Another silence. “Yes.”
“I will consider accepting it. No, because of the circumstances, I will generously forgive you.”
Silence.
Hu Chang sighed. “I can sense you fretting. What is it, Luke?”
“‘Gauche.’ I don’t know that word. What does it mean?”
Hu Chang was aware after the last nine years spent in Russia there were many English words that Luke didn’t know, but the boy was voraciously curious about them. “Inept. Which is something you must never be again while we are on this journey. There must be respect and competence. And if you give it to me, there will be trumpets and fireworks and many wonderful things.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “And the most wonderful thing of all will be that we have our Catherine back.”
DAKSHA PALACE
“I have it.” Brasden strode into Kadmus’s library and threw down a photo on the desk. “I had Mark Nagle, the man who handles your West Coast operations, call his contact at Langley. There was a top secret operation going on in this area. Catherine Ling was to be in the center of it.”
“Catherine Ling…” Kadmus gazed down at the woman staring back at him from the photo. “Beautiful. Fierce.” He read the brief dossier. “And exceptional. You’re sure that she’s the agent who took Sullivan?”
“She arrived in Hong Kong yesterday.”
“Coincidence?”
“I only saw her for a moment in the darkness, but I’d swear it was the same woman in the photo.”
Kadmus couldn’t take his gaze from the photo. He could feel the rage searing through him. Catherine Ling was not smiling, but he could feel the mockery behind that intense expression.
Mocking him? Mocking the fact that he’d not been able to stop her from taking Sullivan. It was irrational, but the thought would not leave him. He had been beaten by a woman and he could—
“Kadmus?”
“Get out of here, Brasden,” he said through his teeth. “Find her. Find them both and bring them back to me.”
“I know you want Sullivan alive. What about Catherine Ling?”
“I want her alive, too.”
Torturing Erin Sullivan had been a necessity, but it had given him a certain pleasure. It would be a pure, intense pleasure teaching Catherine Ling she could not make a fool of him. “I want to spend a long, long time with the bitch before I cut her throat. Maybe watching her suffer will make Sullivan more cooperative.”
“I’ll be delighted to assist,” Brasden said grimly. “I know you don’t want excuses about me being taken off guard by her, but it’s true. Ling won’t ever be able to take me down again.”
“We’ll talk about participation later. First, you have to find them. I want a lead within the next four hours.” He didn’t look up from the photo as the door slammed behind Brasden.
Catherine Ling.
She was as alluring as one of the high-priced whores he paid at that house in Beijing, but he had no desire for her. Her skin was glowing, golden satin, and her lips were full and beautifully shaped and she was all fire … and mockery.
Mockery.
The rage was pouring through him. She had taken away Sullivan and was standing in the way of his reaching the lotus gate. He ruled these mountains, he could take or crush or kill at will, but it was not enough. He wanted more, and he would get it.
The ultimate power.
He reached into the top drawer of the desk and took out the black velvet jewelry box. His fingers caressed the softness of the velvet. He always liked to anticipate before he opened the box.
How many times had Erin offered to give him her necklace? She had never understood why he didn’t want it.
I don’t need it. I have my own lotus necklace, Erin.
He opened the box and gazed down at the eight-sided lotus pendant on the gold chain. There were still faint traces of blood on that chain. He had decided not to clean it after he’d yanked it off the neck of the priest from whom he had taken the necklace. He had found out many things from that fool of a priest but not enough. But this necklace gave him a sense of his own power and a vision of what was to be.
Shambhala.
Just thinking about it brought the heady joy that it had the first time he had found out that it could be within his reach.
And he could still have it.
Erin Sullivan would have given in eventually if he’d been able to work on her a little longer. Then he would have found the Guardian, and he would have been on his way.
And it had all stopped because this bitch had stepped in and snatched Sullivan. It was intolerable. The rage was rising and cresting and rising again as he thought of the things he wanted to do to Catherine Ling.
* * *
Kadmus!
Catherine sat upright, jarred from sleep. Her heart was beating hard, and her palms were damp from sweat though the cave was cold.
“Is something wrong?” Erin had raised herself on her arm to look at Catherine apprehensively. “Did you hear something?”
“I don’t know.” She listened. “Nothing.”
“Nightmare?”
She shook her head. “I just felt … I don’t know … I felt as if Kadmus were here. Crazy.” She reached for her water bottle and took a long drink. “Particularly since I’ve never met him face-to-face. I’ve only seen photos of him on my e-mail. I guess I must be thinking about him so much that it—Forget it.”
“Or he’s thinking about you,” Erin said gravely. “I’ve never met anyone who was so intensely emotional when he was focusing on anything. I used to wake in the middle of the night and think that Kadmus was there in the room with me.”
“And was he?”
“No, but he’d show up five or ten minutes later. And it wasn’t that I had any kind of psychic gift or anything. I just think that some people send out such powerful vibes that we unconsciously sense them.” She added, “I frustrated Kadmus, and he became driven.”
