The Code War (2 page)

'When I am gone
y
our new names must be named,' Li
continued, wheezing. 'But by you, not by me. You must swear to each
other and take the names that belong to you. You know what they
are.'

Steam rose weakly from the rice.
There was nothing to add to it, not even salt
or a few wild grasshoppers. Outside, a wind arose and blew
down the Yangtze River valley, fanning the flames in the once great
city of Nanjing. Change was coming. The old order was being
destroyed and a new era was awakening.

They sat back and ate the cool
rice, not bothering to wash their hands. Li told tales of Old
Cathay, of warriors and traitors and kings and sailors. As his mind
began to ramble his stories described dragons and spirits and
charms and magic. They tucked him up and wiped the droplets from
his brow. And while they slept, his spirit stole away and in the
morning they awoke and buried his body, deep, where neither magpie
nor fox would despoil it.

Then they stood solemnly and took
their new secret names and re-affirmed their oath
. They resolved that the House of Brother would endure and
bring prosperity so that they and their children and their
childrens' children would never be poor again.

And they swore that no-one
outside
of Brother would ever be allowed
to stand in their way.

Summer 1978

E
aling Holidays, Ealing Broadway,
London

It was 11am and the sales hubbub
in the travel shop was nearing its peak. Telexes came in
simultaneously from Majorca and Crete, chattering their sandy
promises and spilling out their urgent tapes
on the floor. Families pored over brochures, wondering what
unmissable holiday bargain to buy. Their fingers in their pockets
were already fondling their overloaded credit cards. Agents watched
their clients' delirious eyes and waited for the moment to strike.
That villa in Corfu, sir? It might be gone by tomorrow. Maybe this
afternoon. It's a great offer. Want to grab it while you can? Shame
to let it go. All right then, let's see if it's still available,
shall we?

From the rear of the shop came a
slender, willowy figure, stepping over the serpentine phone lines.
Nancy's skirt bounced high as she lifted her legs, daintily
avoiding the telephonic trip wires and skipping her way between the
two rows of desks. She cast bright smiles at the children and mums,
her radiance in perfect harmony with their dreams of sun and sea.
Dads noticed only the softness of her knees and the dash of her
hips as she sped by. Their credit cards edged another centimetre
out of their pockets as they contemplated lazy afternoons, starry
nights, children in bed and the prospect of more sex in a week than
they normally got in an entire school term. They breathed in deeply
as they concentrated afresh on the blue pools and palmed hotels in
front of them. They exchanged looks with their wives. Looks became
nods as doubts began to be erased. Nods became yesses. Yesses
became credit cards openly displayed in hands. Nancy had sold three
holidays without saying a word. Other agents' holidays.

Her colleagues lost no time in reaping
the reward of her timely sally through the shop. They beamed at
their new customers like old friends as they sealed the deal with
ballpoints on dotted lines. And while they slipped flexible plastic
into unforgiving card machines and zik-zakked the slider back and
forth, Nancy regained her desk at the front and patted her blank
booking forms.

The space in front of her was empty.
There was no affluent family itching to spend their winter salary
on a spring break. No elderly couple celebrating retirement with a
cruise. Her phone didn't ring. The noise behind her was deafening.
The silence around her was even louder.

She
looked sideways at Mel on the next desk and
smiled.

'I'm going to get rich customers
today, I can just feel it,' she called out cheerfully. 'Probably a
retired couple who want a yacht in Turkey. And a millionaire who
needs a villa in Tuscany. And a party of eight wanting to go skiing
in Chamonix next winter.'

'Not a cha
nce, Nance. Not with your luck,' retorted Mel in derision.
'Knowing you, you'll get a Chelsea pensioner wanting a weekend in
Torquay. And that's if you're lucky. I think we should call you
'not a chance, Nance', that's your new nickname.'

