The Firemaker (6 page)

‘Yeah, and it’s money and vested interests that persuade politicians and governments not to put sensible constraints on the work of people like you.’ Margaret’s passion was born of years of argument and discussion, and it was resurfacing now in a blur of painful memories.

McCord seemed taken aback by her vehemence. Others around the table sat in fascinated silence, initial offence overcome by curiosity at the spectacle of these two
yangguizi
battling it out. As a puzzled Veronica returned to the table, Bob slipped inconspicuously away.

‘Sensible constraints? What’s sensible about them?’

‘What’s sensible about them is that they stop arrogant scientists with God complexes releasing genetically altered materials into the environment without the least idea of what the long-term effects are likely to be.’

‘I’d have thought the effects were obvious. Long-term or otherwise. A lot of hungry people are getting fed.’

‘But at what cost? How did you develop this “super-rice”, Dr McCord? Built-in insecticide, antifungal, antiviral genes?’

He was genuinely taken aback by the extent of her knowledge. Then he remembered. ‘Of course, you’re a doctor, aren’t you? Well, I’m glad you’re interested.’ He relaxed again. ‘Naturally, I realise genetics isn’t your speciality, so let me explain it to you – in terms that you’ll understand.’ He made a fist and extended his little finger. ‘Think of my little finger as being like a virus,’ he said. Then he smiled salaciously. ‘Or perhaps you’d be more comfortable thinking of the virus as being like something more familiar to you – like a penis.’ Veronica blushed deeply, and Mr Cao and Dr Wu’s husband turned their eyes down to the table.

‘No, let’s stick with your little finger,’ Margaret said, ‘since your penis probably isn’t any bigger.’

He grinned. ‘Bear with me. My little finger represents a penis, representing a virus I’m going to put into the rice. Okay? Now imagine I slip a rubber over my penis.’ And he ran his forefinger and thumb down the length of his little finger. ‘And this represents the protein overcoat of the virus. Because, after all, what is a virus except a gene with a protein overcoat?’

Margaret nodded. ‘Okay.’

McCord said, ‘So, to this overcoat I attach the gene fragments I want to introduce to the rice – the stuff that’s going to make it disease and insect-resistant. We insert the virus into the rice, like the penis into the vagina. Only, once inside the rubber slips off and sends my gene fragments to all the right places, like sperm to the egg.’ He sat back, pleased with himself, and drained his glass.

Margaret was incensed. ‘So, effectively, you’ve contaminated the entire rice crop of China with a virus.’

McCord nodded happily. ‘Sure. But it’s a harmless plant virus. Hell, we eat the damned things all the time. And a virus is
the
best carrier for the genes. ’Cos, you see, a virus only has one aim in life, and that’s to reproduce. So it carries the genes into every cell, and bingo! We just helped Mother Nature do a better job.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you’ve actually gone into production with this stuff, that you actually think you’re somewhere up there with “Mother Nature”. Jesus Christ, McCord, you’re tinkering at the edges of a billion years of evolution. You can’t possibly know what kind of monster you’re releasing into the environment.’

‘Dr McCord,’ a friendly voice boomed out, and a big hand slapped down on his shoulder.

Margaret looked up, startled to see Bob with Li Yan and Li’s animated friend from the table downstairs. It was the friend who greeted McCord with such bonhomie. McCord looked up at him, confused.

‘What … Who the hell are you?’

‘Ma Yongli. Chef at the Jingtan. Don’t you remember? Good friend of Lotus. She’s waiting for you back at the hotel.’ He grinned and winked.

‘Is she? I didn’t know that.’

‘She says you made an arrangement.’

‘Really? Jeez, I don’t remember.’

Yongli almost lifted him out of his chair. ‘Come on. We’ll get you a taxi. Don’t want keep Lotus waiting, huh?’

‘Hell, no.’

And Yongli led him off towards the stairs. Bob shook Li’s hand. ‘Thanks, Li Yan. Appreciate it.’

Li smiled. ‘My pleasure.’ He nodded acknowledgment to Professor Jiang and they exchanged a few words. He nodded to the others around the table until his eyes fell on Margaret. The clear contempt they held for her had an almost withering effect and she flushed with embarrassment and lowered her eyes. And she wished with all her heart that she had never come to China. When she looked up again he had gone. A buzz of conversation broke out around the table and Bob pulled up a chair beside her.

