Chapter 33
Chen paced in his office as he waited for his head of the MSS.
It was all he could do not to have Wang arrested and beaten until he gave up the location of Pangu. And he’d come close to ordering it, only to be reminded of the advice of Sun Tzu in The Art of War.
It had become fashionable to dismiss the work as a cliché, since it had been popularized and co-opted in the West. But Chen still kept a copy of it on his desk.
He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
In order to take Pangu unprepared, Chen needed to appear weak. Needed to appear lost. Needed to bide his time and not pick away at the enemy, but strike “like a thunderbolt.”
The goal was not Wang. To arrest him would simply warn the enemy. He had to gather information, and when he discovered where Pangu was hiding, then he’d strike. At their heart.
Not Xi’an. That’s what Wang, what Pangu, wanted them to think, but it had to be someplace closer. Much closer. Chen was pretty sure he knew where, and when.
In the meantime, he needed to hold firm. Steady. Resolute. Patient.
Where the fuck was Wang?
“Mr. President?” There was a tap on the door, and his executive assistant looked in.
“Yes, what is it? Is Mr. Wang here?”
“No, not yet. But your Minister of Justice is here.”
“Show him in.”
“I have news,” said the minister, striding in. “About that woman. The dissident you wanted us to find.”
The Ministry of Justice was, as in many places, responsible for injustices.
“Mengwei,” said Chen, “Liu’s wife. When she defected to the States, she took the name Vivien Li.”
“The actress?”
“If that helps, yes. Go on. Do you have her?”
“No, but we’ve arrested a ticket agent at EVA Air who admits to letting her, a young woman, and two others onto a flight to Hong Kong. She was using false identity papers.”
“Forged?”
“No. Borrowed. We’ve detained a mother and daughter. The papers were theirs. They tried to deny it, then claimed the papers were stolen. But eventually, under questioning, they admitted they’d given them to a man.”
“Who?”
“A fellow named Kai-wen. Married. Runs a noodle joint in Taipei. Agents have raided it. It’s called Peach Blossom Spring.”
Chen’s brow dropped. “That sounds familiar. Does it to you?”
The man shook his head. “We’re interrogating the mother and daughter. They admit to being part of a network run by this Kai-wen. He must collect information and feed it to his American contact.”
“Almost certainly this fucking Vivien Li woman,” said Chen. “I want her found.”
He could kick himself. He’d had her within easy reach in Xi’an, and didn’t move fast enough, believing Liu had it under control. He would not make that mistake again.
“Find them.” There was no way for the minister to miss the “or else.”
“Shi. It will be done.” The door closed behind him, and once again, Chen was alone in the room, alone with his thoughts.
His fears.
He looked out the window and, to his astonishment, saw his head of the MSS strolling across the quad. In no hurry, even though he was already—Chen consulted the time—ten minutes late.
As he watched, throbbing with anger, he noticed Wang’s appearance. It was getting worse. His stubble and lank hair. His untucked shirt.
Was this deterioration an act? Or was it real? Was Wang acting the part of a man with dementia, or did he really have it? And did dementia really move this quickly? The change had started a year or so ago, but over the last few months, the decline had been dramatic.
Chen’s mind quickly explored this new possibility. Could Wang’s state of mind be a good thing? Could Wang’s inhibitions, his defenses, be lower? Could his confusion allow him to say more than he might have otherwise?
Perhaps now was the moment Chen had been waiting for so patiently. The time to interrogate Wang. Find out once and for all where Pangu was headquartered. Before Wang actually forgot. That new thought frightened Chen and helped him make up his mind.
He moved toward his desk, to call his head of interrogations in, when he heard a shot.
Chen dropped to the carpet, then realized it wasn’t in his direction. Still lying down, the President of the People’s Republic scurried to the window. Peering up over the sill, he saw Wang. Flat out.
Even from there, he could see the hole in Wang’s head. The blood spreading out.
Wang would tell them nothing. Ever again.
So much for taking the enemy unprepared. It seemed Pangu had beaten him to it.
“The National People’s Congress is part of the General Assembly of the Chinese Communist Party,” explained the head of MI6. “It’s held every year.”
“It’s happening in two days,” said the head of the Canadian Intelligence service.
“What are the chances the next attack will be timed for it?” Pardington asked.
“If pro-democracy activists are behind this, as we suspect, I would say almost one hundred percent,” said the Prime Minister of France. “The world will be watching.”
“More important than that, it’ll be televised live throughout China,” said the Australian PM. “Mandatory viewing. A celebration of Chen and all that he’s achieved. A shining future for China.”
“Until he and his cabinet are blown sky-high,” said the Canadian PM.
“Chen must know the NPC will be a juicy target,” said Italy.
President Pardington looked down at the slip of paper he’d kept. The latest message from Chen.
National People’s Congress.
Yes. He knew.
“Maybe he’ll cancel,” said France.
“Did Thatcher cancel the party conference after the Brighton bombing?” asked the British PM. “No. He’ll go ahead. He has to show he’s in charge and not afraid.”
“It will be a mistake,” said France.
“But he has no choice,” said Canada.
Pardington found himself feeling sorry for Chen. They were right. None of them would cancel a major party conference in the face of a possible terrorist attack. They’d have to follow through. As Chen did. Even though it would mean walking into the crosshairs.
“Where’s it being held?” he asked.
“In the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing,” said MI6. “There’s a huge parade first. A display of military might. If Pangu is going to strike, it’ll be then.”
“Let’s get our assets in the country heading there now.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here,” said Kai-wen. “They’ll soon know we’ve gotten into Hong Kong.”
“If they don’t already,” said Auntie Gugu.
