32
Singapore
October 1, 9:00 a.m. SGT
When Connor, Lukas, and I landed at Changi Airport in Singapore, Connor parted ways with us at customs. Andrew Declough greeted Lukas and me curbside.
“Welcome back, Ms. Brenner,” he said, relieving me of my overnight bag, his gaze on Lukas.
I made the introductions without explaining Lukas’s presence.
“It’s good to see you, Andrew,” I said. “But I was expecting Emily Tan.”
He lifted my bag into the back of his Mercedes SUV. “You didn’t get my email? I would have texted or phoned, but I figured you’d be sleeping on the flight. Mr. Mèng let her go.”
Disconcerted, I stepped back as Andrew lowered the hatch. “What was Mr. Mèng’s explanation?”
“I’m not privy to the details. Some falling-out, apparently. It was all quite sudden—yesterday morning she was on the payroll, and late yesterday afternoon she was gone. Packed up her belongings and disappeared. Bad timing for us. My team is going to miss her.”
“We all will.” I was surprised by my confused rush of feelings. Relief that this woman I couldn’t trust was gone. Pity for what her future might be. And an alarming awareness that the staggering workload of finalizing Red Dragon would fall on my shoulders without any administrative assistance.
Lukas opened the front passenger door for me, then climbed into the back. There was a long line of automobiles jostling at the curb. Andrew started the car to run the air-conditioning while we waited.
I smoothed the wrinkles in my skirt. “Have you assigned someone to take over Emily’s duties?”
“The purser will help with logistics—he’ll see to the crew and the inventory until we get to Shanghai. And I pulled over one of our admins from my firm. Kelly Song. She’s good, but she’ll need time to get up to speed on the specifics.”
“We are precariously short of time. Do you know where Emily is now?”
“Not privy to that, either. One of the staffers went to check on her yesterday evening, but Emily didn’t answer her knocks. She’ll go back to Shanghai, I imagine.”
A few cars moved away, and Andrew eased into a place in line.
“Is that where she’s from?” I realized I knew almost nothing about Emily outside of her work for Ocean House and her fondness for Cassandra.
And her mysterious relationship with Charlie Han.
“She mentioned once that her parents live there. They’re real estate tycoons, I gather. A risky proposition these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“The party is going after anyone they think is getting too big for their britches. You heard about Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba?” He squinted at me. “Alibaba is China’s version of the mega retailer Amazon. A few years ago, the CCP cut off Jack Ma’s plans for Alibaba right at the knees. Ma disappeared from public life, then resurfaced as a visiting professor at Tokyo University. From billionaire CEO of one of the world’s largest companies to foreign language teacher in exile.”
George Mèng had mentioned the party’s hold over Emily—that her family had been threatened and her brother briefly arrested. She’d been caught between Han’s demands and her family’s danger. And her friendship with Cass.
I frowned as I dug out my sunglasses. I didn’t want to contemplate what would happen to Emily’s parents and brother now that she was no longer of use to Han and the Guóānbù.
What had caused George to let her go?
Andrew sped up the on-ramp for the East Coast Parkway. “Kudos, by the way, on your speech at the yacht show. Just so you know, the entire staff was cheering you on.”
“The idea that I might have sunk their employer didn’t scare them?”
“You didn’t sink Ocean House. People are just ... startled. We’ll be fine.”
I didn’t share Andrew’s optimism. I’d gotten word from headquarters that we’d lost five clients who’d been ready to sign LOIs. Three others had decided to have boats designed by us built in yards we didn’t own. Millions of dollars and potential dollars floating out the door because I’d decided to come clean.
I believed I’d made the right choice. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
“As far as the team goes, Ms. Brenner, you’re the GOAT. Greatest of all time.” Andrew glanced at Lukas, then me, his expression suddenly shy. “I think so, too.”
