Daylight on Iron Mountain (31 page)

When Chi was gone, he went back inside and locked the door. He had been told earlier, by the barman, that gangs of thieves operated in these levels preying on the gullible and careless, and he did not intend to fall into either of those categories.

He reached up, turning the screen back on. If he couldn’t sleep – and he couldn’t, now that Chi had woken him – he might as well watch some news. Only once again he noted that uncertainty that seemed to lie behind everything; the way the media’s reporters seemed to be only half attending to what they were saying. As if some whole other story was going on. One that the general public were not to know about.

Getting that message from GenSyn had made him forget. But now that he saw it again, he knew he was right. Something was happening, something big.

Only what?

His instincts, backed up by experience, told him to start at the top. What was the biggest thing that could be happening right now?

War. War between Tsao Ch’un and the Seven.

He laughed. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Because they wouldn’t be able to cover up something like that. Everybody would know. Or would they? Especially if it had only just begun. What if they didn’t know quite how to report it? Or, more likely, what if the Thousand Eyes had put an embargo on reporting it?

Jake spent the next hour switching channels, trying to find some small speck of evidence that something was going on behind the scenes, but there was nothing. Only the edginess of the newsmen and women, the way their habitual glibness had a certain fragility to it. And their eyes. They were scared. He could see it wherever he looked.

But… scared of what?

‘War.’ He said it softly, quietly, fearing to say it out loud. ‘They’re having a fucking war out there!’

*

Jake met Yang Hong Yu in the forecourt outside the courtroom at five to eight. Advocate Yang looked anxious, flustered.

Like a man who has been up all night, clearing up.

Jake felt sorry for Yang. He had got in way out of his depth. Only things would surely change now that GenSyn were involved.

‘Where’s Chi Lin Lin?’ Jake asked.

‘I left him to scrub out the office. The stench…’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault,
Shih
Reed. Shall we go in?’

Inside, Advocate Yang took three steps, then stopped, gesturing towards the three men who sat in the previously empty chairs on their side of the courtroom.

‘They’ve got the wrong courtroom, surely?’

On the big, central table the huge pile of dusty tomes on the Chang side were now matched on Jake’s side by an equally impressive stack of newer, shinier leather-covered books. Matched one to one, in fact. As if, in the night, a new mountain range had been thrown up in opposition to the other.

Yang turned to him. ‘
Shih
Reed?’

Yang Hong Yu’s face was a treasure to behold. Jake laughed, then gestured that Yang should continue on down. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘They’re on our side. GenSyn sent them to help us out.’

‘
GenSyn?
’ Yang looked totally confused.

Right then the Chang clan and their lawyers made an entrance, smiling and laughing as they came in. And stopped dead. Seeing the books, seeing the three new lawyers in their impressive silks, they fell silent for a moment, and then a hissed whispering began, mouth to ear, as they sought to understand this new development.

Jake took his seat, then turned to face the newcomers.

‘I’m Jake Reed. Alison said you’d help us out.’

The three – two middle-aged Han and one bright-eyed youngster – introduced themselves, bowing to Jake and then to Advocate Yang, as if he were their equal. But a single look at them told Jake that these were the best money could buy. GenSyn, for some unknown reason, were pulling out all the stops for him.

GenSyn, or Alison?

Oh, no doubt she had instigated it, but… well, it was crazy to think that she would commit them to this without some reason.

Guilt, perhaps. Guilt at how shoddily they treated me, after Gustav’s death.
Only corporations like GenSyn rarely suffered guilt.

The most senior of the three was Meng Hsin-fa. A robust, highly intelligent-looking man, he had decided to play things quietly, to unnerve the Changs and their team through a display of sheer unflappability.

The next hour proved very interesting. Judge Wei, appearing almost a quarter of an hour late, was also shocked by the new development. He had clearly settled with the Changs, only to find his best laid plans spoiled by this new presence in his court. He tried to have the newcomers barred, only Meng Hsin-fa had anticipated that tactic and come armed with sealed documents from Wei’s superiors, forbidding such.

