by Lisa See
Interspersed among the big color layouts were pages with simpler descriptions of pieces along with prices that Cosgrove’s estimated they would sell for. These would have to be the artworks for which Lily had not provided photographs. As David read the descriptions, he saw that most of them—including the jade—had come from Cathay Antiquities. If these had truly been in Cathay’s possession here in Hong Kong, photographs could have been taken in time to be featured in the catalog. Three ruyis—none with a photograph—were also listed. The description of one of them sounded like Dr. Ma’s missing artifact—a fungus with a long shaft. It had also come from Cathay Antiquities.
David closed the catalog and stared out across the harbor. Hulan often said if you knew the victim, then you’d know the killer, but variations of that axiom were true for almost any crime. Know the source of narcotics and the way in which they are moved to find the traffickers. But, unlike drugs, Chinese antiquities presented spoils that were very narrow in scope, with an even more limited supply of end users willing to spend half a million U.S. dollars on a Chinese plate, and an almost minute pool of thieves who could pull off the initial theft, smuggling, and getting the pieces to a final buyer. Although he still had no hard evidence, Lily was the only person at Site 518 with the three essential ingredients to make the scheme work: opportunity, a method or methods for moving the contraband, and a distribution source.
David turned away from the view as the voice of the BBC anchor filtered into his consciousness. Flooding on the Yangzi below the Three Gorges had resulted in 780 deaths in the last two days. The rising river and turbulent waters had caused traffic on the river to stop. Sixty thousand tourists—including fifteen thousand foreigners—on 350 boats had been off-loaded either above or below the Three Gorges Dam site. Seventeen hundred vehicles had been mobilized to evacuate tourists and residents alike, although many roads were closed.
David had watched the river rise dramatically in Bashan, had encountered the disgruntled tourists at the visitors’ center, and had seen the boats bunched on either side of the dam site. Below the dam where the river had breached its banks, he’d seen dead animals floating in sodden fields, people waiting on their roofs for rescue, and water spread all the way to the horizon, but he hadn’t registered just how bad the situation was, which became apparent as the report continued.
All schools below the dam site had been closed and production at sixteen hundred factories temporarily suspended. Telephone lines were down in many places. There’d been periodic power outages, and the government was recommending that people boil their water. More than five hundred dikes along the middle and lower reaches of the river had minor ruptures, and close to a million people had been mobilized to make repairs. In Hunan Province below the dam site, the Minzu Yuan dike was in danger of total failure. Preparations were being made to move three-quarters of a million people.
The anchor turned the report over to a weather analyst, who said that the monsoon system was moving east, where it would meet a typhoon brewing in the Pacific. Torrential rains were expected over the next few days, and the river would continue to rise as the runoff collected and continued its eastward push. A high death toll was anticipated in the provinces below the Three Gorges. Meanwhile, Hong Kong residents should prepare for typhoon conditions.
“WAS I INTIMATE WITH LILY? JESUS!”
“Mr. Miller, after what you’ve just told me, I see even more of a connection between the three of you. Brian worked for you, but in a sense he also cheated you. Lily brought to your attention objects that you could buy legally, but at the same time she denied you many things that you would have liked to have added to your collection. They’re both dead….”
“But the link isn’t me. The link is what they were smuggling.”
“Perhaps, but I hope you see how that still brings me back to you. You’re the only major collector who’s on the scene and has a vested interest in Brian’s and Lily’s activities. So I’ll ask you again, how close was your relationship with Lily?”
“As I told you before, I liked her a lot. We did business together. We often dined together. And, yes, we slept together on occasion. But it wasn’t personal, if you know what I mean.”
“How is sleeping together not personal?”
Stuart tilted his head down and looked up at her in a manner that could almost be considered coy. “I can see that you’re what we might call a woman of a certain age. Haven’t you had the occasion to have sex with someone just because it was convenient or the moment was right or a situation presented itself or you just wanted to have a little fun with no strings attached?”
“Which one was it with you and Lily?”
“For her or for me?”
“Let’s start with you.”
“It usually happened up at Bashan. So I guess you could say it was convenient, but it was also fun and there were no strings attached. Lily was good company. She loved to tell stories, and it was wonderful to watch how she embellished and elaborated on the truth. Did she tell you the one about the pornography that decorates the walls of the guesthouse?”
Hulan nodded.
“A total fabrication, but those stories were part of what made her such a great salesperson. Her fanciful tales of hidden treasures and concubine ghosts gave romance to material objects. It was malarkey, but entertaining malarkey. Without being too crude, it was that aspect of her that made her amusing in bed. I hope I’m not embarrassing you.”
“And for Lily? How did she see view your relationship?”
“Business, pure and simple. She and her company made a considerable amount of money off of me.”
“You said earlier that you like to be hands-on.”
He nodded cautiously as he followed her abrupt segue.
“Would you say you’re hands-on enough to have cut off Lily’s feet?”
