The Flower Net (31 page)

“And all the times I applied for visas?”

“I went to Uncle Zai for help. He pulled strings and your applications were rejected.”

“You should have let me come. You should have told me the truth. Even if you couldn’t tell me all of it, you could have said something instead of just disappearing like that.”

“But how? What part of the story could I have told you? Think about it. Where could I have started? What part could I have left out? You would have asked me a hundred questions.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“You know how you are, David. The truth means everything to you. And your sense of justice…”

“Oh, God,” David groaned in final realization. “My rigid sense of right and wrong kept you from telling me.”

“No, not sanctimonious.” She took his hand and held it to her breast. “Admirable. Fearless. Unwavering. Don’t you know that these are the things I have loved most about you?”

“But they drove you away.”

“Yes,” she admitted. She slumped against the wall. This time when he reached out to her, she didn’t pull away. Slowly he drew her into his arms.

“So in answer to your questions,” she said, “I am not in cahoots with Guang Mingyun or the Rising Phoenix. That money comes from our family’s past and from my father’s connections. I haven’t lied to you since I saw you again. I have translated everything. I have tried to explain what we have seen. Of those accusations at least I am innocent.”

She felt limp in his arms, almost as though she weren’t in her body at all.

“I love you, Hulan. Nothing you could do or say would ever change that.”

“But what I did…”

“You saved your parents the best way you knew how. As for the other things—your teacher, the person on the farm…Jesus, you were just a little kid.”

“That doesn’t absolve me.”

“No, but ever since then you’ve tried to set things right. You’ve devoted your life to public service. Do you see Nixon, Madame Yee, or any of the millions and millions of people who participated in the Cultural Revolution doing the same?”

He felt her body try to shift away from him, but he kept her within his embrace.

“The real question is,” he continued, “can
you
forgive me?”

She looked up at him. Her eyes glistened with tears, which brimmed, then ran down her face. He held her as she cried.

20

F
EBRUARY
12

The Official Residence

T
hey spent the night at Hulan’s house—secure in the knowledge that MPS agents were watching over them in the sedan parked outside her gate. In the morning, she was still shaky and David was wrung out, but they had never been as close. All the walls between them were finally gone. Gradually they began to concentrate their attention once again on their present predicament. Hulan made tea and they sat together at the little round table in her kitchen. They started with the premise that they had exhausted their leads.

“Someone wanted us dead,” David said. “Who knew we were going to the jail?”

“Guang Mingyun.”

“Besides him.”

“Peter.”

David considered this. “You said he was reporting our movements to someone. Who?”

Hulan hesitated. “I was his immediate superior. After that…Section Chief Zai.”

“Zai? Your Zai?”

“But it can’t be him,” Hulan said. “He’d never do anything to harm me.”

“But I think it would be a good idea to talk to him,” David said. “It may be someone else in the ministry. Zai may know who.”

But David’s clothes were still streaked with soot and grime. Clearly the first thing they needed to do was get David back to his hotel so he could change. The obvious mode of transportation was the MPS sedan parked out front, but now that car’s presence seemed ominous.

“If it is someone at the ministry, how do we know he didn’t send the car?” Hulan asked. If she was right, then going into the ministry at all would be dangerous, too.

At ten, after telling the two low-level investigators in the sedan that they’d be walking, Hulan and David set out down a thoroughfare to the back entrance of the Forbidden City. From there, they caught a series of buses, which took them to the Sheraton, where David was finally able to clean up. Then they took a taxi to the Ministry of Public Security.

They couldn’t sneak David past the guards or “hide” him from the people inside the building, so they walked as nonchalantly as possible up to Hulan’s floor, pretended to proceed to her office, then ducked instead into Section Chief Zai’s. When they saw he wasn’t there, they shut the door behind them. They assumed that the room was bugged, so they moved as quietly as they could and kept their voices low. Hulan again repeated that Uncle Zai couldn’t be involved.

“Okay, but since he’s not here,” David whispered, “let’s look around.”

Hulan mouthed the word
no
, but David walked to the desk and began looking through the papers. “This stuff is in Chinese, Hulan. I need your help.”

Hulan reluctantly came to his side. “You won’t find anything,” she said.

David ignored her, held up a piece of paper, and asked, “What’s this?” Hulan said it was a requisition form. She was surprised at the relief she heard in her voice. David held up another, then another. All were innocuous. One of the desk drawers was locked, but David used a letter opener to jimmy it open. He held up another piece of paper with a red seal stamped on it. Hulan’s unconscious gasp told him he’d hit pay dirt. “What is it?”