The look on Wei’s face when they’d presented the documents was worth all of the previous day’s suffering. Yang Hong Yu looked set to expire with joy.

And that was just the start.

When they broke for lunch, just after one, things were swinging their way. The Changs’ lawyers had presented various compelling precedents to justify reducing Jake’s pension, which amounted, when all was said and done, to their right to do what they bloody well pleased as new owners of the Micro-Data corporation. But Jake’s team – his three new men – were ready for them. They presented their own precedents – precedents that were not merely more recent but considerably more compelling.

Jake, sitting there and looking on, didn’t understand one-tenth of it, but he could see the consternation in the opposing camp as, one after another, the carefully laid planks of their case were torn up and thrown aside.

As for Yang Hong Yu, he sat there like he was in a daydream, enjoying every last second, the smile on his face widening from time to time as the GenSyn lawyers went about their subtle and ruthless work.

Jake knew he would have to contact Alison and thank her. Only how could he ever repay her? For he understood it clearly now. They would have been ripped to shreds without them. Chewed up and spat out, for all Yang’s indignation.

Outside the courtroom, too, things had changed. Before now there had
been only a single security guard – an old
Hung Mao
, in his sixties if he was a day – but now there were six of them, armed with lantern-guns, their faces masked.

Jake touched Yang’s arm. ‘Will you do something for me, Yang Hong Yu? Will you look after our friends while I make a call or two? I won’t be long.’

There was a room at the end of the corridor where he could make the calls. He went there, getting himself patched through to Mary.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked. ‘Are you winning?’

‘I think so,’ he said, deciding that he’d explain it all later, when he was back with her. ‘But listen… has there been any mention on the news of trouble?’

‘Trouble? Not that I know, but… well, I did notice that some of the news channels had gone off the air.’

Then it was true. There
was
something going on. That and the additional guards. All the signs pointed that way. Only when would some proper news break? When would they find out what it was?

‘Mary. I’ve got to go. Things to discuss. Only if there’s anything on the news… anything at all, then let me know. Send me a message, all right?’

‘All right.’

He said his goodbyes and signed off, then dialled again.

‘Hello?’

It was her. Unmistakably. Twenty years had passed, but she remained unchanged.

‘Ali?’

Her smile was warmer than he remembered. ‘Hi. How did it go?’

‘Very well. And thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. And before you ask, it was Ludo’s idea. Ludo Ebert, that is. He’s Gustav’s son. He feels you were treated badly by his uncle. It’s him you have to thank.’

‘Ah…’ Only Jake wondered how he’d known. Had Alison tipped him off ? Explained, perhaps, what had happened to Jake?

‘Look, Jake, I’m busy right now. But let’s speak later, yeah?’

‘Okay. I’ll talk to you then.’

‘Okay. Bye for now.’

Jake sat there a moment, lost in his thoughts. He could still remember the first time he had ever seen her, there on the pavement outside Blackwell’s,
in Oxford. She had been talking animatedly to two female College friends. It was pure chance, because he had been intending to walk on past and meet a friend in the pub nearby, only the window display had caught his attention and he had stopped to look, and there she was. For the briefest moment their eyes had met and she had smiled…

And that was it. Five years of his life. That’s where it began. On the pavement outside Blackwell’s.

Jake stood, then looked about him. It was such a shabby little room. It made him wonder just how many shabby little deals had been made in it.

More than enough.

These last few days it felt as if a wall inside him had been breached; that, under the stress of the court case, he had re-awoken all of this old stuff, this
difficult
stuff. All those things he had learned to wall in and deny these past twenty years. All of it come back to plague him. Only that wasn’t strictly true. It wasn’t a plague. Not at all. The truth was that he
liked
it. Liked that feeling of having let go. Of having relaxed the constraints he’d set in place to stop him thinking of it all. All the things he’d lost. All those wonderful, beautiful things. Things that
they
didn’t want him to remember.

Oxford. He had only to close his mind and he could see it all again, all of those images, imprinted on his brain. Scattered memories from the Age of Waste. Yes, he could see it now. How this world they inhabited had its roots back then, in their neglect, their wastefulness. How the West had thrown its future away, like some undervalued piece of trash.

