23
Seattle, Washington
September 21, 1:30 p.m. PDT
We buried Cass on a gray and windy Sunday afternoon on a hillside that gave her a view of her beloved Lake Washington, the city of Seattle, and the distant cranes of our shipyard.
Guy, Isabeth, and I sat in the front row in white folding chairs, close to Cass’s coffin and the open grave. The news of my father’s dying had yet to break—our fellow mourners would ascribe his ashen complexion and sunken cheeks to grief. Until the media got the scoop, my parents and I were very good at pretending that—other than the coffin containing Cass’s ashes—we were fine.
While the priest spoke and the chairs of the mourners creaked and birdsong spilled from the trees, I turned inward, my thoughts churning through the past days.
Every day since my return, I’d been on video calls with Rob and the managers in Singapore as we worked to finalize Red Dragon . Rob and I never spoke of Phil Weber or whatever deal he and Cass had cut with the CIA officer. Sorrow and fury simmered beneath my surface, but I did what I was masterful at—I compartmentalized my feelings enough that I could remain civil toward Rob, and we could work efficiently with each other and the team. Rob assured me that he was safe and well, and I left it at that. But I wondered whether I could ever feel close to him again.
On two separate occasions after my return home, I picked up my phone, intending to dial Connor. Unsure what it was I wanted—forgiveness for running, absolution for being a coward, the assurance that the Mèng family’s defection would move forward—I never placed the call. With Rob now handling our contract with NeXt Level Security, my relationship with Connor was over.
From Inspector Lee, I received Cass’s Confirmation of Death number and a digital link with which we could download her death certificate. He included a handwritten letter informing me that Cass’s case had been officially ruled a suicide and was now closed and that he was deeply sorry for my family’s loss. In the last line of his note, he wrote that he was glad I had returned to Seattle.
I busied myself with the work for Matthew’s Sovereign II and took the next steps in designing a yacht for his friends Warren and Leanne Korda, who—despite the loss of Rambler —had signed a letter of intent. When I received word that two more of our designers had decamped to Paxton Yachts, I rolled up my sleeves and—because it was both my job and a distraction—began scrutinizing Paxton: I read about them in the news and the yachting rags, tracked them through their social media, tried to lift the hood on their financial postings. I discovered a gleaming, wholesome surface and knew it would take more skills than I had to uncover any link to the Chinese-based funding that Charlie Han had alluded to. I picked up the phone and put one of our financial wizards on it. “Nothing illegal,” I said. “Nothing that will tarnish our name.” He promised to get back to me with whatever he found.
The incident with the failed yacht, Rambler , still loomed. Rob had leaned hard into the suppliers, and several errors concealed by falsified reports had been uncovered in an audit. It was enough to allow us to suggest, although not prove, that Rambler hadn’t failed due to any lack of engineering or oversight from Ocean House.
But I wanted proof, not media speculation or panicked accusations from Rob and Guy. A week after my return and another week before Cass’s service, I picked up the phone and called Matthew.
“Welcome home,” he said. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“And yours.”
I gave him the date for Cass’s funeral, and he promised to do his best to attend despite a conflict in his schedule.
I stared at the disorganized mess of papers on my desk. “I need a favor. You’ve heard about Rambler ?”
“It made the news. And nearly scared off the Kordas.”
“Guy and Rob suspect sabotage.”
Matthew’s disbelief showed in his laugh. “Why would anyone sabotage your build?”
“That was my reaction, too. At first. But”—I took my phone off speaker and held it to my ear—“now I’ve got a hunch they might be right. Do you have someone among your thousands of employees who could investigate? Outside the normal channels, I mean.”
A pause. “Are you asking for a hacker?”
“It would be a quick in and out, wouldn’t it? Not risky.”
“Hacking is always risky. And I can’t believe I’m hearing this from my law-abiding, nonconfrontational Nadia.”
“Are those the reasons you’re fond of me? For my conformity?”
“That along with your beauty and brilliance. Send me what you’ve got on Rambler . No promises.”
“I owe you.”
“Never say that to a commodities trader.”
After we hung up, I leaned back in my office chair and stared at the ceiling, surprised and quietly pleased by my own audacity.
Yet, even as I buried myself in the joy of designing Sovereign II and the necessity of my other work, I remained fearful that my departure from Singapore hadn’t removed the threat of the Second Department or the Guóānbù—Charlie Han’s Ministry of State Security. And what of Dai Shujun and his ties to Chinese gangs? With a fascination that was at first morbid and then horrified, I read articles on the immensity of the Chinese triads’ operations inside America’s borders—drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, fraud. Twice I thought I spotted Dai Shujun at Seattle’s Pike Place Market; he melted into the crowd before I could be sure. Another man, an Asian whom I called Smoking Man, stopped daily outside our office building, standing on the pier with his cigarettes, smoking and watching before strolling south. I sent one of our security guards out to have a chat with him. The man offered Tom one of his cigarettes, and they smoked and shared a laugh. “He loves boats,” Tom informed me when he returned. “No worries. Just a man on a walk.”
Maybe. But maybe not.
I installed an additional lock on my apartment door and placed a camera at the top of the stairs that led to my residence. I bought a Taser and kept it near me. I began running and lifting weights again, working to get back into the fighting shape of my twenties. In addition to training my body, I trained my mind. I hired an online tutor and studied Mandarin, read up on Confucianism, and dipped into Sun Tzu’s Art of War .
When I committed, I committed.
Three days before Cass’s service, after I’d drunk two fingers’ worth of Glenlivet single malt, I got a tattoo—my matching yin to Cass’s yang.
I approached the graveside as a hawk shrieked overhead. The wind had fallen quiet, the afternoon darker. Mist filled the air and a chill had crept in. The priest nodded at me. I tossed earth onto Cass’s coffin.
I’m sorry that you died and that you were probably terrified and that I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry I didn’t visit more often. And I’m sorry that I’m not brave like you, Cass. Nor honorable. You were always the best of us.
I turned and walked away from her grave, slipping through the crowd so that I didn’t have to watch the gravediggers move in as the ceremony ended. At the edge of the knot of people, I stared out over the cemetery, which was wet and gloomy, olive green and marble gray in the dull light. Trees stood in clumps, a few of their leaves already yellow and orange, bright against the wrought iron fence. My gaze fixed on a stone mausoleum with an open doorway, and I thought that I would sit there whenever I came to visit Cass, safe from rain and sun and curious eyes.
A figure moved in the mausoleum’s shadows.
I stared.
Dai Shujun.
My knees buckled. Someone nearby caught me.
I couldn’t live with fear like this. A day-to-day grind of watching over my shoulder, sprinting from my car to my apartment door, ordering groceries for pickup, and constantly wondering why a man might be watching me.
“It will get better,” murmured the woman who’d caught me. She helped me straighten before nodding at my thanks and rejoining her companions.
I looked again toward Dai Shujun.
And now, as the man stepped clear of the doorway, I saw that I was wrong. It wasn’t Dai, but another man I recognized. I’d seen his picture in our company files. In photos taped to the back of Cass’s headboard. Early forties, slim and handsome, today he was dressed in a black suit and tan trench coat.
George Mèng, manifesting in the cemetery like a ghost from the other side of the world.