My return smile was polite. I looked out the window at the southern coast, where, during World War II, Britain had strengthened its defenses against Japan. To everyone’s surprise, the Japanese had instead advanced from Singapore’s north shore, quickly overrunning British resistance and terrorizing the Singaporeans in a rush to victory that no one, from Churchill on down, had foreseen.
Once again I had a room at Raffles, with an adjoining room for Lukas. But we were rarely there.
The days were nothing short of barely controlled madness. It was always like this before a boat launched. A final review meeting would be held on October 15—three days before Red Dragon was scheduled to get underway to Shanghai. That meeting would mark the make-or-break point—we would require check marks all the way down the list before we were ready to lift anchor. If we failed, the launch would be delayed. An embarrassment for Ocean House and a disaster for George Mèng and his family.
Prior to that meeting, there would be a rush of activity: final systems checks, interior and exterior inspections, safety equipment reviews, and a briefing for the twenty-member crew along with any specific training they needed for Red Dragon ’s custom build. The chief engineer would make sure the fuel tanks were full and check the levels of all other essential fluids as well as ensuring we had good emergency preparedness around engineering equipment like bilge pumps, fire alarms, and emergency generators. I would verify that the necessary documentation was in order, including permits, insurance documents, and all certifications or compliance papers required both for our departure from Singapore and for our arrival in the Port of Shanghai.
We would continually monitor weather forecasts as we planned our route, adjusting as needed for safety and to ensure optimal testing conditions.
With Emily gone, I’d lost my right hand. She would have coordinated the logistical aspects of the sea trial, including transportation to and from the yacht for the crew, any additional accommodations for captain and crew, and whatever special arrangements needed to be made. The piles of paperwork. Also, keeping George Mèng reassured that all was well. Those tasks would now be added to my own list.
Dozens of reports had to be written or finalized: a detailed plan for the technical and performance aspects of the sea trial, including speed tests, maneuverability assessments, and equipment functionality checks. And a clear communication plan that would outline how information would be shared among the crew, the project management team, and George Mèng.
Emily had begun some of the required reporting before George fired her. But a million things remained to be done, and without her help, I found myself working eighteen-hour days and snatching a few hours’ restless sleep on the love seat in the front office while Lukas slept on a cot in George’s office.
I’d been insane to send Rob away.
But, in those brief moments between curling up on the love seat and falling asleep, I had to admit it also felt good to manage everything myself. I was coming to recognize my own competence in areas outside my normal expertise. I was managing crew and supply lists, interfacing with vendors and pushing back on delays, creating a sense of camaraderie with the staff even as I delegated more work. All this kept me too busy to worry about Charlie Han or Mèng’s family or what might be required of me when we reached Shanghai.
Other things were easier, too. While we were scrupulous about keeping George’s name out of the media—routine for superyacht builds—there was no need for the two of us to lurk in cemeteries when we needed to chat. Our website and social media team had posted an announcement in the news section of our website that Rob Brenner had a torn rotator cuff and had returned to the US for immediate surgery. Nadia Brenner would resume her work in Singapore to finish Red Dragon .
Of Charlie Han and Dai Shujun, I caught not a glimpse, although I was confident they were out there. Perhaps they were deterred from approaching by the ever-present Lukas. Maybe they were letting things play out. Their hidden presence was a dark threat of things to come.
I received a brief note from Phil Weber, congratulating me on my decision to share my family’s history. I sent him a thank-you in response, straddling a line between warmth and coolness. After all, he’d spared my family during his Nazi hunting days, even if he’d used that knowledge to blackmail Cass and Rob. He no longer had a hold over us. But it no longer mattered. Ocean House was fully in.
Four days after my return, I was searching Cass’s office for some misplaced paperwork when I suddenly remembered her general arrangement plan—the GAP showing the mysterious black space.
I paused in my circle around the office and stared at the anchored, medium-size safe. I was gripped by a sudden fear for the GAP’s safety. I knelt and turned the dial until the lock clicked open.
Cass’s GAP still lay inside. I let go of the breath I’d been holding.
