting off both the head and balls and then tearing out the heart’.
At his order ten thousand sleepers suddenly woke, making their presence felt on the streets of Western cities – bombers and snipers and arsonists, spreading chaos and fear wherever they
went. Feeding the flames.
Some missiles had got off, of course. Nine had landed on the Chinese mainland. The cities of Ningbo, Shenyang and Nanchong had been reduced to ashes. But the rest of them – some tens of
thousands of nuclear missiles – had never been fired. They had either been shut down or their facilities destroyed by Tsao Ch’un’s special units.