Stuart’s cheeks flushed and his head jerked back as though the words themselves had hit him in the face. “Lily! I….” He put a hand to his brow and rubbed. “I apologize. I hadn’t thought about what might have been done to her.” He dropped his hand and took a deep breath. “She must have suffered terribly.”
Hulan watched him closely. Lying about committing a murder was to be expected, and people tended to do it pretty well, given the stakes. Grief, by contrast, was hard to imitate, but she’d met experts at the game. A lot would depend on how he answered her other questions.
Hulan veered back again to the dam. “You mentioned you’ve had some problems here in the construction zone.”
Stuart looked puzzled. “I don’t remember any problems.”
“Faulty components….”
“Oh, those problems.” He laughed sadly and shook his head. “I just wanted to avoid your interrogation.”
Hulan prompted: “Work being sabotaged….”
“Inspector,” his voice sounded world-weary, “have you been on a construction site before? Construction—whether it’s a simple home remodel or a project like this—is always plagued with problems. So yeah, we’ve had problems, but I don’t see what they could possibly have to do with your investigation.”
“Still, I’d like you to take me through some of your difficulties as you see them.”
“We’ve had delays in the delivery of materials, because your Customs people held them up down in Shanghai.”
“What else?”
“We’ve ordered materials here in your country, but each time they arrive we seem to get defective batches.”
“Another outside problem, correct?”
“Another problem caused by your country, if that’s what you mean,” he replied irritably.
“And you say these complications are to be expected?”
“Like I said, every project has headaches. This one has had them for what? Eight years?” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you know anything about the dam?”
Avoidance, she knew that route well herself.
“I just saw the displays down at the visitors’ center.”
&nbs
p; “I mean the history of the thing.” Stuart pushed away his teacup, then leaned back in his chair. “It’s been one obstacle after another since day one. Sun Yatsen first proposed a dam in 1918 as part of his Grand Plan for National Construction. Forty years later, Mao commanded that a dam be built that would show man’s supremacy over nature, the Party’s supremacy over the masses, and Mao’s supremacy over both—”
“I know this—”
“But it was beyond China’s capabilities,” Stuart continued, “so Mao ordered boulders blasted and the course dredged, effectively taming the wildness of the river and eliminating the need for trackers. You know what they are, right?”
“The men who pulled boats upriver.”
“Brava, Inspector.”
She didn’t like the way he was testing her, but she decided to let it go for now, because of course he’d want to reestablish the upper hand. This tactic was more common among men than women. Men didn’t like others to see their pain.
“Different people had different ideas all the way up until two months before the events at Tiananmen,” he went on, “when the State Council rejected yet another dam proposal. But how do you divert a country—and the world—from the disgrace of what happened on that square? Li Peng, prime minister back then, pushed for the project to go forward as a monument to national pride. He claimed that China would need no outside help. Of course, it did. So here I am. But so are a lot of outside contractors and suppliers. And yes, we’ve all had problems, not just in dealing with the bureaucracy of your system but with work being unintentionally sabotaged. But I want to assure you that we’re vigi- lant, and we’ve got a foolproof safety system of redundancy upon redundancy—from the smallest moving part to my turbines to the computers that will run the whole thing to the best software in the world that will scan for viruses and any other problem 24/7 from now till eternity.”
“You’re still speaking in generalities. Tell me more about sabotage.”
Stuart thought for a moment. “I’ll lay out two scenarios for you. Let’s say you find that someone’s dumped a load of concrete over your equipment by accident. It doesn’t harm the dam per se. It’s just a nuisance. You with me so far?”
She nodded and he went on.
“Scenario two: We install a piece of equipment. Everything is checked and approved, then checked and approved again. Redundancy upon redundancy even before you become operational to make sure everything is as safe as it can possibly be. You go back the next day and two screws are gone. Would that cause a problem today? No. Will it ever cause a problem? Probably not. But consider the size of the dam. Now subtract a couple of screws here and there throughout the dam. Now you have to worry about overall integrity. As they say in your country, the collapse of the dam begins with an ant hole.”
“You said before that security here is tight enough for you to feel safe. If that’s so, then how do these saboteurs get in?”
“I don’t think they do. I truly believe that our difficulties have had less to do with malicious intent or ‘saboteurs’ than with ineptitude and inexperience. I fault paying people, who’ve never done this kind of work before, a hundred and twenty-two dollars a month for very hard labor. At the same time, I fault us for not realizing that those workers might want to pick up whatever they can find here and sell it for whatever price they can get.”
“Could the All-Patriotic Society be involved?” She circled back just to satisfy herself.
“Look, Xiao Da is a nutcase, but that doesn’t mean his group has anything to do with our problems. The real danger to the dam is large-scale terrorism.”
Stuart, who came from a country that prided itself on religious freedom, wouldn’t understand that China considered the cult a domestic threat. On the other hand….
“Sadly, your country has already learned that religious fanaticism can lead to horrible acts of terrorism,” she reminded him. “What would be the biggest threat here?”
“A bomb. Dams are often targeted during wars for defensive or offensive purposes. If this one ever went, millions of people would die. Which is why the dam is protected by two divisions of soldiers, as well as missile batteries.”
