The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

by David Rotenberg

Fong nodded.

  Suddenly Lily was screaming at him. “She’s your daughter, Fong. Do something. Do something!”

  Angel Michael took advantage of the chaos of the Hua Shan Hospital’s third evacuation in four days to slip past the few remaining guards. Five minutes later, he entered the hospital’s sixth abortion surgery. He put Xiao Ming on the table, climbed up to the window, and grabbed the titanium cage with its grisly contents and the RDX explosive he’d stashed in the courtyard just outside. Back in the operating room he took out the complicated timing device he’d carried in the shopping bag and wired it to the explosive. Then he placed the titanium cage beneath the table and stood back to admire his handiwork. On the operating table, Xiao Ming lay very still, watching him. For a moment he paused, then he grabbed the girl and headed out into the gathering chaos. He dropped the remaining contents of the shopping bag as he did – decoy bombs.

  As he rushed down the front steps of the hospital his cell phone rang. It wasn’t a familiar number. He punched his directory ID and it came up with a name that Angel Michael only vaguely recognized. It was a trader he had contacted six months ago, when he was first setting up operations in Shanghai. At that time he had been trolling for basic tradable objects but his list included an interest in any Manichaean writings.

  He looked at the number again then at Xiao Ming.

  “So, little one,” he said in Mandarin, “should I return this call or not?”

  Xiao Ming looked at him closely. She noted the movement of his lips then did as she always did – she imitated what she saw. The man smiled at the baby, “Good time, bad time, opportunity only knocks once.” He punched the talk button.

  Fong’s cell rang. “What?”

  “It’s Robert Cowens. I believe I’ve made contact.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “For what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What do you want me to do, Detective?”

  Fong had no idea. Too many things were in motion. “Don’t do anything. No. Try to set up a meeting then get back to me.”

  Fong hung up but his phone immediately rang again. “Zhong Fong.”

  “We’re going in, Fong,” said Wu Fan-zi’s confident voice.

  “Good.”

  Wu Fan-zi hung up. Moments later it occurred to Fong that Wu Fan-zi had said “we.” Who the hell was the “we” part of “we”?

  Angel Michael knew that without another diversion they may well have time to disarm the bomb despite its complex timing device and the decoys. He needed to cause a significant fuss to draw fire his way – looking at Xiao Ming he corrected himself, “our way.” Then it occurred to him. How simple. In a singlechild society, children are the most valuable of all commodities. And where were there many, many children in one place? The Children’s Palace . . . of course.

  * * *

  As Fong raced toward the Hua Shan Hospital his cell phone rang. It was the head of security at the Children’s Palace. A man was holding sixty-five children and their teacher hostage on the second floor of the building!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BOMBS

  The cell phone broke up so badly that Wu Fan-zi couldn’t be sure he understood what Fong was saying – then it went dead. Anything could have interfered with the connection but Wu Fan-zi wondered if somehow it was his own anxiety that was causing it. He looked to Joan Shui at his side. He saw her caught within the thickness of his glass face shield. “Who else in the world can look good in bomb protective gear?” he wondered. Then another thought flitted, unwelcome, through his mind, “Am I going to lose her so soon?”

  The phone crackled, then spat into life. “Status, Wu Fan-zi?” Fong was shouting.

  “Fong, you’re cutting out on me.”

  “We’ve got a situation here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Back at the Children’s Palace on Nanjing Lu. He’s holding a whole room of children with him and – my daughter as well.”

  “Who is?”

  “The bomber.”

  “Fong . . .”

  “He claims that if we disarm the bomb he’ll start killing the children. He’s already killed their teacher.”

  “But how could he know what’s . . .”

  “I don’t know. Tell me what you have there, Wu Fan-zi.” Fong’s voice was tight.

  Wu Fan-zi took a deep breath and then said, “A complex device with an obvious timer. I’ve never seen a system set up like this. We already disarmed two dummies on our way in but now that we are in the abortion surgery I’m not sure how to proceed.”

