The Art of War

Chapter 46

THICK FACE, BLACK HEART




DeVore stood there on the mountainside, the lifeless bodies of the two alpine foxes dangling from leather thongs at his back, their fur smeared with blood. In his left hand he held the crossbow he had killed them with, in his right the two blood-caked bolts he had pulled from their flesh.

It was an hour after dawn and the mountains below him were wreathed in mist. He was high up where he stood, well above the snow-line. To his left, below him, the mountainside was densely wooded, the tall pines covering most of the lower slopes, stretching down into the mist. He laughed, enjoying the freshness of the morning, his breath pluming away from him. Surely there was no better sight in the world than the alps in high summer? He looked about him, then, slipping the bolts into the deep pocket of his furs, began to make his way down, heading for the ruins of the castle.

He was halfway down when he stopped, suddenly alert. There had been movement down below, among the ruins. He moved quickly to his right, his hand reaching for one of the bolts, hurriedly placing it into the stock and winding the handle.

He scrambled behind some low rocks and knelt, the crossbow aimed at the slopes below. His heart was beating fast. No one was meant to be out here at this hour. Even his own patrols...

He tensed. A figure had come out and now stood there, one hand up to its eyes, searching the mountainside. A tall, thin figure, its angular frame strangely familiar. Then it turned, looking up the slope, its predatory gaze coming to rest on the rocks behind which DeVore was crouching.

Lehmann... DeVore lowered the crossbow and stood, then went down the slope, stopping some ten, fifteen ch’i from the albino, the crossbow held loosely in his left hand.

‘Stefan! What in the gods’ names are you doing here?’

Lehmann looked past him a moment, then looked back, meeting his eyes. ‘Our friends are getting restless. They wondered where you were.’

DeVore laughed. ‘They’re up already?’ He moved closer, handing the foxes over to the albino. ‘Here... hold these for me.’

Lehmann took them, barely glancing at the dead animals. ‘I wondered where you went to in the mornings. It’s beautiful, neh?’

DeVore turned, surprised, but if he hoped to find some expression of wonder in the albino’s face, he was disappointed. Those pale pink eyes stared out coldly at the slopes, the distant peaks, as if beauty were merely a form of words, as meaningless as the rest.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘It is. And never more so than at this hour. Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m the last man. The very last. It’s a good feeling, that. A pure, clean feeling.’

Lehmann nodded. ‘We’d best get back.’

DeVore laughed coldly. ‘Let them wait a little longer. It’ll do that bastard Gesell good.’

Lehmann was silent a moment, his cold eyes watching the slow, sweeping movements of a circling eagle, high up above one of the nearer peaks. For a while he seemed lost in the sight, then he turned his head and stared at DeVore penetratingly. ‘I thought he was going to kill you over that Shen Lu Chua business.’

DeVore looked back at him, surprised. ‘Did you?’ He seemed to consider it a moment then shook his head. ‘No. Gesell’s far too cautious. You know the Han saying, p’eng che luan tzu kuo ch’iao?’

Lehmann shook his head.

DeVore laughed. ‘Well, let’s just say he’s the kind of man who holds on to his testicles when crossing a bridge.’

‘Ah...’

DeVore studied the albino a moment, wondering what it would take to penetrate that cold exterior and force a smile, a grimace of anger, a tear. He looked down. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps he was as empty of emotions as he seemed. But that could not be. He was human, after all. There had to be something he wanted. Something that kept him from simply throwing himself from the cliff on to the rocks below.

But what?

DeVore smiled faintly, detaching himself from the problem, and looked up to find Lehmann still staring at him. He let his smile broaden, as if to make connection with something behind – far back from – the unsmiling surface of that unnaturally pallid face.

Then, shaking his head, he turned, making his way across to the tower and the tunnels beneath.


The Ping Tiao leaders were waiting in the conference room, the great window wall giving a clear view of the slopes. Outside the light was crisp and clear, but a layer of mist covered the upper slopes. Even so, the view was impressive. One had a sense of great walls of rock climbing the sky.

