The fiery tip of a cigarette is the only light in the darkened room. There has to be a person smoking the cigarette sitting behind it but it’s hard to tell. The two fingers holding the cigarette, as well as some of the hand, illuminate in its phosphorescing embers.
Wu-pen Xu, professor at the Public Security University in downtown Beijing, sits in his darkened office, blinds pulled, late at night. He has been here too long, that he is sure of, trying to think what to do.
Xu was tipped off late in the evening by some former students that his office was raided by investigators with the Public Security Bureau shortly after he had gone home for the day. He had rushed back, unlocked and found his office trashed. The walls that had been packed with shelves of books were now empty, nothing more than a big pile in the corner. Everything even remotely electronic has been taken, including the oversized screen that had been on his cadenza.
He had righted a chair and turned off the lights. While Xu had saved nothing from the flash drive USB that the kids from Tsinghua had shown him, forensically it might be determined that his pc had access to it and that would be enough. It would take time, but these investigators, he knew, since he had trained many of them, were indefatigable.
Chapter 89
On Fire Page 88