‘Not the most auspicious of starts,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘I didn’t invite him,’ she said.

‘You didn’t have to engage him in open warfare.’

‘I wouldn’t have had to if you people had had the balls to tell him where to go.’

‘We couldn’t!’ Bob was in danger of raising his voice. He stopped himself and lowered it again. ‘McCord has connections in this town. His whole rice project had the backing of Pang Xiaosheng, former Minister of Agriculture, now a member of the Politburo – and a national hero. It was Pang who persuaded the leadership to do the deal with Grogan Industries, and it’s Pang who’s reaped the rewards. He’s the bookie’s favourite to be the next leader of the People’s Republic.’ Bob stopped to draw a grim breath. ‘And you don’t fuck with people like that, Margaret.’

*

It was dark outside as Li and Yongli escorted the now semiconscious McCord through the tunnel from the restaurant to the street. A sleepy trishaw driver lingering in the carpark raised a hopeful eye, assessed the situation, and relapsed into a semi-slumber. The traffic had not abated, and the street was still crowded, ablaze with the lights of neons and vehicles. Li waved at an air-conditioned taxi, but it was occupied and sailed past. He turned and whispered to Yongli, ‘He’s going to be pretty disappointed when he finds out that Lotus isn’t waiting for him back at the hotel.’

Yongli shrugged. ‘I’ll give her a call. She’ll take care of him.’

Li looked at his friend with complete incomprehension. ‘You’d ask her to do that?’

‘Why not? The guy’s drunk. It’s not as though he’d be any threat. She’s dealt with him before.’

Li shook his head. He knew he would never understand his friend’s relationship with Lotus. He waved down another taxi, but a black Volvo with darkened windows swung into the space at the kerb and blocked it off. The taxi driver honked his horn furiously, but decided against an argument with the Volvo and screeched away in a temper. A large, uniformed chauffeur stepped out and took McCord’s arm from Yongli. ‘I’ll take Dr McCord,’ he said.

‘Back to the hotel?’ Yongli was puzzled by the sudden appearance of the chauffeur-driven limousine.

‘No. He has an appointment elsewhere.’ The chauffeur opened the back door and bundled McCord unceremoniously inside.

‘Hey, I got a rendezvous with Lotus,’ McCord protested, suddenly aware that plans were being changed over his head. The door was slammed shut on him and he disappeared from view behind the tinted windows. The chauffeur slipped behind the wheel, and the car whispered away into the traffic.

‘Government car,’ Yongli said thoughtfully. ‘Wonder where they’re taking him?’

Li knew better than even to think of asking.

CHAPTER TWO

I

Tuesday Morning

Buses and bicycles fought for space among the people and traffic that clogged the narrow artery that was Chaoyangmen Nanxiaojie Street. It ran north to south, dissecting the centre-east of the city. Cycling north along it took Li directly into the heart of Dongcheng District, where the Beijing Municipal Police had sited the new operational headquarters of Section One. The final stretch before the intersection with Dongzhimennei Street was heavily shaded by leaning, leafy trees, and was a deliciously cool escape from the early morning heat. Li coasted the last few hundred yards, enjoying the respite, and pulled over at the corner of Dongzhimennei. Mei Yuan greeted him with her usual ‘Hi, have you eaten?’

And he responded with his customary ‘Yes, I have eaten’. And she began preparing his breakfast. The familiar greeting, ritually exchanged between Beijingers, had little to do with food but much to do with friendship.

Li parked his bike and leaned against the wall, watching Mei Yuan at work. She had a round, unlined face with beautifully slanted almond eyes that sparkled with mischief. Her dark hair, showing only a trace of grey at the temples, was drawn back in a tight bun and wrapped in a green scarf. Dimples in her cheeks became like deep scars when she smiled, which was often. For the moment, her concentration was on the preparation of his
jian bing
on the hot plate in the replica house that stood on the back of her three-wheeled cycle. Its corrugated roof, pitched and pink, had tiny curled eaves, and sat over sliding glass screens that protected the gas hot plate and Mei Yuan’s cooking ingredients. She splashed a ladleful of watery batter over the hot plate and it sizzled as it quickly cooked and set. Then she flipped the pancake over and broke an egg on to it, spreading it thinly. Smearing this with
hoi sin
and a little chili, she sprinkled it with chopped spring onion and broke a large piece of deep-fried whipped egg white into its centre. She then folded it in four, wrapped it in brown paper, and handed it to Li in exchange for two yuan. She watched with satisfaction as he bit hungrily into the steaming savoury pancake. ‘Wonderful,’ he said, wiping a smear of
hoi sin
from the corner of his mouth. ‘If I didn’t have to share an apartment with my uncle I would marry you.’

