The Art of War (21 page)

It was an ancient thing, the cover curling at the edges, the paper within yellowed badly. But that was not what had caught his eye. It was the words on the cover. Or, rather, one word in particular.
China.

He stared at the cover for a time, frowning. He had not heard that term – not seen it in print – in more than forty years. China. The name Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom, had had before Tsao Ch’un. Or at least the name it had been called in the West. He leafed through it, reading at random, then closed it, his pulse racing. Islam and Communism. America and Russia. Soviets and Imperialists. These were lost terms. Terms from another age. A forgotten, forbidden age. He stared at the cover a moment longer, then nodded to himself, knowing what he must do.

He turned, hearing her in the next room, singing softly to herself as she dressed, then forced himself to relax, letting the anger, the tension drain from him. It was a mistake, almost certainly. Even so, he would find out who had given this to her and make them pay.

‘Well?’ she asked, standing in the doorway, smiling across at him. ‘Tell me, then. What is it?’

She saw how he looked down at the book in his hands.

‘In a moment. First, where did you get this?’

‘That? It was on your shelves. Why, shouldn’t I have borrowed it?’

‘My shelves?’

‘Yes. It was in that box of things you had delivered here three weeks ago. My
amah
, Lu Cao, unpacked it and put it all away. Didn’t you notice?’

‘She shouldn’t have,’ he began irritably. ‘They were things General Nocenzi had sent on to me. Things we’d unearthed during the Confiscations. Special things...’

‘I’m sorry, Father. I’ll tell her. But she wasn’t to know.’

‘No...’ He softened, then laughed, relieved that it was only that. ‘Did you read any of it?’

‘Some.’ She smiled, looking inside herself a moment. ‘But it was odd. It presented itself as a factual account, but it read more like a fiction. The facts were all wrong. Almost all of it. And that map at the front...’

‘Yes...’ He weighed the book in his hand a moment, then looked up at her again. ‘Well, I guess no harm’s done. But listen. This is a forbidden book. If anyone were to find you had read even the smallest part of it...’ He shook his head. ‘Well, you understand?’

She bowed her head. ‘As you wish, Father.’

‘Good. Then this other matter...’ He hesitated, then gave a short laugh. ‘Well, you know how long Klaus Ebert and I have been friends. How close our families have always been.’

She laughed. ‘
Shih
Ebert has been like an uncle to me.’

Her father’s smile broadened momentarily. ‘Yes. But I’ve long wished for something more than that. Some stronger, more intimate bond between our families.’

‘More intimate...’ She stared at him, not understanding.

‘Yes,’ he said, looking back at her fondly. ‘It has long been my dream that you would one day wed my old friend’s son.’

‘Hans? Hans Ebert?’ Her eyes were narrowed now, watching him.

‘Yes.’ He looked away, smiling. ‘But it’s more than a dream. You see, Klaus Ebert and I came to an arrangement.’

She felt herself go cold. ‘An arrangement?’

‘Yes. Klaus was very generous. Your dowry is considerable.’

She laughed nervously. ‘I don’t understand. Dowry? What dowry?’

He smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I should have spoken to you about all this before, but I’ve not had time. Things were so busy, and then, suddenly, the day was upon me.’

The coldness melted away as a wave of anger washed over her. She shook her head defiantly. ‘But you can’t...’

‘I can,’ he said. ‘In fact, there’s no question about it, Jelka. It was all arranged, ten years back.’

‘Ten years?’ She shook her head, astonished. ‘But I was four...’

‘I know. But these things must be done. It is our way. And they must be done early. Hans is heir to a vast financial empire, after all. It would not do to have uncertainty over such matters. The markets...’

She looked down, his words washing over her unheard, her breath catching in her throat. Her father had sold her – sold her to his best friend’s son. Oh, she’d heard of it. Indeed, several of her schoolfriends had been engaged in this manner. But this was herself.

She looked up at him again, searching his eyes for some sign that he understood how she felt, but there was nothing, only his determination to fulfil his dream of linking the two families.

Her voice was soft, reproachful. ‘Daddy... how could you?’

He laughed, but his laughter now was hard, and his words, when they came, held a slight trace of annoyance.

‘How could I what?’

Sell me
, she thought, but could not bring herself to say the words. She swallowed and bowed her head. ‘You should have told me.’

