Chapter 20
Vivien, as Florence Ng, made her connection in Singapore and was the first off the plane in Hong Kong.
She stepped into the terminal and was immediately overwhelmed. Never a relaxing place, Chek Lap Kok Airport was now off the scale, as frantic people, like those in the States, rushed to catch what they feared would be the last flight out. The last flight home.
The agent stared at her. Hard. Then asked, “Why’re you here?”
“My daughter…” It had worked the first time, and it worked again. He gave a curt nod. Stamped her passport and handed her a slip of paper.
It said, Visitor. She was a visitor in her own country.
At the exit, she went up to a man holding an iPad. FLORENCE NG.
“Welcome, Madame Ng.” He introduced himself and bowed. “Your car is waiting.”
A black Mercedes limousine was at passenger pickup. Vivien hesitated a moment before stepping inside. This man was apparently one of her many contacts. Someone sent to meet her. But of course she’d never actually seen her contacts. Nor they her. And for some reason, the vehicle spooked her.
But then the flight attendant, the woman selling candy at the baggage area, the bathroom attendant had also spooked her.
She really had to get a grip. Things were almost certainly going to get worse. She had to keep it together.
“You made it through immigration,” said the man when they’d settled into the vehicle. “It was a risk traveling now. I would have advised you to wait a few more days.”
“A good thing I didn’t ask your opinion then.”
She did not say that in a few days, the borders might be closed, and the world at war.
Vivien looked out the window as the car forced its way into a long line of traffic out of the terminal. So much had changed. She barely recognized Hong Kong.
She’d agitated for change for so long, now that she could see it, Vivien wasn’t so sure she liked it. Besides, this was not real change. It was bricks and mortar. An illusion. A false front. Nothing more.
Her companion was watching her. “Why did you come back? It’s dangerous, not just for you but for all of us.”
She ignored him, instead asking her own question. “What do you know about Pangu?”
He turned to stare at her. “The god?”
She waited. Watching him.
“I know nothing about it. Him.”
But the color had risen in his cheeks. How stupid of whoever organized this, to send a man who blushed when he lied.
She sat back in the seat. Her next flight, the one to Xi’an, wasn’t for a few hours. She’d asked to be taken to a hotel, to shower and get refreshed. Perhaps take a nap.
She hadn’t really slept since those alarms had gone off. And now the plunging elevators everywhere, all at once. Like everyone else, she was shocked by the attacks. What had also shocked her was that they were a surprise. She should have known. Should have had at least an inkling. Some word.
The word being “Pangu.”
Her long-groomed contacts in China had gone quiet. Including the man next to her.
Liam had discovered something. That much was clear. On the long flight over, Vivien had read and reread his message to Alice. She’d studied the photograph. She recognized the durian man. An MSS operative. And Alice was right, Liam was holding a coconut bun. Unwrapped.
While it seemed an unimportant detail, she knew it was significant. Probably the most important element in that photograph.
Why would a man deathly allergic to coconut be holding the breakfast bun?
But more than that, the fact it did not have a wrapper meant Liam hadn’t gotten it from a grocery store.
That bun, irregular in shape and coloring, with all sorts of indents, had been handmade.
Something very rare in these days of mass production.
The car stopped in front of a nondescript building.
“What’s this?”
“We thought it best not to take you to a hotel. This’s a rooming house.”
Vivien’s eyes widened, then narrowed. She’d expected the Rosewood, the Peninsula. The Mandarin. Not …
The night before she’d left China as a young rebel, she and Kai-wen, along with Liu, had hidden in a rooming house. And now here she was again. What was that French expression?
Plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Vivien Li, née Florence Ng, pulled her Shanghai Tang jacket tighter around her, got out of the vehicle, and walked, head high, into the shabby building.
“Oh, come on,” said Alice as she stared at the unfolded snake. “Can’t anything be clear?”
People were beginning to politely tap on the bathroom door.
“Find another lavatory, please,” she said in Mandarin.
The tapping became less polite.
She was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, staring at what Liam had written, then folded into a snake and carefully shoved through the small hole in the now destroyed li bien ball.
And mailed off to his sister in Akron. Without explanation.
What the hell has he written?
It was a list. In Chinese. Not food words, the only ones she knew. Although she recognized 米. Rice.
“Are you all right?” The flight attendant rapped on the door. “There’re people waiting.”