I carried the plans to the drafting board and—with a wave of nostalgia for my sister’s cleverness, her creative flights—flipped through the pages as I had on my first day in her office.
When I reached the page detailing the master stateroom with its phantom room, I stopped.
A trail of smudged ash marred the paper.
My heart kicked out hard beats. The smudge hadn’t been there before. In the month I’d been gone, someone had looked at these plans. They’d seen the phantom room.
The cold fear in my stomach weighted me to the floor.
Probably it was Rob. He wasn’t a smoker, but maybe, like me, he had an occasional cigarette. Heedless of the time, I called him.
“Did you open Cass’s safe?”
A pause. “Nice to hear from you, Nadia.”
“I don’t have time. Just yes or no. Did you open Cass’s safe?”
“No.”
I hung up.
Whoever had seen the floor plans would know exactly where to search on Red Dragon for Li-Mei and the children. There were no smokers among our staff. Perhaps George Mèng himself? But why?
I should be the only person with the safe’s combination.
Maybe that was why Charlie Han hadn’t approached. He didn’t need me. Not if he knew where Mèng’s family would be.
I picked up the phone and dialed Connor, who was at the shipyard. “We need to talk.”
We met for dinner at Raffles. I explained about Cassandra’s phantom room and the general arrangement plan with its new trail of ash.
“The only person likely to have the combination is Emily,” I said.
Connor, of course, knew about Emily’s abrupt departure. When he and George had spoken, George told him that he’d had no choice in the matter. Connor had shared their conversation with me.
“I was informed that Ms. Tan’s family was going to be sanctioned by the Central Party,” Mèng had told Connor. “To continue to have her in my employ would bring shame and suspicion upon my family and business. I could not afford the attention at this critical juncture. Nor would the party allow her to remain in my employ. I gave her a year’s wages and let her go.”
Now, next to me in the bar, Connor swirled the ice in his whisky.
“I didn’t know about the GAP. And I don’t know how Emily got the combination,” he said. “Not from Cass, if what’s in the safe shows the phantom room. A skilled safecracker with an electronic monitor, an amplifier, and a light touch could get in. But since no one other than Emily has shown up on the camera Cassandra installed outside her office, it does make her the most likely candidate.”
“What do we do?”
“I’ll have the hidden door sealed. We can reopen it once we’re through the inspection at Shanghai.”
“And if Emily has tipped off Charlie Han and he’s told the port authorities about the room? They’ll tear down the wall to see what’s back there. They’ll find the family. Game over.”
“The family will be elsewhere on the boat until we’re safely out to sea.”
“Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to get them into hiding?”
“You’ll create a distraction while they board Red Dragon and slip out of sight. Someone else will get them away.”
I frowned. “Then where will they be?”
“You don’t have a need to know.”
“I’m losing my appreciation for compartmentalization.”
“I understand. But know this—don’t worry if the authorities tear down the wall. That room will be empty while we’re in port and anytime we’re approached at sea. If the authorities ask, you can inform them the room was sealed during early phases of design because of cost overruns. Or maybe because George hasn’t decided whether he wanted a meditation room or a spa. In the meantime, it provides hidden access to the panic room.”
“Is that where the stairs go?”
“Where else?”
“If the Guóānbù finds that room, they’ll never believe that George just ran out of money.”
“Then something else. You know better than anyone how much a build can change from the initial drawings to the final boat. Be creative. Maybe Li-Mei accused George of planning to hide prostitutes in the room and he had it sealed to appease her.”
“So much better.”
“They’ll believe it. Having a woman on call is standard operating procedure among Chinese businessmen. And George is expected to spend months at sea without his wife.”
“You’ve removed the items that were in there?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday. Now let’s practice.”
I sighed as exhaustion swept through me. Connor had reiterated that the authorities might question me in Shanghai. He couldn’t say for certain—not even George Mèng could read the mood among the party members. But it was a risk I needed to prepare for.
