Joel sat back in his chair. It was all pretty confusing but what was clear was that Shanghai and hence the People’s Republic of China were reeling. And that was good as far as Joel was concerned. A China offbalance was a China vulnerable. And no vulnerable nation, no matter how many people it had, could endanger the United States. A weak China was a good China, as far as Joel was concerned.
Joel thought about the e-mail from his Yale buddy, Larry, again. Clearly, there was an arsonist on the loose in ol’ Shanghai, probably a religiously inspired arsonist. Joel knew the profile of such individuals quite well.
He turned off the overheads in his office and stared at the lights of the Capitol. How to proceed? Joel felt as if the ball were now in his court. What could he do to force this nutcake into striking again? Joel allowed a smile to come to his lips. If even a little of what he surmised from his former roommate’s e-mail was true, Joel thought he knew just how to egg this lunatic on to another effort. He lit a smoke, picked up his phone, and called his contact at the New York Times.
* * *
When Angel Michael read the headlines in the International Herald Tribune claiming that the bombing in the People’s Fourteenth Hospital was nothing more than an industrial accident, rage seethed through him. He tried to breathe it away but found himself almost faint from anger. The paper made the point that there had been no cage, no note, and that much more than the abortion surgeries had been incinerated. It put the entire thing down to bad building codes in the People’s Republic of China.
He couldn’t believe it. Matthew looked at the people on the streets. There were open signs of fear on almost every face – on the buck-toothed youth who sold apples from the small wooden kiosk at exorbitant prices, on the man who fixed shoes from his sidewalk perch, on the old man on the ratty plastic chair with his feet in slippers, on the hunched-over figures on their bikes, on the traffic cops in their raised booths at intersections, on the men lifting, on the men carrying, on the men bent beneath their labours – even on the newly rich Tokyo-suited businessmen.
The women betrayed their fear differently. They peeked out warily beneath hooded eyes.
Mani had talked about the pervasiveness of fear before the coming of the light. And the light was coming. He, Angel Michael, was bringing it. He mounted the bicycle that he had bought from a street vendor when he first arrived in Shanghai all those months ago and he joined the unbroken stream of cyclists, twelve abreast, on Yan’an Lu. He settled into the pace and moved slowly toward the centre of the procession. He had no particular destination, so he didn’t have to be on either end to make a turn. He just rode and felt the wind in his face. It helped him to think.
Things were obviously getting complicated. The hospitals were now guarded and he had planned for this. But it was also evident that the city had been closed down. To check this he had tried to order train tickets to Beijing – no go. He had tried to phone a department store in Nanjing and his call had simply gone dead. Even his computer refused to link him to an outside server. So they had him surrounded. Him and eighteen million other souls. As he pedalled he thought, “I can still complete my mission.” At least he thought that until he picked up the note from his explosives supplier at the usual drop location.
It was typically cryptic: “Price has gone up – four times what you paid last time. Times are tough. Tomorrow by the great tower in the Pudong, the usual time. Don’t be late. This is our last meeting – ever.” Four times what he had paid the last time! He didn’t have anywhere near that kind of cash on hand and he only had until the “usual time” tomorrow to raise the money. He had to work quickly or the light would never come to this dark corner of the planet. He knew it was risky to raise that kind of money quickly. It could attract attention. But he had no other choice.
He flipped open the cell phone and made a call even as he pedalled.
Chen delivered the bad news to Fong. “Over eighty percent of the hospital workers have viewed the VHS tape. They were able to identity most but not all of the faces, sir.”
“Was the receptionist there?”
“Yes, he was very helpful in identifying hospital workers but he couldn’t ID anyone as the man who had left the message on his desk.”
“How many left unidentified?” Chen took a deep breath. “Spit it out, damn it,” Fong barked.
“Eleven.”
“Eleven!”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Is there a way of getting photos of the eleven who weren’t identified from the VHS tape so we can show them around?”
Chen smiled and withdrew eleven photos from his pocket.
“You are good with technology, aren’t you Chen?”
“Yes sir. I find technology very interesting.”
“Good.” Fong spread out the pictures on his desk. Four were women. Two were elderly men. Even if he arbitrarily left out those six, he was still looking at five faces of a possible serial arsonist. He stared at the faces. They stared back at him.
Matthew stared at the two Tibetans in front of him. He could sense their thinly veiled hatred, racial hatred. He’d had lots of experience with that. “Your hatred’s okay,” he thought. This is just about business.
