The Machine

of such importance that Semyonov simply had to become involved? At any rate, with the Mountain View PD expected to open a homicide investigation on Antonio Alban, the attention has shifted from the examination of tire marks at an intersection in China, back across the Pacific to California, only a few miles away from where Steven Semyonov held his final press conference just days ago.

Something to be thankful for, at least. Virginia Carlisle and her cohorts would indeed be heading back East across the Pacific and the spotlight should be off for a few days.

‘Why she doesn’t tell us about Semyonov?’ said Ying Ning. Perceptive. Right on the money as usual. The whole thing was more confused than ever after that news report. It made no mention of the Machine, Semyonov’s weapons trading, or even the death of Junko Terashima, who had been one of GNN’s own staffers.

Carlisle and the mainstream media couldn’t grasp that the whole enigma revolved around Semyonov himself. They should be looking at the kind of person he was, his motivations. GNN must at least have some kind of obituary file on the man, but they had barely even shown that. There had been no information about Semyonov the man at all. Instead the mainstream media, TV and newspapers, were obsessing with the idea of foul play by the Chinese, even though by Carlisle’s own admission, they’d analysed tire marks and angles for days and come up with nothing. Carlisle had admitted to Stone herself that she’d seen the body. Why no interviews with people who knew Semyonov, building up a picture of where the great brain was heading?

To make it worse, Antonio Alban, the man who could shed most light on what Semyonov had wanted to do with SearchIgnition, was dead too. Silenced by a hired hitman.

Stone shook his head and set off towards the exit, but Ying Ning stopped once more. Pulled him back. She was pointing at the TV screen. Virginia Carlisle was still there with that gorgeous mane of hair.

Stone was happy to watch, but why had Ying Ning stopped? Why was she so concerned with Carlisle?

Then Stone saw what Ying Ning had been pointing at.

Virginia Carlisle reporting from Chengdu, China

Chengdu. She was there already. Carlisle was right there, in Sichuan, and she had arrived before them. Stone had underestimated her.

Fascinating. Stone already had an idea what had brought her here, but he’d find out soon enough.

— o0°0o-

On the bus into town from the airport, Ying Ning started talking Tang Dynasty poetry again.

‘Your friend Ms Carlisle reminds me of another poem. Called Song of the Lovely Women, also Du Fu. Du Fu is watching the women of the super-rich of those days. It’s like a party for Berlusconi, or Trump, or some billionaire. There are fine women bearing noble names. Du Fu is star-struck by the women. The clothes, the hair, their confidence. Du Fu’s description of them in the poem is almost erotic. But all that money wasted on clothes and fine scent — it disgusts him too. He hates the lovely women, and he envies them. But mostly he desires them.’

‘How does that remind you of Carlisle?’

‘Not her,’ said Ying Ning with her trademark wry smile. ‘You. It reminds me of you. You talk about her. Your feelings to Carlisle are like Du Fu’s for the lovely women in the poem. You are jealous of her, and you’re disgusted by her money and clothes. But mostly you desire. Like Du Fu — you say you despise, but really you desire.’

So you’re jealous of Virginia, Miss Ying Ning? thought Stone. It was unusual for Ying Ning to express any emotion, even in such an indirect manner as this. Nonetheless her description of Stone’s feelings about Virginia Carlisle was creepily accurate. For Stone had already decided himself to track down Virginia Carlisle in Chengdu.

‘Ying, that reminds me,’ he said, after a pause. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

A wicked smile spread across the Chinese girl’s features.

Chapter 39 — 3:18pm 6 April Chengdu, China

Stone approached the desk in the knowledge that the average Chinese hotel clerk believes implicitly what a European person is saying. Even better if the tone is Hong Kong Officers’ Club circa 1950, and no attempt is made to speak in Chinese.

Stone spelled out his name as if to an idiot child. ‘My wife has checked in already and I need a room key,’ he said. The clerk offered the key card with a pleasant smile. ‘Oh, and what room is that?’ asked Stone. It disturbed him how well the arrogant foreigner voice worked. And how easy it was to slip into the role.

Virginia Carlisle was not a difficult woman to track down. First look for the most expensive hotel in town. Second, get Ying Ning to ask around about a woman followed by an entourage of cameramen, makeup artists and flunkeys. Stone needn’t, either, have bothered to enquire about her room number. Just ask for the largest suite in the hotel.

Inside her room, Stone went straight for her MacBook — super-slim, ultra lightweight. Like its owner? He uploaded a password-hack program from a memory stick, and used it to copy her docs and emails for the last seven days. Then skimmed through her schedule for the day. Also lightweight. She was a canny operator, Carlisle. Saved herself for those ten minutes of airtime.

Then there was the sheer weight of luggage in that room. She’d divided her clothes into work and non-work. The fatigues, jeans and rugged shirts she used for her GNN reports on TV were on one side, together with appropriately battered running shoes and hiking boots, discreet makeup and sunglasses. These clothes were replicated, to make it look as if she was wearing only a couple of items again and again. These were “work” clothes. The wardrobe of a performer. On the other side of the large closet was a kaleidoscope of designer clothing, suited to an upper class woman of leisure, with copious jewelry and twenty-odd pairs of shoes. She had a couple of power-dressing business suits, which occupied the leisure side of the closet.

To read there were the usual “professional” magazines — Forbes, The Economist and Harvard Business Review looked unread. China Quarterly still in a cellophane wrapper. Vogue and Cosmopolitan, by contrast, creased and well-thumbed by the bed. The books were pure chicklit and there was a plastic wallet containing DVDs. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sleepless in Seattle, Meet Joe Black, The Devil Wears Prada. You could say a pattern was emerging. A good thing Ying Ning wasn’t there to give her strictures on this woman.

Some reporters in Virginia Carlisle’s position are driven. Committed, humourless newshounds with PhD’s in International Relations, who collect their visits to the benighted troublespots of the world like so many picture postcards, reeling off stats about infant mortality and female circumcision as they go. Not our Virginia. She talked like a hard-nosed investigator, but she was a true professional — a professional actress.

Stone wondered for a second who would do better at changing the world — hard-as-nails Ying Ning with her Tang dynasty war poetry and her stats on ShinComm suicide rates? Or Virginia Carlisle, with her Vogue magazine and an audience in the hundreds of millions?

Stone checked his battered LCD watch. Three forty-seven pm. She’d be back any minute. He lounged back with his boots on the sofa and opened up the MacBook once more. He made a search with the words “Steven Semyonov Life Story”.

There are no results for this search string. Please try another search.

Typo? Stone tried the search again.

Again no result. This time he typed the words “Steven Semyonov Search Ignition”

There are no results for this search string. Please try another search.

Finally he tried simply typing the words “Steven Semyonov”. Same result. The same thing happened on two other search engines. No wonder the news outlets weren’t discussing Semyonov’s motives and background. They were flying blind without the Internet. SearchIgnition’s technology was used by all the major news archives too.

Semyonov hadn’t been erased from history, but he may as well have been. He’d been erased from the world’s search engines. In an age of instant access to information, no one would bother to discover anything about him. No wonder there was no talk of motives and background for the man.

And who would be able to manipulate the world’s search engines to do this? Only one person, and that was