Gabriel roughed out the distance and calculated as best he could the location of the rift on the outside of the mountain. It would have to be on the eastern slope—the steepest and most overgrown side, from what he had seen.
The vent was funnel-shaped, with the wide end inside the cavern. He headed toward its opening, lugging his climbing gear behind him. It should be possible to arrange a mechanism that would lift him toward the opening…
Gabriel had no way of knowing that, as he worked out this problem in engineering, back in the city the Hellweg Tower—sometimes called the Tower of Flame—was already burning for real, a five-alarmer that froze traffic for miles and caused firefighters from four districts to be called in as reinforcements.
He knew nothing about this. He concentrated instead on the work he was doing. Even when it was done, he still had some repairs he wanted to make. So he needed to work hard and work fast and not be distracted.
So he shut out all thoughts and got to work. Only one thought made it past the barrier he’d erected, and it was a thought about Qi: Where the hell was she?
The monastery had stood since 247 A.D. on the out-skirts of Shanghai with the presence of centuries crushed upon centuries, witness to the rise and fall of monarchs and tyrants. Like Longhua Temple it was configured in a time-honored seven-hall structure. Bald monks in yellow robes glided phantomlike through halls appointed with intimidating idols while huge coils of incense smoldered like mutant beehives, rendering the air particulate and opiate.
Ivory had held Qi at gunpoint for more than an hour, all the way from Tuan’s funeral to this place, and she liked to think the stress fatigue of staying alert for her every twitch and gesture was beginning to tire him. They held fast in the First Hall while Ivory conferred with a man in monk’s robes.
“You bought off Buddhist monks?” said Qi.
“Pan Xiao is not a monk,” said Ivory.
Only then did Qi notice the baffled gun muzzle, barely visible, winking in and out of view beneath Pan Xiao’s robes as he moved. Some automatic equalizer on a shoulder sling, positioned for rapid deployment.
“Please,” Ivory said, indicating Qi should precede him along the corridor. He had to stay ready to shoot her at the first sign of misbehavior or trouble.
He directed her by lantern-light down narrow wooden stairs. They were about two floors beneath street level.
A warren of disused corridors led to a now-dormant fermentation room and abandoned wine cellar. After a few more twists and turns they came to what appeared to be a vault door, anomalous in its stainless-steel frame against the ancient stonework of the wall.
Qi anticipated some sort of dungeon, cell or holding area. When Ivory key-coded the door and opened it, she was frankly startled.
Ivory had brought modernity to this modest series of rooms in the form of electric lights, motion sensors, a security system and several computer monitors arranged on an old rolltop desk. Fish paddled about in a backlit 50-gallon aquarium and a small bonsai tree thrived under an expensive multiband growth light. The furnishings were all handworked wood, apparently antiques.
Sure this was some kind of trick, Qi said, “Your apartment is in the city.”
“My apartment is not my home,” said Ivory. “It is necessary for appearances. No one knows of this place.”
“Not even Cheung?”
Ivory pursed his lips slightly. He closed the big iron door, then showed Qi he was standing down with the gun. He would not wield a weapon in here, and he was trusting her to listen to whatever he had to say. This was implicit when he stated, “I could have let Cheung have you back at the funeral.”
Then, maddeningly, he began to make tea as though it was the most natural thing in the world, even turning his back on her once or twice.
“Have you ever suffered a crisis of faith?” he said.
“Not religious,” Qi said, slowly taking a seat in an armless, hardback “drawer chair.”
“That’s exactly what Michelle Quantrill told me when I asked her the same question. You two have much in common.”
“I never saw her before the Zongchang casino,” said Qi.
“Nevertheless.”
“Why am I here?” Qi asked. “Why didn’t you do your duty and kill me when you had the chance?”
“Because I am finding out that some things transcend duty,” said Ivory. “Or at least some duties transcend others.” He waved this rather significant confession away. “Your holy war is to kill Cheung. Yet despite multiple opportunities, you have not. My conclusion is that you are more interested in discrediting me through attrition. To avenge your status as a Nameless One.”
“Perhaps I’m just a lousy shot,” she said. They both knew it was not true.
“You were dealt with unfairly. Michelle Quantrill’s sister was dealt with unfairly. It is the way of things in Cheung’s vision of the world. But while I might be your adversary, I am not your enemy.”
“That sounds terrific,” said Qi. “But what does it mean?”
“You have heard the parable of the warrior of great honor,” said Ivory, serving them both tea in small hammered cups that were both exquisite and comfortably weighty. “He was obligated to a cruel and uncouth master. He discovered such honor as his can be a trap, a snare that tightens the more you struggle against it. The more he tried to serve his master honorably, the more obligated he became, and the more implicated in cruelty himself.”
“You have already betrayed Cheung by sparing me. He will not forgive this.”
“He might not,” acknowledged Ivory. “But I need to see you and this other woman clear of Shanghai. Then my obligations will be ended, and Cheung can take such measures as he will.”
“You are wrong,” said Qi, “that we two are the only ones you have wronged. You have involved this man Gabriel Hunt as well. The stain of your crisis of honor is spreading like a disease.”
“You are correct. If I kill you now, my obligation to Cheung is served, but I have dishonored myself. If I do not kill you, if I let you go free, you have sworn to slaughter the man to whom I owe loyalty. There can be no honor in that. Is there any solution?”
He took a sip of tea as though it was the last one of his life, then handed Qi his pistol.
“I leave the dilemma in your hands.”
Ivory resumed his seat. And waited.
Chapter 19
Michael Hunt was met at the airport by an official car that conducted him into the city, and the waiting representatives of the Shanghai Cultural Alliance. Much bowing, many cocktails, even more handshakes as a modest summit was initiated, and Michael suffered it all graciously. As Gabriel often pointed out to him, pressing the flesh took time and patience—a patience that Michael had cultivated while his brother was gallivanting around the globe.
His brother, from whom he had not had word in days. Who was presumably somewhere in greater Shanghai; who had, by all best guesses based on personal experience, gotten swept up in yet another sideroad that rendered him incommunicado. It was Gabriel’s rowdy way. If anything were truly amiss, Michael would have seen a red flag, a flare, a message in a bottle, something. Meanwhile his duty was to make nice with the academics Gabriel had jilted at the start of his trip and tell them the things they wished to hear.
Michael’s schedule awaited him in his suite, printed out and laid against the stacked pillows on the kingsized bed. He was staying in a hotel off the Bund that had apparently been an embassy at some past time. Looking over the printout, Michael saw there were the usual tours of monasteries and museums, as well as a brace of receptions, the first of which was—oh, look at that—in exactly 45 minutes, at some location he could not have found with a map, a native guide and a GPS device. He was in the hands of his handlers and had no choice but to trust himself to them.