They showed him several large sandstone carvings. One was an entire lintel piece. Another was an exquisite freestanding statue. Both were too large for him to lug around Shanghai. He needed something contained – something valuable but small. After much angry gnashing of teeth and colourful expletives, Angel Michael turned on his heel. He was surprised that they didn’t stop him. He pulled open the door and a small Tibetan woman stood there smiling. She had an expensive briefcase in her hands. She deftly flicked open the locks. The leather lid opened slowly revealing two antique swolta knives on a velvet cloth. Between them was an immaculately kept Buddhist scroll decorated with images of monks in a farmer’s field. Angel Michael pretended indifference but it did not last long. The find was special and both knew it. He tilted his head to one side and named a price. She laughed and quoted one back. He cried. In less than twenty minutes he had in his hands the means to get the rest of the money he needed to bring light to these poor benighted souls. Even as he paid out the last of his yuan notes Angel Michael was thinking ahead – to the buyer. Maybe it was time to meet the famous Devil Robert. Perhaps he was exactly the buyer for three such items.
Matthew had trailed Devil Robert several days ago down to Good Food Street. At first he was shocked to see him in the company of Tuan Li. Then he let it go. Matthew didn’t care who was in whose company or what race screwed what race. It was a matter of indifference to Matthew. But he saw the value of having Tuan Li at one’s side. After all, who would dare accuse the famous Tuan Li, national treasure of the People’s Republic of China, of stealing from the motherland.
He had watched Tuan Li twirl noodles on her chopsticks and feed them to the white man as if he were a child. Well, perhaps he was a child but a very useful child with a very full bank account if even part of the rumours were true about Devil Robert.
Then he stopped himself. Why take the risk of a new buyer? He placed a local call to the Mandarin Guest House. A voice answered in Cantonese. Angel Michael smiled and responded in Cantonese. Within fifty words, a meeting had been arranged and the basics of a deal was agreed upon that would allow Angel Michael to buy all the explosives he needed to bring back the light.
As Matthew got back on his bicycle, the tendril movements behind his eyes that signalled the onset of pain began. He made himself concentrate on the movement. He knew the pain behind his eyes and the releasing of the light within him were linked. How he didn’t know. But he had faith that Mani knew since he had known almost everything else of importance to Matthew. And, perhaps, that knowledge was in the sacred scrolls of the faithful, which had been hidden in the Silk Road deserts in an effort to keep them safe from the attentions of Rome all those years ago.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
INTERROGATIONS
Few people in the People’s Re
public of China could enter Fong’s office without being announced. Fewer still could cause Fong to grow cold with both anger and fear. But then again there is only one head of the Communist Party in Shanghai and at that moment he was standing in the doorway of Fong’s office and Fong was doing his best not to either strike out or beg.
The man was tall. A Northerner. His Shanghanese was poor. He may well have lived in Shanghai for years but he had never bothered to pick up the local dialect. Typical. For fifty years Beijing had allowed Shanghai to rot. According to Maoist thinking, Shanghai had been infected by its contacts with the West and the Shanghanese were thus not to be trusted. So there were few if any Shanghanese admitted to the high corridors of power.
But Beijing announced its change in attitude toward Shanghai when Chou En-lai pronounced the famous words, “Black cat, white cat, what’s the difference.” This was taken to mean money from the East, money from the West – money is money. And the race was on. All of a sudden Shanghai’s historical contact with the West was an advantage. Overnight, Shanghai was central to Beijing’s plans. But they never really trusted Shanghai up there in Beijing so men like the one standing in Fong’s doorway were put in positions of power just to be sure those uppity Shanghanese never forgot who really runs the Middle Kingdom.
“Good evening, Traitor Zhong,” the man began. His voice was heavy. A worker’s voice. His clothes, although of good fabric, hung awkwardly on his thick shoulders and almost non-existent neck. His eyes were coal black. His hands were rough as if they had spent years wielding a pickaxe in a mine, which they may well have done.
Fong nodded and almost said, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company on this fine evening?” but decided the man probably had no sense of humour. The man strode into Fong’s office and placed three American newspapers on Fong’s desk. “My people tell me that these papers claim the explosion at the People’s Fourteenth Hospital was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.”
Fong glanced at the papers. “They’re wrong.”
The man bristled at Fong’s refusal to use his title. “And you know this how, Traitor Zhong?”
“Our head arson investigator was in the building before sections of it collapsed. He saw the cage. He saw the message on the cage.”
Still no “sir.”
“Your man was in the fire? Perhaps he set the fire?”
“Perhaps he didn’t.”
The moment of dead air between the two men was filled with challenge.
“I’m going to lift the embargo against the city.”
“Don’t!”
The man stared at Fong.
“Sir. Please don’t, sir! We are making progress. I swear it, sir.”
“One more day, Traitor Zhong. One more day and you’d better have results for me.” The man was about to leave when he stopped himself and stared at the office. “This is much too fine an office for a traitor.”
Fong looked at the man.
“Don’t you think, Traitor Zhong?”
The man waited. Slowly Fong nodded. “In case you haven’t noticed, your window is broken.” The man smiled. “One more day, Traitor Zhong. One more day.” Then he turned and left, slamming the door behind him, as if his point needed any further emphasis. Fong took a moment to collect himself then opened the door. Several of his detectives were standing there with their mouths open.
