The scene was set, thought Bourne. A case so flagrantly leap-frogging over facts and 'related' facts that even a court in Moscow would send a puppet prosecutor back to the drawing board. The reign of terror within the warlord tribe continued. Weed out the misfits among the misfits. Find the traitor. Kill anyone who might be he or she.
A subdued but angry chorus of whore!' and 'traitor!' came from the audience as the bound woman struggled with the two guards. The orator held up his hands for silence. It was immediate.
'Her lover was a despicable journalist for the Xinhua News Agency, that lying, discredited organ of the despicable regime. I say "was", for since an hour ago the loathsome creature is dead, shot through the head, his throat cut for all to know that he, too, was a traitor! I have spoken myself to this whore's husband for I accord him honour. He instructed me to do as our ancestral spirits demand. He wants nothing further to do with her-'
'Aiyaaa!' With extraordinary strength and fury, the woman ripped the tightly bound cloth from her mouth. 'Liar!' she screamed. 'Killer of killers! You killed a decent man and I have betrayed no one! It is I who have been betrayed! I was not at the airport, and you know it! I have never seen this Occidental and you know that, too! I knew nothing of this trap for Western criminals and you can see the truth in my face! How could it
'By whoring with a dedicated servant of the cause and corrupting him, drugging him! By offering him your breasts and misused tunnel-of-corruption, withholding, withdrawing, until the herbs make him mad!'
' You're mad! You say these things, these lies, because you sent my husband south and came to me for many days, first with promises and then with threats. I was to service you. It was my duty, you said! You lay with me and I learned things-'
'Woman, you are contemptible! I came to you pleading with you to keep honour to your husband, with the cause! To abandon your lover and seek forgiveness.'
'A lie! Men came to you, taipans from the south sent by my husband, men who could not be seen near your high offices. They came secretly to the shops below my flat, the flat of a so called honourable widow – another lie you left for me and my child!'
' Whore!' shrieked the wild-eyed man with the sword.
'Liar to the depths of the northern lakes!' shouted the woman in reply. 'Like you, my husband has many women and cares nothing for me! He beats me and you tell me it is his right, for he is a great son of the true China! I carry messages from one city to another, which if found on me would bring me torture and death, and I receive only scorn, never paid for my rail fares, or the yuan withheld from my place of work, for you tell me it is my duty! How is any girl child to eat? The child your great son of China barely recognizes, for he wanted only sons!'
The spirits would not grant you sons, for they would be women, disgracing a great house of China! You are the traitor! You went to the airport and contacted our enemies, permitting a great criminal to escape! You would enslave us for a thousand years-'
'You would make us your cattle for ten thousand!'
'You don't know what freedom is, woman. '
'Freedom! From your mouth? You tell me – you tell us -you will give us back the freedoms our elders had in the true China, but what freedoms, liar! The freedom that demands blind obedience, that takes the rice from my child, a child dismissed by a father who believes only in lords – warlords, landlords, lords of the earth! Aiya!' The woman turned to the crowd, rushing forward, away from the orator. 'You!' she cried. 'All of you! I have not betrayed you, nor our cause, but I have learned many things. All was not as this great liar says! There is much pain and restriction, which we all know, but there was pain before, restriction before!... My lover was no evil man, no blind follower of the regime, but a literate man, a gentle man, and a believer in eternal China! He wanted the things we want! He asked only for time to correct the evils that had infected the old men in the committees that lead us. There will be changes, he told me. Some are showing the way. Now! ... Do not permit the liar to do this to me! Do not permit him to do it to you!'
