by Mi Lei
"It's nothing." Fang Mu turned back to Xu Tong. "There are several suspects involved in a number of homicides and cross-border child-trafficking in Lu Village in the Dragon Tail Township. The local ringleader is the village head, Lu Tianchang. The other suspects are Lu Dachun and Lu Dajiang. It's critical that they are arrested as soon as possible. Also," he paused, "there is a young woman in the village, Lu Haiyan; make sure she's given all necessary police protection."
Even though his GPS had been lost in the river, Fang Mu was able to recall the coordinates well enough to give Xu Tong the approximate location of the cave entrance.
"The girls were being held there," he added after revealing the coordinates. "If necessary, I'm sure they'll be able to confirm the details."
It was all Xu Tong and Deputy Commissioner Wang needed to hear. After taking their leave, the two rushed off down the corridor. Xiao Wang volunteered to join them.
Before he could go, Fang Mu still had a question. "Today…did someone call you?" Fang Mu carefully studied Xiao Wang's face.
"Yes," Xiao Wang curtly replied.
"Who?" Fang Mu's heart jumped to his throat.
"Well, you." Xiao Wang seemed at a complete loss. "You called me and Chief Bian and asked us to come here, didn't you?"
"Oh." Fang Mu felt both a little puzzled and very relieved. He dismissed his doubts and Xiao Wang with a shrug. "It's nothing. You're doing excellent work."
Apparently, no one had found his bottle. But then, Fang Mu had to wonder, how had Jin Yongyu and his men been able to track him down?
Xiao Wang nodded and turned down the corridor.
When he was gone, Fang Mu was alone with Bian Ping. "Did they manage to catch Jin Yongyu?" he asked.
"We're looking for him in Changhong City and Suijing City," Bian Ping replied. "We'll get him sooner or later." He paused, then asked, "Did you make the emergency call this morning?"
"It wasn't me. My cell phone is out." Fang Mu looked at his feet and shook his head. "It was Old Zheng and his men."
"Zheng Lin? Feng Ruohai and Zhan Hong were with him?" Bian Ping looked up and down the corridor. "Where are they?"
"Did you see the mold full of molten steel at the scene?" Fang Mu asked in a low whisper.
"Why?" Bian Ping opened the file Xu Tong had given him. In it, there was a picture of the mold. The steel inside was still hot enough to make the air above it shimmer.
"Old Zheng, Young Hai and Little Zhan..." Fang Mu glanced at the picture and immediately closed his eyes, "...are in there."
The file fell to the floor. Bian Ping stared wide-eyed at Fang Mu, jaw dropping in shock.
After what seemed like forever, he leaned down to pick up the file; his eyes, however, remained fixed on Fang Mu's face. "What happened?" he asked, slowly and deliberately.
They sat down on a hospital bench and Fang Mu told Bian Ping the entire story from the beginning to its terrible end. For as long as he had known him, Fang Mu had rarely, if ever, seen Bian Ping show any expression other than a mild, somewhat distant smile. But as his account unfolded, he could see unmasked fear, relief, anger, and sadness play across the chief's face.
After Fang Mu finished, Bian Ping didn't say a word. Minutes passed.
Bian Ping suddenly jumped to his feet, nearly shouting. "How long do you need to rest?"
"What?" Fang Mu stared at him in shock. His eyes wide and lips curled, the chief looked like a fierce warrior deity. "No," Fang Mu quickly replied. "I don't need to rest."
"Then let's go! We have a lot of work ahead of us," Bian Ping said, already striding down the corridor. "They'll pay for this!"
The investigation was in full swing. In less than a day, partial results were available from the crime scene. The team had been able to identify the three dead men found in the mill. They were all unemployed residents of Suijing City, and all three had criminal records. Five pistols and a large number of bullets were recovered from the scene. One of the pistols had Fang Mu's fingerprints on it. Two other pistols had prints that could be traced to three dead men and the final two pistols were covered by a number of overlapping and as yet unidentified prints. From Fang Mu's statement, the investigators knew that one set of fingerprints had to be Jin Yongyu's. The evidence had already been sent to Changhong City for further analysis.