Catherine could imagine Erin’s waking, and just agonizingly waiting for Kadmus to come. “Well, you’re free, and Kadmus isn’t in a room down the hall. He’s miles away and, if he’s running around, slobbering at the mouth, and going crazy, good for us for making him do it.”
Erin stared at her in surprise. Then she chuckled. “Catherine, I do like you. That’s the first time I’ve laughed at anything concerning Kadmus since the minute he took me.”
“And I can see why,” Catherine said. “He’s ugly and full of venom and should be tossed off this mountain after going through the kind of torture he put you through. If we get a chance, we’ll do that.” She paused. “But then you have to let him go except to laugh at him. Otherwise, he’ll still be keeping you prisoner.”
“You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.”
“Oh, yes.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did he rape you?”
Erin moistened her lips and didn’t answer immediately. “Yes.”
Catherine could see her agony at those haunted memories. “I didn’t think that he’d leave that ugliness out of his agenda. That may be the hardest wound of all to heal. But you can do it.”
She lifted her chin. “I know I can. I closed that pain and degradation away as I did all the others. I didn’t let it touch me.”
“No? Then you’re stronger than I was when it happened to me. I was only ten years old. It touched me, but I fought my way until I reached the point where I wouldn’t let myself be a victim by remembering.” She repeated, “You closed that pain and degradation away … How did you do that, Erin?”
“I just did it.”
Time to send in the first probe. “Cameron didn’t teach you to do that?”
Erin’s shocked gaze flew to Catherine’s face. “What?”
“Richard Cameron, Erin. It’s time we talked about Cameron. If we’d talked before, I wouldn’t have had such a disturbing episode with the bastard.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I didn’t know what the hell h
e was talking about for a good deal of our conversation. Most of the time, I was just angry and wanting to deck him. I need you to fill in the blanks.”
She was silent.
Catherine couldn’t expect anything else. Erin had gone through terrible torture and still hadn’t revealed anything about Cameron. “Okay, I’ll go first. Cameron disturbed my nap by a very unwelcome intrusion. At first, I thought that it was a dream or hallucination, but then we talked, and I realized that he was a man capable of mental telepathy and God knows what else. He’s some kind of troubleshooter for an organization that could be corrupt or just the usual bureaucratic conglomerate.” She stared Erin in the eye. “And you’re involved with them in some way. Innocently, I hope. Because Cameron impresses me as one dangerous customer and more ruthless than you could imagine.”
Erin shook her head. “And Cameron impresses me as being far more wonderful than you could ever imagine.”
“Wonderful? Oh, for God’s sake, Erin. Are you infatuated with him? I can see that anyone would be a little dazzled by those good looks, but this is a man who let you be tortured for weeks and didn’t raise a hand to help you.”
“He helped me. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about a person who could have a gift that strong and complex. I don’t know why Kadmus wants him bad enough to do what he did to you. So why don’t you tell me?”
“Because I promised Cameron I wouldn’t do it,” she said simply. “And I won’t, Catherine.”
Catherine drew a deep breath. “Cameron’s already told me bits and pieces. It seems that he’s going to deign to communicate with me until we get you away from Tibet.”
“I told you that he helped me.” Erin smiled. “And now he’s going to do it again. As I said, he’s wonderful.” She saw Catherine’s expression and shook her head. “And I’m not infatuated with Cameron. I admire him more than I can say, and I hope someday we can be friends. Right now, I’m sure he can only look on me as someone who’s brought him big-time trouble.”
“I’d say that the opposite is true,” Catherine said dryly. “And I’m not sure that you’ve not been influenced by a little mental manipulation. Can you deny that’s possible?”
“No, but I trust him. He wouldn’t do that to me without reason.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes,” she said with certainty. “As for that mental manipulation, I blessed it every moment I was with Kadmus.” She gazed at Catherine’s skeptical expression. “Listen, to me. After Kadmus kidnapped me and brought me to Daksha, I knew it was going to be terrible. I’ve never been more frightened. But that first night, Cameron came. I’d known he was capable of mental telepathy from our other encounter, but I hadn’t thought it was possible for him to be able to do it from great distances. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone any longer. Do you know what that meant to me? He told me he couldn’t come for me, but he would help me through it until he could get me away from Kadmus. By the time he left, the panic was gone.”
“He said he taught you to block the pain.”
“Yes, and when I couldn’t do it, he was there to do it for me. He stopped all pain and wrapped me in a kind of joyous peace.” She paused. “He was with me during the most terrible moments of my life. I couldn’t be any closer to anyone than I am to him. So don’t tell me that he shouldn’t have done a little mental hocus-pocus to help me to survive.”
“No, I won’t tell you that.” Her lips thinned. “But I will tell you that he should have tried to get you out himself.”
“He wasn’t permitted. I understood.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“It wasn’t his fault. I made a mistake. He could have just let me suffer for it. He didn’t do it. He came to help me. And, in the end, he sent you, Catherine.”
“He did not send me. I took the mission of my own volition.”
Erin smiled and nodded.
