The Forbidden Temple (7 page)

Luca leaned against the door, not wanting to venture further into the room. It hadn’t changed in all the years his father had occupied it: the same cabinets with the same collectibles neatly displayed on top and dusted once a week. Various awards and certificates for exporting still hung on the far wall by the window, while below them were a couple of photograph frames with their backs to him.

Luca didn’t need to see the pictures. They were all too familiar to him. The larger of the two was a formal family portrait: his mother with her hand on her husband’s shoulder, while he as a teenager –
the only son and great white hope – smiled up at them, basking in their approval.

That was before he broke it to them that he was going to dedicate his twenties to climbing; that he would work hard for the company while he was in the country and draw a small wage, but long-term he wasn’t cut out for the family business.

Despite the many conversations they had had to this effect, his father still hadn’t accepted this decision. He tried hard to change his son’s mind and regularly pulled guilt trips on him about the cost of his education and how he was depending on Luca to take over the family business. The word ‘family’ was always stressed, dragged out and emphasised, as if he didn’t know who his parents actually were.

At twenty-seven years old, he knew he should have broken away from it all a long time ago, but the truth was he found it impossible to find project work that was flexible enough to pay him the minute he was back in the country. And so the uncomfortable status quo went on between father and son, bonded by guilt and mutual dependency, both seeing the relationship as a means to different ends.

As his father continued talking, Luca’s gaze moved to the windows where rain was splattering down the long length of the glass. The minutes passed; three, four, five. His father showed no sign of ending his conversation. He had twisted round and was now concealed behind the wide back of his swivel chair. All Luca could hear was the occasional sound as he sucked in the air between his teeth or the odd grunt of agreement.

Then the chair came swinging round again and, without even making eye contact, his father clicked his fingers, pointing to the seat on the other side of his desk. Luca sat down as directed, a joyless smile on his lips. His father had always had a special talent for making him feel humiliated before they had even exchanged a word.

As the phone was finally returned to its cradle, his father leaned back in his chair and eyed Luca above his glasses.

‘So you’re back,’ he said with a brief smile.

‘Yeah. Got in on Thursday.’

‘Good. And, did you reach the top?’

Luca shook his head.

‘No. We missed the summit by a couple of hours. We had a few issues on the ice wall, but the real problem was that Bill got hit with altitude sickness just after we passed seven thousand metres. All the same, it was one hell of a climb. If it hadn’t been for that, we’d definitely have made it.’ Involuntarily, he felt his face break into a wide smile. ‘You know how much I love it up there, Dad.’

His father looked away as if he had said something mildly offensive.

‘Well, don’t tell your mother that. You put her through hell every time you go off on one of your damn’ fool adventures. She worries herself sick.’

Luca’s smile turned brittle.

‘Come on, Dad, you don’t need to get like this every time I mention climbing.’

There was a long pause while his father took off his glasses and inspected one arm thoughtfully.

‘Look, Luca, your mother and I have been speaking about a few things while you were away. I think perhaps I made a mistake putting you in domestic sales. I thought it would suit you because of the way you are, but the reality is it doesn’t challenge you enough. So I’ve come up with something else I think you might like. A promotion, let’s call it.’

Luca’s heart sank in his chest as he looked at the expression on his father’s face. He could toughen himself up to deal with the undercurrents of disappointment and disapproval, but when his father tried to be nice, that was the worst. That was when he really did feel like an ungrateful jerk.

‘Look, I know you don’t like being cooped up in this office, so the idea is to send you to some of the places where the market is starting to open up a bit. Dubai and Manila, for example. You can set up meetings with potential clients . . . form your own relationships. You’d
be good at that. And you’d get all the perks, you know. Five star hotels, a driver for the days when you’re there. We know you love travelling . . .’

Luca shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Look, Dad, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you trying to help me out. And I know that there are people next door who’d queue up for that kind of posting. But I’ve already tried to tell you, this isn’t what I want to do long-term.’ He spread his hands apologetically. ‘I’m just not a car salesman.’

