"‘If it ain't stiff it ain't worth a fuck’..." Agent Wharton spread his hands apologetically. "It was a seventies thing in England apparently. Bill Hagsteen played drums briefly in a support act. That was when he first toured with Jake Razor."
"He's absolutely sure it's the man he knew?"
"Prisoner Zero? Yes, absolutely. Bill Hagsteen told the President he was kicking himself for not recognizing Jake from the start. You know, in Paris, when he and his... When they went looking for Jake."
"He and his what?" Paula Zarte asked.
"Partner," Agent Wharton mumbled and Paula sighed. He was even younger than she'd imagined.
"Jim James, the photographer, right?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And where's Bill Hagsteen now?"
"Downstairs, ma'am. In one of the holding rooms."
"Let him wait." Paula turned back to her desk and reached for a file, then changed her mind. Agent Wharton wasn't the person to talk to about its contents. In fact, Paula Zarte was beginning to resign herself to the fact there might not be a right person to talk to, and that included Mike.
The big question and the one Paula didn't really feel competent to answer was should that also include the President? If she could read Gene's mind, which would he want -- for Prisoner Zero to be Jake Razor or for the man to be some North African kid grown old and bitter?
She was coming close to making real enemies of the Department of Justice, the Attorney General and the Pentagon. And it was a tough call, even for someone whose job it was to make such calls.
Prisoner Zero was still on death row, put there by a military commission and with an execution date set at least one week before the start of Ramadan, because the last thing America needed was to execute an Arab on the eve of a major Islamic fast.
Only now everyone thought Prisoner Zero was American, which presumably meant that America could do what they wanted with him. Except if Gene pardoned him half the world would decide it was because he wasn't Arab after all.
"Cancel the briefing," she said. Paula was talking to a squawk box on her desk and not Agent Wharton, who looked up guiltily and then relaxed once he realized he wasn't the one being addressed.
"Send my apologies," Paula added. "Oh, and organize a secure video link to all the section chiefs for six p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Okay, Steve? I want hearts and minds for all areas on local responses...
"No," Paula said heavily. "Not the execution. The equations." Steve Duffy was pretty, enthusiastic and ticked off the boxes for a handful of the government's affirmative action requirements, being trailer poor, dyslexic and gay. Unfortunately he was also none too bright.
"And get me Professor Mayer on the secure line, then Vice Questore Pier Angelo... the Italian," she said, "and the President's private secretary. In that order."
CHAPTER 46
Zigin Chéng, CTzu 53/Year 20 [The Future]
"I'm winning," Zaq said. "So you might as well go away." Every looking glass the Emperor passed showed him the same thing...
A man with a scroll under his right arm and long scholarly robes tumbling down that side, his long fingers stroking a poet's chin. The Librarian had the obligatory beard of a Taoist thinker and thin moustaches that draped into wisps of white hair.
And every time the Chuang Tzu caught a mirror's eye, the Librarian would open his mouth to say something and then close it as the Emperor strode by.
In his other hand the Librarian carried a long halberd, its blade facing towards the floor. The left side of his body was armoured with plate mail over padded leather and a steel helmet switched to a scholar's cap along a line bisecting the middle of his forehead.
The split between warrior and scholar represented the classic virtues required of the Emperor's tutor and, by extension, of the Emperor himself. Zaq was only too aware that his own chao pao militated against mockery of the old man's costume.
An embroidered dragon coiled across the front of Zaq's formal court robes, which were for a duke, first class. Zaq changed his clothes every day now, switching ranks at random and varying the path of his early morning walks through the outer pavilions.
He did this for amusement and because he knew that it worried the Library. Sometime soon, Zaq would have to face the glass and listen as the Librarian explained what Zaq already knew. That a young assassin, crazed with cold and loneliness, was working her way across the bridge between plateaux. A dark-haired, thin child who held conversations with the air and carried a large knife with which to rip out the heart of the Chuang Tzu.
Everyone Zaq met in the palace thought he was hiding from the danger facing him. Zaq could see it in their faces and hear it in the way conversations stilled as he swept through the corridors.
They were wrong.
Zaq knew all about the cold assassin and he assumed the Library knew about the prisoner trapped on a sun-baked island who carried the emperor's dreams. War could be a very complex business and weapons were not always what they seemed.
"Majesty..."
"Excellency," Zaq corrected. The soldier should be able to work out for himself that he stood in front of a duke and not an emperor. Zaq tried hard to recall the man's name, screwing up his face as he did so.
Tso Chi?
Li Han?
He could ask the Library, only then Zaq would have to talk to the Librarian about the other thing and that was exactly what he was trying to avoid.
"General Ch'ao Kai," said Chuang Tzu, and saw surprise turn to pleasure as the bannerman understood he'd been recognized. "This must be important." They both understood the hidden rebuke. All were forbidden to acknowledge the Chuang Tzu's existence and there were no exceptions.
The old soldier nodded. "I beg Your Excellency's permission to deploy troops outside the city wall."
"And why would you want to do that?" Zaq asked without thinking. He should have said something like Deploy troops, for what reason? But more and more these days he forgot to keep his thoughts formal, his face measured.
"Just manoeuvres, Excellency. The troops need exercise. I thought you might approve of the idea."
The man lied badly.
Zaq smiled. It was a gentle smile, the kind one might expect from either a poet faced with a particularly beautiful waterfall or a scholar presented with a scroll no other scholar had seen for a thousand years. The kind an emperor might give in the face of death.
"No," he said. "I don't think so."
Real anguish crossed the old General's face. So convincing in fact that Zaq was impressed yet again with the sheer inventiveness of the Library.
"They can exercise in front of the Taihe Dien," Zaq said, the nearest he was prepared to get to a compromise.
"And in the outer city, Excellency?"
"The square," Zaq said firmly. "Then I can watch them from the Supreme Harmony Gate." He wouldn't, of course. In all his years as Chuang Tzu he'd only ever watched the troops on one occasion. He understood the levels of skill required, but had little personal interest in the use of weapons.
Smiling at the old man, Chuang Tzu touched him lightly on his shoulder and turned to go, leaving General Ch'ao Kai looking after him. Somehow his generals were always old, always bearded and dressed in elaborate armour that seemed to consist mostly of polished tortoiseshell and red ribbon. Red was the colour of luck and given the amount used in the Forbidden City, Zaq should have been very lucky indeed.
"Majesty..." The voice came down the corridor behind him and the fact it was aimed at his back was such a breach of court etiquette that Ch'ao Kai had to be truly desperate. Zaq could stop or he could keep walking and send a clear sign that he did not choose to hear what the General was so desperate to say.