The White Mountain (13 page)

‘They're under my direct orders, Father. They're not to leave me. Not for a moment.' His voice was condescending now, as if he were explaining something to an inferior.

Ebert looked at his son, seeing things he had never noticed before: the arrogance of his bearing; the slight surliness in the shapes his mouth formed; the lack of real depth in his clear blue eyes. It was as if he looked
at
you, but not into you. He saw only surfaces: only himself, reflected in others.

He felt something harden at the core of him. This was his son. This…
creature
. He hissed out a long breath, his chest feeling tight, then started forward, shouting at the two officers. ‘Get
out
, damn you! Now! Before I throw you out!'

There was no hesitation this time. They jerked as if struck then turned, hurrying from the room. Klaus stared at the closed door a moment before turning to look at his son.

‘There was no need for that…'

‘There was
every
need!' he barked, and saw his son flinch slightly. ‘I summon you and you excuse yourself. And then you have the nerve to bring your popinjay friends—'

‘They're officers…' Hans began, interrupting, but the old man cut him off with a sharp gesture of his hand.

‘Your…
friends.'
He turned to face his son, no longer concealing his anger. He bit the words out. ‘To bring them here, Hans.' He pointed at the floor. ‘Here, where only we come.' He took a breath, calming himself, then moved away, back to the desk. From there he turned and looked back at his son.

Hans was looking away from him, his irritation barely masked. ‘Well? What
is
it, Father?'

The words were sharp, abrasive. Hans glanced at his father then resumed his rigid stance, his whole manner sullen, insolent, as if answering to a superior officer he detested.

So
it has come to this?
Ebert thought, growing still, studying his son. He looked down at the file and gritted his teeth. But he didn't need the
Marshal's carefully documented evidence. All that he needed was there, before him, for his own eyes to read.

‘Well?' the young man insisted. ‘You've summoned me from my duties, threatened to withhold from me what is mine by right and insulted my officers. I want to know why, Father. What have I done to warrant this treatment?'

Ebert laughed bitterly. ‘My son,' he said, weighting the second word with all the irony he could muster, but what he felt was hurt – a deep, almost overwhelming feeling of hurt – and a sense of disillusionment that threatened to unhinge his mind. He stood up, then moved away from the desk, circling his son until he stood there with his back to the door.

‘What have you done, Hans? What have you done?'

The young man turned, facing his father, his fists clenched at his sides. He seemed barely in control of himself. ‘Yes, what
have
I done?'

Ebert pointed across at the desk. ‘See that file?'

‘So?' Hans made no move to look. ‘You could have sent it to me. I would have read it.'

Ebert shook his head. ‘No, Hans. I want you to read it now.'

There was a small movement in the young man's face, a moment's doubt, and then it cleared. He nodded and turned, taking his father's seat.

Ebert went across and locked the door, slipping the key into his pocket.

Hans was reading the first page, all colour drained from his face.

Why?
the old man asked himself for the thousandth time that day. But in reality he knew. Selfishness. Greed. A cold self-interest. These things were deeply rooted in his son. He looked at him, his vision doubled, seeing both his son and the stranger who sat there wearing the T'ang's uniform. And, bitterly, he recognized the source.

Berta
, he thought.
You're Berta's child
.

Hans closed the file. For a moment he was silent, staring down at the unmarked cover of the folder, then he looked up, meeting his father's eyes. ‘So…' he said. There was sober calculation in his eyes: no guilt or regret, only simple cunning. ‘What now, Father?'

Ebert kept the disgust he felt from his voice. ‘You make no denial?'

‘Would you believe me if I did?' Hans sat back, at ease now.

The old man shook his head.

Hans glanced at the file then looked back at his father. ‘Who else knows, besides Tolonen?'

‘His one-time lieutenant, Haavikko.' Ebert moved slowly, crossing the room in a half-circle that would bring him behind his son.

‘Then Li Yuan has yet to be told?'

He nodded.

Hans seemed reassured. ‘That's good. Then I could leave here this evening.' He turned in his seat, watching his father's slow progress across the room towards him. ‘I could take a ship and hide out amongst the Colony planets.'

