Dean Koontz - Dragonfly

The taxi driver said “ Domo, domo” when he was paid; and the hotel doorman welcomed Canning with a smile and nearly perfect English. He picked up Canning's two suitcases, and Canning followed him inside.

The Committee agent entered close behind them. He didn't trail Canning all the way across the huge lobby to the front desk. Instead, he sat on one of the comfortable divans where tourists of all nationalities were consulting maps and guidebooks, and he remained there while Canning checked in. In fact, he stayed there, his legs crossed, his hands folded on his lap, when Canning boarded the elevator with the bellhop a few minutes later.

Canning waved at him as if telling him to hurry before the lift doors slid shut.

The agent merely stared at him, blank-faced, humorless as an alligator.

He thinks he doesn't have to follow me any farther because I'm trapped now, Canning thought.

And maybe he's right.

Five minutes later Canning tipped the bellhop and was alone in his room. It was a fairly large room, well furnished, with a nice big Japanese-style bathroom. There was a walk-in closet, a linen closet, and a locked door with a brass key in it. He used the key and found another door beyond; this one locked from the far side and apparently connecting to the adjoining room. He closed the door on his side, locked it again, and used the desk chair to form a wedge between the floor and the knob. At the main door he slipped the chain latch into place and made certain that the night lock was properly engaged. Switching on the lights as he went, he crossed the room and drew the heavy maroon-and-white brocade drapes over the windows that faced out on Hibiya Park.

He looked at his watch: three o'clock.

He went into the bathroom and used the toilet.

He washed his face in cold water.

He looked at his watch: five minutes past three.

He combed his hair.

He came back out into the main room, went to the windows, parted the drapes, and watched the people walking and cycling through Hibiya Park.

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

He listened to the hotel sounds.

He looked at his watch: three-twelve.

Where in the hell was Tanaka?

General Lin Shen-yang, chief of the Internal Security Force for the People's Republic of China, leaned back in the large oval-shaped copper washtub and sighed as more hot water was poured into his bath. He closed his eyes and breathed in the steam. When the woman began to scrub his chest with a soft-bristled brush and rose-petal soap, he opened his eyes and smiled at her. He touched her cheek and said, “You are a perfect jewel of great value.”

She blushed with happiness and said, “I am pleased that my Tai-Pan is so happy with me.”

“Delirious.”

The scent of rose petals was so rich that he felt almost drunk with it.

“But I am praised too much. I am no jewel. I am just an old, faithful cow.” Her lovely face was set in a scowl, as if she were castigating herself for not being the precious jewel that he thought she was.

“If you are an old cow, then what am I?” he asked as her small hands dropped the brush and began to scoop up water with which to rinse his chest.

“You are Tai-Pan of this house,” she said. “Master of this house and my master too.”

“An old dinosaur,” he said.

“Not at all old,” she said, dismayed.

Teasing her, he said, “But if you are old, then so must I be.”

She frowned more fiercely than ever. “Well, I am young, then. I change my mind. I am a young, faithful cow.” She finished rinsing his chest. “Because you are not old.”

He was, in fact, sixty-four years old. He had been a young lieutenant at Mao's side when Chiang had been driven from the mainland many years ago, and he had been in a position of power within the People's Republic ever since. He was a squat, powerfully built man, with a closely shaven head, deep-set black eyes, a wide nose, lips broad and flat like strips of hammered metal, and a round, blunt chin. He did not look sixty-four years old or even fifty-four. And he felt like a young man — especially when he was with her.

Her name was Yin-hsi, and she was lovely beyond words. Her oval face was graced with a wide, sensuous mouth and almond-shaped eyes as clear and dark as the night between the stars. Her hair was piled high atop her head and held in place by antique jeweled pins that were the same sapphire shade as her silk robe. Her skin was far silkier than the robe: warm yellow-brown, taut, scented with a delicate Western perfume. She was only twenty-three years old, young enough to be his granddaughter.

In 1949 her real grandparents and her mother — who was then still a child — had fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek's followers. Her mother had grown up on the island and had married Yin-hsi's father there. The newlyweds had then emigrated to South Korea, where, in the aftermath of the United Nations' war against North Korea, there were many golden opportunities. Her father had become a moderately successful businessman, and her mother had settled down to raise a family, one son and two daughters.

Yin-hsi had been born in Seoul, and her parents had raised her much as Chinese girls had been raised before Mao's revolution. She had never been meant for factory work or for farm work on some dust-choked commune. She was too soft for that, too delicate, too like a flower of flesh and hair. She had none of the virtues of an emancipated Communist woman — but those were not the only virtues that a woman might rightfully cultivate. Yin-hsi's great strength lay in her desire to serve her master, be he her husband or only her owner. She gloried in giving her Tai-Pan all the pleasure she could produce with her woman's knowledge, obedient nature, personal devices, and body. And because this was what she had been educated to do, Yin-hsi was a very great credit to her father, mother, and to herself.

After extensive and prolonged negotiations, General Lin had purchased Yin-hsi six years ago, shortly after she had turned seventeen. He had given many tasteful gifts and considerable cash to her father. He had promised to treat her well always and to keep her always unspoiled. He had bought a four-room, gracefully designed pine bungalow two doors from her family, and there he had set her up in housekeeping with a female servant and all the necessities. Before Yin-hsi, there had been another mistress of whom the general had grown weary. He didn't think he would ever grow weary of his Yin-hsi, even if he were to live well into his eighties.

The general considered himself to be a good Communist, yet he did not feel guilty about owning another human being. This was, of course, an inexcusable sin in the eyes of other Communists. General Lin knew, however, that he owned the girl only in the most abstract sense. He never treated her as a slave; and he had impressed upon her that if she should ever want to quit this life in favor of the more modern and conventional path of marriage and suburban life, he would free her instantly upon her request.

Nevertheless, had any officials in China known about Yin-hsi, General Lin would have been stripped of his authority and drummed out of the Party. Quite likely, he would also be put on trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison or to “reeducation” on a pig farm.

Which would have been terribly tragic, for the general really was a good Communist. He believed that the Party had fed, clothed, housed, and educated the masses better than any capitalistic system could have done. He deeply desired a lasting Communistic future for China.

What he did not believe in or desire was the joyless, sexless, robotistic Communism that had grown out of the Maoist State. Mao Tse-tung had always been a crushing bore and a prude: a brilliant and admirable political leader but a rather shallow human being. Lin had been close enough to him to see this much from the start of the revolution. But to think that in just a few short decades Mao and his most ardent followers had managed to lead an entire nation of nearly a billion people into voluntary sexual self-denial and outright self-repression! Incredible! And more than incredible, he thought, it was nonrevolutionary. Criminal. If you allowed yourself to be programmed as an asexual automaton, you were no different from capitalism's programmed worker-drones who had been propagandized into denying themselves the full rewards and joys of their own labors.