At last the old man"s fingers uncurled and Bliss took the opal from his palm. It was warm from his heat. "Do you know where the Container Terminal is?" he said.
"Along Hoi Bun Road? At Kai Tak." Kwun Tong, a mainly industrial district near the airport in Kowloon.
The Monkey Man nodded. "The best time"s just before dawn, I"m told." He looked so morose that Bliss reached out and stroked his unlovely cheek. "If you"re hurt, your father will kill me."
Bliss laughed again. "You were always a worrier. I am my father"s daughter. What will Fung the Skeleton dare do to me?"
The Monkey Man said nothing, but as she left Bliss noticed that he had switched from tea to Johnnie Walker Red.
Mikhail Carelin lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling. It was an unlovely sight, being as it was water-stained, uneven, the paint so old it was patinaed. Plaster peeled in abstract patterns. When he contemplated this ceiling what he saw was a landscape: the abstract patterns of peeling plaster became continents rising up from a sea of spiderweb cracks and whorls.
Though the bed was comfortable, though there was a well-supplied bath through a partially opened door not five meters away, he was not in his apartment. Rather he was within the crenellated walls of the Kremlin in a suite adjacent to his office, a steamy, noise-wracked s.p.a.ce in winter. In the summer it was stifling. It was next to the great corner office in which Fyodor Leninin Genachev conducted much of his business.
Genachev liked the night. In darkness, he would say, is peace. The peaceful times, Mikhail, are for working. Even in the middle of the most atrocious cacophony one has time to dream.
Carelin, too, preferred the night. But for other reasons. Nights were a time for listening. In the semidarkness of the Kremlin"s labyrinthine corridors one could hear the cipher machines, the pockets of night crews manning the worldwide networks of power. Genachev, who was unusally not fond of cliches, was guilty of using one: Somewhere in the world, he would say, it is always daytime. Therefore, there is work to be done.
The night, Carelin knew, was the time for clandestine a.s.signations, suborning of apparatchiki, bribe-taking. Venality was sp.a.w.ning in the darkness and there it fed like a city rat gorging itself on garbage and excrement.
Selene.
Always he was brought back to Selene.
His activation code. He had required nothing more of his source. His mission had been preset, the contingencies outlined, the objective absolutely clear.
And yet a So many things had changed since he had been given the mission"s parameters. So many years in the darkness. He had a fondness for the nighttime, looking out windows, so many different windows, but mainly the one in his pink stone house on Gorky Street. There, in another room, his wife dreamed while his world was just awakening. Treachery, deceit, the calm face of the ferret sniffing down holes filled at their far ends with sensitive secrets.
The lights of Moscow at night, winking and glittering, as far off as stars. Like the ceiling at his Kremlin office, he created out of those lights his own landscape.
No man, he had found, was content without a country. He had been deprived of one almost all his life so he played a game with himself, a game of deadly seriousness. He had built his own land, outof the darkness and the strings of lights arcing across the Moskva or along Kuznetsov Prospekt. Muscovites snug in their beds, exhaling the fumes of vodka and cabbage, creating fat, laughing women out of dreamstuff. While Carelin returned to the land of his own creation. Like Dracula rising each night to live again a certain kind of life.
So it was with Mikhail Carelin.
Until his source had beamed him the one word code: Selene, and everything had changed.
He had been trained to lie in the darkness and wait, to take in the night that which did not belong to him and to transmit it far across the sea. He had been trained to kill as well.
With a grunt, Carelin levered himself off the bed. In bare feet he padded across the cold floor. In the bath, he ran the cold-water tap and put his head under the gushing water.
Snorted as he dried off, slung the towel across his bare shoulders. He glanced at his watch. Three thirty-five in the morning. Genachev was still on the phone with Washington. Carelin knew this because Genachev would buzz him as soon as he broke the connection.
At the window, he looked out at the onion domes of St. Basil"s, pale and golden in the illumination from the floods. It was not enough, he thought, to say that everything changed when he received the Selene code. It had altered drastically afterward, too. When he had discovered that his source had been killed.
Carelin had only been under discipline to one man. When he was gone Carelin found that he was in limbo. Who could he contact? There was a mole in the organization to which he reported; a mole in such a position at Central that he could not take the chance of contacting anyone else there.
He thought fleetingly about getting out. Letting Selene crumble into dust alongside its creator. But he held no abiding love for Russia though he had been born there. It was only his work that made life bearable. He had understood then that he had no choice, that he must continue as a ferret or he would dry up and blow away like a paper bag.
But a ferret without a Control was nothing.
Who then to contact?
Jake Maroc had been the logical choice. The only choice open to Carelin. As an ex-operative, Jake knew the Quarry inside and out. Based in Hong Kong, no longer connected to Central, he was safe from Chimera, the only man in the world Carelin could trust.
