24
Seattle, Washington
September 21, 3:00 p.m. PDT
I pushed my way to the edge of the throng of mourners.
Around me, people stopped to give my arm a squeeze or to offer a quick hug before merging into the stream of attendees heading downhill toward their cars—umbrellas up, wet grass clinging to their shoes, tiptoeing around goose droppings. With the conclusion of the funeral rites, friends scattered like startled crows, eager to escape the weather and our palpable grief. They would reflock at the reception, far away from the coffin and its gaping hole.
I told Isabeth and Guy I needed a little time with Cass, and that I would see them soon. I stood in the rain until the last of the mourners disappeared down the hill. Car doors slammed, engines roared to life. Two employees began folding and stacking the chairs.
The gravediggers moved in.
In person, George Mèng was gracious, a slim figure with a vaguely distracted demeanor. After we shook hands, we seated ourselves across from each other on a pair of stone benches.
“I am deeply sorry about Cassandra,” he said. “She was not only creating and building Red Dragon . She was a friend to me and my family.”
Mèng’s voice was crisp and clear with a faint New England accent. From studying at MIT, I recalled Connor saying.
I didn’t mince words. “I’m of no use to you, Mr. Mèng. I’m not going back to Singapore. If you came all this way to ask for my help, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
His words surprised me. “Then why?”
“I came to apologize to you and pay my respects to Cassandra. I also came to warn you.”
“Dai Shujun,” I said. “I know. Is he here as an agent of MSS, or does he have another agenda?”
Mèng looked surprised. “MSS, as far as I know. And there are others.” He removed a pack of cigarettes and turned them in his hand. “It’s brutally simple. You cannot escape what is happening in Singapore by running away.”
“I didn’t run away,” I snapped, as if it mattered. “I came home with”—my voice broke—“my dead sister.”
Mèng’s hands stilled on the pack. “My words were harsh. I apologize. But you need to understand why returning to Seattle won’t help you. Your name, unlike your uncle’s, is on a list held by the MSS—the Guóānbù. And by the Second Department.”
“A list?”
“Names of people suspected of spying against China.”
I huddled into my raincoat and choked out a laugh. “That’s ludicrous. I never spied for anyone.” I rubbed my palms against the bench. “Why me but not my uncle?”
“I believe Phil Weber has managed to shield Robert. Plus, their focus is on you as the future of Ocean House in Asia.”
The rain came harder, pounding on the stones of the mausoleum and splashing through the doorway, sheeting across the floor, and spattering our shoes. Outside, the gravediggers had closed Cass’s grave and were laying down fresh sod.
In the dull light Mèng tapped out a cigarette and offered the pack to me. I shook my head.
He said, “Dai Shujun’s only job is to observe you. To watch, listen, and follow, then report back to the Guóānbù. Wherever you are, Dai will also be. Wherever you go, Dai and others will follow.”
Smoking man. I hunched into the shadows. “Are they here now?”
“Dai has been lured to a coffee shop by one of my associates. We have a few minutes.”
I glanced through the arched doorway; the gravediggers were packing down the sod. “You’ve made a long trip across the Pacific to offer condolences and a warning.”
He tapped his cigarette on the pack but made no move to light it. “I believe it every person’s duty to do the right thing when and as they can. My government would tell me that meeting you is not correct. But what do I know? I’m only a scientist who tries to follow the tenets of Confucianism because I believe those principles teach us how to live a virtuous life. Loyalty. Justice. Respect. Harmony. I’m not made for this world of shadow play.”
“And yet you’re an asset for the CIA.”
His glance was sharp. “I’m not.”
I shrugged. Likely I’d never know the truth. But I felt an unexpected rush of camaraderie with this near stranger. If he were a spy, he probably wouldn’t be happy about it.
“I’m not cut out for it, either,” I said.
“And you shouldn’t be.” Mèng pocketed the cigarette pack, then leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, balancing the unlit cigarette between his fingers. “You and I are civilians, each with our own passions and the desire to pursue them without interference. All we know of tradecraft is that it is dangerous and sometimes immoral. I hope spies will save my family. Perhaps even the world. But I don’t pretend to understand them.”
The rain turned back into mist. I rose and went to the doorway, leaning against the damp stones of the arch, where I could watch both Mèng and the graveyard.
“If I’m on a list of names, how do I get off of it?”
“You don’t. But soon the list won’t matter. Dai will follow you until Red Dragon is delivered, then disappear like smoke along with other watchers. All you must do for now is stay away from Singapore and China. Maybe stay away from China forever.”
“Not a problem. There are other yacht markets in Asia.” I toed a puddle of water. “The first time I saw Dai Shujun, he was having dinner with an employee of the CIA, Phil Weber.”
“Dai is probably providing false information to CIA. I’m sure Weber knows he can’t be trusted. But for CIA to check in with Dai now and again gives Weber an excuse to watch him.”
“Weber pulled Rob and Cass into this.”
Mèng nodded. “He has some hold over your family. Cassandra wouldn’t tell me.”
A hold. From Weber the Nazi hunter. “As in blackmail?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Our family. I hadn’t given the mezuzah or Cass’s trip to Austria much thought since I’d been home. “Charlie Han implied there is something questionable in my family’s past. Cass once theorized that our great-grandparents were Jewish. A shock for this Catholic girl, but neither terrible nor a crime. But maybe it’s worse. Maybe they were Nazis.”
Mèng’s face shone pale in the gloom. “Is there any family untouched by hatred? In my family and Charlie Han’s are ancestors who joined China’s Cultural Revolution. They participated in massacres. Desecrations. As many as two million people died. As for Charlie Han ...” Mèng stuck the unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and patted his pockets for a lighter. “Han is pursuing his own vendetta against me under the guise of an MSS operation. He wants to destroy my family the way he believes my father destroyed his.”
