The White Mountain (11 page)

‘My father…' she began, pride creeping back into her voice, but she cut it off, holding her tongue. She knew he need do nothing. The terms of the divorce were clear enough. Hers was the shame. In her actions lay the blame for how things were.

‘Let it be so, then,' he said finally. ‘Your father shall have the documents. And Han…' He said the name; said it and breathed deeply afterwards, a muscle jumping in his cheek. ‘Han shall have Hei Shui.'

Tolonen looked up, his long face ashen, his grey eyes filled with a deep hurt. For a time he stared sightlessly at the wall, then, slowly, shook his head.

‘I can't believe it,' he said quietly, pushing the file away from him. ‘I just can't believe it. Hans…' His mouth creased into a grimace of pain. ‘What will I say…? What will his father say?' Then he thought of Jelka and the betrothal and groaned. ‘Gods, what a mess. What a stinking, horrible mess.'

The file on Hans Ebert was a slender dossier, not enough to convict a man in law, but enough to prove its case by any other measure. To an advocate it would have been merely a mass of circumstantial evidence, but that evidence pointed in one direction only.

Tolonen sighed, then rubbed at his eyes. Hans had been clever. Too clever, in fact, for the sum total of his cleverness was a sense of absence: of shadow where there should have been substance. Discrepancies in GenSyn funds. Payments to fellow officers. Unexplained absences in Ebert's service record – missing hours and days that, in three cases, linked up with dates given them by DeVore's man, Reid. Misplaced files on five of the eighteen younger sons arrested on Li Yuan's instructions only a day or so ago, all of which had, at some point, passed through Ebert's hands. Then there was the statement given by the girl in the Ebert household, Golden Heart, and, finally, the holograms.

The holograms seemed, on the surface of it, to be the most conclusive evidence, though in law, he knew, they held no real significance. It had been successfully claimed long ago that photographic and holographic evidence was unreliable, since GenSyn could make a perfect duplicate of anyone. This and the whole question of image-verification had relegated such ‘information' to a secondary status in law.

But this was not something that would ever see a courtroom. Wider issues were at stake here. And older codes of conduct.

In one of the holograms Hans could be seen standing on the veranda of a skiing lodge, looking down at a figure on the snow below him. That
figure was DeVore. They were grainy shots, taken from a narrow triangulation – perhaps as little as twenty degrees – and consequently the far side of the three-dimensional image blurred into perfect whiteness, but that incompleteness itself suggested that it was genuine, taken with two hand-helds from a distance, who knew for what purpose – maybe blackmail. The holograms had been found in storage in DeVore's stronghold, almost as though they had been left to be found. In itself this might have led Security to discount them as a subtle attempt to undermine Ebert's position, but added to the other matters they were significant.

No, there was no
real
proof, but the circumstantial evidence was considerable. Ebert had been working with the rebels; providing them with funds; meeting with them; passing on information, and covering their tracks where necessary.

Tolonen closed the file, then sat back, his hands trembling. He had always trusted Ebert. When he had asked Haavikko to investigate he had been thinking of three other officers. For him the question of Hans Ebert's loyalty had never arisen. Not until this evening.

He shook his head. There were tears in his eyes now; tears running down his furrowed cheeks. He gritted his teeth, tightening the muscles in his face, but still the tears came. There was only one thing to do. He would have to go and see Klaus. After all, this was Family. A matter of honour.

He let out a shuddering sigh, then shook his head, remembering. Jelka… He had promised Jelka that he would dine with her at home tonight. He glanced at the timer on the wall, then pulled himself up out of the chair, throwing the file down on the bed. He was late already, but she would understand. He would call Helga and explain. And maybe send Jelka a note by messenger.

He shivered, feeling old beyond his years. He had been so wrong. So very wrong. And not just once but twice now. First with DeVore and then…

‘Ach…' he muttered, then turned, angry with himself for his weakness, pressing the button to summon his aide. He would bathe and dress and go to see his old friend. For a father should know his son. Whatever kind of creature he was.

It was just after three when Jelka woke. The apartment was in darkness, silent. For a while she lay there, trying to settle back into sleep, then abandoned the idea.

She slipped on a robe and went through to her father's room, forgetting for a moment. His bed was empty, the room tidy. Of course… She moved on, pausing outside her aunt and uncle's room, hearing their soft snoring from within. In the kitchen she found a handwritten note resting against the coffee machine. The sheet was folded in half, her name written on the front in her father's neat, upright hand. She sat at the table and read it through then smiled, thinking of him. She always felt such fear for him when he was out on business. More so since the latest attempt on his life.

She looked about her at the dark forms of the kitchen, feeling suddenly tense, restless. That sense of restlessness seemed almost her natural state these days. That and an underlying desire to break things. But she told no one of these feelings. She knew they had to do with Hans and the forthcoming marriage, but there was little she could do to salve them.

One thing she
could
do, however, was exercise. The gym was locked, but, unknown to her father, she had memorized the combination. She punched it in then went through, into darkness, the doors closing behind her automatically.

They had strengthened the walls since the attack on her and put in a special locking system, but otherwise the gym was much as it had been before the attack. She went across to the panel on the wall and switched on three of the spotlights over the wallbars, then shrugged off her robe and began to exercise, knowing that no one could hear her once the doors were closed.

