The Nicholas Linnear Novels (146 page)

“Does this area appear familiar to you,
Gospadin
Linnear?” So far Protorov had used nothing but Russian with him. “It should. It is the northern half of Honshu, the whole of Hokkaido, the Nemuro Straits, the southerly end of the Kuriles.”

Protorov had not taken his eyes off Nicholas. “Here,” he said, stabbing at one of several red-marked spots, “offshore, is a crack between two geological plates. Here and here, on Honshu itself, are where earthquakes of sizable magnitude—over seven points on the Richter Scale—will occur within the next week. Already an onset trembler has been felt here, just to the northwest of Tokyo.”

Protorov snapped his fingers and Russilov, like a prestidigitator’s assistant, replaced the exhibited item. In this frame the magnitude had been increased so that a detailed section of the topography from the first page was reproduced.

“Now here,” Protorov continued, pointing again, “is another hot spot. But lo and behold, it is not at any previously known geological fault. Rather it is at a precise spot where nothing had shown before. There is no
natural
reason for its existence.”

The paper rustled like anxious insects. “What do you make of that,
Gospadin
Linnear?”

“What the hell am I looking at, anyway?”

Protorov clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Now that would be telling.”

During his adolescence Nicholas could recall coming in contact with a number of Japanese nuns. To him the sight had been incongruous. The Japanese spirit had come to be synonymous with acquiescing to nature, the elements of the cosmos. To him, Christianity preached a divine order that had been meted out by man himself, though its adherents professed otherwise. The history of the Roman Catholic Church was a bloodstained banner lifted to the concept of domination.

All Catholics, he had found, were arrogant, and none more so than nuns or priests. It was their utter faith in a narrow spectrum morality that took into account absolutely no natural factors. Man’s nature as well as that of his environment held no interest for the Church’s hierarchy. Their moral rectitude rendered them deaf, dumb, and blind.

It occurred to Nicholas now that, though he might howl in rage at the comparison, Viktor Protorov possessed those same hideous qualities espoused so righteously by the Church. He was not so far from priestly, though in a manner he could never comprehend; Communism was as blind in its moral rectitude as was Catholicism.

“If you don’t tell me,
Gospadin
Protorov,” Nicholas said, “I can provide you with no coherent answer.”

“Can you tell me that you do not recognize these contours as they might appear from afar?” Protorov brandished the sheets, flailing his tail behind him. “Say, 35,888 kilometers above the earth’s surface. That would give it a synchronous orbit, keep it stationary over this one spot in the Pacific.”

Protorov stepped closer. “Do you see this,
Gospadin
Linnear? The Straits of Nemuro. An international boundary between Japan and the Soviet Union.” His eyes were fever bright. “And do you further see the area marked in red? It is at the bottom of the Straits, in Japanese territory…and in ours!”

He gave a nod and Nicholas knew what was coming. There was nothing he could do for his body now, but his mind was another matter. The gleaming steel needle entered his upper arm a scant centimeter from where the first shot had been administered. His skin ballooned outward, fluid swamping the bellows of his lungs. He was drowning; it made him want to cry out. His heartbeat accelerated wildly.

Discipline.

He took his consciousness by the hand as a father will his frightened child, and entered a place that held no fear.
Getsumei no michi.

Somewhere outside of him Protorov called in a voice turned aqueous. “What do you know of
Tenchi
? How much does Minck know? You will tell me that,
Gospadin
Linnear. Before you die you
will
tell me that much!”

“Will you tell me now why you really followed me all the way to Hawaii?”

Rick Millar sat at one end of the clear plastic raft they had rented at the hotel beach shack. His long, tanned legs dangled in the water. He wore a surfer’s brief bathing suit he had bought in Lahaina. “I think you already know the answer.”

Justine smiled. Her heart felt lighter than it had in many months. “I’m flattered that you wanted to seduce me.”

Millar laughed good-naturedly. “It wasn’t
all
lust, you know. I do want you back at the firm no matter what happens between us.”

