by Jinkang Wang
As the case opened, the audience included Xinhua News Agency, TASS Russian News Agency, Kyodo News, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Reuters, ANSA Italian News Agency, Agencia EFE, Phoenix Hong Kong . . . over a hundred reporters in all. There were also representatives from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Though the leak had nothing to do with the institute, Mei Yin had been their employee, and they needed to have a presence. They deliberately kept a low profile, sending two low-ranking employees who listened in silence, rebuffing all press queries with a smile.
Xue Yu was there too, but he’d taken leave and was present in his personal capacity. He was terribly anxious about Ms. Mei’s fate, and had been determined to come hear the case for himself. Three months had been long enough for everyone to calm down, and no one yelled traitor or snake at him. At the end of the day, Xue Yu’s denunciation hadn’t been for personal gain or unworthy motives, and people understood this. Still, he felt a certain amount of personal guilt, and kept to himself, sitting quietly in the back row, not talking to anyone, not even his own uncle, Professor Zhao Yuzhou, who’d come after reading about this online and discovering that Mei Yin opposed the elimination of the smallpox virus and the strong-arming of nature by science, which filled him with righteous anger. He hated these people who’d been nurtured by science then turned and bitten the hand that fed them, and hoped to watch her burn at the stake of justice with his own eyes. He was retired, anyway, and had far too much leisure time, so he was able to hurry here on the next train.
Mother Liu and Mother Chen had to take care of the orphans, so they were taking turns being present. Mei Yin might not be a believer, but after fourteen years of friendship, they regarded her as closer to them than sisters in the faith. When Mei Yin was arrested and the orphanage lost its source of financial support, the government had picked up part of the tab, while Heavenly Corp. dealt with the rest, allowing them to stay open.
Five more notable individuals were in attendance: University of California materials science expert Scott Lee (who’d designed the Society’s crucifixes, including their concealed blades), WHO expert Noriyoshi Matsumoto, Cambridge University “scienceology” authority R. M. Williams, Moscow Technical University cybernetics specialist Arkady Labsky, and Swedish mathematician Auer Lendl. They had come into the country quietly, on tourist visas, but they were some of the most renowned scientists in the world, and were still bound to arouse the media’s interest. The press guessed that they were here to present a united front for the Crucifix Society. They came in quietly as the trial began, sitting in silence in the back row, identical silvery crosses sparkling around each of their necks. Of this group, Matsumoto was the most recent recruit, having only joined a few days ago. They left two empty seats in their midst, one for Mei Yin’s adoptive father, the Godfather, Mr. Walt Dickerson. The eighty-six-year-old Walt was supposed to travel with them, but his heart had given him some trouble the day before the journey, and he’d had to postpone his departure. The American scientist Susan Sotomayor had stayed behind with him, and the pair would come over when he was better.
Also in the audience was the Spanish journalist Miguel de Las Casas, a gleaming crucifix around his neck. He was an impulsive man, and had undergone a complete reversal of his attitude after interviewing Mei Yin, now worshiping at her altar. Although he hadn’t agreed with her point of view at first, he had the utmost admiration for her. After traveling to America and interviewing her adoptive father, he’d taken the next step, and completely surrendered to the gospel as preached by father and daughter. He did two things in America: first, he joined the Crucifix Society, and second, he kept his promise to Mei Yin and hired a first-rate Chinese American lawyer, Mr. Du Chunming, who was bilingual and certified to practice law in China. Before leaving America, Walt Dickerson, Du Chunming, Miguel de Las Casas, and several other members of the Crucifix Society had held a long meeting, in which they’d hammered out the principles and tactics that would govern their defense; they had to use the opportunity to promote the Society’s point of view vigorously, while preventing Mei Yin from being found guilty. Du Chunming had come up with an ingenious plan, which they thought was sure to succeed.
The two defendants and their individual lawyers entered the courtroom separately, taking their allocated seats. Under Chinese law, defendants in the same case couldn’t share a lawyer, so Sun Jingshuan had hired his own, a young man named Li Yan. The couple wore tokens of mourning, Granny Sun having died two months previously, following a massive stroke. Mei Yin greeted her husband before taking her seat next to him. This was their first meeting in three months, though in the detention center they’d been on opposite sides of the same wall.
