Jake Maroc - Shan Part 1

SHAN.

ERIC VAN l.u.s.tBADER.

AUTHOR'SNOTE

In the Buddhist religion, the Sanskrit word kalpa is used in several ways. It is an almost incalculable period of time. It is also the word used to measure the period between the creation and the recreation of the world. Each great kalpa is divided into four parts. So, too, is Shan.

Those familiar with my novel, Jian, will recall that the Chinese transliteration ofkalpa is ka. The masters of wei qi, the ancient board game of warfare and strategy that Jake, Shi Zilin and Daniella Vorkuta play in Shan, use the term to mean the point where the contending forces have reached a stalemate.

It is common knowledge among wei qi masters, however, that a Jiana master general of wei qimay find a strategy to break ka. It is Shan, the Mountain.

According to known history there is no highly clandestine espionage organization (originally sanctioned by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy) called the Quarry. Just as, in the summer of 1945, there was no aide to Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, Amba.s.sador to China, named Ross Davies. But there could be. And there might have been.

SHAN.

"Jake," Rodger Donovan said, without turning around. He seemed quite calm, despite the desperateness of the situation. "You seem to have as many lives as the hero of a novel. I knew we couldn't kill you."

"It didn't stop you from trying."

Donovan winced at the tone. "Of course not. What do you take us for, amateurs?"

"No more talk," Jake said. "Take me to Wunderman."

"Ah, Wunderman. I imagine he'll want to know how you evaded all our security measures."

"Then he'll be disappointed. Come on, let's go."

Jake Maroc, in Hong Kong, dreaming of another time, another place. Of a day nine months before, a rain-swept day. He had flown into Washington's Dulles International Airport after spending hours with Bliss deciphering the papers for which so many people had died, not the least of whom was David Oh, Jake's closest friend. Papers that irrefutably identified Henry Wundermannow the Director of the clandestine intelligence organization known as the Quarry, for which Jake had workedas a double agent working for the KGB's Daniella Vorkuta. His code name was Chimera.

General Vorkuta and Chimera, the papers showed, had masterminded the a.s.sa.s.sination of Antony Beridien just weeks before. Beridien, the Quarry's first Director and its founder.

Now Jake was in Washington, racing by car to Great Falls where, nestled within the rolling emerald hills, Greystoke sat: the nineteenth-century mansion, seat of power for the new Director. And Wunderman, a.s.serting that it had been Jake himself who had murdered AntonyBeridien in retaliation for the Director's cutting Jake off from the Quarry, had inst.i.tuted a number of new security systems at Greystoke.

This is what Jake dreamed of: the day he confronted his father and struck him down forever.

Not that Henry Wunderman was Jake Maroc's real father. But as Jake dreamed of crouching in the high gra.s.s just outside the perimeter of Greystoke's eastern boundary, his thoughts were filled up with images from a time when Jake was young, a wild orphan roaming the filthy back alleys of Hong Kong, a great unwieldy anger riding his shoulders like a deformity.

Henry Wunderman had changed all that. He had come to Hong Kong to search Jake out. To recruit him into the Quarry. Henry Wunderman had given Jake's life a purpose, his faith in the young man had redeemed Jake from emptiness and perhaps even self-destruction. He was Jake's spiritual father.

And now Jake was forced to destroy him.

To do it Jake needed ba-mahk. Ba-mahk meant, literally, "feel the pulse." It was a state of mental preparedness in which one was able to "feel" the energy sources of one's surroundings. Through ba-mahk one could therefore discover much that was hidden from the normal five senses. One could even discern the strategies of one's opponent and thus counter them even as they were occurring.

Ba-mahk is what Jake used now at the eastern edge of the treacherous minefield of security traps that Henry Wunderman had devised. He sat and entered ba-mahk. For him it was another world entirely; it always had been. Here he was free of corporeal concerns. He was almost entirely spirit or, as the Chinese would say, qi. Qi was the inner energy that resided in every living thing. It was, in essence, life. Without qi a man had no strength, no inner reserves; he was not in harmony with either himself or his surroundings.

In ba-mahk, Jake's qi, his strength of spirit, expanded. Like the ripples on a lake widening from the spot where a stone had been thrown, so Jake's extraordinary qi roved outward, encountering first the infrared units like rogue blades of gra.s.s, well camouflaged to the eye, then the ultrasonics, implanted as clumps of speckled mushrooms at the foot of rustling trees.

Ba-mahk revealed to him the outer defenses of Greystoke. He moved around them, above them, so that the electronics were as oblivious to him as they were to the wind that rushed by his side.

Within the double outer ring Jake stopped and returned fully to ba-mahk. It was a comforting sensation, as if one were to return to aprivate world where the very pulse of the cosmos could be felt, examined and absorbed. Jake was aware of how much he delighted in, of how much he depended on ba-mahk. It was his ultimate weapon, the manner by which he had gained his victories for the Quarry and, after, for himself and for his father. His real father, Shi Zilin.

It was ba-mahk, Jake knew, that made him special. It was ba-mahk that guided him through the dangers inherent in the life he had chosen to lead. Without it he would never have been able to make it to Greystoke, sitting like a great old man at the center of the security web.

