Jake Maroc - Shan Part 7

Up on deck, Three Oaths Tsun watched Neon Chow's slim back as she went forward. When she had disappeared, he shifted his gaze to the silver sky and then spat heavily over the side. "No sun; no rain. This is no weather at all. Bad for fishing, bad for fornicating anything, heya?"

Jake's hooded copper eyes were watching far out at sea. Tankers, black and low, filled with oil from the rich emirates, steamed in two-dimensional silhouette. They had come, no doubt, through the Strait of Malacca, one of the smallest and most strategic bits of territory in this modern petrofueled world.

It was at the Strait of Malacca as well as at the Mainland, Zilin had informed his son, that the Soviets meant to strike.

As he stood there, Jake blotted out his uncle and Neon Chow, recalling the conversation he had had with Zilin earlier in the day. The old man seemed obsessed with their old enemy, the KGB. And in particular two high-ranking officials.

"Over the last three-and-a-half years," the Jian had said, "the Russian army, with the vital political backing of Anatoly Karpov and Yuri Lantin, has begun a ma.s.sive upgrading of their fifty-eight border divisions. Nine of them are now fully armored. All are arrayed along China's northern frontier.

"In Eastern Siberia, where we are historically the most vulnerable, our latest intelligence tells us that approximately one hundred TU-22 bombers and one hundred fifty SS-20 mobile missiles armed with nuclear warheads have been deployed."

"Are those the Backfire bombers?" Jake had asked. And when his father had nodded his a.s.sent he had thought, They are currently the most modern the Russians have: five-thousand-mile range, nuclear capability with either bombs or air-to-surface missiles.

"They are all around us, Jake," Zilin had said. "But these are only machines. Machines need guidance. The human mind. Here is the crux of the issue. We have a new nemesis in the Kremlin: Oleg Maluta. He is far worse than Karpov and Lantin ever were because his power base is virtually unshakable. And if the time comes that he is ever elevated further, Buddha protect us. His militancy is well doc.u.mented. Afghanistan and Pakistan were two of his pet projects.

"The question we must now ask ourselves is in which direction is Maluta turning his adder's head. Will he make those Backfire bombers take to the sky?"

Zilin's glossy black eyes were depthless, ageless. The degenerative disease that continued to wrack him with pain had nevertheless failed to dim the inner energy or the acuity of his extraordinary mind. "How did Maluta come to your attention, Father?" Jake had asked. "Through Daniella Vorkuta," the old man said. "Always and forever it is Daniella Vorkuta. It is her eye that is constantly on China, Jake. Never for a moment forget that fact. It is she, of the Russians now in power, who understands the importance of controlling Hong Kong. If the Russians can gain enough hold over the trading companies here, they can cut all revenue off from the Mainland; they can suck Mainland companies establishing themselves in Hong Kong into bad ventures. Daniella Vorkuta's hold in Hong Kong must be broken forever or China can never gain her destiny as a future world power.

"Though Maluta is dangerous because of his avowed militancy against us, it is Daniella Vorkuta who can truly destroy us: financially, economically, for all time.

"General Vorkuta plays wei qi; she knows the strategies. Through Sir John Bluestone, she has a substantial foothold here and though we have him in view we should not underestimate her mind. Only she, of all the Russians, understands our potential here."

"How much does Daniella Vorkuta know about Kam Sang?" Jake had asked.

Zilin had let out a long sigh. "She has already tried twice to infiltrate the project. So far we have managed to, ah, appropriate her agents before too much information was leaked back to her. But she will keep trying."

"But this in itself seems to me to create a problem of its own," Jakehad said. "The very fact of the intense security surrounding Kam Sang should be cause for alarm on her part. She is smart enough to read the military implications in such ma.s.sive security."

Zilin had looked at his son. "Indeed. And if she becomes sufficiently alarmed, so will Oleg Maluta. And Maluta will order the Backfires up."