Only Fang Mu knew that Zheng Lin's and Young Hai's prints were on those guns.
When the steel finally cooled, the massive ingot was removed from the mold and taken to the main yard of the Juyuan Steel Mill. Sitting on the cold ground, there was something simple and honest about the unpolished block of steel. Nothing showed of the three policemen it had swallowed. Fang Mu walked around the ingot, gently letting his hand glide over its rough surface. It was cold to the touch. He put his ear against the steel, almost as if he could hear the fierce pounding of three hearts, beating deep within. It was in vain. The ingot stood in unmoved silence.
"It's hard to believe." It was Bian Ping.
Fang Mu had no idea how long the chief had been standing by his side.
"Three lives; just like that..."
After a long while, Fang Mu let out a deep sigh. Quietly, he asked, "What do we know?"
"The steel mill's manager is Peng Zhongcai. He's forty-four. According to the mill's employees, he was the one who told the workers to leave." Bian Ping handed Fang Mu a photo. It was the man he had shot in the leg.
"What's his status?"
"At large," Bian Ping noted curtly, then his voice grew softer. "He won't escape, and neither will Jin Yongyu."
It was the end of the day and the investigation teams reported on their progress. The girls' families had been brought to Suijing City and been reunited with their daughters. Together, they had been relocated to a hotel that was under heavy police protection. Questioning was scheduled to commence the next day. A team had also been dispatched to Lu Village to make the arrests. They were able to take all suspects into custody, but there were already signs of complications to come: The other villagers readily provided extensive alibis for Lu Tianchang and his men. And while the officers found the cave, all traces of its use as a prison had been removed and no case-relevant evidence was recovered from the scene. Lu Haiyan at least seemed to be in no immediate danger. She had suffered serious injuries, but none of them were life-threatening.
Fang Mu's most pressing concern, however, was the remains of Zheng Lin, Little Zhan, and Young Hai. If he couldn't prove that they were in the ingot, there would be no physical evidence of their heroic sacrifice. Bian Ping could barely bring himself to tell Fang Mu that it would be almost impossible to get usable information from the ingot. Even the best available tools wouldn't even be able to recover traces of DNA from the steel.
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, Fang Mu told himself as he ground his teeth. Once the girls had given their testimony, it would all come to light.
At dawn the next day, Fang Mu accompanied Bian Ping and Xiao Wang to the Suijing City Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Strangely, the normally so busy Bureau seemed almost entirely deserted. They saw nobody in the entire building except for a few officers on guard duty. Fang Mu managed to keep his unease in check until 8:30, but that was all his patience could take. Frustrated and annoyed, he rushed up to the offices of the Vice Squad. Xu Tong was nowhere to be found. Next, Fang Mu checked the commissioners' offices, but neither of the deputy commissioners was in.
What was going on?
Fang Mu tried to call first Xu Tong, then Deputy Commissioner Wang, but he could reach neither one.
Deeply concerned, Bian Ping sent Fang Mu and Xiao Wang to the hotel where the girls and their parents were staying. He remained behind to continue his wait at the Bureau.
On the way, Fang Mu felt a growing sense of foreboding. Again and again, he urged Xiao Wang to step on it. Finally at the hotel, Fang Mu stormed up to the fourth floor. The moment he turned onto the hallway, his heart sank. The officers on protection detail were nowhere to be seen.
Fuck, no! he silently cursed.
The door was unlocked.
He exchanged a quick glance with Xiao Wang. Fang Mu gave the door a forceful push. Xiao Wang stormed into the room, his weapon drawn. He was greeted by a loud squeal.
"Oh my!"
When Fang Mu looked into the room he saw a maid sitting squarely on her backside from surprise by the sudden entry. A vacuum cleaner was lying by her side. Maybe he should have expected it, but his mind just could not grasp the horror of what he was about to learn. He looked about the room. It was empty except for the woman and Xiao Wang.
"Where are the guests?" Fang Mu asked the maid.
She just stared at him in blank shock.
Fang Mu had to ask a second time before she finally replied.
"Already..." Her voice was trembling. "They've already left."
"What?" Fang Mu stared at her, his eyes wide in horror.
