The White Mountain (25 page)

He followed Wong through, up a broad flight of steps and out into a huge, subtly lit room.

Steps led down into a sunken garden, at the centre of which was a tiny, circular pool. Within the pool seven golden fish seemed to float, as if suspended in glass. But the garden and the pool were not the most striking things about the room, for the eye was drawn beyond them to where one whole wall – a wall fifty
ch'i
in length, ten in height – seemed to look out on to the West Lake at Hang Chou, providing a panoramic view of its pale, lacelike bridges and pagodas, its willow-strewn islands and ancient temples. Here it was perpetually spring, the scent of jasmine and apple blossom heavy in the cool, moist air.

From somewhere distant, music sounded, carried on the breeze that blew gently through the room. For a moment the illusion was so perfect that Karr held himself still, enthralled by it. Then, realizing Wong was watching him, he went down the steps and stood at the edge of the pool.

‘You know why I have come here, Wong Yi-sun?'

‘I understand you want some information. About the
Ko Ming
who assassinated the
Hsien L'ing.'

‘We thought you might know something about this group – for instance, whether or not they were related to the
Ping Tiao.'

‘Because they share the same symbol?' Wong sniffed, his face suddenly ugly. ‘I don't know what your investigations have thrown up, Major Karr, but let me tell you this, the
Hsien L'ing
was meddling in things he ought never to have been involved in.'

Karr kept his face a mask, but behind it he felt an intense curiosity. What had Shou Chen-hai been involved in that could possibly anger Fat Wong? For there was no doubting that Wong Yi-sun was furious.

‘And the Ko
Ming
?'

Fat Wong gulped savagely at his drink then took a deep breath, calming himself. ‘Your assassins are called the Yu. Beyond that I cannot say. Only that their name echoes throughout the Lowers.'

Karr nodded thoughtfully. ‘That is unusual, neh?'

Wong met Karr's eyes steadily. ‘You are right, Major Karr. They are something different. We have not seen their like for many years. I…'

Wong paused, looking beyond Karr, towards the arched doorway. ‘Come,' he said brusquely, one hand waving the servant on.

The servant handed Wong something, then leaned close, whispering.

For a moment Wong stared at the three tiny packages, his hand trembling with anger, then he thrust his hand out, offering them to Karr.

‘These are yours, I understand.'

Karr nodded. ‘We found them in the
Hsien L'ing'
s apartment. I thought they might interest you.'

Wong narrowed his eyes. ‘You know what was in them?'

Again Karr nodded. They had had them analysed and knew they were something special. But what did Fat Wong know about them? Karr watched the movement in his face and began to understand. Wong hadn't been sure. He had only suspected until he had seen the packages. But now he knew.

Wong turned away and stood there, as if staring out across the lake. A wisp of his jet-black hair moved gently in the breeze. ‘They have overstretched themselves this time. They have sought to destroy the balance…'

Then, as if he realized he had said too much, he turned back, giving a tiny shrug. But, though Fat Wong smiled, his eyes gave him away. This
was what had been worrying him. This was the big something he could not deal with on his own. He had been the biggest, fattest worm until now. The keeper of the ancient banner. But now the Big Circle were making their bid to oust him; a bid financed by the revenue from new drugs, new markets.

But what did Fat Wong want? Did he want help to crush the Big Circle? Or did he want something else – some other arrangement that would keep the Big Circle in their place while keeping him supreme? And, beyond that, what would his own master, Li Yuan, want from such a deal? That was, if he wanted anything but to keep the Triads in their place.

Fat Wong closed his hand over the three tiny packets then threw them down, into the water. Reaching inside his silks, he withdrew a slender envelope.

‘Give this to your T'ang,' he said, handing it across.

‘And what am I to say?'

‘That I am his friend. His very good friend.'

On the table by the bed was a holo plinth. Mach knelt, then placed his hand on the pad. Nothing. He turned slightly, looking up at Ywe Hao, curious. She leaned across him, holding her fingertips against the pad. At once two tiny figures formed in the air above the plinth.

