Authors: David Wingrove
He counted to ten, then touched the EJECT panel. At once a thin, transparent card dropped into the tray beneath the keyboard. He slipped it into his pocket, then put its replacement into the slot at the side and punched SET.
‘Good,’ he said softly, closing the panel and slipping the key back inside his silks. Then, taking a pair of gloves from his pocket, he stepped back inside the bedchamber.
Six floors below, at the far end of the palace, two soldiers were sitting in a cramped guardroom, talking.
The younger of them, a lieutenant, turned momentarily from the bank of screens that filled the wall in front of him and looked across at his captain. ‘What do you think will happen, Otto? Will they close all the companies down?’
Captain Fischer, Head of the T’ang’s personal security, looked up from behind his desk and smiled. ‘Your guess is as good as anyone’s, Wolf. But I’ll tell you this, whatever they do there’ll be trouble.’
‘You think so?’
‘Well, think about it. The volume of seized assets is so vast that if the Seven freeze them it’s certain to damage the market badly. However, if they redistribute all that wealth in the form of rewards there’s the problem of who gets what. A lot of people are going to be jealous or dissatisfied. On the other hand, they can’t just give it back. There has to be some kind of punishment.’
The lieutenant turned back to his screens, scanning them conscientiously. ‘I agree. But where do they draw the line? How do they distinguish between those who were actively against them and those who were simply unhelpful?’
Fischer shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Wolf. I really don’t.’
They were discussing the most recent spate of Confiscations and Demotions, a subject never far from most people’s lips these days. In the past eighteen months more than one hundred and eighty thousand First Level families had been ‘sent down’ and all their material goods confiscated by the Seven as punishment for what had been termed ‘subversive activities’. A further five thousand families had simply vanished from the face of Chung Kuo – to the third generation as the law demanded – for active treason against the Seven. But now, with the War in its final stages and the clamour for peace growing daily, the Confiscations had become a delicate subject and a major bone of contention between those who wanted retribution and those who simply wanted to damp down the fires of resentment and bitterness that such retribution brought in its wake.
The lieutenant turned, eyeing his captain speculatively. ‘I hear there’s even talk of reopening the House.’
Fischer looked back at his junior officer sternly, his voice suddenly hard. ‘You would do best to forget such talk, Lieutenant.’
‘Sir.’ The lieutenant gave a curt bow of his head, then turned back to his screens.
Fischer studied Rahn’s back a moment, then leaned back, yawning. It was just after two, the hour of the Ox. The palace was silent, the screens empty of activity. In an hour his shift would be over and he could sleep. He smiled. That is, if Lotte would let him sleep.
He rubbed at his neck, then leaned forward again and began to catch up with his paperwork. He had hardly begun when the door to his right crashed open. He was up out of his seat at once, his gun drawn, aimed at the doorway.
‘Sun Li Hua! What in Hell’s name?’
The Master of the Inner Chamber looked terrible. His silks were torn, his hair dishevelled. He leaned against the doorpost for support, his eyes wide with shock, his cheeks wet with tears. He reached out, his hand trembling violently, then shook his head, his mouth working mutely. His voice, when he found it, was cracked, unnaturally high.
‘The T’ang…’
Fischer glanced across at the screen that showed Wang Hsien’s bedchamber, then back at Sun Li Hua. ‘What is it, Master Sun? What’s happened?’
For a moment Sun Li Hua seemed unable to speak, then he fell to his knees. A great, racking sob shook his whole body, then he looked up, his eyes wild, distraught. ‘Our master, the T’ang. He’s… dead.’
Fischer had known as soon as he had seen Sun Li Hua; had felt his stomach fall away from him with fear; but he had not wanted to know – not for certain.
‘How?’ he heard himself say. Then, seeing what it meant, he looked across at his lieutenant, pre-empting him; stopping him from pressing the general alarm that would wake the whole palace.
‘Touch nothing, Wolf. Not until I order you to. Get Kurt and Alan here at once.’
He turned back to Sun. ‘Who else knows, Master Sun? Who else have you told?’
‘No one,’ Sun answered, his voice barely audible. ‘I came straight here. I didn’t know what to do. They’ve killed him. Killed him while he slept.’
‘Who? Who’s killed him? What do you mean?’
