Iman took the book.
“I’m sure you will agree with me that letting the foreigners dig up the dead girl is the best way to proceed.”
Madame Wu rose and walked out of the fire’s circle of light. She didn’t want him to see the hatred on her face.
As she allowed herself to be helped into the helicopter it occurred to her that having come all this way, maybe she should see her son, Chen. Then she dismissed the thought as bourgeois and sentimental. They’d been apart all these years. Why bother seeing him face to face now? She barked an order and the pilot engaged the engine. The rotors began to howl. She put her head back against the plush seat and closed her eyes. The islanders would do as she suggested. They were people of the land, just as she was.
Jiajia put down the minister’s copy of The Art of War. He had just finished the brief chapter on spies. For a moment he looked at the cover of the book – so fancy, so decorated – so unlike war. He shook his head and strode out of his mud hut – at one time their home, his and Chu Shi’s. He reconsidered Sun Tzu’s advice as he walked quickly up the steep path to the graveyard. It seemed to him that Sun Tzu’s instruction on the waging of war was flawed. It assumed a dispassion, a cold logic. He crested the final rise and stepped into the graveyard. He stood over Chu Shi’s grave for a long time then he hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it right at her heart.
Jiajia kicked at the grave’s night soil-clotted earth then began to tear at the dirt with his fingers. As he did, he planned. Not as The Art of War had suggested. But then again, Sun Tzu was waging a military campaign. Not seeking revenge.
Jiajia flung aside clods of the thick dirt until he unearthed the edge of the crimson burial shroud. He leaned back his head and howled Chu Shi’s name.
Revenge was not dispassionate. It was not cold and logical. It was human – and hot.
The next day Iman ordered the islanders to put down their weapons. A dead girl. A pregnant dead girl was dug up and transported to the mainland where her body was hacked to pieces in a secret foreign ritual.
So went the story.
Dr. Roung knew better. He didn’t know what had changed the islanders’ minds to allow it, but he knew that Chu Shi must have been exhumed so that an autopsy could be done. Probably in Xian. He assumed that the foreigners insistence on the exhumation and autopsy had something to do with their business deal. But again he didn’t know what. And he said nothing. Did nothing. Just sat in the darkness of his Ching room wondering over and over again why the ceremonial wine had been shipped from Beijing. That night he awoke in a cold sweat, his mind crawling with fear. Fear that he knew the answer to the question. It was just past 6 a.m. He went out into the freezing darkness.
That was just before the frigid dawn of December 22. Seventeen foreigners had less than a week to live.
Half an hour after Fong’s return from the island funeral, the hollow sound of his banging on Dr. Roung’s workshop door echoed through Ching’s soft spring night. Fong’s shouts went unanswered. Finally an old woman came around the corner of the building.
“Gone, flat-head.”
“What?”
“He’s gone.” The old woman cocked her head to the side and stared at Fong’s mouth. “Where’d you get your teeth?”
“Where did Dr. Roung go?”
“To Xian. Where else?”
Where else indeed. The island and Xian. Always the island and Xian. And finally the link between the two – four stones stacked neatly in a tower behind a dead girl’s headstone – to mark time.
Fong turned on his heel and headed back to the Jeep. Over his shoulder he heard the old woman shout, “You really ought to complain. Those teeth look awful.”
When he got into the car, Chen asked him, “Did she say something about teeth?”
“No,” Fong said harder than he should have. Then he spat out, “Have you found out if there was an exhumation order executed on the island?”
“Yes, there was.” Chen referred to his notes. “It was done December 21. How did you know . . .?”
“Seven days before the murders on the boat.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was there an autopsy performed?”
“Yes, the same day.”
“Where? Don’t answer that – Xian? Right?” Chen nodded. Fong cursed under his breath. “I want the autopsy report sent to Grandpa.”
“They won’t send it.”
“What?”
“I’ve already asked for it. They said it’s confidential.”
Fong knew the word confidential in China’s bureaucratese meant “volatile.” “Will they let him see it if we go to them?”
“Yes, they’re okay with that.”
“Fine.”
“How did you know there’d been an . . .?”
Fong thought back to the grave on the island. The soil was still unpacked. The fecal material resisting decomposition, as it always did when disturbed . . . He shrugged. Why not tell Chen? Because admitting a knowledge of night soil would allow access to his past. And he wasn’t prepared to discuss his personal history with anyone.
Chen reached in his pocket and pulled out a fax. “This arrived for you while you were on the island.”
Fong spread it out against the dash:
HEY HO SHORT STUFF. BIG COOKINGS HERE IN XIAN. WHAT GUESS FOUND I? NO GUESS? TWO BAD. DNA PATENT FOUND I. DNA PATENT GIVEN TO DEAD AMERICAN LAWYER, DECEMBER 25TH – THINK NOT CLOSE TO PARTY TIME? – DO I? I DO. DO. DO. DO YOU?
Fong shivered.
They were nearing the edge.
He brushed some liquid from his chin. It was deep red. Somehow he’d cut himself and was bleeding. He looked at the red smear on the back of his hand. Blood without. Blood within. This all has to do with blood.
“Fax Lily. Tell her we’ve got to know exactly what the DNA patent was for.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get Grandpa ready.”
“For what?”
“Our trip to Xian. He needs an outing.”
The alarm sounded loudly at the nurse’s station. She’d been in Inspector Wang’s room only moments before. Maybe he’d accidently rolled over on the button.
Maybe he was finally dying.
The thickness was lining his mouth and had gotten up into his nasal passages. It was now extending down into his lungs, covering every inch – every tiny sack that could bring him air.
He struggled and thrashed as best he could. He grabbed the button and pressed with all his might. Then he stopped. Stopped fighting. Stopped fighting what he thought was the end. Images floated up at him. Sharpedged crime scene lights threw everything into high relief. The pop of a sulphur match and the delicious flavour of cigarette smoke. Then a face close to his. Zhong Fong. He’d never had a son. Never married. Lived his whole life as an unbeliever. But here on the very brink of his time, just before he leapt from this earthly plane, he sent out a blessing. A final gift to Zhong Fong. Not as tactile as the telegram he’d arranged to get through despite all regulations against outside contact with the traitor. But more important. Or at least that’s what the specialist thought – as his last act upon the Earth.
The white-clad nurse leaned in close to the old man’s mouth. He was trying to speak. His lips forming soundless words. She read his lips as she had so many times before. But what she read made no sense. “Bless you.” His lips formed a name she’d never heard before. “Make me proud. You are my pride. Deduce that it was me . . .”
The nurse recalled this man asking for communications experts a few months back. Just after he’d returned from Xian. Then documents from Shanghai. All quite a fuss. For what? She knew he’d been to Xian because he’d brought her back a small kneeling figure of an archer. He’d flirted in his wordless way. But despite all the time she’d nursed him, she didn’t know much about him. In fact, she had no idea who this man was. Only that he was important enough to have a private room in a politburo hospital. That he had three serious gunshot wounds when he first arrived. Two in his back and one that had pierced his voice box. And the doctors were administering a treatment to him she’d never seen before.