"Then we do nothing, sir?"
"Nothing until we hear from our contacts. But I want us to be ready, so IVe arranged something. It'll mean that we'll have a squad down there, under the Net in Munich Canton, when news comes. It'll allow us to get to them at once. I've put Fest in charge. He has strict orders to take the men alive if possible. You and Hans Ebert will make up the squad."
Haavikko hesitated, then asked, "What are we to do down there?"
Tolonen laughed. "Until you're called on, nothing. You can treat it as a paid holiday. Ebert knows the place quite well, apparently. I'm sure he'll find something for you to do. But when the call comes, be there, and fast. All right?"
Haavikko bowed his head. "Anything else, sir?"
"Yes. One last thing. I want you to make a list."
"Sir?"
"I want you to compile a list of all those who might have planned this; anyone who might conceivably have been involved. Not just those with a clear motive, but anyone who might have had the right contacts."
"Anyone?"
The General nodded sternly. "Leave no one out, however absurd it might seem."
The cadet bowed deeply, then clicked his heels together. "Sir."
Alone again, Tolonen stood, then went to the window. Far below, the wide moat of the Security Fortress seemed filled with an inky blackness. In the early-morning light the two watch-towers at the far end of the bridge threw long, thin shadows across the apron of the spaceport beyond.
He would not act. Not yet. For a while he would trust to instinct and let Wyatt be. See if Wyatt's name appeared on Haavikko's list. Wait for DeVore to gather something more substantial than the tattle of Above. Because deep down he didn't believe that Wyatt was involved.
He turned back to his desk, putting his fingers lightly to the intercom pad.
His secretary answered at once. "General?"
"Play me that tape again. Major DeVore and Under Secretary Lehmann. The part where Lehmann talks about suffocating and bad blood. A few lines, that's all."
"Yes, General."
He turned back to the window, looking down. As he watched, a tiny figure emerged from the shadow and marched quickly but unhurriedly across the bridge. It was DeVore.
Major DeVore was a clever officer. A good man to have on your team. There was no fooling him; he saw things clearly. Saw through the appearance of things. And if he believed that Lehmann wasn't involved ...
"The tape's ready, General."
"Good," he said, not looking round; continuing to watch the figure far below. "Let me hear it."
Lehmann's voice filled the room, urgent and passionate.
"Were suffocating, Howard! Can't they see that? Biting at the leash! Even so, violence . . . Well, that's a different matter. It hurts everyone and solves nothing. It only causes bad blood, and how can that help our cause? This—this act... all it does is set us back a few more years. It makes things more difficult, more—"
The voice cut out. After a moment the General sniffed, then nodded to himself. He had heard the words a dozen, maybe two dozen times now, and each time they had had the power to convince him of Lehmann's innocence. Lehmann's anger, his callousness, while they spoke against him as a man, were eloquent in his defense in this specific matter. It was not how a guilty man behaved. In any case, he was right. How would this serve him? Li Shai Tung would merely appoint another minister. Another like Lwo Kang.
Down below, DeVore had reached the far end of the bridge. Two tiny figures broke from the shadow of the left-hand tower to challenge him, then fell back, seeing who it was. They melted back into the blackness and DeVore marched on alone, out onto the apron of the spaceport.
The General turned away. Perhaps DeVore was right. Perhaps Wyatt was their man. Even so, a nagging sense of wrongness persisted, unfocused, unresolved.
"I'm tired," he said softly to himself, sitting himself behind his desk again. "Yes, tiredness, that's all it is."
"Wait outside, at the junction. You know what he looks like?"
The Han nodded. "Like my brother."
"Good. Then get going."
The Han did as he was told, closing the door behind him, leaving DeVore alone in the room. DeVore looked around, for the first time allowing himself to relax. Not long now. Not long and it would all be done. This was the last of it. He looked at the sealed bag on the floor by the bed and smiled, then sat on the end of the bed next to the corpse's feet.
The kwai, Chen, had been hard to kill. Stubborn. He had fought so hard for life that they had had to club him to death, as if strangling the man hadn't been enough. His head was a bloodied pulp, his features almost unrecognizable. The Han had enjoyed that. DeVore had had to drag him off.
Like animals, he thought, disgusted, promising himself he'd make the Han's death a particularly painful one.
For a while he sat there, head down, hands on knees, thinking things through. Then he looked up, looked about himself again. It was such a mean, shabby little place, and like all of this beneath the Net, it bred a type that matched its circumstances. This Kao Jyan, for instance; he had big dreams, but he was a little man. He didn't have the skill or imagination to carry off his scheme. All he had was a brash impudence; an inflated sense of self-importance. But then, what else could be expected? Living here, a man had no perspective. No way of judging what the truth of things really was.
He got up and crossed the room. Inset into the wall was an old-fashioned games machine. A ResTem Mark IV. He switched it on and set it up for wei chi; an eighth-level game, the machine to start with black.
For a time he immersed himself in the game, enjoying the challenge. Then, when it was clear he had the advantage, he turned away.
The General was sharper than he'd thought he'd be. Much sharper. That business with the dead maintenance engineer. His discovery of Kao Jyan and the kwai. For a moment DeVore had thought their scheme undone. But the game was far from played out. He'd let the General find his missing pieces. One by one he'd give them to him. But not until he'd done with them.
He glanced at the machine again. It was a complex game, and he prided himself on a certain mastery of it. Strange, though, how much it spoke of the difference between East and West. At least, of the old West, hidden beneath the levels of the Han City, the layers of Han culture and Han history. The games of the West had been played on similar boards to those of the East, but the West played between the lines, not on the intersecting points. And the games of the West had been flexible, each individual piece given breath, allowed to move, as though each had an independent life. That was not so in wei chi. In wei chi once a piece was placed it remained, unless it was surrounded and its "breath" taken from it. It was a game of static patterns; patterns built patiently over hours or days—sometimes even months. A game where the point was not to eliminate but to enclose.
East and West—they were the inverse of each other. Forever alien. Yet one must ultimately triumph. For now it was the Han. But now was not forever.
He turned from the screen, smiling. "White wins, as ever."
It had always interested him; ever since he had learned how much the Han had banned or hidden. A whole separate culture. A long and complex history. Buried, as if it had never been. The story of the old West. Dead. Shrouded in white, the Han color of death.
DeVore stretched and yawned. It was two days since he had last slept. He crossed the room and looked at his reflection in the mirror beside the shower unit. Not bad, he thought, but the drugs he had taken to keep himself alert had only a limited effect. Pure tiredness would catch up with him eventually. Still, they'd keep him on his feet long enough to see this through.