Chapter 30
Vivien couldn’t take her eyes off her brother, but when she’d gone to embrace the elderly man, he’d stepped away. His hands up in the defensive pose.
No further.
“Come with me,” Ming-na whispered to Alice, who was openly staring at her uncle, the living legend. “Let’s leave them alone.”
Alice followed her aunt, though she was far from sure that leaving those two alone was wise. There was a palpable tension between her mother and uncle. Unfinished business. Something she couldn’t understand.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Let them work it out. You and I can make beef noodle soup.”
Alice immediately knew she had the better deal. She was starving. The last she saw of her mother, she and her brother were sitting at a Formica table, across from each other. Like chess champs facing off.
Kai-wen’s reserve, his coolness toward her, made Vivien’s heart ache.
The restaurant was empty but in pristine condition, as though nothing bad had happened in a world that seemed far away but was just outside the window.
There was a mural on the wall, a replica of the one from the museum.
She ached to enter it. To sit beside the cool, fresh stream.
To clear her mind and heal her bruised body.
After decades of longing for her brother, Vivien sat across from him and had no idea what to say.
Kai-wen had no such trouble. “You killed our parents.”
Alice stirred in the onion, ginger, and garlic.
The aroma almost made her faint with hunger.
“Here.” Ming-na dumped Sichuan peppercorn, red chili, and star anise into the pot. “Sauté it for thirty seconds. No more.”
They were in the small kitchen at the back of Peach Blossom Spring noodle bar, making the Taiwanese specialty beef noodle soup. While in the deserted restaurant itself, her mother and uncle talked.
If Kai-wen expected his sister to deny it, he was surprised.
“I’m sorry,” said Vivien. “I didn’t know that would happen.”
Kai-wen stared at her and realized that, up until that moment, he hadn’t believed it. He’d thought Liu must have been lying all those years ago. That it was a way to keep him from contacting his sister.
But now here she was, an elderly woman, a stranger, not denying the awful truth.
“What happened?”
Vivien had been over and over this conversation.
What she would tell her brother if they ever met again.
Even when she believed he was dead, she still lay awake at night staring at the ceiling and having this conversation.
Explaining to him. And he would always understand.
He’d even embrace her. Holding her tight and whispering, You had no choice. It’s all right.
But now that the moment had come, she drew a blank.
It was so long ago. Her reasons were like those distant mountains the recluse scholar drew. Shrouded in mist.
Kai-wen was staring at her. And the longer he stared, the thicker the fog grew.
“I had to do it.” That much she knew. The why still eluded her.
He was glaring now.
Think. Think. Come on. There was a reason.
“You were young,” she said, slowly climbing the mountain.
“Five years old. You might not remember what it was like for us during the Cultural Revolution. Our parents had lost their jobs at the university. No one would hire them. We were thrown out of our home. Living on the street. Winter was coming.”
The beef ribs, along with palm sugar, had been added to the large pot.
“Now this,” said Alice’s aunt. She gestured to the remaining ingredients. Shaoxing wine and dark soy sauce.
I have an auntie, thought Alice. And one who cooks!
The aroma was overtaking all her senses. Enveloping her, sweeping her up. Carrying her away to a world where all that existed was hearty, aromatic soup.
She was starved for it. And starved for answers.
Both were, she knew, about to be provided.
As Vivien spoke, the fog lifted and she saw it all.
More than that, she felt it. Not just the gathering cold and the ache in her belly, but the fear.
Each day was worse than the last. They were scorned.
Chased. Their father and mother beaten by the Red Guard mob as they tried to protect their children.
They had to scrounge through garbage for food.
One morning, before the sun rose, their mother woke her up and took her aside.
“You need to turn us in.”
Vivien hadn’t understood.
“To the Red Guard. You need to tell them that we’re mocking the Chairman’s Little Red Book.”
“But you aren’t.”
“Listen to me,” her mother had snapped, grabbing her thin shoulders and squeezing until she winced.
She still, to this day, had a mark, a fingerprint.
“There’s no such thing as truth. Not in China today.
There’s just survival. For you and your brother to survive, you must turn us in and join the Red Guard.
And then you have to work from the inside. You understand?”
Vivien hadn’t. She just stared.
Her mother lowered her voice. “One day, when you’re older, you need to do what you can to stop this madness. But for now, you need to survive.”