Ebert stopped. He was only paces from his son. ‘That's what you want, is it? Exile? A safe passage?'

Hans laughed. ‘What else? I can't argue with this.' He brushed the file with the fingertips of his left hand. ‘Li Yuan would have me killed if I stayed.'

Ebert took another step. He was almost on top of his son now. ‘And what if I said that that wasn't good enough? What if I said no? What would you do?'

The young man laughed uncomfortably. ‘Why should you?' He leaned back, staring up at his father, puzzled now.

Ebert reached out, placing his hand gently on his son's shoulder.

‘As a child I cradled you in my arms, saw you learn to walk and utter your first, stumbling words. As a boy you were more to me than all of this. You were my joy. My delight. As a man I was proud of you. You seemed the thing I'd always dreamed of.'

Hans licked at his top lip, then looked down. But there was no apology. ‘Shall I go?'

The old man ignored the words. The pressure of his hand increased. His fingers gripped and held. Reaching out, he placed his other hand against Hans's neck, his thumb beneath the chin. Savagely, he pushed Hans's head up, forcing him to look into his face. When he spoke the words were sour, jagged-edged. ‘But now all that means nothing.' He shook his head, his face brutal, pitiless.
‘Nothing!
Do
you hear me
, Hans?'

Hans reached up to free himself from his father's grip, but the old man was unrelenting. His left hand slipped from the shoulder to join the other about his son's neck. At the same time he leaned forward, bearing down on the younger man, his big hands tightening their grip, his shoulder muscles straining.

Too late, the young man realized what was happening. He made a
small, choked sound in his throat and began to struggle in the chair, his legs kicking out wildly, his hands beating then tearing at his father's arms and hands, trying to break the vice-like grip. Suddenly the chair went backwards. For a moment Hans was free, sprawled on the floor beneath his father's body, but then the old man had him again, his hands about his throat, his full weight pressing down on him, pushing the air from the young man's lungs.

For one frozen moment the old man's face filled the younger man's vision, the mouth gasping as it strained, spittle flecking the lips. The eyes were wide with horror, the cheeks suffused with blood. Sweat beaded the brow. Then, like a vast, dark wave, the pain became immense. His lungs burned in his chest and his eyes seemed about to burst.

And then release. Blackness…

He gasped air into his raw throat, coughing and wheezing, the pain in his neck so fierce that it made him groan aloud; a hoarse, animal sound.

After a moment he opened his eyes again and pulled himself up on to one elbow. His father lay beside him, dead, blood gouting from the hole in the back of his head.

He looked about, expecting to see his lieutenants, but they were not in the room. The door to his father's private suite was open, however, and there was movement inside. He called out – or tried to – then struggled up into a sitting position, feeling giddy, nauseous.

At the far end of the room a figure stepped into the doorway: tall as a man, but not a man. Its white silk jacket was spattered with blood, as were its trousers. It looked at the sitting man with half-lidded eyes, eyes that were as red as the blood on its clothes. Over one arm was a suit of Hans's father's clothes.

‘Here, put these on,' said the goat-creature in its soft, animal voice. It crossed the room and stood there over him, offering the clothes.

He took them, staring at the beast, not understanding yet, letting it help him up and across the study to his father's room. There, in the doorway, he turned and looked back.

His father lay face down beside the fallen chair, the wound at the back of his head still wet and glistening in the half-light.

‘We must go now,' said the beast, handing him a key, its breath like old malt.

He turned and met its eyes. It was smiling at him, showing its fine, straight teeth. He could sense the satisfaction it was feeling. Years of resentment had culminated in this act. He shuddered and closed his eyes, feeling faint.

‘We have an hour, two at most,' it said, its three-toed hand moving to the side of Ebert's neck, tracing but not touching the welt-like bruise there. For a moment its eyes seemed almost tender.

He nodded and let it take him through. There was nothing for him here now. Nothing at all.

Karr looked up over his glass and met the young officer's eyes. ‘What is it, Captain?'

