She sat back, feeling breathless, giddy, for once at a loss what to do. This was not the kind of secret one should know; not the kind one could share with anyone.
No ... not even her father.
For a moment she sat there, her mind a blank, staring straight ahead of her. Then an idea occurred to her. Maybe she should consult her grandfather, Shang Wen Shao. Maybe he would know what to do. Then again, maybe not. Maybe this was too weighty a matter for him. Her great-grandfather, Shang Chu, then?
She sighed. No. She knew what he would say.
Or did she? For once she wasn’t sure.
She frowned, then froze, hearing something. The door. . . the door was open. Not much. Not more than a hand’s width, yet she had taken care to close it after her. “Who is it?” she said, closing the file and putting it aside. “Come out and show yourself.”
The door slowly opened. A boy stood there—a fat-faced little boy with Eurasian features. It was her stepbrother, Ch’iu. “Sneak,” she said, standing and coming around the desk.
He stared back at her, unabashed. “Why are you in Father’s study?”
“Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I was,” he said, his pudgy face glaring at her now. “But I heard you creeping down the corridor and wondered what you were up to. When you didn’t come back I thought I’d come and see.” She went right up to him, looking down at him, her hands on her hips.
“Well, now you know. So you can go back to bed, can’t you?”
“Why should I? Besides, you still haven’t answered my question.” She leaned down at him, her face hard, no love lost between them. “Nor am I going to. Now go. Before I kick that fat little bottom of yours from here to the bathroom!”
“I’ll tell Mother.”
“Tell her. See if I care.”
He stared at her a moment longer, defiance in his eyes, then turned and went, pulling the door closed behind him. Hannah stared at the door a moment, then let out her breath.
“Shit!”
She went back across the room again and, putting everything else back where it had been, picked up the file and turned, meaning to return to her room. But she had gone only two paces toward the door when it swung open again.
“Han-A?”
She bowed her head, swallowing, the file held tightly behind her back, concealed from sight. “Mother . . .”
Chih Huang Hui stood there, her pale face staring out from the layers of blood-red silk she wore, her eyes wide with a strange satisfaction. “Can you explain what you are doing here, girl?” “I”—she thought quickly—“I was looking for something Father said he’d left for me.”
“Left for you?” Her stepmother’s face crinkled up in an expression of distaste. “Then why did he not leave it in your room, Han-A? Surely he would not have left it here, among his papers.” She looked up, deciding to brazen it out. “It was exactly what I thought myself. But there was nothing on my desk, so I thought—“ “Does he know you come into his room?”
Hannah looked down again, then shook her head. It was not the moment to reveal how often she had been in here without his knowing. “And if he did, don’t you think”—she smiled, clearly savoring the thought—“don’t you think he might be angry with you, Han-A?” “I—I don’t know.”
Chih Huang Hui straightened up, her whole body taut with triumph. From behind her Shang Ch’iu peered out, his face grinning with malice. “Well, Han-A. I am disappointed in you. Severely disappointed. I’m afraid I shall have to tell your father.” Again she smiled, this time a spark of real savagery lighting her features. “He’ll be most surprised to leam what his darling daughter gets up to while he’s away, don’t you think? Most disappointed.”
chen dressed quickly, his embarrassment beyond words. His lieutenant, Wilson, stood in the corner of the room, his head bowed, his eyes averted, waiting while Chen put on the spare uniform he’d brought. As he buttoned the tunic, Chen glanced at the woman apologetically. She was watching him silently, a strange distance to her suddenly, the spell of intimacy broken. Now he was simply another body, and an unwelcome one at that.
“If I’d known . . .” she’d said, almost brutally. “Security! Fucking Security! And I thought—“ The last button done, he turned, looking to his lieutenant. “Okay. You’d better tell me as we go along.”
He turned back, looking at the woman. She had put her jacket about her shoulders, otherwise she was naked still. He went to say something, then saw the look in her face and fell silent. Shrugging, he turned away. But it was hard simply to walk out on her.
As the door closed behind him, Chen felt a sudden anger. For the first time in ages he had found peace—for one brief moment—and then they had tracked him down, like the lowest of criminals. “How did you find me?” he asked Wilson, conscious of the four guards listening.
Wilson looked down, embarrassed. “When we couldn’t get in touch with you, we thought maybe something had happened. Then we noticed the message from this stack and”—he hesitated—“well, sir, I put a camera trace on you. I wouldn’t have but. . . well, it was the only way. I knew you’d want to know at the very earliest.”
Chen stopped, staring at him. “Know what? Is it my family?”
“No, sir. It’s . . . Song Wei. You know, the sweeper. He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, sir. The whole deck is up in arms. We’ve got our men down there trying to keep a lid on things, but I knew you’d want to deal with it yourself. I mean, in view of what happened. . . .” Chen nodded, realizing that Wilson had probably saved him more embarrassment than he’d caused. Besides which, if Song Wei were dead, then this was a whole new ball game.
“Was he murdered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Only him? Or are there others?”
Wilson hesitated. “To be honest, sir, we don’t know yet. It’s chaos down there and . . . well, we’ve searched the deck and we can’t account for four of the men.”
“I see.” Chen nodded, his mind already piecing things together. “Then let’s get there, neh? The quicker this is sorted out, the better.”
guards were everywhere. The whole area surrounding the corridor was cordoned off. As Chen marched through at the head of his escort, he couldn’t help but contrast it with how he had seen it only hours before. Then there had been an air of normality, however tentative. Now it was like a war zone, the tension palpable.
Song Wei was laid out on the kitchen table, the body wrapped in a sheet. As Chen came into the room, one of the special squad medics looked up from where he was examining the head and smiled. “Looks like a professional job, Major Kao. One bullet, behind the right ear. Took the top of his head off.”
Chen took the skintight gloves he was offered and pulled them on, then went across. As the surgeon moved back, he saw the damaged skull for the first time and winced. It didn’t look human. It looked more like a broken bowl, the jellied contents mixed with small fragments of bone. Carefully, he put his hand beneath the neck and turned it slightly. “There,” the medic said, pointing to the hole behind the right ear. “The powder burns show that whoever did it must have placed the gun right up against the neck. It was a large-caliber weapon. What size we’ll know when we’ve found the bullet.”
Chen frowned, then understood. “Where was he killed?” “The other side of the stack, four levels down. They found him in a maintenance room, his brains all over the ceiling. It seems no one heard anything.”
“Who brought him here?”
“Friends of the family. First we heard of it was when the trouble