DeVore stood in the doorway a moment, looking in. Six of them were gathered in the far left corner of the room, seated about the end of the great table, as far from the window as they could. He smiled, then turned, looking across. Only one of them was standing by the window, looking out. It was the woman – Gesell’s lover – Emily Ascher.

He went in.

Noticing him, two of the men made to stand, but Gesell reached out to either side, touching their arms. They sat back, looking warily between Gesell and DeVore.

‘Turner...’ Gesell greeted DeVore bluntly, his whole manner suddenly alert, businesslike.

‘Gesell...’He gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment, then went to the window, staring outward, as if unconscious of the woman standing at his side. Then he turned back, smiling. ‘So?’

While he’d been gone, his lieutenant, Wiegand, had shown them around the base, letting them see the mask – the surface installation – while giving no hint of the labyrinth of tunnels that lay beneath.

Gesell glanced at Mach, then looked back, a faint sneer on his lips. ‘You want me to say I’m impressed – is that it, Shih Turner?’

‘Did I say that?’

Gesell leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. ‘No. But you’re very much a product of your level. And your level likes to impress all those beneath it with the grandeur of their works.’

‘That’s true enough. And are you impressed? Are my works grand enough for you?’

DeVore kept his words light yet challenging, concealing his distaste for the man. Arrogant little bastard. He thought he knew everything. He was useful just now, admittedly – a key to things. But once he’d unlocked a few doors he could be discarded.

He waited for Gesell to respond, but it was Mach who answered him.

‘It’s very pretty, Shih Turner, but what’s it all for? The enemy is in there, in the City, not out here in the Wilds. I don’t see the point of building something like this.’

DeVore stared back at Mach, then nodded. How astute of you, he thought. How clever to penetrate so far with just one look. But you haven’t seen it all. You haven’t seen the great hangars, the missile silos, the training halls. And because you haven’t you’ve no idea what this really is. To you this seems a mere shadow of Bremen – a great fortress designed with only one thought in mind: to protect itself against attack. But this is different. My aim is not to defend my position here but to attack my opponents. To cut their lines and penetrate their territory.

‘So you think all this a waste of time?’

He saw how Mach looked at Gesell, then lowered his head slightly, letting Gesell take charge again. That concession was further confirmation of what he already suspected. The ideas, the very words the Ping Tiao used – these belonged to Mach. But it was Gesell who held the power. Gesell to whom Mach deferred when his words had to be turned into actions.

Gesell leaned forward. ‘Wasteful, yes. But not a total waste. You seem beyond the reach of the Seven here, and that’s good. And I’ve seen how your men fight. They’re well trained, well disciplined. In that respect we could learn from you.’

DeVore hid his surprise at Gesell’s candidness. ‘But?’

Gesell laughed and looked about him. ‘Well, look at this place! It’s so cut off from the realities of what’s going on. So isolated. I mean, how can you know what’s happening – what’s really happening in the levels – when you’re so far from it all?’

DeVore was smiling. ‘Is that what you think?’

He clicked his fingers. At once a panel slid back overhead and a bank of screens lowered itself into the room: screens that showed scenes from a dozen different levels of the City. Turning back, DeVore saw how impressed they were despite themselves.

‘What do you want to see?’ he asked. ‘Where would you like to go in the City? My cameras are everywhere. My eyes and ears. Watching and listening and reporting back. Taking the pulse of things.’

As he spoke the images changed, moving from location to location, until, when he clicked his fingers a second time, they froze, all twelve screens showing the same image.

‘But that’s Shen Lu Chua’s man, Yun Ch’o...’ Gesell began, recognizing the figure below the camera.

‘It’s Ottersleben,’ said Mach quietly. ‘Level Thirty-Four. He must have taken this earlier.’

DeVore studied them; saw how Mach looked down, as if considering what this meant, then looked back up again, watching as a dozen images of himself led a dozen Ping Tiao assault squads in the raid on their comrade Yun Ch’o’s apartment. Beside him, Gesell was leaning right forward, fascinated by the unfolding action. He saw the brief fight; saw Yun Ch’o fall, mortally wounded, then watched as the eight hostages – the eight Security officers DeVore had told them would be there – were led out into the corridor. When it was over Gesell looked back at DeVore, smiling tightly.