"Are you sufficiently relaxed, Jian?" Bliss asked. Zilin opened his eyes. His mind, freed of the network of pain within which it had been gripped, was floating. He was in the center of dai-hei, the great darkness where, he had found, all incorporeal essence resides, when Bliss's voice called him back.

"Yes," he said thickly. "You have done wonders for me, bou-sehk. Precious gem, that is what my Younger Brother calls you." He moved slightly. "I thank you ten thousand times over."

"I have only taken away your pain," she said, overwhelmed that he would call her by the loving term her father did. "I have given you nothing at all."

"On the contrary," his luminous eyes sought hers, "you have given me part of yourself. Bou-sehk, listen to me. Your body is only part of what you have to offer others; it is, perhaps, the most insignificant part. Yes, your body can give and receive enormous pleasure. But that pleasure is at best fleeting, The mind, on the other hand, is nourished by your aura, your essence, your qi, that which makes you unique. This is in the end what the mind remembers. What the soul cherishes." Bliss knelt beside the reed pallet, her head bowed. Her hands were clasped in her lap.

"Tell me," he continued, "do you know of da-hei?" "No, G.o.dfather."

"Touch the tips of my fingers with yours." His voice was but a whisper, coming to her in waves like the tide that lapped gently at the hull of the junk. "Look into my eyes now. Look into my eyes." "What am I supposed to see?"

"Nothing," he said. But it seemed to her as if his mouth had not opened at all. "Nothing."

There was a darkness in the room that was not gloom, not shadow. To Bliss it was a source of illumination, although she had no idea how darkness could be a source of light.

In the depths of Zilin's eyes was a spark of color unknown to her. She stared long at the hue, in an attempt to decipher its mystery. And all about her the darkness crept, stealing the light. Then the cabin disappeared.

And Bliss heard the world calling.

Up on deck, Jake was saying, "I have ten thousand threads, all of which I must weave into one tight skein."

"That is the Zhuan's job," Three Oaths said, watching carefully the famed intensity of Jake's formidable gaze.

Though his uncle's tone was carefully neutral Jake still picked up a subtle undercurrent, and a warning siren went off in his head. "You do not approve of my father's choice of successor, do you, Elder Uncle?"

"Oh, no, no. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just do not see how the yuhn-hyun will survive without the Jian. I mean no disrespect, Younger Nephew; I could not love you more were you my own son. But the Jian has had eighty-odd years of experience. The yuhn-hyun is his creationit has been evolving in his mind for fully fifty years. The thought of losing him now, at this most critical time, fills me with dread."

The day was waning but the air was completely still. Forward, Jake watched Neon Chow chatting with Three Oaths' number two daughter.

"Will you stay for dinner, Zhuan?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot," Jake said. "Too much work to do." He tried to smile but his face felt wooden. There was too much happening, too quickly. Jake wished desperately that he could talk to someone about his strategyto Three Oaths or to Bliss. But he knew that in this he was alone. He must be. It was part of being the Zhuan. He could afford to trust no one. But he felt a burning in his heart; he wondered how much it was costing him to push Bliss away. Part of him wanted to take her into his confidence. Because he loved her so. But another part of himthe Zhuanknew that the information he possessed was far too explosive for any other person to have. The enemy was too close, too well hidden within the inner circle to take the risk. Still, he was chilled by what he was being forced to do. Bliss was an integral part of his life. He could not imagine living without her.

A junk, its high triangular sail a glowing red in the dusk, gradually swung into the harbor mouth from the east.

Jake put his elbows on the top rail. His sleeves were rolled up; Three Oaths could see the sinewy power in those wrists and fingers. The lines of callus along the edges of Jake's hands were as yellow as ancient ivory.

"Uncle," he said, "do you believe that Bluestone is behind the embezzlement at Southasia Bancorp?"

"Without doubt," Three Oaths said decisively. "It's clear the motherless dog who actually took the money did not have the brains to put such a scheme together. He would have soiled himself first. No, the scheme required a brain such as Bluestone's."