And there was one more thing. Maroc had been Henry Wunderman"s best friend; more, Wunderman had been his mentor. Maroc deserved to know the truth. So Carelin had made contact and that had been that.
Until, of course, he realized that he had fallen in love with Daniella.
Now he was G.o.d. To destroy or to create, that was the question. And until this very moment, he had not understood how agonizing the decisions G.o.d must make could be.
From the open door to his office not far away he heard the strident sound of the buzzer, Genachev"s call to Washington was over. He was wanted.
Took one last look at the nighttime lights of Moscow. If the answer was not there, where would he find it?
The buzzer sounded again and he got out of there. But his mind would not let him be.
Jin Kanzhe was on his way through the portals of heaven when it hit him. He was with the Acrobat. She had a name, of course, but it was more exciting in his mind to think of her as the Acrobat.
He had met her backstage after a particularly compelling performance of the Dazhalen Acrobatic Troupe to which Huaishan Han had dragged him. The old man had fallen asleep in his seat almost before the lights had dimmed, a not uncommon occurrence and one which Jin Kanzhe could predict with frightening accuracy.
Nevertheless, he had quite enjoyed himself. The troupe was nothing short of spectacular. They liked, rather artily, he thought, to t.i.tle each routine. During one called "Straw Houses," he noticed the suppleness of body, the feline face that spoke of Northern climes. One woman among many darting about the stage. Yet something about her cut him to the quick. She had, in retrospect, a way of moving over the stage that transcended grace. She moved from her hips; this excited him immensely. He found, in fact, at the end of "Straw Houses" that he had a rather painful erection.
At intermission, he had the car take the somnolent Huaishan Han home. At performance"s end he used his official I.D. to get backstage. That made him something of an instant celebrity, which he liked.
He did not see the Acrobat right away. Lights and sweat, rounds of tea and champagnewhich someone tried to keep him from seeing; he laughed inside at that. A sea of faces, half-shadowed in the odd, overhead theatrical spots turned into corners. Nothing of much interest, really.
He had just about made up his mind that she had beat a hastyretreat when he found her. His heart rolled over, and he could not catch his breath. News of his presence had already spread throughout the backstage area. She seemed prepared for him, flashing that smile he had seen from the other side of the footlights, and he was lost.
Now, as he entered the soft, moist portals of heaven he heard her groan beneath him. She liked to be vocal and Jin Kanzhe, unused to such a thing in anyone, let alone a female, could not stop himself from coming when she let go like that.
The Acrobat was in the most extraordinary position beneath him. Her oiled flesh, so firm and smooth, rippled like the sea. He watched her ankles part as she moved again, her long legs high in the air near her shoulders. This did something to the contours of her jade gate, raised, presented to him like a sacred offering, that increased their pleasure tenfold. The sides of her calves grazed his neck; his loins began to melt.
He was all the way inside her. Her heat was incredible; he felt as if he had walked into a furnace. He was engulfed in a pool of liquid fire. Her depths, too, were prodigious; she took him in and in and in. Jin Kanzhe felt so inside.
Her hips were dazzling in their movements. She was a human rubber band. He could not believe what his eyes told him was real. He gasped air out of his lungs and she groaned.
He began to shoot heavily inside her and this increased her vocalizing. She heaved like the ocean, the sounds of ecstasy were like the wind in his ears. The smell of their mingled musk was overpowering.
They had been making love for a long time. To Jin Kanzhe it was like walking across rooftops: delicate, dangerous, terribly exciting; in the air, above the hurried stream of everyday life; apart; beyond.
Spurted and spurted into her. And thought of Huaishan Han.
Well, not exactly the old man. It was so odd, he shivered. Abruptly, he felt the strain of their contorted position on his arms. His biceps began to jump and quiver. Sweat ran down the center of his forehead, dripped from the end of his nose onto the burnished flesh between her small firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
The Acrobat, herself in the midst of the clouds and the rain, was oblivious. Her face was contorted; she ground up against him, sealing her jade gate onto the base of his still rigid member. Flipped her hips, once, twice, three times. And gave a little yelp.
Jin Kanzhe was unmoved. The image that had risen to the surface of his mind expanded by pleasure clamored for his attention. He could see the study in Huaishan Han"s villa. It was nightprecisely whichnight he could not remember. They had gotten drunk together, talking about old timesthe old man running on about Shi Zilin, Jin Kanzhe immersing both of them in the h.e.l.l that was Cambodia.
He must have dozed off. In his dreams he heard the sonorous ticking of the old man"s clock. Heavy lids, grainy with alcohol, opened to slits. Enough to see the old man staring at him. A shaded lamp caused the hard glitter of those eyes to strike Jin Kanzhe like a physical blow.