  “Wu Fan-zi, the New York Times contacted my office. They received an e-mail stating that there will be an explosion at precisely 4 p.m. at the Hua Shan Hospital. It had a digital photo of a fetus in a cage and another lunatic phrase about the light finally coming. Is it possible that he could have set the bomb for 4 p.m.?”

  “Of course, it’s possible, Fong,” Wu Fan-zi shouted back.

  “That would give you less than fifteen minutes,” Fong stated.

  “Maybe he’s lying.”

  “Maybe he’s not.” Fong waited for a moment, then continued, “Are you alone there?”

  “No. Joan Shui’s with me.”

  “Get her out of there, Wu Fan-zi.” Silence greeted Fong’s request so he said it a second time. Still silence. Finally Fong said, “Do you need her help in disarming the bomb?”

  Wu Fan-zi looked at Joan Shui then said into the phone, “No.”

  “Do you care about her?”

  Joan Shui reached for the phone but Wu Fan-zi held it to one side. Then he put his hand on her arm and said into the phone, “Yes.”

  “Then get her out of there, Wu Fan-zi.”

  “Do me a favour, Fong?”

  “Sure. Name it.”

  “If I don’t . . .”

  “You will.”

  “I don’t think so this time. I want you to celebrate my fifty-third birthday – even if I’m not there.”

  After a brief silence, Fong said, “Sure.”

  “It’s exactly two months from today.”

  “I know that. We’ll drink the night away – you and me and Joan Shui.”

  Fong couldn’t be sure but he thought he heard Wu Fan-zi stifle a laugh – or could it be a cry. Fong couldn’t picture that. But the phone line between the two men had somehow gotten far too intimate. Too close. Fong shook the image of a terrified Wu Fan-zi away, then said quickly, “See you at the party if not before.”

  Wu Fan-zi didn’t reply. He simply disconnected the line and turned to Joan Shui. “Is everyone out safely?”

  “Yes.”

  After a long pause he said, “No. You’re not out.”

  “I won’t leave you here alone,” she said.

  “You will.”

  “I . . .”

  “You have no choice. I’m ordering you to go.”

  She nodded slowly and touched his face mask. She was shocked to see tears rolling down his cheeks.

  “Go.” Then softly he added, “Please.”

  “But I just met you.”

  “All the more reason to leave.” He looked at the device sitting beneath the surgical table. It had six coloured wires coming from it. No device needs more than three. He looked at her and raised his shoulders questioningly. “Any guesses?”

  “You want me to guess which wire to cut?”

  “Unless you know which one I should cut.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Neither do I.” He took off his face mask. So did she. “So, guess.”

  “Green. Cut the green. I’ve always hated the colour green.”

  She touched his lips softly then moved out of the room.

  “Joan?”

  She stopped and looked back at him.

  “It’s my fifty-third birthday two months from now.”

  “Going to have a party?”

  “Fong’s throwing one for me.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said.

  “Go
od. It’s a date. Now go.”

  He glanced at his watch. It was eleven minutes before four o’clock. He gave Joan a full ten minutes to get safely out of the Hua Shan Hospital then flipped his face shield into place and reached for his wire cutters.

  * * *

  Robert Cowens called Fong. “Where are you, Detective?”

  “Not anywhere that you can help me.”

  “I think I . . . might be able to help . . .”

  “You can’t help here!” Fong punched the off button of his cell phone.

  But not before Robert heard, quiet, as if deep in the background, the dharma kids’ unforgettable rendition of “Ok–ra–homa.”

  The explosion at the Hua Shan Hospital tore a huge hole in the side of the building. The air that rushed in fed a massive fireball that raced along an upper corridor and blasted out all the windows. It rained glass and bricks and what little remained of the earthly existence of Wu Fan-zi on the crowd below. Joan stood very still and reached a hand to her belly. She began to cry – like she hadn’t cried since she had been a child.

  Fong opened the door to the large room and stepped in leaving the distant sounds of dharma kids’ song behind him. He had chosen not to evacuate the children from the rest of the building and insisted on going in to confront the bomber alone. He left Chen to keep Lily and the other cops outside.