The dogs were next. Dobermans trained to scent out humans and immobilize them at the point of contact. Ba-mahk picked them up, allowing Jake to keep downwind of them, to pa.s.s them by without incident.

His dream never revealed to him how many more rings he had to pa.s.s through. The number was irrelevant. Infiltration into Greystoke was akin to a game of wei qi, the ancient Chinese board game of strategy. It would have been fruitless to take the security rings one at a time, for they had been so set up that often the solution used to penetrate one would have set off the next. Ba-mahk allowed Jake to "feel" several of the rings at once.

So it was that Jake had come at last upon Rodger Donovan, the Quarry's wunderkind and number-two man, working on his 1963 Corvette in the driveway beside Greystoke's famous rose garden.

It was Donovan who took Jake into the house itself, into the inner sanctum of the Director. Face to face with Henry Wunderman.

The prodigal son had returned home to face the wrath of his father. The replaying of events of mythic proportion. There should have been portents: thunder crashing, lightning forking. Instead the black skies were almost somnolent, and the only discernible sounds were the droning of the b.u.mblebees greedily gathering attar from the roses two stories below.

The scent of the enormous flowers was in the room. And it was to this aspect that the end of Jake's dream clove. The struggle with Henry Wunderman, while Rodger Donovan looked on, sphinxlike, was inextricably bound to the rich perfume.

Wunderman had pulled the pistol. By all rights he should have shot Jake dead where he stood, not two meters away. But ba-mahk had revealed his intent to Jake even before the movement had begun. Enough timejust enough!for Jake to spill his body forward, the shot pa.s.sing through the spot where he had been.

Now the die had been cast. The stink of death mingled with the scent of the roses, the strangled sounds of their struggle punctuated the droning of the gluttonous bees.

How many myths in how many different cultures scattered throughout time and place foretold the prodigal son returning to kill his father? Jake, in righteous anger, used ba-mahk yet again to penetrate Wunderman's defenses, used the lethal liver kites because of David Oh, because of Jake's wife, Mariana, because of Jake's half-brother, Nichiren. Chimera had had a hand, either directly or indirectly, in all their deaths.

Protected by ba-mahk from the terrible implications of what he had to do, death was in Jake's mind, in his hands; death was in his heart. The naked flame of revenge expunging the light of all the pure stars in the vault of the heavens.

And now, in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat, everything had changed. Instead of the satisfaction of revenge, there was only death, appalling and irreversible. The knowledge and the guilt and the crying inside was too much, too much, mingled always with the scent of roses, powerful as the ocean's tide.

I.

DESTRUCTION.

SAMVARTA.

Winter-Spring Present.

Hong Kong/Beijing/Washington/Moscow.

Jake and Bliss were down in the Hole. In the night, the sounds of Hong Kong came to them as through a mist. They were so near the harbor they could hear the lap-lap, lap-lap of water against pilings. The high-pitched squeal of rats came to them now and again through walls of packed earth and rotting timbers.

The sounds of gambling took precedence over everything else. That was the essence of the Hole, a warren of underground chambers linked by low tunnels: gambling. The only legal gambling allowed in Hong Kong was the horse races at Happy Valley. But the Chinese were insatiable gamblers.

It was very dark down in the Hole. Jake had no love for it but it was the spot insisted upon for the rendezvous.

"How well do you know this man?" Bliss asked him.

Jake stared at her. "He is one of the half-dozen I have been running for the past six months." He caught her tone. "I trust him."

Bliss shivered a little. "I don't like this place," she said, echoing Jake's own thoughts.

"He must have a reason for meeting us here," Jake said.

Bliss looked around. "Easy to get trapped down here."

"Just as easy to get lost," Jake said. "Don't worry."

She gave him a little smile. "Just nerves." He could see the long sweep of her beautiful neck. "I don't like to be underground."

"You could have stayed home. I told you."

*Not after what your contact hinted at." She moved and the hollow of her throat filled with shadow. "Jake. Do you really think he's that close to the spy who has infiltrated our inner circle?"

Jake was watching the low-ceilinged corridor. There had been some movement there. "Like I said." Click-clack-click of the ivory mah-jongg tiles. "I vetted him himself." Cigarette smoke, blued in the bare bulb light, thick as fog. "As I do all my operatives." Jumble of Cantonese, rising, as the bidding became more heated. "I trust him." Shadow and light, moving. "I wouldn't be down here otherwise."

Bliss turned her head. Jake could feel the tension come into her frame. "Is that him?"

Jake looked at the thin Chinese with slicked-back hair. He was young to be down here. The Hole was generally the province of the older men, who remembered when smugglers used these tunnels. "No," Jake said, watching the thin Chinese stand there, observing the mah-jongg game. When he began to joke with the partic.i.p.ants, Jake turned his attention elsewhere.

"He's late," Bliss said, "your contact." "He'll be here."

"You've had leads before," Bliss said.

"They've all been dead ends," Jake said. He was looking beyond the gamblers. "My operatives get so far, then it's as if a door gets slammed in their faces."