Mei Yin looked around the courtroom, noticing Mother Liu, Xue Yu, and the six foreigners wearing crucifixes, and nodded to each of them in turn. She knew the two empty seats were meant for her father. Through Du Chunming, she’d urged him not to come, but he’d insisted he couldn’t possibly be absent, that he’d be there as soon as his health allowed him to travel. Suddenly, she saw Zhao Yuzhou in the crowd and froze for a moment, uncertain why the old man had put in an appearance. Then she saw the glee in his eyes, and knew he was here to satisfy a thirst for righteousness. No doubt he was “self-funded” again. Would he brag about it this time too? She smiled at him, but he stared coldly back at her.
The clerk called for order, and everyone stood as the three judges entered, single file. The chief judge somberly announced, “Court is in session. The case of Mei Yin and Sun Jingshuan, on the charge of disseminating an infectious disease.”
Inspector Tong Guangwu of the Nanyang Prosecutor’s Office stood to read the charges. Two months previously, Beijing had sent a party leader to Nanyang, summoning the police, prosecutors, and judiciary for an unofficial discussion. Worried that, during the course of the case, rumors would again begin to fly that the Chinese government had been behind Mei Yin’s actions, he had given the prosecutors strict instructions that failure in the case was not permissible—they had to make sure Mei Yin got the stiffest possible sentence, in order to demonstrate China’s innocence. Tong Guangwu was feeling the pressure. The problem lay in the first section of the story, the part where Mei Yin went to Russia and smuggled smallpox back, for which no evidence existed. She’d confessed it to the press corps at the earlier meeting, but that wasn’t any good; she could recant that testimony at any time. Besides, her lawyer was a formidable litigator. Du Chunming had taken on quite a few big cases with an international dimension, and hadn’t lost a single one. He was especially skilled at cases involving a high-tech element. He had said in private that the law was a stiff carapace, but science was expanding every second, splitting the carapace of the law, opening cracks through which a skillful lawyer could wrest successful verdicts.
Du Chunming was a tall man with gold-rimmed glasses, refined in appearance, a warm smile always on his face. But those eyes, concealed behind glasses, would flash from time to time, revealing something very sharp, enough to see right through anyone in his path. Now he looked around the room, and when he met the prosecutor’s gaze, he smiled and nodded in a friendly manner.
Tong Guangwu smiled back, thinking, Let’s see what tricks you have up your sleeve.
He finished reading the charge sheet. “. . . this court believes that the accused, Mei Yin, has violated the People’s Republic of China Penal Code, Statute 331, disseminating viruses and/or bacteria. The accused Sun Jingshuan has violated the People’s Republic of China Penal Code, Statute 397, negligence. Pursuant to the People’s Republic of China Penal Code, Statute 136, we will charge both defendants jointly. Please rule in favor of the law.”
From his place in the audience, Xue Yu grew more and more agitated. The crime Mei Yin was being charged with carried a sentence of ten years or more, with the possibility of life imprisonment or even death. And it looked like the prosecutors were going to push for a harsher sentence, in order to prevent suspicion of government involvement. It was obvious that leniency was bein
g shown to Sun Jingshuan, who would probably get away with a year’s jail time and a year’s probation.
Next was the judges’ questioning of the defendants. Mei Yin’s statement was very simple: “The prosecutors have accused me of illegally transporting the smallpox virus from abroad. I deny this.”
There was a furor. Three months ago, in front of many reporters, Mei Yin had admitted to obtaining smallpox specimens from Russia’s Vector Institute, and had even specified there were three different strains, but she was now recanting her previous testimony.
In fact, Mei Yin was now following a strategy laid out by the Godfather and Du Chunming. The lawyer had told Mei Yin that their strategy, if successful, was likely to get her off altogether. This being the case, “rescue Mei Yin” would become their primary objective, and “spread the word about the Crucifix Society” could take a backseat.
For his part as the second defendant, Sun Jingshuan briskly pleaded guilty to negligence. Next came the cross-examination. The prosecutor provided the judge with the results of the analysis carried out by the WHO in Geneva, the CDC in America, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “The specimens provided are the smallpox virus, comprising three different strains, namely West African, Asian, and South American. There’s a high degree of correspondence with samples taken during the Nanyang smallpox epidemic.”
The chief judge asked if the defendants wished to dispute the evidence, and Du Chunming smiled. “These three organizations are the most authoritative in the world when it comes to analyzing viruses, naturally we have no doubt they’re right. But while accepting these three reports, we do have a clarification that we will make at an appropriate juncture. Please carry on.”
