The Middle Kingdom (19 page)

"I'm sorry
to have to break things up, but we've heard from our Triad contacts.
I'd have notified you before, but the matter's no longer urgent."

"Sir?"
Fest straightened up, his face expressing his confusion. He had been
told this was a matter of the utmost urgency and that he would be
notified at once.

Tolonen turned
his head and looked at Fest. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I should
explain. They're dead. Someone got to them before us. The
Kuei
Chuan
Triad are sending a man to take us to the place. IVe
arranged to meet them here in an hour."

"Is it
far?" Fest asked.

"I'm not
sure. They don't use grid references down here. But it's a place
called Ammersee."

Behind him Karr
laughed. "I know it well. It's quite a warren. You'll
need
a
guide."

Tolonen turned
and looked at the fighter again. He was a big man himself, but Karr
was head and shoulders taller than him. "Who's this?" he
asked Fest.

"His name
is Karr, sir. He was the winner of the combat."

Tolonen stared
at Karr, then nodded. "Yes. He doesn't look like a loser."
Then he addressed the big man directly. "How far is this place?"

"Ten, maybe
twelve
li."

"And how
long would it take us to get there?"

Karr shrugged.
"By foot forty minutes. By rickshaw fifteen, maybe twenty."

"And you'll
take us?"

Karr looked at
Ebert. "I'm not sure I'd be welcome."

Tolonen looked
from Karr to Ebert. "Oh, And why's that, Hans?"

Ebert lowered
his head, not looking at Karr. "Just a small disagreement, sir.
Nothing serious."

"Good,"
said the General. "That's settled, then. The sooner we get there
the better. I want to sort this out." He turned back to Karr.
"I'm indebted,
Shih
Karr. I'll make sure you're well paid
for your help."

Karr bowed, then
turned to get his cloak.

DEVORE met them
in the corridor outside Kao Jyan's apartment. "I came as soon as
I heard, sir."

"Well,
Howard?" said Tolonen. "What have we got?"

"Three men,
sir. Low-level criminals. I've checked with our contacts. They
weren't members of any of the local Triads. Two of them were
kwai.
Hired knives. The other—Kao Jyan, who owned the
apartment—was a small-time racketeer. Drugs, stolen goods,
nothing big."

Iblonen nodded.
"Nothing to connect them with anyone higher up?"

DeVore shook his
head. "Not yet, sir. But we're still investigating. Kao Jyan was
known to frequent a place known as Big White's. He'd do some of his
business there, it seems. But the place was gutted yesterday. Victim
of one of the local gang wars. Big White himself is dead, so that
avenue's closed to us too."

"It all
seems too convenient. Too systematic."

DeVore gave a
brief nod. "As if someone's tidying up after them."

"Yes,"
said Tolonen, touching his shoulder. "That's my thought
exactly."

"In this
case, sir, it seems genuine enough. Big White was playing off one
Triad against another. It looks like he was a victim of his own
greed."

"Hmm."
Tolonen still seemed unhappy with the coincidence. "Dig deeper,
eh, Howard? It might be genuine, but then it might not. Someone
high's behind all of this. Someone high enough to pay off Triads as a
matter of course."

DeVore bowed,
obedient, then turned toward the guarded doorway. "Shall we go
in, sir?"

Axel, watching
from the doorway, saw the General move about the room; saw how he
looked at everything, trying to fit it all into place. In the
rickshaw coming over, Tolonen had turned to him, explaining.

"Sometimes,
Axel, you need to see things for yourself. Sniff them out first hand.
Sometimes it's the only way. You see things that another might have
missed. Understand things. Bring things to light that would otherwise
have remained hidden."

He saw now how
the General went about that. How he looked from one thing to the
next; his eyes sharp, alert for the hidden connections.

"This is
odd, Howard. Very odd."

Tolonen was
leaning over the corpse that lay facedown on the bed, holding the
surgeon's tag between his fingers. DeVore went over to him.

"Sir?"

"Look at
this. The time of death. Two hours before the other two. Why's that,
d'you think?"

"I'd guess
they were waiting for them in the room. That they picked them off as
they came in."

Tolonen looked
up at him grimly. "Maybe. But that would take some nerve. To sit
with a man you'd murdered for two hours."

