with a flower might have been enough to do the trick. A murder from inside their own ranks would have scared the protestors in a way that an army assault would not. A murder from within is so Chinese – so recognizably Chinese – that terror would have sped through their ranks and unleashed the thing that Chinese people fear most: chaos. The protestors would have slunk away with wary sidelong looks at each of their comrades and a deep sense of betrayal in their hearts. How much wiser that way than the frontal assault that eventually was used by the authorities. Wiser and more generous to life.
The old assassin saw no contradiction between his job and the desire to save life. He was an arm of diplomacy. His people had marched with Q’in She Huang when the mad tyrant first united China. They had been there when the Chinese invented gunpowder. When a Chinese junk circumnavigated the world almost two hundred years before the silly Italian bumped into the Americas. A whole section of The Art of War was written by a direct ancestor and four chapters based on the exploits of another early member of the Guild of Assassins.
He stroked his whiskers. Yes, we are very old in a very old world, he thought, then added, we are surely the oldest weapon of state, the only one that existed then and exists now. An attendant asked him if he would like a pillow. He shook his head. In all his years he had never slept with the aid of a pillow, never accepted the need for softness.
Love – yes. He’d needed that but it had been taken from him. Now he would revenge the death of his love, of Loa Wei Fen – even if his political masters didn’t want it so.
Zhong Fong passed by him, heading towards the bathroom in the front cabin. The old assassin studied him again. He had been tracking the inspector for the better part of a month. Nothing about him seemed unusual. But he knew this man was a worthy quarry. He must be. He had managed to kill Loa Wei Fen, the best student he had ever trained in the academy. Such a man must have some resources that he keeps to himself. A secret wellspring of knowledge – and perhaps power.
Women see it, he thought. And the man’s little girl. I do not yet, and I will not attack until I do.
The attendant’s hand came in front of him and lowered a table. Onto it she put a plate of what the old assassin thought must be food. He picked the icing off a slice of carrot cake and ate it. As he was losing his teeth, his love of sweets was increasing. He examined the rest of the “food” in front of him. He cracked a small hard paper tube hoping it would reveal a candy but was disappointed to find it to be salt. No more sweets. He sat back. He would not be eating anything else, although he looked at each dish closely and enumerated the number of ways that both the implements and the food itself could be used to kill an opponent. He was seventy-four years old. His teeth were bad but his body was as well toned as a well-conditioned man half his age. The enamel of teeth rots, but sinew and tendon, the real source of physical power, age well if they are looked after. And his sinews and tendons had been extended and strengthened by exercise every day for the past seven decades. He smiled, closed his eyes and waited. “We began in patience,” he heard his first teacher whisper in his ear. “Be still. Listen to the room, feel the earth spin and sense the power of your chi deep within – like a cobra raising itself – then flaring its hood.”
CHAPTER THREE
A DEAR ROBERT LETTER
R obert slipped the newspaper Fong had left on the table beneath his arm and headed back to his hotel room. In the elevator he began to feel silly – like he was playing spy or something. But when he took out his card to unlock his hotel room door he wondered how to tell if someone had been in his room while he was gone. Something about putting hairs across the door jamb or something – he wasn’t very fond of spy movies.
He locked his
The old assassin saw no contradiction between his job and the desire to save life. He was an arm of diplomacy. His people had marched with Q’in She Huang when the mad tyrant first united China. They had been there when the Chinese invented gunpowder. When a Chinese junk circumnavigated the world almost two hundred years before the silly Italian bumped into the Americas. A whole section of The Art of War was written by a direct ancestor and four chapters based on the exploits of another early member of the Guild of Assassins.
He stroked his whiskers. Yes, we are very old in a very old world, he thought, then added, we are surely the oldest weapon of state, the only one that existed then and exists now. An attendant asked him if he would like a pillow. He shook his head. In all his years he had never slept with the aid of a pillow, never accepted the need for softness.
Love – yes. He’d needed that but it had been taken from him. Now he would revenge the death of his love, of Loa Wei Fen – even if his political masters didn’t want it so.
Zhong Fong passed by him, heading towards the bathroom in the front cabin. The old assassin studied him again. He had been tracking the inspector for the better part of a month. Nothing about him seemed unusual. But he knew this man was a worthy quarry. He must be. He had managed to kill Loa Wei Fen, the best student he had ever trained in the academy. Such a man must have some resources that he keeps to himself. A secret wellspring of knowledge – and perhaps power.
Women see it, he thought. And the man’s little girl. I do not yet, and I will not attack until I do.
The attendant’s hand came in front of him and lowered a table. Onto it she put a plate of what the old assassin thought must be food. He picked the icing off a slice of carrot cake and ate it. As he was losing his teeth, his love of sweets was increasing. He examined the rest of the “food” in front of him. He cracked a small hard paper tube hoping it would reveal a candy but was disappointed to find it to be salt. No more sweets. He sat back. He would not be eating anything else, although he looked at each dish closely and enumerated the number of ways that both the implements and the food itself could be used to kill an opponent. He was seventy-four years old. His teeth were bad but his body was as well toned as a well-conditioned man half his age. The enamel of teeth rots, but sinew and tendon, the real source of physical power, age well if they are looked after. And his sinews and tendons had been extended and strengthened by exercise every day for the past seven decades. He smiled, closed his eyes and waited. “We began in patience,” he heard his first teacher whisper in his ear. “Be still. Listen to the room, feel the earth spin and sense the power of your chi deep within – like a cobra raising itself – then flaring its hood.”
CHAPTER THREE
A DEAR ROBERT LETTER
R obert slipped the newspaper Fong had left on the table beneath his arm and headed back to his hotel room. In the elevator he began to feel silly – like he was playing spy or something. But when he took out his card to unlock his hotel room door he wondered how to tell if someone had been in his room while he was gone. Something about putting hairs across the door jamb or something – he wasn’t very fond of spy movies.
He locked his
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