“A war?”Cho nodded, then looked down.
And then it struck Li Yuan. “Oh, shit! Han Ch’in!”
Kim followed K. into the lift, a sense of real urgency gripping him. He had seen the pictures on the news screens in the lobby of the apartment block, and heard the commentary, and knew now that time was running out for them. As the doors slid closed behind them, he looked up at the screen in the corner of the lift, then spoke to the air “Channel 96. With sound.”
At once it switched to the news channel, showing the latest pictures from outside the Eight Dragons Hotel.
“... and whilst the woman cannot be immediately recognised after falling thirty-eight storeys, it has been confirmed by eyewitnesses that she was naked and that, according to one, she appeared not to scream as she fell.” The image cut to the view from a news glider, positioned in line with the shattered window of the Presidential Suite. Armed men were gathered in that window, blocking any view into the room, but that only served to stoke up speculation.
“It is now almost twenty minutes since the incident, and still no word has come from President NeweE’s spokesman, or indeed the President himself, about the affair, but it has now been confirmed that earlier reports from their office that the President was at a reception in Ching Shang Park were erroneous, and that President Newett was not seen by anybody at that reception. Which leads us to ask just what has been going on at the Eight Dragons Hotel, and what are the implications for relations between America and China if-as rumours have it -President Newell has been assassinated. It must be recalled that no American President has ever been murdered in a foreign country...” The lift stopped. The doors slid open silently. Ahead of them lay their corridor. Their door was the third on the left. K. looked to Kim as they stepped out onto the plushly carpeted floor. “I’d say the shit’s really hit the fan, wouldn’t you?”
“So what do we do now?”
K. stopped in front of their door and took the door key from his pocket.
“Simple. We get Karr and Chen and Ebert. And then we get the bastard.”
“And the markets?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
K. turned the key and began to open the door. “On whether we can get back in time. If we can get back in an hour...” He stopped dead. Kim, following him in, cannoned into the back of him, then blinked, astonished by the sight that met his eyes.
The hoop of fire was gone. And DeVore... Kim swallowed ... DeVore was sitting on the bed, a semi-automatic in one hand. He beckoned them in with the other hand, then grinned.
“I’d say that was a rather big if, wouldn’t you?”
CHAPTER-23
time’s last hour
The storm had passed. Ragged clouds drifted about the edge of the great depression in the earth. Only an hour back the dark earth had steamed; now a great carpet of white flowers covered it; lilies, their tall, elegant white throats turned to the sky, spilling oxygen into the air. Fifty kilometres away, to the south of the ruined generator, the sun shone on a different scene. On the gentle slope of a wooded hill, a cruiser lay on its side, its port wing crumpled, smoke wisping up from its damaged engine. The hatch was open, the inside of the craft in darkness. Nearby, hidden beneath the trees, the entrance of a cave gaped black. Silence. Not even the call of birds or insects. And then, far off, a muted drone, growing louder by the moment.
A second cruiser, smaller than the first, flew over the valley, its shadow flitting over the canopy of the trees. It banked then circled back, slowing until it hovered over the fallen craft Then, edging back and across, it descended, settling in a patch of meadow by the stream at the foot of the valley.
The engines died. There was a hiss as the hatch opened; the dank of booted feet upon the ramp.
Daniel stood there a moment, squinting out at the wooded hillside through the visor of his helmet, his senses twitching, then he jumped down and began to make his way up the slope towards DeVore’s cruiser.
They had beaten him. They had destroyed his army and broken his power. Now only DeVore himself was left Coming closer to the cruiser, Daniel stopped and crouched, looking between the narrow boles of the trees at the craft It seemed abandoned. There was the fizz and pop of electrics shorting, then, incongruously, a snatch of music.
Daniel blinked, then understood. Music. DeVore had been playing music even as he fled from them.
He moved forward, slowly, cautiously, his gun raised, the barrel covering the hatch.
The music flared up momentarily, the great sweeping sound of strings briefly filling the valley, then cut out.
The smell of burning circuitry was stronger now. To his left the tree cover was broken, the hillside gouged up where the craft had landed. Daniel stopped, his eyes narrowed, taking that in. DeVore was some pilot to have landed his damaged craft without destroying it But why here? Why go down here?
A voice started in his head. Emily’s voice. “Daniel? What’s happening there?
Daniel? Do you read me, Daniel?”
Daniel switched it off. The cruiser was less than ten paces from him. He raised his visor, listening intently. Nothing. Nothing but the faint crackle of burning circuits.
Silently he crossed the narrow space, keeping to the left of the open hatch. Now that he was closer, he could see that the hatchway had been forced. The ramp, which ought to have emerged automatically when the hatch was opened, had jammed. The whole side of the craft had buckled when it came down.
Daniel turned, looking at the ground beneath the hatch, and saw them at once.
Footprints, leading away up the slope.
His eyes followed their line.
Daniel hesitated, then tongued the switch. “Listen,” he said, speaking into the open channel. “I’m at the craft. There’s a cave nearby. I think that’s where he went. I’m going to investigate.”
Emily’s voice came back at him at once. “Daniel? I know you can hear me, so listen. Stay where you are. Don’t do anything until I get there.” Daniel’s tongue brushed the switch but did not turn it off. He itched to go inside and get the bastard, to put a bullet through his head and end it all, but Emily was right; it made no sense to take risks. Not now that they’d come this far.
“Okay,” he said. ‘Til wait.”
“Good,” came the reply. “And Daniel... you’ve done well.” Daniel smiled, relaxing momentarily. None of them had slept these past twenty-four hours. A combination of drugs and adrenaline had kept them going. And now they were close. Close to a victory that had seemed impossible only a few days back. Even so, they would be leaving soon. Leaving and never coming back.
The simple thought of it surprised him, making the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, because until that moment it had all seemed academic - something that might happen if they beat DeVore. But now it was close. Why, if he closed his eyes he could see it Could picture the earth, swathed in flowers, white beneath the sun, white beneath the moon. And silent. A silence broken only by the sound of the wind, the inward rush of waves breaking on an empty shore. Daniel shivered, then spoke: “And when the lamb opened the seventh seal, silence covered the sky.”
“Daniel?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Those words ... where did you hear them?’
“I don’t know. I...” And then he remembered. Remembered sitting there at his desk in the library, back in the training camp. “It was in a book I read. It was written by a man named Pasek...”
He felt as much as heard the sigh that echoed in his helmet “I knew him,” Emily said. “He was in the Black Hand with me. Back before he created The Sealed.” And now Pasek was dead. Yet the world he had foreseen had come to pass. A world without men.