"Time to take another tack."

Jake considered this. He knew how smart Bliss was; that was part of what he loved about her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he should He began to move forward. "He's here."

Jake was in the light, and the stocky, mustachioed Chinese saw him. He motioned for Jake to stay where he was. Movement at the mah-jongg game was furious, as the last of the tiles were laid out.

The contact made his way past the gesticulating gamblers. His movements were quick, darting. Then he seemed to stumble, and with a cry, he fell forward, into the midst of the gamblers. The ancient wooden table collapsed beneath his weight, tiles scattered, and the old men shouted, lurched out of their chairs.

Then Jake saw the young Chinese with the slicked-back hair; he was racing back along the tunnel down which the contact had just come.

Jake sprang toward the jumble of the gamblers and their ruined game. Bliss shot past him as he bent over the stocky Chinese, his contact, and turned him over. There was blood everywhere. Jake saw the knife and thought, He got the heart; he's a professionala good one.

There was nothing in the stocky man's eyes: no recognition, nointelligence; the spark had been extinguished in a second. Life to death, without warning.

Ignoring the shouts of the gamblers, Jake took off after Bliss and the a.s.sa.s.sin. I should have kept my eye on him, Jake thought. I should have known. Why didn't ba-mahk alert me?

Instead he had put Bliss into great danger.

She slammed around a corner and, catching sight of the Chinese with the slicked-back hair, she raced after him. The cloying scent of opium was strong in the air, almost masking the acrid odors. The sweat of feverish gambling was as dense as mist in the subterranean air.

Through a clot of thin old men playing fan-tan. They turned, cursing at her: What was a woman doing down in the Hole anyway? Get back to sh.e.l.ling shrimp where you belong, they shouted. Leave men to their important business.

She ignored them as she had ignored similar poison all her life. She had seen the man with the slicked-back hair dart around to the left and, pushing aside several gamblers adrift on opium currents, she ran into shadows at top speed.

He was waiting for her; a curled arm like steel smashed downward, and Bliss gasped as she felt the pain sweep through her collarbone and neck. Her legs went out from under her and she slid onto the corridor's earthen floor.

Half stunned, she felt herself being dragged into a small, evil-smelling room. The soft stirring of the opium addicts came from all around her. She could barely make out supine shapes in the darkness. Here and there miniature fires were lit; the tears of the poppy was burning in the tiny bowls of long-stemmed pipes.

She felt his presence like a heat above her. She knew he would kill her, just as efficiently as he had killed the contact.

As he stood over her, she knew what she must do. In her mind she could hear the ancient gamblers screaming at her: What's a woman doing down in the Hole anyway? This man was no different from the rest. She would use it against him.

She could hear his panting; it contrasted with the slow, deep exhalations of the addicts among whom she lay.

Bliss lifted a hand, curled it around his neck, brought him down against her face. She could see slivers of yellow light reflecting in his eyes. She could scent his arousal. Killing sometimes did that to people, she had heard.

She needed time: to recover, to fix on a strategy. Bliss opened her legs, thrust her b.r.e.a.s.t.s up. All the while the hand she had placed behind his head was moving, ever so slowly. She twisted her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath his hands. Now the pad of her thumb was just over the right side of his neck. She must give no pressure, no warning.

Bliss knew that she would only get one chance. If she did not get it dead on, he would kill her. She had absolutely no doubt of that.

She concentrated on what she had to do. The carotid. She knew the nerve meridian well. Still she hesitated. So much was riding on the split second of her commitment. Death was waiting for her.

She felt him against her soft flesh and she had had enough. She summoned all her inner strength; she concentrated her qi down to this one point on his anatomy. The carotid meridian.

Opened her mouth wide and shouted, as Jake had taught her; simultaneously, she pressed inward at the meridian juncture.

The effect on the a.s.sa.s.sin was astounding. He jumped, a fish on a line. His eyes flew open; she could see the whites all around. They began to bug out as the color drained from his cheeks.

Realizing what she was doing, he responded instinctually; he hit out. His fists were like blocks of iron. They struck Bliss; tears of pain welled up in her eyes.

Dizzy, grinning, the man hit her again; he laughed. He was enjoying this. Perhaps he was still as hard as he had ever been.

Bliss abandoned the carotid meridian and smote the underside of his rib cage with the heel of her hand. She heard the sickening snap as the two lowest ribs shattered.

Jake, having heard Bliss's cries, slammed around the left turning, racing down the near-deserted corridor of shadows. His peripheral vision brought him the movement of the struggle and he leapt into the opium den.

He grabbed the man with the slicked-back hair and jerked him backward. Bliss, so focused that she was still unaware that he had come into the room, saw her opening and jammed her hand into her a.s.sailant's abdomen. As Jake had taught her to do she used her rigid fingers to puncture skin, muscles, organs, all in one blurred motion of such power that it was unstoppable.

"No!" Jake cried, as he saw her begin the lethal blow, but he was too late. She had been fighting for her life, and had become an organism too busy with the business of surviving to be concerned with outside stimuli.