“How?” asked Alice.
“Your mother is hardly unknown, even in China. Especially in Hong Kong,” said Ming-na. “She’ll be recognized, if not by a government informant, then facial recognition will clock her. There’re cameras every twenty feet. You can bet it’s been a priority of the MSS to get them up and running again.”
“Shit,” said Alice.
“I agree,” said Auntie Gugu. “We need to get you out of here before they come for us.”
“Before they come for us.” What a terrifying statement, thought Alice. It sounded more ominous in Mandarin somehow.
“Where?” asked Ming-na.
This room that had felt so safe, so comforting—with its scent of tea and sweet buns and its lack of windows and prying eyes—now suddenly felt like a prison.
“Where do we go?” Ming-na’s eyes were wide with fear.
“Cheung Chau.”
They looked at Alice.
“Fish ball island?” asked Kai-wen, and was surprised when his sister laughed. Not with amusement but with understanding.
“Yes! Of course. Fish ball island.”
Ming-na looked at Alice and Vivien as though the two Americans had finally lost their minds.
“Why?”
“Because Liam wrote about it in his last email. The one with the photograph. He misspelled the place. It wasn’t like him to do something like that. I think he wanted to bring it to my attention.”
“Fish ball island?” Ming-na repeated, now looking at her husband, who frowned. Equally perplexed.
“You have a better idea?” Vivien asked.
“If you give me time, yes,” said Ming-na. “It’s a tiny island. If we go there and you’re wrong, we’ll be trapped. There’ll be nowhere to run. What do you think?”
She’d asked Auntie Gugu.
“I think it would be a huge mistake. I think that young man, Liam, made the spelling mistake because he was in a hurry. Stressed, afraid.”
“Then why even write about it?” asked Alice. “No, we need to go there. It’s better than here.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Auntie?” The voice of the young assistant came up the stairs, and with it a note of anxiety.
They looked at each other. It seemed the decision was being made for them. But there was one problem.
They were trapped. Whether fish ball island was a mistake or not, they might never know.
“Mr. President, I have news.”
Pardington looked up to see McAllister standing at the door to the Oval Office.
What now? he thought, but waved the man in. “I’m thinking it’s not good news.”
“When is it ever? This is disturbing and perplexing, though maybe not actually bad news.”
“Go on.”
“I had the Li house searched again, more thoroughly this time. The first time I was there, I only had a chance to go through Madame Li’s study—”
“And?” Pardington didn’t need the play-by-play.
“My people have found her son drugged and his husband dead at the bottom of the basement stairs.”
Pardington sat up. “What happened?”
“We’re trying to piece it together, but there’s a chance the son, Kevin, killed the other man.”
“Why?”
“There are indications the other man might have discovered Madame Li’s connection to Pangu, to the terrorist attacks. Her son might’ve done it to silence him.”
Pardington looked skeptical. “That would suggest that the son was in on it too.”
“And the daughter.”
“But then why drug himself? That’s what it looks like, right?” Pardington asked.
“It looks like a suicide attempt. Remorse. He might not have meant to kill his husband, and when he realized what he’d done, and maybe realized what his mother had done, he was overwhelmed.”
“That could be.”
Bullshit, thought Pardington. You did it, you sick fuck.
And the President also realized that the man standing in front of him, his own director of intelligence, had also almost certainly murdered young Alan Zhou.
That was what had alerted Pardington to McAllister in the first place. His story of Zhou being with the terrorists. The evidence he produced, and Zhou being in the elevator when it plunged, did not track.
If Zhou was a member of Pangu, as McAllister claimed, he’d never have gotten into an elevator, knowing the attack was imminent. And he sure as hell would not be taking papers that seemed to implicate himself up to his boss.
The only explanation, as shocking as it was, was that Zhou had found evidence against his boss, and McAllister had killed Zhou and taken the papers.
Pardington had not risen to President of the United States by shying away from unpleasant truths. And they did not get much more unpleasant than this. He was in the presence of a murderer, and almost certainly a terrorist. He didn’t know who to trust now. Who else had McAllister recruited?
No. Pardington had quickly realized he had to play along.
“Will the son survive?” he asked.
“It’s unclear. He’s at the hospital now.”
“Under guard, of course.”
“Of course.”
Pardington was tempted to go and see the young man, who was almost certainly innocent. But that would definitely mark Kevin Li for death. If he wasn’t already.
Pardington was more tempted than ever to take McAllister into custody. But he didn’t want to alert Pangu and push them into setting off the next attack. He hoped and prayed Vivien Li and whoever she was with could track down Pangu and stop the next, the final, attack.
“Mr. President?”
Kathleen was standing at the door, her hand on the knob. A look of shock on her face.
Pardington rose. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“We have intelligence reports of shots fired in Beijing, in the presidential complex. At least one dead.”
“Chen?” Pardington felt lightheaded.
Chen’s steamy breath left a foggy patch on the window as he stared at the prone man. The dead man. His former advisor, his former roommate, his best man, his best friend.
Quite possibly his last chance. Dead.
He’d just witnessed a murder. An assassination. Someone had killed his head of the MSS. Someone had come to the same conclusion as Chen, only sooner. Too late, Chen had realized he had the perfect opportunity.
In his addled state, Wang might just have told him everything. Probably, if handled properly, would have. If questioned gently, if Chen had even intimated he was supportive, Wang might have confessed.
Chen watched as people ran across the grass to get to Wang. Then he turned at the sound of a commotion. His own security people came rushing into his office.
“Sir, there’s been shooting. You need to come with us.”
“I don’t think so.”
That, he knew, would be a mistake. One more mistake in a parade of them. But going into “protection” would be his last error.