Jake Maroc - Shan Part 17

New York/Hong Kong/Was.h.i.+ngton/Moscow/ Beijing/Tokyo When he had heard the machine-gun fire and had seen Neon Chow running back from where Jake had pushed off in the walla-walla, Three Oaths had run back down the wharf to call the police. He had already determined that the gunfire had emanated from his junk, and he steeled himself for the worst.

His third cousin worked the night s.h.i.+ft as desk sergeant at Aberdeen and so the response to Three Oaths's call was quick. Three Oaths accompanied the four officers on the police launch as they threaded their way through the floating city.

Three Oaths stood, fidgeting, near the bow of the launch while just behind him the officers checked and rechecked their weaponry in much the same professional manner as had the three j.a.panese members of the dantai some time before.

The rain stippled the dark water, drummed against the hulls of the junks and launches. Three Oaths wiped it from his eyes. He saw Jake sitting hunched over a long shape shrouded in shadow as they boarded.

"Stay here," one of the officers hissed as Three Oaths identified Jake; he had already given them descriptions of the three family members he knew to be on board: Jake, Bliss and Zilin.

"Bliss!" Three Oaths fell to his knees as he recognized the supine shadow Jake clutched to him. "Oh! My bou-sehk." His trembling hands reached out to brush the slickened hair away from her face. His fingers came away b.l.o.o.d.y.

"Jake," he whispered. "Jake!"

"She needs a hospital, Elder Uncle." Jake's face was pale. His hooded copper eyes, normally so filled with inner fire, were colorless.

"Are you all right, Younger Nephew?"

"Yes." It was a whisper.

"And the Jian?"

Jake blinked. "My father," he began. His eyes stared at Three Oaths. "My father's life is ended."

"Ah, evil G.o.ds that foresaw this day!" Three Oaths' hands reached out again for his adopted daughter. It was an instinctive gesture, but no less important for that. The family had been diminished; now each member was that much more precious to him. "Did you see them, Jake? The a.s.sa.s.sins?"

Jake nodded. "I found them belowdecks. There were three of them. The damage they did was with Gion 30-09 machine pistols." He shook his head. "They were very good. Very professional. A dantai, I think."

How could he tell his uncle about his loss of ba-mahk? How could he explain the unexplainable? How could he express the burden of guilt weighing him down? He believed ba-mahk would have alerted him to the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt. It would have, at the very least, allowed him to dispatch the three a.s.sa.s.sins before they had a chance to hurt Bliss. He held her tighter.

"A hospital, Elder Uncle," he said. "We must get her to hospital."

"The police launch is here. They'll take her as quickly as can be managed." He raised his head as the police officers reappeared from out of the hatchways fore and aft.

"Three men dead," one of the officers said. Another was busy scribbling in a notebook. "Lots of blood. Place is pretty well broken up. Looks like machine guns were used all over belowdecks. Like a hurricane.

"Three men?" Three Oaths repeated. "Who?" The officers stared at him blankly and he returned his gaze to Jake. "Who were they?"

"We'll have to wait for that," the officer said. "We found nothing on their bodies that would be useful for identification purposes."

All G.o.ds great and small, Three Oaths thought. What am I doing standing here talking to these corrupt sons of idiot sea slugs? They know nothing and, even if they did, would tell me nothing. He stood, trying desperately to bring his emotions under control. "My daughter is in desperate need of medical attention, officer," he said in a brisk, businesslike tone. "If you will be good enough to take her to a hospital."

"What do you know about this incident, sir?" the officer with the pad said.

"Nothing," Three Oaths said. "What could I know? Nothing at all. Why do you ask me such an inane question?"

"Purely form, sir," one of the officers said. "We'll have to talk to your nephew. And to your daughter."

"Please," Three Oaths said. *That can all be done in the morning. Right now my daughter is unconscious. I have no idea how badly she is injured. My nephew is in shock. You have my word that everyone involved will give full and complete statements. But right now a"

The officer in charge looked from Jake to Bliss, and nodded. "All right." He gestured. "Take her up, boys. That's right. Easy now, easy. Watch her head there." He watched as they took Bliss down to the launch. He stepped up close to Three Oaths. "I should caution you not to disturb or touch anything on board until the forensic men from Special Branch arrive. Also, the coroner's people are on their way. You'll give them free access."

"Yes, of course."

The officer looked away. The searchlight on the launch silvered his wide Cantonese face. "My condolences. This is bad. Very bad indeed." He took a breath. Fumes from the launch's engines plumed upward hanging in the heavy night air. "Does your nephew require medical attention as well?"

"I'll take care of him," Three Oaths said. "Please see to my daughter."

The officer touched his cap; he was waiting for Three Oaths and Jake to move. Then he swung down onto the launch, the engine pitched downward as they cast off, and in a moment they were slicing the night.