Xiao Wang lowered his gun and then asked about the rooms the other families were staying in. "What about the guests in those rooms?"
"They've all checked out. I just finished cleaning there." The maid got back on her feet. "That's all I know; if you have questions, ask reception."
The hotel's reception happily provided all the answers, but it wasn't what Fang Mu wanted to hear: Around six o'clock that morning, the officers stationed at the hotel had suddenly packed up and left. Immediately afterwards, the four families had checked out and just walked out of the hotel. It was almost too much to bear. Fang Mu's mind went blank. Clutching the reception desk with both hands, he searched for words. While he was standing dumbstruck, Xiao Wang took out his cell phone and called Bian Ping. After he had told him what had happened, their conversation turned to the question of who could have ordered the officers off their posts.
As Xiao Wang talked, one of the women of the desk staff began to eye Fang Mu. After a few moments, she asked, "Excuse me. Is your name Fang?"
Fang Mu was startled, but quickly nodded.
"You're with the police?" she continued.
"Yes. Why?" he replied.
The staffer pulled a folded sheet of paper from under the desk and handed it to him. "This morning, one of the girls gave me this. She told me that I had to give it to a policeman named Fang. I assume that's you."
Fang Mu took the paper and opened it. It was a piece of hotel stationary. There were a few lines written on it. The characters were graceful, but obviously written in great haste.
He had barely looked at it when his entire body began to tremble. He bent over, resting his head on the desk and gasped as if something had caught in his throat.
All around the entrance hall people stopped and stared.
Xiao Wang quickly pulled him back up. "What is it? Are you all right?" he asked over and over again.
Fang Mu pushed him aside and rushed to the exit. His face was pale as death. "Move! Back to the Bureau!" he shouted at Xiao Wang
The jeep shot back to the Suijing City Municipal Bureau. Without waiting for it to fully stop, Fang Mu leapt out of the vehicle and rushed up to the third floor. There he turned two corners and ran straight to the meeting room at the end of the hall.
Bian Ping, Sister Zhao, and Lu Lu were sitting inside the large meeting room. As Fang Mu burst through the door, all three jumped up from their chairs in shock. Fang Mu's face was pale and his eyes were wide as he stormed toward Bian Ping. Without so much as a word, he snatched the file the chief was holding right out of his hand. Then he picked up Lu Lu.
The traumatized girl immediately lashed out, wildly kicking and scratching, but Fang Mu brushed off her attacks. Even Sister Zhao could not stop him as he rushed out onto the hall. File and Lu Lu in hand, Fang Mu headed into the nearest interrogation room. He slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. He sat Lu Lu onto a chair. Without a single word of comfort or solace to the terrified girl, he ripped an empty interrogation record from the file cabinet and threw it onto the table.
"Who took you to Changhong City? Lu Tianchang or Lu Dachun?"
Lu Lu was curled up on the chair, shaking violently. She stared up at Fang Mu, her wide eyes filled with fear.
"Who held you captive in the Baixin Bath Palace?" He demanded.
A fierce pounding began on the door.
Fang Mu seemed completely oblivious to Sister Zhao and Bian Ping's banging outside. In fact, he didn't even seem to care that Lu Lu hadn't answered a single one of his questions. He sat at the table, manically filling out the interrogation record as he fired one question after the other.
"Other than Jing Xu, who abused you?"
"Do you know the names of the other girls imprisoned with you?"
"Did they tell you where they were going to sell you?"
"Did you see anyone by the name of Liang there?"
Suddenly, Fang Mu hurled the interrogation record at the wall. The thick folder peeled open in midair, spilling its contents across the room in a rain of gently falling pages. Fang Mu grabbed at his hair and slammed his elbows onto the table. Between clenched teeth, he squeezed out, "Come on… Calm down ..." He was talking to no one but himself.
It didn't work. His anger boiling over again, he slapped the file he had snatched from Bian Ping on the table. Wild-eyed, he flipped through its pages, scanning one document after the other. "All right, you don't want to talk? All right..." he mumbled.
He ripped a suspect photo from the file and held it up. Even though he was looking right at Lu Lu, his eyes were hollow, as if they saw only black nothingness.
