by Zhou HaoHui
Mu murmured to herself for a moment, and then nodded. “All right, on one condition. I want all the files in your possession.”
“Deal,” Zeng said without hesitation. “I’ll make copies for you.”
OCTOBER 22, 11:55 P.M.
Five years ago, Ye Shaohong had done something that made her the subject of countless conversations. She had married into a wealthy, influential family. One of her husband’s relatives was a senior official in the province. Her husband had not done badly for himself either, having secured a position as a diplomat to Germany, where he now spent most of his time. His first six months away in Europe had been torture for their marriage, particularly when she had flown to meet him in Berlin only to discover half a dozen compromising photographs on his cell phone. In the end, they had come to an agreement—neither would ask questions about the other’s activities during their time apart. Now, business at Mrs. Ye’s clothing enterprise was booming, thanks in no small part to the vast connections at her disposal. She lived in a villa worth millions of U.S. dollars, drove a 2003 BMW shipped from Germany at great cost, and had made a name for herself among Chengdu’s upper crust. All that by the age of twenty-nine.
Mrs. Ye liked to think of herself as a woman of taste and refinement. She was typically in bed by eleven every night, always with a nightcap of red wine. Tonight was different, however. Instead of drifting off into peaceful slumber, she tossed and turned in her soft bed, fruitlessly attempting to stifle the anxiety making her heart race.
She hadn’t given the bizarre “death notice” much thought at first. Reporting the anonymous letter to the police had been more a formality than anything else. She’d received several similar threats ever since word of the distasteful incident with the fruit vendor had spread. The threats had made her nervous at first, but by now she was fairly inured to them. She even started to find their misplaced anger and quaint sense of morality somewhat amusing.
Tonight was different, and it was ruining her sleep.
A group of police officers had arrived at her door barely an hour after she reported the letter. They asked her question after question about what had happened and what she had seen. Reinforcements had come later in the afternoon to provide her, they explained, with increased protection. One of them—a stoic and muscular officer who was handsome in his own, serious way—introduced himself as SPU Captain Xiong Yuan. How in the world was she supposed to stay calm if the police were taking this silly letter so seriously?
Her bedside telephone rang, and she jolted out of bed. Was it her husband again? She’d tried to reassure him the first time, telling him that the police were simply being thorough and there was no real threat. Judging from her ringing phone, he wasn’t convinced. After switching on the light, Ye reached for the receiver.
“Hello?”
The earpiece was silent. A chill spread from her fingers to her toes. This was not her husband.
“Hello?” She spoke a little louder, yet very timidly.
Still no one answered.
Ye flung the receiver down and sprinted out of her bedroom. Only when she saw the officers inside her living room did she feel safe.
Xiong rushed over to her. “Who was that?”
“I picked up, but I didn’t hear anyone on the other end.”
Ye was nearly hyperventilating. Xiong signaled to his men. An SPU officer was already listening on the living room extension, where the police had installed a monitoring device. The officer pressed a button, and the audio from the phone was routed through a separate speaker for all to hear.
They heard only silence. There was a long beep after ten seconds, and the call was immediately cut off.
Xiong turned to another officer. “Get me the caller’s information right away,” he snapped. Then he turned to Mrs. Ye and adopted a comforting, almost paternal style. “We’ll take care of this. You can go back to bed.”
“No. I can’t sleep. I’m going to stay here in the living room with all of you.” Mrs. Ye’s porcelain skin had turned whiter than ash.
“You’re safe here. That I can promise,” Xiong said, smiling. “We have the entire house covered from top to bottom. No one’s getting past us. My colleagues are standing guard right on the other side of your bedroom wall. If even so much as a squirrel passes by your window tonight, they’ll see it right away.”
“Really?” Mrs. Ye didn’t sound very convinced.
“Didn’t you see the white sedan parked outside your window? My friends from the police are sitting inside. One of them is Han Hao. You met him earlier. He’s the one in charge of this entire operation.”
Ye consented to return to her bedroom. All the same, she cracked the door open an inch or two before returning to bed.
The results from the trace came in. The call had come from a mobile number that was registered anonymously. It would be impossible to pinpoint the user. Xiong took out his own mobile phone and updated Han.
“He didn’t say anything?” Han asked from the sedan’s passenger seat. He continued to stare at the villa’s rear window.
“Not a word,” Xiong answered.
After a long silence, Han let out a long exhale.
“No. He’s telling us this round has just begun.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CUT THROAT
OCTOBER 23, 7:15 A.M.
Ye Shaohong opened her eyes and waited for the haze of last night’s slumber to clear. She had dreamed about the police—that they were staying in her house to protect her from a killer. And then the killer had called her—
Someone knocked at her door. “Mrs. Ye? Are you awake yet?”
“Who’s there?” she croaked.
“Officer Yin. Whenever you’re ready to leave, we’re waiting for you.”
Reality rushed back to her in an instant. She reached for the glass of water at her bedside and took a long sip. The liquid was cool and soothing against her throat.