I pushed back my hair—I’d been washing up in the office bathroom and relying on dry shampoo. “We went over it yesterday. I need a shower and some sleep.”
“You need to be ready. Your responses should be like muscle memory—there without you thinking about it. One slip could get us all detained.”
The gravity in his voice gave me pause. Up until now he’d kept our sessions light. Merely practicing for a routine interview.
“You’re giving me a case of nerves,” I said.
He studied my face. “Part of you relishes the challenge.”
I didn’t argue. Yang overriding yin, maybe.
“Okay.” I pulled my dirty hair into a ponytail. “Teach me.”
After Connor left, I went to my hotel room. Lukas inspected it for listening devices, microcameras, and any banana spiders the cleaners had missed, then went through the door to his adjoining room. I wondered whether he stayed awake most of the night.
I showered and finally washed my hair, taking solace and comfort in the warmth of the water, the tropical scent of shampoo. I dried off and slipped between the sheets, relishing the luxury. But sleep eluded me. Careening through my mind like a runaway roller coaster were the smudge of ash on the GAP and Emily’s anguished face when she’d said, “What about me?” after I told her I was leaving Singapore.
I needed to know what she knew about the GAP—and whether she’d shared it with Charlie Han. As well, some part of me wanted to know whether she was all right.
I knocked on Lukas’s door. He looked wide awake when he answered.
“Mind if we go for a ride?”
“I’ll get the car.”
Just past Emily’s apartment building, I told Lukas to pull to the curb.
“Wait for me here. She’ll rabbit if she sees you. I’m not expecting trouble. I think the bad guys have what they want. But keep a watch as best you can.”
“I’ll come and get you if anyone suspicious drops by,” he said.
Emily’s apartment was on the third floor. No one answered my knocks, but I sensed a presence on the other side of the door. She was watching me through the peephole.
“Emily, please. I’m sorry you were let go. Can we talk?”
I didn’t have to feign my regret. I was sorry that we’d been caught in a web not of our own making, sorry we found ourselves fighting a fight no one should have to.
Silence.
“I know you loved Cass, and she loved you.” I waited. Silence. “Please talk to me.”
“You should hate me,” she said through the door.
I shook my head. “I know you didn’t get to choose your path.”
Another minute, and there came the sound of locks being turned. Emily studied my face as if to gauge whether she could trust me, then slipped out to join me in the hallway, locking the door behind her.
“We will talk outside,” she said. “It is safer.”
She led the way to a park across the street—the kind you see everywhere in Singapore. Small, tidy, with swings and a slide for the kids and exercise equipment for adults. Beyond those utilitarian items was a patch of grass surrounded on three sides by trees. An old man—he could have been a hundred given his wrinkles, bald head, and sparse frame—was doing push-ups off a pair of metal bars anchored in the ground.
“Good evening, Mr. Guo,” Emily called loudly.
He nodded without slowing down.
Emily led me to the far end of the park and sat on the bench.
“I spend time here every day,” she said. “The sunlight is good. And it is safe.”
“What of Mr. Guo? Can he hear us?”
“He is mostly deaf. And he speaks very little English.”
I studied her in the park lights. Her normally coiffed hair was dull and flat. She wore no makeup, and the half-moons beneath her eyes were stark. In contrast to her usual elegant dress, she wore shapeless gray sweats and an old cardigan over a pink tee that might once have been red.
Her appearance short-circuited whatever anger I held about the GAP. Whatever she’d done, it hadn’t been by choice.
“I’m sorry you lost your job,” I said.
She tipped her head in acknowledgment.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Mr. Mèng has done his best to take care of me.”
“What will you do now?”
She looked down at her hands. One nail was broken below the quick. There was a small bruise. “I will return to Shanghai to be with my family for as long as that is possible. Then I will look for other work, although it will be difficult. My family has been shamed. But you must know that by now.”
I nodded.