“It’s already happened,” she said. “I’m glad you came, actually.”

He watched a school of small golden fish race by just above the reef over which they bobbed. “You must love him a great deal for you to be so loyal.”

What Justine thought about most now, what she held most closely to her, was the memory of waking in the middle of the night, anxious and afraid, and being able to reach out to touch Nicholas’ hand. It was a hand like no other she had ever encountered; she would lie there stroking its bottom edge, hard with cast-iron callus. Like hugging a Teddy bear, the motion would calm her and soon she would slip back to sleep.

But those were the old days and that was the old Justine. She did not believe that fear and anxiety would be a part of her life any longer.

Staring out over the sun-drenched Molokai Channel where the humpback whales broke the surface of the water in white and black splendor, she saw her immaturity as if it were part of another person: clearly, objectively. It was already separate from her.

She supposed now that she had always been afraid of love…true love such as she felt for Nicholas. Her entire adult life had been a series of encounters with males who could not possibly give her the stability of a twined life. Rather she had been attracted to men lusting to use her, to leave her, to, in effect, return her to a lone state where she felt more secure, more the little girl, and where—this being the most astonishing revelation of all—she would be assured of her father’s intervention, his protection, and, yes, a manifestation of his love for her.

It occurred to her that she herself had provoked what she had deluded herself into thinking was his meddling in her life. She understood now that this very meddling had served as an assurance to the little girl inside her that he still loved her, that he cared enough to break away from his all-consuming work to do something for her.

Stunned, she sat in the Hawaiian sunshine, staring blindly at the island that formerly had been a home for lepers. It seemed ironic and somehow proper that she should have come all this way to be near Molokai. Of course she was aware now of just why she had come here. She was six thousand miles from home, give or take a couple; three thousand miles into the Pacific. She was that much closer to Japan, and Nicholas.

“Would you like to go for a swim?” Millar asked gently.

Justine reached out and squeezed his arm. “You go if you’ve a mind to. I’ll join you in a minute or two.”

He nodded and slipped over the raft’s side, moving in a slow, easy crawl away from her, all his muscles working in concert.

She watched him idly with the kind of detached contentment she had never before thought she could feel. He was a handsome man, desirable in all ways. How many of her women friends, unattached or otherwise, would have given their eyeteeth to be in her position now. She laughed out loud. It felt good to be wanted by such a man. But it felt even better to revel in the completeness of her love for Nicholas, for she sensed with a wonderful intensity Nicholas’ spirit, as if it were he who swam so near her.

Their fight now seemed trivial and ridiculous to her, whereas before it had taken on the titanic proportions of an Olympian struggle. That was because she had not been battling Nicholas at all, but herself. From a distance she recognized the panic with which she had greeted his announcement because she had been quite certain at that moment that the man she was going to marry would be a reincarnation of her father.

Now she understood that she had feared that only because an unconscious part of her had wanted it. But Nicholas was not her father; what he would do with his life had only to do with himself …and now Justine. They had their own lives to lead. How would Nicholas put it? They had their own
karma.
She smiled again at that. Yes,
karma.

And her
karma
dictated that she be at his side, whether it be as the head of Tomkin Industries or anywhere else. She was no longer afraid of giving her heart away to another human being, she was no longer afraid of spending her life with someone. In fact she knew that that was precisely what she did want.

In the water she stroked easily toward where Rick was floating as he watched the antics of the leviathans far out in the channel.

“Finished cogitating?” he said lightly.

“Cogitating.” She laughed joyfully. “That’s an adult activity, isn’t it? I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

He eyed her warily, as if she had changed from a puppy into a Doberman instantaneously. “Will you come back and be my creative design v.p.?”

Justine sobered. “Rick, I’ve got to have some reassurances from you before I make any decision.”

He nodded. “Whatever I can do, I will.”

“Good.” She watched him speculatively. “I dashed away so fast that I didn’t have the time to connect with Mary Kate, though I left a message with her service. That means, for the moment at least, I’m going to have to trust you.” She paused deliberately to see if he would defend himself, but when he said nothing she went on. “If you summarily dismissed her against her will; if you leveraged me into her spot before that happened, as I told you before, I want nothing to do with the job. That’s absolutely final.”

