"Then maybe we should get it all written up and get back to Richmond straight away."
Ross looked down. "You think we should take this to Lever, then?"
"Why, who were you thinking of?"
"Wu Shih, perhaps?"
Milne laughed uneasily, but before he could answer there was a faint rapping at the door.
Ross looked at Milne tensely, then stood. Drawing his gun he crossed to the door.
"Who is it?"
"Room service!"
Ross glanced at his partner. Did you order room service7, he mouthed.
Milne shook his head, then stood, drawing his own gun.
Ready7. Ross mouthed. Milne nodded. Moving to the side, Ross reached out and thumbed the door lock. As the door irised back, a tall Han stepped into the room, carrying a fully laden tray, covered in a cloth.
"Compliments of the management," he said, setting the tray down on the bedside table, then turned, a look of surprise and shock coming into his eyes as he saw the drawn guns. "Ch'un tzu?"
Ross looked to Milne then back at the Han. Only then did he lower his gun and, with a faint, embarrassed laugh, went across and lifted the cloth from the tray. There were six bowls of steaming food.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning back and meeting the Han's eyes. "You can't be too careful. I thought. . ."
The movement of the Han's arm was deceptively fast. Ross felt himself being lifted and turned, something hard and acid-hot slicing deep into his back. There was the sound of a gun's detonation, followed instantly, it seemed, by the searing pain of a bullet smashing into his collarbone. Then he was falling toward Milne, the darkness enfolding him like a tide.
M ACH LOOKED about him at the room, then, setting the detonator on the incendiary, stepped back. He had what he'd come for. The rest could burn.
For a moment he paused, smiling, pleased with himself. His instinct was still good, despite what had happened in Europe. If he had not followed these two, the game would have been up for Emily. And for him too, perhaps. As it was, he knew now what had happened that time with DeVore.
Yes. Milne had been right. A clever man, Milne, but no good with a gun. As for Emily, what he'd found out today might one day prove invaluable.
"Rachel De Valerian," he said softly, noting how closely the surname mimicked the form of DeVore's own. He laughed and tapped the file against his side, then, turning away, he thumbed the door lock and stepped out into the corridor. Richmond was two hours away.
the place stank. But this was not the normal stink of the Lowers, this was a powerful, strongly animal stench that seemed to fill and thicken the close, warm air, pressing like a foul cloth against the mouth and nostrils. Soucek had gagged at first and turned to look questioningly at Lehmann, but the albino had showed no reaction.
"Gods, what is this place?"
Lehmann glanced at him. "It used to be a pen." He indicated cages, the silvered snouts of the feeding tubes, retracted now into the walls. "Some friends of mine have emptied it for a while."
Soucek nodded, understanding. He had never seen one of the great meat animals—the jou tung wu, as they were called—but he had seen pictures. He looked about him, imagining the huge, brainless creatures, one on each side of the central walkway, the vast pink bulk of each crammed tight into the rectangular mesh, the dozens of tiny, eyeless heads guzzling at the trough. He made a noise of disgust. No wonder the place stank.
He was about to say something more when he saw the figures at the far end of the pen; three of them, each of them holding a hand up to his mouth. He almost laughed, but checked himself, letting nothing show on the blank of his face. It was a sign of how much he had changed since knowing Lehmann. Show nothing, he thought, recalling what Lehmann had said. The man who shows what he's thinking is weak. He allows his opponent an advantage. And never more so than when the stakes were as high as they were today.
There was a moment's hesitation as the three men looked among themselves, then they came forward. They were big men, their bare arms heavily muscled. Together they seemed to form a type, but no one knew better than Soucek how different from each other these three were.
The three stopped a body's length from where Lehmann and he stood. Everything about them was wary. They had committed themselves heavily simply by coming. If Whiskers Lu found out, they were dead. But that didn't mean they were won over. Far from it.
"You've chosen a sweet place for our meeting, Shih Lehmann."
The speaker was Huang Jen. As lieutenant to Po Lao, Red Pole of the Kuei Chuan, he was the most senior of the three. It was not surprising that they had chosen him as their spokesman. But the bovine look of him was misleading, for he was a clever, subtle man— though not entirely. He had a reputation for sadism. To his left stood Meng Te, a big Han with a large, shaven head who had joined the Kuei Chuan from one of the northern long a year back. Making up the three was a sullen-faced Hung Moo named Visak.
"Sweet enough," Lehmann answered, stepping forward, taking each of them in turn by the hands. "Like what we do here, neh?"
Lehmann was holding the hands of Visak as he said this, and Soucek, watching, saw how the man's eyes widened marginally, trying to fathom the albino. Visak was the most interesting of the three. It was rare—almost unique—for a Hung Moo to rise in the ranks of the Triads and said much for his ruthlessness and ability. Though beneath Huang Jen and Meng Te in the Triad hierarchy, he was, without doubt, the most dangerous of the three. Before Lehmann had asked him to sound the man out, Soucek would have considered him the most loyal of Whiskers Lu's henchmen. Fiercely loyal. But here he was.
Security-trained, Visak's prowess in hand-to-hand fighting was legendary throughout the Lowers. In stature he was one of the few men Soucek had met who were as tall as Lehmann, and seeing the two of them together, he noted how big Visak really was, for the sheer breadth of his chest and shoulders made the albino seem frail. But Lehmann appeared undaunted. He met the other's gaze unflinchingly.
"You understand the need for secrecy?"
Huang Jen lifted his chin disdainfully. "Your man promises much, if I take his vague inferences to mean anything. Will you spell it out for us? Make it clear?"
Soucek glanced at Lehmann uneasily. What if this were a trap? What if Whiskers Lu knew about their meeting? It would mean war, surely, for all Lehmann said of Lu's softness, his lack of will. But Lehmann seemed contemptuous of such fears.
"I am the coming force," he said, looking from one to the other. "The very fact that you are here means that you understand this. That you know where the future lies."
He stood there imperiously, relaxed but commanding, as if every word he said were incontestable fact. And though Soucek had seen this side of him before, he felt his nerve ends tingle with a strange excitement as he listened. At these moments it was like hearing the voice of some dark, unnatural power. It both terrified and awed him.
"In time it will all be mine. From the north to the south. From west to east. Every last corridor. You know this. You hear what is whispered among your men. Even now they see it clearly. Lehmann, they say. Lehmann's the one. And they're right. You know they're right."
Visak glanced at the others, then laughed. But Soucek could see that even he was awed.
"I want proof," he said. "Something more than words."
The words seemed strange, rehearsed, and Soucek, watching, narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Was Whiskers Lu behind this? Was he listening even now? But Lehmann was shaking his head slowly.
"No, Visak. No sideshows. No games. What we do we do in the utmost seriousness. You are here because you have already chosen. Children want proof. Children and old men. But men such as you and I... we work in certainties, neh?"