As the crimson-sailed junk made for the typhoon shelter, Jake saw that the black smudge along the horizon had broadened. A wind had sprung up, "But perhaps," Three Oaths said heavily, "Bluestone is inside the yuhn-hyun deeper than any of us imagine."

Jake said nothing, watching the horizon with a blank look.

"Chimerathe Soviet mole inside the Quarry, your former mentor, Henry Wundermanknew about the emperor's jade seal of power, the fu, pieces of which my brother left with you, your half-brother Nichiren, Bliss and Andrew Sawyer. How did he know about the jade?"

Jake took a deep breath. "Bluestone is nothing, Elder Uncle. He is nothing more than a conduit. Daniella Vorkuta is behind the scheme to bankrupt Southasia. Daniella Vorkuta is inside the yuhn-hyun; it is her brain at work here. Daniella Vorkuta runs Bluestone. As she runs Chimera."

"Runs Chimera?" Three Oaths said incredulously. "What do you mean? Chimera is dead. You killed him with your own hands."

"I killed Henry Wunderman, Elder Uncle," Jake said, the pain in his voice now evident. "He wasin factnot Chimera."

"What?"

Jake still did not move. Three Oaths realized he stood as still as stoneas death. "A week ago an agent of the Quarry contacted me. Never mind who, it was a deep cover a.s.set, code-named Apollo. Beridien and Donovan, perhaps a few others at Quarry Central knew about Apollo. But no one except Henry Wunderman knew Apollo's ident.i.ty. When Apollo heard through high diplomatic circles of Wunderman's death, and why he was killed, it set him thinking. He knew he knew, Elder Unclethat Wunderman could not possibly be a double agent. Apollo confirmed this. He also confirmed that Chimera is still operating. Over the months since, Apollo has been doing some thinking. He has deduced the ident.i.ty of General Vorkuta's mole inside the Quarry: Rodger Donovan."

Jake watched a walla-walla carrying three Mandarin businessmen, somber as reptiles, as it negotiated the narrow lanes between boats, on its way to one of the floating restaurants moored in the harbor. Oily water lapped at the side of the junk.

Jake turned to face his uncle. "Donovan's name is the only one that makes sense. The ploy Vorkuta used on all of us to persuade us that Wunderman was Chimera was as audacious as it was meticulous. She used false intelligence to convince me that Henry was Chimera; while she used other intelligencejust as falseto convince Henry that I was behind the a.s.sa.s.sination of Beridien.

"The whole plot was dangerous to Chimera. At any time, Henry or I could have stumbled onto the truth about Chimera. So the reward must have been very high indeed."

"I'd say that Vorkuta's mole taking control of the Quarry is high reward indeed," Three Oaths said.

"Oh, yes," Jake said morosely.

Three Oaths watched the oily patches of water lap against the junk. Out in the harbor, Jumbo, the giant floating restaurant, was abruptly lit up, sending gaudy red, green and blue lights dancing over the waves.

"Are you certain of this? Perhaps this is another of accursed Vorkuta's diabolical ploys."

Jake shook his head. "No, I don't think so, for two reasons. One, she would have no earthly reason to stir up my suspicions nowthe whole idea was for me to believe that Chimera was dead. Two, Apollo told me what his last directive from Wunderman was: to terminate Daniella Vorkuta. I have reaffirmed that directive."

"May she die a hundred deaths for what she has done to you, Younger Nephew!" Three Oaths said, spitting over the junk's side.

"One will do, Elder Uncle," Jake said bleakly. "General Vorkuta caused me to kill one of my oldest friends." He was watching something from very far away. Perhaps it was not anything in the real world. "She set us one against the other and neither Henry nor I saw what was happening. She destroyed everything we had between us: friendship, love, trust. Like a master magician she paraded before us our own supposed deceit, betrayal, fear. She separated us and, thus, defeated us. Worse, she caused us to defeat one another. She suspected, rightly, that our mutual love could be twisted into hate, and that that hate would blind us to her illusion.

"Buddha, how she must have gloated when I killed Henry. And became her a.s.sa.s.sin."

