Tom Aston - The Machine

‘OK, Shin. Just get the damn thing off me will you?’

But Shin was smiling, watching the lawyer flap at the insect. Back it came, inexorably hunting for Blackman’s neck where Shin had sprayed him. Each time it came near, its vicious mouthparts suddenly flicked outwards — two mandibles which had the look of greyish steel, sharp as needles. Blackman screamed and started to panic. ‘Make it stop, you bastard, make it stop!’ Blackman shouted. ‘What the fuck is it? What do you want?’

The Taiwanese was back in the centre of the wide office, his shoulders shaking gently with laughter as Blackman panicked. The bug was whirring round his neck, buzzing by his ear.

‘I’m gonna sue you, Shin. I’m gonna sue you for every fucking cent you got!’ Shin still gave no assistance. Finally Blackman clamped both hands on the back of his neck in blind panic. A second later the whirring stopped and he felt the insect’s feet, strangely cold and heavy, on the back of his hand. He screamed again. Shin strolled up to watch the insect’s mouthparts open, as if he were watching the Discovery Channel. A needle-like probe shot out to into Blackman’s hand.

‘Holy shit!’ Blackman flung the hand from him, trying to crush the bug against the window, but the creature flipped out its wings and was hovering again, whirring around his head.

‘What the hell?’ Blackman held his hand by the wrist. It felt like it was twice the size. A burning pain enveloped it, like it had been doused in acid, and the fingers stuck out rigid. The whole hand was livid red, spasming uncontrollably. Blackman screamed in pain.

‘My God!’ screamed Blackman, panting against the pain in his hand. It was getting worse. ‘Make it stop, make… it… stop!’

His strength was fading. He was struggling to breathe. ‘What… the hell… do you want from me?’ he gasped. But his legs were buckling and he gulped for air. The bug was still hovering at head height three or four metres away.

Blackman was paralysed. He’d stopped screaming, and he couldn’t move his arms or stand up.

‘You broke our agreement, Mr Blackman,’ said Shin finally, standing over his man. ‘You signed my confidentiality agreement. Yet you telephoned the FBI.’ The searing pain advanced up Blackman’s arm, yet he was unable to speak. His jaw opened in a silent scream, his eyes wide in terror, looking at Shin.

‘This is working model of Japanese hornet,’ said Shin, as if he were a schoolteacher. ‘Including the venom, which is quite deadly. I regret this outcome. The patents could be hundreds million. Maybe one billion,’ Shin continued, scolding Blackman like a child. But it was too late. Blackman could hear nothing any more.

Stone blinked in the harsh electric light of the interview room. The formalities were over but his hands were still manacled, and a couple of the policemen had their batons drawn. There was an atmosphere of residual fear in the room. Stone stood, his cuffed hands in front of him, holding his possessions in the small backpack. He’d been right; they’d had to release him. They’d had no evidence at all, and Zhang was nowhere to be seen. Evidently something had happened and maybe Zhang had been too busy to manufacture evidence against him.

The officer spoke. ‘Your visa is revoked. You must leave Hong Kong Special Administrative Zone and People’s Republic of China in twenty-four hours.’

Twenty-four hours.

Stone had no time to think. He was led from the room and the heavy wooden door of Old Bailey Prison opened onto the steaming, honking traffic of Hong Kong, and immediately there was a volley of camera flashes. Stone found himself on a busy sidewalk in Central district facing a fusillade of boom-microphones, flashguns and two GNN men with Sony TV cameras on their shoulders.

And there she was in the midst of it all, full war zone garb replacing her preppy Fifth Avenue look. Virginia Carlisle. Drink her in. Five feet ten inches of blond, windswept gorgeousness, ripe and ready for the camera. Stone could be live on GNN this second. She stepped forward with the microphone. ‘ Is it true you killed Junko Terashima, Mr Stone? ’ shouted a voice. ‘ What about Semyonov? Do you have any comment to make? ’

No sense Stone hiding his face. Always looks guilty. But then so does saying nothing. Stone loathed cameras and publicity, but this time he made straight for Virginia Carlisle. He’d play her at her own game. Stone dodged the microphone and took her hand, like she’d done to him in the airport.

In the melee Stone kept hold of hand and spoke in the reporter’s ear, making it look like they were old friends. Let her put that on TV. It would look all wrong on camera and she’d never use the pictures. ‘You know I won’t talk to you, Virginia,’ he said in her ear. ‘There’s nothing to say.’

‘You’re in a whole heap of trouble, Stone,’ she said back. ‘But there’s something I can do for you.’

Translation: there was something he could do for her . But worth a try. ‘OK. Let’s get in your car.’

— oO0Oo-

‘This time lock the damn doors!’ Virginia called to the driver. ‘He’s not jumping out on me a second time.’

‘Oh dear. That’s plan A out of the window,’ said Stone, only half-joking. But something in Virginia’s demeanour had changed. In contrast to the first ime they’d sat in that car, her shoulders were turned towards him, and she talked animatedly. The body language towards him was positive, not at all defensive.

Stone and Virginia Carlisle sat in the back of the same black Mercedes they’d taken from the airport two days before. He looked calmly out of the window as the driver dropped the deadlocks on the doors and pulled away.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘Well what?’ said Virginia. Oh yes. She definitely wanted something.

‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ said Stone. ‘Zhang hears someone’s died, and suddenly he’s calling the media to the jail and releasing me into the mob.’

She said nothing. ‘Zhang can’t spend any time on me,’ explained Stone. ‘But he doesn’t want me to talk to any other Chinese police investigators.’ Stone’s eyes interrogated her. Someone else had died. Logically there could be only one candidate. This really was a surprise. Stone was careful not to turn his body towards her. His body remained “hard-to-get”.

‘You’re well informed, Stone. Not bad for someone who’s been locked away below ground.’ said Virginia. She took out an iPad from her purse and began to run the video of a news clip.

‘It’s my new friend, Virginia Carlisle,’ said Stone, looking at the picture.

‘Looks good on camera, doesn’t she?’ she said, preening as she watched herself. Stone’s sarcasm was lost on her.

The video was a GNN news report. Virginia Carlisle was over the border in Mainland China. Shenzhen, a hundred-odd kilometers from Hong Kong. Stone had already worked out who died, but his eyes still widened in disbelief.

Virginia Carlisle smiled at the TV image. Her on-screen look — combining shock, intelligence and moral outrage — was pitch-perfect for what had happened. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it either. Most things I see coming. I’ve got a talent for being in the right place at the right time,’ she said.

‘Talent for modesty too, I heard.’

‘But this one came completely out of left field,’ Virginia said.

On the forty-third floor of the Zhonghua hotel, the Hong Kong Harbour spread below them in the heat haze. Stone was in Virginia Carlisle’s hotel room. She was changing from her “work” fatigues back into a black silk dress (stylish, yet professional) and heeled shoes which for some reason she called “pumps”. She sat with her long legs artfully arranged, dangling one of the patent “pumps” from her toe. Trying to distract him? Stone gave her legs and hips the glance she was expecting, then watched the GNN news report through again.