His father’s face darkened instantly. ‘Don’t be such a bloody snob, Luca,’ he snapped. ‘There’s only so long you can persist with this expensive hobby of yours. Soon enough the sponsorship will dry up, especially if you keep on failing on expeditions like this last one. Your mother and I had thought that after the whole Everest débâcle, you would have seen sense and packed the whole thing in. But, well . . .’

Luca’s jaw clenched as he stared back at his father.

‘You’ve never even bothered to listen to my side of the story.’

‘I hardly think I need to! It was splashed all over the papers before you even got back. I read quite enough without needing to hear any more of the sordid details. I mean, your mother even had some of her friends . . .’

He didn’t finish his sentence but instead leaned forward across the desk, his thumbs buckling beneath his weight.

‘I shouldn’t have to spell this out, Luca, but we have the family name to consider.’

Luca remained motionless, desperately resisting the urge to fight back. Family name? Christ, his father could be such a prick.

‘I know finding your path in life is difficult,’ he continued, his voice becoming abstract as if he were dealing with one of the office juniors. ‘But you’re not so young any more, and there’s only so long you can keep living by your wits and not assuming real responsibilities.’

Luca closed his eyes briefly before taking a deep breath and dragging himself up from his chair. Sometimes he could hardly believe they were related.

At the doorway, he managed a faint smile. ‘Maybe you’re right, Dad. Give me a while to think about the job. And I’ll call Mum too, let her know I’m back safe and that we’ve had this chat. Meanwhile, I’ve got a cracking headache. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take all my work back home today, to catch up. I’ll get more done there anyway, without any distractions.’

His father looked at him for a moment, before nodding uncertainly. ‘OK. Well, let me know. Good to have you back, Luca.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

He turned and walked out of the office, the effort of smiling making his face ache. As he entered his own small office, he slammed the door shut and stood in the centre of the room, the anger surging through him. After all these years, how could his own father understand so little about what made Luca tick?

His eyes settled on his desk, the paperwork stacked in two crooked piles. With a sudden sweep of his arm, he sent them flying against the long bank of windows, papers fluttering down like leaves. They settled across the thick carpet, a mass of densely printed forms and Post-it notes, edges stirring in the steady draught from the air conditioning.

This is not the way it’s going to be, Luca said to himself, his eyes screwed tight as if in prayer.

This is not it.

THE DIRECTOR GENERAL
of the Public Security Bureau in Beijing slammed his hand down on his desk, making his aide jump.

‘How can this have happened?’ he seethed. ‘I was told our intelligence was a hundred per cent.’

The aide looked down at the carpet nervously, waiting for the storm to pass. He was a short, compact man, with a neat chin and eyebrows that slanted at sharp angles. He stood in silence, hating the fact that he always had to deliver the bad news.

‘If I may, sir, our sources tell us that the brothers were very similar-looking. There might only have been a year or so between them.’

‘That’s no excuse!’ the Director General shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk once again. ‘If word of this gets out, it’ll destabilise the entire damn’ province!’

The aide thought quickly. He knew from experience that when the Director didn’t have someone to punish directly, the blame was more likely to fall on him.

‘Sir, I believe it was Second Lieutenant Chen who was the cause of the mistaken identity. Please instruct me on how you intend to deal with his inexcusable error?’

The Director General breathed out slowly, bringing his right hand up to his heavily lined forehead and smoothing back his grey hair. Despite his age, he still had a thick shock of it that was peppered with
dark streaks, and his high-arched nose gave him a hawkish appearance accentuated by his sharp eyes.

Suddenly he stood up and paced over to the window. He poked one long finger through the slats of the closed blinds, looking out at the multitude of people thronging the streets far below.

The aide waited in silence as the seconds passed, watching the tension set his superior’s hunched shoulders together. Eventually the Director swung around again, his face rigid with determination.

‘Call Captain Zhu Yanlei.’

‘Sir?’ The aide looked startled.