‘My brother,' she explained. ‘He died in an industrial accident. At least, that's what the official inquiry concluded. But that's not the story his friends told at the time. He was a union organizer. Eighteen he was. Four years older than me. My big brother. They say the
pan chang
threw him from a balcony. Eight levels he fell, into machinery. There wasn't much left of him when they pulled him out. Just bits.'

Mach took a breath, then nodded. For a moment longer Ywe Hao stared at the two tiny images, then drew her hand back, the pain in her eyes sharp, undiminished by the years.

‘I wanted to see,' he said, looking about him again. ‘I wanted to be sure.'

‘Sure?'

‘About you.'

‘Ah…'

He smiled. ‘Besides which, I've got to brief you.'

She frowned, then stood, moving back slightly. ‘About what?'

‘The attack on the Dragonfly Club. We're bringing it forward.' He went over to his pack and took out a hefty-looking folder, handing it to her.

She looked down at the folder, then back at Mach. ‘What's this?'

‘It's a full dossier. It's not pleasant reading, I'm afraid, but, then, it's not meant to be. But you have to understand why we need to do this.'

‘And the raid? When do we go in?'

‘Tonight.'

‘
Tonight?
But I thought you said it would take at least a week to set this up.'

‘That's what I thought. But our man is on duty tonight.'

She frowned. ‘But we've not had time to rehearse things. We'd be going in blind.'

Mach shook his head. ‘Let me explain. When I gave you this assignment I had already allocated a team leader. But after what happened I wanted to give you a chance. An opportunity to prove yourself.'

She made to speak, but he silenced her.

‘Hear me out. I know what happened the other day. I know you killed Vasska. But it doesn't matter. You were right. The other matter… his brother… that's unfortunate, but we'll deal with it. What was important was that you did the right thing. If you'd let him kill the guard… well, it would have done us great harm, neh?'

She hesitated, then nodded, but he could see she was unhappy with his over-simplification of events. Which was good. It showed that she hadn't acted callously. He took the folder from her lap and opened it up, turning one of the still photographs towards her.

‘This is why we're going in tonight. To put an end to this kind of thing. But it has to be done carefully. That's why I've drafted you in to lead the team. Not to organize the raid – your team know exactly what they have to do. No, your role is to keep it all damped down. To make sure the right people are punished. I don't want anyone getting over-excited. We have to get this right. If we get it wrong, we're fucked, understand me?'

She nodded, but her eyes stayed on the photo of the mutilated child. After a moment she looked up at him, the disgust in her eyes touched with profound sadness. ‘What makes them do this, Jan? How in the gods' names could anyone do this to a little boy?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't know. It's how they are.' He put his hand
gently to her cheek. ‘All I know is that all that anger you feel, all that disgust and indignation… well, it's a healthy thing. I want to harness that. To give it every opportunity to express itself.'

He let his hand fall away. ‘You know, you remind me of an old friend. She was like you. Strong. Certain about what she did.'

Ywe Hao shivered, then looked down again. ‘What about my cover?'

Mach smiled, impressed by her professionalism, then turned, pointing across at the pack beside the door. ‘It's all in there. All you need to do is read the file. Someone will come for you at eleven. You go in at second bell.'

He sat back. ‘There's a lot there, but read it all. Especially the statements by the parents. As I said, you need to know why you're there. It'll make it easier to do what you have to do.'

She nodded.

‘Good. Now I must go. My shift begins in an hour and I've got to get back and change. Good luck, Ywe Hao. May Kuan Yin smile on you tonight.'

In the torchlit silence of the Hall of Eternal Peace and Tranquillity, Li Yuan knelt on the cold stone tiles, facing the hologram of his father. Thin threads of smoke from the offering sticks drifted slowly upwards, their rosewood scent merging with the chill dampness of the ancient room. Beyond the ghostly radiant figure of the dead T'ang, the red lacquer of the carved screen seemed to shimmer, as if it shared something of the old man's insubstantiality, the
Ywe Lung
at its centre flickering, as if, at any moment, it might vanish, leaving a smoking circle of nothingness.

Li Shai Tung stood there as in life, the frailty of his latter days shrugged off, the certainty he had once professed shaping each ghostly gesture as he spoke.