  The room in which the bomber held the children had originally been a ballroom. Up above was a balustrade that encircled the entire space from which guests could watch the dancers. Now the room was a big open space with a raised circular dais in the centre. In the middle of the platform the beautiful man from the photograph stood holding Xiao Ming in the crook of his left arm. In his right hand he held one of the Tibetan’s razor-sharp swolta blades. The other sixty or so children were sitting, back to the man, with their feet dangling over the sides of the platform. All faced out. Some cried. Many had urinated in their pants. All showed the extremis of fear on their faces. The teacher who Angel Michael had executed ten minutes ago, to prove he was serious, lay on the floor – the fresh swolta cut across her throat still leaking crimson.

  “Message conveyed?” the man shouted toward Fong.

  Fong nodded.

  “Good. So now we wait – we wait for the light to come.”

  There was a silence and then a voice came from above, “Don’t you need this to make the light come?”

  The man looked up to the balustrade. Devil Robert stood there holding the fake scroll he had received from the Chinese men on the Bund Promenade his first day back in Shanghai. Robert undid the ribbon and, holding one end, with a mighty heave tossed the other end toward the ceiling. The scroll unwound in an elongated flutter and seemed to hang in the air.

  Angel Michael looked up.

  Fong reached inside his coat and felt the butt of Chen’s pistol. Suddenly Xiao Ming began to cry. Her howls immediately set off the other children.

  Robert heard the crying and for a moment felt the sick sensation of being seven years old and hearing his brother: “No, Mommy. No Mommy no.”He swallowed hard then pulled out a Zippo lighter and scraped it along his pant leg. The flame leapt up almost six inches high. Robert used all his will power to control his fear and whipped his end of the scroll hard so the rest of the thing rose like a dragon’s tail.

  A quiet took the room.

  Robert looked at Fong. He saw Fong’s hand pull out the gun.

  Robert’s voice bloomed inside Fong’s head: “I thought you were a lousy shot.”

  Fong answered inside Robert’s head: “I am.”

  Devil Robert shouted at Angel Michael, “It’s real. No Islam Akhun forgery here.”

  Angel Michael gasped and reached upward, toward the scroll.

  Holding the Zippo aloft Robert shouted, “Let them go or I light this.”

  Angel Michael screamed, “No.”

  Robert touched the flame to the treated parchment. The paper whooshed into life, the flame leaping along its length aided by the chemical treatment used to make the scroll appear to be ancient. The paper raced fire across the space like a flash of heat lightning on a moonless night.

  All eyes in the room looked up.

  Then the part of the scroll that Robert held in his hand burst into flame. The smell of his own burning flesh brought a rush of memory to Robert: No, Mommy. No Mommy no. But now Robert wasn’t sure if it was his brother’s voice or his own.

  Angel Michael opened his arms to the burning pathway above him, a luminous smile suddenly appearing on his face. For an instant Robert saw the innocent child Angel Michael had been, not the madman he now was.

  Angel Michael put Xiao Ming on the dais then lay down beside her. He turned the baby’s head so she faced away from him. Then he slipped his even-sided cross from his neck and placed it in his mouth.

  Fong raced toward the dais, the gun at his side.

  Angel Michael raised the swolta knife and moved it toward Xiao Ming’s throat – an arm’s-length away.

  A potent thought bloomed in Fong’s mind: “It was a sacrifice – the baby in the construction pit was not made to watch the father die – the baby was sacrificed by the father!”

  The swolta touched Xiao Ming’s throat.

  Fong raised his gun. But as he pressed the trigger everything changed. Suddenly he was in a modern room with a curved staircase at the far side. Music was playing. People were dressed for a celebration of some sort. Ahand tapped him on the shoulder and he turned. Commissioner Hu, the man in charge when Fong had first joined Special Investigations and who everyone referred to as His Huness, smiled his connected party smile and said to Fong, “Keep your eyes open, you’re here on business.”

  The guy always knew how to ruin a good time.

  “Right, sir,” Fong said. He was surprised at how young his voice sounded. Then he recognized where this was – no, what this was. It was a party after a performance at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. He and a few of the other candidates for Special Investigations had been tapped to provide security because they were cops and could speak enough English to overhear conversations between the Chinese actors and the many visiting foreign dignitaries.

