Daylight on Iron Mountain (41 page)

The voiced in his head vanished, like it had been switched off.

Ebert swallowed. Then, calming himself, gave the order to withdraw.

Shepherd crouched over the body, staring at it in shock.

Wang Hui So had been shot twice, once in the heart and once in the head, the second bullet taking the top of his skull clean off.

The assassin had been one of his own. A groom called Yu Ch’o, a Wang family retainer who had served since childhood, which was almost thirty years. Why he’d done it they would never know, for he’d used the third bullet in his gun on himself.

The others had gone on already, to the Domain. He could think of no safer place right now. But was anywhere truly safe when something like this could happen?

It was an ill omen. Things had been on the turn, but now…

Amos stood back, letting the medics take the body away. He was tempted to keep this a secret for a time. Because when news of this got out there would be another great surge of fear.

He could sense it in the air. Could see it, there in the eyes of those that surrounded him. People were afraid. And with every new event that fear grew. The uncertainty of it all ate away at them. It bored into their psyches like acid. Out there, in the levels, they were running scared. Literally so. He had seen for himself news item after news item showing the riots and the protests, and the endless mass hysteria.

Only a quick and decisive result could end it, and that was precisely what he didn’t want. Only Tsao Ch’un could benefit from a rapid resolution of events.

But as for Wang Hui So…

He walked through, into the communications room and, giving his code, had himself pasted through to the Domain.

It was Tsu Chen who answered him.

‘Lord Tsu… I have bad news…’

Tsu Chen’s face barely reacted. ‘What other kind is there?’

‘There is bad and there is
bad
. And this…’ Amos swallowed, then came straight out with it. ‘Wang Hui So is dead. Assassinated by his own groom.’

‘
Aiya!
’ Tsu Chen looked horrified. ‘Who else knows?’

‘A handful of men. But they’ve been sworn to secrecy.’

‘We’re not announcing this, then?’

‘Not yet. I thought…’

Amos stopped. There was a news screen just across the room from him. The sound had been turned down but he could see, as clear as day, just what had happened.

‘Oh Christ… Oh Jesus Christ…’

Tsao Ch’un stood at the sink, washing the blood from his arms.

‘This had better be good,’ he said, snarling threateningly at his steward, who knelt there, his head pressed to the tiled floor.

There was a faint moan from the man on the slab. He was still alive, though the gods knew how.

Tsao Ch’un grabbed a towel, then left the room, with barely a glance at his prisoner.

‘This better be
really
fucking good.’

Li Chao Ch’in let his head fall into his hands. Beside him Hou Hsin-Fa groaned.

On the screen, Wu Hsien was dragged towards camera, his arms held by two guards who showed him less respect than a common criminal. Wu Hsien’s left eye was missing, the socket black and swollen, while his face and shoulders showed signs of a severe beating. But he was still alive, still defiant.

Defiant, sure, but dead. Whenever Tsao Ch’un ordered it.

As Tsu Chen returned to the room, Li Chao Ch’in turned to him. ‘Have you seen?’

‘I have. I was on the line to Shepherd and…’

The two T’ang turned to face Tsu Chen, surprised by the tremor in his voice.

‘What is it?’ Hou Hsin-Fa asked quietly. ‘What now?’

‘It is Wang Hui So. He’s dead. His groom…’

‘
Aiya!
’ Hou looked to Li Chao Ch’in, then back at Tsu Chen. ‘
Three of
us gone…’

‘We are cursed,’ Li Chao Ch’in said, looking back at the screen. ‘The gods are repaying us for serving that demon loyally all those years. We’d have had better treatment from the Lord of Hell.’

Tsu Chen stared at his fellow T’ang, astonished by his outburst.

‘Cursed? No, cousin Li. But we are at war, and we must win or see everything we built lost.’

Li Chao Ch’in turned to him, his face fierce yet also anguished. ‘Is it not all already lost? For myself—’

But Tsu Chen shouted him down. ‘
For yourself ?
Do you wish to stand down, cousin?’

‘No… No, I…’

‘Then take heart. Until he has us all, he has but part of us. We are Seven, neh? And Seven is stronger than One. We have but to kill him and it is done.’

‘And how do we do that?’ Hou Hsin-Fa asked.

‘I do not know. And yet I must believe we can. Or else, what hope is there for any of us?’