'No, it's definitely millionaire
week. I can feel it,' replied Nancy, stretching her hands up into
the air as though she could change her for
tune by reaching for the stars. 'My usual magnetic
attraction to the permanently penniless is over. Done for.
Consigned to the grave.' And she washed her hands in the air over
her waste paper bin with a sideways grin to Mel before shaking off
the imaginary water.

'Anyway, talking of luck, how's
yours?' Nancy went on the offensive. 'Any sign of the boyfriend
situation improving? You can't go on getting rejected by every chap
you fancy. Your bad luck can't last for ever.' Nancy gave Mel a
victorious smile.

Revenge was sweet.

'Oh, don't talk to me about it,'
conceded Mel. 'If I show a boy I like him, it frightens him off.
And if I play it cool they think I'm hard work. Then they go and
chat up someone else. It's so long since I've had any male
attention, it's hardly worth putting on make-up.'

'Oh, do you put on make-up?' And
Nancy looked at Mel with such innocence that for a moment her
workmate went pale and her face fell like a drooping ghost. But a
moment later a ruler fl
ew past Nancy's
ear and as she took cover Mel called out 'Nancy Kay, I'll get you
for that. I'll put chilli in your sandwiches. I'll put itching
powder on the toilet seat before you go. I'll…'

But by now both girls were laughing too
hard to continue the threats and they both looked behind them to
see if they were being watched.

'Listen,' said Mel eventually,
putting her hand to her cheek. 'Actually, I am getting some
attention. Of that sort. But it's from the wrong
person.'

'Oh?' said Nancy, now intrigued.

Mel looked behind her, guardedly.
She turned back to Nancy and then began pointing to the back of the
shop with her left hand which only Nancy could see. 'David,' she
said. 'He keeps asking me out.'

Nancy's eyes opened wide. 'David,' she
whispered back. 'Our manager? But he's married.'

'I don't think that's ever stopped him.
Rumour has it a girl left here last year because she was pregnant.
And it wasn't the fairies.' She gave a meaningful look.

'That's terrible,' agreed Nancy.

'Yeah. It is. I keep fighting him
off. But he's so persistent.' Mel looked towards the door. 'Hey up,
Nancy. There's some trade approaching.'

Nancy looked
up to see some silhouettes outside the travel agency's
front door. There were three of them, nervously hesitating before
coming in.

'It's your turn Nancy and…' Mel
continued to scrutinise the faces outside '…guess what, your luck
hasn't changed.' She turned away with a renewed grin on her face
while Nancy composed herself once again to face the public.

The door opened. Three young lads
stepped into the shop and looked around. They surveyed the eight
agents in front of them and glanced at the racks of brochures on
the wall. They seemed to have no idea what to do. Behind Nancy, all
the chatter among the older agents ceased and there was the sound
of several telephones being picked up and numbers being
dialled.

Nancy looked
the three youths up and down, taking in the un-ironed
shirts, baggy jeans and scruffy trainers. Yep, Mel was right. They
were her sort of customers. The old magnetism was still
working.

‘
Yes, can I help
you?’ she asked brightly.

‘
Thank you, well,
maybe,’ began one youth hesitantly. He coughed. ‘We’re all
first-year archaeology students and next term we’re doing a project
on Roman temples in the Middle East. I was wondering if you could
help us find a cheap flight and a place to stay in Israel for two
weeks. It needs to be in or near Eilat. We’ve looked at Thomas Cook
but everything they had was too expensive.’

Nancy drew in a breath. She loved a
challenge but this could be a tough one indeed.

‘
Well, let’s give it
a whirl shall we?’ she replied, flexing her fingers. ‘Come over
here and we’ll see what the travel genie can find.’

Behind her, Nancy could feel,
rather than see, her office colleagues snigger as they gave each
other knowing looks. Nancy’s got herself a classic this time, they
winked to each other. Already they were thinking of ways to tease
her later with jibes like ‘You could always send them by camel,
Nance’ or ‘Why not rent them a campervan?’ followed by ‘At least
that won’t be
ruin
ously expensive’.

