Intrusion (A Chris Bruen Novel Book 2)

by Reece Hirsch

  Chen closed by rationalizing the practice of dǐng zuì, likening it to a cap-and-trade policy for crime. Wasn’t he still paying for his son’s crime, and paying market value at that? But Wenyan understood that Chen’s most dire threat remained unspoken: to refuse the offer would almost surely mean losing his life.

  Tao was a year and a half older than Wenyan and sometimes jokingly referred to him as “the spare,” an allusion to China’s one-child policy, which in practice was more of a guideline than an immutable rule. Tao and his brother had the same strong chin and wide-set eyes, but they weren’t often confused with one another. While Tao had a laconic demeanor that hardened his features, Wenyan had a mobile forehead and expressive eyes that displayed every thought that fluttered through his consciousness. Tao always used to say that it was as if Wenyan walked around with his wallet in his hand.

  These were Tao’s thoughts as he watched the prison guard place Wenyan in the chair and activate the microphone.

  “Li,” Tao said, using his brother’s assumed name with a slight grimace.

  “Every time you say it, you make that face you used to make when you took cough syrup,” Wenyan said with the approximation of a smile.

  “How are you doing?”

  “As well as can be expected. At least I have a job.”

  Tao knew all about Wenyan’s “job,” which consisted of being marched every morning at 5:00 a.m. to a prison factory to make earbuds for airlines. The workday ended at 7:00 p.m., and if he ever stopped because he was ill or exhausted he would be beaten, Tasered, pepper-sprayed, and placed in an isolation cell.

  “One year down,” Tao said. “You’ve made it this far. You can make it the rest of the way.”

  “I can’t think like that. You can’t count the days here.”

  “You’ll get through this. They can’t break you.”

  Wenyan looked him in the eye. “Oh yes they can. It’s dangerous to think otherwise. You just have to hope that they don’t want to.”

  “You’re performing a service for a very powerful family. The people who run the prison must know that.”

  “True, and it would be inconvenient for the Chen family if I died in here. It might make it difficult to explain why their son, Li, is still alive. Have any photos surfaced?”

  “No. I think Chen must have gotten to everyone who was on the scene.” Tao had learned that the practice of dǐng zuì, like so many other things, had been transformed by the smartphone. In at least one similar case of vehicular homicide, bystanders had photographed the perpetrator using their phones. When a substitute criminal was imprisoned for the crime, photos of the perpetrator and his replacement were posted online by outraged citizens.

  Unfortunately, if any bystanders had snapped photos of Li Chen laughing and smoking with his friends as the woman’s body was carried away, they had not been made public. Tao regularly searched the Internet for those photos, even though he knew that such activity might bring a government agent to his doorstep.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Wenyan said. “How’s Super Dan doing?” Wenyan was a fan of Lin Dan, or Super Dan, a professional badminton player widely acknowledged to be the greatest ever—a sort of Michael Jordan with a shuttlecock.

  “He took the gold again at the London Games. First men’s singles player to successfully defend his gold medal.”

  Wenyan grinned. “He’s just the best ever, man.”

  “And he’s married now.”

  “Fang?”

  “Yeah. When they have kids, I guess we know who’ll be bringing home the gold in badminton around 2030 or so.” After trying to keep their relationship quiet for some time, Super Dan had married Xie Xingfang, nicknamed Fang Fang, herself a world-champion badminton player.

  “Good for them.”

  “During the London Olympics, he was wearing a double F tattoo on his arm.”

  “I know you couldn’t care less about Super Dan, so thanks for paying attention to this stuff. What else is going on out there?”

  “Well, season four of Game of Thrones was awesome. I bought a bootleg DVD.” He and Wenyan were able to watch the episodes without subtitles because their parents had cobbled together what little disposable income they had to buy their sons English lessons. They saw it as their ticket into China’s emerging middle class, and they had not been wrong.

  “No spoilers, okay?”

  “When you get out, we’ll do some binge watching and get you caught up.”

  Wenyan gave a pained smile, as if the thought of simply sitting in a darkened room and watching a television show was too great a pleasure to even contemplate. Tao could see that Wenyan might not make it through his sentence. It made him more certain that he had done the right thing when he had approached Chen personally and offered his services.

  The idea had occurred to Tao ten months ago. One day he had simply arrived at the auto factory and asked to see the company president. After giving his name at the security desk and waiting for fifteen minutes, he was informed that Mr. Chen was not in the office that day.

  Two days later Tao returned, and this time, to his surprise, he was told that Mr. Chen would see him. He didn’t even have to wait. Two security guards frisked him for weapons and then escorted him, walking close at his side. They crossed the factory floor, where men in white coats with sparking welding torches scrambled beneath auto chassis suspended from the ceiling by massive, bright-yellow conveyors.

  Tao was led up an iron staircase to the management offices, passing through several anterooms, before he arrived at a door flanked by frosted glass windows with a plaque that read “Mr. Longwei Chen.”

