Floating City (29 page)

Nicholas took careful note as they went out of the temple and along the street. This man’s manner was markedly different from the last time they had met when, surrounded by his men and their weaponry, he had seemed totally in control of the situation. What had changed?

“There was something of an incident two days ago,” Tachi began, “at the Giac Lam Pagoda.”

“Christ, don’t I know it.” Van Kiet was clearly agitated. “I’m under tremendous pressure from the government to find the perpetrator. The problem is I know who ordered it and he pays me far more than the government ever would.”

“This man here was the target of the bomb,” Tachi said, indicating Nicholas. “It was only by extenuating circumstances that he survived.”

“The worse for all of us, I can tell you,” Van Kiet said sourly. He glanced over his shoulder as if he were longing for a bulletproof vest.

“Who ordered me killed?” Nicholas asked.

“Jesus, Rock, of course.”

Nicholas looked at Van Kiet. “Who is Rock?”

“The emperor of Floating City.” Van Kiet grunted. “He built the damn place, carved it out of the jungle and solid rock. God alone knows how he did it, but money can buy you anything, they say, and Rock has so much of it he can’t spend it fast enough.”

“If he owns you, why are you telling us this?” Nicholas asked. “If Rock wants me dead, you should have taken one look at me, pulled out your sidearm, and shot me yourself.”

Van Kiet gave Tachi a sidelong glance. “Is this guy kidding?”

Tachi shrugged, then said, “Tell him.”

Van Kiet’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

“Really.”

Van Kiet shifted his gaze to Nicholas. “I get rented out, not owned. I may be a whore, but I haven’t yet sold my soul.”

Tachi rolled his eyes. “You’re starting to chew the scenery. No, I meant tell him the
truth.”

Van Kiet shivered. “I’m not comfortable here. Can we go somewhere?”

Somewhere meant Van Kiet’s boat, a twenty-one-foot ketch with a white fiberglass hull, a teak deck, and gleaming brass fittings. It was hardly an item a policeman—even a chief inspector—could normally afford. Van Kiet brought the engine to life, turned on the running lights, while Nicholas and Tachi untied the boat from her mooring. They had reached her by a dinghy, which bobbed at the ketch’s side.

Van Kiet took them out about half a mile, until the crescent of lights from Vung Tau made a bracelet in the night. Then he dropped anchor, broke out a chest full of 33 beer. They all drank, sitting in the velvet night, luxuriating in the feeling of being apart from everything and everyone.

“The real truth,” Van Kiet said at last, “is that Tachi and I have been working for two years to infiltrate Rock’s Floating City.”

“Rock owns the poppy fields in the Shan States,” Tachi said.

Van Kiet nodded. “As far as I can tell, he’s a U.S. veteran of the war here. He stayed on after the troops went home. How he managed this particular feat without his superiors knowing about it is a mystery. Maybe he faked his death—he wouldn’t have been the first, I can tell you. Maybe he just disappeared himself. Whatever, he apparently got the idea that opportunity presented itself here, so he took himself to Burma and systematically muscled into the drug trade. He hired himself out as an assassin to those warlords willing to listen. He murdered their main rivals in exchange for a fee. What they didn’t know was that part of the fee was an alliance with Rock. He wasn’t just in it for the money—he wanted the trade itself.”

Van Kiet sipped his beer thoughtfully. “Those who wouldn’t acquiesce, he did in.”

“All by himself?” Nicholas was clearly skeptical.

“Listen, the man was a monster during the war. Who knows how many people he blew away and how much he came to like it? Killing can become a kind of addiction in those circumstances. He could handle any sort of ordnance. To this day, he carries a LAW. Do you know what that is? An M72 light antitank rocket launcher. Can you imagine having one of those beasts leveled at you? And word is he has modified the thing so it’s even more deadly. Plus, he’s a clever bastard. There’s a pretty nasty rumor that he destroyed the last remaining major warlord by killing his most prized possession—a young girl—and serving her severed ear to him in a stew.”

“Monster
seems to be the right word for him,” Nicholas agreed. “Have you been inside Floating City?”

“No, but I think I was close. And then you showed up with your computer-chip scheme. Rock saw through that one right away, which is why he’s marked you. It’s why you pissed me off so badly.” Van Kiet hawked and spat over the side of the boat. “Don’t expect an apology. I would have blown your brains out just like I did that woman you were with after I’d had a chance to interrogate you to find out who you really were and what you were up to.”

