An Inch of Ashes (10 page)

Klaus grinned. ‘For what? I am your father, Hans. Who, if not I, should defend you against such slanders? Besides, who knows you better than I, neh?’

Hans stepped back, then gave a small bow. ‘Even so...’

Klaus lifted his chin, dismissing him. ‘Go on, boy. Duty calls.’

Hans grinned, then turned away. When he was gone Klaus Ebert went across to the decanter and poured himself a second brandy. In times like these he was fortunate to have such a son. The kind of son a man could be proud of. A king. He smiled and raised the glass, silently toasting his absent son, then downed the drink in a single, savage gulp. Yes, a king among men.

Haavikko was sitting in Wang Ti’s kitchen, Kao Chen’s two-year-old daughter, Ch’iang Hsin, snuggled in his lap. Across from him Chen busied himself at his wife’s side, preparing the meal. At his feet their five-year-old, Wu, was waging a ferocious battle between two armies of miniature dragons, their tiny power packs making them seem almost alive.

Looking about him, it was hard to imagine anything quite so different from the world he had inhabited these past ten years – a world as divorced from this simple domesticity as death was from life. He shuddered, thinking of it. A world of swirling smoke and smiling wraiths.

Wang Ti turned to him, wiping her hands on a cloth. ‘And your sister, Axel? How is she?’

He smiled. ‘She’s fine, Wang Ti. Never happier.’

She looked at him a moment, as if to read him, then smiled. ‘That’s good. But you need a woman, Axel Haavikko. A wife.’

Chen laughed and glanced round. ‘Leave the poor boy alone, Wang Ti. If he wants a wife he’ll find one soon enough. After all, he’s a handsome young man. And if an ugly fellow like me can find a wife...’

Wang Ti shook her head. ‘Ugly is as ugly does. Never forget that, husband. Besides, if I close my eyes you are the handsomest of men!’

Husband and wife laughed; real warmth – a strong, self-deprecating humour – in their laughter.

‘Anyway,’ Chen added after a moment, ‘marriage isn’t always such a good thing. I hear, for instance, that our friend Ebert is to be married to the Marshal’s daughter.’

Haavikko looked down, his mood changed utterly by the mention of Ebert.

‘Then I pity the girl. The man’s a bastard. He cares for nothing except his own self-gratification. Ask anyone who’s served with him. They’ll all tell you the same...’

Chen exchanged a brief look with Wang Ti as she set the bowls down on the table, then nodded. ‘Or would, if they weren’t so afraid of crossing him.’

Haavikko nodded. ‘That’s the truth. I’ve been watching him these past few weeks – spying on him, you might say – and I’ve seen how he surrounds himself with cronies. A dozen or more of them at times. He settles all their Mess bills and buys them lavish presents. In return they suck up to him, hanging on to his every word, laughing on cue. You know the kind. It’s sickening. They call him “the Hero of Hammerfest”, but he’s just a shit. A petty little shit.’

Chen wiped his hands, then sat down across from Axel, his blunt face thoughtful. ‘I know. I’ve seen it myself. But I can understand it, can’t you? After all, as the world sees it he’s a powerful man – a
very
powerful man – and those sucking up to him are only little men,
hsiao jen
. Socially they’re nothing without him. But they hope to grow bigger by associating with him. They hope to rise on his coat tails.’

Wang Ti had been watching them, surprised by their change of mood. Gently, careful not to wake the sleeping child, she took Ch’iang Hsin from Haavikko’s lap, then turned, facing her husband, the child cradled against her. ‘Why so bitter, husband? What has the man ever done to you?’

‘Nothing...’ Chen said, meeting her eyes only briefly.

Haavikko looked between the two momentarily, noting the strange movement of avoidance in Chen’s eyes, knowing it signified something, then leaned towards him again.

‘There’s one particularly vile specimen who hangs about with him. A man by the name of Fest. He was a cadet with me, and afterwards he served with Ebert and me under Tolonen. He’s a captain now, of course. But back then...’ Axel shuddered, then continued, ‘Well, he was partly to blame for my downfall.’

Chen looked past Axel momentarily, lifting his chin, indicating to Wang Ti that she should wait in the other room, then he looked back at Axel, his face creased with concern, his voice suddenly softer, more sympathetic.

‘What happened?’