  Mr. Chen sat like a pasha behind an expansive, uncluttered mahogany desk. He did not rise when Tao entered. Chen was a compact man in his midfifties with thinning hair and a face that was heavily creased, particularly around the eyes, giving him an aspect of perpetual watchfulness, like a wooden owl posted in a garden to keep predators away. It was probably a useful attribute for a factory manager.

  Tao’s eyes immediately went to the silver-framed photo of Li Chen on the corner of the desk, next to photos of Chen’s two other children and wife. Li Chen did resemble Tao’s brother, if it were possible to wipe away the insolent, privileged smile.

  “The resemblance is striking, isn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  “I hope you know that I value the service that your brother is providing to me and my family. Now what brings you here today?”

  “I have a proposal for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to speak in private,” Tao said, nodding to the guards. He knew that Chen would not want to openly discuss the fact that he had paid someone to serve his son’s prison sentence.

  “He’s okay, right?” Chen said to the guards.

  “He’s clean.”

  Chen nodded, and the two guards left the office.

  “Okay, so what is this proposal? And don’t try anything foolish, because the guards are right outside the door.”

  “I would like to offer myself as a replacement for my brother. You can see that I bear a strong resemblance to him—and to your son. Wenyan is not going to survive another three years in that prison. And if he dies in there, it will create an awkward situation for your son. I’m stronger than my brother, and I can do the time.”

  Chen waved his hand dismissively. “What, you think it’s easy to place a substitute criminal in prison? There are certain prison officials that are willing to turn a blind eye so long as things aren’t too flagrant. But you can’t make fools of them. You are wasting my time.”

  Tao knew that his window was closing fast and that in moments the guards would hustle him back to the sidewalk. “Then I can provide other services,” he said.

  “What are your skills?”

  “I’m an electrician. I work on new houses and off
ice buildings.”

  “I have plenty of electricians on my payroll.”

  Tao’s mind raced. There must be something that he could say that would help his brother. “I am willing to do what is necessary. Whatever is necessary.”

  Chen studied him. “And what exactly does that mean?”

  “I mean that if you have the ability to shorten my brother’s sentence, then I would do anything that you wanted. I’m not squeamish.”

  Chen laid his hands carefully on the desk. “I might be able to shorten that sentence, but it would not be easy, and it would be costly. I’d have to call in favors. You would need to provide a service of exceptional value to justify that.”

  “I will do anything that is in my power.”

  “Then let me ask you, Tao Zhang, have you ever killed a man?”

  8

  As Chris watched the flat landscape roll past on the train from Shanghai to Shenzhen, he reflected on how small the world had become. Small enough that Chinese hackers could test the doors and windows of corporate America on a daily basis. Small enough that within twenty-four hours of learning of the breach, Chris was in Shanghai looking up at the retro-futuristic towers of Pudong. He gazed out the window and listened to Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier on his iPhone, trying to ignore the man in the adjoining seat eating something pungent from a paper bag. Bach’s meditative, pristine compositions were the best remedy that he knew for cognitive dissonance. They reminded him that there was order and reason in the world, all appearances to the contrary.

  It was a truism that a smaller world was a good thing. In theory, it enhanced understanding among disparate cultures, allowed the First and Third Worlds to cross-pollinate. But Chris wasn’t so sure that the world hadn’t been better when everyone had lived their lives within twenty miles of their birthplace.

  Today’s hyperconnected way of life was in many ways messier and more fractious than what had gone before. A century ago, in order for opposing worldviews to clash, someone had to dispatch an invading army. Now zealots anywhere in the world could launch attacks large and small against the US so long as they had the requisite technical skills. Of course, US companies had the same strike capabilities, which was what put Chris on the train to Shenzhen.

  The late-afternoon sun glared whitely through a malignant cloud that enveloped the horizon—China’s famous air pollution. The PRC was largely made up of plains, which sent roiling waves of dust into the atmosphere under the best of circumstances. But, given the unregulated growth of Chinese industry and dependence on coal, the best of circumstances were gone for good.

  The government-run weather service referred to it as mái, which meant “haze” in Mandarin. Up until around 2006, it had been known as wù, or “fog,” and that was still how most PRC citizens referred to it. As in so many aspects of Chinese life, the government generated edicts and official pronouncements, but certain aspects of human behavior could not be dictated.

  China’s air-quality readings were divided into five classes. Classes one and two were categorized as “blue sky.” On a level-five day, citizens were told to stay indoors and avoid exertion. To Chris’s still unpracticed eye, the grimy view from his train window rated at least a four.

  The train rattled along through the suburbs of Shanghai, passing dirty concrete housing complexes, then dirty concrete factories, and then green fields, all of them shrouded in a filthy-looking mái. Over the course of an enervating eighteen-hour trip, the green fields once more gave way to smokestack factories and red tile–roofed apartment buildings, and then he was in Shenzhen.

  When the train arrived in Shenzhen, Chris checked into a hotel. As the sun sank, he walked over to take a look at the Commsen factories. Commsen Technology Group, which was the trade name for Dong Mai Precision Manufacturing Company, was the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, producing most of the US market’s popular smartphones and tablet computers.