“Same thing as you, it would seem.”

Tachi twirled his beer bottle between his hands. “Tell me, does this second-generation chip actually exist?”

“It does,” Nicholas said. “But it’s safe in a Tokyo lab. I wouldn’t have taken the enormous risk of bringing it with me.

“What were you going to show Abramanov?”

“Then Abramanov exists?”

“Oh, yes,” Tachi said. “He exists and he’s working feverishly in Floating City on a project unrelated to Rock’s drug trade.”

“Rock isn’t merely into drug trafficking,” Van Kiet interjected. “He’s also one of the main suppliers of illegal arms worldwide. I mean these days just about anyone with cash can buy any weapon they want, within reason, from the Russians or the Chinese. But then you’re stuck with basically shoddy equipment. That’s all right for some minor despots and terrorists, but the big boys want more. They play for keeps and want to come out on top. They want American weapons—and the latest ones, to boot.”

“That’s where Rock comes in.” Tachi pulled another beer out of the cooler, popped the top. “He somehow has a pipeline into—what? The U.S. military? The Pentagon? The arms manufacturers? Who knows? The point is, he’s the only source. Middlemen come to him and him alone and pay top dollar for his consignments. That’s what happens when you have a monopoly. Where are you going to go when you get gouged?”

“And if you are stupid enough to complain?” Van Kiet cocked his thumb and forefinger like a gun, pulled the trigger.

“Is that what happened to Vincent Tinh?”

“Possibly,” Van Kiet said. “But my own theory is the little bastard just got too greedy and Rock decided to make an example of him. In Rock’s business it pays to do that every once in a while. Keeps the citizens from getting restless.”

“How can the Vietnamese government allow such a place to exist?” Nicholas asked.

Van Kiet grunted. “Are you kidding? Rock’s made his life’s work a gold mine for them. Floating City got its name because Rock has managed to make it into its own miniature city-state; he pays key officials in the government so much that they deny the existence of his independent kingdom—his Floating City.”

Nicholas finished his beer, but declined Van Kiet’s offer of another. Despite his rapid recovery, it felt like a long day, and he was feeling the accumulated effects. There was a buzzing in his head he suspected only sleep would finally conquer.

“Have either of you heard of something called Torch 315?” He told them how he had come across the entry in the Avalon Ltd. computer, and what Croaker told him it meant. “We’re talking a major bang here; a disaster for what could be a large number of innocent bystanders.”

“It could be what Abramanov is working on,” Van Kiet said.

“Isn’t he a cyberneticist and theoretical-language technician?”

“That’s right,” Van Kiet said. “But apparently that’s not all be is. Disturbing rumors surfaced about six months after Abramanov appeared that Rock was transporting enormous quantities of lead and depleted uranium 238.”

“Do you know what that stuff is used for?” Tachi asked.

“Usually to contain radioactive material,” Nicholas said with mounting excitement. “This could be it. Have you done some background digging on Abramanov?”

“Yes, and I’ve gotten nowhere.” Tachi grunted. “We’re speaking of Russia. Bureaucrats are far too busy trying to survive to dig out bios of former citizens. And every time I’ve found a less-than-distracted bureaucrat over there, he’s been replaced a week later.”

Van Kiet was tapping his upper lip with his empty beer bottle. “You know, there is someone in Saigon who may be of some help. He arrived four days ago from Bangkok via Osaka, but according to his passport his original point of departure was Moscow. I remember the memo coming in and noting it because these days we get so few Russians. The people here hate their guts, will spit at them, curse them, try to beat and rob them. We get a fair number of complaints from Americans who have been mistaken for Russians.”

“So he’s Russian,” Nicholas said. “That doesn’t mean he’ll know anything about Abramanov.”

“Oh, but he will.” Van Kiet showed his yellow teeth in a discomfiting grin. “If Abramanov is a nuclear scientist, this man will know him. He’s the head of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow.”

“What’s he doing here?” Nicholas asked.

“In Saigon, he’s looking for only one of two things.” Van Kiet rose, turned on the engine, and began to raise the anchor. “Money or opportunity.”

“Maybe both,” Tachi said, stowing the cooler underneath a bench. “And that could mean he’s headed straight for Rock and Floating City.”

