Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series (23 page)

Teng was silent a moment, then he stepped aside. ‘Get moving, then. I want to see
you both in the fields within the hour, understand me?’

Pavel dipped his head, then hurried on. Chen followed, keeping his eyes on the ground.

‘Who were they?’ Chen asked, when they were out of hearing.

‘Teng Fu and Chang Yan. They’re the Overseer’s men. Chang’s fairly docile. Teng’s
the one you need to watch. He’s a vicious piece of work. Thinks he’s
something special. Fortunately he knows very little about how this place works. But
that’s true of most of them. There’s not one of those guards has any brains. Providing
you keep your
nerve you can convince them of anything.’

Chen nodded. ‘You were frightened, though. You took a risk for me. I’m grateful for
that, Pavel.’

Pavel breathed deeply. ‘Not for you, so much, Tong Chou, but for all of us. They say
the spirits of the dead have no shadows, but the death of Field Supervisor Sung and
his wife have left
a darkness here that no man can dispel.’

Chen looked thoughtfully at him. ‘I see.’

‘I’ll tell you some time,’ the youth said, glancing at him.

They walked on. Up ahead of them, maybe ten
li
or so in the distance, the straight line of the horizon was broken by a building;
a huge, three-tiered pagoda.

‘What’s that?’ Chen asked.

Pavel didn’t even bother to look up. ‘That? That’s the Overseer’s House.’

As he watched a faint speck lifted from the fields close by the building and came
towards them. A Security cruiser. The sound of its engines followed seconds later;
muted at first, but growing
louder by the moment. Minutes later it passed overhead, the shadow of the big craft
sweeping across the fields.

Chen looked back at the Overseer’s House and nodded to himself. So that was where
he was.
Well, Shih Bergson
, he thought,
I’ll find out all I can about this place. Then
I’ll pay you a visit. And find out if you are who we think you are.

DeVore looked down from the window of the craft as it swept south over the fields,
the fingers of one hand absently tracing the surface of the object in the other.

‘What is that?’

The voice was cold, chillingly free of intonation, but DeVore was used to it by now.
It was the voice of his dead friend. He turned and looked at Lehmann’s albino son,
then handed him the
tiny rose quartz snuff bottle.

‘It was a first meeting gift from Douglas. He saw me admiring it.’

Lehmann examined it, then handed it back. ‘What did you give him?’

‘I sent him a copy of Pecorini and Shu’s
The Game Of Wei Chi
. The Longman edition of 1929.’

Lehmann was silent a moment, considering. ‘It seems an odd gift. Douglas doesn’t play.’

‘No, but he should. All men – men of any ability – should play.’ DeVore tucked the
bottle away in the pocket of his jacket. ‘Do you play, Stefan?’

Lehmann turned his head slowly, until he was facing DeVore. The albino’s dead eyes
seemed to stare straight through him. ‘What do you think?’

DeVore smiled coldly. ‘I think you do. I’d say you were a good player. Unorthodox,
but good.’

Lehmann made no reaction. He turned his head back, facing the front of the craft.

Like a machine,
DeVore thought, chilled and yet strangely delighted by the boy.
I could make something of you, given time
.

They were flying down to the Swiss Wilds, to meet Weis and see how work was going
on the first of the fortresses.

DeVore looked back out the window. Two figures trudged along one of the paths far
below. Field workers, their coolie hats making them seem like two tiny, black
wei chi
stones against the
criss-cross pattern of the fields. Then they were gone and the craft was rising, banking
to the right.

He had been busy since the meeting at Douglas’s. The business with Lehmann’s son had
taken him totally by surprise, but he had recovered quickly. Using his contacts in
Security he
had had the mother traced; had investigated her past and discovered things about her
that no one in her immediate circle knew. His man had gone to her and confronted her
with what they knew.

And now she was his. A handle. A way, perhaps, of controlling Stefan Lehmann should
he prove troublesome.

DeVore smiled and turned back to the youth. ‘Perhaps we should play a game some time?’

Lehmann did not even look at him. ‘No.’

