The labels were written in English, in Roman letters. But by a Chinese hand. It was evidently beneath the High Mistress of GNN to write them out for herself. She’d tipped some hotel functionary to scribe out the baggage labels. Fedex papers for all ten bags, trunks and parcels, neatly packed in the corridor outside Virginia Carlisle’s suite.
VJF Carlisle
GNN Worldwide Television News
293 W 43rdStreet
New YorkNY
The bird was about to fly — or had she already flown? And who could blame her after her little joyride with Ekstrom, and Stone’s own motoring mishap for that matter? Stone gently put an ear to the door. She hadn’t left yet. The noise of urgent activity inside attested to the fact. So did the voices. He would wait outside for a few seconds. Adds to the surprise.
He pondered for a second on what Oyang had said. Sometimes it suits people to make up stories and legends. These things could be true. Or they could be false. The real questions were about who was creating the stories. And there were a lot of stories about Semyonov, told and retold. Oyang, certainly, had come up with all kinds of stuff to put Stone off the scent. Oyang had tried to have Stone killed, and looked the other way when someone had gone after Junko Terashima. Ying Ning — most of what she had said had turned out to be true. The only worrying thing about her was that she had disappeared. Carslake knew more about Semyonov than anyone. Where he’d grown up, near Manchester, New Hampshire. His school. His real name, Steven Starkfield. His conviction for hacking, who he’d met in prison, his series of illnesses.
Add what Carslake knew about Semyonov to what Stone had just discovered about Virginia Carlisle, and the picture became a whole lot clearer. Carlisle herself was the key.
Stone finally knocked on the door.
‘The car is waiting,’ he said in a Chinese accent. ‘The car take baggage to Shanghai Pudong Airport.’
‘I didn’t ask for a goddamned car!’ shouted Virginia from inside.
‘What?’ Stone called through the door.
The door was flung open and there she was, standing in front of him. Hands on hips. It was her what the fuck? look, and she was good at it.
‘Be honest,’ said Stone. ‘You practised years to get that right.’ He smiled into her frown.
‘What the hell are you doing here? This place is too dangerous,’ she said. ‘There’s a lunatic who just killed Robert Oyang.’
‘I know. His name is Johan Ekstrom. He’s a paid assassin,’ said Stone, strolling into the room and taking a beer from Virginia Carlisle’s fridge. ‘He was paid to kill me too. In fact he was paid to kill Oyang and make it look like it was me. But don’t worry, since you survived that little drive around the estate with him, I think we can assume he means you no harm. He had plenty of opportunity…’
Virginia’s mouth gaped. Stone tried hard not to smirk at her TV-style indignation. ‘Don’t worry? DON’T WORRY?’ she screamed. I could have been…’
‘Seriously, it’s fine. Ekstrom’s an evil killer, but he’s a professional. He’ll only harm you if he’s paid to do it, or if he absolutely has to.’
‘Very reassuring, I don’t think. I need to get out, Stone. And so do you,’ she said.
‘And Carslake, I’m guessing,’ said Stone. ‘He’s in there and going with you.’
‘How did you know?’
‘It’s a long story, but I figured it out,’ said Stone. Carslake had just appeared behind her, also looking surprised. ‘I heard his voice through the door. You’ve got a car?’
She nodded. ‘Kind of.’
‘Then let’s go,’ said Stone.
With that the three of them walked away from the hotel room down the corridor. Carlisle was shaking her head.
‘This is not my scene. I didn’t expect all this,’ she said.
‘All what?’
‘All this danger, getting-shot-at stuff…’ she said. She sounded disapproving, as if what Stone did was akin to whoring or gambling. ‘…you can keep it. It’s…’
‘Strictly for the war reporters, that kind of person? They get paid for it, and hey, they should do it.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Not half so funny as what I’ve discovered about you, Virginia,’ he said. They had stepped out into the warm night air, under a row of Chinese lanterns. ‘You’ve been making up stories about our friend Semyonov, haven’t you? All sorts of wild inventions. When were you going to tell me?’ She stopped. His cool grey eyes looked into hers.
‘Semyonov’s an interesting guy,’ she said. ‘People are interested.’ She acted unfazed. Expecting it.
‘And you should know. You were at grade school with him,’ said Stone. ‘Then at junior high. In a little town called Coldbury, New Hampshire.’
‘Everyone knows that.’ Defensive for once.
‘Everyone knows it about you, if they want to look it up,’ said Stone. ‘They don’t know it about Semyonov. Back then his name was Steven Starkfield. You knew that, but you never said a thing.’
She flicked a look at him. ‘Again. Anyone could find that out,’ she said. ‘People are just too lazy.’
‘It wasn’t that easy,’ said Stone. ‘But it’s true. People are lazy. If they can’t research something online, it’s always put off till next week or next month.’ Unless you’re Doug Carslake. ‘And people are intellectually lazy too. If a trusted source like Virginia Carlisle of GNN gives them the outline of a story, they run with it. And if it makes no sense, like the Semyonov story, people compensate by generating all sorts of conspiracy theories and imaginary motivations to justify that story.’
