in China. The Chinese leadership knew that, and that made it an extremely dangerous topic of discussion for Oyang, or anyone else.
Now, with the information he’d given to Stone back at his house, Oyang had just handed Stone the job of finding the Machine. A job which, rightly or wrongly, he thought was too dangerous to take on himself.
Chapter 33 — 9:26pm 2 April — Shanghai, China
Oyang’s men dropped Stone near the Pujiang Hotel on the river. It was the only one he could remember from his backpacking days. He had no intention of staying there of course. He waited till they’d gone and then made his way across the city in the darkness. The Shanghai evening took him into its dark, humid bosom. The warm breeze, the roar of traffic, the ambient smells of car exhaust and fried noodles from a thousand eateries open to the streets. Like Hong Kong, Shanghai teemed with even more people after dark.
For Stone it was the best time. He could go about as just another person in the hoards, rather than a “yellow-haired
The apartment was bare — just a single room and tiny bathroom. Stone checked it for bugs or hidden cameras as best he could. Found nothing — not that it mattered. He was hardly going to be chattering to anyone in there. For Stone this kind of lonely paranoia was normal life.
He took out Semyonov’s cryptic writings and connected his laptop to the Internet. Stone wasn’t about to take any notice of Robert Oyang’s injunction against making Internet searches. Especially not now.
It looked easy — so easy in fact that Stone wondered why Oyang hadn’t figured it for himself.
But it turned out it wasn’t easy. Stone tried sections large and small, and found, amongst other things, information on the Silvermine Bay Hotel, in Hong Kong, the fossilised trees in the Isle of Wight, and the web site of an Australian rugby league player named Malcom Twotrees. In other words, nothing.
— oO0Oo-
In the end Stone went out to eat. He went across some grass, picked his way through the cars and scooters across a snarled-up four-track road, and made for a cluster of street traders, stir-frying under the elevated highway. He ordered squid with chilli, noodles and beer and sat down at a trestle table. The cook shot oil into the pan from a squeezy bottle, and flames from the wok flashed in the darkness, half shutting his eyes against the smoke.
Stone’s watch said ten-thirty. He took out Semyonov’s hand-written note again, and looked at it, the light of the fire flickering on the paper. Something about the numbers had been playing with his subconscious. All the 9.8 figures on Semyonov’s scribblings. The values were almost the same but not quite. The differences were counted in ten thousandths of the total. A millimetre in a metre, or less than a metre in a kilometre. There must be significance in these tiny variations.
What was almost exactly 9.8? And why would it be a big deal if there were tiny variations? Stone ate the food, but found himself still looking at the figures when he’d finished.
It felt like the answer was lying just under the surface of his mind. He knew this. He knew the answer. Something was distracting him from it. It felt like someone was shouting at him from his subconscious. Stone tried to concentrate, to let it come to the surface. He realised he’d been staring into the darkness. He’d finished the noodles, but his beer was untouched.
Something was wrong. It was shouting at him. Not the number. Something else was wrong. The rider on the scooter with the full-face helmet. Stone was sure it was the same bike and the same helmet he’d seen following the taxi earlier, as the taxi had raced through the tunnel.
Stone tucked Semyonov’s figures back into his pocket, his senses suddenly alert, his mind clear. He made a few remarks to the
Stone walked back to Xizang Street, talking care to stay in the shadows. No sign of the rider now.
Stone took care to lock up and search the apartment again. Not much to check of course. One room, plus bathroom and bare at that. Not much scope for ninja-warriors to leap out from behind the sofa, but his senses were still on high alert.
He took a shower, his mind still whirring. Old “sticketh closer than a brother” out there on the motor scooter was going to be a big problem. Assuming it was the
Stone washed himself, wondering how he was going to shake off his tail. The more he thought of it, the worse it was. If it was bad news for Stone and Oyang, it was even worse for Ying Ning. If Ying Ning made contact as planned she could end up before a people’s court in days. After drying himself with a diminutive towel and spraying on a particularly ineffective brand of Chinese deodorant, Stone lay down and pulled the sheet over himself.
It was only then, half-waking and half-sleeping, that something flitted across Stone’s mind, something that had bubbled around his subconscious all evening. Behind all the distractions, below the surface.
Chapter 34
