35
Shanghai
October 28, 8:00 p.m. CST
That evening, Connor, George, and I sat around a table at one of Red Dragon ’s outdoor bars drinking Tsingtao beer. Connor’s men had begun the process of hunting down the microphones and miniature cameras the assessors had planted. Twenty mics and three cameras so far.
This area had been cleared an hour ago. With the noise from the port and the rowdy party on a cruise ship in the next berth, we felt safe from listening ears. I’d told the men about Han and Dai and my interrogation, confirming that the Guóānbù was still in the game. Then I’d given them the news about Emily.
“So many deaths,” George murmured.
My tears began, a silent, raging, unexpected torrent. I wept for Cass and Emily. For George and his family. For my father. Connor went behind the bar and handed me a stack of cocktail napkins. Then they waited me out.
After a long time, as the party in the next berth rocked on and Shanghai’s light glimmered in the water, my tears for Emily, for Cass, maybe even for Han’s sister, stopped.
Connor poured whisky and we drank a toast. First to Cass. Then to Emily, who’d died trying to protect the family she’d betrayed.
Then to Xiao, because why the hell not?
The crew and vendors finished provisioning Red Dragon by midafternoon of our second day in port. Crate after crate of food and drink was brought down by the truckload and carried onto the boat. In addition, George’s personal items from his Shanghai home had to be loaded, along with the equipment required for his scuba diving and his goal to collect and preserve marine specimens from his dives.
The entire process had taken hours and been overseen with painstaking care by the assessors from the People’s Liberation Army. Three K9s were employed to sniff everything carried aboard. The Kunming wolf dogs were walked up and down the cargo and then through Red Dragon , but they didn’t alert. No drugs. No family.
At precisely 5:10 p.m. Shanghai time, as the sun was setting, I lowered the swim platform. This was part of the PLA’s inspection of the boat. Once they finished, I slipped inside and, unobserved, tripped the circuit breaker, locking the arm in place and forcing the swim platform to remain down. While George came to investigate, and the inspectors enjoyed a laugh at our expense—so much for US technology—I flipped another circuit breaker to kill the nearby lights. George vanished from my side. I heard soft noises, the clank of an oxygen tank, then silence.
My heart pounding, I mopped the newly damp floor and went to repair the circuit breakers.
At 6:00 p.m., we unmoored. Captain Peng steered us down the Huangpu River and out into the East China Sea. We’d been in port for only twenty-four hours. Somewhere on board—perhaps in Cass’s black space in the master suite, Li-Mei and her children were hiding. The PLA inspectors hadn’t found the door, and Han hadn’t tipped them off.
I stood on the deck and watched as the lights of Shanghai were swallowed by distance and darkness.