by Lisa See
The local airport was as different as could be from Wuhan’s international airport. David saw no radar and no landing lights flanking what passed for the runway, which sat in the middle of a flooded meadow. The terminal, an old Quonset hut, was packed with stranded passengers, and it had the smell of sweat, home-cooked food beginning to go bad, and stale cigarette smoke. David was the only foreigner.
He went to the desk of a company that gave helicopter tours of the Three Gorges, but the people shook their heads and said flying would be impossible today. He next tried the companies that flew small planes locally. There had to be an airstrip somewhere near Bashan. If he could fly there, he’d get to Bashan, even if he had to go on foot. But the people who sat behind the counters looked at him—with his bruises, the huge lump on his head, his Little Mermaid Band-Aids, and his wild insistence—as though he were insane.
The airport didn’t have a bar, but it did have a little stand that passed for a café. David quickly struck up a conversation with a couple of men who flew planes to Yichang near the dam site. They introduced him to a helicopter pilot. None of them wanted to fly. They all said it was crazy. But his cash offer, worth more than two years’ salary, was enough for the helicopter pilot. David knew the trip would be bad, however, when the pilot left the money with his friends—just in case.
They left Wuhan at eight. David held the wrapped ruyi on his lap. It would take almost two hours to reach Bashan.
After dinner, Hulan went to her room and locked the door. She decided to go through all of the material she’d gathered again. She lit a couple of candles and began to read. David always said that her greatest strength as an investigator lay in the intuitive leaps she made. She thought, however, that her strongest attribute came from what she knew about people—that they nearly always acted out of greed and that they told only one-third of the truth. She always took steps back from a crime scene, but this time she did it differently, by looking only at what people had wanted and what they’d lied about.
She started with Vice Minister Zai. She loved him more than her own father, but she also knew that he didn’t always tell her the truth. She didn’t believe that the death of a foreigner or the theft of artifacts would matter to the Ministry of Public Security or to the men across the lake. She’d been sent here for a political reason. She’d wondered from the beginning if it had to do with the All-Patriotic Society and, later, a possible threat against the Three Gorges Dam. She’d followed those theories all the way to the dam, but having seen the security measures there and heard Stuart’s reasoned explanation of the redundant safety systems, she didn’t think that the MPS’s interest had to do with the Society, terrorism, or sabotage. Yet Annabel Quinby had been right today when she talked about how the dam presented China’s national face. And Hulan was sure that Li Guo, the vulture, was trying to tell her something. His dangan said he was a low-level functionary, but he spoke in riddles about the power of symbols for the country. He also said that Brian understood their importance. Why couldn’t she?
She thought of David’s legal style and focused her mind into a sharp beam. Director Ho: A musty old man dealing with forces beyond his control. Dr. Ma: Spy, probably at the core of this. That he still hadn’t returned from Hong Kong was now of great concern. But had he lied? His arrogance suggested he hadn’t. Greedy? Yes, but for what? He’d had plenty of opportunity to steal from the site, and one could say it would even have been expected of him, but if Zai had sent Hulan to deal with Ma in some way, she’d failed miserably. Hom: His lies had actually shown him to be honest and honorable. Hom’s officers: Not worth considering.
Now to the people on the site. Stuart Miller: His lies had to do with buying stolen artifacts, not murder. Catherine Miller: Stuck in a body that didn’t match her brain. Only she had pointed out the most obvious and salient point about the ruyi. It couldn’t have come from the soil of Site 518. Annabel Quinby, Schmidt, and Strong were useful to Hulan only for what they’d said about Brian and Lily.
Angela McCarthy had lied about how and when she got here. She’d also lied about her brother’s website and what those photographs meant, because they’d been strong enough to lure her here even though she didn’t have much money. And there was the question of Brian’s journal. Captain Hom said he’d turned it over to Angela, who vehemently denied it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have it. Hulan would ask Angela again about the journal and other things in a moment, but first she wanted to sort through her thoughts about Lily Sinclair one last time.
Lily had been a natural liar. This ability was central to her character, her successes and her failings. She certainly had lied on the night of her death. Her story about the Panda Guesthouse and the Wang family had been amusing though there’d been very little truth to it. Later she’d lied to David and Hulan when she said she was going to bed, because Catherine had walked with Lily to the outskirts of town. What had Lily done in those hours that she was still in the hotel? What had inspired her to leave town so late at night? And how had her body been brought back without anyone seeing it? Her killers hadn’t come through the front door, and no one could have gotten past the old caretaker and her back gate. Only one person had mentioned anything out of the ordinary. Hulan flipped back through her notes to her interview with Dr. Strong, whose room was directly opposite Lily’s. He said he’d heard noises in the courtyard.
That easily Hulan understood everything. She jumped up, got her Luger out of its hiding place, then ran down the hall to Angela’s room. Hulan pounded on the door with her fist. Angela opened the door a crack, and Hulan pushed her way in.
“I need your brother’s flashlight and some other gear,” she said in a rush. She looked around, grabbed Angela’s backpack, and dumped the contents on the bed.