"This really takes me back. There was a time when I couldn't afford any of these."

Tony Simbal looked at the paintings, displayed in their ornate gilt frames.

"This is the one."

It was a particularly aggressive Cezanne, the artist's palette knife slathering thick streams of pigment that took on a demented, almost physical aspect. Simbal did not understand it at all, nor did he like it.

"The thing that attracts me most to Cezanne," Max Threnody said, "is his treading on the brink of anarchy. To create an entire universe that is so chaotic, yet so well ordered, is extraordinary, don't you think?"

Threnody made some notes in the booklet he had been given when he had registered at the auction house on Wisconsin Avenue. "Didn't see much of you at the party the other night."

"Monica and I got to dredging up old times."

Threnody snapped the booklet shut and grinned. "Is that why my coat room was off limits for an hour or so?"

"I guess so."

"Let's get a seat, shall we?" They moved off to the bidding hall, where rows of gray metal folding chairs had been set up. The place was perhaps a quarter full.

"It didn't end well, I take it."

"It didn't end at all." The place was filling up fast. Threnody had been right to want to take seats.

"I suppose Monica told you that I was asking about Peter Curran," Simbal said.

Threnody opened his booklet, made some more notes. "Why would you think that Monica would tell me anything?" Threnody asked. "But now that you've brought it up, in your own clumsy wayI think we've got a problem."

Later, after he had missed buying the Cezanne when the bidding went unexpectedly high, they began to walk west, down toward the water. The afternoon was overcast, heavy for a late winter day. The wind off the Potomac was as cutting as it had been when snow had blanketed the city and people had been skidding on the ice.

Threnody, who wore an old loden coat more suitable for a student at nearby George Was.h.i.+ngton University, tucked his head down, like a turtle. "Now what's this sudden interest in Peter Curran?" he asked.

"You said before that you thought we had a problem. What kind of problem? Is it with Curran?"

"I wish," Max Threnody said, "that we could stop fencing."

"I don't work for you anymore, Max. The DEA no longer controls me.

"Yet here we are, together again. How do you explain that?"

Simbal relented. "I need information."

They had reached Virginia Avenue. They began to follow it northwest.

"If you don't come clean with me," Threnody said, "I don't see how I can help you. You know you can't con information out of me. And without access to the DEA computer you wouldn't be able to" He broke off abruptly. "Monica. The party." He nodded his narrow head. "I gave you the perfect opening, didn't I. I must be getting old."

"The thought had occurred to me," Simbal said, "to have Monica lead me back to the DEA computer. It didn't work out."

"I've got to give the girl credit. She's far from stupid. But her heart aches for you, Tony. G.o.d knows why, you're such a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Given time, she'd relent all right. But then I suppose she doesn't know you quite as well as I do."

"You don't have to sleep with me."

Threnody's eyes opened wide. "My goodness, does that mean she's more in tune with the real Tony Simbal?" His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

They had reached the southern edge of Rock Creek Park. From their vantage point they could see the dam at the point. Behind them the Watergate Hotel reared its plush and now infamous bulk.

Simbal was silent for a time. He watched the sluggish water, gray as a whale's back, and wondered why he couldn't think of a retort. "Will you help me or won't you, Max?"

"As you said, you don't work for me anymore."

There was something that Simbal had to work out, something going on here that he wasn't quite reading. It had been happening at the periphery of his awareness ever since they sat down at the auction. What?

"Maybe," Simbal said, "it's time we tried to be friends."

"I trusted you and then, when you came home from Burma you left the DEA because your college roommate called. Who said the British had the monopoly on old-boy networks."

They stopped then in the silence, staring at each other, absorbing what the other one had said.

A barge, invisible around the bend in the river, hooted and Simbal s.h.i.+vered. "Jesus," he said, "this sounds like a marriage gone bad."

"Maybe it is."

Simbal took a deep breath. "Can we end this animosity, Max? I'd really like to."

Threnody looked out along the river as if he expected to see the barge. At last he nodded. "That suits me." He put his hands together. Their backs were raw and red-looking. "I always admired you, Tony. You were my best operative. It hurt to lose you."

"I was restless, Max." Simbal took another deep breath. "That's all."

"Sure." Threnody nodded with a kind of positive force. "We all have to move on. It's part of life."

They walked on in silence for a time. A pair of business types in sweats came jogging by. "Christ, but they make me feel old," Threnody said.

"Peter Curran is your resident diqui expert, right?" Simbal said.

"Alan Thune was murdered in New York last week while on his way to a routine rdv with his regular contact. I figure Curran knows more than I do about the diqui's current activities."

"I can't figure your interest." His pop eyes were always weepy in the wind. He wiped at them now with the handkerchief. "Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't you be leaving the diqui to us and the SNITs." He was speaking of the CIA's Strategic Narcotics Team.

