Chapter 10
“Why in the world are you asking about Pangu?” asked Vivien, looking at the faces on the early-morning video call.
“Please, just answer the question, Madame Li,” said McAllister.
Vivien gathered herself. It was a good thing they could not see her hands, clutched together under the desk.
“Pangu is the primordial god of creation. Our origin story. He separated yin and yang, and in doing so created the earth and sky.” She stared at them. “Does that help?”
“See,” said Zhou. “I told you she doesn’t know.”
McAllister ignored him. “What else, Madame Li?”
“Are you really interested in a myth?” When that was met with stony silence, Vivien turned her gaze on Sarah Khan. The Canadian looked like she also had not slept. “Why are you part of this conversation? What does Pangu have to do with anything?”
She searched their faces, but they were all practiced in giving nothing away.
Vivien relented. “According to the Taoists, Pangu emerged from chaos, and when he died, his corpse created the world around us. Satisfied? Now it’s your turn. What does Pangu have to do with what’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Khan. “I hoped you would. I do know it’s more than the creation story. It appears to be the opposite.”
“A return to chaos.”
“To destruction, yes,” said Khan.
“But Pangu is a metaphor, an allegory. Every civilization has its origin story that no one takes literally.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said McAllister. “Fundamentalists do.”
“Are you saying some within the Chinese leadership believe Pangu has returned?” demanded Vivien. “I think Chen’s capable of anything, but he only believes in his own power, not some hairy, horned cosmic being.”
Sarah Khan broke eye contact and stared down at her closed file.
“Might I remind you,” said Vivien in exasperation, “we’re facing a real threat.
Someone in China set off those alarms. And if they can do that, imagine what else they can do.
And will do. We have a few days at best to figure this out.
And yet we’re talking about a bloated giant born from an egg.
If this’s the level of your intelligence gathering, Mr. McAllister, we really are about to descend into chaos. ”
“Let me finish,” said Khan. Her voice held enough authority, enough warning, that Vivien fell silent.
“As I told Mr. McAllister, we recently found and deported a senior operative with the UFW. A member of the MSS, probably of Double Dragon. We managed to hack into some of his files. It gave us names of Canadian politicians, business leaders, influencers who’ve been approached by the UFW.
Those who’ve been bribed, groomed, compromised into lobbying for China. One word kept appearing.”
“‘Pangu,’” said Vivien.
“Yes. We didn’t take it seriously, but after the alarms today—”
“Yesterday,” said Zhou.
“—one of our cyber-specialists brought this to me.” She laid her hand on the thin dossier. “It seems to indicate that Pangu is back.”
“Again, that’s ridiculous,” said Vivien. “Pangu can’t be back because it never left. It never existed. It’s a myth.”
“Well, Madame Li, it exists now.” Sarah Khan’s expression, her tone, was absolute. “I’m not saying our Pangu is a mythological creature. I’m saying it’s something else. Something we need to take seriously.”
“Could it be a name?” asked McAllister.
“What? Mr. Pangu?” said Vivien. “Have you met a Mr. Satan? Mrs. Lucifer?”
She saw Zhou shift his eyes, as though the repeated mention of the word would conjure the being. To anyone of Chinese descent, the very word “Pangu” was frightening.
So deeply were the old legends ingrained, they’d become part of their DNA.
Pangu was the god of both creation and destruction. Like the Second Coming, it would signal The End. And a beginning.
“No, it’s not the name of a person,” said Zhou. “That much I can guarantee you. It must be a code name.”
“For the new head of the MSS, maybe,” suggested McAllister.
It was Zhou who spoke next. Not to McAllister or Khan, but to Vivien Li.
“There’s a problem with that.”
“Yes.” She reluctantly agreed with the brash young analyst.
“What?” demanded Khan.
“Did you know what ‘Pangu’ meant before you were told?” Zhou asked. When she shook her head, he turned to the American Intelligence chief. His boss. McAllister also shook his head.
“And does the name scare you now that you know?”
“Well, it does now,” said Khan. “If Chen really has created another entity, a hugely destructive one—”
“Your reactions are dictated by your logic, your rational self,” said Zhou.
“Of course they are. Aren’t yours?”
Vivien Li and Alan Zhou looked at each other. Zhou seemed to be waiting for Vivien to say something. When she remained quiet, he spoke.
“No. To a Chinese person, especially those born and raised in China, the word ‘Pangu’ reaches into our deepest selves. Our emotional, intuitive selves. Our yin, if you will. Much like conjuring the devil would scare you. Deep down. Even those who don’t believe such a being exists would still have an emotional reaction.
Why do you think the film The Exorcist was so terrifying?
Because deep down, Christians believe the devil might be real.
It’s the same for us. Pangu terrifies even the most rational Chinese person. ”
“You’re saying whatever Pangu is, it isn’t meant to scare us,” said McAllister. “It’s meant to scare the Chinese.”
“Yes,” said Zhou. “We have to consider the possibility the Pangu mentioned in those files you recovered, Ms. Khan, is not aimed at the West, but at the regime.”
“Only another Chinese person would understand the reference,” said Khan. “And the threat.”
“But if that’s true,” said McAllister, “how is it related to the alarms? They went off in China, yes, but also here. Everywhere. If Pangu’s target is Chen and the regime, why did we get the alarms too?”
“There’s another possibility,” said Zhou.
McAllister heaved a sigh. There always was. “What now?”
“That you were meant to find those references to Pangu,” he said, then turned to an oddly quiet Vivien. “What do you think, Madame Li?”
“I doubt Pangu exists in any form, and if it does, it has nothing to do with what’s happening.
But if they wanted the Canadians to find it, as you say, Mr. Zhou, then it’s meant to be a distraction.
Nothing more. And it seems to be working.
I have better things to do than talk about some hairy old god. ”
Her screen went to black. She stared at it, her mind racing.
Pangu. Dear God, was it possible?
She went to her shelves and brought down her oldest, her most prized possession. A book she’d salvaged from the ruins of her young life. The only thing she’d taken. And kept.
It had belonged to her father. “One day, it’ll be yours.”
He knew how much she loved China, how she shared his fascination with the old stories, the legends.
“But legends start somewhere,” he said, laying his hand on the book. “Once they were real. And will be again.”
Even then, the little girl knew how desperately he wanted an end to the Communists and a return to the “real” China. Before Mao. One where traditions mattered. Were valued. Where the order of things made sense.
She hadn’t looked at this book in years, decades. But she always knew it was there on her bookshelf. Watching what she did.
The grace, beauty, mystique of the real China was contained in those pages. The gods and their stories were in the pages of this rare illustrated manuscript from the Han dynasty.
Here, on her lap, was the real China. The China of their venerable ancestors. Who would be appalled by what had been allowed to happen.
She opened the book and stared into the smoldering eyes of the deity who’d created the world. A deity who, in the blink of an eye, could just as easily destroy it.
Pangu. It was back.