“My specimens!” Angela cried.
Hulan ignored the outburst and hurriedly sorted through Brian’s things, which still lay in a messy pile under the window. As she stuffed gear into the backpack, she asked, “Where’s your brother’s journal?” When Angela didn’t answer, Hulan dropped the bag, turned, and pushed the girl up against the wall. “More people are going to die unless you tell me right now about your brother’s journal!”
“I gave it to Lily.”
“On the night she died?”
Angela bent her head and nodded.
That meant David had it with Lily’s other papers! Hulan shoved Angela toward the door. “Go to the front desk. Tell the night clerk to run to the Public Security Bureau. He has to tell Captain Hom not to go to the All-Patriotic Society meeting tonight.”
Angela stared at her dumbly. Hulan shook the American’s arm roughly. “Do you understand?” Angela nodded. “Go!” Hulan pushed Angela toward the lobby, knowing in her gut that the errand would be fruitless. Hom was probably in the cave by now. But Hulan had to prevent his death if she could.
She ran through the corridors back to the third courtyard, with the rooms for Lily and Dr. Strong. When she reached it, she left the colonnade and stepped out into the central courtyard and thrashing rain. A clap of lightning lit the sky for a moment as though it were midday, then it darkened again. She scurried to the scholar’s rocks in the middle of the courtyard and circled them twice, looking for an entrance. She circled again, focusing on the ground this time, hoping there might be a trapdoor of some sort. Nothing. She took a couple of steps back and looked at the rocks again, ignoring the fact that the rain had soaked through her clothes. The three rocks appeared to abut each other, but she could see now that there was empty space in the middle.
She circled again slowly, then stepped forward and slipped her hand into an opening between the two largest rocks. Even with the warm, wet wind whistling around her, she could feel cool air. She pulled her arm back out, slipped the backpack off her shoulders, and gripped it in her hand. She took a breath to calm her nerves, turned sideways, then slowly eased through the seam of the twin rocks. Once inside, she reached into the backpack and groped for the flashlight. She stood on wha
t looked to be the edge of a well. She had to be more careful!
She hunched down with her back against the rock, careful not to lose her footing on the rim of the precipice. She aimed the flashlight into the hole and saw footholds carved in the sides. With all of the rain she couldn’t test if this was actually a well. She had only two hands, and she was going to need them both. She turned off the flashlight and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. She shimmied around carefully so she could put on the backpack. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she descended into the dark hole.
Five minutes later she’d reached the bottom and had the flashlight back on. Again, she rummaged through her bag until she found the miner’s lamp, which she put on. She looked up one last time, felt the rain on her face, then jogged down the dark tunnel. What had made Lily’s stories so enticing was the little grain of truth that had lain embedded in them. She had said that Wang had disappeared from the courtyard in plain sight of the liberating soldiers. He’d used this tunnel to escape, just as Lily’s killers had used it to bring her body back into the hotel. The monumentally difficult job of getting her up through the hole and back to her room without being discovered must have been outweighed by the knowledge that they were creating a seemingly unsolvable mystery.
As she ran, Hulan could hear conversations waft down from the village through cracks and holes that ran up to the surface. She knew she’d left Bashan behind when the muffled sounds of civilization ceased and she heard only her own footfalls and labored breathing. She had no idea what direction she was going or even where she was, but at least this stretch of pathway was clear and there were no obvious side tunnels or crawl spaces.
After a half hour, new sounds came to her from the darkness—thunder, lightning, the roar of the river somewhere near, and the scrabble of scurrying rats. Up ahead a flash from a lightning bolt lit an exit. Hulan slowed as she neared it, reached for her weapon, and aimed it ahead of her. At the edge of the exit, she peered out. Night had settled fully now, and the storm ravaged what little visibility there might have been. But in the momentary brightness of another streak of lightning, she saw that the tunnel opened onto a small track, which cut into the edge of the cliff less than a foot above the raging river.
She pulled her head back inside the cave and wiped the rain from her face with her forearm. She’d need both her hands free to traverse the rocky ledge, so she put away the gun and flashlight, then stepped out into the rain. With the light from the miner’s lamp, she saw the river churning just inches below her. The water crashed on the rocks, sending murky waves over her sandals, threatening to sweep her feet out from under her. The path narrowed even further as it inclined steeply. She put her back against the cliff that towered behind her and edged forward. No one ahead of her or behind her as far as she could see, but then she couldn’t see much as the rain lashed her face and obscured anything and everything around her.
Her left foot slipped out from under her, and she clung to a root. She regained her balance. Branches of lightning lit the world for another frightening moment. Water everywhere. Hand over hand she climbed, trying to secure her footing with each step until the path leveled out.
She still wasn’t exactly sure where she was going, but when this path dead-ended into another one, her instincts told her to go down. It was hard to tell in the dark, but this path looked unused except by animals. Then she heard chanting coming through the deafening sounds of the storm. After a few more meters, the chanting became very clear, even though she knew she was nowhere near the main entrance to the cave where the local All-Patriotic Society met.