‘That was clever of you, Turner. A nice trick. But it doesn’t mean much really, does it?’

‘Like the T’ang’s ear, you mean, or the map of Helmstadt?’ DeVore laughed, then moved closer. ‘You’re a hard man to convince, Shih Gesell. What must I do to satisfy you?’

Gesell’s features hardened. ‘Show me the other maps. The maps of Bremen.’

‘And in return?’

But before Gesell could answer, the woman, Ascher, interrupted him.

‘You’re talking deals here, but it’s still a mystery to me, Shih Turner. If you’re so powerful, if you can do so much, then why do you need us? This base you’ve had built, the raid on Helmstadt, the killing of Wang Hsien – any one of these things is far beyond anything we could do. So why us?’

Gesell was glaring at her angrily. DeVore studied the Ping Tiao leader a moment, then half turned, looking back at the woman.

‘Because what I can do is limited.’

She laughed coldly, staring back at him, her dislike unconcealed. ‘Limited by what?’

‘By funding. By opportunity.’

‘And we have those?’

‘No. But you have something much more valuable. Your organization has potential. Vast potential. All this – everything I’ve patiently built over the last eight years – is, as Shih Mach so rightly identified, inflexible. Your organization is different. It’s a kind of organism, capable of vast growth. But to achieve that you need to create the best climate for that growth. What we did yesterday was a beginning. It raised your public profile while giving you considerable firepower. Both things strengthened you considerably. Without me, however, you would have had neither.’

Gesell interrupted. ‘You’re wrong. You needed us.’

DeVore turned back. ‘Not at all. I could have taken Helmstadt on my own. You’ve seen my men, Shih Gesell. You’ve even remarked on how good their training and discipline is. Well, I’ve a thousand more where they came from. And a thousand beyond them. No, I asked you to join me yesterday because such a relationship as we must forge has to be reciprocal. There has to be give and take. I gave you Helmstadt. As, in time, I’ll give you Bremen. But you must give me something back. Not a great thing. I’d not ask that of you yet. But some small thing to cement our partnership. Some favour I might find it difficult to undertake myself.’

‘A small thing?’ Gesell was staring at him suspiciously.

‘Yes. I want you to kill someone for me. A child.’

‘A child?’

DeVore clicked his fingers. The images on the screens changed; showed a dozen separate portraits of an adolescent girl, her ash-blonde, shoulder-length hair loose in some shots, tied in plaits in others. Her straight-boned, slender figure was caught in a dozen different poses: dressed casually as if at home; or elegantly in the latest First Level fashions.

‘But that’s...’

‘Yes,’ DeVore said, looking up at the screens. ‘It’s Jelka Tolonen. Marshal Tolonen’s daughter.’

Jelka had just finished her exercises when her father entered the exercise hall. Her instructor, Siang Che, seeing him, bowed then backed away, busying himself at the far end of the gym.

She turned, hearing a different tread, then laughed, her young face breaking into a great beam of a smile. ‘Daddy! You’re back early!’ She ran across, reaching up to hug him to her. ‘What’s up? I didn’t expect you until the weekend.’

‘No,’ he said, smiling down at her, lowering his head to kiss her brow. ‘I’d almost forgotten...’

‘Forgotten?’

Tolonen put one hand on her shoulder. ‘Not here. Let’s go through. I’ll talk to you once you’ve changed, neh?’

He stood there, looking about her room while she showered. It was not a typical young girl’s room. Not by any means. In a box in one corner were flails and batons, practice swords, chucks and staffs, while to its side, high up on the wall, was a brightly coloured painting of Mu-Lan, the famous warrior heroine, dressed in full military armour, her expression fierce as she took up a defensive pose. Old maps and charts covered the front of the built-in wardrobes to the left, while to the right most of the wall space was filled with Jelka’s own hand-drawn designs – machines and weaponry, their ugly purpose disguised somehow by the sleek elegance of her pen.

