“Obviously they’re insane,” Lea said, “but that doesn’t mean they’re delusional, Professor Freud. Two different things.”
“But what would you do if you could live forever?” asked Lexi. “If you could take a sip of magical water and never die?”
Bradley sat down and ran a hand over the stubble on his head. “Knowing Hawke here, he’d probably fall in the water and drown.”
“Immortality gags, eh, Bradley?” Lea said. “They never get old, right?”
“Oh, you’re a funny one,” Karlsson said flatly. “I can see that now. I couldn’t before, but I can see it now that you’ve had more time to be funny like that.”
“The fact you make jokes about this tells me you are not ready for this fight,” Han said, waking from his sleep. “This is no joking matter. I am entrusted with the most ancient of secrets, and I take it very seriously.”
“Talking of which,” Karlsson said, “What’s in that little box — the manuscript? Is that what you’re going to show your buddy in Beijing?”
“Dr Jenny Tsao is not my buddy, she is now the only person in the world who can read the code, and I am the only man in the world who knows how to access the code. It has always been this way — two Keepers of the Truth — for hundreds of years.”
There was a long silence and then Hawke turned his head back to the window and closed his eyes. He had no idea when he might get the next chance to grab a few minutes of sleep.
Ryan Bale was in his element, knee-deep in earthquake research and anything else he could find on Tesla and the various conspiracy theories attached to him. Now he was going through a file of documents General McShain had emailed over to him on the subject. They were heavily encrypted but McShain had given Ryan access to the decryption matrix.
“Not that I needed it,” Ryan boasted.
“Yeah, right…” Sophie said as she studied the Tesla research for a moment.
Ryan smiled. “For all its beauty I don’t think this is a particularly complex code.”
Sophie smiled. She could fall in love with this man. “That’s what I was thinking. If you look here at the first line it’s pretty obvious they’re using a rudimentary substitution system.”
“Yes, exactly, and… you’re messing with me, right?”
She nodded. “It’s just so easy. I don’t know why you can’t admit that you needed McShain’s matrix to read the files, c’est tout…”
“And… wait — what have we here?”
“What is it?”
“It's Victor Li in Hong Kong — he’s making a phone call, and thanks to when I put the tracking software in his phone we’re about to hear every word.”
“You can do that?” Hart asked.
Sophie shrugged casually. “Sure, there are hundreds of well-documented security holes in the Apple operating system. It’s easily done.”
“No, I meant you can do that, Ryan?”
Ryan ignored her and opened up the app on his laptop which he was using to track Victor Li’s phone calls. “I’m sure McShain’s files are very fascinating, but something tells me we’ll get more juice out of this.”
Seconds later they were listening to the gentle trill of a ringing cell phone.
“You think he’s calling Sheng?”
“Doubtful, but maybe one of this goons.”
Then two men began speaking in rapid Chinese.
“That’s about as helpful as a chocolate teacup, Ryan,” Hart said. “How are we supposed to know what’s going on. They could be talking about their favourite bloody noodle bar for all we know.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said, and activated a real-time translator. Moments later they were reading English subtitles running along the bottom of the app, translating Li’s words from Chinese into English in real-time.
“I don’t know who they are…” Li said in answer to a question. “But they’re trouble. Big trouble. They humiliated me in my club and really went to town on me, and if I ever get my hands on any of them…”
“He’s not happy with you,” said a woman’s voice. “I would leave China if I were you.”
“For how long?”
“Until you die.”
“Is that a threat? If that’s a threat maybe I’ll go to the embassy and tell them all about your plans with the stolen American hardware.”
“Now it sounds like you are threatening us. A big mistake. You heard about what happened to Johnny Chan?”
A long silence. “I’m sorry. I can be trusted to keep silent, of course. Is the Russian in China yet?”
“What do you know about the Russian?”
“Nothing. I just thought I could show him some Chinese hospitality.”
“I would concentrate more on staying alive. Don’t call me again.”
Then the line went dead.
“So what do we make of that?” Hart asked.
“Not much…” Ryan said, and sighed. “This Russian guy might be worth looking into, and then there’s the reference to the embassy. I’m guessing that means the Tesla device is no longer in China and that they intend to destroy a foreign city with it.”
“It could be anywhere!” Sophie said.
“Tell Hawke,” was all Hart said. “I need to clear my head.” She picked up her jacket and stepped out of the room.
Ryan emailed the information to Hawke and breathed a sigh of relief.
Sophie pulled her hair-tie out and unbuttoned her top. She began to massage Ryan’s shoulders. “I think maybe we need some down-time after all that hard work. “C’est une bonne idée, non?”
In the mirror, Ryan saw her glance at the bed.
He grinned. “Now you’re speaking my language!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After an extended and irritating period at Chinese customs during which Scarlet nearly head-butted an immigration official, they finally got out of the airport and back into the city. On the way, Hawke picked up the email Ryan had sent about Li’s intercepted phone call to the mysterious woman and briefed the others.
It didn’t take them long to track down Dr Jenny Tsao. Her home was on the outskirts of Beijing, in one of the more salubrious districts. Hawke, Lea and Han climbed the steps to the house while Scarlet, Lexi and Bradley Karlsson waited outside in their hired Mercedes SUV.
Dr Tsao turned out to be in her early seventies, and opened the door with a cup of tea in her hand and vintage jazz playing on a radio behind her. Steam rose from a pot on the stove in the kitchen behind her and Hawke smelled pork and star anise. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten a proper meal. Tsao saw Han and nodded sagely, gesturing for them to come in without saying a word. She spoke only when they were all gathered in the front room.
“I have waited for this moment all my life,” she said.
“I felt like that about iPhones,” said Lea.
Luckily, Tsao appeared not to have heard her, and instead approached Han. “So, you are younger than I thought you would be. I thought the Guardian of the Truth would be much older.”
“You are thinking of Wei Zheng. He died a year ago.”
Han handed the small box to Jenny Tsao with both hands and she opened it with great care. Inside was a gold ring. “A gift for you, Dr Tsao, from the Temple.”
“You are very kind.” She nodded again, a thin smile on her face. “Now, let me see the missing chapter.”
Slowly, Han turned and began to remove his shirt.
“Steady on!” Lea said, but before she could make another comment both she and Hawke realized what was happening. There, on the monk’s back, hundreds of tattooed Chinese characters glistened in the flickering candlelight.
“I don’t believe it!” Lea said.
“I know…” Hawke’s voice trailed away. “It’s amazing — that’s the missing chapter.”