  It was the night that he had first met Fu Tsong, his deceased wife.

  The band was playing – something forties, swinging. He moved toward the music and struck up a conversation with one of the men listening. “How was the play?”

  “Sensational. This new actress Fu Tsong is truly amazing.”

  “What was it?”

  “Twelfth Night. She plays a girl who dresses as a boy, then reveals herself at the end as a woman.”

  “Sounds like a Peking Opera.”

  “In fact, at first I thought it was a Peking Opera then I read the notes in the program.”

  “It’s not Peking Opera then?”

  “Plot sounds like it but no. British. By a guy named Shakespeare. Hey look, there she is.”

  Fong looked. On the sweeping set of stairs stood an extraordinary, delicate creature flanked by two men. She seemed to glide effortlessly down the steps. At the bottom she nodded to the people waiting to talk to her. Then she headed toward the door. Halfway there the band completed their tune. She stopped to offer her applause.

  When she did she saw Fong for the first time.

  She tilted her head slightly and took a step toward him. He remembered little else except that they had danced together that night in a small bar. Then found a taxi and took it down to the river. They walked till a clear dawn came up over the Huangpo – the Huangpo that led to the mighty Yangtze, that in turn led to the sea. The details of the evening were lost to Fong. It was as if they had happened to someone else.

  “It’s ephemeral, Fong,” said Fu Tsong. Then she laughed. “In fact, it could just as easily not have happened at all.”

  “Look.”

  Fong looked where she pointed. He found himself in the same room, with the same conversations both with his Huness and the man who had seen Twelfth Night. “No. British.
By a guy named Shakespeare. Hey look, there she is.”

  And there she was again. Fu Tsong glided effortlessly down the sweeping steps. At the bottom she nodded to the people waiting to talk to her and then she headed toward the door just as she had done before. Halfway there the band completed their tune with the exact same ending as the other time. Fu Tsong stopped to offer her applause but this time the band picked up a tag and segued directly into a more modern number.

  Fu Tsong threw back her head and laughed as she continued to the door and left – without, even for a moment, casting a glance in Fong’s direction.

  Fong looked down – his finger was pulling the trigger of the gun.

  The shot thundered in his ears.

  Just a glance – or a non-glance and a life changes. The slightest pressure on the metal of a pistol’s trigger and a life ends.

  A viciously bright flash – a young man – a beautiful young man – a Chinese man – whose associates called Angel Michael – lay dead on the floor – a single bullet hole in his forehead – an even-sided cross half in and half out of his mouth. There is remarkably little blood. The silence in the room is momentarily profound.

  Then the children scream – and life continues.

  Fong let the gun fall and turned away. It was a lucky shot. He knew it. He could as easily have killed Xiao Ming as Angel Michael.

  Police officers rushed into the room from all sides. Crying children and shouting cops. At the height of the mayhem Fong saw Captain Chen leap up on the dais, grab Xiao Ming, and hold her tight to his chest. Lily was only a step behind him.

  But Fong didn’t move toward his wife and child.

  He didn’t know why or why his eyes were drawn upward to the black cinder of the scroll that rose on hidden currents and twisted and turned like a thing that although dead – refused to die.

  AFTER

  Fong wasn’t surprised how out of place Robert Cowens seemed in the small canteen at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. No one in Shanghai has a kitchen so everyone eats in places like the canteen. The food was inexpensive and reasonably good but not really open to the public so it was only the rare foreigner who found their way into such places. Sometimes, because the canteen was connected to the theatre academy, Fong would see foreigners – usually guest directors – seated at the rickety tables picking carefully through the food in front of them. He recalled one such Caucasian who had dragged his translator to the canteen to identify the meat he had been eating for weeks. When the white man came to the table with a dish of the mystery meat, the translator’s face went a little pale. “This,” he’d said pointing at the plate of breaded, deep-fried meat covered in a sweet brown sauce. “This. What kind of meat is this?”