Then the old man reached out and pinched Jin Kanzhe. "Are you awake?" he whispered.
When Jin Kanzhe made no move, Huaishan Han nodded and moved away into the semidarkness of his study. Jin Kanzhe was very tired. The surfeit of alcohol still pulsed through his veins, throbbing like venom. His eyes closed and he slept.
At least that is what he had thought until just this moment. Then the image had surfaced, brought to consciousness by his o.r.g.a.s.m. The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, to be more precise.
Image of Huaishan Han urinating in the bath adjacent to the study. He squatted, so old that he needed support. The door ajar, the old man reaching for the niche where the toilet paper lay. Toilet paper to urinate? Perhaps he was semi-incontinent, not unheard of in old people.
But why then was he reading it instead of using it?
Jin Kanzhe disentangled himself from the Acrobat"s limbs. In the process, he slipped out of her jade gate and she gave a little cry of disappointment. She wanted him in until the last possible moment. He rolled away and began to dress.
It was very late. She said, "Aren"t you going to stay the night?"
"I"ll be back," he said, holding his hand out for the key.
She curled her amazing body into a ball and lifted her face toward him. Between her lips was a glint of metal. The key to her apartment.
"Kiss me," she said, having no trouble enunciating with her mouth full. Jin Kanzhe bent down, closed his lips over hers. Slowly, her tongue pushed the key past his teeth. Then it swabbed the inside of his mouth.
She smiled as he straightened up. "That"s how Houdini did it," she said. She was proud of her knowledge of arcane things. "His a.s.sistant pa.s.sed him the key to his chains when she kissed him just before he was lowered into the water or the sealed coffin."
It was no good asking her where she obtained such odd bits of information. Hers was a mind Jin Kanzhe could not fathom.
The car outside her apartment took him out of Beijing, into thenorthern suburbs where Huaishan Han lived. There was no traffic to speak of, just the rumbling of truck convoys: foodstuff instead of soldiers being delivered, but it sounded the same.
Jin Kanzhe lowered his head. He missed Colonel Hu. The war in Cambodia had linked them closer perhaps than brothers. What they had endured together! When two men are in desperate danger each day, when with their bare b.l.o.o.d.y hands they kill an enemy in alien territory, their bond is immutable.
"Jin tong zhi."
He started. He had the feeling this was not the first time the driver had spoken his name. "Yes?" Voice thick, as if he just wakened from a dream. He could smell the Acrobat"s musk upon him. His flesh felt sticky, coated with their l.u.s.t.
"We have arrived, Jin tong zhi."
He could see the driver looking at him in the rearview mirror. "Go relieve yourself," Jin said.
"I"m fine, comrade."
"Do as you"re told and take a p.i.s.s," Jin barked.
He sat alone in the car for some time. Heard the engine ticking over as it cooled. His tongue moved in his mouth, tasting the odd metallic tang of the Acrobat"s key. He thought of Houdini with some admiration.
Slipped out of the car and did not close the door all the way. The night was exceptionally mild, a taste of better days to come, the brief respite between the bitter winter and the broiling summer. A nightbird twittered for a moment just above his head.
Jin Kanzhe went from tree to tree. The old man always left a light burning in his study. He was at an age when his sleeping habits were erratic. He could sleep all day and be up most of the night.
Cautiously, Jin Kanzhe stepped up onto the wooden porch and, fitting his laminated I.D. card into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the study door and its ancient frame, he worked a trick Houdini would be proud of. The Acrobat as well.
He peered in, saw the study was deserted. Took off his shoes, leaving them just outside the door. Crept soundlessly across the Deco carpet, swirls of silver, slate gray, amethyst on a sapphire field. Stumbled over something and went down on one knee, cursing under his breath.
A slipper. He pushed it out of the way, remained motionless for a long time. Listened to the clock ticking away the seconds. Wiped sweat off his brow.
Went on across the study, pulled open the door to the bath. Herehe knelt beside the niche and examined the paper. It was a normal roll. It was dark in here and he dared not turn on a light. Stuck his hand into the niche, fumbled a bit, found with accelerated pulse that there was a false back. Took out what was secreted behind it.
Back in the study, he hunkered down by the one lamp with a sheaf of papers. They looked like contracts but they were all handwritten. These must have been what Huaishan Han had been reading while he thought Jin Kanzhe was asleep.
Jin Kanzhe began to read. Soon the hackles at the back of his neck began to stir. He felt a sickening lurch in the pit of his stomach. The more he read the more the terror built, the faster he read, the more feverish he became to reach the end.