' Whore! Traitor!' The blade came slashing through the air decapitating the woman. Her headless body lurched to the left, her head to the right, both spouting geysers of blood. The orator then swung the sword down, slicing into her remains, but the silence that had fallen on the crowd was heavy, awesome. He stopped; he had lost the moment. He regained it swiftly. 'May the sacred ancestral spirits grant her peace and purification!' he shouted, his eyes roving, stopping, staring at each member of his congregation. 'For it is not in hatred that I end her life, but in compassion for her weakness. She will find peace and forgiveness. The spirits will understand – but we must understand here in the motherland) We cannot deviate from our cause – we must be strong! We must-'
Bourne had had enough of this maniac. He was hatred incarnate. And he was dead. Some time. Somewhere. Perhaps tonight – if possible, tonight!
Delta unsheathed his knife and started to his right, crawling through the dense Medusan woods, his pulse strangely quiet, a furious core of certainty growing within him – David Webb had vanished. There were so many things he could not remember from those clouded faraway days, but there was much, too, that came back to him. The specifics were unclear but not his instincts. Impulses directed him, and he was at one with the darkness of the forest. The jungle was not an adversary; instead it was his ally for it had protected him before, saved him before in those distant, disordered memories. The trees and the vines and the underbrush were his friends; he moved through and around them like a wildcat, sure-footed and silent.
He turned to his left above the ancient glen and began his descent, focusing on the tree where the assassin stood so casually. The orator had once again altered his strategy in dealing with his congregation. He was cutting his losses in place of cutting up another woman – a sight the sons of mothers could barely accept, regardless of any earthly cause. The impassioned pleas of a dead, mutilated female prisoner had to be put out of mind. A master of his craft – his art, perhaps – the orator knew when to revert to the gospel of love, momentarily omitting Lucifer. Aides had swiftly removed the evidence of violent death and the remaining woman was summoned with a gesture of the ceremonial sword. She was no more than eighteen, if that, and a pretty girl, weeping and vomiting as she was dragged forward.
'Your tears and your illness are not called for, child,' said the orator in his most paternal voice. 'It was always our intent to spare you, for you were asked to perform duties beyond your competence at your age, privileged to learn secrets beyond your understanding. Youth frequently speaks when it should be silent ... You were seen in the company of two Hong Kong brothers – but not our brothers. Men who work for the disgraced English crown, that enfeebled, decadent government that sold out the Motherland to our tormentors. They gave you trinkets, pretty jewellery and lip rouge and French perfume from Kowloon. Now, child, what did you give them?'
The young girl, hysterically coughing vomit through her gag, shook her head furiously, the tears streaming down her face.
'Her hand was beneath a table, between a man's legs, in a caf6 on the Guangquem!' shouted an accuser.
'It was one of the pigs who work for the British!' added another.
' Youth is subject to arousal,' said the orator, looking up at those who had spoken, his eyes glaring as if commanding silence. There is forgiveness in our hearts for such young exuberance – as long as betrayal is no part of that arousal, that exuberance. '
'She was at the Qian men Gate...!'
'She was not in the Tian an men. I, myself, have determined it!' shouted the man with the sword. 'Your information is wrong. The only question that remains is a simple one. Child! Did you speak of us? Could your words have been conveyed to our enemies here or in the south?'
The girl writhed on the ground, her whole body swaying frantically back and forth, denying the implied accusation.
'I accept your innocence as a father would, but not your foolishness, child. You are too free with your associati
ons, your love of trinkets. When these do not serve us, they can be dangerous. '
The young woman was put in the custody of a smug obese middle-aged member of the chorus for 'instruction and reflective meditation'. From the expression on the older man's face it was clear that his mandate would be far more inclusive than that prescribed. And when he was finished with her, a child-siren who had elicited secrets from the Beijing hierarchy who demanded young girls – in the belief that such liaisons extended their lifespans – would disappear.
Two of the three remaining Chinese men were literally put on trial. The initial charge was trafficking in drugs, their network the Shanghai-Beijing axis. Their crime, however, was not in the distribution of narcotics but in constantly skimming off the profits, depositing huge sums of money into personal accounts in numerous Hong Kong banks. Several in the audience stepped forward to corroborate the damning evidence, stating that as subordinate distributors they had given the two'bosses' great sums of cash never recorded in the organization's secret books. That was the initial charge, but not the major one. It came with the orator's high-pitched singsong voice.