‘None at all,’ Li Chao Ch’in said, in a low, defeated voice.

‘You must stop this, cousin!’ Tsu Chen said, getting angry now. ‘If you do not show strength, then how do you expect—’

He stopped dead, not finishing the sentence, his jaw dropping at the sight that now greeted his eyes.

‘
Gods…
’

The other two turned to look… and groaned. For there, centre screen, was Tsao Ch’un’s eldest son, Tsao Heng, grinning into camera, Wu Hsien’s bloodied head on the stake he held in his hand.

‘Barbarians…’ Hou Hsin-Fa said quietly. ‘They’re all bloody barbarians…’

But then we knew that
, Tsu Chen thought, staring bitterly at the sight of his dead friend’s damaged face.
We knew that from the first day we worked with him
.

Tsao Ch’un looked a ghastly sight as he stared up at the giant screen. He was naked beneath his apron, the pure white of which was spattered with
blood and gobbets of flesh. But it was not that which caught his servants’ eyes as they looked on at their Lord and Master, it was the erection he sported; an erection which a man fifty years his junior would have been proud of.

They tried not to look, but it was impossible not to see it. Besides, Tsao Ch’un himself did not care. All he cared for was the fact that another of the Seven was dead, his head on a stick.

‘At last!’ the great man said, a ferocious smile lighting his features. ‘At fucking last!’

With Fan Chang and Wu Hsien dead and Shen Fu on the torture slab, all was well in Tsao Ch’un’s world. Five more – six, if you counted Shepherd – and he’d be done with it. Until then…

‘Send in the Third Banner,’ he barked, looking to his marshal who stood by the great double doors, his head bowed. ‘I want Bremen destroyed! Issue the men with ice-eaters…’

‘Is that wise,
Chieh Hsia
,’ the man began. But Tsao Ch’un shouted him down.

‘I don’t
care
if it’s fucking wise! I want it done!’

The marshal fell to his knees. ‘Yes,
Chieh Hsia
.’

Tsao Ch’un turned back, forgetting the man instantly. He rubbed his hands together and laughed. ‘That’s my boy… And I thought you’d lost your touch.’

The dungeon keeper stood beside the slab, looking down at his charge.

With that much damage done to him, the First Dragon ought to have been dead. Any other man would surely have succumbed. Then again, it was said that Tsao Ch’un knew ways of keeping a man alive – of hurting without harming. Harming permanently, that was. Not that there wasn’t evidence enough of real harm. Why, there was barely a bone that was not broken, barely a nerve-ending unpunished by the electrodes. And the man’s eyes…

Had he not seen it before, he might have felt nauseous at the sight, only in the years he’d worked as dungeon keeper, he had seen many like this one. Tsao Ch’un’s ‘special guests’ as he liked to call them. Men whose conduct had annoyed the great man sufficiently to warrant his special attentions.

Many would have called the great man a sadist. But he felt differently. To
him, Tsao Ch’un was, in this one respect, an artist; a man immensely skilled in the art of creating pain. Just as a great and talented woman might have learned the arts of lovemaking, in order to enhance and intensify the pleasure of sex, so Tsao Ch’un had practised
his
arts across the years, until he could make a man sing on the slab; could make him beg and gibber and betray.

Especially the last.

Shen Fu seemed to be sleeping. He seemed as if in a dream. Whatever pain he had suffered – and he surely must have suffered much – seemed now to have left him. He seemed quite beyond pain. And yet how could that be so? When his Master returned it would begin again. He knew that without doubt, and surely Shen Fu knew that too? Only he seemed calm now, untroubled.

The dungeon keeper reached out, his fingertips gently touching the sleeping man’s face, as if to bless him. Then, knowing his Master would soon return, he hurried from the room, back to the tiny cell he called his home.

Karl let his head rest against the wall. They had been fighting for the best part of a day now, skirmish after skirmish, and he was exhausted. Across from him Dag sat where he’d sat for the last two hours, staring into space with a vaguely surprised air about him, the hole in his forehead where the laser had burned him puckered and black now.

A lot of their men were dead, and even those that still lived – men like himself – were barely so. Cut off from reinforcements and steadily running out of ammunition, it was only a matter of time. As soon as the enemy had taken out their cruisers on the roof he’d known the game was up. Jump in, jump out had been the strategy, but without aircraft…

These Han were not as dumb as they looked. At least, their junior officers weren’t.