"Do you recognize this person?" he asked the girl, thrusting the photo into her face.
She pressed her back against the chair as if she wanted to disappear into it, trembling.
"You don't recognize him? All right… What about this one?"
Fang Mu held up each picture for just a second. He didn't even give Lu Lu any time to consider, let alone answer.
Finally Sister Zhao and Bian Ping forced their way into the interrogation room. They could hardly believe their eyes when they saw what was going on inside. Fang Mu had gone through all photos in the file. Pictures and documents lay scattered across the entire room. Fang Mu himself was staring at the terrified little girl sitting in front of him, his chest was heaving with every panting breath.
Suddenly, he shouted, "Why won't you talk?" He leapt forward, reaching for the girl's neck.
He never even got close. With a heavy smack, Sister Zhao's hand found his face. It stopped him dead in his tracks.
"What are you doing?" she asked angrily as she reached down to embrace Lu Lu.
Fang Mu's face had twisted to the side and his roar turned into a series of disconcerting choking sounds.
Bian Ping had been staring at the scene in horror. He reached for Fang Mu's shoulder. "Fang Mu, calm down..."
Fang Mu angrily brushed his hand aside. Tears trickled down his face. "Calm down? How can I calm down? All our witnesses are gone. If she doesn't open her mouth..." He sounded as if it was all Bian Ping's fault.
"But that's no excuse for what you did to poor Lu Lu," Sister Zhao said in a raised voice. She was holding the little girl tight. "This girl has suffered enough ..."
"Three of my brothers died because of me! Three!" Fang Mu's eyes were bulging from their sockets as he breathlessly screamed. "They're gone! Nothing is left! Not even a hair! All gone!"
As his shout died, the interrogation room fell eerily silent. Sister Zhao and Bian Ping stared at Fang Mu in shock. There was nothing they could say.
All the life seemed to have drained out of Fang Mu as he limply rocked back and forth and then let himself slump onto the chair.
A ball of paper rolled from his hand and onto the floor.
Bian Ping bent down and picked the crumpled paper up. He carefully smoothed it and softly read:
"Uncle Fang, someone has given my father a lot of money. We will move to a very faraway place. We are leaving now. Please say thank you t
o the other three Police Uncles."
As he read out the last few words, Fang Mu burst into tears.
CHAPTER
22
Death of a Policeman
Account provided by the Suijing City Municipal Public Security Bureau: This morning at 5:30 a.m., more than 200 workers gathered outside the gates of the Yujuan Steel Mill protesting the closure of the factory and demanding that the government provide for them under the living allowance program.
The provincial leadership viewed these developments with the utmost concern and called upon the Municipal Bureau to mobilize all available forces to keep order at the scene and to contain the protest.
The officers assigned to guard the witnesses at the hotel were among those called upon to assist in the matter.
After Xu Tong had relayed this somewhat vague and altogether unsatisfactory account, he exchanged a quick glance with Deputy Commissioner Wang. He then turned back to Fang Mu, Bian Ping and Xiao Wang, looking at each of them in turn. The three were sitting on a sofa in the office. A funeral would have seemed downright loud and lively in comparison.
What had happened could not be undone. Now, there was nothing left to say. That did nothing to stop Fang Mu's accusatory stares.
The uncomfortable silence lingered for what seemed like hours. Finally, Deputy Commissioner Wang cleared his throat and said, "We have caused you some trouble and that was never our intention. However, we police are duty-bound to obey our orders… We will make every effort to better coordinate with you next time."
Xu Tong quickly realized that bureaucratic rhetoric would do little to soothe their outrage. Trying a different approach, he took out a pack of cigarettes and offered everyone a smoke. Only Xiao Wang accepted. Bian Ping simply waved it off, while Fang Mu stared at the wall, never acknowledging Xu Tong's outstretched hand at all.
Somewhat embarrassed, Xu Tong lit his cigarette. He smoked most of it before speaking again. "Brothers, even though I don't really understand the specifics of your case, I absolutely believe everything you have told me. But duty binds us all. What the provincial leadership wants, it gets and we'd never dare disobey, even if their plans mean problems for us down the road."