'You travel south to Kowloon. Once, twice, often three times a month. The Kai Tak Airport... You! screamed the zealot with the sword, pointing to the prisoner on his left . 'You flew back this afternoon. You were in Kowloon last night. Last night! The Kai Tak! We were betrayed last night at the Kai Tak! The orator walked ominously out of the light of the torches to the two petrified men kneeling in front; 'Your devotion to money transcends your devotion to our cause,' he intoned like a sorrowful but angry patriarch. 'Brothers in blood and brothers in thievery. We've known for many weeks now, known because there was so much anxiety in your greed. Your money had to multiply like rodents in putrid sewers, so you went to the criminal triads in Hong Kong. How enterprising, industrious, and how grossly stupid! You think certain triads are unknown to us or we to them? You think there are not areas where our interests might converge? You think they have less loathing for traitors than we do?' The two bound brothers grovelled in the dirt, rising to their knees in supplication, shaking their heads in denial. Their muted cries were pleas to be heard, to be allowed to speak. The orator approached the prisoner on his left and yanked the gag downward, the rope scraping the man's flesh.
'We betrayed no one, great sir!' he shrieked, ' I betrayed no one! I was at the Kai Tak, yes, but only in the crowds. To observe, sir! To be filled with joy!'
'To whom did you speak?'
'No one, great sir! Oh, yes, the clerk. To confirm my flight for the next morning, sir, that was all, I swear on the spirits of our ancestors. My young brother's and mine, sir. '
'The money. What about the money you stole!'
'Not stole, great sir. I swear it! We believed in our proud hearts – hearts made proud by our cause – that we could use the money to advantage for the true China! Every yuan of profit was to be returned to the cause?
The crowd thundered its response. Derisive catcalls were hurled at the prisoners; dual thematic fugues of treachery and theft filled the glen. The orator raised his arms for silence. The voices trailed off.
'Let the word be spread,' he said slowly with gathering force. 'Those of our growing band who might harbour thoughts of betrayal be warned. There is no mercy in us, for none was shown us. Our cause is righteous and pure and even thoughts of treachery are an abomination. Spread the word. You don't know who we are or where we are – whether a bureaucrat in a ministry or a member of the Security Police. We are nowhere and we are everywhere. Those who waver and doubt are dead... The trial of these poisonous dogs is over. It's up to you, my children. '
The verdict was swift and unanimous: Guilty on the first count, probable on the second. The sentence: One brother would die, the other would live, to be escorted south to Hong Kong, where the money would be retrieved. The choice was to be decided by the age-old ritual of Yi zang li, literally 'one funeral'. Each man was given an identical knife with blades that were serrated and razor sharp. The area of combat was a circle, the diameter ten paces. The two brothers faced each other and the savage ritual began as one made a desperate lunge and the other sidestepped away from the attack, his blade lacerating the attacker's face.
The duel within the deadly circle, as well as the audience's primitive reactions to it, covered whatever noise Bourne made in his decision to move quickly. He raced down through the underbrush, snapping branches and slashing away the webbed reeds of high grass until he was twenty feet behind the tree where the assassin was standing. He would return and move closer, but first there was d'Anjou. Echo had to know he was there.
The Frenchman and the last male Chinese prisoner were off to the right of the circle, the guards flanking them. Jason crept forward as the crowd roared insults and encouragement at the gladiators. One of the combatants, both now covered with blood, had delivered a near-fatal blow with his knife, but the life he wanted to end would not surrender. Bourne was no more than eight or nine feet from d'Anjou; he felt around the ground and picked up a fallen branch. With another roar from the crazed audience he snapped it twice. From the three sections he held in his hand he stripped the foliage and reduced the bits of wood into manageable sticks. He took aim and hurled the first end over end, keeping the trajectory low. It fell short of the Frenchman's legs. He threw the second; it struck the back of Echo's knees! D'Anjou nodded his head twice to acknowledge Delta's presence. Then the Frenchman did a strange thing. He began moving his head slowly back and forth. Echo was trying to tell him something. Suddenly, d'Anjou's left leg collapsed and he fell to the ground. He was yanked up harshly by the guard on his right, but the man's concentration was on the bloody battle taking place within the one-funeral circle.
