Pasek shook his head. "You have to understand what you're taking on. You need to know what Lehmann's like, otherwise . . ." He spread his hands, palms upward.
"So what do I need to know? He torched a whole deck. Only a monster would do that."
"That's true. But it's useful to know the nature of the monster, neh? To know just what he's capable of."
"Torture. Mass death. You still in any doubt we should kill the man?"
"No doubt at all. But listen. The tape wasn't with Dieter, it was inside him. Lehmann had had him cut open and his innards scooped out like a grapefruit. Then they sewed him up and laid him on his bed, facedown. There was a message burned into the skin of his back."
Emily swallowed. She had known Dieter; not well, but enough to know he had been a good man. She hoped it had been quick; that he hadn't suffered the way the woman, Vierheller, had suffered. She shuddered, then forced herself to ask. "What did it say?"
Pasek sat back, lacing his fingers together. "You can look for yourself, if you want. His body's in the next room."
"Just tell me."
"He's very direct, our friend, Lehmann. He knows what he wants."
"Cut the shit. What did it say?"
Pasek's smile disturbed her. "Just four words. Don't fuck with me. Effective, wouldn't you say?"
She looked down, staring at the frozen image on the screen—at that pale, albinoid face with its awful slit of a mouth and its cold, unemo-tive eyes. Monsters . . . The times bred monsters. But this one surpassed them all.
She met Pasek's eyes again. "So what are we going to do? Just how are we going to get strong enough to take the bastard out?"
Pasek's smile broadened. He leaned toward her conspiratorially. "We're going to do what we should have done years back. We're going to make sure that the Hand's the coming force . . . the only force in the land. You understand?"
"War," she said quietly. War against the myriad other terrorist organizations; that was what he was talking about. A war to make the Black Hand not merely dominant but supreme.
"That's right," he said, nodding slowly, his eyes gleaming at the thought of it. "And then you can have that bastard. I promise you, Rachel. On my mother's memory. . . ."
THE door was LOCKED, the room in darkness. For hours now Pei K'ung had sat there, hunched forward, her hands gripping her knees, watching the holograms flicker in the air above the table—so real and yet so distant. She had seen her husband as a child, playing in the orchards of Tongjiang with his elder brother, Han, his round face laughing as he ran between the trees; had watched him on the day of his coronation as he stepped down from the Temple of Heaven, resplendent in his silks of imperial yellow, like a young god sent among them; had witnessed his grief at the news of his wives' deaths, then watched him clutch his baby son Kuei Jen to him, his face filled with disbelief and joy after the floating palace of Yangjing had been destroyed; had spied on him in his bridal bed and looked on as he stood at the window of his study, his face wistful as he watched the young maids play ball in the gardens.
So much she'd seen. So much she'd forced herself to witness.
Pei K'ung sighed, then clapped her hands. At once the room's lights came up, the hologram vanishing like a wraith. She stood, the blood pulsing at her temples, and reached out to steady herself.
Too much, she thought. 1 have seen too much.
She closed her eyes, trying to shut it out, to push it far away, but she could not help herself: she kept seeing it, time and again, Fei Yen lying on the bed beneath him, her arms opening to him, her tiny breasts like offerings, and his face . . .
She drew a sharp breath. Stupid, she thought, angry with herself; not merely that she had succumbed to the temptation, but that she'd acted so ... predictably.
"It's over," she told herself with more confidence than she felt. "It was over long ago. Those were just images. Fading memories."
Yes, and yet the sharp clarity of those images seemed to belie that fact. Looking at them she had felt her stomach tighten with jealousy— as if it had been only yesterday.
She went to the mirror and pointed a finger at herself accusingly.
"Stupid, Pei K'ung . . . How could you be so stupid!"
She should not have Jet the woman's taunts get to her. But now it was too late. Now she was infected by Fei Yen's image. She could not turn her head nor close her eyes without seeing the woman there in her husband's bed, there, moving slowly, sensuously, beneath him, then, as he climaxed, smiling triumphantly back at the recording lens, as if to mock her across the years!
"Damn you!" she said, not sure whether she meant Fei Yen or herself. She felt like punishing the woman—humiliating her in front of her servants—yet even a cast-off wife had her rights, her status, and besides, she would need Li Yuan's permission before she did such a thing, and how could she possibly do that?
She turned, then went quickly to the door, unlocking it and throwing it open.
"Mistress?" the waiting Steward asked, bowing low.
"Send my maids," she said. "I shall bathe before dinner."
She went back inside, composing herself. Li Yuan had already gone—he would be at Tsu Ma's within the hour—but still her duties claimed her. With her husband gone she would sit at the head of his table, entertaining whichever guests remained. But there was an hour and forty minutes before then.
She heard footsteps in the corridor outside. A moment later both of her maids stood before her. They curtseyed breathlessly, "Mistress!"
"Run a bath," she said imperiously. "And lay out my clothes. Then leave me."
There was the briefest exchange of glances between them—for they were used to seeing to her every need—then, without a word, they set to work.
Pei K'ung went to the table, looking down at the golden cases of the holograms and shaking her head. When she had married him she had thought it would be simple, never guessing—never even suspecting— what he would awake in her.
She was not meant to be his mate, merely his helper. Her sexuality had been neutered by the marriage contract; she herself rendered into a false male—a female eunuch. She shuddered.
I should have stayed where I was. I was contented there. 1 knew my place. Here . . .
She sighed, then went across to the bathroom, watching one of them pour scent into the water and strew the surface with rose petals. Here I know nothing anymore. Only that I've changed. Finished, they bowed and backed away. She heard the door click shut, then spun around and went to her desk, activating the intercom. "Tsung Ye?"
She waited, then a voice came over the speaker. "Mistress?"
"Come to my rooms. Now." "Mistress."
Pei K'ung took her hand from the pad and straightened up. She was no longer young and she had never been beautiful, but she was Empress.
As she made her way back to the bathroom, her fingers reached up, unfastening the top button of her chi poo. She stretched her neck, relieved to be free of the tight-fitting collar, then felt for the button at her collarbone, pushing it through the eye.
There had been a brief time in her adolescence when she had hoped to be a bride, to be a woman in the fullest sense of the word. But the years had passed and no suitor had been found, and she had resigned herself to the fact that she would never have that other, secret life that most women had.
She let the chi poo slip from her, then stepped from her silk briefs, turning to face the mirror, naked now.
Forget that face, she told herself, knowing how horselike and masculine it was; look at the body.
She stood awhile, studying herself, reaching up to cup her breasts, then tracing the broad swell of her hips. Not bad, she thought, consider-