But for the moment Nancy ignored the
smirk-filled silence behind her and concentrated on her new
clients.

‘
That’ll be three of
you, I guess. What’s your budget for the two weeks?’ she
asked.

‘
Actually four of
us,’ replied the speaker. ‘Andy’s cousin is coming with us too.
That’s Andy,’ he indicated the young man standing nearest the door.
‘I’m Martin and this is Pete,’ indicating the third member of the
trio.

Mel appeared pulling three chairs after
her and placed them in front of Nancy's desk. She too couldn't
resist a knowing look at Nancy. It was the only reason she had made
the effort to bring the chairs over. Nancy grimaced back with one
side of her mouth uplifted. The boys sat down. Mel departed.

Nancy smiled again and made eye
contact with all three boys, in order to make them feel welcome.
Martin had cropped hair and wide shoulders, Andy was freckled with
red hair and Pete was tall and thin. Brawny, tawny and scrawny.
Would they be treble trouble or a trio of harmless train
spotters?

The boys had turned on the charm
and were trying to give Na
ncy their most
beatific smiles. But instead of looking angelic they seemed rather
impish.

‘
Come and sit closer,
all of you,’ she said. ‘I can see you’ve got big wallets. You'll
clearly be wanting a private jet with a full crew,
right?’

They laughed as she broke the ice, then
shuffled their seats forward.

‘
Now let’s see,’ she
said as she began to write onto a pad. ‘Israel. Two weeks. What
time of year do you want to travel?’

Thirty minutes later, Martin, Andy and
Pete stood up and said goodbye to Nancy.

‘
Thank you,’ said
Martin as he shook her hand tightly, almost making her wince.
‘You’ve been most helpful. I’m sorry we’re not able to spend much
but you’ve certainly won my loyalty for the future. When I’ve got
more money, I mean.’

‘
That’s great,’ said
Andy. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to get an apartment and
flights on a student budget, but you’ve been brilliant.’

Pete was equally grateful.
‘Fantastic. I’m going to send all my classmates to you. None of
them have got any money either. You'll never be out of work looking
after them.' He added a wicked grin. Nancy smiled.

She showed them to the door. ‘Let
me have your final confirmation tomorrow, once Andy’s spoken to his
cousin and then I’ll need your payment by cheque. Good luck
lads.’

She returned to her desk and
awarded herself a square of chocolate as she finished logging the
quotation on the triplicate booking form.

Behind her, phones were melting
with over-use, typewriter carriages were returni
ng furiously and pens were circling over villas in
brochures, which meant that luckily for Nancy all her colleagues
were too busy to give her any of the expected teasing. Except
one.

'Those boys have got arses you
could put on your toast and lick all the way to New Year,' said Mel
with a wistful stare at the door.

'Mel, you're the man-hungriest woman,
I've ever known,' said an exasperated but secretly pleased Nancy.
'If you were a chap I'd tell you to take a cold shower.'

'Don't tell me you didn't notice.'

'Actually, I'm a consummate professional
who never mixes personal life with business. You would do well to
learn from me.' They exchanged sidelong looks and burst into
giggles.

Nancy looked behind her
and scanned the faces of the other agents. Her
face lost its smile and became purposeful. 'I'll see you in a
minute,' she said.

She stood and walked slowly to the
back of the shop between the two aisles of desks. Some of the
agents looked up and smiled at her good-naturedly. Nancy walked
even more slowly as she passed David's desk before continuing into
the little kitchenette. She
switched on
the kettle, reached into the cupboard, casually plucked a tea bag
from the caddy and placed it into a cup. She heard footsteps behind
her and half-turned her head towards the door.

'Hello Nancy, how are you today?'
David stood in the doorway smiling. He looked Nancy up and down
slowly before closing the door behind him and pressing back on it
with his weight. Nancy heard the latch click closed.

'You've been with us a couple of weeks
now, haven't you?

'Yes,' replied Nancy, with a nervous
smile. 'Just over two weeks actually.'