Haavikko hesitated, then gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘It was different then. I can see that now. The world, I mean. It was shaped differently. Not just in my head, but in its externals. You could trust the appearance of things much more. But even then there were some – Ebert among them – who were made... crooked, you might say.
Twisted.
And it’s in their nature to shape others in their own distorted form.’

He glanced up, giving a little shiver, the sheer rawness of the hurt in his eyes making Chen catch his breath.

‘We’d gone down to the Net, the day it happened. Ebert, Fest and I. We were after the assassins of the T’ang’s Minister, Lwo Kang, and had been told to wait for a contact from our Triad connections there. Well, I didn’t know that Ebert had arranged for us to stay in a sing-song house. It began there, I guess. He had me drugged and I... well, I woke up in bed with one of the girls. That was the start of it. It doesn’t seem much, looking back, but it’s... well, it’s like I was clean before then; another person, unsullied, untouched by all those darker things that came to dominate me.’

‘And that’s what happened?’

Haavikko gave a bitter laugh. ‘No. But that was where it began. I can see that now. The two things are inseparable. That and what followed. They were part of the same process. Part of the twistedness that emanates from that man.’

‘Ebert, you mean?’

Haavikko nodded. ‘Anyway... It was later that day. After we’d found the corpses of the assassins. After we’d gone to the Pit and seen Karr defeat and kill the adept, Hwa. Ebert made us go to the dressing rooms after the fight. He wanted to take Karr out to supper and share in his victory. It was something he didn’t own, you see, and he wanted to buy it. But Karr was having none of it. And then Tolonen arrived and accepted Karr’s services as guide. Oh, it’s all linked. I see that clearly now. But back then... well, I thought things just happened – you know the saying,
Mei
fa tzu
, it’s fate. But there was a design to it. A shape.’

Haavikko paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath, then continued.

‘It was as we were coming away from the assassin’s apartment. We were in the sedan: Ebert, Fest and I. Ebert was sounding off, first about Karr and then about the General. He said things that he would never have dared say to the General’s face. When I called him out for it, Fest came between us. He told me to forget what was said. But I couldn’t...’

Haavikko was silent a moment, looking down at his hands. When he looked up again there was a strange sadness in his eyes.

‘I don’t regret what I did. Even now I don’t think I could have acted any other way. It was just... well, let me tell you. When I was alone with the General I asked to be transferred. I felt unclean, you see. Of course, the old man asked me for my reasons. But when I tried to avoid giving them he ordered me to tell him what was up. So I did. I told him what was said in the sedan.’

Chen let out his breath. ‘I see...’

‘Yes. You can imagine. Tolonen was livid. He called Ebert and Fest back at once. It wasn’t what I wanted – even then I didn’t feel it was right to get Ebert thrown out of the force for something he’d said in a heated moment. But it was out of my hands at that stage. And then...’

‘Fest backed him up?’

Haavikko nodded. ‘I couldn’t believe it. They were both so convincing. So much so that for months afterwards I kept asking myself whether I’d been wrong. Whether I’d imagined it all. Whether their version of things was really the truth. It was as if I’d had a bad dream. But it was one I couldn’t wake from. And it all began back then. On that day ten years ago.’

A voice came from the shadows of the doorway behind them. ‘I remember that day well.’

The two men looked round, surprised. There was a figure in the doorway: a giant of a man, his head stooped to clear the lintel, his broad shoulders filling the frame of the door. Karr.

Chen was up out of his chair at once. He went across and embraced the big man, smiling fiercely. ‘Gregor! You should have said you were coming!’

Karr held his friend’s arms a moment, smiling down into his face, then he looked back at Axel.

‘Yes. I remember you well, Axel Haavikko. I remember you coming to watch me fight that day. But I never understood until today why you disappeared from things so suddenly. You have good cause to hate Major Ebert.’

Haavikko looked down, abashed. ‘If I spoke out of turn, Major Karr...’

Karr laughed. He had put his arm about Chen’s shoulders familiarly, like a father about his son’s. ‘Here, in Kao Chen’s, we have an agreement, and you must be a party to it, Axel. In these rooms there is no rank, no formality, understand? Here we are merely friends. Kao Chen insists on it, and I...’ His smile broadened. ‘Well, as your senior officer, I insist upon it, too. Here Chen is Chen. And I am Gregor.’