"The diqui's just part of the beat Donovan's a.s.signed me. Southeast Asia. He wants to know everything and, if it's moving, why, how and where to. So how about you setting up a meet between me and Curran?"

"That's hardly possible now," Threnody said, staring hard at Simbal. "Peter Curran has been terminated."

In this warm light her skin was as tawny as a cat's. With her thick sheaf of blond hair and her cool gray eyes she could have been an enchantress. Lorelei, or, perhaps more accurately, Circe, for to Mikhail Carelin there was a quality about Daniella's beauty that seemed descended from ancient Greek legend.

Carelin, an ardent student of history, saw in her aspects he a.s.sociated with the peoples of Asia Minorthe Mesopotamians, a.s.syrians, Babylonians. She did not, in any case, possess a modern face. Her chiseled features were straight out of antiquity; he often joked with her that she was the reincarnation of some ancient queen.

"I am Russian," she would say. "I don't know anything about Babylonia or a.s.syria."

One time when she said this, he thrust a book into her hands. "What's this?" she said. "I don't have time to read."

"It's a history on the military career of Alexander the Great," he said. "I think you should make the time to read it."

"Why?"

"Because he tried to conquer the entire civilized world," he said. "And d.a.m.n near succeeded."

Carelin believed that Daniella wanted to conquer the entire civilized world. "These days," he said, "one needs more help than Alexander had in his time." He believed that she was overly ambitious and that this traitwhich, in Daniella's opinion, was what made her strong and resilient in a man's worldwas also her hubris. "From the Greek, hybris," Carelin said to her, "meaning arrogance. The dictionary defines hubris as exaggerated pride or self-confidence"

"What's wrong with that?" she had countered.

"often resulting in retribution."

She had shut up then, thinking of Oleg Maluta. It had been because of Uncle Vadim that she had first met Oleg Maluta socially. Uncle Vadim liked her to come to Leningrad at the end of December. The other members of the family a.s.sumed that was because it was the best time of the year for Daniella.

Only she and Uncle Vadim knew the true reason. Daniella's mother had been a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. This she had to keep a secret from Daniella's father. Uncle Vadim was a member as well and he liked Daniella to be with him at Christmastime.

It was in Leningrad that Daniella had first met Oleg Maluta. She had just been named to the Politburo where Maluta was already a senior member. Uncle Vadim had arranged the dinner at the Del'Fin, one of the floating restaurants in front of the Admiralty. Of course at that time of the year the Neva River was frozen solid. Though, at fifty miles, the Neva was one of the world's shortest rivers, its current was so strong that there was little salt content in the gulf near the city. Therefore, it was usually frozen all winter long, from the beginning of December through May.

"This man can help you, Da.n.u.shka," she remembered Uncle Vadim saying on the way to the Del'Fin. "If he takes a liking to you, many doors will open up for you and your most difficult timethe next six monthswill be made infinitely easier. Oleg Sergeevich knows where all the brooms are in the closet."

Not brooms, Daniella thought now. Bones. Your Oleg Sergeevich Maluta knows where all of them are buried, Uncle, and to whom they belong.

It was ironic that she had been elevated to one of the most powerful jobs in all of Russia yet, because of the evil cunning of one man, she was trapped like a fox in its lair. She dared not move against Maluta in any overt manner because she had not yet begun her own consolidation of power. She was new to the Politburo and it would take time for her to learn her way in what had been strictly male territory.

She could not even use her own networks to defeat him from a clandestine position since he had made it clear to her that she was under constant surveillance. That was not so easy a thing to do to the head of the sluzhba's First Chief Directorate; she was not like an ordinary citizen, after all.

The First Chief Directorate was a vast bureau and she was far from coming to know personally all its department heads. Many were from Anatoly Karpov's regime. She was certain that Maluta had suborned one of them. It was the only way to keep her in view without eliciting a whiff of smoke: use Daniella's own people.

Now as they stirred together in the big bed, beneath the thick eiderdown comforter, she wondered whether to tell Carelin of Maluta's treachery. What would he do if he knew that Maluta had secreted away photographs of him and Daniella in the act of making pa.s.sionate love?

A murderous rage overtook Daniella; she jerked herself into a sitting position.

"What is it, koshka?" Carelin liked to call her that: cat.

"Just chill," she said. Tears in the snowy night; Maluta drinking in her sadness and remorse like some dark vampire while someone in the night snapped photographs, obscene closeups of the weakness, the tears leaking out of her eyes. "Nothing at all."

Carelin sat up, put his arms around her.

His face was in all respects nondescript. He could be said to be neither handsome nor ugly. His was a face that would never be noticed in a crowd. The Kremlin watchers in England and America, poring over their surveillance, pa.s.sed him by time and again in favor of the Genachevs and the Reztsovs and the Kulagins, men with charisma who reached out and grabbed for power. What then could a man such as Mikhail Carelin offer them?