Tom Aston - The Machine

Now Semyonov was in there, in an electric wheel chair, health improving all the time. His unmoving face gazed down on the scene. Stone wondered if Virginia knew what The Man was thinking, because nobody else did.

Carslake had been killed wearing only his shorts. It would have been dark in that room while he slept — dark as a sealed, stone tomb. There was one bright light on the ceiling, and when that was out, no chink from any other source. The body lay beside the bed. His chest hairs were graying, and though he’d seemed lazy, Carslake’s body was fit. Built, in fact. There were traces of grey roots in his hair, and unbelievably, his moustache. This man had dyed his hair. He was older than he looked.

Carslake, evidently, had been a man who looked after himself. Dyed his hair, trimmed his fingernails — but cultivated the straggly hair and moustache. Not all he seemed then. Maybe Semyonov had noticed that, like he noticed everything else.

Determining cause of death didn’t exactly require the services of a path-lab. A deep cut across the front of his neck, five centimeters deep, through the windpipe and carotid arteries. It does the trick in most cases. Carslake’s fingernails were neatly trimmed though.

Stone disgusted himself when he looked at these things so dispassionately. He was already going over unarmed combat and assassination manuals in his mind. Some of those methods were as old as the hills, and this was one of them. The manuals he himself had used were written for SOE in World War Two. Only the photos were updated.

Despite the litres of Carslake’s blood around the place, this had been no fight with blades. The cutting mark extended full circle around the man’s neck. The tongue stuck out, and the eyes bulged wide in silent shock. Strangulation. Garrotting — that was the technical term used in the books. Valued as an assassination method because it was silent. There were two variants. The “compression”, and the “cutter”. As Carslake’s head was half-severed, so it could be safely said this was the “cutter”. The assassin would have woken Carslake somehow. Carslake stands bolt upright, half-asleep. The killer flips the wire over his head from behind. The classic method is to stamp hard on the back of the right knee to unbalance, crossing the wire at the back and tightening. In this case, the killer had been behind Carslake, flipped the wire over his head, then turned himself back to back with him. The assassin’s arms would cross above their head in the turn, and then push outwards. The wire would squeeze and cut round Carslake’s neck.

Stone guessed that the killer went back to back with Carslake, then bent over forward, right over so that Carslake was yanked off his feet by the wire. Only that kind of pressure could have cut so deeply. Also, there was some dried blood under his fingernails, but not much. You’d expect a man to scrabble at the wire, but Carslake had had no chance, it had been too quick. Someone here was an operator, a trained killer.

All this Stone explained to Semyonov, who may well have figured it for himself, depending which trio of TV channels he’d been watching recently. Was he an expert on assassination as well as everything else? Semyonov had never trusted Carslake in any case, and didn’t look sad to see him gone.

‘Carslake was a big guy,’ said Semyonov. ‘Strong too. Look at the muscle tone. I guess whoever did this was worried about that strength. That’s why they chose the back-to-back thing, to gain extra leverage on a big man, and for surprise. There was some planning involved I think.’ Semyonov’s red eyes and expressionless moon-face turned ominously at Stone. ‘You are the obvious candidate of course, Stone. A trained killer.’

Why say that? Semyonov knew Stone had been with Virginia all night. Maybe it was just resentment. More likely he was testing Stone’s reaction. More intellectual games.

‘Could have. But didn’t,’ said Stone, still looking at the body.

‘And did you see the deliberate mistake, Stone?’ said Semyonov, turning his wheelchair to leave. Testing him again. ‘Your problem is that you have the mind of a killer. You’re too busy admiring the methods. Take another look at his chest if you want some real evidence.’

This bastard Semyonov knew him too, too well. Stone looked down once more amongst the blood-matted hair of Carslake’s chest.

‘It occurs to me that your friend Carslake was with the CIA,’ said Semyonov. ‘As you pointed out yesterday, the CIA is very interested in me. Especially after Oyang’s antics in releasing all that technology onto the market,’ said Semyonov. ‘But it appears that someone took exception to the CIA’s intrusion into Chinese territory. An agent of the Chinese state killed this man.’

‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ asked Stone.

‘Why should it?’ said Semyonov. His swollen, flipper-like hand moved over the controls of the wheelchair and he hummed toward the door. ‘The killer is here to protect me. Perhaps it should bother you, though, Stone.’

The wheelchair stopped at the door, as if a tinge of regret had hit him.

‘Like I said,’ he said. ‘It’s all going to shit. Let’s get the Machine out of the mine, and get out of this craphole.’ Semyonov’s voice trailed off as he rolled away down the stone corridor.

Carslake from the CIA. It explained why Carslake had known so much about Semyonov. Which in turn explained why Semyonov had been so wary of Carslake.

Stone hadn’t expected this. Clearly, neither had Carslake. Poor guy. Stone stared down at Carslake’s chest once more. Amongst the darkening blood and the hair was a large gout of saliva. The killer had finished up, then calmly, spitefully, spat onto Carslake’s chest.

That cold spittle in the middle of Carslake’s chest meant only one thing — something Semyonov wasn’t aware of for once. Ying Ning. She’d made her way here somehow and she’d killed Carslake because he was a CIA agent. Ying Ning was no rebel, no dissident fighting for workers’ rights. She was no Fox Girl, will-o-the-wisp continually slipping through the net of the Gong An . She was a Chinese agent, an agent provocateur who’d manipulated just about everyone she’d ever come into contact with. All to protect Semyonov? More likely to protect the Machine.

Whatever. It was no time to play Sherlock Holmes. Stone had to get back down there. He would have to bring the Machine out alone.

The half-mile of hole drilled through the rock seemed to pass quicker this time. Perhaps Stone had more on his mind. He’d left Virginia at the top of the shaft operating the winding gear. Semyonov was out there too in his wheelchair, plastic oxygen tubes peeking into his nostrils. In truth he was looking better than he had since Stone had met him on the island. Probably the mountain air.

It was a calculated risk to leave them up there. If Ying Ning was the killer on the loose, she was working for the Chinese government, who’d done everything up to now to look after Semyonov as a strategic investment. In theory she should be no threat — to Semyonov at least. Ethan Eric Stone, however, could well be alongside Doug Carslake on her wanted list. Not a lot he could do about that right now, short of telling Virginia to look out for Chinese girls carrying cheese wires. As for protecting himself, Stone couldn’t go near the Machine with anything like a blade or a gun, even if he chose to.

Stone turned off his helmet flashlight and crept first in the opposite way down the tunnel away from the Machine. Semyonov had said there was a network of old tunnels down there, and it was as well to look for a refuge, or an escape route. Also to check there was no one lurking in his rear as he went towards the Machine. He came upon two forks in the first two hundred metres, then thought better of it. He couldn’t risk getting lost. He walked back along, past the cage waiting for him at the same point in the tunnel, then crept on silently in the direction of the Machine.