It seemed we all had our family troubles. “ Did your father destroy his?”
Mèng’s headshake was faint. And sad. “Many years ago, my father was the governor of Qinghai Province on the Tibetan Plateau, where Han’s family lived. Han’s sister was caught up in a sweep of anti-government protesters and imprisoned. It was my father’s duty to oversee the sentencing, and the sentences he handed down were harsh. He was not given a choice. The party spoke, and he had to obey. To go against the party would have led to his own imprisonment and endangered our family.”
“Han must know this.”
Mèng gave a soft shrug as he removed a lighter from an inside pocket. “Revenge is easier than forgiveness. Han knows only that he cannot blame the party to which he’s sworn allegiance. Doing so would create an internal battle he cannot face. He must blame my father, not the CCP. He will stand by his duty.”
“As your father’s duty was to hand down sentences to the protesters.”
“Yes.”
“Duty,” I echoed. Duty to family, to community, to the state. I’d always seen responsibility as a virtue. But the choice to obey laws and follow orders was showing me its gray side.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Mèng asked. “It’s become a nervous habit.”
“A common one, apparently.” I was thinking of myself and Connor in Dr. Saravanan’s kitchen. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
I hugged myself in my coat as the sharp odor of tobacco floated toward me. “Truthfully, Mr. Mèng, I don’t know what I should do with your apology. My sister is dead. Your regret won’t bring her back or keep me safe.”
“I understand.” He released a cloud of gray smoke. “Cassandra adored you.”
The same words Connor had used.
“I would have protected you if I’d been able. Told you to leave immediately. I was in China and unaware either of your arrival in Singapore or that Cassandra and her handler had been murdered. On the day I got the news of their deaths, I was called before the party in Beijing. One does not allow a summons from the Chinese Communist Party to go unanswered. I asked Emily to warn you in my stead.”
I glanced through the open doorway. A sparrow huddled on the branch of a nearby pine. Water dripped from the needles. “Emily did warn me, although not right away. But I don’t trust her.”
“Emily—like so many of my countrymen—is trying to protect herself and her family. It isn’t easy to be a good person in Communist China. Emily’s family was threatened. Her brother briefly arrested under charges of sedition. Due to great pressure, Emily was—as your intelligence services would say—compromised. She took tremendous risk in warning you.”
I rounded on him. “Yet you let her work with Cass, knowing she was compromised.”
“Cassandra also knew. But she understood that Emily was trapped and trusted that although she might be under the thumb of her government, their friendship meant she wouldn’t betray Cassandra. I had no choice but to keep Emily in my employ—it was part of our pretense that everything was normal. Cassandra felt she should do the same. We kept information strictly compartmentalized, and Emily’s presence, ironically, helped us maintain appearances.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
“In a way. Under the guise of a typical build, Cassandra fed Emily misinformation about Red Dragon . Misinformation that would ensure Guóānbù didn’t learn what we were doing.”
The floor plan I’d found in Cassandra’s locked safe on my second day in Singapore. The specs with the phantom room. Had Emily seen them?
“But Emily must have told the Guóānbù something. Why else was Cass killed?”
“We don’t yet know what happened that night.”
“I know too many people are dying.”
“Please believe me, Miss Brenner. I will carry the deaths of Cassandra, Virgil, and the security guard forever.”
I stared. “What guard?”
“A man was murdered in the shipyard near Red Dragon six months ago. We suspect Charlie Han.”
I pictured Han’s rough hands and shuddered. “I didn’t know.”
Mèng stubbed out his cigarette and rubbed his eyes with his palms. When he lowered his hands, pain showed plainly on his face. At this, something inside me eased. I began to understand why Cassandra had liked Mèng. He’d said it was hard to be a good person in China. And yet he had tried.
Tears filled my eyes. I turned my back to Mèng and stared out the doorway.
A solitary figure in black was climbing the hill. He carried white roses.
“We have company,” I said.
Mèng came to stand beside me. “Do you know him?”
Warmth filled my chest as I realized I did. “It’s okay. He’s a friend. Matthew Hoffman.”
We both watched as Matthew laid the roses at the base of Cassandra’s headstone, his head bent as if in prayer.
“You should go,” Mèng said. “We cannot risk being seen together. Not even by a friend. I will wait here until you are safely away.”
I held out my hand. “I wish you luck, Mr. Mèng. I’m sorry that I’m not courageous like my sister.”
We shook, and a soft smile lifted his features. “We each find courage in our own ways, Miss Brenner. Design your beautiful boats. Create a future. Find a way to be happy.”
I stepped free of the mausoleum. Matthew had straightened and was already heading back down the hill.
“Nadia,” Mèng said.
I turned.
“I want you to know that Cassandra died for something important. Not only my family, but RenAI. My AI has the potential to be as deadly as Oppenheimer’s bomb. And before she died, Cass went a long way in keeping it out of the wrong hands. Knowing this about her won’t bring her back. But maybe it will offer comfort.”
I thought about the nuclear arms race. The Cold War. Mutually assured destruction. Since my return home, I’d read predictions from experts that AI was as dangerous to humans as global pandemics and nuclear war. That, ultimately, AI would drive humans extinct.
If the Chinese managed to keep RenAI, how could the technology be countered? What would balance the scales?
Mèng seemed to understand my thoughts. “Unlike chess, there is no winning move. I chose in my ignorance to create Ren, unaware the technology has no limits. You chose, in your wisdom about yourself, to acknowledge your limits. You are wiser than I.”
From behind me came the flutter of wings as the sparrow fled. “How do we live with these choices, Mr. Mèng?”
But he shook his head. “For that, I have no answer.”