Leaning forward again, he tapped through to the Ta Ssu Nung"s office in the Western Isle and gave them the storm warning, quoting the latest computer predictions for wind strength, sea height, and time and location of landfall. That done, he stood, stretching his weary muscles. His relief, Wu, would be here in ten minutes. In the circumstances he might as well take advantage of his seniority to use the shower first, while the water was still hot, and grab a bowl of ch'a at the restaurant.
He looked up at the huge, wall-size chart once more, seeing the great swirl of the storm, prominent in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. In the hours since the crisis meeting, the storm had grown considerably. Estimates of its size now put it at over two hundred and fifty li from tip to tip. But it was not so much its size as its direction that had concerned K'ung. The front of the storm was now only three hundred li from landfall, moving north-northeast at a rate of a hundred and forty li an hour.
He went to move away, then stopped. In his tiredness he had almost forgotten. Brest and Nantes were still on Code B alert. He would need to give them the all-clear before he went. Wu, certainly, wouldn't think to check.
Seating himself, K'ung keyed in the security code for the day, then tapped out the message quickly, holding down both destinations at once.
Done, he thought, not waiting for the acknowledgment. It had been a hard night. It would be good to shower the tiredness from his bones.
FAT WONG STOOD THERE, staring up at the empty bank of screens, then tried the keyboard again. Nothing. The board was dead.
"What the fuck is going on?"
Wong Yi-sun turned, looking about him at the men who were crowded into the compact space of his central control. These were his most trusted men. His "sons." He studied their familiar faces a moment, noting the fear—the real fear—in every face, and understood its source. Word of mouth was that the attack had come on three fronts; that runners from the Yellow Banners, the Wo Shih Wo, and the Kuei Chuan were involved. Thousands of men, attacking with heavy armaments and using gas. But the rumors were patchy, unconfirmed. With the communications net down and bombs going off all over the place, it was hard to say just what was happening. All he knew was that he had woken to find two assassins in his room: men they had later identified as Yellow Banners chan shui—Three-Finger Ho's men.
There had been panic when he had first come into the room, but now they were quiet, watching him expectantly. His children.
"Hui Tsin," he said, addressing his Red Pole, taking control of things. "I want you to send a dozen of your best runners out to each front. West, south, and east. They will be our eyes, our ears in this battle. I want them masked and armed, each squad divided into six teams of two: one messenger, one guard. Each guard must be willing to lay down his life to allow the messenger to get through, you understand?"
"Yes, Master." Hui Tsin bowed and hurried off. Wong turned, facing another of his men.
"Hua Shang, I want you to get word to Yun Yueh-hui. Tell him that we are being attacked and that the United Bamboo would welcome help from their brothers of the Red Gang."
"Master. . ."
"Oh, and Shang . . . Send off a dozen runners, by different routes. Instruct each one to contact Yun's headquarters by whatever means they can. Speed is of the essence here."
Hua Shang bowed his head and was gone. Fat Wong turned, facing the others. They waited, tense, yet almost content now that there were things to be done, tasks to be accomplished, their faces open to him, expectant.
"Good," Wong said, beaming back at them. "You understand, my sons. The day has come. It is war. So now we fight. Whoever comes against us."
LI CHIN LAY on his back, beneath the silken bedsheets, his eyes, which had never closed in life, staring sightlessly at the ceiling mosaic. His face was ash-pale, the pillow beneath his head dark, almost black with his blood.
The eighteen-year-old, Li Pai Shung, stood there a moment, looking down at his uncle. He had returned only yesterday, after a year at College in Strasbourg Hsien, and had spent the night with his uncle and friends, feasting until the early hours. And now Li Chin was dead, murdered in his bed. And Li Pai Shung was suddenly 489. Boss of the great Wo Shih Wo.
He shivered, then turned, summoning the Red Pole across to him.
"You have the men who did this, Yue Chun?"
The big Han bowed to his new master. "We cornered them, Master, only fifty ch'i from here, but the assassins killed themselves. Arsenic capsules, it seems."
"Ah . . ." Li Pai Shung looked away, his eyes returning once more to the tiny stiletto wound at the side of his uncle's neck. "Then we do not know who sent them."
"They were Fat Wong's men, Master. My lieutenant, Liu Tong, recognized them."
Li Pai Shung turned, surprised. "Wong Yi-sun?" Then he laughed. "No. Fat Wong wasn't ready. My honorable uncle was wrong about many things, but not about that. Wong Yi-sun would never have moved against us unless the odds were heavily in his favor. Unless he was certain of victory. No, Yue Chun, this is something else."
"General Feng?" Yue asked, frowning.
"It is possible," Li Pai Shung said, recalling the intense rivalry there had been with General Feng's I4K on their northeastern borders over the past year. Possible but unlikely. There was a great deal of difference, after all, between that kind of ritual muscle-flexing and all-out war. And there was no doubting that, whatever else was happening, this was a war. Already the Wo Shih Wo had lost six stacks and more than three thousand men.
He turned back. Yue Chun was waiting with that perfect patience that characterized the man.
"All right," Li Pai Shung said finally. "Whoever it is, let's hit them back. And let's hit them hard."
the corridor ahead was blocked with the bodies of the dead. Here, at the entrance to the central stack of Budapest Hsien, the i4K had made a stand. More than a thousand men had died here in the last hour, in hand-to-hand fighting that was fiercer than anything Soucek had ever thought to see.
He stood there, getting his breath, while his men brought up the heavy armaments. Despite this setback, things had gone well for them these past six hours. The first assault had won them eight of the twenty-six stacks controlled by the i4K. After that it had been steady fighting, stack by stack, floor by floor.
So far, Lehmann's tactics had worked perfectly. Prisoners had been taken, but they'd been bound and drugged, then left in rooms behind their lines, freeing his own men for the fight. Those enemies that had continued to resist had been shot out of hand. Where things had been difficult—where resistance had been particularly fierce—they had used bombs and flamethrowers to clear rooms and corridors.
Momentum had been the secret. For four hours they had pressed forward relentlessly, enclosing their opponents, panicking them, forcing them to flee or surrender. But now they would have to fight a very different kind of battle, for now they were on the death ground. This was the final stack. Here the I4K either fought or ceased to exist as a brotherhood.
The death ground. . . Soucek shivered, remembering the words Lehmann had drummed into each of them. The words of the great Sun Tzu. Words that were more than two and a half thousand years old.
In death ground I could make it evident that there is no chance of survival. For it is the nature of soldiers to resist when surrounded: to/ight to the death when there is no alternative, and when desperate to follow commands implicitly.
So it was here, at this hour. Unless, as Sun Tzu suggested, he gave them that small chance of escape—that narrow corridor of light through the darkness—that would undermine their will to fight. But first he must push them to the edge. Must make it clear to them that there was no question of compromise; that it was his intention to eradicate them, down to the last man.