“Subdue the wild tribes in our hearts. Practice the abstinence of alcohol, tobacco, and fornication.”
Hulan stepped through a small opening in the cliff and into deeper darkness. Unlike the first set of tunnels, this one had a strange musky smell. She remembered Michael Quon’s words to her earlier in the day: “Caves are alive.” A shudder passed through her body unrelated to the cold of the cave. She knew she was far from the cavern where she and David had first spoken with Dr. Ma, yet she knew from the overpowering odor of earth and mold that this cave had to be part of the larger system that riddled this entire hillside.
Murmured syllables floated to her. “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da.” Another piece fell into place. Wu Huadong’s father, the old blind man, had said that he’d heard Xiao Da, not that he’d seen him. Xiao Da’s voice must have traveled up through the cave system to the Wu home, just as the old man’s grandson’s cries had traveled down not just to the cave where Hulan and Michael had been today but to the cave on the beach where Brian’s body had disappeared.
Her eyes would never adjust in this gloom, and the miner’s lamp wasn’t much help. She shined the flashlight around her. This was a small cave with only one way to go. She shielded the beam of the flashlight so that it lit only the ground before her feet and crept forward.
“It is virtue that moves Heaven.” Xiao Da’s strange, unearthly voice echoed up to her. “And it is Heaven that punishes the guilty, for Heaven hears and sees as the people hear and see.”
“Be reverent,” came the response.
It was much cooler in here. Soaked clean through, Hulan shivered, and her teeth chattered.
“The river brings us life, so too does a leader,” Xiao Da told his flock. “When a leader gives repose to the people, his kindness is felt and the wild ones cherish him in their hearts.”
The roof began to slope down, and Hulan had to bend at the waist to get through. She came around a turn and up a small dip and saw a slight flickering on the walls and ceiling up ahead. She stopped and listened. She could hear people moving about. As quietly as she could, she took off the miner’s lamp, set down the backpack, and felt inside for her Luger. She steadied her grip on her weapon with her left hand and walked around the last corner and into the light.
Captain Hom lay naked on a bed of stone. His nose was gone. His bare feet hung off the edge of the platform above twin buckets—waiting. His hands had already been amputated and his arms pulled away from his body so that the blood could drain from his wrists into another set of buckets. His mouth was stuffed with something brown and pulpy. A horrible mess of tissue and blood coagulated where his penis had been. His eyes were open and staring at the stalactites above him. Next to him lay another naked man, presumably Hom’s brother-in-law, already dead. His nose, feet, hands, and penis had been cut off.
Michael Quon—the man who had tantalized Hulan with his stories of Da Yu, the man who was a mathematician like Da Yu, the man who had so obviously emulated Da Yu that he had twisted and corrupted his name to become Xiao Da—sat cross-legged on a rocky plinth just inside an alcove to the left of the gruesome tableau. On either side of him were braziers, which emanated both light and heat. A metal poker—probably the brand—nestled in the flames of one of the braziers. To the far right were a cot, camping table, lantern, and portable stove—creature comforts for long, undetected stays.
Quon looked at Hulan and spoke just loud enough for her to hear. “We make sacrifices for the good of others.”
So they were going straight into it, Hulan thought. Her fear and resolve were one.
“Da Yu meant personal sacrifice.” She slowly moved the Luger in Quon’s direction. “He labored so hard that the hair fell from his legs. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Animal sacrifices were made. All of the ancient sites tell us this.”
“Animal sacrifices, not human.”
“And who says those two are human? The contractor killed his own people. The captain looked the other way while the masses suffered. Punishments are a blessing for the wicked.”
The alcove where Quon sat was actually a large opening. She could hear chanting coming from behind and below him. She and David had been down there just two days ago, and now she was in the inner chamber high on the ledge above the practitioners. They could not see what was happening in here, nor could they hear Quon speaking in his normal voice.
Without shifting his attention from Hulan, Quon raised his voice, and it corrupted into something beautiful, melodious, and otherworldly as it bounced off the walls. “The waters of inundation are destructive in their overflow. In their vastness they embrace hills and overtop great heights, threatening the heavens with their floods. The lower people groan and murmur.”
Listening, Hulan knew the words were not his own, but the people down below recognized the meaning to their lives and responded accordingly.
“Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da….”
“We embrace Nine Virtues. Tonight you must discuss among yourselves the ninth and most important virtue—boldness with sincerity and valor with righteousness.”
A low rumble of conversation rose from the lower cavern. Quon smiled at the sound. Officer Su picked up something that looked like an ocean sponge and used it to smear Hom’s brother-in-law with his own blood.
Hulan edged toward the platform where Hom lay. The pulpy matter in his mouth prevented the people below from hearing his suffering. The only way he could breathe was through what was left of his nose. Air bubbled through the bloody muck in the middle of his face. The three wavy lines that composed the ancient character for river had already been burned into his forehead. Keeping the gun aimed at Quon, Hulan reached down and touched Hom’s shoulder. His eyes moved to her, and she saw something beyond physical pain pass over his face.
“You can’t do anything to help him,” Quon said. “He’s beyond redemption.”