‘Forgive me, sir. I wouldn't normally come to you on a matter of this kind, but I think this will interest you.'

He held out a slender dossier. Karr stared at it a moment, then took it from him. Setting down his glass, he opened it. A moment later, he started forward, suddenly alert.

‘When did this come in?'

‘Twenty minutes back. Someone said you were down here in the Mess, sir, so I thought…'

Karr grinned at him fiercely. ‘You did well, Captain. But what put you on to this?'

‘The name sir. Mikhail Boden. It was one of the names we had as a suspect for the murder of a Fu
jen
Maitland six years ago. It seems she was Under-Secretary Lehmann's wife at one time. She was burned to death in her rooms. An incendiary device. Boden was there shortly before she died. His retinal print was in the door camera, which survived the blaze. When it appeared again, I thought I'd have a look at the visual image and see if it was the same man. As you can see, it wasn't.'

‘No…' Karr got to his feet. The camera stills were of two quite different men, yet the retinal print was the same.

‘How come the computer allowed the match?'

‘It seems that the only detail it has to have a one hundred per cent mapping on is the retinal pattern. That's unchanging. The rest – facial hair, proportion of muscle and fat in the face – changes over the years. The computer is programmed to ignore those variations. As long as the underlying bone structure
is roughly the same the computer will recognize it as being the same face.'

Karr laughed. ‘And you know who this is?'

The young officer smiled back at Karr. ‘I read my files, sir. It's DeVore, isn't it?'

‘Yes. And he entered Salzburg
hsien
twenty, twenty-five minutes back, right?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Good. And you're tracking him?'

‘Yes, sir. I've put two of my best men on to the job.'

‘Excellent.'

Karr looked down at the dossier again. The gods knew why DeVore had made such an elementary mistake, but he had, so praise them for it. Taking the handset from his pocket, he tapped in Chen's combination, then, as Chen came on line, gave a small laugh. ‘It's DeVore, Chen. I think we've got him. This time I really think we've got him!'

Tolonen was crouched in the middle of the room. The corpses were gone now, his men finished here, but still the room seemed filled with death. He looked up at the young officer, his face pulled tight with grief, his eyes staring out at nothing. ‘I should have killed him… while I had the chance.' He shuddered and looked down at his big, square hands. ‘If only I had known what mischief he was up to.'

‘We'll track him, sir. Bring him back,' the officer assured him, watching his Marshal, deep concern in his clear grey eyes.

The old man shook his head then looked down again. Something had broken in him in the last few hours. His shoulders sagged, his hands – real and artificial – rested limply on his knees. All of the anger, all of the old blind rage that had fired him as a man had gone. There was no avenging this, whatever he said. The young officer had seen how the old man had looked, such tenderness and agony in his face as he had bent and gently touched the wire about his brother's neck. It was awful to see such things. More than could be borne.

The young man swallowed, his voice a sympathetic whisper. ‘Can I get you anything, sir?'

Tolonen looked up at him again, seeming to see him for the first time.
There was a faint smile on his lips, but it was only the smallest flicker of warmth in the wasteland of his features.

‘Is there any news?'

The young man shook his head. There was no trace of Jelka. It was as if she had vanished. Perhaps she was dead, or maybe Ebert had her after all. He hoped not. But she was nowhere in the City. An eighteen-hour Security trawl had found no trace of her.

He went through to the living-room, returning a moment later with two brandies. ‘Here,' he said, handing one to the Marshal. ‘This will help.'

Tolonen took the glass and stared at it a while, then drained it at a gulp. He looked up at the young officer, his face expressionless.

‘Telling Li Yuan was hard.' His wide brow furrowed momentarily. ‘I felt I had failed him. Betrayed him. It was bad. Worse than Han Ch'in's death. Much worse.'

‘It wasn't your fault…'

Tolonen met his eyes a moment, before looking away and shaking his head. ‘If not mine, then whose? I knew and didn't act. And this…' His mouth puckered momentarily and his fists clenched. He took a deep breath, then looked up again. ‘This is the result.'