There was a short, sharp exchange in dialect between coroner Wei as he returned and the general, an assistant in a bloodstained lab coat quickly gathering up the tabloids and scurrying out to the cramped front office. As if by way of apology for the festive, rather lackadaisical air, or so Charles thought at first, Chang walked over to the TV, seemingly to turn it off, but he surprised Riser by turning the opera up even louder. The high, nasal whine of the dan—the female roles played by men — reached such a pitch that Riser was sure he was in for a splitting headache, even though he was more or less conditioned by now to the appalling noise pollution levels in which most of China carried on its business.
“I like opera,” Chang told him loudly, while scribbling something on a piece of notepaper and waving Riser over toward the far bank of aluminum freezer trays. “I particularly like this one, ’The People’s Justice.’ Do you know it?”
“No!” said Riser, so forcefully that it betrayed his irritation, though he’d no sooner said it than he realized that Chang was probably creating what in the embassy they called an ad hoc “special classified intelligence facility”—a rubber-mounted plastic bubble with anechoic coatings, from which no sound could be detected by either beam mikes aimed through glass from outside a building or from fixed mikes hidden in the room.
The experience of having to identify Elizabeth’s body still vivid in his memory, Charles steeled himself to be ready when Wei pulled out the cold, calico-sheathed aluminum slab.
There was a delicate lace of ice about her hair. Worried she’d be so cold, Charles gently brushed the frost back from her forehead. The opera was reaching hysterically high levels, and, already queasy from the overpowering antiseptic — a peculiarly sweetish, astringent odor which he knew he would never forget — he said nothing.
Chang, indicating the bruising on her head, spoke quietly in English, as if not wanting any of the coroner’s staff to hear. “Say nothing. She was tortured. Raped. Massive internal bruising.” With that, the general stood up, pushed the slab in partway, and reaching up, drew down a fifteen-by twenty-four-inch paper bag, taking out a blue Mao suit and a smaller jeweler’s packet, spilling out a digital Casio watch and a locket. “Her personal effects. One watch, one locket. You must sign here. Ah—” added Chang awkwardly, “—there is a fee. I am sorry. Twenty yuan.”
No doubt it was another foreigner rip-off, but Charles, rummaging beneath his shirt in his money belt, didn’t argue. He owed Chang a lot more for telling him the truth.
“I think you need a drink,” said Chang.
Charles nodded.
In a small pavement restaurant near Barberry’s Pub Café on Liangxi Road, Chang told Charles, “I’ve found out more since I called you. We think she was tortured because of a message she was trying to get to you.”
Charles wasn’t taking it in, unable to evict the sight of ice in her hair. So cold and final. Now the general was saying something about “stupid girl.” “What?”
“Wu Ling,” answered Chang. “I’ve told her never to repeat anything she hears me discussing with Beijing, but I guess it was a—” Chang paused, trying to think of the English word. “—a juicy story. About Li Kuan.”
The general saw the name meant nothing to Riser; understandably, given the fact that Kuan was a common enough name. Either that or the American cultural attaché was still deep in shock at just having confronted the bleak reality of his daughter’s death. She was — had been — a beautiful woman. “Li Kuan — the slag merchant,” Chang explained.
Riser, his mind still with his daughter, looked across at the general, refocusing. “Yes.” Everyone at the embassy knew about Li Kuan, the slag — leftover radioactive waste — dealer who was hawking the deadly material reclaimed out of everything from spent fuel rods to medical waste, with which terrorists could make a cheap radioactive bomb. And not all of Li Kuan’s merchandise was slag. Some, Bill Heinz said, was high weapons grade material stolen from poorly monitored Soviet installations. Riser vaguely recalled Heinz telling him that some “HWG material,” as they called it, had been housed in buildings that lacked the most basic video surveillance. All of which made Li Kuan one of the world’s deadliest salesmen.
“What’s he got to do with Wu Ling?” inquired Riser.
“Wu Ling and her BCLU friends were having a drink at Barberry’s Pub. Very popular among—”
“Big Nose students,” said Riser.
“Wu Ling went to the ladies’ room,” explained Chang. “There was a lineup. She overheard a student from Xinjiang province — it’s our most northwesterly province. It borders on four of the seven Stans. Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Uzbeki—”
“I know where it is,” said Riser.
“Many Muslims in the area,” continued Chang. “Wu Ling heard this student say soon the American and Chinese infidels would pay for their ungodliness, that there would be military attacks in the Northwest. You see, the Muslim fanatics believe anyone who isn’t Muslim—”
“I know,” said Riser impatiently. “We remember 9/11.”
“Yes, of course,” said Chang apologetically. “Well, these friends said this Li Kuan had done a deal with holy ones from Xinjiang to Taiwan, that soon their wrath would be unleashed against America and China, that the world would be run instead by the holy ones. I think in English you call them the ’moolas’?”
“Mullahs,” said Riser. “So?”
Chang leaned forward, his breath reeking of black bean sauce. “Wu Ling told your daughter and her other friends.”
Riser could guess the rest. “The fanatic or his friend realized they’d been overheard and followed Wu Ling and Mandy out of the pub.”
“Yes.”
“But only Mandy was—”
“Attacked, yes. Perhaps because she was the only American. The terrorists are more afraid of Americans than Chinese. They watched the Iraqi War on CNN. But I don’t doubt they intended to kill my Wu Ling and the other students who might have overheard them. But there was much confusion. Wu Ling said many other students came out of the pub. The assassins escaped. By now they are probably in Shanghai, or Xinjiang.” Which meant, Riser realized, they would never be found.
“You think it was just beer talk?” Riser asked. “About attacks in the Northwest?” He was thinking of Mandy’s frantic phone message. “The Northwest of China or America?”
Chang shrugged. “What puzzles me is, what were two Muslim fanatics doing in a pub?”
Riser hadn’t thought of that. Muslims — fanatical Muslims — were forbidden to drink alcohol. “Terrorists have no patent on hypocrisy,” said Charles.
“True,” agreed Chang.
Riser got up from the table. “I’ll pass the information on to Washington.”
“Good. It may be nothing,” said Chang, “but I will also pass it on to Beijing. The problem is, Mr. Riser, we must be careful.” The inflection Chang gave to “we” was clearly meant to refer to China, not America.
“I thought Beijing’s policy was to be tough on terrorists.”
“Yes,” said Chang as they walked back out to rejoin Wu Ling, “we agree with your President. But Beijing must be careful. If it were to attack the terrorists in Taiwan, for example, it could be accused by Washington of using antiterrorism as an excuse, a pretext, to take over Taiwan.”
Riser nodded and extended his hand. “You’ve been very kind to tell me all this, General. I won’t forget it.”