Chapter 5 #2
It was of a man and woman, well-to-do. Professionals. Standing in front of a nice home, holding the hands of two children. A girl about her own age and her younger brother. About Kevin’s age.
These were, even the young Alice knew, her grandparents. Her mother’s parents. Long dead and buried in China.
Clearly this MSS woman in the garden was not her grandmother. But there were similarities. Both were tiny, slender, appeared delicate if you didn’t look into their eyes.
Not unlike Vivien herself.
“This is ridiculous.” Zhou elbowed Alice aside. “They’d never appoint a woman. And I’ve never seen her.”
“Nor are you meant to.”
“How do we know who she is? That could be my grandmother.”
“And maybe it is,” said Vivien, to uncomfortable laughter while Zhou looked at her with loathing.
She turned her back on him and spoke directly to the President.
“The next National People’s Congress will convene in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in a few days’ time.
Expect the current head of MSS to be moved out and this woman to appear on the stage with Chen. ”
“Why the change?” asked McAllister.
Now Vivien hesitated and was forced to say something Alice had never heard before.
“I don’t know.”
“There’s no way Chen would do that,” said Zhou, increasingly desperate to be heard, to be believed. “Wang’s not just the President’s right hand. He’s his best friend.”
“Chen has no friends,” snapped Vivien.
“They grew up together,” Zhou spoke over her, holding President Pardington’s attention. “He’s completely trusted. She’s wrong.” Now he turned to McAllister. “Don’t listen to her. Don’t believe it.”
Though not said, the implication was Don’t trust her.
“Who is this woman?” asked Pardington, indicating the small photograph on the phone. “How did she get the top job?”
“I don’t know her name or her background,” said Vivien. “All I have is this photograph. I’m trying to find out more.”
“How do we know that Double Dragon didn’t plant it?” demanded Zhou.
“I thought you didn’t believe in it,” countered Vivien.
Alice was mesmerized by this match, with so much at stake. She wished she could root for her mother, but somehow found she was hoping the young analyst would score some points.
“Even if what you say is true,” said McAllister, “what does this have to do with the alarms? Who approved that? Not her. As you said, what happened today has been years in the planning. She’s just arrived.”
“She hasn’t ‘just arrived.’” Now Vivien was losing patience.
“She didn’t appear fully formed out of nothing.
She’s like the penjing tree. Shaped, tended, groomed for many years.
She must’ve worked her way up through the party, through the mechanism.
To a position of trust. To take over as head of the MSS, she must have been in the shadows for years. ”
“Behind the closed door,” said President Pardington.
Alice felt the blood rush to her core and her hands grow cold. Like the President’s. She looked at the photo again. Such a kindly, benign presence, kneeling in a peaceful garden.
“Can you send me her photograph?” asked McAllister.
“No.”
“I’m sorry?”
“No. If China finds out we know, it’ll put my informant in danger. So, no. When I know more, I’ll tell you.”
“Could this be good news?” asked the President, clearly in need of some. “It means instability in Chen’s inner circle.”
“Or it could be very bad news,” said Vivien.
“Why do you say that?” asked the Secretary of Defense.
“Because to unseat the current head of the MSS, a personal friend and favorite of President Chen, she’d have to be ruthless. And patient. A dangerous combination.”
“Iago,” said Alice.
Vivien turned to her and nodded. “Pouring poison into the ear of the President. A slow drip, drip, drip.”
“It would take years,” said Pardington.
He shifted his eyes from the woman in the photo to the tiny tree she was trimming. Taming. Probably centuries old. Passed down through generations. What would be a mighty oak, if allowed to grow, was now exquisite but stunted.
It took immense patience to create this. Something most Westerners did not possess. The West had traded patience for progress. Or what it took to be progress.
“Like the attack today took years,” said McAllister. “Are they related? Her ascent and the alarms going off, and whatever is planned next?”
They looked at Vivien, who said nothing. She sat perfectly composed. But Alice could see her mother’s manicured hand in a tight fist under the table.
“Nǐ zhēn de bù zhīdào ma?” Do you really not know, the President asked, in surprisingly good Mandarin.
It was said without rancor.
“Shi shi qiu shi,” Vivien replied.
“Seeking truth from facts,” the President translated, his smile flattening. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s one of the core idioms of the Chinese Communist Party.”
“It is. But long before it was co-opted by the CCP, it was an important part of our culture. Its origins are from the Book of Han, a collection of essays and philosophies written by a recluse scholar. It urges us to acquire solid facts in order to arrive at the correct understanding.” She shot a glance at Alan Zhou, who was glaring at her, before returning her attention to the President of the United States.
“Mao used it as an appeal to pragmatism, even as he denied logic and imprisoned scientists during the Cultural Revolution. You see, sir, in China, things appear to be one thing when they are often the opposite.”
The President sighed and heaved himself to his feet, and everyone rose. “I’ve been here far too long. You have a job to do, Mr. McAllister. I need to know who’s behind what happened today and how we make sure nothing else, nothing worse, happens. I also want to know how they did it.”
“Yessir,” McAllister said and began gathering up his notes.
Vivien followed the President to the door. “You need to be very careful, Mr. President.” She spoke quietly, her hand resting on his forearm. Something his Chief of Staff noticed with disapproval.
But Vivien Li was not going to be put off by yet another censorious Westerner who felt the immigrant had overreached.
“Nice jacket,” Kathleen Wells said to Vivien, trying to get her attention away from the President. “Shanghai Tang?”
“Nice scarf,” said Alice, standing beside her mother and trying to draw the CofS’s attention.
Vivien took the brief distraction to lean into Pardington. “These are perilous times. Facts are distorted and weaponized, and the truth is not always what it seems. Are we so sure China is behind it?”
“You said so yourself.”
“No. I simply gave you facts as I know them. But as for the truth…?” She raised her hands. “What I do know, Mr. President, is that the only thing worse than Chen and the Chinese leadership being behind those alarms is if they are not.”
“We need to go, Mr. President.” Kathleen Wells opened the door and made to step between Pardington and Vivien.
“Shi shi qiu shi,” said Vivien. But she and Alice were staring at a closed door.