"Your daughter was away when the attack happened. The boy . . ." Chiang swallowed and looked down. "I am afraid the boy was taken."
Tolonen shuddered.
Li Yuan stepped to him and held his arm. "You must go, Knut. At once. I shall explain things to Tsu Ma. Take Karr. And, Knut?"
"Chieh Hsia?"
"Do whatever you need to. But get him back, neh?"
Karr shrugged. "We'll know soon. They're obtaining backup camera material right now. If any exists, that is. . . ."
"But Lo Chang . . ." Tolonen shook his head. "I can't believe Lo Chang was involved in this!"
It's always those we least expect, Karr thought, but aloud he said, "We don't know that yet, Marshal. They may have taken him, too ... to have someone there the boy knows. They do that sometimes."
But Tolonen was shaking his head. "The Lo I knew would have died before he let them take the boy. He would have fought to the death."
Yes, but he didn't—so either he was involved, or ...
"Did Steward Lo have any family?"
Tolonen nodded distractedly, then saw what Karr was saying. "I've the details in my study."
Karr followed him through, then waited while the Marshal accessed his records.
"Here," Tolonen said, turning the screen toward him.
Karr looked at it, then undipped his communicator. "It's Colonel Karr. Get me Central Security. . . ."
He gave them the details, then looked back at the Marshal.
"They'll let me know as soon as they've checked it out. It'll take them ten minutes maximum."
Tolonen looked away, sniffing deeply, clearly struggling to maintain his composure.
"We'll find him," Karr said. "We'll get him back."
Tolonen nodded, but he seemed unconvinced.
Karr hesitated. "Forgive me, Marshal, but we need to put someone in charge of this investigation. How about Major Haavikko?"
The mention of Haavikko's name seemed to bring the Marshal back to himself. "Yes . . . Good man, Haavikko. If anyone can do the job . . ." Tolonen offered Karr a smile that was closer to a grimace. "Saved my life once." He held up his golden arm. "That's when I lost this. . . ."
Karr nodded, but he was thinking of what the duty captain had said when they'd first arrived. There had been no sign of a forced entry and no alarm had been sent. Which meant that whoever had done this had either been known to the guards at the gate, or ...
No. Now, that was being paranoid.
Tolonen was staring at him. "What is it, Gregor?"
"Security. The men who did this . . . they were Security. An elite squad. They'd have had proper passes, a reason to be her& They'ti have
KARR watched the old man walk from room to room, disturbed by the vulnerability, the unexpected frailty, he glimpsed in that normally rock-hard face. He had always considered Tolonen a cold, heartless man, but watching him crouch over the shrouded body of a female servant, seeing him lift the white sheet and wince, real hurt, real pain, in his eyes, made Karr reevaluate all he knew about him. This had hit him hard. Had shaken him to the core.
Tolonen straightened up, scratching at his neck with the fingers of his flesh-and-blood hand, then looked across at Karr.
"Where's he gone, Gregor? Where have they taken him?"
known the layout and known how to erase all the security camera tapes."
"No." Tolonen shook his head, but his eyes said yes. After all, who else could have got in so easily? Who but one of the T'ang's own elite teams? His Shen T'se . . .
Karr shuddered, then undipped his communicator and spoke into it once more.
"Central Security? Karr here. Look, were any of the Shen T'se teams out this morning? . . . Two of them, huh? And have they reported in?"
He waited, meeting Tolonen's eyes, both men quite certain now.
"No sign of it, huh? I see. Look, send me full details. Faces, files, psych profiles, the lot. To the Ebert Mansion . . . that's right. Use Marshal Tolonen's code."
He closed the circuit.
"So," Tolonen said quietly. "All we need to know now is who they're working for, where they've taken him, and what they want."
"Haavikko . . ." Karr said, feeling useless suddenly. "Let me contact Haavikko."
Tolonen laughed gruffly. "We have to keep busy at times like these, neh, Gregor? It doesn't pay to think too much."
Karr stared back at the old man a moment, feeling a new respect for him, then nodded and made the call.
JELKA ARRIVED BACK twenty minutes later. In the interim news had come that Lo Chang's family were gone. They had left home the previous evening and had vanished without a trace. Tolonen had taken the news badly, but the sight of his daughter at the door, safe but bewildered, brought a broad grin to his face. He went to her, hugging her tightly, almost lifting her off her feet.
"Jelka, my darling. Thank the gods you're safe! For a moment I thought . . ." He kissed her face and held her tight again. Then, as if remembering, he held her at arm's length from him.
"You've heard?"
She nodded.
Slowly his face collapsed. There was a sudden tremor in his voice. "If he's dead ..."
She held him to her, patting his shoulder, comforting him. "He's not dead. Not our Pauli. We'll find him. You know we will."
She looked past her father at Karr, who looked down, embarrassed yet also moved by this show of emotion.
"Where were you?" Tolonen asked after a moment.
"I went to see a friend," she said, her eyes concerned for him. "They must have seen me leave. I couldn't have been gone more than five minutes. If I'd been here"—she swallowed and looked down guiltily— "I would never have let them in. Not without contacting you first."
"I know," the old man said, caressing his daughter's face.
Karr, however, was staring at her. "You knew they were Security?"
She moved away from her father, her blue eyes meeting Karr's clearly. "Who else could it be?"
"Aiya," Tolonen said, staring down at the golden fingers of his left hand as if at any moment they might reach up and tear at his throat. "All this betrayal . . ." He groaned. "Who would have thought?"
But Jelka wasn't listening to him. Her eyes had flown open. She turned to face her father again. "Where's Golden Heart?"
Tolonen reached out to her, his granite face distressed, tears beginning to trickle down his cheeks.
"She's dead, my love. They broke her neck. So Pauli—Pauli's ours now. Ours alone. So we've got to get him back, neh? We've got to bring him home, where he belongs."
"Kim?"
Kim lifted the bulky glasses from his eyes, then looked up at the screen. "Andrew? What is it?"
"You've a visitor," Curval said, smiling down at him. "Guy name of Neville from Product Development. Says he knows you."
"Sure. I met him a week or so back. What does he want?"
"Says he wants to speak to you ... off the record."
Kim huffed. It would mean going through decontamination again— stripping off one suit and putting on another. For a moment he hesitated, half determined to send Neville away, his tail between his legs. Then he relented.
"Okay. Tell him I'm coming out."
Five minutes later Kim stepped from the tank and, still dripping, made his way through to the reception area. Neville was seated on the far side, reading one of the Company news sheets. Seeing Kim, he got up quickly and came across.
"Kim, I ... well, I didn't plan to see you, but I was passing by and I thought . . ." His eyes took in Kim's condition, smelled the powerful cleansing agents. "Oh, shit. Look, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were—"
Kim laughed. "It's all right. Do you want to come through? I'm afraid I can't spare you long. I'm busy right now. We've begun reassembling the Model B cranium."
Neville's eyes lit up. "Could I see that?"
Kim hesitated, then nodded. "You'll have to suit up, though. The tiniest trace of infection and we're done for."