Again Echo shook his head slowly, deliberately, finally holding it steady and staring to his left, his gaze on the grey-haired bystander, who had moved away from the tree to watch the deadly combat. And then he turned his head once more, now directing his stare at the maniac with the sword.
D'Anjou collapsed again, this time struggling to his feet before the guard could touch him. As he rose he moved his thin shoulders back and forth. And breathing deeply, Bourne closed his eyes in the only brief moment of grief he could permit himself. The message was clear. Echo was taking himself out, telling Delta to go after the impostor – and while doing so to kill the evangelical butcher. D'Anjou knew he was too battered, too weak to be any part of an escape. He would only be an impediment, and the impostor came first... Marie came first. Echo's life was over. But he would have his bonus in the maniacal butcher's death, the zealot who would surely take his life.
A deafening scream filled the glen; the crowd was abruptly silent. Bourne snapped his head to the left, where he could see beyond the edge of the row of onlookers. What he saw was as sickening as anything he had observed during the past violent minutes. The messianic orator had sunk his ceremonial sword in the neck of a combatant; he pulled it out as the bloodied corpse rattled in death and sprawled on the ground. The minister of killing raised his head and spoke.
'Surgeon?
'Yes, sir?' said a voice from the crowd.
'Tend to the survivor. Mend him as best you can for his imminent journey south. If I'd let this continue both would be dead and our money gone. These close-knit families bring years of hostility to the Yi zang li. Take his brother away and throw him into the swamps with the others. All will be sweet carrion for the more aggressive birds. '
'Yes, sir. ' A man with a black medicine bag stepped forward into the dirt-ringed circle as the dead body was hauled away and a stretcher appeared out of the darkness from the far end of the crowd. Everything had been planned, everything considered. The doctor administered a hypodermic into the arm of the moaning, blood-covered brother who was carried out of the circle of brotherly death. Wiping his sword with a fresh silk cloth, the orator nodded his head in the direction of the two remaining prisoners.
Stunned, Bourne watched as the Chinese beside d'Anjou calmly undid his boun
d wrists and reached up to the back of his neck, untying the supposedly strangling strip of cloth and rope that had apparently kept his gaping mouth incapable of any sound but throaty moans. The man walked over to the orator and spoke in a raised voice, addressing both his leader and the crowd of followers. 'He says nothing and he reveals nothing, yet his Chinese is fluent and he had every opportunity to speak to me before we boarded the truck and the gags were in place. Even then I communicated with him by loosening my own, offering to do the same for him. He refused. He is obstinate and corruptly brave, but I am sure he knows what he will not tell us. '
'Tong ku, long ku!' came wild shouts from the crowd, demanding torture. To these were added fen hong guil narrowing the site of the pain to be inflicted to the testicles of the Occidental.
'He is old and frail and will collapse into unconsciousness, as he has done before,' insisted the false prisoner. Therefore I suggest the following, with our leader's permission. '
'If there's a chance of success, whatever you wish,' the orator said.
'We have offered him his freedom in exchange for the information but he does not trust us. He's been dealing with the Marxists too long. I propose taking our reluctant ally to the Beijing airport and using my position to secure him passage on the next plane to Kai Tak. I will clear him through immigration and all he must do before boarding with his ticket is give me the information. What could be a greater show of trust? We will be in the midst of our enemies, and if his conscience is so offended, all he has to do is raise his voice. He has seen and heard more than any person who ever walked away from us alive. We might in time become true allies, but first there must be trust. '
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