Chapter 9
“Pangu?” said Vivien. “Where did you hear that from?”
“Perhaps, Madame Li, you could answer the question first,” said Grant McAllister.
It was five thirty in the morning. This was far from the first all-nighter he’d pulled, but it was the first time he felt that perhaps the nights were getting too long. And far too dark.
Three faces stared back at him on his screen.
Sarah Khan, the head of the Canadian Intelligence service; Alan Zhou, the head of the China Mission for the CIA; and Vivien Li.
“I can’t imagine you called me at this ungodly hour to give you an answer you already know,” said Vivien.
What she didn’t say was that, like McAllister, she had been awake most of the night, just nodding off at her desk now and then before startling awake with a snort. And going back to work. Contacting people on the other side of the world.
Alice had come into her study shortly after midnight, as soon as she got home from New York.
“Coconut?” said Vivien. Wasn’t there a Marx Brothers movie…? What was Alice talking about?
“Here, look.” Alice brought up the photo from the Star Ferry once again and enlarged a section. Liam’s left hand. Gripped there was … a coconut bun.
“I assumed when he ate the shrimp curry and ended up in hospital,” she was saying, so quickly, with such urgency, her words slurred into each other, “that his allergy was to shellfish, but then I remembered he ate a lot of it for his posts. Lobster, shrimp, crab—”
“I know what shellfish is.”
“It didn’t make sense. So I looked up the recipe for Thai shrimp curry. It’s made all sorts of different ways, but almost all include coconut milk. I think Liam’s allergy was to coconut.”
“Does that make any more sense, though?” asked her mother. “He’s about to eat a coconut bun, after all.”
“Is it possible that’s what happened? He ate it, his throat closed up, and he fell into Hong Kong harbor?”
“Jesus, you make him sound like one of the Marx Brothers.”
Alice looked at her blankly. Marx? More Communists?
“Do you think he was really that stupid? To eat something he was deathly allergic to?”
“Maybe he didn’t realize it was a coconut bun. Maybe he thought it was just a regular one.”
“He wrote a food blog? He visited Hong Kong a lot? And he wouldn’t know one of its famous breakfast foods?” said Vivien. “I guess it’s possible. First, though, we need to confirm that his allergy really was to coconut.”
“I’m going to Akron. I want to track down his family. I can ask them. I might be able to search his apartment too.”
“Good. I’ll get in touch with my contacts in Hong Kong and see if we can get access to the coroner’s report.”
“Okay, but if it’s true that he was allergic to coconut, and he’s holding the bun, what does that mean? Is it a clue?”
“A clue? Like some sort of code?” asked Vivien. “A cryptogram? Genius. Maybe the CIA he was working for is the Culinary Institute of America.”
“Why not?” Alice countered. “The coconut buns my father gave me carried a profound message. Told me all sorts of things.”
She glared at her mother and was surprised to see she’d made a direct hit.
She’d used the one weapon guaranteed to cause pain.
The ballistic missile that was her father.
And with him went a reminder of Vivien Li’s one great failure, her divorce from a man universally acknowledged to be the kind one.
A man of endless patience who had finally lost patience. Then lost his life.
Alice had long known that a big part of her enmity toward her mother was the fact that she blamed her for his death. If he’d stayed, he’d still be alive.
He’d love her, even if her mother did not.
Vivien had dropped her eyes to the computer screen and the picture.
After an awkward silence, Alice said, “If this message is important, why did he send this to me? What did he expect me to do with it?”
She’d moved closer, until she was almost in her mother’s face.
Vivien could see the pores in Alice’s face. The scars from the aggressive acne. The beginning of what would become jowls. And she saw her mother’s eyes. Alice’s namesake.
The same shape. The same hue. And now that same pleading look.
“He might not have thought that far. He might’ve known something terrible was about to happen to him, and he needed to send it to someone. Someone he trusted. You.”
Alice felt her cheeks burning. Maybe he did care for her, maybe …
With an effort, she shut down those thoughts.
“Everyone in that meeting is with the American government. Do you really think Liam didn’t trust them? None of them would betray the US, would they?”
“If given the right incentive, they might,” said Vivien.
“You say that because you were raised in a place and time when neighbor betrayed neighbor. I can’t see those people in that room doing it. Why would they?”
“Have you ever heard of the United Front Work Department?” Vivien asked.
“Is that with the Department of Public Works?”
Vivien smiled. “No. It’s an organ of the Communist Party. Mao called it one of his magic weapons. It recruits people in foreign countries, people with influence, to lobby on behalf of the Chinese government.”
“Lobbying is one thing; spying, betraying, is another.”
“They’re not as far apart as you seem to think,” said Vivien.
“The UFW chooses its targets carefully, often men and women who are almost hyperloyal to their country, in this case the United States. They believe in American exceptionalism. They’re then convinced it’s in the best interest of the States to have a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with China.
Make it an ally. Not only would a friendly China be a lucrative trading partner, it would also serve as a buffer between the US and Russia.
You can see how that argument would appeal to many. ”
Alice was nodding slowly. “You’re thinking there’s someone high up in the government who’s been recruited to work on behalf of China and therefore, they’d believe, in the best interest of the US. But the alarms. And maybe a further attack. They’d never agree to that, would they?”
“People get in deep. It’s possible Liam found out who it is.”
“And was killed for it.”
Mother and daughter both turned to the screen and the photograph of a young man on the ferry across Hong Kong harbor, grinning, putting on a brave face, knowing he was not going to reach the shore.
“But what can I do? What did he expect me to do?”
“You took investigative reporting, didn’t you? Investigate.”
Alice drifted off to sleep thinking of how quickly life changed.
That time yesterday, she’d been asleep in her own bed, in her small New York City apartment, about to head to DC.
Thinking she was meeting Liam. Thinking he’d reconnected in hopes of rekindling their friendship. In hopes of taking it further.
In hopes … Alice fell asleep, in hopes …
By the time Vivien joined the video call a few hours later, Alice was on her way to the airport to catch the first flight out to Akron.