The Emperor's Tomb Part 16

"Where is she?"

"Nearby. Headed for a museum. Dries Van Egmond."

His anger grew. "How the h.e.l.l do you know that?"

"We go."

"No, we don't," Malone said.

Ivan's face stiffened.

"I'm going," Malone made clear. "Alone."

Ivan's haggard face cracked a smile. "I am warned of you. They say you are Lone Ranger."

"Then you know to stay out of my way. I'll find Ca.s.siopeia."

Ivan faced Stephanie. "You take over now? You think I allow that."

"Look," Malone said, answering for her. "If I go alone, I have a better chance of finding out what you want. You show up with the goon squad and you're going to get zero. Ca.s.siopeia is a pro. She'll go to ground."

At least he hoped so.

Ivan jabbed a forefinger at Malone's chest. "Why do I trust you?"

"I've been asking myself the same thing about you."

The Russian removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and clamped one between his lips. He found matches and lit the smoke. "I not like this."

"Like I care what you like. You want the job done. I'll get it done."

"Okay," Ivan said as he exhaled. "Find her. Get what we want." He pointed toward the car. "Has navigation that can lead the way."

"Cotton," Stephanie said. "I'll arrange a little privacy. The Antwerp police are aware of what's happening. They just don't know where. I have to a.s.sure them there will be no property destruction, besides maybe a broken window or door. Just get her and get out."

"Shouldn't be a problem."

"I realize it shouldn't be a problem, but you have a reputation."

"This isn't a World Heritage Site, is it? I seem to destroy only those."

"Just in and out, okay?"

He turned to Ivan. "Once I make contact, I'll call Stephanie. But I'm going to have to gauge Ca.s.siopeia. She may not want partners."

Ivan raised a finger and pointed. "She might not want, but she gets partners. This matter is bigger than one four-year-old boy."

"That's exactly why you're staying here. First time those words are uttered and she's gone."

He did not plan to make the same mistake he'd made in Paris with Thorvaldsen. Ca.s.siopeia needed his help and he was going to give it to her. Unconditionally and with full disclosure.

And Ivan could go to h.e.l.l.

TWENTY-THREE.

Ni, still shaken from the attack, watched in disgust. The fourth man, captured by Pau Wen, had been led from the house, beyond the gray walls, to a barn fifty meters behind the compound, among thick woods. Pau's four acolytes had stripped off the man's clothes, bound his body with heavy rope, then lifted him into the air, suspended from an L-shaped wooden crane.

"I have horses and goats," Pau said to him. "We use the hoist to store hay in the top of the barn."

The crane rose ten meters to a set of double doors in the gable. One of Pau's men, the one from the video, stood in the upper doorway. The remaining three men-each wearing a green, sleeveless gown-fanned the flames of a steady blaze below, using dried logs and hay as fuel. Even from ten meters away, the heat was intense.

"It has to be hot," Pau said. "Otherwise, the effort could prove fruitless."

Night had come, black and bleak. The bound man hung suspended near the top of the hoist, his mouth sealed with tape, but in the flickering light Ni saw the horror on the man's face.

"The purpose of this?" he asked Pau.

"We need to learn information. He was asked politely, but refused."

"You plan to roast him?"

"Not at all. That would be barbaric."

He was trying to remain calm, telling himself that Karl Tang had ordered his death. Plots, purges, arrests, torture, trials, incarcerations, even executions were common in China.

But open political murder?

Perhaps Tang thought that since the a.s.sa.s.sination would occur in Belgium, it could be explained away. The sudden demise of Lin Biao, Mao's chosen successor, in 1971 had never been fully doc.u.mented. Biao supposedly died in a Mongolian plane crash while trying to escape China, after being accused of plotting to overthrow Mao. But only the government's version as to what happened had ever been released. No one knew where or how or when Lin Biao had died only that he was gone.

And he kept telling himself that the man dangling from the hoist had come to kill him.

One of the men motioned that the fire was ready.

Pau craned his neck and signaled.

His man in the barn rotated the hoist so that it was now no longer parallel but perpendicular to the building. That caused the bound man's bare feet to hang about three meters above the flames.