“What? Never seen a party hack before? Come on, we’ve got work to do. Everyone in place?” They were coming back to Earth. “Everyone in place?” Fong repeated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Give me ten minutes then put Mr. Cowens in my office.”
Robert was surprised by the spaciousness of Fong’s office. He looked out the broken window at the spectacular view of the radio tower, the world’s tallest freestanding building, in the Pudong Industrial Region across the Huangpo River. He said the name Huangpo a second time. He liked the sound. The bruise on his face hurt but he did his best to ignore it. Something about all this actually felt right. Or perhaps inevitable.
Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind he’d always wondered if he’d end up incarcerated. On some level he believed it was his just end – on another level he knew he’d always been, in some sense, behind bars. He looked at the desk. There was a picture of a thin-faced younger woman carrying a newborn child. He’d only had a brief glance at this Detective Zhong but he seemed a bit old to be with this young creature. Certainly a little long in the tooth to be starting a family. Robert noted the arrangement of the articles on Fong’s desk. Not symmetrical but somehow ordered, as if planned – like a Japanese flower arrangement. Then Robert dismissed the thought. This was a Chinese cop. Just one step up from a thug or one down from a party man. He set his face, rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension, and stood very still, waiting.
In a small, empty side office, Fong quickly read through his notes. They had been tracking Mr. Cowens’ activities for quite some time. They knew his devil and his deeds but as Fong leafed through the papers for the third time he felt sure that their investigation had missed something. Something important.
Mr. Cowens’ salary from his law firm in Toronto was far greater than the money he made buying and selling antiquities. He also didn’t demand top dollar for a lot of his finds. Everyone they’d interviewed agreed that he was a tough and extremely knowledgeable negotiator but he never seemed to go for the kill in his trading, as if getting just enough money was the goal – but just enough for what? They knew he was dealing solely in cash but he always seemed to leave Shanghai with his pockets pretty much empty of both yuan and US dollars. He had no bank accounts in Shanghai or the rest of the mainland; he’d been body searched several times leaving the country and they’d found nothing. There were only a few small transactions converting yuan to US dollars on record and almost no bank transfers either to or from overseas. The whole thing just didn’t add up. Like a restaurant menu missing a page.
Fong put aside the report on Robert Cowens and opened his folder on Tuan Li. He re-read the famous actress’s statement. She was waiting in the adjoining interrogation room, the one the cops called the “Hilton” because it had a couch, a chair that had all four legs, and it was cleaned at least once a year.
Tuan Li rose from the sofa the moment Fong entered the room and the smile on her face said that she was extremely happy to see him. “This is a great pleasure,” she said.
“For myself as well, but I’m afraid this is a police matter.”
“Ah, am I under suspicion of some dastardly crime?” Her smile was luminous.
“No, but you have been consorting with foreigners.”
“Consorting is a complicated word,” she replied slowly and sat back down.
“Would you mind telling me what you were doing in the company of Mr. Robert Cowens?”
She thought about the question for a second. She certainly minded but she decided to answer. “I was assessing whether he was worthy of falling in love with.”
Fong looked hard at her.
“You heard correctly, Detective Zhong,” she said icily.
It hurt him that she used his formal title and she knew it. “And did he live up to your no doubt high standards?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He had no faith.”
“What?”
“Faith. He had no faith – no faith, Detective Zhong, no love. May I go now?” She stood. She was taller than him.
Fong stepped aside and she headed toward the door. “My wife would have admired your acting.”
“That’s not fair, Detective Zhong. You can’t insult me then offer me such high praise. It is unwise to use the affections of the departed for personal gain. It should be beneath you. It is no doubt beneath the memory of the great Fu Tsong.”
He looked at her. The simple elegance of the line of her momentarily transfixed him. Her words echoed in his head – they were true and he knew it. He said nothing.
She shook her head. �
�You disappoint me, Detective Zhong.” What could the great Fu Tsong have seen in this man, she wondered – clearly he had no faith either.
After Tuan Li left, Robert Cowens’ translator was ushered into the interrogation room. Her round face and French haircut surprised Fong. He glanced down at his data sheet. She had a man’s name. He asked her about that.
“My father wanted a boy – he got me.”
Fong nodded. That happened. “How long have you worked for Mr. Cowens?”
“Three years now.”
“How good is his Mandarin?”
“He thinks it’s better than it is.”
“They all do, don’t they?” She nodded slightly. “Are you present for most of his business dealings?”
“Most but not all.”
“He illegally trades in antiquities.”
After a slight hesitation she said, “I have confirmed that in my statement.”
“You could go to jail for aiding and abetting his illegal activities.”
“I could go to jail for other reasons too.” She stared straight at him. Not so much a challenge as a weariness of fighting.
“Where does the money go?”
“What money?”
The Hua Shan Hospital Murders Page 16