*
Malone kept listening, a saying from Sun Tzu’s ART OF WAR spinning through his mind. When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, stay out of the way. Sound advice, particularly here where containment meant everything. When he and Stephanie had talked, laying out the plan, setting the stage, one thing had been stressed. Nothing about this could leave Solaris. It had to end here. So they’d purposefully pointed the Chinese, luring them down a concocted path, hoping anyone and everyone would follow.
And they had.
Time to intervene, but first he, too, wanted to know the answer to Kim’s question.
Where was the crumpled sheet of paper?
*
Isabella, with Luke, followed the street up through a honeycomb of dark houses. All of the clamor remained behind them as the embassy envoy had assured them that no police would come their way.
The fog had thickened, limiting visibility to maybe fifty feet. Beyond that everything blurred away into a wall of vapor. They’d proceeded with caution, keeping watch on the buildings and the many side streets, seeing and hearing nothing. Now they’d found the lit cathedral and an irregular-shaped piazza that fronted it. All remained shrouded by an unnatural quiet.
“Where the hell is he?” Luke whispered.
*
Kim had waited long enough for an answer to his question, so he aimed the gun at his daughter. “Where is the crumpled sheet? I will not ask again. You were right when you said I am a Kim. You obviously know what that means—after all you are one, too. If I have to shoot you, I will.”
“Why did you come for me? Why not just leave me in the camp?”
“You were my daughter. I thought you deserved not to live there.”
“But my mother did?”
“Your mother was just one of many women I encountered. They were objects of pleasure, nothing more. My wife, with whom I have my legitimate children, will always be my wife. And what do you care? You hated your mother. You told me that the first day we met. Why is she so important now?”
He kept the gun aimed.
*
Hana realized that she’d made a horrible error. The woman she’d despised her entire life was blameless. Truly, her only sin had been falling in love. Her punishment? A lifetime of banishment to a place of unimaginable horror, where problems were sent to be forgotten—without consequences.
Her mother had no choice.
But her father had possessed many.
This nothing of a man was the cause of all her agony. For an instant she was sad that her mother was gone. A feeling of longing, similar to what she’d felt for Sun Hi, filled her heart. Fourteen years she’d pondered this. But only in the past few minutes had she truly understood the depth of her pain.
And she knew what had to be done.
One hand held her gun. The other she slipped into her pocket and found the original sheet. She’d removed it from the stack while still on the train with Howell, crumpling it into a ball. Howell had liked that, saying nothing, only smiling at her desecration.
He killed your lady, she’d said to Howell. Not me.
And the American had nodded his understanding.
She displayed the ball of paper to her father.
“Are you insane,” he said. “Those fibers are eighty years old. We may never be able to open it back up.”
The wad rested on her open palm.
She turned and, with a flick of the wrist, propelled the ball through the air and onto the burning candles. Her father gasped and rushed to try and stop the inevitable, but the fragile paper quickly disintegrated.
“You bitch,” he screamed.
She heard the word that every female prisoner had been called since birth. She’d come to associate that slur with defeat, but for the first time in her life she actually felt empowered. She’d conceived, planned, and executed her every move, down to the final part, the one that would deny her father all that he sought. She stared with defiance into his angry eyes, knowing exactly what he would do.
And he did not disappoint her.
He aimed his gun and pulled the trigger.
*
Malone had not expected Kim to shoot his daughter, but the man had done so with no hesitation. Hana Sung destroying the code was perfect. Kim was now dead in the water, unlikely to have any copies or facsimiles. Everything had happened on the train, and Kim had not even known its significance until Howell told him. Kim was surely counting on leaving here with everything in his possession, figuring it out later.
But now that plan would never happen.
*
Hana felt the bullet slam into her stomach, then pass right through her. The pain was at first unnoticeable, then excruciating, radiating upward and exploding in her brain.
“I gave you life,” her father said. “Gave you freedom. I could have left you there to rot, but I didn’t. And you repay me with this?”
She needed him to finish. It was time for her to die. She should have died long ago with Sun Hi. Instead she survived and spat upon her friend. The shame from that had never left her. For a long time she’d debated what to do. Kill her father? No. Then she would be no better. Instead he must be offered the opportunity to kill her, and his choice would be telling.
Blood gushed from the wound, and she fought to stand.
She would die on her feet with no expressions of pain—strong, determined, and silent—like Sun Hi. Maybe they’d see each other once her spirit traveled to wherever spirits went. She hoped there was a place. What a shame if there be nothing but blackness.
One final insult swelled inside her.
More of her redemption.
She spat at her father.
But he stood too far away for anything to touch him.
He shot her again.
*
Malone rose up and aimed his gun downward just as Kim fired for the second time. Sung dropped to the stone, blood oozing from her in ever-widening rivulets. He assumed she was dead.
“Drop the gun,” he said.