DeVore said
nothing.

"Which one
was this?"

"We don't
have a surname, sir, but he was known as Chen."

Tolonen nodded,
then carefully moved the bloodied head. It lay there, its shattered
left profile upward on the sheets. For a while the General stared at
it, as if trying to remember something. He touched the smooth skin
beneath the ear and frowned, then shrugged and got up.

"This one."
He pointed down at the corpse of Kao Jyan. "I recognize him from
the tape."

"The tape?"
DeVore looked up sharply.

"Oh, I'm
sorry, Howard. I should have said. We had a tape of the two men. A
copy from the CompCam files."

"Ah, yes,"
DeVore said hurriedly. "Of course."

Tolonen had
moved on. He stood over the third of the bodies, one hand stroking
his smooth-shaven chin. "So who was this, then? And how did he
fit in?" He looked up and across at DeVore. "Whose side was
he on, I wonder? Was he with these two, or did he come to kill them?"

DeVore met his
gaze steadily. "His name was Chu Heng, sir. A local thug. It
seems—"

Karr, in the
doorway, interrupted him. "Excuse me, but he was quite well
known in these parts, General. A handy man with a blade. Too handy.
It's good to see him dead."

DeVore looked at
the big man curiously, then turned to the General. "Who's this,
sir?"

Tolonen
indicated that Karr should come in. "This is Shih Karr, Howard.
He's a fighter—what they call a 'blood.' He's champion, it
seems. For the time being."

DeVore gave the
slightest bow, acknowledging the giant. "You know these parts,
then?"

Karr was
kneeling over the corpse, looking at the wounds to Chu Heng's neck
and chest with a professional interest. After a moment he looked up
at DeVore. "I was born in Ammersee.

Until four years
ago I lived here. I know its people and its business."

"So you
knew these men?"

"Kao Jyan?
Well, I knew
of
him. Chen I didn't know. He must have taken up
with Ka&Jyan quite recently. But he was a good man. He had
honor."

"A good
man, eh? You can say that, not knowing him?" DeVore laughed, his
eyes weighing up the big man. "But he was
kwai,
a killer.
Do killers have honor?"

Karr met his
eyes firmly. "Some do. You, for instance. Haven't you had to
kill in your line of work?"

DeVore smiled.
"Ah, but that's different."

"Is it?"
Karr straightened up, moving to the second of the bodies, giving it
the same scrupulous examination as the first. "Are people so
very different below the Net?" He glanced up at DeVore, then
back at the body. "Do you know what
kwai
is, Major?"

"They kill
for profit. What more do I need to know?"

Karr laughed but
did not look up. "I thought you'd be curious, if only
professionally. You see, Chu Heng was
kwai,
too, but he wasn't
typical. He was what they call a 'twisted blade.' Most kwai would
have spat on Chu Heng."

"A knife's
a knife."

Karr shook his
head. "Not so. Some weapons are better made than others. And
some are made by masters. So with a good
kwai.
You see, to
become
kwai
one must study long and hard. It is a discipline.
A way of life."

"Down here?
The only way of life IVe seen down here is grab what you can and kill
to keep it,"

Karr looked up,
his gray eyes calm, controlled. "Tsao Ch'un was Son of Heaven."

For once the old
saying carried rather too much meaning. Tsao Ch'un was the tyrant who
had united Chung Kuo and built the great City- He, in his time, had
grabbed and killed to keep what he had taken. Until the Seven—his
chief ministers—had deposed him.

"Kings do
as they must," DeVore said, his eyes suddenly dangerous.

Karr
straightened up to his full height, facing DeVore. "And
kwai.
As I said, Major, to be a
kwai
here is an honorable
calling. Most are not as Chu Heng was. Nor should you confuse them
with the punks and paper tigers that run with .the Triads. A
kwai
has inner strengths. He draws from deeper wells than greed."

DeVore laughed
scornfully. He was about to answer Karr, but Tolonen stepped in
between the two men. "Major DeVore, Fest, Ebert, Haavikko. Leave
us a moment. I want a word with Karr."

DeVore bowed,
then went outside, followed by the other three. When they were gone,
the General turned to face the big man.

"You know
the ways of this place, Karr. What do you think happened here?"