“Okay, granted. I’ve received your message loud and clear. Mary Kate wasn’t happy with us, and the reverse was true. We were coming to a mutual parting of the ways when I met with you. I tried to help her, Justine. I wanted her to work out. But the truth is, she didn’t. She was smart enough to see it, that’s all.”

“So you and she had spoken about her leaving before you had that first lunch with me.”

“Yes.”

“Rick, this is extremely important to me so I don’t want any mistake made about it. One call to Mary Kate is all it’ll take.”

“Then I think you should call her, Justine. I’d like you to trust what I’m telling you, but I can understand that you might have doubts. There’s nothing your friend will tell you that I haven’t. Period.”

It was time to break the tension, Justine decided. She smiled and splashed water on him. “Then I think I’ll take your offer.” They bobbed together like a pair of corks as the wild tide rushed at the coral reef like an enemy on the march, dissipating itself along the spiky ridge. “But right now I’m going to Japan.”

He knew what that meant. She had told him about Nicholas, about where he was and what had happened between them. He smiled, and there might have been a trace of wistfulness to it. It was the kind of smile a fine fisherman will give a valiant marlin that outfought him, snapping the cable at the end. He might rue not making the catch but he admired the creature that had deprived him; might even be glad that independence had won that day.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve been envious of the Japanese’s advertising methods for years. I hope you’ll come back with a portfolio full of their trade secrets.”

They both laughed at that.

Fortuitous Chiu made no answer but to put his forefinger up against his lips and sign for Nangi to follow him. A block up Po Shan Road, the highrise housing structures of the Mid-Levels, built for Hong Kong’s wealthy, loomed all about them, giving the impression that they were moving through some enormous spectral forest.

Mist hung heavy in the air and there were no stars or moon to be seen. Nangi was grateful for this; he did not think that he wanted to be spotted prowling around the Colony at four in the morning.

Fortuitous Chiu took them quickly off the sidewalk as they approached one towering structure. Silently the two of them moved down a narrow, shadow-shrouded alleyway, filled with garbage cans and other refuse.

Down a short flight of concrete steps and through a metal-paneled door. They were inside the building, in the basement. Light came from the low-wattage bare bulbs strung from flex along the concrete ceiling. Two young Chinese were playing Fan Tan in the corridor. They looked up, apparently recognized Fortuitous Chiu, and went back to their game. Not a word was uttered by anyone. Nangi did not have to ask his companion who the youths were. Green Pang. Soon, Nangi knew, they must meet Third Cousin Tok, the 438, who must still be secreted in Succulent Pien’s apartment.

The Triads, who had effectively infiltrated most of the Chinese-dominated Crown Colony—and this included the corruption-riddled Royal Hong Kong Police force—were a partial acronym for
San Ho Hiu,
Three Harmonies Association. This had once been the most powerful of the original Chinese secret societies. They had been founded by fiercely patriotic men to fight an ongoing guerrilla campaign against the invading Manchus who overthrew the traditional Ming Dynasty in 1644.

Now they battled one another through the narrow streets of Hong Kong with cleaver and ax for the right of jurisdiction. It was the spread of voracious urbanism which had broken down the Chinese family unit so successfully. That and the too-rapid industrialization of a predominantly agricultural people. Now the Triads offered a surrogate family, and with more prestige than running a cutter which turned out three thousand blue jean legs a shift ever could.

These were pathetic reasons to become a street fighter for the Green Pang or the 14K, the Cantonese equivalent, Nangi thought.

They got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor, and Fortuitous Chiu led the way down the hall. He stopped in front of a door and, extracting a set of picks from his trousers’ pocket, set to work on the lock. It popped within seconds.

An apartment laid out in pinks and warm yellows. The color combination made Nangi bilious. It was a spacious two-bedroom affair and he was led into one of these.