What her mother was asking of her horrified Vivien. She’d squirmed away. But her mother had grabbed her and held her. This time hugging her so tightly it hurt more than the bruise. It hurt her heart. Broke her heart.
Her mother, Alice, whispered over and over, while rocking slowly, back and forth. Back and forth. “You must.”
It had taken a few days and nights of cold and starvation, seeing her parents brutalized, to realize her mother was right.
They would all die. Soon. Unless.
All this she now told the elderly man across from her.
“So now we cover it and let it simmer for two to three hours.”
Alice stared at her aunt. “No. No, please.” She looked around.
“When was the last time you ate?” Ming-na asked.
“I had a chocolate coin on the ferry over,” said Alice.
Ming-na went to the fridge and pulled out a joint of ham.
Then she cracked eggs into a bowl and beat them with chopsticks before pouring it into a hot wok to make an omelet.
Slicing a loaf of milk bread, she made Alice a huge sandwich with the egg and thick slices of ham.
A Taiwanese breakfast. Alice was actually drooling, and had to wipe her mouth with a cloth.
“Thank you, Auntie.” Alice was just about to bite into it when she thought …
“They died in prison,” said Kai-wen.
Vivien nodded. By then, the children were living with a family who were told to treat them with special respect. Any child who turned their parents in was considered a hero of the revolution.
At least publicly. Privately their new “family” and all the neighbors viewed Vivien with fear and suspicion. There was a warm bed and food. But no affection. They were, again, starved and had only each other.
“Was it Liu who told you what I did?”
“Shi. He came to see me after you kicked him out. You know he helped me escape, after Tiananmen Square.”
“I know now. I didn’t then. I’d been told by my contacts in China that you’d been arrested and killed. That Liu had turned you in.”
“Would make sense that you’d believe it, after what you did. Nice bit of projecting.”
Vivien grew still, absorbing the blow. Sending it down the deep open wound.
“But Liu did not turn me in. He saved me.”
“Does that mean he’s working with us?” asked Vivien. “He got us out too, from Xi’an, just now. But I can’t tell whose side he’s on.”
“Neither can I. I haven’t heard from him in years. Last I heard, he was rising through the ranks of the CCP.”
“Yeah, well, he’s risen. He’s in line to take over the Ministry of State Security.”
Kai-wen whistled. “Phew. Let’s hope he’s with us. If not…”
“Why didn’t you get in touch with me? All these years, I thought you were dead.”
Kai-wen looked at his sister. He’d seen her on the news and in the papers but never thought how it would feel seeing her in person after all these years. A lifetime they had been apart. “I have been in touch. You just didn’t know it.”
He glanced toward the kitchen, and Vivien followed.
“You? You were Shu-hui? My contact?”
“My wife agreed to be the front, but yes, all the messages, all the information you received from your informant in Taiwan, they were from me.”
She almost asked why he hadn’t made himself known, but her pretty much having murdered their parents seemed reason enough. And for now, there were more important issues facing them.
“You sang the Pangu song. You’re still a member?”
“No. When you disbanded it, I stepped back. But I still hear things.”
“Like?”
“So now what?” asked Secretary Clavelle. “Do we continue to move the fleet into position?”
Everyone in the Oval Office stared at the President.
“Absolutely!” said Pardington. “Chen is lying.”
“About the traitors?” asked Kwame Bourque, the SecState. “About Madame Li and her ex?”
“No,” said Pardington. “I think the wily old shit knows enough to throw in some truth, to make the rest also seem true.”
“You think Chen is behind Pangu?” asked McAllister.
“You’re my head of intelligence, what do you think?”
McAllister considered. This was a freebie. The goal was wide open. Undefended. All he had to do was kick it in.
“I think he knew that Madame Li and her ex-husband were blown. So he wasn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know. He’s laying blame on them. Using them for cover.”
“He says he can’t find them,” said Secretary Bourque. “But we know that no one disappears that easily in China.”
“Unless Chen is protecting them,” said Secretary Clavelle. “Hiding them.”
“And ready to sacrifice them at any moment. Their usefulness is as scapegoats,” said McAllister. “And probably always was. They’re involved in Pangu, in the attacks, absolutely. But they’re following his orders. He’s running it.”
“Agreed,” said Pardington. “Meet with your counterparts in the coalition. I want attack plans within the hour. You—” He looked at McAllister. “Stay behind.”