"Ahhhh." It was a long drawn-out sigh of recognition. "General Vorkuta is a devil, Zhuan. She is intent on our destruction. How to believe such a diabolical mind resides in the head of a female."

The wind sang an eerie tune through the shrouds; a tern called, wheeling above them. The light that surrounded them seemed abruptly leaden, a deadening weight. It was a long time before Jake's gaze shifted, and even when it happened Three Oaths knew enough to say nothing.

"Look, Elder Uncle." Jake pointed at last to the thickened black smudge out to sea. "Here comes your rain."

Ian McKenna pulled at the collar of his shirt. It was still and muggy after the brief evening rain. The dark beach was stippled as if by a painter's brush. The tide washed detritus ash.o.r.e. McKenna shone his flash this way and that. It was the middle of the night, and so quiet he could hear the hoot of a ship far off across the water.

*Put it out, if you don't mind."

McKenna stood very still. Chinese voice. Instinctively, McKenna's hand went to his service revolver. Calm down, he told himself. You'll give yourself a heart attack if you go on this way. He shut off the flash and was cloaked in darkness. A light phosph.o.r.escencethe conglomerate of lights from nearby Stanleyrode the water, reflecting nothing but abstract patterns.

He felt a presence approaching over his right shoulder. It came around until it was standing by his side. "Good evening, Mr. McKenna."

Turned his head and saw one wide-open white eye glaring at him. Round moon face, wide b.u.t.ton nose. A typical southern Chinese face, disfigured by a livid scar that pulled the bottom of the left eye downward, creating a perpetual glare. Inwardly, McKenna shuddered at the bad joss of this man.

"lam White-Eye Kao."

McKenna grunted. "You're all alike to me. Shanghainese, Cantonese, whatever. You're all b.l.o.o.d.y bandits."

For a moment, White-Eye Kao said nothing, then his lips curled upward in a smile. "That did not stop you from accepting my money," he said evenly.

"Money has no loyalty," McKenna said. "I don't care where it comes from."

"Does tile amount seem sufficient?" White-Eye Kao asked.

Thinking, Jesus, I may have found the goose that lays the golden egg, McKenna said in his most self-important voice, "For the time being, I believe it to be adequate. But final judgment depends on what you want in return."

"Ah, Mr. McKenna, it is really nothing at all." White-Eye Kao put his hands behind his back. Though he stared out to sea, his ruined orb continued to glare at McKenna. The pale phosph.o.r.escence of the water lent it a ghostly hue, as if it were the clouded eye of a dead mana dead man with a fly tap-tap-tapping in its glutinous surface. Stop it! McKenna screamed silently to himself. He fought to calm his stomach but he could not suppress the image of the great fires along the outback, sparks cracking upward, threading across the dead black sky. The chanting a "a all right?"

"What?" Dragged himself back from the terrifying memory. "I didn'thear you."

"I asked if you were all right, Mr. McKenna. Your face is pale."

McKenna wiped his face with a shaking hand; it felt clammy. "I'm no, I'm quite all right. I'm fighting a bit of a stomach flu, that's all."

"You must take care of yourself, Mr. McKenna." White-Eye Kao had taken out a cigarette. He lighted it and inhaled deeply. "Much depends on you now."

Back to business. "What is it you want me to do?"

White-Eye Kao had had about enough of the foreign devil's bad manners. "I wonder what your superiors would do to you if they got wind of the young man who lives with you?"

Color suffused MeKenna's face. "What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

White-Eye Kao clucked his tongue. "Formidable Sung, head of the largest Triad in Hong Kong, knows this secret, does he not, Mr. McKenna? He uses it against you from time to time, to get you to deliver advance information on police raids."

"That's utter nonsense!"

"Is it, Mr. McKenna?" White-Eye Kao smiled. "How old is he, Mr. McKenna, your house mate? Eighteen? No, too old. Sixteen, maybe? Does fifteen sound more accurate?" The Chinese laughed.