‘I know. But I thought... well, I thought you would be pleased. After all, Hans is a handsome young man. More than half the girls in the Above are in love with him. And you... well, you alone will be his wife. The wife of a general. The wife of a Company head. And not just any Company, but GenSyn.’

It was true. She ought to be pleased. Her friends at school would be jealous of her. Green with envy. But somehow the thought of that palled in comparison with the enormity of what her father had done. He had not asked her. In this, the most important thing she would ever do, he had not taken her feelings into consideration. Would he have done that if her mother had been alive?

She shivered, then looked up at him again.

‘So I
must
marry him?’

He nodded tersely, his face stern. ‘It is arranged.’

She stared back at him a moment, surprised by the hard edge to his voice, then bowed her head. ‘Very well. Then I shall do as you ask.’

‘Good.’ He smiled tightly, then glanced down at the timer at his wrist. ‘You’d best call your
amah
, then, and have her dress you. It’s after eleven now and I said we’d be there by one.’

She stared at him, astonished. ‘This afternoon?’

He looked back at her, frowning, as if surprised by her question. ‘Of course. Now hurry, my love. Hurry, or we’ll be late.’

Jelka hesitated, watching him a moment longer – seeing how he looked down at the book in his hand as if it were a mystery he needed to resolve – then she turned and went through into the other room, looking for Lu Cao.

‘Well, what is it?’

Auden took Ebert to one side, out of earshot of the two guards. ‘I think we may have stumbled on to something.’

Ebert smiled. ‘What kind of thing?’

‘A link. A possible explanation for what happened the other night?’

Ebert’s smile broadened. ‘How good a link? Good enough to make me late for an appointment with the Minister’s wife?’

Auden returned the smile. ‘I think so.’

They went inside. The prisoner was a Han. A young man in his late twenties. He was well dressed and neatly groomed, but sweating profusely.

‘Who is this?’ Ebert asked, as if the man had no existence, no identity other than that which he or Auden gave him.

‘He’s a close relative of one of the murdered men. The victim was a merchant, Lu Tung. This is his third cousin, Lu Wang-pei. It seems he depended on Lu Tung for funds. To repay gambling debts and the like.’

Lu Wang-pei had bowed his head at the mention of his name, but neither of the officers paid him the slightest attention. His eyes followed them as they moved about the room, but otherwise he was perfectly still. In this he had no choice, for he was bound tightly to the chair.

Ebert looked about him at the sparsely furnished room. ‘So what have you found?’

‘Forensic evidence shows that the bomb was hidden inside a package – a present delivered to Lu Tung’s apartments only minutes before the explosion. It seems that our man here delivered that package.’

‘I see. So in this case we have our murderer?’

‘Yes and no. Wang-Pei had no idea what it was he was delivering. That’s not to say he wasn’t culpable in some small degree, because he did agree to deliver it.’

‘For someone else?’

Auden smiled. ‘That’s right. For three men. Business rivals of Lu Tung’s, so they claimed. It seems they bought up our friend’s gambling debts, then offered to wipe the slate clean if he’d do a little favour for them.’

‘The package.’

‘Exactly. They told him they wanted to frighten his uncle. To shake him up a little.’

Ebert laughed. ‘Well... And so they did!’

‘Yes,’ Auden looked down momentarily. ‘And there it would end, were it not for the fact that Wang-Pei here didn’t trust his new friends. He secreted a camera on him when he went to make his collection. Here...’

He handed the flat 3-D image to Ebert, then watched as his initial puzzlement changed into a smile of enlightenment. ‘DeVore...’

Auden nodded. ‘Yes. But it was the two at the front Wang-Pei dealt with. They did all the talking.’

‘And who are they?’

‘One’s an ex-Security man. Max Wiegand. A good man, it seems. He had an excellent service record.’

‘And the other?’

‘We couldn’t get a trace on him. But look at the pallor of his skin. He looks albinic. If so he might be wearing contact lenses to disguise the colour of his eyes.’

‘Hmm...’ Ebert handed back the flat. ‘And what does our man here know?’

‘Nothing much. I think he’s telling the truth. I’ve checked on the gambling debts. I’d guess it happened exactly as he told us.’

