The Art of War Read Free Page B

desk in front of DeVore, its nineteen by nineteen grid part overlaid with a patterning of black and white stones. Most of the board was empty: only in the top right-hand corner, in ch’u , the west, were the stones concentrated heavily. There the first stage of the battle had been fought, with black pressing white hard into the corner, slowly choking off its breath, blinding its eyes until, at last, the group was dead, the ten stones taken from the board.
    It was an ancient game – one of the ten games of the West Lake, played by those two great masters from Hai-nin, Fan Si-pin and Su Ting-an, back in 1763. He played it often, from memory, stopping, as now, at the fifty-ninth move to query what Fan, playing white, had chosen. It was an elegant, enthralling game, the two masters so perfectly balanced in ability, their moves so exquisitely thought out, that he felt a shiver of delight contemplating what was to come. Even so, he could not help but search for those small ways in which each player’s game might have been improved.
    DeVore looked up from the board and glanced across at the young man who stood, his back to him, on the far side of the room. Then, taking a wafer-thin ice-paper pamphlet from his jacket pocket, he unfolded it and held it out.
    ‘Have you heard of this new group, Stefan – the Ping Tiao ?’
    Lehmann turned, his face expressionless, then came across and took the pamphlet, examining it. After a moment he looked back at DeVore, his cold, pink eyes revealing nothing. ‘I’ve heard of them. They’re low level types, aren’t they? Why are you interested?’
    ‘A man must be interested in many things,’ DeVore answered cryptically, leaning forward to take a white stone from the bowl, hefting it in his hand. ‘The Ping Tiao want what we want, to destroy the Seven.’
    ‘Yes, but they would destroy us just as readily. They’re terrorists. They want only to destroy.’
    ‘I know. Even so, they could be useful. We might walk the same path a while, don’t you think?’
    ‘And then?’
    DeVore smiled tightly. Lehmann knew as well as he. Then there would be war between them. A war he would win. He looked down at the board again. The fifty-ninth move. What would he have played in Fan’s place? His smile broadened, became more natural. How many times had he thought it through? A hundred? A thousand? And always, inevitably, he would make Fan’s move, taking the black at 4/1 to give himself a temporary breathing space. So delicately were things balanced at that point that to do otherwise – to make any of a dozen other tempting plays – would be to lose it all.
    A wise man, Fan Si-pin. He knew the value of sacrifice: the importance of making one’s opponents work hard for their small victories – knowing that while the battle was lost in ch’u , the war went on in shang and ping and tsu.
    So it was now, in Chung Kuo. Things were balanced very delicately. And one wrong move… He looked up at Lehmann again, studying the tall young albino.
    ‘You ask what would happen should we succeed, but there are other, more immediate questions. Are the Ping Tiao important enough? You know how the media exaggerate these things. And would an alliance with them harm or strengthen us?’
    Lehmann met his gaze. ‘As I said, the Ping Tiao are a low level organisation. Worse, they’re idealists. It would be hard to work with such men. They would have fewer weaknesses than those we’re used to dealing with.’
    ‘And yet they are men. They have needs, desires.’
    ‘Maybe so, but they would mistrust us from the start. In their eyes we are First Level, their natural enemies. Why should they work with us?’
    DeVore smiled and stood up, coming round the desk. ‘It’s not a question of choice, Stefan, but necessity. They need someone like us. Think of the losses they’ve sustained.’
    He was about to say more – to outline his plan – when there was an urgent knocking at the door.
    DeVore looked across, meeting