He knows, McKenna thought. The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d knows it all! Suddenly the rage was there, glowing red at his core. The idea of dancing on a string held by these little slant-eyed wh.o.r.esons was too much to bear. With a low growl, he reached for his gun.

But White-Eye Kao had antic.i.p.ated him and he was so close his body was up against the larger's man. The gleaming blade of a knife was shoved against McKenna's throat.

"That was not an intelligent move, Mr. McKenna." Those last two words were squeezed out of White-Eye Kao's mouth. Only the fact that he was under strict discipline stopped him from slitting this foreign devil's throat. "You may be powerful inside your precinct house but out here in the night you are nothing but a piece of stinking meat I can hang out to dry for the rats to find. You'll give them a festival feast, Mr. McKenna. I don't want you to forget that."

McKenna's rage bubbled to the surface. His head trembled with the force of it. But he could feel the biting edge of the steel blade across his adam's apple. You're the one who's dead meat, he thought, that's b.l.o.o.d.y well the truth, mate. His lips were drawn back in an animal snarl. No one treats me like this. No one.

In a moment, the steel blade had disappeared. All appeared normal again. "The first service you may provide me," White-Eye Kao said just as if no threat had been uttered, "is confirmation of a rumor. I have heard that there has been some troublesome very recent troubleat the Southasia Bancorp.

"I bank at the inst.i.tution and am understandably concerned as to the continued welfare of my money. You understand."

McKenna laughed. "This is all on your own. Yes. I understand." Thinking, this wog may have given me a leg up on Formidable Sung. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d has been blackmailing me long enough. Sung owns a part of Southasia Bancorp. If there is a problem at the bank it will give me great pleasure to see the look on his face when I report it. "All right," he said, making an effort to throttle back his burning rage. Visions of Formidable Sung's thunderstruck face helped. "I'll see what I can find out."

"Quickly," White-Eye Kao said. "Do it quickly, Mr. McKenna. Now go home. Throw your arms around your little boy and drift off to sleep. In time, perhapsif you run your errands faithfully and wellI will give you that which you need in order to destroy Formidable Sung's hold on you."

Darkness. And within it, whirling, was the light. How was that possible? It was. Because the light was not illumination.

It was pain.

Pain so delicate, so exquisite, so palpable that it took on an actual presence. It hungthat was as close as one could get using a conventional verbin the center of her universe spinning blurrily like a scythe. Cutting her nerve ends, leaving them raw and open and bleedinga pain she was certain would never end.

Eventually, however, it did.

That was because Colonel Hu Xujing ordered it.

Qi Lin heard his voice quite clearly over the discordant din that was but one component of her pain. Over the course of her internment, she had lost her bearings. She had no real words to describe the amount of time this pain, this light had enveloped her: a day, a week, a month, or a century, it was all the same to her. Beforebefore the pain, that isshe recalled that her sense of time had been acute. She had never needed an alarm to wake her up, never needed to glance at a watch in order to make a rendezvous; she was always on time.

Time. The pain ate time, consumed it greedily in its maw of light, then regurgitated what was left: not time, not emptiness either, for that would have meant the absence of pain. The pain was always there, a light in the stygian blackness. Her only light. And because it was made so for her, it became, in time, her oasis, her one friend.

Until Colonel Hu.

Colonel Hu made the pain stop. At first, Qi Lin hated him for that for taking away her one and only light. Now there was only the darkness. Sheer emptiness encircled her, a rage of silence, of aloneness. Once, she remembered dimly, she could hold her pain closer to her. It a.s.sured her that she was still breathing, her heart was still pumping: that she was still alive.

After the pain went away she was not sure. For a time, she suspected that she was dead. She could feel nothing, see nothing, smell nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing. What karma was this that had brought her to this unknown and horrific place? Was this the beginning of the Wheel of Life? What arcane sins had she committed to find herself here?

Then Colonel Hu brought her out from the nothingness. Qi Lin believed later that it was like being born again. Literally. There were no words to encompa.s.s the enormity of her grat.i.tude.