I discover that the goggles need some vestigial light, but I don’t dare use the flashlight that Sun Bin gave me. Deep inside the tunnel everything is pitch-black and I have to feel my way along the walls. I reason that if I can’t see with these state-of-the-art German goggles (made in China), neither can anyone else. I also remember that this tunnel leads directly to the door of the operating theater, which Zinna’s aide blew open. As I inch closer to it, I do not need visual clues. The stench of explosives, dust, blood, and guts is unmistakable. At the door itself I stumble over a body. There is no way of telling who it once belonged to, except that when I run my hand over it, I feel some long thick hair running through my fingers. I’m barely able to suppress the urge to flee: Panic Terror Claustrophobia. Any plausible excuse and I’m out of here.
When I inch my way into the operating theater, though, the goggles suffer overload and I have to rip them off. There is a single intense beam at the far end of the chamber, which is otherwise quite dark. Ever been scuba diving at night, DFR? Ever sink slowly down into that absolute liquid blackness that makes such a perfect proxy for everything terrifying, irresistible, and mysterious? If you have, you know how the mind goes when your underwater illumination focuses an intense lance of light into total blackness; it’s like a Buddhist concentration exercise with heavy gearing. And the cavern is so long the figures at the far end are miniaturized in exquisite detail. I can even see the single tooth poking out of Manu’s ripped lip as he bends over a figure strapped to a chair. In his big soldier’s fist he is holding a blade so fine it disappears when the light catches it head-on. It is wider than a normal scalpel, a wafer of steel designed to harvest facial skin.
Both Manu and his victim are frozen, however. Well, I guess the victim doesn’t have a lot of choice, but as I slowly draw my gun, knowing full well there’s no chance of hitting him from this distance, I see that Manu has not moved an inch since I entered. My first paranoid thought is that he heard me and is about to drop the scalpel and grab a rifle, against which I have no defense. But he’s not looking at me. He’s not looking down the room in my direction at all. Something else grabbed his attention just as I entered. He’s staring at a figure lying on a gurney next to Chan-I cannot be sure it’s him, of course, because the head is turned away; I just know it’s the inspector strapped to that chair and to my own shock I feel a weird, Chan-induced combination of horror, rage, and love. But what has caused the monster to pause in his black art if not me?
The three of us remain frozen in chiaroscuro, like in an old-style noir movie from the 1930s. I’m in a half crouch, pistol in both hands, elbows locked-a reflex of training, merely, and no use at all in this fix. And still Manu does not move, the glinting blade in his hand as steady as if gripped in a vice, those black shining eyes looking down the tunnel of light at the figure on the gurney. It is as if there has been an event too subtle to read, but too significant to ignore; something even more important than the theft of Chan’s face. Then the figure on the gurney gives a groan that echoes through the cavern and makes the slightest movement of a hand. It is a beautiful fine female hand, every detail visible. I know that hand. I even share Manu’s heartfelt care as he drops the scalpel, which clinks twice on the concrete floor, and goes to her.
Now is my chance. With gun at arm’s length I dash down the chamber to a point where I can be sure of hitting him.
“FREEZE.”
I might as well have yelled at a rock. I’m not sure he even heard me, despite that my scream echoes off the walls. I stare openmouthed as the monster picks up the figure from the gurney. As he does so I see that the back of Om’s head has been smashed by something and her hair is thick with blood. And now comes the miracle: tears flow from those flinty black eyes and down the insensate cheeks as with infinite care he clasps her to him. She opens her eyes for a second, recognizes him, lifts a hand, finds the strength to caress his face once, then lapses into unconsciousness.
There’s no question of firing now, because of the risk to Om-and because Manu pays me no heed. I might as well be a figure from a different dimension with a limited curiosity value but no power or influence. I have walked the full length of the cavern, and I’m right up next to him, maneuvering to reach Chan, who is strapped to some high-tech medical chair with his head and face held rigidly in a steel device with parallel struts and gleaming stainless-steel bolts. It is a simple matter to undo the bolts and the straps, all the while keeping my eyes on Manu, with my pistol at the ready.
“Don’t kill him,” are Chan’s first words.
I had been too busy dividing my attention between his bonds and Manu’s likely next move to notice what work the monster surgeon had already performed. Chan registers the sudden shock on my face before I’m able to dissemble.
“How bad is it?” he whispers.
“Anyone else would grow a beard-you though-maybe you’ll start a new fashion. Better than tats and body piercings.”
There is an exquisitely thin red line that runs with impressive precision the full circumference of the inspector’s face, across the forehead just below the hairline, under the jaw and all the way sround in a circle; I guess faces can be removed like gloves when you’ve been trained by experts.
The inspector touches the incision with a finger and stares at the blood. “I’m disgustingly grateful to be alive,” he mutters. “Given time I might even forgive you for robbing me of my consummation.”
“What happened to Om?” We communicate in those extrasoft intense whispers that television naturalists use when they get up close and personal with dangerous animals.
“The girl? Those clumsy bastards used too much explosive. Bits of iron flew all over the place-one hit her in the head. Our friend went crazy. He’s the best and fastest shot I’ve ever seen. They didn’t have a chance, not even that young soldier. I tell you, I’ve never seen anything like it. No ordinary man can shoot like that. He saved me because he wanted my face. He was sure the girl was dead. So was I. She isn’t going to live long, though. Not with that much skull missing.”
We are both fixated on Manu, who has not stopped staring at Om’s unconscious face as he holds her in his arms. For a second the fascination of what he will do next quite eclipses fear. When he starts to turn toward us, though, I bring my gun up to a firing position. Chan holds my arm and shakes his head, even as Manu stares at us for a moment.
Telepathy is a curious phenomenon. Suddenly I know exactly what he is going to do, and so does Chan. I experience a despair that cuts deeper than anything a human can be expected to endure. But he does endure. He turns, quite as if we are not there, and carries her to the door where I entered. As soon as he has passed through to the tunnel, Chan finds a fuse box and the underground room is filled with harsh neon light. The bodies of Zinna (a single bullet in the forehead); his assistant, who managed to draw a pistol (stomach ripped open by a spray from an automatic of some kind); the Yips (one in a lake of blood from a heart wound, the other covered in fresh pink blood from the lungs); and the two Americans, also caught in a third-world disaster straight out of farang horror mytholgy. All dead. We have to step over them to enter the tunnel, which is now illuminated. We catch up with Manu, who is still carrying the wreckage of his love. I draw my gun again. Again Chan stops me.
“He’s going to kill her,” I say, suddenly angry.
“It’s what she wants, fool,” Chan says.
His words send a shiver down my spine, because of their surgical accuracy. I draw a breath. “Yes,” I say, “I suppose.”
After a few minutes we see the bright rectangle of the far doorway. When we reach the garage, we follow Manu up the stairs into the house.