‘You heard me. Call Zhu. I want him standing here in three minutes.’

The aide walked quickly over to the phone and dialled the three-digit internal number. He knew it by heart – Zhu was someone with whom he had had protracted dealings in the past. In fact, if there was anyone in this office he feared more than the Director, it was Captain Zhu.

Two years ago he had been told to reassign Zhu from the field to an office job, based a few floors below where they were now standing. Despite his always having achieved results, it appeared that even by the PSB’s standards, Zhu’s methods were too much to stomach. The aide still remembered the case files he had studied with photos of the state of some of Zhu’s ‘interviewees’. The images had haunted him for over a week, giving him a nervous cramp in his bowels, and that was just after a few HR discussions with the man.

After he had made the call, they both sat in silence as the second hand ticked around on the wall clock. Sweat had started to flow freely from the aide’s armpits and down the sides of his body when there was a soft knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ said the Director General, pulling himself to his feet again.

He looked at the man who walked in, remembering, with a sudden chill, how effeminate he always seemed.

He was pale, even for a Chinese, with black hair combed away
from his forehead and swept over in a neat side parting. The hair around his ears and the back of his neck had been cropped so short that the white skin of his scalp was visible underneath. His face was oval, with a delicate jawline and thin, pursed lips that were nearly the same colour as his skin. It looked as if all the blood had drained out of them.

Zhu was dressed in an immaculately pressed uniform which hung from his narrow shoulders in perfect vertical lines. He didn’t salute or make any gesture of greeting, but merely stood rigid in the centre of the room with one hand folded over the other, while the gold epaulettes of his captain’s insignia stood out in proud horizontal streaks across his shoulders. As the Director began speaking, outlining the events of the last twenty-four hours, Zhu remained absolutely still, not a single twitch from his entire body betraying his air of composure.

The aide found himself leaning forward slightly, trying to see past Zhu’s silver wire-framed glasses and into his eyes. He remembered them from before: the blank stare, the wide, black pupils.

The Director finished. After a brief silence Zhu finally moved, unclasping his hands and placing them behind his back. The movement caught the aide’s eye and something nagged at the back of his mind. He had heard a rumour from one of the other aides on the sixth floor . . . what was it about Zhu’s right hand?

‘So your man murdered the wrong brother?’ Zhu said, his voice soft, almost pleasant.

The Director nodded. ‘Yes, exactly, and if it ever got out that an attempt had been made on the eleventh Panchen Lama’s life, there would be a full-scale revolt across Tibet. We need you to contain this.’

Zhu didn’t answer. The Director continued, his tone becoming unusually conciliatory, ‘I will obviously have you reinstated on the active list, with whatever team you deem necessary to carry out the operation.’

Zhu smoothed his side parting. He was clearly in no hurry to make a rejoinder and instead seemed to look around him for the first time,
taking in the large rectangular coffee table, the solid wood desk and the hard, high-backed chairs. As his gaze fell on the aide, he gave a tiny smile of satisfaction that made the aide’s mouth go dry. Zhu’s reversal of fortune was obviously pleasing him hugely, and no wonder – from being struck off the Ops list, he now had the Director General of the PSB practically begging him to clean up his mess.

‘I would like the lieutenant who failed in his mission to be on my team,’ he said finally.

The Director shrugged. ‘I cannot imagine he will be of much use, but if that’s what you wish . . .’ he gave a nod in the direction of the aide ‘. . . consider it done.’

Zhu nodded. ‘And how long do I have to complete the mission?’

‘There are seven weeks until the Linka Festival and we need to be absolutely confident that this matter is resolved by then. You are booked on a flight to Chengdu tonight, with a connection to Lhasa the following morning. I am granting you the same dispensation as previously. You are free to use whatever methods you deem appropriate.’

He shot a sideways glance at the aide before looking Zhu straight in the eye.

‘But, Captain, there’s no need to . . . complicate matters. You are required to contain this situation and ensure that it remains secret. We need you to find the boy. That is all.’