“Give me five minutes,” she told the officer at the door.
When she finally walked into the living room, she saw that Han had returned. He was sitting on the large leather sofa at the center of the living room. His eyes were shut. All of the other officers had been replaced by fresh, rested faces. They were crowded together on the sofa along with Han. Laptops and notebooks lay scattered on the broad coffee table, and beside them sat the platter of peaches and a plate of sunflower seeds that Ye had placed there hours earlier. The fruit was nearly untouched, but the plate of seeds had been reduced to a pile of shredded shells.
“Captain Han,” she said, “I can’t do it. I think I’d be better off staying home.”
The captain opened his eyes, and he straightened up slightly against the sofa. Spotting a stray piece of shell on his sleeve, he picked it off and dropped it onto the plate on the table.
“I won’t force you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with,” he said. He sounded alert, as if he had not been sleeping but merely waiting. “We can stay here for the rest of the day and protect you. However, you need to know that our resources are limited. For obvious reasons, the police department can’t accompany you like this day after day. This man is dangerous, and he isn’t going to give up.”
Ye grew even paler. “What can I do?”
“You can’t keep hiding forever. He’ll just keep waiting, no matter how long it takes. That’s where we come in. We’ve already laid out a net for the criminal. All you have to do is go about your life and your job while we wait for him to fall into it. After that, you’ll never see him again.”
“Are you positive that you can guarantee my safety?” Ye asked Han anxiously.
Han nodded. “One hour ago, SPU officers performed a detailed security check of your vehicle as well as your route to work. Captain Xiong himself will personally drive you to work, and we’ll have escort vehicles in front of you and behind you. We’ll be on the l
ookout for anything out of the ordinary.”
Han paused here. Ye’s eyes were wide, her cheeks drawn taught. The early morning light cast a skeletal shade across her toned, slim frame. She was listening.
“After you and your police escort arrive at work, Captain Xiong will remain at your side at every step. He’s an expert marksman and a black belt in Krav Maga. We’ll have plainclothes officers spread throughout the square. You won’t see them, but they will be there. Their sole purpose is your protection. Not a single suspicious individual will be allowed to approach you. There will also be plainclothes officers inside your office building; they’ll be dressed as security, property management staff, even your own employees. Anyone delivering food or beverages to your office during these hours will be searched by our men. We have the strictest security protocols in place. Yes, I can guarantee your safety.”
Ye stared at Han, her eyes wide and unblinking. She tried to process the information that Han was relaying to her, but it was too much. The captain’s words floated around her, suffocating her like a boa constrictor wrapping itself around its prey. Only one clear and undeniable fact loomed before her: she had no choice but to go along with Han’s plan.
“Oh,” Ye said softly.
“Just go about your day. Don’t leave Captain Xiong’s side, and do exactly as we say. As long as you do that, I promise that by the end of today, this will only be a memory. The kind of story you’ll tell your friends over drinks.”
Slowly the woman nodded. Her uneasiness was slowly replaced by a fragile hope.
“Good, and there’s one final thing. It’s best if I tell you this now.”
“Tell me what?” she asked. The drowning sensation returned.
“Your would-be assailant is most likely a young or middle-aged male. He’s about five-foot-five, with a thin build and a fresh knife wound on one hand. What this means is that you need to take care at all times not to approach any man matching this description. My officers are all at least six-foot-two, and every single one of them will be wearing either a brown or black felt cap during the operation. No matter what happens, you need to stay by Captain Xiong’s side, and you need to stay in sight of our officers. Do you understand?”
Ye, who had listened closely to every single detail, nodded resolutely.
“Good,” Han said, checking his watch. “Go on and get ready. You and Captain Xiong will leave for work at your usual time. I’ll take position at Citizen Square now so I can start coordinating with my people. We’ll be with you at all times.”
Ye started to turn around. She stopped.
“Captain Han?”
“Yes?” the captain asked.
“The crimes listed on that death notice,” she said, a quaver coming into her voice. “Do you believe that they’re true?”
Han was stone-faced. “It’s not my job to ask those questions. The courts have already done that.”
Ye lowered her eyes to the polished floor. This wasn’t the answer she had hoped for.
“I’m starting to think they are,” she said. She glanced at Yin, who was watching her from the sofa. Her cheeks turned pink. She walked back to her bedroom, where she began putting on her makeup.
Yin gazed at the door to the woman’s bedroom. Regardless of what the other team members thought, he pitied her. Sighing, he forced himself to keep his mind on the task at hand. During yesterday’s briefing, he had suggested that Xiong drive directly to the entrance of Ye’s workplace. Han had rejected that proposal, however.
There’s going to be a lot of people in Citizen Square, he’d said. There’ll be a high risk factor, but it’s also the perfect location for our plainclothes officers to lie in wait. Our net is cast for tomorrow. If we close it tight before we even begin, how’s the killer going to find his way inside? We need to leave him an opening, but I’m going to hold the drawstring. The square is this opening! We can keep her safe. And if we can’t, the only option would be to lock her in a safe.