Karr put out a hand. Haavikko stood up slowly, looking at the offered hand, hesitant even now to commit himself so far. But then he looked at Chen and saw how his friend’s eyes urged him to take Karr’s hand.

He swallowed drily. ‘I’m grateful. But there’s one further thing you should know about me before you accept me here.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘You are good men, and I would have no secrets from you. You must know what I am. What I have done.’

‘Go on,’ Karr said, his hand still offered.

Haavikko stared back at Karr, meeting his grey eyes unflinchingly. ‘You heard me say how it felt as though I were in a bad dream, unable to wake. Well, ten years I inhabited that nightmare, living it day and night. But then, a month or so ago, I woke from it. Again I found myself in bed in a sing-song house, and once again a strange girl was lying there beside me. But this time the girl was dead, and I knew that I had killed her.’

Karr’s eyes narrowed. ‘You
knew
?’

Haavikko shuddered. ‘Yes. I remember it quite vividly.’

Karr and Chen looked at each other, some sign of understanding passing between them, then Karr looked back at Haavikko. His hand had not wavered for a moment. It was still offered.

‘We have all done things we are ashamed of, Axel Haavikko. Even this thing you say you did – even that does not make you a bad man. Chen here, for instance. Would you say he was a good man?’

Haavikko looked at Chen. ‘I would stake my life on it.’

‘Then it would surprise you, perhaps, to learn that Kao Chen was one of the two assassins you were after that day ten years ago.’

Haavikko shook his head. ‘No. He can’t be. They were dead, both of them. I saw the
kwai
’s body for myself.’

Karr smiled. ‘No. That was another man. A man Chen paid to play himself. It’s something he’s not proud of. Something he’d rather hadn’t happened. Even so, it doesn’t make him a bad man.’

Haavikko was staring at Chen now with astonishment. ‘Of course... the scar.’ He moved forward, tracing the scar beneath Chen’s left ear with his forefinger. ‘I know you now. You were the one on film. With your friend, the small man. In the Main of Level Eleven.’

Chen laughed, surprised. ‘You had that on film?’

‘Yes...’ Haavikko frowned. ‘But I still don’t understand. If you were one of the killers...’

Karr answered for Chen. ‘Li Shai Tung pardoned Kao Chen. He saw what I saw at once. What you yourself also saw. That Chen is a good man. An honest man, when he’s given the chance to be. So men are, unless necessity shapes them otherwise.’

‘Or birth...’ Haavikko said, thinking again of Ebert.

‘So?’ Karr said, his hand still offered. ‘Will you join us, Axel? Or will you let what’s past shape what you will be?’

Haavikko looked from one to the other, then, smiling fiercely at him, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes, he reached out and took Karr’s hand.

‘Good,’ said Wang Ti, appearing in the doorway. She moved past them, smiling at Axel, as if welcoming him for the first time. ‘And about time, too. Come, you three. Sit down and eat, before dinner spoils.’

Over the meal Karr outlined what had been happening since his return from Mars. Their one real clue from the Executive killings had led them to a small
Ping Tiao
cell in the Mids fifty
li
south of Bremen. His men were keeping a watch on the comings and goings of the terrorists. They had strict orders not to let the
Ping Tiao
know they were being observed, but it was not something they could do indefinitely.

‘I’m taking a squad in tonight,’ Karr said, sitting back from the table and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘In the small hours. I want to capture as many of the cell members as possible, so we’ll need to be on our toes.’

Chen nodded, his mouth full. He chewed for a moment, then swallowed. ‘That’ll be difficult. They organize tightly and post guards at all hours. And then, when you do confront them, they melt away like shadows. You’ll have to corner them somehow. But even if you do, I’ve heard they’d rather die than be captured.’

‘Yes... but, then, so will most men if they’re given no other option. Sun Tzu is right: leave but one avenue for a man to escape by and his determination to fight to the death will be totally undermined. He will recognize how sweet life is and cling to it. So it will be tonight. I’ll offer them a pathway back to life. If I can capture just one of them, then perhaps we’ll get to the bottom of this.’

Haavikko smiled. The man looked, even ate, like a barbarian, but he thought like a general. Tolonen had not been wrong all those years ago when he had recognized this in Karr. Haavikko put his chopsticks down and pushed his bowl away, then reached into his pocket and took the notebook from it.

‘What’s that?’ Karr said, lifting his chin.