‘Fu and Chai. I’m certain it was them. Fu’s stiletto… ’
Fischer swallowed, appalled. ‘They knifed him? Your two assistants knifed him?’ He turned to his lieutenant. ‘Wolf, take two copies of the surveillance tape. Send one to Marshal Tolonen at Bremen. Another to General Helm in Rio.’
‘Sir!’
He thought quickly. No one knew anything. Not yet. Only he and Wolf and Sun Li Hua. And the murderers, of course, but they would be telling no one. He turned back to his lieutenant. ‘Keep Master Sun here. And when Kurt and Alan come have them wait here until I get back. And, Wolf…’
‘Sir?’
‘Tell no one anything. Not yet. Understand me?’
Wang Hsien lay there on his back, his face relaxed, as if in sleep, yet pale – almost
Hung Mao
in its paleness. Fischer leaned across and felt for a pulse at the neck. Nothing. The flesh was cold. The T’ang had been dead an hour at least.
Fischer shuddered and stepped back, studying the body once again. The silk sheets were dark, sticky with the old man’s blood. The silver-handled stiletto jutted from the T’ang’s bared chest, the blade thrust in all the way up to the handle. He narrowed his eyes, considering. It would have taken some strength to do that, even to a sleeping man. And not just strength. It was not easy for one man to kill another. One needed the will for the job.
Could Fu have done it? Or Chai? Fischer shook his head. He could not imagine either of them doing this. And yet if not them, then who?
He looked about him, noting how things lay. Then, his mind made up, he turned and left the room, knowing he had only minutes in which to act.
The board lay on the desk in front of DeVore, its nineteen by nineteen grid part overlaid with a patterning of black and white stones. Most of the board was empty: only in the top right-hand corner, in
ch’u
, the west, were the stones concentrated heavily. There the first stage of the battle had been fought, with black pressing white hard into the corner, slowly choking off its breath, blinding its eyes until, at last, the group was dead, the ten stones taken from the board.
It was an ancient game – one of the ten games of the West Lake, played by those two great masters from Hai-nin, Fan Si-pin and Su Ting-an, back in 1763. He played it often, from memory, stopping, as now, at the fifty-ninth move to query what Fan, playing white, had chosen. It was an elegant, enthralling game, the two masters so perfectly balanced in ability, their moves so exquisitely thought out, that he felt a shiver of delight contemplating what was to come. Even so, he could not help but search for those small ways in which each player’s game might have been improved.
DeVore looked up from the board and glanced across at the young man who stood, his back to him, on the far side of the room. Then, taking a wafer-thin ice-paper pamphlet from his jacket pocket, he unfolded it and held it out.
‘Have you heard of this new group, Stefan – the
Ping Tiao
?’
Lehmann turned, his face expressionless, then came across and took the pamphlet, examining it. After a moment he looked back at DeVore, his cold, pink eyes revealing nothing. ‘I’ve heard of them. They’re low level types, aren’t they? Why are you interested?’
‘A man must be interested in many things,’ DeVore answered cryptically, leaning forward to take a white stone from the bowl, hefting it in his hand. ‘The
Ping Tiao
want what we want, to destroy the Seven.’
‘Yes, but they would destroy us just as readily. They’re terrorists. They want
only
to destroy.’
‘I know. Even so, they could be useful. We might walk the same path a while, don’t you think?’
‘And then?’
DeVore smiled tightly. Lehmann knew as well as he. Then there would be war between them. A war he would win. He looked down at the board again. The fifty-ninth move. What would
he
have played in Fan’s place? His smile broadened, became more natural. How many times had he thought it through? A hundred? A thousand? And always, inevitably, he would make Fan’s move, taking the black at 4/1 to give himself a temporary breathing space. So delicately were things balanced at that point that to do otherwise – to make any of a dozen other tempting plays – would be to lose it all.
A wise man, Fan Si-pin. He knew the value of sacrifice: the importance of making one’s opponents work hard for their small victories – knowing that while the battle was lost in
ch’u
, the war went on in
shang
and
ping
and
tsu.
So it was now, in Chung Kuo. Things were balanced very delicately. And one wrong move… He looked up at Lehmann again, studying the tall young albino.
‘You ask what would happen should we succeed, but there are other, more immediate questions. Are the
Ping Tiao
important enough? You know how the media exaggerate these things. And would an alliance with them harm or strengthen us?’