They were supposed to be protecting this woman, but as far as Yin could tell, she was merely the cheese in the captain’s mousetrap.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Citizen Square was the beating heart of Chengdu. Streets and clusters of skyscrapers blossomed outward like arteries of glass and concrete. The buildings that rimmed Citizen Square housed some of the city’s most prominent businesses. Among these was the Deye Building, in the southeast corner. The task force had commandeered a large room on the sixth floor of the Sky Peak Hotel, a towering building on the northwestern edge.
The window of their on-site control center provided a clear view of both Citizen Square and the exterior of the Deye Building. A row of six computer monitors stood on a long table set perpendicular to the window, and technicians buzzed around the room, fidgeting with radios and other surveillance equipment.
Han and Yin entered to discover that Pei and Mu had already arrived. Pei was helping a technician adjust the positioning of their surveillance equipment. As soon as he noticed them, he approached. “What’s the situation?”
“Ye Shaohong received an anonymous call ten minutes after midnight. The caller said nothing, and hung up a minute later. Other than that, all quiet.” Han kept his explanation as succinct as possible.
Mu looked at Pei. “Just like you said—nothing significant would happen at the house.”
“I slept well last night,” Pei said, and he looked at Han. “Too bad you and Captain Xiong didn’t have that luxury.”
Han narrowed his eyes at Pei, and walked over to the window. “Has all the equipment been tested?” he asked.
“Yes, it has,” answered the team’s technician. He handed Han a wireless radio as well as an earpiece and microphone.
Han raised the microphone up to his mouth. “This is Lima One. Lima Two, please respond.”
A booming male voice answered at once: “Lima Two, in position!”
“Lima Three, please respond.”
“Lima Three, in position!”
* * *
It was Mu’s first time witnessing a police operation as it unfolded. Wide-eyed, she approached the six surveillance monitors. Each screen displayed a separate portion of Citizen Square. As Han had explained, the feed for each monitor came from one of six high-resolution cameras that Zeng’s people had installed on buildings around the square’s perimeter only fifteen minutes earlier. There was a gap between the third and fourth monitors. This clustered arrangement gave Mu, a habitual visitor of art museums and galleries, the unshakeable feeling that she was watching a pair of moving triptychs.
“Are all the plainclothes officers in position? I can’t see them,” she said.
It was currently rush hour, and the area around the square bustled with vehicles and pedestrians alike. As hard as she tried, Mu couldn’t spot any particularly conspicuous figures in the area.
Pei smiled. “Look: the man selling newspapers next to the building, the cab driver waiting for passengers next to the intersection, the sanitation employee busy sweeping, the man in the east corner keeping an eye on those bikes, the middle-aged man relaxing by the fountain, the one smoking at the entrance to that small shop, the couple sitting on the bench over on the west side, and the sketchy-looking fellow peddling bootleg movies to the people walking by. They’re all ours. I see thirteen of our people in the square at the moment.”
Mu looked at the captain, her surprise plain as day. Neither she nor Pei had attended the detailed briefing beforehand, nor were they familiar with any of the officers that Han might have chosen for this operation.
“The sweeper gave it away,” Pei said. He sounded faintly proud, as if he had just remembered the answer to an obscure trivia question. “He’s doing his job too well. If he keeps at it like that, he’ll throw his back out in just a day or two. Now, look at those real cleaners. They spend most of their time standing around and resting, not bent
over working.”
Having overheard this, Han surveyed his subordinates in the square below and frowned. He spoke into his microphone again. “This is Lima One. Lima Five, please respond.”
“Lima Five here. Lima One, please advise.”
“Don’t look so goddamned enthusiastic about your work. From now on, I want you to rest two minutes for every minute of sweeping!”
“Lima Five, understood!”
Mu had grown even more curious. “What about the others? Are there any holes in their disguises?”
Pei shook his head.
“We’re only as strong as our weakest link. The cleaner stood out, and I was able to use his position to estimate where the other plainclothes officers should be. There’s a real science to positioning plainclothes officers when you’re dealing with a space as open as this. They need to monitor every inch of the square and at the same time keep an eye on each street and intersection. It’s hard to describe the beauty of it in words. The academy had a whole course dedicated to the topic when I was studying.”
“Even if you could determine their positions, surely you couldn’t pick out every single person. There could be a thousand people walking around the square!” Mu said with clear astonishment. “The newspaper seller, for instance. There’s at least ten other people selling papers in that corner of the square alone. How can you tell which one of them is really ours?”
“When running surveillance, plainclothes officers usually wear some kind of identifying clothing. It keeps them oriented if things erupt into chaos. These articles of clothing won’t stand out among a large group of people, but they’re easy to find if you look for them within a specific area. Today our friends are all wearing brown and black felt caps—isn’t that correct, Captain?”
Pei had directed this last question at Han. The captain remained silent, but his expression said enough.