She laughed heartily. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother.’

‘But my mother never made
jian bing
the way you do.’

In truth, his mother had never made
jian bing
. And had the world turned another way, Mei Yuan would not have had to. In another era she might, perhaps, have been a lecturer at the university, or a senior civil servant. Li inclined his head a little to catch the title of the book she had stuffed down the back of her saddle. Descartes’
Meditations
. He looked at her plump little hands, scarred by a thousand tiny burns, and felt the pain of her life in his heart. A generation cursed by the twelve years of madness that was the Cultural Revolution. And yet if she had regrets, there was no hint of them in that dimpled smile and those mischievous eyes.

She had not missed him noticing her book. ‘I’ll lend it to you when I’m finished. He was an extraordinary man.’ She smiled. ‘
I think, therefore I am
.’ It would have taken her a long time to save up enough money to buy the book, so her offer to lend it to him was an extraordinary act of generosity and trust.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I would like that. And I will be sure to return it to you when I have read it.’ He filled his mouth with more
jian bing
. ‘So. Do you have an answer?’

She grinned. ‘The third person in the queue must have been his wife. You tried to make me think it was a man.’

‘No, no. I didn’t try to make you think anything. You
assumed
it was a man. It was only when you stopped making that assumption that you realised who she was.’

She shook her head, still smiling. ‘Not very clever. But effective.’

‘So what have you got for me?’ He devoured the last of his
jian bing
and threw the wrapper in the bin.

‘Two men,’ she said. ‘And there is no ambiguity here.’ She twinkled. ‘One of them is the keeper of every book in the world, giving him access to the source of all knowledge. Knowledge is power, so this makes him a very powerful man. The other possesses only two sticks. Yet this gives him more power than the other. Why?’

Li turned it over quickly in his head, but no solution came immediately to mind. ‘It’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

He winked and glanced at the fob watch he kept in a leather pouch on his belt. ‘Got to go.
Zai jian
.’ And he flicked his bike stand up with his foot. She watched with affection as the tall figure in short-sleeved white shirt and dark trousers dodged the traffic to cross Dongzhimennei Street. Somewhere in this vast country, she liked to believe, lived the son she had been separated from almost thirty years ago, when Red Guards had dragged her off to the labour camp. He would be about Li’s age now. And it was her fervent hope that he might have turned out something like him.

Li cycled up the gentle slope to the corner of Beixinqiao Santiao, where the square, flat-roofed, four-storey brick building that housed Section One sat discreetly behind a screen of trees. Past the traditional revolving sign of a barber shop, the musty smell of damp hair and the snip of scissors as he passed its door, he was still turning over Mei Yuan’s riddle in his head. Two sticks. Were they chopsticks? No, why would that give the man power? Were they big sticks with which he could beat the other man to death? If so, why would he require two? Focusing his mind on the problem calmed the butterflies in his stomach reflecting the self-doubts that dogged the start of his first day as Deputy Section Chief. He turned in past the red-roofed garage and parked his bicycle. A uniformed officer came down the steps from the door of Section One. He gave Li a wave. ‘Heard the good news, Li Yan. Congratulations.’

Li grinned. ‘My ancestors must have been watching over me.’ Important to seem confident, not to be taking it too seriously.

He went inside, turned right, and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Everyone he met in the corridor – a secretary, another uniformed officer, a rookie detective – offered their congratulations. It was becoming embarrassing. There were only two officers in the detectives’ room when he went in, Qu and Gao. Both had been with Section One longer than he, and were now a rank below him. Qu winked. ‘Morning, boss.’ There was a heavy ironical stress on the word ‘boss’, but it was fond rather than rancorous. Li was popular with the other detectives.