“Have you ever met a man named Wu Huadong?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Did he ever work here?”
“I don’t know,” Stuart answered in frustration. “I don’t recognize the name, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t worked on the project.”
“Do you have people here who are members of the All-Patriotic Society?” Hulan asked.
“I don’t personally hire the people who work on my crews. As for the others, well, there are about seventy thousand people working here—”
“At the visitors’ center, I read it was twenty thousand,” she said.
“They said it would be twenty thousand when they started. It’s closer to seventy thousand today. They said it would cost ten billion dollars U.S. to build. Later that figure was revised to twenty-four billion, but it will probably be closer to seventy billion by the time it’s done.”
“Let’s get back to the All-Patriotic Society,” she suggested, returning to her original subject.
“You tell me, Inspector. Wouldn’t it be against the law to work here if you were a member of that group?”
“People don’t always tell the truth,” she observed.
Stuart tipped his head in agreement.
“What about foreigners?” Hulan asked. “Is there anyone who might want to stop the project?”
“Where shall I start? Greenpeace? The Sierra Club? International Rivers Network? The National Wildlife Fund? They’re all in an uproar over environmental issues—the species that will be lost, the silting that will eventually clog the dam, and the cesspool that the reservoir will create. Who else? Hell, my government’s National Security Council said that the U.S.—and by extension industrial companies like mine—should steer clear of the project. And what about the bastards over at the U.S. Export-Import Bank who decided they wouldn’t guarantee loans to U.S. companies seeking contracts here? Yeah, there are a lot of people and organizations that don’t want to see the dam completed.”
“But you can still guarantee that it’s safe.”
“Let me put it this way,” Stuart blurted, finally losing his cool, “I don’t think that anything that’s happened with my turbines will put the integrity of the dam in question, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Go ask one of the foreign inspectors.” Sensing a momentary advantage, he pressed on. “Don’t you watch your television news? Haven’t you heard your premier speak of the problems of ‘tofu construction’? He isn’t just talking about those new rattraps along the river they’re moving people to; he’s been talking about the dam. ‘Quality means the life of the Three Gorges Project. The responsibility on your shoulders is heavier than Mount Tai.’ Are you telling me you haven’t heard that?”
“I’ve heard it,” she allowed, “but I’m not so naïve as to think that those workers that you spoke so highly of just a moment ago or even the so-called technically advanced outsiders like yourself can bear the weight of Premier Zhu’s mountain.”
“Do I hear sarcasm, Inspector?” Stuart shot back. “Just who do you think the Chinese will blame if something does happen to the dam? Themselves? Not likely. You’ve got to hand it to Zhu, going against the political tide and speaking out on quality. People listen to him, which is why your government has hired a French company to oversee quality control. They’re outsiders who won’t be as susceptible to bribes as others are within your country.”
“You’re making a lot of money—”
“You bet your ass I am,” he admitted freely, “but that’s not why I’m here.”
“If it’s not the money, then why?”
Stuart looked genuinely surprised by the question, and Hulan realized that all thoughts of Lily had faded from his mind. “It’s the project! My God, woman, don’t you see its magnificence?”
“It’s big….”
Comprehension suddenly flashed over Stuart’s features. “You think this is some male thing—some giant phallic symbol or whatever you women think when you don’t understand something. You’re way off base, Inspector. It’s not about the money, although don’t get me wrong, it’s great. It’s not even about the size, although it’s awesome and I’m honored to have my company be a part of it.” He stood, went to the window, pulled open the blinds, and looked out. “Look at it, Inspector. Think about what it will mean to your country. China’s future depends on power. The dam will help provide that.”
He turned back to her. “Am I upset about what will be lost along the river? Yeah, I care about that a lot, so I’m funding environmental and archaeological projects. And yes, I’m preserving artifacts by buying them through proper channels when they become available on the outside market.”
“Does saving a few relics make you feel better about the lives of the people who’ll be affected by this project?”
“You want to talk about displacing people now?” He threw her a reproving glance, then hurried on. “Take a city like Wanxian. Two-thirds of it will be lost under the reservoir, but a new city is being built to replace it. There’ll be indoor plumbing and electricity for everyone. The New Immigrant City of Wanxian will get its first ever railway connection and an airport capable of handling jumbo jets. Suddenly the people of Wanxian—a place with abundant natural resources but virtually unknown to outsiders—will have the whole world open to them. That’s exciting to me.”
He motioned out the window. “At its heart this is a simple construction job involving concrete and steel, but think about what it means. Hundreds of thousands have died in floods along the Yangzi in the twentieth century alone. And I have to tell you that China’s record on building dams isn’t very good, so the death toll from collapses is truly mind-boggling. But these things aren’t all in the distant past. Five years ago, four thousand died in what was just another ordinary rainy season. And are you aware of the current situation? What you’ve experienced as a bad storm up in Bashan is causing severe flooding downstream from here. Do you know how many people have died or how many have been evacuated in the last few days?”