Chapter 3
The Escalade sped down M Street while the woman in the front seat with the earpiece scanned the road ahead and spoke into what looked like the air.
“Confirm, Madame Li is fifteen minutes out.” She hesitated before lowering her voice. “She isn’t alone.” Pause. “I don’t know. No, it doesn’t look like her daughter. Maybe her assistant.”
Despite the fact the woman whispered, Alice still heard. She looked at her mother, who hadn’t bothered to correct the woman. Alice turned to stare out the window as the familiar DC monuments whizzed by.
Why, why should I care? And yet … She rubbed her face with her shirtsleeve.
Just then the car turned in to a gated entrance off 15th Street.
What the … No longer burning, her eyes were now wide.
“Vivien?” But the woman beside her seemed to have turned to stone. Which made, Alice thought, a change from ice.
It was now obvious where they were. But the why was far from clear.
The rear of the White House was not nearly as grand as its face. In fact, it was slightly shabby, as were the carpeted corridors down which Alice and her mother were swiftly led.
Alice ran to keep up with Vivien, who seemed to know exactly where she was going.
As though the White House was her house.
Though the portraits lining the walls put the lie to that.
They were, without exception, a parade of long-dead, very old, very white men.
No darker pigment was needed in the portraits.
The forgotten men, consigned to a dingy corridor, stared out as the living rushed by.
Alice paused in front of one, feeling a ridiculous sympathy for these people, ignored, marginalized, and finally forgotten.
A cake that looked like a toaster. Would that be her legacy? At least these men—
“Alice! Come!”
Imperious, her mother’s voice rang down the hall. Was it Alice’s imagination, or had the portrait looked back at her with sympathy?
Alice’s heart was pounding, partly from the exertion of trying to keep up with her mother, but mostly from excitement.
The White House! She was in the White House. Bringing up the rear, in every way, but still …
It’s the White House.
After turning down more corridors, they finally stopped in front of a nondescript door that looked like every other one they’d passed. No number. No name.
Their escort gave one sharp rap, then reached out and turned the handle.
Half a dozen men in suits and one woman, all Westerners except one, sat at a ridiculously large table that took up most of the room. They immediately stood up and came forward, greeting Vivien with familiarity. Some even bowed and addressed her in Mandarin.
Then one man, with short gray hair and intelligent blue eyes, said, “Nǐhǎo. Gǎnxiè nín de guānglín.” Thank you for coming.
With a start, Alice realized he was talking to her. She recognized him as Grant McAllister, the Director of National Intelligence. The DNI.
The head of intelligence?
What the hell is happening? Am I unconscious? Dead? Did a bomb explode after all? But surely this isn’t heaven. Dear Lord, please tell me I’m not going to spend eternity in a boardroom. With Vivien.
“You’re welcome,” she said in English, taking his large hand. “But why—”
“Are you here?” He smiled tightly. Waving her to a chair beside her mother, who had already sat, he then nodded to a man at a laptop.
A screen at the front of the room came alive.
“I believe you know this man,” said McAllister.
While Vivien stared, apparently without surprise, at the photograph, everyone else in the room stared at Alice.
There, larger than life, was a man in his late twenties, light brown hair lifting in the wind, face crinkled in a smile. Not a fake “say cheese” grin, but a smile of genuine pleasure.
Alice couldn’t help but smile back.
“That’s Liam.”
It was the picture he’d sent her earlier. The strange selfie.
He was standing on the Star Ferry at night, in the middle of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.
“And his family name?” another man asked.
Alice turned to McAllister. “Why are you asking about Liam? Don’t you have more important things? Like what happened this morning?” She looked around the room. They were still staring, unblinking, at her. “The alarms? Right?”
Had they been in this soundproof room all this time? Did they not know what was happening outside? But that was ridiculous. Of course they did.
And yet the Director of National Intelligence was here. With her. Asking about Liam.
“Just answer the question.” It was the only Asian man among them who spoke.
