The pimp laughed, his disgust marked. "I realize that, soldier boy. But then, you've not paid your weight since you started coming here." Haavikko looked up, surprised. "No. It's a good job you've got friends, neh? Good friends who'll bail you out when trouble comes. That's what disgusts me most about your scat. You never pay. It's all settled for you, isn't it?"
"I don't know what you mean. I—"
But Liu Chang's angry bark of laughter silenced him. "This. It's all paid for. Don't you understand that? Your friends have settled everything for you." ;
Haavikko's voice was a bemused whisper. "Everything . . . ?"
"Everything." Liu Chang studied him a moment, his look of disgust unwavering, then he leaned forward and spat in Haavikko's face.
Haavikko knelt there long after Liu Chang had gone, the spittle on his cheek a badge of shame that seemed to burn right through to the bone. It was less than he deserved, but he was thinking about what Liu Chang had said. Friends . . . What friends? He had no friends, only partners in his debauchery, and they would have settled nothing for him.
He dressed and went outside, looking for Liu Chang.
"Liu Chang. Where is he?"
The girl at the reception desk stared at him a moment, as if he were something foul and unclean that had crawled up out of the Net, then handed him an envelope.
Haavikko turned his back on the girl, then opened the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper. It was from Liu Chang.
Lieutenant Haavikko, Words cannot express the disgust I feel. If I had my way you would be made to pay fully for what you have done. As it is, I must ask you never to frequent my House again. If you so much as come near, I shall pass on my record of events to the authorities, "friends" or no. Be warned.
Liu Chang. ; .....
He stuffed the paper into his tunic pocket then staggered out, more mystified than ever. Outside, in the corridor, he looked about him, then lurched over to the public drinking fountain inset into the wall at the intersection. He splashed his face then straightened up.
Friends. What friends? Or were they friends at all?
Liu Chang knew, but he could not go near Liu Chang. Who then?
Haavikko shivered, then looked about him. Someone knew. Someone had made it their business to know. But who?
He thought of the girl again and groaned. "I don't deserve this chance," he told himself softly. And yet he was here, free, all debts settled. Why? He gritted his teeth and reached up to touch the spittle that had dried on his cheek. Friends, It gave him a reason to go on. To find out who. And why.
DEVORE TOOK OFF his gloves and threw them down on the desk; then he turned and faced his lieutenant, Wiegand, lowering his head to dislodge the lenses from his eyes.
"Here." He handed the lenses to Wiegand, who placed them carefully in a tiny plastic case he had ready. "Get these processed. I want to know who those other four are."
Wiegand bowed and left. DeVore turned, meeting the eyes of the other man in the room.
"It went perfectly. We attack Helmstadt in two days."
The albino nodded, but was quiet.
"What is it, Stefan?"
"Bad news. Soren Berdichev is dead."
DeVore looked at the young man a moment, then went and sat behind his desk, busying himself with the reports that had amassed while he was away. He spoke without looking up.
"1 know. I heard before I went in. A bad business, by all accounts, but useful. It may well have alienated the Mars settlers. They'll have little love for the Seven now, after the destruction of the pipeline."
"Maybe . . ." Lehmann was silent a moment, then came and stood at the edge of the desk looking down at DeVore. "I liked him, you know. Admired him."
DeVore looked up, masking his surprise. He found it hard to believe that Stefan Lehmann was capable of liking anyone. "Well," he said, "he's dead now. And life goes on. We've got to plan for the future. For the next stage of the War." "Is that why you went to see those scum?"
DeVore stared past Lehmann a moment, studying the map on the wall behind him. Then he met his eyes again. "I have news for you, Stefan."
The pink eyes hardened, the mouth tightened. "I know already." "I see." DeVore considered a moment. "Who told you?"
"Wiegand."
DeVore narrowed his eyes. Wiegand. He was privy to all incoming messages, of course, but he had strict instructions not to pass on what he knew until DeVore authorized it. It was a serious breach.
"I'm sorry, Stefan. It makes it harder for us all."
The Notice of Confiscation had come in only an hour before he had gone off to meet the Ping Tiao, hot on the heels of the news of Berdichev's death. In theory it stripped Lehmann of all he had inherited from his father, making him a pauper, but DeVore had pre-empted the Notice some years back by getting Berdichev to switch vast sums from the Estate in the form of loans to fictitious beneficiaries. Those "loans" had long been spent—and more besides—on constructing further fortresses, but Lehmann knew nothing of that. As far as he was concerned, the whole sum was lost.
Lehmann was studying him intently. "How will it change things?"
DeVore set down the paper and sat back. "As far as I'm concerned it changes nothing, Stefan. All our lives are forfeit anyway. What difference does a piece of paper bearing the seals of the Seven make to that?"
There was the slightest movement in the young man's ice-pale face. "I can be useful. You know that."
"I know." Good, thought DeVore. He understands. He's learned his lessons well. There's no room for sentimentality in what we're doing here. What's past is past. I owe him nothing for the use of his money.
"Don't worry," he said, leaning forward and picking up the paper again. "You're on the payroll now, Stefan. I'm appointing you lieutenant, as from this moment. Ranking equal with Wiegand."
Yes, he thought. That should take the smile from Wiegand's face.
When Lehmann had gone he stood and went across to the map again. In the bottom left-hand comer the carp-shaped area that denoted the Swiss Wilds was crisscrossed with lines, some broken, some solid. Where they met or ended were tiny squares, representing fortresses. There were twenty-two in all, but only fourteen of them—boxed in between Zagreb in the southeast and Zurich in the northwest—were filled in. These alone were finished. The eight fortresses of the western arm remained incomplete. In four cases they had yet to be begun.
Money. That was his greatest problem. Money for wages, food, and weaponry. Money for repairs and bribes and all manner of small expenses. Most of all, money to complete the building program: to finish the network of tunnels and fortresses that alone could guarantee a successful campaign against the Seven. The Confiscations had robbed him of many of his big investors. In less than three hours the remainder were due to meet him, supposedly to renew their commitments, though in reality, he knew, to tell him they had had enough. That was why Helmstadt was so important now.
Helmstadt. He had wooed the Ping Tiao with promises of weapons and publicity, but the truth was otherwise. There would be weapons, and publicity enough to satisfy the most egotistical of terrorist leaders, but the real fruit of the raid on the Helmstadt Armory would be the two billion yuan DeVore would lift from the strong room. Money that had been allocated to pay the expenses of more than one hundred and forty thousand troops in the eight garrisons surrounding the Wilds.
But the Ping Tiao would know nothing of that.
He turned away from the map and looked over at his desk again. The Notice of Confiscation lay where he had left it. He went across and picked it up, studying it again. It seemed simple on the face of it: an open acknowledgment of a situation that had long existed in reality, for Lehmanris funds had been frozen from the moment Berdichev had fled to Mars, three years earlier. But there were hidden depths in the document. It meant that the Seven had discovered evidence to link Stefan's father to the death of the Minister Lwo Kang; and that, in its turn, would legitimize Tolonen's killing of Lehmann Senior in the House.