"Never allow the fire to touch the flesh," Pau quietly said. "Too intense. Too quick. Counterproductive."

He wondered about the lesson in torture. This old man apparently was a connoisseur. But from all Ni knew about Mao, the entire regime had been masters of the art. Pau stood motionless, dressed in a long gown of white gauze, watching as the bound man struggled against the ropes.

"Will you," Pau called out, "answer my questions?"

The man did not signal any reply. Instead he kept struggling.

"You see, Minister," Pau said, "the heat alone is excruciating, but there is something worse."

A flick of Pau's wrist and one of the men hurled the contents of a pail into the flames. A loud hiss, followed by a rush of heat, spewed the powder upward as it vaporized, engulfing the prisoner in a scorching cloud.

The man's thras.h.i.+ngs increased wildly, his agony obvious.

Ni caught a scent in the night air.

"Chili powder," Pau said. "The hot plume itself causes incredible agony, but the lingering chemical vapor increases the heat's intensity on the skin. If he failed to close his eyes, he would be blind for several hours. The fumes irritate the pupils."

Pau motioned and another batch of chili powder was tossed.

Ni imagined what the prisoner must be enduring.

"Don't sympathize with him," Pau said. "This man is an a.s.sociate of Karl Tang. Your enemy. I simply want him to tell us all that he knows."

So did Ni, actually.

The fire continued to rage, the flames surely beginning to scorch the man's feet.

The prisoner's head started to nod, signaling surrender.

"That didn't take long." Pau motioned, and the man in the barn rotated the body away from the flames. The tape was ripped from the man's mouth. An agonizing scream pierced the night.

"There's no one to hear," Pau called out. "The nearest neighbors are kilometers away. Tell me what we want to know, or back you go."

The man stole a few breaths and seemed to steady himself.

"Tang ... wants you dead. Minister Ni, too."

"Tell me more," Pau called out.

"He's going ... after the ... lamp. As we ... speak."

"And Ca.s.siopeia Vitt?"

"She's going after ... it ... too. She was ... allowed to ... escape. Men are ... following."

"You see, Minister," Pau quietly whispered. "This is why torture has endured. It works. You learn a great many vital things."

The sickening feeling in his stomach grew. Were there no rules, no boundaries, to his morality? What had happened to his conscience?

Pau motioned again, and the prisoner was lowered to the ground. One of the robed men immediately produced a gun and shot the bound man in the head.

Ni stood silent, then finally asked, "Was that necessary?"

"What would you have me do? Release him?"

He did not answer.

"Minister, how will you lead China if you have not the stomach to defend yourself?"

He did not appreciate the reprimand. "I believe in courts, laws, justice."

"You are about to embark on a battle that only one of you will survive. No courts, law, or justice will decide that conflict."

"I was unaware that this would be a fight to the death."

"Has not Karl Tang just made that clear?"

Ni supposed he had.

"Tang is ruthless. He sent men to end the battle before it even began. What will be your response, Minister?"

The past few hours, in this no-nonsense place, had made him feel strangely vulnerable, challenging all that he thought he knew about himself. He'd never directly ordered the death of anyone-though he'd arrested many who'd eventually been executed. For the first time the enormity of what he was about to do weighed down on him. Perhaps Pau was right. Ruling China required strength. But he wondered. Could he kill with the same cool detachment Pau Wen displayed?

Probably not.

"We must go," Pau said. "It's only a short drive."

He knew where.

To the Dries Van Egmond Museum.

Before it was too late.

TWENTY-FOUR.

GANSU PROVINCE, CHINA.

Tang opened the trailer's door and stepped out to a moonless night, the stars blocked by clouds. The air here, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest city, was refres.h.i.+ngly clear. He flexed his legs. Old emotions boiled within him. He was close-so close-and knew it.

He thought of his father, his mother, nave souls who knew nothing of the world beyond their simple village. They'd lived surrounded by trees and terraced vegetable plots, tucked away on the slopes of a mountain. His only brother had died in Tibet, keeping rebels at bay. No one ever explained what had happened there. His parents never would have asked, and no records existed.

But it didn't matter.

Fight self. That's what Mao had preached. Believe in the Party, trust the state. The individual meant nothing.