“Vivien?” She turned to her mother. “What’s going on?”
“These are friends. We need answers.”
“We?” The qilin had shifted again, and was no longer her mother but a stranger. As if to prove it, the creature did something Vivien had never done, would never do. She took her daughter’s hand under the table. And held it.
This was almost as disconcerting as the photograph.
“I don’t understand.” Once again, Alice looked around the room, searching for a friendly face. Searching for an answer. She landed on one of the women.
Was that … the Secretary of Defense?
What the fuck is going on?
Joanne Clavelle was looking at her with sympathy.
Why sympathy?
“Shouldn’t you be trying to figure out what happened this morning?” Alice asked again.
“We are,” said the Asian man.
“Then why are you asking—”
And then she had it. Somehow the two were connected. Liam and the alarms.
“Mom?” So great was her shock she forgot to call her Vivien.
“Please, Alice, just answer the question.”
Alice had forgotten what it was. McAllister grasped that and repeated it.
“What is Liam’s last name?”
Alice glanced again at the screen, at smiling Liam. She held his eyes for a moment, then turned back to McAllister.
“I want to help, but I need to know why I’m here, and why you’re interested in my friend. And what this has to do with the alarms.”
“And we will tell you,” said Secretary Clavelle, her voice reassuring, bordering on patronizing.
Alice’s defenses rose.
“But first we need information and I’m afraid we need it quickly,” said the Secretary of Defense for the United States. “His last name, please.”
The extreme politeness didn’t hide that this was not a request.
Vivien gave Alice’s hand a small squeeze. Of encouragement? Support?
Warning?
“Palmer. Liam Palmer.” She pulled her hand away.
“Xièxiè,” said McAllister. Thank you.
“But you knew that already,” said Alice.
“How do you know him?” the Asian man asked.
Alice’s mind was racing. “We went to graduate school together. Columbia.”
It was no use hiding that. If she was there, they’d know how they came to meet. They were testing her.
“You were in journalism,” said the man at the laptop. “And Mr. Palmer?”
“I suspect you already know the answer to that too.”
There was silence. Silence. Silence as they stared. Finally, Alice sighed. “All right. Liam was doing his MBA.”
“And his job?”
“Come on, this’s ridiculous. Just tell me what this’s about.” But her words disappeared into the strained silence. “He’s an account manager for a food company.”
“Named?”
“Garnett Foods, out of Akron. What’s this about?”
“When was the last time you communicated with him?”
“He texted me today from the Star Ferry, in Hong Kong.” She nodded toward the photograph, still covering the wall. “Where did you get that?”
Now her private alarms had become sirens. She could barely hear her own voice. Something was very wrong.
“Do you know why he was in Hong Kong?”
“Work.”
“And your relationship?”
“We both write food blogs. He’s just starting, so I help him sometimes.” Surely they knew that too. After all, it was hardly a secret. Though with fewer than two thousand followers, maybe her blog would qualify as a secret.
“But why Hong Kong?” asked a man Alice recognized as Kwame Bourque, the Secretary of State.
The others in the room continued to watch her. Study her.
As though they don’t believe me. Or, she realized with surprise, they don’t trust me.
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“We’re asking you,” said Secretary Clavelle. Her previously warm tone becoming glacial.
“Look, I don’t know why Hong Kong. He went there on business. I didn’t send him there.”
“He sent you that photograph. What else did he send you?” the Asian man asked.
Alice’s mouth clamped shut, her lips tight and thin. Enough.
“Ms. Li, I must warn you—” the Asian man began.
“Warn me? Warn me? What the fuck is happening?” She looked at her mother, who had not come to her defense. Instead, Vivien was sitting very still. Staring straight ahead. At the photograph of Liam.
Alice sat back and crossed her arms over her chest in what she hoped conveyed strength and not childish defiance.
“I need to know who you are and why we’re here before I’ll say any more.” She glared at the Asian man. He stared back.
