Chapter 19 — 5:02pm 30 March — San Francisco, California
Patent lawyer Abe Blackman had fixed another meeting with the Taiwanese gentleman, Mr Shin, in order to give his formal decision on whether he would accept him as a client. It was not exactly a difficult decision, but he always tried to play hard to get.
Blackman had drawn up the contracts ahead of time. This time, he told himself, he had really hit the motherlode. Shin was going to make him rich. He’d even placed a bottle of champagne on ice in his personal refrigerator by his desk. Blackman was an experienced lawyer, who’d pulled off a lot of sweet deals, but he found himself as excited as a ten-year-old.
As before, Shin insisted on their meeting alone. Blackman had dismissed Rayanna, his secretary, early, and Shin arrived punctually at five-thirty. Blackman ushered him in.
‘Before we begin, there is another file on which I would like your opinion, Lawyer Blackman,’ said Mr Shin stiffly.
‘You got more?’ said Blackman. This just got better. ‘Sure. Let’s take a look…’
Shin produced from his large briefcase another black plastic ring binder, similar to the three he’d given Blackman at their first meeting. ‘You need only … glance,’ said Shin. Blackman flashed a smile at the lynx-eyed Mr Shin, and took the binder. He opened it as he walked toward the table.
Then something weird happened. There was an odd rustling, a fluttering. A large insect crawled from the papers of the binder. Blackman threw the whole thing from him in horror. ‘What in God’s name?’ He stood back, his eyes wide in shock as a large, multi-coloured bug crawled over the scattered papers. It bore a hard, glossy shell, which shimmered with a poisonously bright pattern. Yellow, red and black.
Blackman stood back to keep the creature from his feet, looking round for something to kill it with. The damned thing was three inches long at least, with vicious-looking, stag-like mouthparts. ‘You got some god-awful bugs over in Taiwan, Mr Shin,’ he said.
‘Harmless,’ said Shin. He was smiling. Blackman hadn’t seen him smile before. Both men watched transfixed as the creature’s six legs stopped abruptly, and the coloured carapace on its back suddenly flicked open. A pair of wings, iridescent and transparent, like the finest paper Blackman had ever seen, fluttered and then made an invisible, buzzing blur. The bug rose into a smooth, noiseless hover above the table.
Blackman gaped, but Shin had come to life. He was grinning broadly, standing there, in his cheap suit, arms apart like a magician who’s just completed his best trick. ‘Be honest, Mr Blackman. You doubted my designs for the hovering robots. You supposed they were too small.’
‘I, I, I…’ Blackman realised he was stammering, gasping. Like a kid at a circus.
‘I can understand you were surprised, Mr Blackman, and curious,’ said Shin, looking up proudly at the hovering creature. ‘But I thought I made it plain that confidentiality was important to me.'
Shin was still smiling. He bent again and rummaged again in his oversized black case. Then he looked back at the hovering bug and calmly held an aerosol at arms length.
‘Insecticide? So is it a real bug or what, Shin? You just said it was a robot.’
‘It is much more than a robot,’ said Shin, holding out the aerosol. But instead of spraying at the bug, he quite deliberately sprayed Blackman’s neck and shoulder with an odourless mist. The flying bug turned and floated towards Blackman, and as it neared it sped up and made for his neck. Blackman flapped desperately. He knocked it away, and stepped right back against the wall, but it came back. It had huge, devilish, insect eyes, and its back had a malign pattern of black, yellow and red.
‘OK, Shin. Just get the damn thing off me will you?’
But Shin was smiling, watching the lawyer flap at the insect. Back it came, inexorably hunting for Blackman’s neck where Shin had sprayed him. Each time it came near, its vicious mouthparts suddenly flicked outwards — two mandibles which had the look of greyish steel, sharp as needles. Blackman screamed and started to panic. ‘Make it stop, you bastard, make it stop!’ Blackman shouted. ‘What the fuck is it? What do you want?’
The Taiwanese was back in the centre of the wide office, his shoulders shaking gently with laughter as Blackman panicked. The bug was whirring round his neck, buzzing by his ear.
‘I’m gonna sue you, Shin. I’m gonna sue you for every fucking cent you got!’ Shin still gave no assistance. Finally Blackman clamped both hands on the back of his neck in blind panic. A second later the whirring stopped and he felt the insect’s feet, strangely cold and heavy, on the back of his hand. He screamed again. Shin strolled up to watch the insect’s mouthparts open, as if he were watching the Discovery Channel. A needle-like probe shot out to into Blackman’s hand.
‘Holy shit!’ Blackman flung the hand from him, trying to crush the bug against the window, but the creature flipped out its wings and was hovering again, whirring around his head.
‘What the hell?’ Blackman held his hand by the wrist. It felt like it was twice the size. A burning pain enveloped it, like it had been doused in acid, and the fingers stuck out rigid. The whole hand was livid red, spasming uncontrollably. Blackman screamed in pain.
‘My God!’ screamed Blackman, panting against the pain in his hand. It was getting worse. ‘Make it stop, make… it… stop!’
His strength was fading. He was struggling to breathe. ‘What… the hell… do you want from me?’ he gasped. But his legs were buckling and he gulped for air. The bug was still hovering at head height three or four metres away.
Blackman was paralysed. He’d stopped screaming, and he couldn’t move his arms or stand up.
‘You broke our agreement, Mr Blackman,’ said Shin finally, standing over his man. ‘You signed my confidentiality agreement. Yet you telephoned the FBI.’ The searing pain advanced up Blackman’s arm, yet he was unable to speak. His jaw opened in a silent scream, his eyes wide in terror, looking at Shin.
‘This is working model of Japanese hornet,’ said Shin, as if he were a schoolteacher. ‘Including the venom, which is quite deadly. I regret this outcome. The patents could be hundreds million. Maybe one billion,’ Shin continued, scolding Blackman like a child. But it was too late. Blackman could hear nothing any more.
Chapter 20 — 9:45am 31 March — Old Bailey Prison, Hong Kong Island
Stone blinked in the harsh electric light of the interview room. The formalities were over but his hands were still manacled, and a couple of the policemen had their batons drawn. There was an atmosphere of residual fear in the room. Stone stood, his cuffed hands in front of him, holding his possessions in the small backpack. He’d been right; they’d had to release him. They’d had no evidence at all, and Zhang was nowhere to be seen. Evidently something had happened and maybe Zhang had been too busy to manufacture evidence against him.
The officer spoke. ‘Your visa is revoked. You must leave Hong Kong Special Administrative Zone and People’s Republic of China in twenty-four hours.’
Twenty-four hours.
Stone had no time to think. He was led from the room and the heavy wooden door of Old Bailey Prison opened onto the steaming, honking traffic of Hong Kong, and immediately there was a volley of camera flashes. Stone found himself on a busy sidewalk in Central district facing a fusillade of boom-microphones, flashguns and two GNN men with Sony TV cameras on their shoulders.
And there she was in the midst of it all, full war zone garb replacing her preppy Fifth Avenue look. Virginia Carlisle.
No sense Stone hiding his face. Always looks guilty. But then so does saying nothing. Stone loathed cameras and publicity, but this time he made straight for Virginia Carlisle. He’d play her at her own game. Stone dodged the microphone and took her hand, like she’d done to him in the airport.
In the melee Stone kept hold of hand and spoke in the reporter’s ear, making it look like they were old friends. Let her put that on TV. It would look all wrong on camera and she’d never use the pictures. ‘You know I won’t talk to you, Virginia,’ he said in her ear. ‘There’s nothing to say.’
