Douglas Preston - Gideon’s Sword

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I might point out that now I’ve told you the numbers, you’re a target yourself.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

He took another puff. “How could Wu just walk off with the plans, anyway?”

“Maybe he’d been considering it for some time. He’s one of their top people, he’d have had complete access. It could be the honey trap was the final push he needed.”

“How do you know he even had the plans?”

“That’s the intelligence we received. It was expensive, and it’s ironclad.”

“Could the scientist himself be a red herring? A setup?”

“Doubtful.”

“Any specifics about the weapon itself?”

“That’s the scariest part. We don’t know if it’s an enhanced thermonuclear device or something completely new. The mix of scientists at Lop Nor suggests the latter — there’s a lack of nuclear physicists and HE experts on site, but a lot of metallurgists, nanotechnologists, condensed matter and quantum physicists.”

“Quantum physicists? It sounds like it might be an exotic particle weapon — a laser weapon, mini black hole — or even a matter — antimatter device.”

“You’re smarter than you look. What exactly do you do at Los Alamos, anyway?”

“I design and test high-explosive lenses.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s classified. Suffice to say they’re lenses of conventional high explosive that go into the assemblies used for imploding the cores of nuclear devices.”

She took another sip of her drink. “And just how does somebody go about getting background experience for a job like that?”

Gideon shrugged. “Well, in my case, I liked blowing things up.”

“You mean, like cars? People?”

“Nah. Started out as kid stuff. I used to make my own pyrotechnical devices, mixed my own gunpowder. Fireworks, sort of. I’d set them off in the woods behind our house and charge neighborhood kids a quarter to watch. Later on they proved to have…other uses.” He yawned.

“Quite the renaissance man. Want to order food?”

“I’m too tired to eat.”

“Tired? In that case, should we book two rooms?” Her voice trailed off and her lips curled into a suggestive smile.

He looked at her green eyes, glossy hair, freckled nose. He could see the pulse in her throat throbbing softly. “Not that tired.”

She dropped a fifty on the table and rose. “Good. I’d hate spending the government’s money on a room if no one’s going to use it.”

Roger Marion locked and bolted the door to his apartment with a sigh. It was a busy Thursday in Chinatown and Mott Street had been awash with humanity, the animal murmur still filtering up into his apartment through the closed and barred windows looking onto the fire escape facing the street.

He paused to collect himself, to reestablish the center of calm destroyed by the city’s incessant chaos. He closed his eyes, entered into stillness, and performed the set of movements known as mile shenyao, his motions free and unconstrained. He could feel the Law Wheel turning, turning, forever turning.

When the exercises were complete, he went into the kitchen to make tea. Placing the kettle on to boil, he took down the heavy iron teapot and a can of loose white tea, arranging them on the counter. Just before the water came to a boil he removed the kettle, poured some water into the iron pot to heat it, swished it around and dumped it out, spooned in a batch of curly white tea leaves, and covered them with more hot water. He carried the pot and cup into the living room and found a man standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, a smile on his face.

“Tea, how lovely,” said the man in Chinese. He was dressed in a nondescript suit, white shirt, gray repp tie; his face was as smooth and unlined as a bolt of silk; his eyes cool and empty, his movements graceful. Underneath the clothes, Marion could see he was a perfect specimen of lean athleticism.

“It must steep,” said Marion, revealing no surprise, although it astonished and confounded him that the man had been able to enter the apartment. “Allow me to bring another cup in for you.”

The man nodded and Marion turned, going back into the kitchen. As he took the cup down from the cupboard, he eased a small knife out of a block on the counter and slipped it behind his back.

Back in the living room, Marion placed the cup beside the pot.

“I prefer white tea to be steeped at least ten minutes,” said the man. “Which will allow us time to talk.”

Marion waited.

The man clasped his hands behind his back and began a slow perambulation of the room. “I’m looking for something,” he said. He stopped in front of the banner hanging on the wall, examined it.

Marion said nothing. He put together in his mind the most efficient set of moves necessary to put the knife in the man’s throat.

“Do you know where it is?” the man asked.

“You haven’t told me what you’re looking for.”

“You don’t know?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man waved this comment off as if he were waving away a mosquito. “What were you going to do with it?”

Marion said nothing. All was prepared in his mind. “Tea?”

The man turned. “It hasn’t steeped long enough.”

“I prefer it on the more delicate side.”

“Help yourself, then. I’ll wait.”

Marion bent forward with an easy motion and picked up the iron pot by the handle. His mind was as clear and bright as a diamond. He tipped the pot up, filling the cup with hot liquid, placed the pot down, brought the cup up in an unhurried motion as if to his lips and then, with a quick flick of the wrist, sent the scalding contents into the man’s face while at the same time extracting the knife with a lightning motion, slashing it across the man’s throat.

But the man, and the throat, weren’t there, and the knife flashed harmlessly through the air. Briefly overbalanced by the motion, Marion’s weight went forward, and as he tried to recover, an arm with a clawed hand came shooting out of nowhere; Marion saw what looked like metal talons; he tried to duck but it was too late; he felt a savage tug on his throat and a sudden burning rush of air.

The last thing he saw was the man standing beside him, clutching what he realized was his own bloody, pulsing windpipe.

Nodding Crane took a few steps back from the twitching body as blood pumped out onto the carpet. He dropped the grisly part and waited until all was still, then he stepped around the obstruction and into the kitchen. He washed his hands three times in very hot water and carefully examined his suit. There were no flecks of the xiǎorén, the small person, on his clothing. All the force of the movement had been away from his body. There were just a few drops of blood on his left wing-tip shoe, which he meticulously cleaned with a damp rag, followed by a quick polish.

Back in the living room, the blood had ceased to flow. The carpet had absorbed a great deal of it, keeping the bloodstain from spreading. Stepping around it again, he poured himself a cup of tea and tasted it with pleasure. The steeping time had been perfect. He sipped it down and poured another, bringing to mind a particularly appropriate thought from his vast storehouse of Confucian philosophy: When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.

Gideon Crew strolled around the baggage carousel, as if awaiting luggage. He had no luggage coming in, of course, but he wanted to check out who else was there. Mindy Jackson’s parting words rang in his ears. “Nodding Crane is remarkable only in that he is unremarkable. Except for flat eyes and a perfect physique.” There were, of course, many Asians at the carousel, including a number who fit Mindy’s rather unhelpful description.