Voroshenin’s right hand slowly ease into his jacket at his waist.
Knife or gun? Nicholai asked himself.
Gun, he decided.
And what is he waiting for?
The same thing that you are – darkness and more noise. If he waits for the climactic moment, he can shoot you and have your body hustled out of here before anyone can notice, avoiding a public incident. Very smart of him, very disciplined.
The music began its rise.
Nicholai leaned over toward Voroshenin.
“I relate greetings” he said, whispering into Voroshenin’s ear, “from the Countess Alexandra Ivanovna. My mother.”
He felt Voroshenin’s body tense, his hand inch toward the pistol.
“Nicholai Hel.”
“I’m going to kill you in a moment,” Nicholai said, “and there’s not a single thing you can do about it.”
Xun Huisheng warbled:
The drums rattled.
The gongs clanged.
The theater went dark.
Voroshenin went for the pistol.
Nicholai trapped his hand, breathed deeply, and released all the
He heard the Russian grunt.
Then Voroshenin slumped back in his seat, his mouth a frozen oval.
The guard started forward.
“Too much vodka,” Nicholai said as he got up. Down in the orchestra, the audience was applauding wildly.
Nicholai walked out the door of the box.
“Your boss is sick,” Nicholai said.
They rushed inside.
Nicholai let his mind take over and walk him through the escape. Down the stairs and to the right. Down the hallway toward the interior stage door, where an old man sat on a stool.
“You can’t go in here,” the old man said.
“I’m sorry,
It was only as he walked out the back end of the alley that he felt something warm running down his left leg, then a jolt of burning pain, and realized that Voroshenin’s gun had gone off, and that he was shot.
Then he saw the monk standing at the end of the alley.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
The monk limped off in one direction, Nicholai in the other.
He saw it clearly now.
What would happen in the Temple of the Green Truth.
The way out of the trap.
82
“SIGNAL.”
“What?” Haverford asked. He stubbed out his thirteenth cigarette of the night and rolled his chair over to the young agent who sat by the cable.
“Go Player is on the move toward Point One.”
“I’ll be goddamned,” Haverford said, half in surprise, half in admiration.
Nicholai fucking Hel.
83
THE BLOOD FROZE on his skin, forming a bandage of sorts.
It didn’t hold up, as Nicholai walked quickly through the
Nicholai wasn’t thinking about his leg.
He placed a map of the district in his head, remembered Haverford’s instructions, and moved swiftly past the few people out on the streets in the winter night. Some watched him, most had their faces wrapped against the cold and were indifferent to this tall
Police sirens started to wail, headed toward Zhengyici Opera House.
Voroshenin’s body had been discovered.
Nicholai put the Go board in front of his eyes and scanned the new situation. The Kang stones had been removed, the Voroshenin stones captured. But Voroshenin’s corpse had been revealed, and soon – if it hadn’t already happened – the Chinese National Police would discover that their master Kang was also dead.
Murdered, if you care to call it that.
They would be coming for him, and the move now was to get to other black stones on the board.
He had an appointment in the Temple of the Green Truth.
84
WU ZHONG WAITED in the sanctuary.
A team member, a Muslim brother, had relayed the signal that “Go Player” was on the way.
He got to his feet, stretched, and prepared his muscles for the task at hand.
The American had told him what to do.
85
NICHOLAI TURNED onto Niujie Street and saw the mosque, its three sections roofed in green tile, a small minaret with a crescent rising above the center section. A white-capped Hui Chinese waited by the iron gate.