‘
Shih
Reed?’

He turned. It was Chi Lin Lin.

‘What is it, boy? Is it about to start again?’

‘No,
Shih
Reed. But my Master… well, he felt we should talk things through. Agree upon a strategy.’

‘Of course.’

His mind wasn’t in it. His mind wanted him to stay there, on the pavement outside Blackwell’s, in that bright late autumn day.

So long ago. So very long ago.

The afternoon session proved a lot more lively.

The Changs, it seemed, were not going to roll over and take things lying
down. They had retrenched and reconsidered things during that long lunch break and had returned to court with a whole new tactic.

Advocate Yang leaned in and whispered to Jake’s ear. ‘
The bastards are playing the delay card. If they can’t get the case dismissed, then they mean to see you die before you collect.
’

He had been warned it might be so, for that was apparently how big corporations played it sometimes. If they couldn’t win they would delay. Keep the case in court for thirty years if they had to, wearing the opposition down until they were forced to make a deal.

Or died.

But the team GenSyn had sent him had anticipated this. Advocate Meng had risen to face the Judge, clearing his throat.

‘My Lord, I would like to…’

Judge Wei brought his gavel down hard. ‘Advocate Meng… would you like a ruling now?’

For the first time that day, Meng looked surprised. ‘My Lord, I…’

‘
What is this?
’ Jake whispered to Yang.

‘I don’t know,’ Yang answered, as much in the dark, it seemed, as Jake.

‘Do you want me to rule?’ Judge Wei insisted.

Meng hesitated, then asked, ‘Might I consult with my client, my Lord?’ Wei nodded. ‘You may.

We’ll have a short adjournment. Be back here in an hour.’ And with that he got up and left the courtroom hurriedly.

‘What in the gods’ names was that?’ Jake asked, alone in one of the anterooms with his team. ‘I didn’t think he
could
rule. Not without hearing all the evidence, and we’ve barely begun that.’

‘He
ought
,’ Meng answered. ‘Only I think our Lordship is playing another game. If it weren’t so outrageous, I’d think he was trying to start an auction.’

Jake looked to him for explanation.

‘Well… I can’t be sure, but… I think the Judge is waiting for our offer.’

‘Our offer? But I thought it was between us and the Chang family if we wished to settle?’

‘If we wanted to settle out of court, yes. But I don’t mean that. Judge Wei has as good as said he’ll rule for the party that pays him the biggest bribe.’

Jake should have been shocked, only he wasn’t. It was no worse than what the Changs had done in denying him what was legitimately his. In this rapacious world, the only wonder was that such behaviour wasn’t officially sanctioned.

‘So how do we answer him?’

‘You don’t want to pay the Judge, then, Jake? It would be cheaper for us all. Cheaper and less bother.’

Jake bristled. ‘I most certainly
don’t
want to. But what happens if he rules for the Changs?’

‘Then we appeal.’

‘But that just plays into their hands, surely? It would take months to get a case re-scheduled.’

‘Not necessarily. And in the meantime we could find out a few facts about Judge Wei. Like how much the Chang clan have paid him, for a start, and whether they have any
other
kind of hold over him.’

Yang, sitting there and listening, beamed at the thought. ‘And the Changs… could we investigate them too?’

Jake interrupted. ‘But this all takes time and money, surely? Why can’t we force Judge Wei to behave as he ought?’

Meng smiled patiently. ‘Why do you think the Changs had the case moved to this court in particular? Any higher and they’d have had trouble finding as corrupt a judge as our good friend Wei. Any lower and any decision the Judge made would be laughed… well, out of court.’

‘Yes, but…’ Jake huffed, hating the fact that he had to deal with such rogues and pickpockets. It all seemed so
unclean
.

Just then Chi Lin Lin came back. He looked troubled by something, but he said nothing, just sat there on a chair at the back of the room looking on.

But Jake had noticed. He went across, leaving the advocates to discuss how to proceed.