He could hear them, further up the corridor, whispering to each other. They’d be making another assault real soon now. It had been at least twenty minutes since the last, and they had to know now that they were pushing against an open door. But they were being cautious. And who could blame them? They had time and numbers on their side.

Ragnar lay out there somewhere, dying, his left leg blown off. He hadn’t
made a sound in some while, so maybe he was dead. Who was to say? As for the others…

Karl slowly turned his head, looking at the handful who’d survived. They were all sitting there, their backs against the wall, waiting.

Henrik didn’t have a gun. He’d lost it earlier, but he had a grenade – his last – and he cradled it now like a child. Beside him, Sven had his head tilted back, his eyes closed, his big automatic balanced across his left knee. He had one clip left. After that he’d have to use the gun as a club. As for Einar…

Einar looked like he’d been sprayed in a fine mist of blood. His face was dark with it, like a demon’s, his eyes showing bright and white amidst that caked mask. His handgun lay on the deck beside him to his left, his big hunting knife in his right hand.

Karl smiled. If he was going to die, it was good to die alongside these men. And die they would, because Tsao Ch’un wasn’t taking any prisoners. They’d learned that early on.

Yes, and they’d badly underestimated them. He knew that now. Whatever Marshal Raikkonen might have said, the men they’d been facing weren’t raw recruits. And they certainly weren’t pushovers. As for their tactics – well, that had surprised them, as well. How clever they were. How brave, too. He’d have taken his hat off to them, only they’d probably have blown the top of his head off if he had.

No. It was a lost cause, they all knew that now. If he had any regrets it was that he wouldn’t see his wife, Margaret, nor his boys again. But this was his time, and they would understand.

Some day.

Maybe
, he thought. Only he wished he could have seen the end of it. Wished he could have known whether this had made any difference at all. Whether their efforts had freed the world from that bastard Tsao Ch’un’s grip. Now he’d never know.

From further down the corridor the whispering grew in intensity. A moment later there was the distinct noise of safeties being removed, the sound of clips being fitted into guns.

Sven had sat forward. Henrik and Einar, too, were suddenly tensed.

‘You ready?’ Karl asked, smiling at them fondly, knowing it was the last time he would see them.

It was Einar who answered, his bloodied features stretched into a grin. ‘You bet we fucking are!’

Tsao Ch’un stood beneath the shower’s flow, washing the blood from his chest and limbs, even as his men reported to him.

He had finished with Shen Fu for today. Had had his way and purged himself. For the moment. Now he took the time to listen to what had been happening in his absence.

First up was the news of Wang Hui So’s death, shot by his own servant. Tsao Ch’un was pleased with that. Very pleased. But not as much as by the news that they had managed to hack in to Amos Shepherd’s systems.

He hadn’t been sure his team were up to it – that they could in any way match a man like Shepherd for intelligence and guile, but they had, and the beauty of it was that Shepherd – and the remainder of the Seven – would not even be aware of it. From this point on he could track their every move, hear every order they gave the moment it was given. It gave him a tremendous advantage.

Only what Tsao Ch’un didn’t know – and he didn’t know because no one wanted to give their Lord the bad news – was that there were rumours of unrest, even of revolt, in the ranks of Tsao Ch’un’s Third Banner Army; the army that was camped out around Bremen, waiting for the order to go in.

It was an order he was just about to give, only right then news started to come in from North America that four of the Seven’s newly formed two-thousand-man units had attacked Tsao Ch’un’s forces there, hitting them out of the blue and withdrawing almost immediately, inflicting heavy damage. These attacks were not decisive militarily, yet their effect upon morale was huge. They had been dealing very well with the situation up to that point. Now…

He got Tsao Heng on the line.

Seeing his father on the screen, Heng bowed low. ‘Father…’

‘You must hold firm, Heng. Things have changed. From here on
we
dictate what happens.’

‘But I thought…’

Seeing his father’s face Heng fell silent again, his head tucked in to his chest. He had learned not to argue with his father.

‘As I said,’ Tsao Ch’un said, slowly and deliberately, as if dealing with a recalcitrant servant and not one of his marshals, ‘from now on
we
dictate what happens. Await my orders, Heng, but spread the word among your officers that something is happening – that something has changed and that we now have a massive advantage over our enemies.’