Lehmann met his gaze. ‘As I said, the
Ping Tiao
are a low level organisation. Worse, they’re idealists. It would be hard to work with such men. They would have fewer weaknesses than those we’re used to dealing with.’
‘And yet they
are
men. They have needs, desires.’
‘Maybe so, but they would mistrust us from the start. In their eyes we are First Level, their natural enemies. Why should they work with us?’
DeVore smiled and stood up, coming round the desk. ‘It’s not a question of choice, Stefan, but necessity. They need someone like us. Think of the losses they’ve sustained.’
He was about to say more – to outline his plan – when there was an urgent knocking at the door.
DeVore looked across, meeting Lehmann’s eyes. He had ordered his lieutenant, Wiegand, not to disturb him unless it was vitally important.
‘Come in!’
Wiegand took two steps into the room then came sharply to attention, his head bowed. ‘I’ve a call on the coded channel, sir. Triple-A rated.’
DeVore narrowed his eyes, conscious of how closely Lehmann was watching him. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Stifel, sir. He says he has little time.’
‘Stifel’ was the code name for Otto Fischer in Alexandria. DeVore hesitated a moment, his mind running through possibilities, then nodded.
‘Okay. Switch it through.’
It was a non-visual, Fischer’s voice artificially distorted to avoid even the remote possibility of recognition.
‘Well, Stifel? What is it?’
‘The moon is down, sir. An hour past at most.’
DeVore caught his breath. ‘How?’
‘Eclipsed.’
DeVore stared across at Lehmann, astonished. He hesitated a moment, considering, then spoke again.
‘How many know about this?’
‘Three, maybe four.’
‘Good. Keep it that way.’ He thought quickly. ‘Who’s guarding our fallen moon?’
‘No one. A camera…’
‘Excellent. Now listen…’
He spelt out quickly what he wanted, then broke contact, knowing that Fischer would do exactly as he’d asked.
‘Who’s dead?’
DeVore turned and looked at Lehmann again. His face, like the tone of his words, seemed utterly devoid of curiosity, as if the question were a mere politeness, the answer a matter of indifference to him.
‘Wang Hsien,’ he answered. ‘It seems he’s been murdered in his bed.’
If he had expected the albino to show any sign of surprise he would have been disappointed, but he knew the young man better than that.
‘I see,’ Lehmann said. ‘And you know who did it?’
‘The agent, yes, but not who he was acting for.’ DeVore sat behind his desk again, then looked up at Lehmann. ‘It was Sun Li Hua.’
‘You know that for certain?’
‘Not for certain, no. But I’d wager a million
yuan
on it.’
Lehmann came across and stood at the edge of the desk. ‘So what now?’
DeVore met his eyes briefly, then looked down at the board again. ‘We wait. Until we hear from Stifel again. Then the fun begins.’
‘Fun?’
‘Yes, fun. You’ll see. But go now, Stefan. Get some rest. I’ll call you when I need you.’
He realized he was still holding the white stone. It lay in his palm like a tiny moon, cold, moist with his sweat. He opened out his fingers and stared at it, then lifted it and wiped it. The fifty-ninth stone.
The game had changed dramatically, the balance altered in his favour.
The moon was down. Eclipsed.
DeVore smiled, then nodded to himself, suddenly knowing where to play the stone.
The dead T’ang lay where he had left him, undisturbed, his long grey hair fanned out across the pillow, his arms at his sides, the palms upturned. Fischer stood there a moment, looking down at the corpse, breathing deeply, preparing himself. Then, knowing he could delay no longer, he bent down and put his hand behind the cold, stiff neck, lifting the head, drawing the hair back from the ear.
It was not, physically, difficult to do – the flesh parted easily before the knife; the blood stopped flowing almost as soon as it had begun – yet he was conscious of a deep, almost overpowering reluctance in himself. This was a T’ang! A Son of Heaven! He shivered, letting the severed flesh fall, then turned the head and did the same to the other side.
He lowered the head on to the pillow and stepped back, appalled. Outwardly he seemed calm, almost icy in his control, but inwardly he quaked with an inexplicable, almost religious fear of what he was doing. His pulse raced, his stomach churned, and all the while a part of him kept saying to himself,
What are you doing, Otto? What are you doing?