DeVore studied the youth a moment, then looked away.
So he understands,
he thought.
He knows how much of a man’s character is reflected in the mirror of the board, the
stones.
Yet his refusal says a lot about him. He’s more cautious than his father. Colder.
More calculating. Yes, I bet he’s very good at the game. It’s a shame he won’t play.
It
would have been a challenge.

The journey took them less than an hour. Weis met them in the landing dome, furred
and gloved, anxious to complete his business and get away. DeVore saw this and decided
to keep him – to
play upon his fears, his insecurity.

‘You’ll eat with us, I hope,
Shih
Weis?’

He saw Weis’s inner hesitation; saw how he assessed the possible damage of a refusal
and weighed it against his own discomfort. A banker. Always, first and foremost, a
banker.

‘Well?’ DeVore insisted, loading the scales against refusal.

‘I have a meeting at six.’

It was just after one. DeVore took his elbow lightly and turned him towards the exit.
‘Then we have plenty of time, neh? Come. I don’t know about you,
Shih
Weis, but I’m
famished.’

They were high up, almost thirteen thousand feet, and it was cold outside the dome
of the landing platform, the sun lost behind thick cloud cover. Landeck Base was some
way above them on the
mountainside, a vast, flattened hemisphere, its brilliant whiteness blending with
the snow and ice surrounding it. Beneath its cover, work had begun already on the
fortress.

‘It’s a beautiful sight, don’t you think, Major?’ Weis said as he stepped out onto
the snow, his breath pluming in the chill air.

DeVore smiled, then looked about him. ‘You’re right, Weis,’ he said, noting how Weis
had used his real identity yet again. ‘It is beautiful.’ But he knew Weis was
talking about the base up ahead of them, not the natural beauty of their surroundings.

They were on the eastern slope of a great glacial valley – a huge trench more than
two
li
deep and one across. It ran north-west, ringed on all sides by the brutal shapes
of
mountains. Cloud obscured the distance, but it could not diminish the purity of the
place. This land was untouched, elemental. He felt at home here.

He stopped in the snow field just beneath the Base and studied the great, shield-like
dome, thinking of the seven great Security garrisons ringing the Swiss Wilds, like
seven black stones placed
on a giant board. The T’ang’s handicap. He laughed softly. Well, now he had placed
the first white stone. The great game had begun.

Guards wearing full snow camouflage let them inside, then searched them. DeVore submitted
patiently, smiling at the guard when he handed back the tiny snuff bottle. Only Weis
seemed upset by the
routine.

‘Is this really necessary?’ he huffed irritably, turning to DeVore as the soldier
continued his body search.

‘It’s necessary, I assure you,
Shih
Weis. One small device could tear this place apart. And then your backers would be
very angry that we had not taken such
precautions.’ He laughed. ‘Isn’t that how you bankers think? Don’t you always assume
the worst possible case and then act accordingly?’

Weis bowed his head, ceding the point, but DeVore could see he was still far from
happy.

A door from the Secure Area led out into the dome itself. Mobile factories had been
set up all over the dome floor and men were hard at work on every side – manufacturing
the basic
equipment for the Base. But the real work was being done beneath their feet – in the
heart of the mountain. Down there they were hewing out the tunnels and chambers of
Landeck Base from the
solid rock. When it was finished there would be no sign from the air.

They crossed the dome floor. On the far side was an area screened off from the rest
of the dome. Here the first of DeVore’s recruits were temporarily housed. Here they
slept and ate and
trained, until better quarters were hewn from the rock for them.

DeVore turned to Weis and Lehmann, and indicated that they should go through. ‘We’ll
be eating with the men,’ he said, and saw – as he had expected – how
discomfited Weis was by the news. He had thought that other arrangements – special
arrangements – had been made.

DeVore studied him, thinking,
Yes, you like your comforts, don’t you, Weis? And all this – the mountains, the cold,
the busy preparations – mean very little by comparison.
Your heart’s in Han opera and little boys, not revolution. I’ll watch you, Weis. Watch
you like a hawk. Because you’re the weakest link. If things go wrong, you’ll be the
first to break.

He went inside after them and was greeted by the duty officer. Normally the man would
have addressed him as Major, but, seeing Weis, he merely bowed deeply, then turned
and led them across to
the eating area.