‘Your dreams have meaning, Yuan. They are like the most loyal of ministers. They tell us not what we would have them say, but that which is true. We can deny them, can banish them to the furthest reaches of our selves, but we cannot kill them, not without killing ourselves.'

Li Yuan looked up, meeting his dead father's eyes. ‘And is that what we have done? Is that why things are so wrong?'

Li Shai Tung sniffed loudly, then leaned heavily on his cane, as if considering his son's words, but tonight Yuan was more than ever conscious
of what lay behind the illusion. In the slender case beneath the image, logic circuits had instantly located and selected from a score of possible responses, pre-programmed guidelines determining their choice. It seemed spontaneous, yet the words were given – were as predetermined as the fall of a rock or the decay of atoms. And the delay? That too was deliberate; was a machine-created mimicry of something that had once been real.

Even so, the sense of his father was strong. And though the eyes were blank, unseeing – were not eyes at all, but mere smoke and light – they seemed to see right through him; through to the tiny core of unrest that had robbed him of sleep and brought him here at this unearthly hour.

‘Father?'

The old man lifted his head slightly, as if, momentarily, he had been lost in his thoughts. Then, unexpectedly, he gave a soft laugh.

‘Dreams. Maybe that's all we have, Yuan. Dreams. The City itself, was that not a dream? The dream of our ancestors made tangible. And our longheld belief in peace, in order and stability, was that not also a dream? Was any of it ever real?'

Li Yuan frowned, disturbed by his father's words. For a moment his mind went back to the evening of his father's death, recalling how sickly thin his body had been, how weak and vulnerable death had found him.

‘But what does it mean, Father? How am I to read my dream?'

The dead T'ang stared at his son, then gave a tiny shudder. ‘You say you dreamt of dragonflies?'

Li Yuan nodded. ‘Of great, emerald-green dragonflies, swarming on the river bank. Thousand upon thousand of them. Beautiful creatures, their wings like glass, their bodies like burnished jade. The sun shone down on them and yet the wind blew cold. And as I watched, they began to fall, first one, and then another, until the river was choked with their struggling forms. And even as I watched they stiffened and the brilliant greenness was leached from their bodies, until they were a hideous grey, their flesh flaking from them like ash. And still the wind blew, carrying the ash away, covering the fields, clogging every pool and stream, until all was grey and ashen.'

‘And then?'

‘And then I woke, afraid, my heart pounding.'

‘Ah…' The T'ang put one hand to his beard, his long fingers pulling distractedly at the tightly braided strands, then shook his head. ‘That is a
strange and powerful dream,
erh tzu
. You ask me what it means, yet I fear you know already.' He looked up, meeting his son's eyes. ‘Old glassy, he is the very symbol of summer, neh? And the colour green symbolizes spring. Furthermore, it is said that when the colour green figures in a dream, the dream will end happily. Yet in your dream the green turns to ash. Summer dies. The cold wind blows. How are you to read this but as an ill omen?'

Li Yuan looked down sharply, a cold fear washing through him. He had hoped against hope that there was some other way to read his dream, but his father's words merely confirmed his own worst fears. The dragonfly, though the emblem of summer, was also a symbol of weakness and instability, of all the worst excesses of a soft and easy life. Moreover, it was said that they swarmed in vast numbers just before the storm.

Yet was the dream anything more than a reflection of his innermost fears? He thought of his father's words – of dreams as loyal ministers, uttering truths that could not otherwise be faced. Was that the case here? Had this dream been sent to make him face the truth?

‘Then what am I to do?'

The dead T'ang looked at him and laughed. ‘Do, Yuan? Why, you must wear stout clothes and learn to whistle in the wind. You must look to your wives and children. And then…'

‘And then, Father?'

The old man looked away, as if he'd done. ‘Spring will come,
erh tzu
. Even in your darkest hour, remember that. Spring always comes.'

Li Yuan hesitated, waiting for something more, but his father's eyes were closed now, his mouth silent. Yuan leaned forward and took the burning spills from the porcelain jar. At once the image shrank, taking its place beside the other tiny, glowing images of his ancestors.