‘If you say so,’ she said.
‘You were old, old friends with Semyonov, weren’t you, Virginia? You were best friends when you were kids. Then something happened and he disappeared off the face of the earth.’
‘He got ill. That’s all.’
‘I guess that’s how he got to look so weird. Hairless, pink skinned.’
‘You’re forgetting “fat”,’ said Virginia. ‘The papers always mention “fat”. He was fat. And those crazy eyes, don’t forget them.’ All her frustration and irritation was suddenly pouring out. ‘Why is it — if you look weird, people think you are weird? If that’s what you mean, then say it, Stone. People do make up all kindsa stuff to justify what they’re thinking about a person. Everyone thinks Steven Semyonov was weird. And weird equals bad. It doesn’t matter what he’s achieved, what benefits he brought to the world. Let me tell you. Steven was a normal guy. He was the nicest person I ever met.’
She was so good at this. She throws in the details, the personal testimony. Anyone would believe her. Stone had believed her. Not any more.
‘He’s the nicest. Not the cleverest?’
‘Maybe. But not back then. All that came later. As a kid he was a geek, sure. He was interested in computers. His hero was Mark Andreessen.’
‘The guy who invented the first Internet browser?’
‘Sure. But Andreessen launched the first search engine too. That search engine was the big deal for Steve. That was the game changer. He became determined to be like Andreessen.’
They were out on the pathway from the hotel down to the marina and the other hotel. The Shui Hu. The name for “The Water Margin” in Chinese. The epic novel of adventure and brutality. It was a corny name for a hotel next to a marina. The clear air over the sea was filling with stars. So many stars it looked almost grey. Carslake was behind them, listening in intently.
‘He was determined? Determined to do what?’ asked Stone.
She looked back at him and shrugged. ‘He got ill. We lost touch,’ she said. She looked ahead. There was a world of guilt in the six words she’d just uttered.
She and Semyonov would have been soul mates in a place like Coldbury. They were the clever kids, both of them so far above the normal plane in that one-horse town, they must have been good friends. But then Virginia Carlisle had turned out the special one. She’d won the scholarship to Vassar — the Ivy League women’s university, where they had the bluest of the blue blood. Carlisle had transformed herself from small town girl to upper-class woman in the twinkling of an eye. Then on into the stratosphere at GNN.
‘No reason to feel guilty about it,’ Stone said. He recalled what Virginia said to him, in the limo in Hong Kong. I went to a good school. But I wasn’t ashamed of it. ‘You lost touch with Steven, Virginia. It’s no big deal. You were at Vassar and the world was at your feet. It’s not your fault he got ill.’
‘Ill? He wasn’t just ill. Steven was practically living in hospitals. Steroids, depression, liver failure, getting fat, losing his hair. Can you imagine how that feels? What that does to a kid of fifteen? But he was determined. He must have been. He didn’t do anything the easy way.’
‘He even designed his own programming language.’
‘How did you know that?’ asked Virginia, her head swiveling toward Stone. She knew a whole lot more than she’d said to anyone, and her news reports — full of puzzles and maybes — were a smokescreen to hide the real Semyonov. Very effective when combined with Semyonov’s self-imposed search engine embargo. Carlisle and Semyonov had been working as a team.
They were walking on past the Marina and onto a path by the shore. The lights of the Polo Resort were behind them, on the other side of a small hill. It was darker. The moon stood thin, like a silver razor above the horizon, and above it, Venus, as bright as Stone had ever seen it.
‘He must have devised his own programming language,’ said Stone. ‘No one has a clue how his software works. It’s unique. And it seems to do what it does with a fraction of the programming code anyone else is using. At SearchIgnition they call it the Blackbox. They say that no one outside of SearchIgnition knows what’s in there. But that’s not the half of it. Only Semyonov knows how it works. He wrote it in his own language, but he used codes, and keys and encryptions all over the place.’
Virginia sounded almost glad to be able to talk about it. ‘Even if they hacked it all,’ said Carlisle. ‘They still wouldn’t have a clue how it worked.’
They were on a small cliff top maybe twenty metres above the beach. It would be a perfect view in the daylight. The South China Sea stood warm and clear in the moonlight.
‘Why are you telling me all this now?’ said Stone. ‘How do you know I won’t just blab this?’
‘Carslake blabs things already. Carslake blogs all this stuff. But thankfully, no one believes him. They won’t believe you either. So long as I contradict you. Besides,’ she said, ‘You don’t have to come with me, either of you. You know I’m bringing you along so I can control the news story, so I can close it down. But that’s fine, because you just can’t resist what I’ve got to show you.’
That, at least, was true. Stone and Carslake followed Virginia down onto the beach under the starlight. She flipped off her shoes and threw them into a row boat. Stone too felt the warm sand in his toes and breathed in the sub-tropical air.
‘We’re going for a boat trip’ she said. ‘But when we get there, let me go in front and do the talking.’