It was unbelievable, beyond reason. He had suspected that Huaishan Han was half-mad; now he had proof. Now he knew what lay behind the old man"s seemingly limitless power. He remembered what Huaishan Han had said, Money is no problem. It flows through my hands like an endless river. Now Jin Kanzhe knew why. His wealth must be staggering, almost limitless. But at what a price to China!
"Have you read your fill?"
Jin Kanzhe started, his eyes rising, as frightened as a deer caught in the spike of an automobile"s headlights. Huaishan Han stood in the black doorway to the corridor. By his side was the great guard dog, and Jin Kanzhe"s driver. In the young man"s hand was a pistol.
Jin Kanzhe rose. "What have you done to us?" His voice was clotted with rage and disbelief. He waved the d.a.m.ning doc.u.ments. "You will destroy us all."
"Hardly," Huaishan Han said. "But I mean to gain my vengeance over Shi Zilin and his entire family. This was the only way."
"The only way!" Jin Kanzhe was incredulous. "Your obsession has put this entire country at risk. Do you understand what you are doing?"
Huaishan Han laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "I am killing you."
As if in a dream Jin Kanzhe watched Han"s ancient crab"s claw reach out and pinch the great dog"s brindled neck. The dog growled deep in its throat, and leapt unhesitatingly into Jin Kanzhe"s face.
The metallic taste was back in Jin Kanzhe"s mouth. He felt the alien presence of the key between his teeth, the s.e.xual probing of the Acrobat"s hot tongue that came after.
As he felt the fangs sink into his neck, he wondered in a gray haze how Houdini would have gotten out of this.
Huaishan Han blinked. He held out his withered hand for theweapon and the driver deposited it. "Make sure he"s dead," the old man said, whistling the creature back at his side.
When the driver had carried out the command, Huaishan Han shot him once through the heart with the kind of accuracy that, once learned, never fades.
At the appointed time, Three Oaths sat down at the old shortwave radio and, checking the series of codes Jake had given him in order to reach Apollo, began the long, complex process of call and recognition. If the truth be known he was immensely excited. This transceiver held many poignant memories for him. It was with this set, salvaged from his previous junk, that he had kept in touch with Shi Zilin in Beijing during many of the long years of their difficult but necessary separation. For decades, then, this piece of well-run machinery was all that kept the two loving brothers in touch with one another.
Now, all those memories swept over Three Oaths with the force of waves. His eyes were wet with tears. He missed his eldest brother fiercely. All his life Shi Zilin had been there. For seventy years they had beenfiguratively and literallyputting their heads together. Scheming for the future. Piecing together the great Ten, the harvest that China was now on the verge of reaping.
Three Oaths" loss was immense. His heart shuddered with the pain as he confronted the emptiness that Shi Zilin"s death left inside him. He was unused to such deep introspection and nostalgia. Perhaps that was why he did not hear Neon Chow come up behind him.
And why, when she put her arms around him, put her face alongside his, kissing him, he did not give her presence much thought. Strictly speaking she should not be belowdecks when he was at the shortwave. It was an ironclad rule of the junk, so to speak, and it extended to all of Three Oaths" family.
"I see the sadness in your face," she said, using her softest tone. "I see the heaviness of grief in your gait." She hugged him gently. "Here is what little I can do to help. I know that it is inadequate compared to your grief."
"No, no," Three Oaths said. "Far from insignificant." He was grateful for her warmth. It eased the emptiness that gnawed at him. He did not think of why she was here where it was forbidden to be.
Close behind him, Neon Chow opened her eyes. On the shallow table that swung down by two bra.s.s chains from the bulkhead she sawa sheet of unfolded paper. On it she recognized the writing of the Zhuan.
"Who else have you now to comfort you, to throw their arms around you, to love you all through the night?" she whispered while reading what was on the sheet. Her pulse rose up into her throat and she felt the onset of a blinding headache. She fought for control as the words Jake Maroc had written for his uncle began to make sense to her. Dear G.o.d in heaven, she thought, as she read the ident.i.ty of Apollo, the Quarry"s mole inside the Kremlin, I must ask for an emergency rendezvous with Bluestone. She did not of course know that Apollo was a Quarry molethat fact had been communicated to Three Oaths verbally. But she did know that this was the man who Three Oaths was contacting for Jake. Hadn"t he boasted to her just yesterday of the great honor the Zhuan had accorded him? Hadn"t he made certain she knew that she had been wrong about the Zhuan"s motives? Hadn"t he needed to show her that he still possessed as much power within the yuhn-hyun as he had when Shi Zilin was alive? Yes. Yes. Yes. A contact in Russia, he had told her. Inside the very Kremlin. Now she had more than enough to piece it all together.
"You," he said now. "Only you."