There was a wall-length mirror at the far end of the gym. As she went through her routine, she caught glimpses of her naked figure as it moved between the three separate beams of light, her limbs flashing like spears of ice, her body twisting and turning intricately. And as she danced so she felt the tension drain from her, deriving a definite pleasure from her body's precise and disciplined movements. Faster she went and faster, like a dervish, crying out in delight as her feet pounded the floor, flicking her over in a somersault, then into a tight, high leap.

Afterwards she stood there, breathing deeply, trying not to laugh. If
he could only see me now…
She shook her head, then drew her hair back from her face.

She had begun a second routine when something caught her eye. She slowed, then stopped, facing the door, her whole body tensed.

The panel above the door was pulsing steadily. A feverish, silent pulse that meant one thing only. There were intruders in the apartment.

Lehmann read the note quickly, then crumpled it in his hand and threw it aside. Tolonen led a charmed life. Three times they had tried for him now and three times they had failed. Tonight, for instance, Ebert had assured him that he would be home, but for some reason he had not come. Lehmann cursed softly, then turned, going through to where they held the two captives.

They lay on the bed, face down, their plumply naked bodies bound at hand and foot. Beside them the two Han waited.

‘Anything?' he asked, seeing the huge welts on the prisoners' backs, the burns on their arms where they had been tortured.

‘Nothing,' one of the Han answered him. ‘Nothing at all.'

Lehmann stood there a moment, wondering if he should try something more persuasive, then shrugged and gave the order, turning away, letting them get on with it.

Outside, in the corridor, he paused and looked about him, sniffing the air. Something nagged at him. They had searched the apartment thoroughly and there was no sign of the girl, so maybe she
had
gone. But then why the note?

He turned and looked down the corridor at the door to the gym.
In there?
he wondered. It was unlikely, but then so too was the possibility that the girl had gone. Her bed had been slept in, even if the covers were cold.

He stood at the control panel, studying it. It was a new doorlock, specially strengthened. Without the code there was no way of opening it. He was about to turn away when he realized that he didn't have to get inside to find out if she was there. There was a security viewscreen. Which meant that there were cameras inside.

It took only a moment to work out how to operate the screen, then he was staring into darkness, the cameras looking for forms amongst the shadows. He scanned the whole room once, then went back carefully, double-checking. Nothing. There was no one in the room.

He switched off the screen, satisfied now that she had gone. It was a
shame. She would have made the perfect hostage. But as it was, the death of Tolonen's brother and sister-in-law would hurt the old man badly.

He went back through to where his men were waiting. They had finished now and were ready to go. He looked down at the corpses dispassionately, feeling nothing for them. Directly or indirectly they served a system that was rotten. This, then, was their fate. What they deserved. He leaned forward and spat in the face of the dead man, then looked up, meeting the eyes of the Han.

‘All right. We've finished here. Let's go.'

They nodded, then filed out past him, their weapons sheathed, their eyes averted. Lehmann stood, looking about him, then drew his knife and followed them, out into the corridor.

Jelka waited in the darkness, fearing the worst, her cheeks wet, her stomach tight with anxiety. This was the nightmare come again. And this time it was much worse than before, for this time she could do nothing. Nothing but crouch there by the locked door, waiting.

In the past hour she learned how dreadful a thing inaction was – far worse than the terror of hiding. When she had been balanced on the perch above the camera it had been somehow easier – much easier – than the awful limbo of not-knowing that came afterwards. Then she could think to herself, In a few moments this will be over, the cameras will stop moving and I can drop to the floor again. But the waiting was different. Horribly different. The very quality of time changed subtly, becoming the implement by which she tortured herself, filling the darkness with her vile imaginings.

In the end her patience broke and she went out, afraid that they would still be there, waiting silently for her, but unable to stay in the gym a moment longer.

Outside it was dark, silent. A strange smell hung in the air. She went slowly down the corridor, feeling her way, crouching warily, prepared to strike out with hand or foot, but there was nothing. Only her fear.

At the first door she stopped, sniffing the air. The smell was stronger here, more sickly than in the corridor. She gritted her teeth and went inside, placing her feet carefully, staring into the darkness, trying to make out forms.

There were vague shapes on the floor close to her. She leaned towards
them, then jerked her head back, giving a small cry, unable to stop herself. Even in the darkness she could tell. Could see the wire looped tightly about their throats.

She backed away, horrified, gasping for breath, her whole body shaking violently, uncontrollably. They were dead…

She turned and made to run, but her legs betrayed her. She stumbled and her outstretched hands met not the hard smoothness of the floor but the awful, yielding softness of dead flesh. She shrieked and scrambled up, then fell again, her horror mounting as she found herself tangled amongst the bodies that littered the floor.

She closed her eyes and reached out, taking the wall as her guide, small sounds of brute disgust forming at the back of her throat as she forced herself to tread over them.

She went out into the dimly lit corridor. The outside barrier was unmanned, the lift empty. She stood there a moment, beside the open doors, then went inside and pressed to go down. It was the same at the bottom of the deck. There were no guards anywhere, as if the whole contingent had been withdrawn. She went through into the control centre for the deck and sat at the console, trying to work out how to operate the board. Her first few attempts brought no response, then the screen lit up and a soft MekVoc asked for her Security code.

She stammered the number her father had made her memorize, then repeated it at the machine's request. At once a face filled the central screen.

‘
Nu shi
Tolonen,' the duty officer said, recognizing her at once. ‘What is it? You look—'

‘Listen!' she said, interrupting him. ‘There are no guards. The apartment has been attacked. They've…' She bit it off, unable to say, yet it seemed he understood.