The Code War (25 page)

'Nineteenth century,' replied the
Japanese. '1860's China to be precise. There should be few angels
about at that time and in that place.'

Hideki's briefing continued with a
large amount of detail on timings, vantage points,
signals and other logistics. Kodrob was watching
him throughout with growing confidence in his mastery of the
tactics. But he still worried about his rivalry with Bezejel and
whether he might attempt to steal her authority. Kodrob was afraid
of Hideki. But he was even more afraid of Bezejel. He didn't want
to have to choose between the two.

Evidently Bezejel had a
similar
concern.

She took her mug of burning
bitumen from Pu Gash who bowed before delivering a second
smoking mug to Hideki.

'Kodrob,
' she called loudly when Hideki had concluded his briefing,
'remember that you and your team report to me throughout this
operation. Colonel Hideki is in charge of the technical details and
we must leave him free from the burden of leadership to carry out
his delicate operation. He must be allowed to concentrate on his
spiritual surgery. Now Marauders, make your preparations. We will
postpone our other activities. Nancy is making excellent progress,
she doesn't need us for a little while. Be prepared to leave for
Earth upon the instant.'

The squad
thunder
ed off to arrange their kit and
prepare their weapons. They'd have to cancel their immediate plans
to go to a squawhouse and get blitzed. But an air of excitement ran
through the group like an electric charge. The waiting was over and
they were going into action, potentially into combat. If any angels
got in their way, they were ready for them.

Heaven's
Shore

'Maybe I should visit the Manchur
for myself.
Maybe there's more to the
meeting between Shafner and Mya Ling than meets the eye.' Jabez was
sitting alone on a rock, drinking the last of his tea, speaking
into his mission journal in his globe.

Every engineering project Jabez
had ever worked on required the keeping of a team diary. For the
Nancy project he had decided to record all of his thoughts as well
as all of his conversations. If the mission failed, he might need
to show some evidence of the difficult choices he'd
faced.

He stood up from his rock and
walked further along the shoreline, flicking an occasional stone
ahead of him. As his footsteps crunched on the shingle he continued
speaking into the shining orb.

'The scene inside the Russian
warship appeared, on the face of it, an innocently charming
encounter between two young people. The wardroom was dingy and
Spartan. But this was offset by an intense atmosphere of romance
and expectation. The question is: was Mya Ling really just a young
woman on the make? Was it not possible that she was really in
love?'

He
paused and listened to the hush around him. This was the
only place in Paradise which swallowed up any sound as soon as it
was made. The Shore was a land made for secrets. It had to be, so
close was it to Inferno. Inferno, there it was. Simmering, just
across the divide. You could almost throw a…

He stooped and selected a smooth
rounded stone, just perfect for a short flight. It left
his hand and he watched it draw its straight
line across the chasm - no gravity below to pull it down in an arc.
Nearly halfway across it rebounded and came back, dashing itself
again on the shore. Jabez threw another and this time he had to
duck as it boomeranged back at high speed, glancing off his wing
before embedding itself in a dune.

'OK,' he said to himself, 'so the divide
is a fact. Not just a label. It keeps them out and it keeps us in.
Just like they told us on the induction.'

It was time to get back to work.
He spoke into the globe. 'There is no time to make a real visit to
the Manchur. But I need to take another look.'

Jabez
returned to his rock where he sat down and expanded the
globe to room-size. Sitting inside it he called up the recent
archive and returned to 1860. He selected and viewed scenes of both
Shafner and Mya Ling earlier in the day, before she made the visit
to the ship.

Shafner had spent the day in endless
report and letter writing.

Mya
Ling
was staying in paid lodgings at a private house in the village near
the new Vladivostok with only an old family servantwoman to look
after her. He watched her as she made her way to the little quay
and was invited, apparently as a public relations exercise, to go
aboard the warship. A Russian flag hanging from a new flagpole on
the shoreline embodied the change of national ownership of the
region from China to Russia.

Jabez looked closely at the pair's
expressions on entering the wardroom to see if they could tell him
anything more. The stilted conversation, the fluttering eyebrows,
the formal politeness, the giggle, the triad tattoo on
Mya Ling's arm. Jabez jerked his head forward.
The triad tattoo, where was it? He replayed the scene again. The
triad symbol wasn't there. He looked more closely. Mya Ling's
forearm, which had been lit in sunlight when he had viewed it
earlier, was now in shadow.

'Mission diary,' he exclaimed
excitedly. 'The triad tattoo which I viewed with the team earlier
is now too dark to make out. Why?' He looked at the window. 'The
curtain on the right side of the window is now partly drawn and is
obscuring the ray of sunlight which previously shone on Mya Ling's
arm, illuminating it. It is not in the position it was in before.
That is impossible. History doesn't just change.'

He looked up from the globe for a
moment, clearing his head before looking back.

'My memory is clear. I recall when
Ruth revolved the scene for us
. Sunshine
was playing all over Mya Ling's face and upper body. It was part of
what made the whole tableau so special. As though the moment was
blessed. Now she is all in shadow.'

Jabez was stunned. 'They've broken
the rules of engagement,' he whispered in disbelief. He played the
scene a third time with the same result.

'Conclusion.' He continued his
journal entry. 'Only supernatural forces could have gone back and
changed history like that. I know it was not angels. That means it
could only be the other side. It means Infernals have not just
viewed the wardroom scene from afar, like us, but have actually
visited the ship and moved the curtain. They've broken the rules.
They want Nancy that much, they've risked a war.' He paused for a
moment to allow the gravity of his thoughts to sink in before
continuing. 'Questions that must be asked: Why bother to obscure
Mya Ling's tattoo? What else were they doing there? Why is Nancy so
important to them?'

