“So?” Cornwell said. “How much do you want?”
“Want? Did I say I wanted anything?”
“Come on ... we’re alone here, right? That’s why you brought me here.” He smiled encouragingly. “So come on ... what’s it worth to get you off my back?”
“What if I said I wasn’t interested in your money?” “Then I’d say you were full of crap, Major Kao! Money, that’s all that matters in this world. Without it you’re nothing. With it... well, you can have anything you want.”
“Maybe. But what if I still don’t want it?”
Cornwell eyed him carefully. “You want on the payroll, then?”
“You have many officers on your books, Shih Cornwell?”
“A few ... no names. You know how it is.”
“And Wilson? Was he one of them?”
Cornwell sighed ostentatiously. “Pity about Wilson. I heard he got snuffed. But, yeah ... he was on my books. Helpful, neh? Sure fucked you up last time out! I thought you had me for a moment, but... no evidence, no case, huh?” He smiled. “No hard feelings, though, eh, Major? You and me ... I reckon we understand each other. I reckon we can work together real well.”
“And those workers you sacked—the ones your man killed—what about them?”
Cornwell frowned. “What the fuck are you still going on about them for? Forget those fuckers. What do they matter? The question is, do you want in, and if so, at what level?”
Chen stood, then tugged the curtain back. “Out!”
“What?”
“You heard me. Out. There’s someone I want you to meet.” Cornwell stared sourly at him a moment, then got up, squeezing out of the sedan. Chen followed.
The corridor was empty, deserted. There was noise—there was always noise—but it was distant, muted. Cornwell looked about him, his face wrinkled with disgust at the litter-strewn floor. “Where the fucking hell are we?”
Chen made no answer, only pushed him forward, shoving him with the heel of his right palm, each shove releasing some of the anger, the tension, he was feeling.
“Here,” he said finally, stopping in front of an unmarked door. “This is it.”
Cornwell turned, glaring at him. “I’ll have you, you little fucker. You had your chance, but now . . . well, I’ll break you, right? You’ll be lucky if you’re guarding a shit pile when I’m finished with you!” Chen smiled tightly. “Rather apt, wouldn’t you say?”
“What. . . ?”
“You. How you treat people, the things you do. It’s shit, that’s what it is. You think the world is made in your image—that it’s all up for grabs and the biggest, fattest maggot gets to eat it all. Well, it isn’t like that. Not for everyone. But you”—Chen shook his head, disgusted, then drew his gun—“we might as well all be holograms for all you care. Isn’t that right?”
Cornwell’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”
“Knock. Go on. Knock on the door.”
Cornwell turned, then knocked timidly.
“Louder! Come on, let them know you’re there!”
Cornwell looked back at him, fearful now. “Who? Who are you talking
about?”
“The scum. You know ... Or don’t you remember?” The door behind him slid back. A woman stood there, and behind her an elderly Han. Beyond him were a dozen or more others, big men with the look of manual workers. Cornwell stared openmouthed at them, then turned back, his eyes ablaze with fear.
“No . . .” he said, falling to his knees in front of Chen and grabbing at his tunic. “No, Kao Chen, you can’t! Whatever you want, just name it. I—“ Chen placed the gun to Cornwell’s brow, directly between his eyes, and pushed. “Inside. Now.”
Slowly Cornwell got to his feet, then turned, facing the doorway. As he did the woman stepped back, as if inviting him in, yet there was something hard and relentless about her face, something unforgiving. “Deals . . .” Chen said, his voice heavy with disgust. “Why don’t you go and make a deal?”
And, planting his boot in Cornwell’s rump, he pushed, sending him sprawling into the room.
“it’s just starting,” Michael said, touching her gently on the shoulder.
“Do you want to see?”
“In a moment. I just want to finish this.” She sat there, her anger a still and perfect thing within her. Kennedy ... it all kept coming back to Kennedy.
Michael’s voice came again, from the other room this time. “Em?”
“Okay!”
Damn the man! Damn all his deals and fake deals! And damn him for being the smooth-tongued, charming con man that he was! She went through and stood behind where Michael was seated, staring past him at the image on the screen.
“What’s he saying?”
“Shhh . . . this is important. He’s . . .”
Kennedy looked odd. And then she realized why. He wasn’t smiling for once. “We had such hopes,” he was saying. “We wanted to make such changes to our world. But sometimes our hands are tied. Sometimes ...” He hesitated, a visible shudder passing through him. “Let me tell you something. This afternoon the T’ang of North America, Wu Shih, took my children—my two boys, Robert and William. They’re his hostages now. I say that, but in fact we’ve all of us been hostages for some time now, Jean, myself, and the boys. . . .”
She listened, horrified, as he gave the details, understanding slowly coming to her.
“And that’s why,” he concluded, “I have to do this. To make this small, perhaps futile gesture, to try to put things right somehow. The dream”—he sighed heavily—“my good friend Michael Lever was right when he spoke a few days ago. It seems as if the dream died long ago. “Anyway”—Kennedy straightened, facing the camera with something of his old determination—“it’s like this. I booked this ‘live’ slot earlier and recorded this message an hour or so back. What you see, then, is an image of an image ... a hologram.” He gave a faint, pained smile. “The real me, Joseph Kennedy, is dead. Or will be, by the time this goes out.” “What?” She put her hand to her mouth. Michael was on his feet. “Free,” he said. “That’s all I ever wanted, I guess ... to be free. And now. . .”
The image shivered, crackled, disappeared, to be replaced a moment later by one of the channel anchormen. He looked up, bemused, his mouth not working for a moment, then, swallowing, he began to read a news item. “Aiya...” Michael moaned, his face distraught. “No ... No ...” She stared at him, bewildered. Wrong, she thought. How could I have been so wrong?
“Em. . .”
She held him, clinging on, a great weight of sorrow pressing down on her as she imagined how it must have been for him. To have had to live with that every day. And now he was gone. . . . She closed her eyes. Suddenly it all seemed much less substantial than it had been only moments before. Suddenly more . . . hollow. Michael was leaning against her, sobbing. Comfort me, he seemed to be saying. Hold me and take away my hurt. But this once she could do nothing for him, for the hurt she felt was greater than his own—was as big as the world itself.
“Where now?” she murmured softly, her voice laced with pain and loss. “Oh, gods, where now?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The City, Burning
Wu shih paced to and fro, waiting to be put through to his cousin. He was
angry and tired and in no mood for compromise. It had been a long,
sleepless night, and the next day or two seemed likely to bring only fresh
outbreaks of violence. All attempts to stem the unrest that had followed
Kennedy’s on-air suicide had failed, even an appeal for calm by Mary