Alice appeared carrying a platter with a selection of sandwiches while Ming-na followed with beer.
Vivien had to pinch the saliva from the corners of her mouth.
“What do you hear? Anything about the attacks?” She reached for the biggest sandwich, then, at the last moment, took the one beside it.
The better part of valor, thought Alice. Or gluttony.
Vivien took such a huge bite, a piece of omelet fell from the bread and onto her Shanghai Tang. She picked it off and ate it.
“It’s hard to tell. There was chatter about food.
” He was watching his sister with distaste.
“A network of food distributers has been formed. Some small independent grocers, dim sum joints, bakeries, vegetable stands. Some high-end Michelin-starred restaurants, some ma-and-pa noodle bars. Burger and pizza and fast-food franchises around the world.”
“Places that wouldn’t normally have anything in common,” said Vivien.
“Except food, yes.” Kai-wen reached out and touched his wife tenderly. “Come, sit with us.”
“Do we have to?” Ming-na asked but was smiling as she spoke.
“Yes, it’s time we were a family.” He looked at his disheveled, famished sister and realized he’d been judging her much too harshly, for the past and the present.
He reached out and picked a piece of ham off her jacket.
“A family that finally shares everything. Food and confidences. Best of all, confidences over food.”
“What do we do now?” Wang demanded. “You do know the American President is probably lying. Playing for time while he moves his fleet into position.”
“Yes, thank you. That had occurred to me. But we need to show some goodwill, and you need to find Liu and Madame Li.”
For a terrible moment, Chen wondered if Wang was going to ask, Who?
Instead, his head of the MSS asked, “And when I do? What do you want me to do with them?”
Alone with the president, McAllister felt a frisson of fear. He was being cut from the herd. But his concern almost immediately evaporated.
“Do you have a back channel to Wang?”
“The head of the MSS? I don’t, but I think I know how I can get a message to him.”
“Do it. I want you to tell the Chinese to take care of the situation.”
“And by ‘situation,’ you mean our friend and her daughter?”
Pardington stared. “If they do not, or cannot, we have people in China who can, right?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Do it. We don’t need the problem coming home to roost. Oh, and send my chef in. I’m getting hungry.”
Ordering the deaths of Madame Li and her daughter sat like a lump in Pardington’s belly.
But he knew the kill order was already out there.
If they were to be blamed for the attacks, the terrorists would need to shut up them up, along with Madame Li’s ex-husband.
His adding to it would not, Pardington hoped, put them in even more danger, and it would simply confirm to the terrorists that he really was yet another useful American idiot.
That he’d swallowed McAllister’s lies.
It all made President Pardington want to throw up.
“We need to make an example of them,” said Chen. He’d moved a few steps away from his head of the MSS. Wang smelled of something vile. Something not quite natural.
“The Americans won’t like that,” said Wang.
“Oh, don’t kid yourself. President Pardington wants us to rid him of a huge problem.
The last thing Paddington wants is Vivien Li on the witness stand,” he said, using the nickname they gave the American president when they wanted to discredit him.
A plump, useless stuffed bear. Chen continued.
“No. When news of their deaths reaches him, he’ll lodge a formal protest and privately send me a crate of pastrami.
And Wang”—he called after his head of the MSS—“for God’s sake, find out about APAI. Do we have it or not?”
“APAI?” asked Wang.
Chen stared at him. “Adaptive predictive artificial intelligence.”
“Yes, of course.”
Eeyore watched, more morose than ever, as Wang left. He thought of the fortune cookie he’d received earlier that day, with the message from the American President.
McAllister—traitor.
The news had surprised Chen. Not just the name, but the fact the American President would admit it. Chen had sat with the information, considering it. This was an extraordinary moment. Did he trust the foe? He’d been weaned on hatred of the West. Especially the USA. Especially the President.
And now he was being invited to not just trust him but make a dangerous admission.
It was what the French called le beau risque.
A beautiful risk. And he’d taken it. He’d sent a one-word reply.
Wang.
And then Eeyore and Paddington had played that game for an audience of two. Their closest and most trusted of advisors. The traitors. Pretending to believe others had betrayed their countries. Hoping McAllister and Wang would feel safe and drop their defenses.
Chen hit his intercom. “Send my chef in. I’m hungry.”