An old armchair to one side displayed a touch of luxury, heaped as it was with colourful silk cushions, but her bed was spartan, a simple dark blue sheet covering it. Beside it, beneath a half-length mirror, was her study desk, a wei chi board set up to the right, books and papers stacked neatly on the left at the back. He went across and looked, interested to see what she was reading.

At the very front of the table, face down beside her comset, was a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War, the Ping Fa. He picked it up and read the passage she had underlined:

If not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight.

He smiled. Ten thousand books had been written on the subject since Sun Tzu first wrote his treatise two thousand five hundred years before and not one had come as close to capturing the essence of armed struggle as the Ping Fa. He set the book down again, then studied the wei chi board a moment, noting how a great spur of black stones cut between two areas of white territory, separating them. There were other books piled up on the desk – the San Kuo Yan Yi, the Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, Tseng Kungliang’s Wu Ching Tsung Yao, his Essentials of the Martial Classics, and the Meng Ke amongst them – but what took the Marshal’s interest was a small, floppy, orange-covered volume tucked away at the back of the desk. He reached across and pulled it from the pile.

It was an ancient thing, the cover curling at the edges, the paper within yellowed badly. But that was not what had caught his eye. It was the words on the cover. Or, rather, one word in particular. China.

He stared at the cover for a time, frowning. He had not heard that term – not seen it in print – in more than forty years. China. The name Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom, had had before Tsao Ch’un. Or at least the name it had been called in the West. He leafed through it, reading at random, then closed it, his pulse racing. Islam and Communism. America and Russia. Soviets and Imperialists. These were lost terms. Terms from another age. A forgotten, forbidden age. He stared at the cover a moment longer, then nodded to himself, knowing what he must do.

He turned, hearing her in the next room, singing softly to herself as she dressed, then forced himself to relax, letting the anger, the tension drain from him. It was a mistake, almost certainly. Even so, he would find out who had given this to her and make them pay.

‘Well?’ she asked, standing in the doorway, smiling across at him. ‘Tell me, then. What is it?’

She saw how he looked down at the book in his hands.

‘In a moment. First, where did you get this?’

‘That? It was on your shelves. Why, shouldn’t I have borrowed it?’

‘My shelves?’

‘Yes. It was in that box of things you had delivered here three weeks ago. My amah, Lu Cao, unpacked it and put it all away. Didn’t you notice?’

‘She shouldn’t have,’ he began irritably. ‘They were things General Nocenzi had sent on to me. Things we’d unearthed during the Confiscations. Special things...’

‘I’m sorry, Father. I’ll tell her. But she wasn’t to know.’

‘No...’ He softened, then laughed, relieved that it was only that. ‘Did you read any of it?’

‘Some.’ She smiled, looking inside herself a moment. ‘But it was odd. It presented itself as a factual account, but it read more like a fiction. The facts were all wrong. Almost all of it. And that map at the front...’

‘Yes...’ He weighed the book in his hand a moment, then looked up at her again. ‘Well, I guess no harm’s done. But listen. This is a forbidden book. If anyone were to find you had read even the smallest part of it...’ He shook his head. ‘Well, you understand?’

She bowed her head. ‘As you wish, Father.’

‘Good. Then this other matter...’ He hesitated, then gave a short laugh. ‘Well, you know how long Klaus Ebert and I have been friends. How close our families have always been.’

She laughed. ‘Shih Ebert has been like an uncle to me.’

Her father’s smile broadened momentarily. ‘Yes. But I’ve long wished for something more than that. Some stronger, more intimate bond between our families.’

‘More intimate...’ She stared at him, not understanding.

‘Yes,’ he said, looking back at her fondly. ‘It has long been my dream that you would one day wed my old friend’s son.’

‘Hans? Hans Ebert?’ Her eyes were narrowed now, watching him.

‘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 back.’

‘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 friend’s son. Oh, she’d heard of it. Indeed, several of her schoolfriends 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 fulfil 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 stern. ‘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 on to 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 it was 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 favour 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 him 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 colour of his eyes.’

‘Hmm...’ 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, he went across and stood there 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 made 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 backwards, 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, neh? Nothing! You f*ck-head! You pissing f*ck-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.’