“It’s Spencer Lee’s death sentence. The red mark is Section Chief Zai’s chop.”

“You phoned him from the jail after Lee was sentenced. You asked him to file the official petition. Do you see any papers here that show he did that?”

Hulan scanned the desk, then shook her head.

“Let’s just look at this,” David said. “Maybe Zai is making a play. Maybe he wants back what
he
lost. What was it you said earlier? Things always change to the opposite.”

“Uncle Zai is an honest man.”

“But suppose he isn’t. You told him exactly what we were doing. If he is who I think he is, then he had to get rid of Lee. If for some reason that didn’t work, he had to stop us.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“If Peter reported to Zai,” David whispered urgently, “then he would have known we were going to the Capital Mansion to see Cao Hua.” He struggled to piece together what else had happened that day. “And remember what Nixon Chen said at the Black Earth Inn? You asked him if he’d ever seen Henglai at the restaurant. He said Deng’s daughter went there, the ambassador,
your boss
. He must have meant Zai.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything. Everyone goes there sometime. Nixon told us that, too.”

“What about when we came back to his office?” David pushed on. “He told us to back off. Then, remember what he said when I brought up the idea of going to L.A.?”

Hulan nodded. “He said we would be out of the way.”

“Out of the way, Hulan! Out of the way!”

“But, David, it can’t be. I’ve known him forever.”

How could he convince her? “On the first day I was here in China, I said something about the Rising Phoenix in your father’s office. Everyone acted strange after that. You told me why later.”

“Those cases had been an embarrassment to us. They were a loss of face.”

“Why?” he pressed.

“Zai had investigated the gang and…”

“Nothing happened,” David finished for her. “He must have been working with them all along! And then there’s the bomb. He’s the right age, Hulan. Was he in the army?”

“Yes,” she admitted, “but it’s all circumstantial.”

He held up Spencer Lee’s death sentence. “This isn’t circumstantial. It’s hard evidence.”

Seeing the look of torment on Hulan’s face, he asked, “What aren’t you telling me?” When she looked away, he took her hand, brought it to his lips for a kiss, and said, “No more secrets, Hulan. None ever again.”

“The night before we left, Uncle Zai came to my house. He warned me to be careful.”

“Did he warn you or threaten you?”

She pulled her hand away and groaned. “I don’t know anymore. I’m confused.”

“Don’t you see, Hulan? We cast that flower net of yours and when you look at all the pieces we’ve caught, they point to one person.”

“Zai.”

“I think we’d better see your father.”

Vice Minister Liu gestured for them to sit and asked a tea girl to fill their cups. With his elbows perched on the desk and his chin rested on his interlocked fingers, he listened to their conclusions. When they came to the end, he took a sip of tea, then lit a Marlboro. “As I recall, one of the bodies was found aboard a ship that left Tianjin on January third. Am I remembering this correctly?”

“Yes.”

Liu leafed through his desk calendar, found the date, and looked up. “Obviously you haven’t checked Section Chief Zai’s travel records.” He could barely conceal his disappointment in them.

“No, we didn’t.”

“Well, Inspector, if you had, you would have known that Section Chief Zai was in Tianjin that week.” He paused, then added with a self-deprecating smile, “I was there that week as well.”

“What were you doing?”

“We were conducting a routine survey of the local bureau. Nothing terribly important, just time-consuming. But now, as I recall, Section Chief Zai was not with me every day, nor did we have dinner together every evening.”

“Where was he?”

“Inspector Liu,” her father said in Chinese, glancing significantly at David, “it is not my business what my employees do in their off time.”

“I beg your pardon,” David said.

“I was telling the inspector that I didn’t know what Section Chief Zai was doing. But I must say that I have suspected that he was corrupt for some time.” He turned his attention back to his daughter. “I’m sure this comes as a shock to you, Inspector. I know you have always had a lot of…respect for this man. But I think if you look back over his life and career, you will see that his past is not glorious.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“In his office, I presume.”

“We were just there. He’s gone.”

Vice Minister Liu stubbed out his cigarette and stood. “Then I propose that we waste no time. I’ll make the proper notifications. He will be found and arrested.” He walked them to the door, where he shook David’s hand. “It seems I am forever thanking you for your help. We are, as a country, grateful for your insights and persistence in this matter.” With that, the vice minister closed the door behind them.

“Now what?” David asked as they headed toward Hulan’s office.