Jabez collapsed the globe to thumb
diameter size and replaced it at his belt. With his heart beating
fast he jumped up from his rock and walked briskly forward to the
edge of the divide. He perched his feet on the very last grains of
Paradise's sand before the cliff fell away into nothingness and
looked out towards Inferno. Then drawing in a large breath he
shouted with the loudest voice he could muster.

'You shall not have her. You shall not
have Nancy. You might get me. But you will never own her. This I
promise.'

Moments later his words
were thrown tumbling back at him, zipping past
his ears.

Shall not. Nancy. Might get. You. Never.
Promise. This I.

The silence returned, shocking him
with its power.
He stood there a while
longer, burning with incandescent rage, a feeling he had never
known before.

Vladivostok, Eastern
Russia, 1860.

T
he five
members of the squad selected for the mission were Hideki, Kodrob,
Holzman, Lafarge and Zhivkin. Van Diemen, Ologu and Pu Gash waited
back in Inferno with Bezejel.

In the Fifth Dimension, time did
not carry the same meaning - or limitations - as it did in the
Fourth. Supernaturals could view and even visit any event of any
period in human history. But there was a rule observed by all. They
must not interfere with or change anything that had already
happened. Hideki's intention to open certain pathways out of Mya
Ling's soul was within the rules, but only just. He was not
actually changing anything that happened in 1860. He was simply
manipulating something that would influence the course of events in
1978.

The five demons had landed inside
the Manchur's wardroom and were waiting
-
invisibly - for Shafner and Mya Ling to enter. Hideki gave one
final briefing. 'Kodrob I want you on the deck, alert to any
angelic presence. If angels start watching now they will see us, so
we have to act fast. Holzman and Zhivkin, go to the shore and keep
watch from there. Lafarge, stay with me. Remember all of you, touch
nothing. Angels may come here and try to research Mya Ling and her
relationship with Shafner. We don't want them to find anything
interesting.'

If Hideki's last sentence was
ambiguous, it was exacerbated by the fact that Lafarge was looking
out of the stern window and not paying full attention.

Lafarge was lazy and insubordinate
and had only won his place in Kodrob's team because of his ability
to arrange for cheap female company for his squad members whenever
they were off duty. With his Gallic magnetism, decadent charm and
roguish behaviour he appealed to the self-destruct instincts of
Inferno's females and could attract squaws for half the price
anyone else would have to pay. Now, as the other demons took their
places, he lounged at the window and stared out at the
seascape.

The door opened and Shafner and
Mya ling entered. They conducted their elegant courtship unaware
they were being watched by devils. At the moment that Mya Ling
giggled and raised her hand to her mouth, Hideki held up both his
arms and the scene froze.

'Now,' he said to Lafarge, 'this
is the moment when Mya Ling's emotions and excitement are at their
most vulnerable. She is already the ambitious, deadly woman we know
her to be. But right now, she is genuinely attracted to Shafner. It
is the first and last time that her heart is open to love. Only at
this moment can we pull her heart strings and open up the channels
that will pass her wickedness down the centuries to her
great-great-granddaughter Nancy.'

Hideki bent himself over Mya Ling,
closed his eyes, then placed his hands inside her body. He enjoyed
a little melodrama and so chanted aloud an incantation he had
memorised earlier. While he chanted his fingers moved rapidly
together, as if sewing.

Mya Ling, ambition, hunger, power

In another's breast take root and
flower

Flesh of your flesh, await the day

Your new home the heart of Nancy
Kay

Lafarge watched with detached interest.
He didn't share Hideki's fondness for hocus pocus. He just wanted
to get back to Inferno and begin a mammoth drinking session with
Holzman. His eyes wandered to Mya Ling's slender forearm and caught
sight of the triad tattoo. He knew what it represented and realised
that if the sun was not illuminating it, it would be in darkness
and could not be seen by any angels that came along. It would be
good to deprive them of an important clue, he decided. No-one would
notice. While Hideki was still engaged with Mya Ling's soul,
Lafarge pulled the curtain sideways, just a few inches. The arm
slipped into shadow. The tattoo faded from sight.

Hideki was talking while he
worked. He obviously didn't know Lafarge well for he thought the
French demon was paying attention. 'The sins of the fathers are
visited on the sons and the sins of the mothers are visited on the
daughters as far as the seventh generation,' he pronounced with an
air of gravity. 'Nancy is only the fifth generation from Mya Ling
so we are well within the boundaries.' He lifted his head and
removed his hands from Mya Ling, at the same time opening his eyes.
He stood back and raised his hands as before. Mya Ling and Shafner
unfroze and continued their romantic conversation then stood up and
soon left the room, arm in arm.

Hideki looked delighted.

'That was highly
successful
,' he declared. 'Mya Ling's
murderous lust for power will flow into Nancy. It will consume her.
There is nothing she can do about it. It's just a matter of time.'
Moments later the five demon team had left Earth and returned to
their Infernal lair.

Southern Senegal, West
Africa.

Nancy kicked the lorry into fourth gear
and closed her driver's side window. They had travelled only a mile
since leaving the frontier post between Gambia and Senegal.

'Why was there only
one border guard?' asked Nancy. Why wasn't there
a Senegalese border post?'

'They do not have enough money to
build one,' replied Lafi. 'Sometimes there is a mobile post, a car
or lorry with a policeman or soldiers to check passports. We had to
be prepared for that. But tonight we are lucky.'

The rain was now pouring down and the
wipers flicked noisily across the windscreen.

Lafi was peering through his own side
window into the wing mirror. 'Slow down,' he barked.