The Machine

‘You’re in a whole heap of trouble, Stone,’ she said back. ‘But there’s something I can do for you.’

Translation: there was something he could do for her. But worth a try. ‘OK. Let’s get in your car.’

— oO0Oo-

‘This time lock the damn doors!’ Virginia called to the driver. ‘He’s not jumping out on me a second time.’

‘Oh dear. That’s plan A out of the window,’ said Stone, only half-joking. But something in Virginia’s demeanour had changed. In contrast to the first ime they’d sat in that car, her shoulders were turned towards him, and she talked animatedly. The body language towards him was positive, not at all defensive.

Stone and Virginia Carlisle sat in the back of the same black Mercedes they’d taken from the airport two days before. He looked calmly out of the window as the driver dropped the deadlocks on the doors and pulled away.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘Well what?’ said Virginia. Oh yes. She definitely wanted something.

‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ said Stone. ‘Zhang hears someone’s died, and suddenly he’s calling the media to the jail and releasing me into the mob.’

She said nothing. ‘Zhang can’t spend any time on me,’ explained Stone. ‘But he doesn’t want me to talk to any other Chinese police investigators.’ Stone’s eyes interrogated her. Someone else had died. Logically there could be only one candidate. This really was a surprise. Stone was careful not to turn his body towards her. His body remained “hard-to-get”.

‘You’re well informed, Stone. Not bad for someone who’s been locked away below ground.’ said Virginia. She took out an iPad from her purse and began to run the video of a news clip.

‘It’s my new friend, Virginia Carlisle,’ said Stone, looking at the picture.

‘Looks good on camera, doesn’t she?’ she said, preening as she watched herself. Stone’s sarcasm was lost on her.

The video was a GNN news report. Virginia Carlisle was over the border in Mainland China. Shenzhen, a hundred-odd kilometers from Hong Kong. Stone had already worked out who died, but his eyes still widened in disbelief.

Virginia Carlisle smiled at the TV image. Her on-screen look — combining shock, intelligence and moral outrage — was pitch-perfect for what had happened. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it either. Most things I see coming. I’ve got a talent for being in the right place at the right time,’ she said.

‘Talent for modesty too, I heard.’

‘But this one came completely out of left field,’ Virginia said.

Chapter 21–10:20am 31 March — Zhonghua Hotel, Hong Kong

On the forty-third floor of the Zhonghua hotel, the Hong Kong Harbour spread below them in the heat haze. Stone was in Virginia Carlisle’s hotel room. She was changing from her “work” fatigues back into a black silk dress (stylish, yet professional) and heeled shoes which for some reason she called “pumps”. She sat with her long legs artfully arranged, dangling one of the patent “pumps” from her toe. Trying to distract him? Stone gave her legs and hips the glance she was expecting, then watched the GNN news report through again.

Less than seventy minutes after he shocked the world by signing away his whole fortune of some twenty-five BILLION dollars to the Chinese, the genius search engine entrepreneur, Steven Semyonov has been killed outright in an auto accident. The fatal smash occurred just minutes after Semyonov drove his own car over the Lo Wu border crossing from Hong Kong into Mainland China. The SearchIgnition founder, who only last week was at his desk in San Jose, drove head on into a coal truck as he traveled in the wrong direction down the off-ramp of the freeway. He was alone in the vehicle.

‘Was he drunk?’ asked Stone.

‘No chance. Semyonov had the image of the party animal, but he didn’t drink a thing. Ever. He was weird about his health,’ she said.

Despite all the acting and artifice — the sheer, upfront, in your face falseness of her professional persona — Virginia Carlisle knew her stuff. She ought to. She had a whole team of newshounds working for her.

‘Do you buy this tragic accident stuff?’ asked Stone. ‘I mean: he’s dead less than two hours after signing his money away. And aren’t head-on collisions always suicide?’

The TV Virginia Carlisle appeared to answer.

‘The Chinese authorities are saying that the body was positively identified at the scene, but it has now been flown directly to Beijing for a post mortem. What we can say for certain is that Semyonov’s car — a revolutionary electric-powered sports car of his own design — is here, and it has been in collision with the coal truck. CCTV at the Lo Wu border crossing just five minutes away shows clearly that Semyonov was at the wheel of the car. The Chinese police won’t permit us to film blood or human remains.’

‘So we can’t be sure it’s him?’ said Stone.

‘Oh, it was him. I saw the body myself,’ said Virginia. ‘On a gurney in the back of an ambulance. He’s pretty unmistakable. But they wouldn’t let us film it.’

‘Something they don’t want you to see, maybe? I’ll give that bastard Semyonov one thing,’ said Stone. ‘He keeps us guessing. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to ask a few questions here. Semyonov cashes out, quits his company, and signs away his whole fortune in only a couple of weeks. Making sure it’s all in front of witnesses, recorded on six cameras. He’s learned Chinese. Add to all that the business of the weapons dealing and the murder of Junko Terashima. Finally, Professor Zhang drops into conversation that Semyonov had come to China to work on something called The Machine. Then bang, Semyonov is dead.’

Stone turned to face her. ‘Let’s cut the crap,’ said Stone. ‘You want me to go undercover and dig up the real story — discover what Semyonov was really up to. And you think I’ll do it because I’ve no where else to go.’

She smiled in agreement. She could be disarmingly naive, this woman. Perhaps it was her vanity. ‘Face it, Stone. I could put staffers from the Hong Kong office on this, but they can’t do a thing in China without being followed — but you’re perfect. You’re happy to go undercover, for some reason you’re happy to avoid publicity — even though it would help your cause.’ Virginia looked at Stone with what was meant to be a knowing look ‘But mostly because you like to make things difficult for yourself,’ she said. ‘You’d be going into China after you’ve just been banned. You can’t resist.’

‘You’re saying I can’t resist you, Miss Carlisle?’

She blushed just slightly. ‘No. You know what I mean.’

He was playing her along, but Stone himself was still mystified by the whole business. Like who had killed Junko, and who had tried to kill him. This Ekstrom character for sure. But then who was Ekstrom working for? Semyonov, who was now dead? Virginia Carlisle saw a big shining mystery to be unraveled, but she was naive. This was the tip of the iceberg. She knew nothing of Semyonov’s weapons, nothing of Ekstrom, certainly nothing of the Machine.

‘OK, Virginia.’ If Carlisle wanted him to do this, he’d make her work for it. ‘I’ll need access to any notes that Junko kept, including anything she had on her contacts in China21,’ urged Stone, looking doubtful. ‘You’ll also need to tell me everything you know about her.’

‘Is that a yes?’ said Virginia.

She must really want this. ‘It’s a maybe,’ he said, stringing her along. ‘Now. Junko Terashima. Her files, her contacts. You’ve been through them already.’

‘What makes you think..?’

‘Because I mentioned China21 back there, and you didn’t question it. You’ve been through her stuff. Or your flunkeys have.’

She was disconcerted. ‘I’ll take it as a compliment, Stone. Little Miss Junko was not all she appeared to be. Contacts with Chinese dissidents. Real extremists. Also shadowy corporate figures from ShinComm…’

‘You mean she was a real journalist, who did her own work? Whatever next?’

She ignored the jibe. ‘Are you in?’