Ebert nodded, then turned, looking directly at the Han for the first time since he’d entered the room. ‘All right. Leave him with me a moment. I’ll see whether we can find out anything more.’

When Auden had gone, he went across and stood there directly in front of the Han, looking down at him contemptuously.

‘As far as I’m concerned,
Shih
Lu, I couldn’t care a shit if you Han butchered one another until the corridors ran red. If that was all that was at stake here I’d let you go. But it’s not. You made a mistake. A fortunate mistake for me. But for you...’

He lashed out viciously, catching the Han across the nose. Wang-Pei drew his head back, groaning, his eyes wide with shock. Blood ran freely from his nose.

‘Tell me the truth. What’s your connection to these men? When did you first start working for them?’

Wang-Pei made to shake his head, but Ebert hit him again: a stinging blow across the ear that made him cry out, his face distorted with pain.

‘I never saw them before...’ he began. ‘It’s as I said...’

The third blow knocked him backwards, the chair tilting out from under him. Ebert followed through at once, kicking him once, twice, in the stomach. Hard, vicious kicks that made the Han double up, gasping.

‘You know nothing, neh? Nothing! You fuck-head! You pissing fuck-head chink! Of course you know nothing!’

He kicked again, lower this time. The Han began to vomit. Ebert turned away, disgusted. Of course he knew nothing. DeVore was not that stupid. But he
had
slipped up this time. He should have kept out of it. Should have let his two henchmen do all the front work.

The door beside him opened.

‘Are you all right... ?’

He looked across at Auden, smiling. ‘I’m fine. But this one’s dead.’

Auden stared back at him a moment, then nodded. ‘And the guards?’

Ebert looked back at the Han, his smile broadening. ‘They saw nothing. Okay? You deal with them, Will. I’ll recompense you.’

The Han lay there, wheezing for breath, his frightened eyes staring up at them imploringly.

Auden nodded. ‘All right. But why? After all, we have the link.’

‘Yes. And we’re going to keep it, understand me? I
want
DeVore. I want to nail him. But I want it to be me.
Me.
Understand? Not some other bastard.’

Auden looked down, his expression thoughtful. ‘I see.’

‘Good. Then I’ll leave you to tidy things up. I’ve kept the Minister’s wife waiting far too long already.’

Chen was waiting for Haavikko when he came out of the Officers’ Mess. He hung back, careful not to let the young
Hung Mao
see him even though he could see that he was the worse for drink. He smiled bitterly. Yes, that was in the file, too, along with all the brawling, the whoring, the gambling and all the other derelictions of duty. But that was as nothing beside the fact of his treason. Chen felt a shiver of anger ripple through him and let his hand rest momentarily on the handle of his knife. Well, he would cut a confession from him if he had to, piece by tiny piece. Because if Haavikko was behind the butchery at Helmstadt...

He stopped, moving in to the side. Up ahead of him Haavikko had paused, leaning against the wall unsteadily, as if about to be sick. But when a fellow officer approached him, he turned quickly, his movements exaggerated by drunkenness, letting out a string of obscenities. The officer put his hands out before him in apology, backing away, then turned and walked off, shaking his head.

Chen felt the bile rise again. Haavikko was a disgrace. To think what he might have become. He shook his head, then began to move again, keeping the man in sight.

Twenty levels down he watched as Haavikko fumbled with the combination to his door, then slumped against the wall, making three attempts at it before he matched his eye to the indented pad. Then Chen was moving quickly, running the last few
ch’i
as the door began to iris closed.

Haavikko swung round, his bleary eyes half-lidded, his jacket already discarded, as Chen came through into the room.

‘What the fuck... ?’

Chen had drawn his knife. A big knife with a wickedly curved blade that glinted razor-sharp in the overhead lights. ‘Haavikko? Axel Haavikko?’

He saw the flicker of fear in the young man’s eyes as he staggered back and almost fell against the bed.

‘Wha... what d’you want?’ The words were slurred, almost incoherent.

‘I think you know...’ Chen began, moving closer. But suddenly Haavikko was no longer awkward, his movements no longer slow and clumsy. Chen found himself thrown backward by the man’s charge, the knife knocked from his hand by a stinging blow. But before Haavikko could follow up, Chen had rolled aside and jumped to his feet again, his body crouched in a defensive posture.