McAllister glanced at Vivien, who gave a small nod. He took a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry to tell you this. Liam Palmer was found dead a few hours ago. He was apparently drowned in the harbor.”
Alice stared at him, uncomprehending. “What?”
But he didn’t say any more.
She broke eye contact and looked at the photograph. It wasn’t possible. It’s not possible. Liam just wrote her. He was on his way home to Akron, and would fly via DC. To meet her.
They’re lying.
But like most people when faced with a sudden, unfathomable loss, she knew the truth. They were telling the truth.
Liam was …
“I’m sorry,” Vivien whispered. In English. To be sure her daughter understood. She was sorry.
But Alice didn’t hear her. She was staring at the huge image on the screen. Liam. Smiling. Happy. Tall, strapping, jubilant Liam. Not a handsome man, but with an expressive face. One that was easy to like. To trust. To look at. To love.
… dead?
“The Hong Kong police say it was an accident,” McAllister continued. “But we don’t believe it.”
Alice turned to him. “I’m sorry…?”
“We don’t think it was an accident.”
“But if it wasn’t an accident…?”
“We think he was targeted.” McAllister held on to Alice’s eyes. Making sure she understood what he said next. “We think Mr. Palmer was murdered.”
He was watching for her reaction. But there was none. Alice Li was numb. Struck dumb.
“Why?” she finally managed, looking around. “Robbery?”
No, that wasn’t it. If it was that simple, tragic but simple, she would not be sitting in the White House.
She looked at her mother, whose expression was blank. “My God. You knew.”
“About Liam? Yes. Mr. McAllister told me when he called and asked us to come here.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Alice stood up so abruptly her chair wheeled back and hit the wall. “Christ!”
She made for the door.
“Don’t you want to know more?” McAllister called after her. “Don’t you want to help? Your mother thought you would.”
“My mother doesn’t know me.”
“Maybe not, but Liam did. He sent you an email with that photo and an attachment describing his movements.”
“He wasn’t describing his movements, he was describing his meals.” But Alice’s progress to the door had stopped, and she’d turned.
The email, apparently asking her opinion before he posted on social media, did describe his meals. But in doing so, it also, she realized, described his movements through the streets, the alleys, the harbor. Through Hong Kong.
Then something else occurred to her. “If you have that picture, you must have the email he sent me.”
“Is this it?” A man at a laptop hit some keys, and the screen changed from Liam’s face to Liam’s message.
“How did you get that?” she demanded, sitting down heavily. “It’s a private message.”
Grant McAllister looked at his hands. They were resting on the table, holding each other as though in prayer. Then he raised his eyes and looked around the room. “Most of the people here are experts on China. As much as anyone can be. The exceptions are myself and Secretary Clavelle—”
“Though we have more than a passing interest in President Chen and his Standing Committee,” said Clavelle.
“The people around this table,” McAllister continued, “have spent years studying the economy, the culture, the military. China’s shifting priorities.
Their weaknesses and their intentions. Their policies and politics.
Those in power. Those rising through the ranks, and those about to be sent away.
They’ve cultivated contacts that range from the underground movement, to low-level apparatchiks, to those in the inner circle.
As close to power as possible. But what happened today was a complete shock. ”
“You think it was China,” said Alice.
“We don’t think, we know. What we don’t know is how they did it,” the Asian man admitted. “And what comes next. Because there will be a next.”
“This is Alan Zhou,” said McAllister. “He heads up the recently created China Mission Center.”
Alice looked at Zhou. Surely little more than a student. But then who else these days had a handle on the latest AI those who wish to do damage might develop? Might use.
Had used.
And yet even he had missed it. Hadn’t seen those alarms coming.
“I don’t actually care who you are.” Alice was angry now. “I care that my friend is dead and my personal email has been hacked. By you?”
“If you don’t care who he is, perhaps you care who I am.”
Alice had been so focused on the target of her rage that she hadn’t noticed the door opening.