'Not that way. He has to recognize you. David has to recognize you and tell his other self to let him free. You can't do that for him. He has to do it for himself.'
Silence. Floodlights. Fire.
And like a cringing, beaten child, David Webb raised his head, the tears streaming down his cheeks. Slowly, painfully, he rose to his feet and ran into the arms of his wife.
Chapter Thirty-three
33
They were in the sterile house, in the white-walled communications centre - in an antiseptic cell belonging to some futuristic laboratory complex. Whitefaced computers rose above the white counters on the left, dozens of thin, dark rectangular mouths sporadically indented, their teeth digital readouts forming luminescent green numbers that constantly changed with inviolate frequency alterations and less sophisticated, less secure means of sending and receiving information. On the right was a large white conference table above the white-tiled floor, the only deviation to colour conformity and asepsis being several black ashtrays. The players were in place around the table. The technicians had been dismissed, all systems put on hold, only the ominous Red-Alert, a 3-inch by 10-inch panel in the central computer, remained active; an operator was outside the closed door should the alarming red lights appear. Beyond this sacrosanct, isolated room the Hong Kong firefighters were hosing down the last of the smouldering embers as the Hong Kong police were calming the panicked residents from the nearby estates on Victoria Peak - many of whom were convinced that Armageddon had arrived in the form of a mainland onslaught - telling everyone that the terrible events were the work of a deranged criminal killed by government emergency units. The skeptical Peak residents were not satisfied. The times were not on their side; their world was not as it should be and they wanted proof. So the corpse of the dead assassin was paraded on a stretcher past the curious onlookers, the punctured, blood-drenched body partially uncovered for all to see. The stately residents returned to their stately homes, having by this time contemplated all manner of insurance claims.
The players sat in white, plastic chairs, living, breathing robots waiting for a signal to commence, none really possessing the courage or the energy to open the proceedings. Exhaustion, mingled with the fear of violent death, marked their faces - marked all but one face. His possessed the deep lines and dark shadows of extreme fatigue but there was no hollow fear in his eyes, only passive, bewildered acceptance of things still beyond his understanding. Minutes ago death had held no fear for him; it was preferable to living. Now, in his confusion, his wife gripping his hand, he could feel the swelling of distant anger, distant in the sense that it was far back in the recesses of his mind, relentlessly pushing forward like the faraway thunder over a lake in an approaching summer storm.
'Who did this to us? said David Webb, his voice barely above a whisper.
'I did,' answered Havilland, at the end of the rectangular white table. The ambassador leaned slowly forward, returning Webb's deathlike stare. 'If I were in a court of law seeking mercy for an ignominious act, I would have to plead extenuating circumstances.'
'Which were? asked David in a monotone.
'First there is the crisis,' said the diplomat. 'Second there was yourself.'
'Explain that,' interrupted Alex Conklin at the other end of the table, facing Havilland. Webb and Marie were on his left in front of the white wall, Morris Panov and Edward McAllister opposite them. 'And don't leave anything out,' added the rogue intelligence officer.
'I don't intend to,' said the ambassador, his eyes remaining on David. 'The crisis is real, the catastrophe imminent. A cabal has been formed deep in Peking by a group of zealots led by a man so deeply entrenched in the hierarchy of his government, so revered as a philosopher-prince that he cannot be exposed. No one would believe it. Anyone who attempted to expose him would become a pariah. Worse, any attempt at exposure would risk a backlash so severe that Peking would cry insult and outrage, and revert to suspicion and intransigence. But if the conspiracy is not aborted, it will destroy the Hong Kong Accords and blow the colony apart. The result will be the immediate occupation by the People's Republic. I don't have to tell you what that would mean -economic chaos, violence, bloodshed and undoubtedly war in the Far East. How long could such hostilities be contained