Karr looked
about him. "It's messy. Hastily arranged and hurriedly carried
out. Yet the killings . . . well, they're odd. If I didn't know
better I'd say that Kao Jyan's death was a piece of Chu Heng's work.
This slashing and gouging is his trademark. He was a sadist. He
enjoyed inflicting pain."

"And the
others?"

Karr put his
head to one side. "IVe not looked at Chen yet. But whoever
killed Chu Heng was good at it. Trained to kill quickly and
efficiently."

"A soldier,
maybe?"

Karr laughed. "I
hadn't thought of that, but yes."

Tolonen smiled,
pleased.

"You're a
useful man, Karr, and my ensign, Haavikko, tells me you're a
magnificent fighter. Intelligent too. I could use a man like you."

Karr set Kao
Jyan's head down gently and looked up at the General. "I'm under
contract, General. Ten fights, if I live that long."

Tolonen nodded.
"I'll buy your contract out."

Karr smiled.
"Maybe. But why? I don't understand, General. What use could I
be to you?"

At that the
General laughed. "You have a talent. An eye for things. I could
see it at a glance. And you know this place. Know how its people
think and act. At present we have to rely on our contacts down here.
On Triad bosses. And that's not merely costly but unreliable. They'd
as soon be in another man's pay as ours."

"And I'm
different?"

"I'd judge
so."

Karr stood and
looked about him. "What happened here, General? What really
happened?"

Tolonen moved
across the room. He stood at the games machine, toying with its touch
pad. "What do you mean?"

"You, the
Major, those three junior officers outside. That's some team to
investigate a small-time killing like this. So why are you all here?
What's important about these men? What did they do? Or should I ask,
what did they know?"

Tolonen laughed.
"What they did is kill a minister. What they knew, however,
remains a mystery. But someone knows. The someone who killed them."

Karr came and
stood at his shoulder, looking at the game that had come up on the
screen. "What's this?"

"It looks
like the last stored memory. Kao Jyan was a good player, it seems."

Karr shook his
head. "That's not Kao Jyan. I'd swear it. In fact, I'd say that
wasn't anyone from around here. Look at those patterns. And this is
an eighth-level game. Whoever was playing this was a master of
wei
chi."

Tolonen laughed
strangely. "Our killer?"

Karr turned his
head, meeting his eyes. "Well, it would be one way of filling
two hours."

IT WAS A BIG
five-pole sedan, its mauve er-silk banners emblazoned with black
stylized dogs, symbol of the
Kuei Chuan
Triad. The ten
shaven-headed polemen sat against the wall opposite, tucking into
bowls of duck-soy soup and noodles, while in a conspicuously separate
group, standing beside the sedan, in mauve and black fake-satin
uniforms, were the
pen p'ei
—rushing daggers—numbered
patches on their chests indicating their standing in the Triad
hierarchy.

Ignoring the
lowly polemen, Ebert strode up to the lowest-numbered of the
p'ei,
who immediately bowed low and touched his forehead to the
littered floor of the corridor.

"Let's get
going," Ebert said brusquely. He dropped a fifty-yuan coin
beside the man's head. "There'll be another if you get us there
in twenty minutes."

The
p'ei's
eyes went to the coin, then, widening, looked up at Ebert. He
nodded his head exaggeratedly. "As you wish, Excellency!"
He stood and turned to the polemen, barking orders in a pidgin
Mandarin that none of the three young soldiers could follow. Soup
bowls were dropped at once as the polemen hurried to get into
position. Six of the
p'ei
formed up at the front. Daggers
drawn, they would clear the way ahead of the sedan. Behind ran the
last four of the
p'ei,
guarding against ambush.

Axel watched
Ebert and Fest climb inside, then followed, stopping in the curtained
doorway to look back at the bowed, shaven-headed polemen.

"Come on,
Haavikko!" said Fest impatiently. "You don't want the man
to lose his fee, do you?"

Axel ducked
inside, taking the seat across from Fest and Ebert. "Why did you
do that, Hans? There's no hurry to get back."

Ebert smiled.
"You have to keep these types on their toes, Haavikko. It'll do
them good to have a nice long run." He looked at Fest and
laughed. "You should see the buggers' faces! It's worth a
hundred yuan just for that!"