Croaker got out of the taxi at the building demolition site. After the countrified Gordian knot of Senator Dedalus’s estate the damp urban wind seemed to cleanse him. It was good to be amid the clamor and grime of the city; he’d had enough of Senator Dedalus and his odd James Bond manqué. Dedalus must have been born understanding how to manipulate people. His control of power was quite extraordinary. Croaker, whose business had been to size up people in an instant, did not know what to make of the senator. Was he sincere as he professed to be, or was he hiding behind a mask of seamless manufacture? Had Vesper and Margarite been there two nights ago as Croaker suspected, or was Dedalus telling the truth?

Croaker stopped the first man he saw at the demolition site. “I’m looking for John Jay Arkham. His office said he was here.”

The worker pointed into the abandoned office building. “He’s inside, directing the placement of the charges.” He meant the explosives that would implode the building, bringing it safely down upon itself. “Big guy, blond hair. You can’t miss him.” He handed Croaker a hard hat. “Here. Wear this while you’re on the site, even if you have to go pee.”

Croaker thanked the man, settled the hat on his head, and went inside. It hadn’t been difficult tracking down Arkham; his demolition company was the largest in the area. Since he was often on-site, his office was used to directing potential clients in the field.

The inside of the building was eerie, all empty vaults, creaking wood joists, and half-exposed metal girders. The air was filled with drywall dust and paint flecks. Here and there, exposed pipes and ductwork attested to the diligent work of the homeless, who had torn loose pieces of insulation as blankets to huddle beneath during the long winter nights. They might not freeze to death, but God only knew what the exposed asbestos and torn fiberglass was doing to their lungs.

Croaker made his way through the rubble until he spotted a small group of men bending over an area where four girders met at the concrete subfloor. The sound of a high-speed drill could intermittently be heard as concrete dust billowed up. One man, oversize and blond, gave terse orders.

“Mr. Arkham?” Croaker had to shout several times. It wasn’t until the drill stopped that the big man looked over. “Lew Croaker.” He dropped his badge open. “Can I have a minute of your time?”

The blond said something to one of the men and the drill started up. He walked over to where Croaker was standing and took off a pair of thick plastic safety goggles, pushed the filter mask down off his nose and mouth. The skin of his face and hands was covered in a fine powdering of whitish dust.

“I don’t have a lot of time, I’m afraid. I have a deadline to make here and we’re already a day behind schedule.”

“I understand. This won’t take long. I need to speak with you about your ex-wife.”

Arkham eyed him for a moment, sizing him up. He was huge, perhaps six feet five inches, with brawny shoulders and narrow waist and hips. He had the winning good looks of a college quarterback in whiteface with all the paraphernalia of his trade hanging off him. Croaker supposed he could see the appeal this man might have had for a woman of Vesper’s unusual beauty.

Arkham pointed to his left. “Let’s go out here so we can talk in peace.”

He led Croaker through the ruins, out a side doorway into a gray alley with a rivulet of water. Far away at one end Croaker could see part of Arkham’s team assiduously positioning charges from a set of plans.

“What do you want to know about Vesper?”

“Everything.”

Arkham grunted. “Then you’ve come to the wrong place. I loved her but I hardly understood her.”

“Too brainy?”

“Shit, maybe. Your guess is as good as mine.” Arkham took out a cigarette, lit up. He blew out some smoke, looked disgustedly at the end of the cigarette, and ground it out beneath the thick rubber sole of his construction boot. “I know I can give it up, I’ve done it so many times.” He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “All I can tell you about Vesper could fit on the head of a pin. I think she loved me in her own way, though God knows what that was. See, I was just a part of her life. She’d disappear for days, sometimes weeks, and when I’d ask her where she’d been, d’you know what she’d say? ‘Jay, I have a life independent of you. That’s the way I am. Accept it or leave me.’”

He looked down at his feet. “In the end I did. She gave me no choice, although I’m sure if you’d ask her, she’d tell you differently.” He sighed. “Yes, she loved me, but in the end what did that mean? I’m sure I can’t tell you because she’s still a complete mystery to me.”

“Maybe you liked that about her.”

“Yeah, sure, what man wouldn’t? Up to a point. But the mystery was far more than a game to her, I’m positive of that. When she got serious, she was
deadly
serious. So much so that she frightened me. I’ve never been scared of another human being.” He cracked a wry smile. “A benefit, I guess, of being so damn big. But there were times I admit Vesper spooked the shit out of me.”