“It’s true.” And she wouldn’t be able to convince Erin that Cameron hadn’t influenced that decision. She might not be infatuated with him, but she obviously had a king-size case of hero worship. Was that how Cameron had planned it? She was fanatically grateful, and nothing could bind her closer to Cameron and his interests. Catherine might never know. The intimacy between them bred by those months of torture and captivity was probably unexplainable to anyone else.
“Worry about Kadmus,” Erin said gently. “Don’t worry about Cameron. He’ll help us, Catherine.”
“I have to worry about him. He’s a wild card.” She made a face. “That’s an understatement. But I’ll try to accept him the way you see him.” She thought about it. “No, that’s not going to work. I’ll just play it by ear.”
“You do that.” Erin settled back down in the sleeping bag. “It will be all right.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me about that first encounter you had with Cameron?”
“No, that would be breaking my word. Any information has to come from him.”
“I suspected that was going to be the way of it. And I’m not too sure that he can help as much as you seem to think. Since he managed to supply us with this home away from home, I asked him if he could find a way to get us off this mountain. He said that he’d have to consult someone or other. That didn’t give me a high degree of confidence.”
“He’ll do it.” She yawned. “I’m going back to sleep. I feel much better now that I know I don’t have to keep clamming up when you’re questioning me about Cameron. I hated closing you out.”
“But you did it. You’re still doing it.”
“Because I promised him,” she said drowsily. “But he took care of that, and now the two of you can work everything out…”
The next moment, Erin was back asleep.
She was glad Erin was so confident, Catherine thought ruefully. She wasn’t at all sure that she could work with that arrogant son of a bitch.
Too much power.
Too much charisma.
And far too much sexuality.
Erin may not have been influenced by that potent combination, but Catherine had been. He had been everything gentle with Erin, but she could not see him being that way with her.
Of course, she would work with him. She could overcome personal barriers. She just had to understand more about her antagonist. The only information she had received from her conversation with Erin was just a confirmation of what Cameron had told her. She needed answers to other questions.
The details of the encounter between Erin and Cameron would tell her a hell of a lot. Everything seemed to have stemmed from that meeting. Where had it taken place? Probably somewhere in these mountains since Erin seemed to work almost exclusively in the provinces of Tibet.
And what had happened then that caused Kadmus to have zeroed in on Erin?
Okay, concentrate on those two questions and forget everything else.
Except Richard Cameron. If she couldn’t solve his connection with Erin, she could search for answers about him. Should she call Langley and tell them to dig as soon as this present emergency was over?
No, Erin would regard that as a betrayal when she had suffered tremendously to keep his identity secret.
Catherine could just drop the subject of Cameron once she had Erin safe.
That wasn’t an option either. Kadmus wasn’t going to stop until he found Cameron, and he’d continue to search for Erin to use as the key. So that meant she’d have to deal with Cameron until Kadmus was dead.
Langley was out, but there was another possibility.
Hu Chang.
He considered Cameron a friend, and Hu Chang did not accept friends lightly. He would know everything, or as close as an outsider could come to everything, about who and what Cameron really was.
Hu Chang. She had been trying to keep herself so occupied that she wouldn’t think about him. As Cameron had said, if she had been able to extract Erin immediately, then there would have been no problem. But there wa
s no way that Hu Chang would not come after her if she wasn’t able to get out of here within a short time.
Stay away, Hu Chang. I’m working on it. Just take care of Luke and give me a little more time.
* * *
“We are landing, sir.” The helicopter pilot, Tashdon, called back to Hu Chang. “We should be down in just a few minutes. And I can see Cameron coming across the plateau.”
“Indeed?” Hu Chang rose and came forward to the cockpit. “Where?” Then he saw Cameron striding toward the place where the helicopter would set down. The snow was swirling around his black-garbed body, but he moved through it with swift, athletic grace. There was a boundless energy, a burning vitality, to every step. He was everything Hu Chang remembered. It was good to know. He would need Cameron to be exceptional to get Catherine out of this quandary. “Our friend, Cameron, appears to be in good form, Tashdon.”
Tashdon gazed at him in surprise. “But he’s always that way. Cameron never changes.”
“How long have you worked with him?”
“Five years.”
“And you’ve enjoyed it?” he asked curiously.
“Not always. But it’s been my privilege.” He added, “You’d better sit down, sir.”
Hu Chang sat down and buckled the seat belt. Tashdon’s reply had been in the same tenor as Hu Chang had run across in other members in Cameron’s circle. Devotion. Respect. Fear? Yes, he was sure that there were elements of fear. And that respect was almost fanatical.
He observed that truth again a few minutes later after he had left the helicopter and was walking toward Cameron across the hard-packed snow. Tashdon had scurried ahead and was hovering in front of Cameron protectively. “I’ve delivered them as ordered,” Tashdon said. “Is there anything else, Cameron?”
“No, you’ve done very well. I don’t need you any longer.”
Tashdon smiled with relief. “I’m glad you’re pleased.”
Hu Chang said, “Go back to the helicopter and bring the boy to meet Cameron.”
Tashdon looked at Cameron.
“Go ahead,” Cameron smiled. “I’m not going to make you take him back to Hong Kong, Tashdon.” He turned to Hu Chang. “Did you think I would?”