Chapter 23
“Come with me.”
When the women hesitated, Liu held out his hand and waved. “Come on. Hurry. Or stay here with him.”
He gave a very small jerk of his head toward Wang. They followed him down into the pit.
It got colder with every step down. It felt as though they’d descended into a netherworld. Of dirt and wonder. Of petrified figures destined to spend eternity guarding a long dead and buried emperor.
The clay warriors had been a magnificent discovery, a cause for amazement and the source of inspiration to the young revolutionaries, but now they looked like a horrific army.
The figures glared at them with dead eyes.
Threatening. Looming, reaching out, it seemed, for them.
Brushing up against them. Vivien tried to rub the red dust off her Shanghai Tang, but it was smeared there in patches as though she herself might be turning into terracotta.
Is that, her racing mind wondered, what had happened to them? Had these remarkable figures been human once, and were turned to clay by a lunatic emperor?
Was this a mausoleum? A vast grave site about to welcome two more occupants?
She reached for Alice’s hand, but her daughter pulled away. And Vivien realized that if they died there, they’d die alone, together. As they’d lived.
“This is as far as we go.”
It was as far as they could go. They stood at a stone wall.
“Beyond here is the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.”
“I thought this was the tomb,” said Alice.
“This is just a small part of it.” Liu turned to look behind them, at the ranks of warriors filling that huge room. Just one of a number of equally astonishing excavations. “All this was created to accompany the emperor into the next life. His tomb itself is beyond this wall.”
“Are you taking us there?” Alice asked.
“No. No one has been in it since it was sealed two millennia ago.”
“Why not?”
“A decision was taken years ago at the very highest level to leave Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s tomb itself undisturbed.”
“Why? Aren’t people curious?”
“Very, but there’s power in mystique.”
“Power?”
“To create whatever story we want. Some things are best left a mystery. Undisturbed.”
The closed door, thought Alice. Hitchcock would approve. Her father’s message wasn’t lost on her. This far, but no further. Do not ask … Better not to know.
“Why did you leave?”
And there it was. Though it could not have been a surprise. They must have known she’d ask eventually. What did surprise Alice was the look of fear that stole across not her father’s face, but her mother’s otherwise granite expression.
“We don’t have time for this,” said Vivien. “There’s an imminent terr—”
“Then you’d better answer quickly.” Alice turned away from her mother to glare at her father.
“Your mother and I no longer shared the same ideology,” he said.
“That’s it? You left over ideology? That’s bullshit.
You didn’t just leave her, you left us and allowed us to think you were dead.
We were children. Can you begin to understand what that was like?
I…” Adored you. “What’s going on? Come on.
” She turned back to her mother. “Why did you say he was dead? The truth.”
“Your mother was sent information that showed—”
“No!” Vivien now looked terrified.
“All right then, you tell her.”
“And when I do?”
“Either you do, or I will.”
Vivien glanced up at Wang, who was still watching them. She wondered if he could hear what she said. But at this stage, the head of the MSS probably already knew all this.
“I received a message from a contact in China. We were trying to find out what happened to those arrested in Tiananmen Square. My contact had unearthed documents showing that your father was the one who had turned in Kai-wen.”
“My uncle?” Alice turned to her father. “You turned in Tank Man?”
Liu held her eyes and remained silent.
“He died in prison,” said Vivien. “Killed by the regime. Killed by your father.”
Liu opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
Alice could barely breathe. If he could do that, what else had he done? What else could he do?
The wall between Alice’s fantasies and reality was rubble, and she finally saw beyond the piano at night. Beyond the coconut buns in the morning. Beyond the deep embrace. There lived a monster who had dimples and smelled of jasmine.
“Pangu,” she whispered. “You two created it. A terrorist organization. You sent hundreds of thousands of innocent people plunging to their deaths. You admitted you started it.”
Vivien was shaking her head. “When I found out that your father had turned in my brother, that he wasn’t really a revolutionary but an informant, I kicked him out and wrapped up Pangu. Told everyone to go to ground. I was afraid he’d inform on them.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I knew Pangu had been disbanded. No longer existed. There was no need.”
“But it hasn’t been disbanded,” said Alice.
“That’s why I’m here,” said Vivien. “To find out. To discover what your father knows. To try to stop whatever’s going on.”
“And what do you know?” she asked her father, almost afraid of the answer. Everything she believed about her parents had suddenly been upended. Had Vivien been right about everything all along? Where did that leave her? Who was her father, really?
“I know that this version of Pangu must include people high up in the Politburo,” said Liu. “High-ranking officials in different departments, including Double Dragon.”
“So Double Dragon does exist,” said Alice.
“It’s the cyberterrorist arm of the Politburo,” said Vivien.
“That’s where the real power lies. Not in the CCP.
Not in bombs and soldiers. Not in wealth.
Not even in tyrants. Not anymore. Those who control cyberspace control people’s thoughts, which control emotions, and emotions dictate actions.
In cognitive hacking, you have the ultimate weapon. ”
“So”—Alice dropped her voice—“if not you two, then who’s running Pangu?”
“I don’t know,” said Liu. “But I think I know someone who does.”
“Who?” asked Vivien.
Liu glanced up at Wang, watching them. Lowering his eyes and his voice, he said to Vivien. “Hug me as though we’ve made up.”
She hesitated, then stepped forward. Once in his embrace, she felt her body conform to his. Felt her traitor muscles and bones and feelings melt. Until the two bodies formed a whole.
She found, again, that indent in his shoulder, where her head fit so perfectly.
Though that all changed with what he said next.
“Your brother is alive,” he whispered. “I got him to Taiwan.”
Vivien pulled back, stunned. Liu then turned to Alice. “Laugh, then come to me. Pretend you’ve forgiven me.”
What in the world had he said to Vivien? Alice asked herself. Was she crying?
But it was her turn now. Alice laughed, though it sounded even to her own ears slightly hysterical. Then she walked into her father’s arms.
She could feel his rounded belly against hers. How alike they really were. If only that were a good thing.
“Don’t say anything, don’t react, but I think your mother is still running Pangu.”