  Chris passed enormous redbrick dormitories that housed Commsen workers. Even though the workers reportedly lived eight to an apartment in bunk beds, judging by the new buildings under construction Shenzhen appeared to be experiencing a housing shortage. In the streets outside the dormitories, vendors had set up stalls selling food, clothing, toiletries, and other essentials.

  Aside from vendors manning the stalls, nearly every person in sight appeared to be a Commsen worker. They were easy to spot because they wore green polo shirts with “Commsen” on the collar. Chris was reminded again of Bentonville, Arkansas, the corporate headquarters of Walmart and a similarly extreme example of a company town.

  Chris walked on past the dormitories to the gates of the factory itself as the sun set in a spectacularly bloody end worthy of a Peckinpah film. As any resident of Santa Monica could tell you, the one positive byproduct of air pollution is lovely sunsets.

  The boxy factory facilities were seven stories tall and massive, extending as far as he could see. Nets were strung above the first floor of the buildings. At first Chris thought it was some sort of postmodern architectural flourish, but then he realized that these were the famous suicide nets that had been the focus of so much Western media coverage. The news stories reported that working conditions in the Commsen factories were so stressful and demanding that there was an unusually high rate of suicide, with workers leaping from the upper floors.

  Zoey had informed him that only last week a Commsen employee committed suicide, leaping from the roof and getting enough distance to avoid the protective net. The reasons for the employee’s death were not known, but it was speculated that it might have something to do with Commsen’s recently introduced “silence mode” policy, which required—under threat of termination—that workers not talk on the job. The eerie quiet of the enormous factory must have made an already-miserable workplace even more excruciating.

  Workers streamed out of the factory gates as a shift ended. Commsen operated two facilities in the area—one in the Guanlan neighborhood, which employed a hundred sixty thousand workers, and this one in the Longhua neighborhood, which employed two hundred forty thousand. Chris studied the workers’ faces. Even if he had known what Li Owyang’s sister looked like, the odds of spotting her in this ocean of green-shirted Commsen workers would have been minuscule.

  It might help if he could get inside the factory, but there was no way to do that without a security badge. As with the PLA’s facility on Datong Road in Shanghai, all Chris could think to do was keep his eyes and ears open and hope for some opportunity. It wasn’t the most promising of plans, but it was all that came to mind.

  Chris noticed that he was not the only one observing the factory workers. At the edges of the parking lot that fronted the factory gates were squads of PLA soldiers wearing brimless helmets, unnecessary camouflage uniforms, and bulky black earphones with stems for microphones. Some of them were carrying riot shields. The soldiers seemed to be standing by for now, but they looked ready for action. Zoey’s research indicated that there had been incidents of unrest recently at Commsen factories. If the government felt the need to call in the equivalent of an army, then this unrest must have included more than a few disgruntled employees.

  Chris watched the scene for an hour, but the soldiers didn’t appear to be readying to move. Finally, weary from the daylong train trip, Chris decided to return to his hotel. Given the military presence, something was about to happen here, but likely not until morning.

  9

  When Chris returned to the Commsen factory at 8:00 a.m., hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldiers had assembled, most of them with clubs and riot gear. Many were stationed in a park a couple of blocks away from the factory. They seemed relaxed, confident in their overwhelming force.

  He bought a breakfast sandwich at a Starbucks and watched the soldiers mill about and talk. To call Commsen a factory wasn’t quite accurate. It was more like a city, and he was on its main drag, which, in addition to the Sta
rbucks, included a bank, a grocery store, and a dry cleaner. Since many of the workers had little time to do anything else but sleep, it was important to provide easy access to all essential services. Big New York law firms operated on a similar principle, footing the bill for takeout dinners to ensure that associates remained at their desks late into the evening.

  Everything was quiet until about 10:30 a.m., when he heard a muffled roar from the factory across the street, like a distant, cheering football stadium after a score. In a matter of minutes, the soldiers were ordered into formation and began suiting up. Battalions of PLA soldiers marched in quickstep formation past the window of the Starbucks. Their boots in unison on the pavement outside shook his table. The troops filed past the factory gates and streamed through several entrances, with riot shields and batons raised.

  Soon workers began running outside through the exits that weren’t blocked by the soldiers. Some of them already had bloodied heads, and others were crying from tear gas. Chris realized that he had been presented with an opportunity. The factory’s security was suddenly nonexistent.

  He left the coffee shop and began to walk behind the advancing soldiers. He followed a PLA squad inside the factory and was greeted by a scene that looked like one of Breugel’s depictions of hell. There was so much going on that it was difficult to focus the eye. The noise was deafening, the sound of hundreds shouting, screaming, crying.

  The factory floor was a vast high-ceilinged space about the dimensions of an indoor stadium. It was crisscrossed by assembly lines manned by employees in white scrubs. In the open center area of the factory, a pitched battle was taking place that appeared to involve several hundred workers, all writhing together like one organism. The workers were fighting the PLA, but they were also fighting each other.