Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (22 page)

"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 ago."

"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 friends
son. Oh, she'd heard of it. Indeed, several of her school friends 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 fulfill
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 stem. "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 onto 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 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 favor 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 himself 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 color of his eyes."

"Hmmm . .
." 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, Ebert walked over and stood 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 began
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 backward, 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, eh? 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 Moo spot him even though he could
see that Haavikko 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. And to waste it so ... 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 shut.

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.

"What . . .
what 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.

Haavikko was
facing him, crouched, his eyes wide, watching Chen's every movement,
all pretense at drunkenness peeled from him. He swayed gently, as if
about to attack, but it was clear to Chen that that was not
Haavikko's intention. He was waiting for Chen to go for his knife,
which lay just behind him by the door. It was what he himself would
have done. Chen gave the slightest nod, suddenly respectful of the
man's abilities. No one, not even Karr, had ever been fast enough to
knock his knife from his hand.

"Well?"
Haavikko said, clearly this time, the word formed like a drop of
acid. "What do you want?"

Chen lifted his
chin in challenge. "I'll tell you what I want. I want answers."

Haavikko laughed
bitterly. "Answers? What do you mean?" But there was a
slight hesitation in his eyes, the smallest trace of fear.

"I think
you know more than you're letting on. I think you've done one or two
things you're ashamed of. Things that aren't even in your file."

Chen saw how he
blanched at that, how the skin about his eyes tightened.

"Who sent
you? Was it Liu Chang"

"Liu Chang?
Who's that?"

Haavikko snorted
in disgust. "You know damned well who I mean. Liu Chang, the
brothel keeper. From the Western Isle. Did he send you? Or was it
someone else?"

Chen shook his
head. "You've got me wrong, Lieutenant. I'm a soldier, not a
pimp's runner. You forget where we are. This is Bremen. How would a
pimp's runner get in here?"

Haavikko shook
his head. "I'd credit him with anything. He's devious enough,
don't you think?"

Who? he
wondered, but said, "It's Chen . . . Captain Kao Chen."

Haavikko laughed
sourly, then shook his head. "Since when did they make a Han
captain?"

Slowly Chen's
hand went to his jacket.

"Try
anything and I'll break your neck."

Chen looked back
at him, meeting his eyes coldly, his fingers continuing to search his
pocket, emerging a moment later with his pass. He threw it across to
Haavikko, who caught it deftly, his eyes never leaving Chen's face.

"Back
off... Two paces."