"Like a stack?" Chang laughed, then grew serious again. "No. You want a straight answer, right?"
"Right."
"Okay . . . They were killed. Butchered in their sedan. They'd gone to a charity ball run by that new group, you know, the New Conscience Movement. Seems like they were targeted. A terrorist cell took them in the lift coming up. The death by a thousand cuts. Very messy, so I'm told."
Kim nodded, sobered by the story. He looked to his right up the broad main stairs, then turned, looking through to the kitchens. It was all very dour and ostentatious. It simply trumpeted its wealth. Moreover, the place was huge. One could have a hundred children here and still not fill it. Even so, it didn't have to stay like this. With a little imagination he could make something of it—turn part of it into a research center, another of the wings into a lab complex. After all, money was no object now. He could do pretty much as he wanted.
Yes, he thought, but what would ]elka say? What does she want?
For a moment the absurdity of his situation almost made him laugh. Here he was, looking round a First Level Mansion—a place worth, what, a hundred, a hundred and fifty million yuan?—that was his, gratis, if he said yes, and the only thing stopping him was whether a young woman he hadn't seen in seven years—and who he couldn't be sure even remembered him—would like to live there.
He huffed out a breath, exasperated with himself, then looked at Chang again. "Okay. I'll take it. But I want to make changes. That's possible, I assume?"
Chang beamed. "As far as we're concerned, Shih Ward, you can burn the place down and start again from scratch. What you pay for is the deck itself. The Mansion"—he made a dismissive gesture—"you could replace this for ... oh, twenty million?"
"As little as that, huh?"
Chang nodded, unaware, it seemed, of the irony in Kim's voice. "Naturally, should you wish to make changes, we could put you in touch with the very best construction technicians. Craftsmen, they are. Why—"
"Thank you, Shih Chang, but I think I've seen enough. Draw up the papers and send them to Director Reiss. If I wish to see the place again I'll know who to speak to, neh?"
Chang smiled, then handed Kim his card. "Just press the reverse and it'll put you in direct contact."
Kim stared at it with a professional interest, then pocketed it. He was about to turn away, when it came back to him what he'd meant to ask earlier.
"By the way . . . about the previous owners. What group was it that attacked them?"
The smile faded from Chang's face. "It was the Hand. The Black Hand. No one else is so audacious. Why, I'm told—" He stopped, realizing he had overstepped the mark, then bowed. "Forgive me, Shih Ward. I don't want to keep you."
Kim nodded, then walked out and across to his sedan. Yet as he climbed inside he was thinking of all he'd heard recently. There was no doubting it, they were living in troubled times. Society had changed. Once it had been driven by the simple mechanics of the levels—of aspiration and demotion. Life had been a giant game of snakes and ladders. But now . . . now society was fear driven. All of these guns and guards and laser-tracking devices were signs of a deeply paranoid culture. So paranoid that it was now quite normal to assume the worst—to assume that your enemies would come and get you in your bed.
He sat, feeling suddenly heavy boned and tired. Paranoia ... it was the philosophy of the Clay, of the place from which he'd come. Upwards he'd climbed and ever upward, until he'd found himself here, at the very top of the City, beneath the roof, like a bird in a loft of an old house, fluttering about, trying to get out. But there was no way out. And slowly, very slowly, the darkness was climbing after him. Up and up it came. And what guns and trackers would keep it out? What precautions could ever be enough?
As the sedan lifted he sat back, shaking his head angrily.
It was Ravachol's death that had made him think all this. That and Chang's foolish prattling. So a few rich people had died . . . hadn't that always been the way? Wasn't history filled with such instances? Yes, but that made it no more comforting, for the signs were clear now—there for the dullest man to read.
The sedan shuddered slightly, then began its swaying motion.
Li Yuan was right. They had to act now or go under. But what action could prevent the coming crisis? What measures could assure their children's futures?
Yes, and that was the nub of it, wasn't it? For what was the point in loving someone—in pursuing and possibly marrying them—if it were all to come to nought?—if society were to crumble away and the species end itself in a frenzy of bloodlust?
Why take the risk of loving and having children when the risks were so high, the rewards of love so tentative? Why make oneself a hostage to the times?
Because you have no choke. Because you love her and want her and—-and because if you don't try you'll never forgive yourself.
And because nothing else mattered. Nothing.
"Rachel?"
Emily gave a little start, then turned, regaining her composure. For a second she had forgotten who she was—had been thrown by the use of her assumed name. She had been daydreaming: thinking about Michael, wondering where he was, what he was doing.
"What is it?" she asked half challengingly, staring back at the tall, pockfaced Hung Mao who stood there, an arm's length from her.
Pasek smiled coldly, then moved past her, looking out from the balcony across the crowded Main below. His dark Slavic eyes passed briefly across the ragged awnings, the packed mass of unwashed and shabby humanity that crowded the floor between the stalls, dismissing what he saw.
"I thought we ought to talk."
Emily felt her stomach muscles tighten with aversion. "Talk?"
He turned back. "Sure. We need to clear the air between us."
She was silent, uncertain what to say.
Pasek's smile was like a sneer. "You don't like me, Rachel DeValerian. I know that. I can see it even now. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that we don't let it get in the way of things."
"I don't see—"
He raised one pale, thin hand, interrupting her. "There are going to be changes."
She stared at the dark leather band about his wrist. On it was a copy of the symbol he wore on a silver chain about his neck. A cross within a circle.
"Changes?"
His smile evaporated. The eyes were brutal now. "It's already happening. A purge. Those we can't trust. I ordered it."
"You . . ." She fell silent, understanding. He'd had Chou Te-hsing killed. Yes, and all his deputies. All except her. She looked up, meeting his eyes. "Why?"
"Because it was time. We were drifting. We needed a new direction. Chou had no idea. He had to go."
She nodded, not because she agreed, but because she saw it all clearly now—saw why he'd pressed to have his men placed in key strategic positions; why he'd held his tongue in the last council meeting when Chou had spelled out the new program. You planned this, she thought, all of her instincts about the man confirmed in an instant. He'd known then that it didn't matter what Chou said or didn't say at that meeting; knew then that, come this morning, Chou would be dead, his power base in the Black Hand destroyed. Pasek had taken over. He was the Black Hand.
"What do you want?"
His hand went to the cross hanging about his neck. "I want you to join us. Become one of the sealed."
She made to answer him, but he spoke over her. "Oh, I know you don't believe. That doesn't matter. Not now, anyway. Right now what matters is that we consolidate. Make sure the Hand doesn't tear itself apart. There'll be a lot of ill feeling. Chou had a lot of support at grass roots level. People respected him. Wrongly, as it turns out, but that's by the by. As for you, Rachel, you're respected too. Rightly so. I've watched you for a long time and I like what I've seen. There are no illusions about you. You get on with things. It's as if you've seen it all before. Nothing shocks you. Even this. I saw how quickly you understood how things stood—how quickly you accepted them, and I like that. I'd be sorry to lose you."