“We wait. The MPS prides itself on being able to find a criminal anywhere in China within twenty-four hours. By tomorrow, this will all be over.” Even as Hulan said this she doubted it. Section Chief Zai was well liked by the people who worked beneath him. She suspected that they wouldn’t look too hard for their old colleague. But Hulan could also see that something niggled at David’s brain as well. “What’s bothering you now?”

“Okay, I see Zai, but how does the American embassy fit in? We know that someone there was stamping the passports for the couriers. So who was that?”

“Not some pencil pusher.”

David agreed. “It has to be someone in a high enough position to have met him socially or professionally. Zai would have needed to see this man in action, trusted his discretion, and”—David thought for a moment—“yes,
and
believed his innocent aw-shucks demeanor.”

“Phil Firestone.”

Still nervous about who else could be involved at the MPS and not wanting to spend the time filling out a car requisition form, Hulan flagged down a taxi outside the ministry. Quickly they sped across town to the diplomatic area along Jianguomenwai. The driver honked through the masses crowded outside the embassy and dropped them off at the gate. They were shown up to the ambassador’s office, where they were told that he was “out of town” and that his adjutant was at the official residence planning a Valentine’s Day tea with Mrs. Watson.

A few minutes later they knocked at the door of the austere building the Watsons called home. A Chinese woman greeted them and led the way to a parlor for receiving guests. The room was decorated in what could be described as American Diplomatic, a style that allowed for few concessions to the country of residence. Chairs and settees were covered in a variety of royal-blue damask and silk moiré fabrics. Small pillows of blue brocade and heavy gold fringe served as accessories. Low, early-American tables were set with bouquets in Chinese blue-and-white ceramic bowls, silver dishes filled with ribbon and peppermint candies, and a few photography books that extolled the natural beauties of states like Vermont, Colorado, Alaska, and, of course, Montana.

It had been two months since Hulan had met Elizabeth Watson sitting on an iron bench in the dead of winter waiting to see if the dead body frozen under the icy expanse of Bei Hai Lake was her son. Now, as introductions were made, Hulan was once again struck by Elizabeth Watson’s reserve. Her sorrow still showed in the sadness of her eyes, in the circles that hung beneath them, and in her slightly sallow complexion. Nevertheless, her hair was done in one of those politicians’ wives dos, each strand held in place by hair spray. The severity of her hair was offset by the casual elegance of her gabardine slacks, silk blouse, camel’s hair jacket, and string of pearls. She had the air of someone who had been busy all day, planning meals and seating charts, catching up on her correspondence, perhaps even chatting on the phone with a girlfriend or two back in Montana. What she did not look like was a woman who, as her husband had explained, was so deep in mourning that she couldn’t receive visitors or answer questions about her son.

“Actually you just missed Phil,” Elizabeth said, “but I expect him back shortly. If you run back to the embassy, you’ll probably miss him again. So let’s have some tea and visit for a while.”

She poured tea from a heavy silver pot and handed the delicate cups and saucers to her guests. The whole while she carried on a mostly one-sided conversation about the weather, about plans for the upcoming party, about her visits to factory nursery schools in Sichuan Province where business was booming for Chinese and American entrepreneurs. David and Hulan let her talk, knowing that, as with most parents who mourn the loss of a child, she would bring the conversation around to Billy.

“He was such a bright boy and we had such hopes for him,” she said. “He had just one more year to go at USC, and I remember the last time I saw him we talked about what he might do next.”

David and Hulan glanced at each other, realizing that Ambassador Watson hadn’t told his wife that Billy had dropped out. Silently they decided to see where this conversation would go.

“I kept stressing the importance of an education,” Elizabeth Watson continued. “‘Go to graduate school,’ I said. Political science, history, maybe even law school. But Billy had other ideas. ‘Ah, Mom, I’m sick of school. I want to get out, start a business, make my own way.’ You see, I think it was always hard for Billy growing up in a small community where his father was so important, such a force, if you know what I mean. Like a lot of kids, Billy rejected everything his father stood for. But I always saw that as a phase.”

“It sounds like you and your son were close,” David said.

“Close?” Elizabeth Watson laughed. “I’ll say we were close. Being a politician’s wife is a lonely business. Being a politician’s child is even worse. Billy and I were left alone in Montana a lot of the time. Someone had to stay behind and deal with the ranch. That someone was me. And I wasn’t about to let Billy go off to Washington with his father. But I’ll tell you, you think winter is bad here? You haven’t seen anything until you’ve lived through a Montana winter.” Elizabeth caught herself. “Excuse me for rambling on,” she said. “It’s just, you know, Billy and I had a bond.”