“In China, we have a saying: Bèi tiě quán jí zhōng. It means to be struck by the iron fist. That is what has happened to my parents. The party has accused them of defrauding their clients. There will be a mock trial, and then they will be sent to jail, even though they are innocent.”
“Did the Guóānbù do this to you and your family?”
Emily traced her sneakered foot back and forth across the grass. “I believe you have an expression—enemies make strange bedfellows. But they will share a room, nonetheless. Around my family, men are fighting for power and position. We are caught in the middle. And now we have been sacrificed.”
“You can’t fight back?”
“There is no weapon that will win against the iron fist.”
“But surely when people realize—”
She placed a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “I am not your friend. I have tried to help you because of a promise I made to Cassandra. But you and I—we do not have a connection. If you try to help me, it will only bring you down.”
“You promised Cass you would what—protect me?”
“I have tried.” She dropped her hand and looked away. “It was I who betrayed her.”
I thought of the photo of Emily and Cass I’d found in Cass’s condo. Of Emily’s head on Cass’s shoulder as they stood in front of a fish tank and beamed for the camera.
I pushed away my rage. “Tell me.”
Emily was silent for a long time. Then she lifted her head, her gaze on Mr. Guo. I doubted she saw him. She said, “Cassandra’s friend, the man Virgil, was trying to get a message to her that their meeting was off. He must have known they were—what is it they say?—that they were compromised. Charlie Han came to me and told me I must not pass along Virgil’s message. And because I was afraid of what he might do to my family, I stayed silent. A small thing. Just remain quiet. Han must have met with Cass that night and asked her to tell him where she would hide Mr. Mèng’s family. Cass was strong. She would have refused.” Emily tugged at the broken nail. “I did not know silence could go so badly.”
A small thing. A few words that could have saved Cass’s life. Isn’t that how life goes? The late message that would have stopped the battle. The lost letter. The disregarded clue. Tiny things on which a person’s fate can hang.
A suffocating sadness filled my chest.
“Tell me about the GAP,” I said.
She glanced around. It was just us and Mr. Guo, who was toweling off.
“Charlie Han has suspected for a long time that Mr. Mèng intends to defect with his family. But he cannot prove it. And he cannot simply accuse him. Mr. Mèng is well protected by his standing within the party and by the nature of his work, which the government wants. Han also believes that the Second Department, China’s military intelligence, wants to protect Mr. Mèng and embarrass the Guóānbù. It is an old enmity between them. Do you understand? Han’s only hope to win the glory of success is to capture Mèng’s family on Red Dragon . But a three-hundred-and-thirty-six-foot yacht is a very big place, and he fears he will fail to find and expose them without inside information.”
“Why didn’t you tell him what he wanted to know?”
“I didn’t know.”
“But you do now.”
She tugged at the sleeves of her cardigan. “I found the general arrangement plan in Cass’s safe. The original.”
“And showed it to Han.”
She looked down. A single tear splashed onto her hand. She said, “Cassandra was not supposed to die. The plan was that Charlie Han would get the information from her that he needed and let her go—he is accomplished at extracting truth.”
“Torture, you mean.”
“Torture is better than death.”
“But Cassandra did die.”
She looked up. “And so will you. You are as stubborn as your sister, and there is no one to protect you.”
“‘Chu songs on all sides,’” I murmured.
“Yes. That is exactly right. You should reconsider. Please go home.”
I stared at her hands, folded in her lap, then at my own. Mine were a mirror of hers. We were two women from different cultures, as unlike as could be. Yet we were both cogs in a great game.
In a firm voice I said, “I won’t let Cass’s death be in vain.”
“Then you are as foolish as she.” Emily stood. “I am Christian, Nadia. Which means I understand about Judas and his betrayal. I loved your sister. I thought by giving her to the Guóānbù, I would actually save her.”
I watched as she walked through the park and past Mr. Guo, who’d finished toweling himself and was pulling on sweats. She ran lightly across the street and disappeared through the door of her apartment building.
She did not look back.