37
General Song hadn’t been able to stomach Tsai Zhan when they’d met the first time, five years earlier at a retreat for senior officers at Mount Mogan near Hangzhou. Tsai was a senior operative with Department Two, the intelligence service within the military. Sometimes called a political officer, he was, in actuality, a mole hunter. He had the fertile mind of a trashy crime novelist, perceiving everyone around him to be a spy until they proved him wrong. When Song met the nasty little man, Tsai had been sent to lecture the generals about the due diligence of patriotism. His presentation turned out to be a half-day of slides depicting all the subversives he had “uncovered”—along with grisly photographs of their interrogations and eventual executions.
General Song did not countenance spies against his government, but he saw no reason to revel in their pain. One man’s spy was another man’s patriot. Some of them were incredibly brave, however misguided they happened to be. Certainly, a quick bullet behind the ear would be enough. There was no need to make a man suffer for his beliefs. And still, Song knew better than to display even a hint of his disgust.
“Oh, you disagree with my methods?” Tsai’s eyes seemed to say. “And why is that? Would that be because you have empathy for the traitor?”
Song could not help but picture the man flinging spittle when he spoke.
Men like Tsai flourished during war. In economic booms and times of relative peace, it was a little harder for them to find a niche. Fortunately for Tsai, China was a large country, with many enemies, and many people to mistrust. General Bai and he had naturally struck up a fast kinship during that first meeting. Birds of the same flock, after all.
Travel by high-ranking officials to the United States always drew scrutiny from the intelligence services. But Song knew that General Bai was behind this. Tsai was his attack dog, on loan from the ministry.
Song’s trip with his granddaughter was last-minute, which added more mystery. The fact that he and his wife had elected to have her illness treated in the United States was at once viewed as great fortune and a slap in the face of Chinese medicine. The medical establishment in Beijing complained bitterly, but no doctor wanted to be blamed for the loss of a child’s eye, especially when that child belonged to a PLA general. Even generals as out of favor as Song could make a lot of stink for a physician. They had to appear upset, but they were surely relieved the delicate operation would take place well clear of their scalpels.
Tsai Zhan showed up at the Song household unannounced, waiting at the door with the gray golf jacket he always wore instead of a suit coat hanging over his arm. He shoved the jacket toward the maid without looking at her, barking when she did not take it quickly enough for him.
The poor thing cringed, shooting a horrified look at the general, who smiled softly and gestured for her to go into the other room.
Tsai was half a head shorter than Song, with oddly long arms and slender fingers that reminded the general of a spindly shrub that had lost its leaves. His flat nose did a poor job of keeping his glasses in place, forcing him to constantly push them up with the tip of one of those stick fingers. He smiled a leathery smile when Song came to greet him in the foyer, complimenting a Ming dynasty vase like he’d read in a manners book one should always smile and compliment vases upon arrival at another person’s home.
He had not, however, done much reading about the niceties of tactful lead-up to a delicate matter.
“I am here with the full force and support of General Bai,” Tsai said tersely, standing rigid, as if he were at attention. “And, by extension, President Zhao Chengzhi, chairman of the Central Military Commission and paramount leader.”
“Of course,” Song said. “What can I do for you?”
“Am I to assume that you have chosen to go to America because you believe the care your granddaughter will receive there will be superior to that which she could receive in China?”
“That would be the obvious answer,” Song said, treading carefully. For all he knew, there was a recording device in Tsai’s pocket. “Dr. Berryhill has performed hundreds of these surgeries. It is not a matter of Chinese intellect, but of American experience. I could find no physician here with such a background in retinoblastoma. It is too great a risk.”
“The disease is only in one eye?” Tsai said, as if to imply, She has two, that gives her one to spare. What are you so worried about?
“The doctors in Beijing believe that the tumor only affects one eye,” Song said. “But they tell me they cannot be certain.”
Tsai stood still for a moment, staring, blinking, birdlike. “And you fear Chinese surgeons will take your child’s eye?”
“It is possible she will lose the eye no matter where the surgery is completed. Our goal is to save her life.”
“So you believe she is in more danger of dying here than in the United States?”
Song clenched his fists, breathing steadily to keep his wits about him. He was, after all, a trained soldier, and professional soldiers in any country had an innate aversion to spies.
“Again,” he said. “It is a matter of experience. Dr. Berryhill simply has more.”
“And our doctors will remain inexperienced if everyone had your bourgeois attitude.”
“It is selfish, I know,” Song said. “But I would prefer them not to learn on my granddaughter.”
“I will accompany you on this trip of yours,” Tsai said. He tapped the side of his head with a finger. “You have a great deal of important information up here that the Americans would love to access. It has been a long time since I have been to the United States, but I remember that they are very tricky.”
“By all means,” Song said, forcing a smile. “If there is nothing else, I must return to my granddaughter.”
“Is it visible?”
“What?”
“The tumor?” Tsai asked. “May I see it?”
Song bit the inside of his lip, forcing a sigh, hoping it sounded more benign than it was.
“No,” he said. “You may not. In any case, the tumor is inside the eye.”
“How interesting,” Tsai said. “I should like to hear the story of how you discovered it.”
“It is in my report requesting leave for travel,” Song said, hackles up.
“I am aware of your report,” Tsai said. “But I would like to hear the story again — when we are on the plane.”
Song retrieved the golf jacket himself, sparing his maid the discomfort. As he shut the door, he couldn’t help but think how difficult it was going to be to keep his wife from stabbing the repugnant man.
38
Originally, the plan to get inside Lucky Optical had been to cut a hole in the drywall between the abandoned meat shop and the clinic, but a check of the flimsy back door and some quick work with a penknife made damaging any property unnecessary. The optomap was connected to an in-house server via Cat-5 cable. Midas connected a small notebook computer to one of the USB ports while Ryan checked the doctor’s desk for passwords that might be written down. It turned out that they didn’t need one, and they were soon scrolling through files on the server. There were no less than three male patients named Suparman. Gavin helped cross-reference with home addresses and telephone numbers, and they were quickly able to ascertain which one was their guy. The files were JPEGs, less than a gig for each eye, and downloaded quickly to a thumb drive. Ryan and Midas were back in their own Toyota Avanza twenty minutes after they went in.
Ryan drove while Midas talked to Gavin, working through the process of building the key to override the retina-scan lock, using the thumb drive and a Raspberry Pi — in the event the images on his smartphone didn’t do the trick.