The Art of War (20 page)

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.