Good
, thought DeVore.
Though it matters little now, I like a man who knows when to hold his tongue.

They sat on benches at one of the scrubbed wooden tables.

‘Well,
Shih
Weis? What would you like to eat?’

The cook bowed and handed Weis the single sheet menu. DeVore kept his amusement hidden,
knowing what was on the paper. It was all very basic fare – soldier’s food – and he
saw
Weis’s face crinkle with momentary disgust. He handed the sheet back and turned to
DeVore.

‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather not. But you two go ahead.’

DeVore ordered, then turned and looked at Lehmann.

‘I’ll have the same.’

‘Good.’ He looked back at Weis. ‘So. Tell me,
Shih
Weis, what
has
been happening?’

Weis leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘There’s been a problem.’

‘A problem?’

‘Duchek. He’s refused to pass the funds through the plantation accounts.’

‘I see. So what have you done?’

Weis smiled broadly, clearly pleased by his own ingenuity. ‘I’ve re-routed them –
through various Security ordnance accounts.’

DeVore considered it a moment, then smiled. ‘That’s good. Much better, in fact. They’d
never dream we’d use their own accounts.’

Weis leaned back, nodding. ‘That’s what I thought.’

Because of the vast sums involved they had had to take great care in setting up the
routes by which the money got to DeVore. The finances of Chung Kuo were closely knit
and any large movement
was certain to be noted by the T’ang’s Ministry, the Hu Pu, responsible for monitoring
all capital transfers and ensuring the T’ang received the fifty per cent due him on
the
profit of each and every transaction.

It had been decided from the outset that it would be safest to be open about the movements.
Any attempt to siphon away sums of this size would be noticed and investigated, but
normal movements
– if the T’ang received his cut from them – would not be commented upon. It had meant
that the T’ang would actually receive almost seventy-five per cent of everything they
allocated, but this had been budgeted for.

Weis and his small team had worked directly with the sponsors to set things up. First
they had had to break the transfers down into smaller, less noticeable sums, then
disguise these as payments
to smaller companies for work done. From there they were re-routed and broken down
into yet smaller payments – this process being repeated anything between ten and fifteen
times before they
finally got to DeVore. Again, it was an expensive process, but necessary to protect
the seven major sponsors from being traced. Palms had had to be greased all the way
down the line,
‘squeeze’ to be paid to greedy officials.

Funded directly it would have cost a quarter of the sum DeVore had asked for. But
the risk of discovery would have been a hundred times greater.

‘You’ve done an excellent job,
Shih
Weis,’ DeVore said, leaning back to let the cook set his plate down in front of him.
‘I have asked
Shih
Douglas if he
could not show our appreciation in some small way.’

He saw how much that pleased Weis, then looked down and picked up his chopsticks,
tucking into the heaped plate of braised beancurd and vegetables.

DeVore watched Weis’s craft lift and accelerate away, heading north, back to the safety
of the City. The man’s impatience both irritated and amused him. He was so
typical of his kind. So unimaginative. All his talk about
The New Hope
, for instance – it was all so much hot air. But that was fortunate, perhaps. For
if they’d guessed –
if any of them had had the foresight to see where all this really led…

He laughed, then turned to the youth. ‘Do you fancy a walk, Stefan? The cold is rather
exhilarating, I find.’

‘I’d like that.’

The answer surprised him. He had begun to believe there was nothing the young man
liked.

They went down past the landing dome and out onto a broad lip of ice-covered rock
which once, long ago, had been a road. From that vantage point they could see how
the valley began to curve away
to the west. Far below them the mountainside was forested, but up here there was only
snow and ice. They were above the world.

Standing there in the crisp air, surrounded by the bare splendour of the mountains,
he saw it clearly.
The New Hope
was much more than a new start. For the Seven it would be the beginning
of the end. His colleagues – Weis, Moore, Duchek, even Berdichev – saw it mainly as
a symbol, a flagship for their cause, but it was more than that. It was a practical
thing. If it
succeeded – if new worlds could be colonized by its means – then control would slip
from the hands of the Seven.