“There’re other bathrooms on the plane,” said Alice, reverting to English.
“Shi. And there’re three hundred people. Please.”
The “please” did not sound like a request.
Alice flushed, ran some water; then, opening the door, she walked straight into a line of angry faces. “Sorry. Upset stomach.”
She was not surprised by the lack of sympathy on their faces. Unfortunately for Alice, one of those waiting was her seatmate.
She was halfway back to 39B when she turned and approached the flight attendant, who looked slightly afraid of her.
“Can you translate something for me?”
“What?”
“This.”
The man took the paper. “It’s a list of companies.” He read them off.
Alice recognized most. They weren’t just companies, they were corporations. Multinationals. Some were also on the list Barb had slipped her of Liam’s clients.
But not all. They did have one thing in common. All had divisions that distributed food.
“Does it say anything else?”
“No.” He handed it back. “Look, I have to get back to work.”
“One more thing.”
He turned to her and heaved a sigh. “OK, what?”
“If I wanted a really good coconut bun in Hong Kong, where would I go?”
He thought. “Well, I’d go home. My mother makes great breakfast buns. Maybe your mother will make you one.”
“My mother loathes coconut buns,” said Alice.
“How can you not like coconut buns?”
How can you not like your daughter? thought Alice.
“Well, if you have to buy one, I guess I’d go to Kam Fung bakery. They make their own. It’s always good.”
“Xièxiè.” Thank you.
She folded the paper back into a now shabby snake and placed it into her pocket.
After dinner was served, Alice brought out her phone and once again looked at the video she’d taken of the li bien ball.
Whoever had painted it hadn’t been very precise with the slender brush. There were all sorts of smears against the sky. Or maybe they were birds? Or dirt? She looked closer. Were those marks on the outside or inside?
The woman in seat 39C leaned closer to Alice.
“Nüshu.”
“Nüshu?”
“Nüshushi.”
“Nüshushi?”
This was becoming a game, and not a very interesting one. What was she trying to say?
The woman was smiling and gesturing. She looked a bit crazed.
“Ahhh,” said Alice. Understanding. The woman wanted the uneaten cookie on her tray. Alice also wanted it but felt for peace on the rest of the journey, and perhaps the armrest, she could give up a cookie.
The woman took the cookie and thanked her. Alice clicked off her phone. That video of the li bien ball was not important. She knew that now. The li bien ball was a conduit. What mattered was what was inside. The list of corporations Liam had placed there.
Alice leaned back and closed her eyes.
What had he found out? What could that list mean? And why send it to his sister and not her?
“I hope your stomach is better,” said 39C, in halting English.
Alice opened her eyes and looked at the woman. It was possible she was sitting beside a lunatic.
They had that thought in common.
Oooooh, Liam, she said to herself, with a sigh. What did you find out?
She looked out the window at the South China Sea.
Oooooh, Vivien. What have you gotten into?
What have I gotten into?
“Sir, there’s no answer from Madame Li.”
Kathleen stood in front of the Resolute Desk and watched the President. He had stubble on his face, and pouches under his eyes. His hair was lank. He was beginning to look like he was falling apart.
But his eyes, when he looked up, were bright. Alert.
He was on a call with his Secretary of Defense.
“Hold on, Joanne.” He looked at Kathleen. “Send someone to her place.”
“I have. She’s disappeared.”
There was a pause. Time frosted over. Finally, he gave a curt nod. “Then find that daughter of hers.”
“Alice.”
“Right. Or the son. We need to know where Madame Li has gone, and whether it was her choice or not.”
Both knew neither answer would be good.
Kathleen left, and the President picked up his conversation with Secretary Clavelle, as they discussed military options.
“Vivien Li?”
Her flight had landed at Xi’an airport, where she was met by this man.
She knew immediately and instinctively that he was an official with the Chinese Intelligence service. The MSS.
She felt lightheaded. This is it. What a fool I’ve been.
“No. My name is Florence Ng.”
“Come with me, please,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken.
The “please” was not so much civility as an attempt to avoid a scene in the busy terminal.
Vivien looked around and considered her options. She had none.
“I’ll take that.”
Before she could do anything, he’d grabbed the phone out of her hand. Her mind was racing. What did she have on the phone? Names, addresses, contacts?
Who had she just compromised in her hubris?