The prosecutor admitted the second piece of evidence, a deposition from the police force in Klaznov, Novosibirsk. The deposition was just a list of facts, without any significant conclusions. The document stated that the Chinese American Ms. Mei Yin had, between the twentieth and twenty-fifth of September, 1997, entered Russia via Kazakhstan, and she’d spent three days in Klaznov, where she’d come into intimate contact with Kolya Stebushkin, a scientist at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology. The police found Mei Yin’s fingerprints in many places around Stebushkin’s apartment, and the long black hairs on the bed were verified as likely to be hers through DNA testing. Stebushkin killed himself the day after she departed.
It was strongly hinted that Mei Yin and Stebushkin’s relationship had been sexual. The listeners grew restless, and all eyes swiveled to the couple. Du Chunming said equably, “My client doesn’t deny she had a Russian lover. In a way, you could call him her first husband. She did indeed travel to Russia in 1997 to see him. But please note that nowhere in the deposition is a transaction involving viruses mentioned.”
Next came the questioning of witnesses. First to be called was Zhang Jun, a trader operating on the Russian-Chinese border.
“Please state your name and profession.”
“I’m Zhang Jun, from Harbin, general manager of Ancheng Border Trading Consortium in Urumqi.”
Glaring at Mei Yin in the defendant’s seat, Zhang Jun swelled with hatred. She’d actually tricked him into bringing the virus into China. Did she want to kill a million people in China? She had Chinese blood flowing through her veins! And even at this moment, she was shameless enough to smile and wave at him.
Scowling at Mei Yin, he said to the judge, “On September twenty-sixth, 1997, this Mei Yin asked me to carry a small box. We crossed the border at the Dzungarian Gate in Xinjiang. According to her, she was carrying frozen Ferghana horse sperm obtained in Turkmenistan. I believed her, and thought how great it would be if Ferghana horses could be brought back to China once again, so I helped her to smuggle this over, and didn’t collect a penny. If I’d known the box contained the smallpox virus that could kill or hurt millions of people, I definitely wouldn’t have helped her!”
Du Chunming said, “Objection! All you can prove is that she brought a box across the border. You can’t be certain that it contained the smallpox virus. That’s misleading.”
“Sustained. Witness Zhang Jun, please confine your answers to known facts.”
The prosecutor continued. “Could the witness please describe the box?”
“It wasn’t large, about the size of my fist, and the outer shell was stainless steel. Mei Yin told me it was a cold-storage box, with liquid nitrogen inside. It was freezing when I took it from her.”
“Did the defendant say this was a cold-storage box?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“No further questions.”
“Any questions from the defense?”
Du Chunming smiled. “No. Like the prosecutor, I believe this was a cold-storage box. And making use of such a box suggests storage of some biological matter, whether viruses, bacteria, frozen sperm, or many other things.” He emphasized the last three words.
The next witness was a lab worker from the secret lab at Heavenly Corp., a woman of forty or fifty. She was awkward in front of the court, and kept her head down, though she shot a glance at the accused from time to time, then looked back down, as if guilty. She had obviously respected Mei Yin a great deal in the past, and even now couldn’t shed her old habits.
“Please state your name and profession.”
“I’m Hu Cuihua, I do odd jobs at the bosses’ lab at Heavenly Corp. We call it ‘the bosses’ lab,’ because it’s only used by Director Mei and General Manager Sun.”
“How many workers are there?”
“Five.”
“What do you all do at this lab?”
“Manual labor, moving things around, cleaning up, bringing cells from the other labs, usually in pails, ready to be added to the biological reactors.”
“Have you seen the output of the biological reactors?”
“No. Professor Mei did that herself. General Manager Sun handled it when she wasn’t around.”
“Do you know what was in the biological reactors and liquid nitrogen cold-storage containers?”
Hu Cuihua looked timidly at Mei Yin, and said a little stiffly, “I didn’t know. When the orphanage had smallpox and the police came to the lab, I heard them say it was smallpox virus. I know that’s very dangerous, you’ll die once you get it.”
A disturbance rippled again through the crowd. Mei Yin had placed five workers in a position of danger, and kept them ignorant of the truth. “Thank you,” the prosecutor said. “No further questions.”
Du Chunming sensed the hostility in the room, yet he pushed for more details. “Could you tell me what safeguards Ms. Mei had you take against infection? For instance, protective clothing, an airtight face mask, disinfection on entering and leaving the lab?”
“No, nothing at all. We all thought it was strange. Other people would get sick at the slightest touch, but the five of us were there all day without so much as a mask, and never got ill.”
“Did Ms. Mei and General Manager Sun wear any protective gear?”
“No, not once. When people said bad things about Director Mei, I’d defend her by saying she spent even more time than us in the lab. After the workers left, she’d be there alone working late into the night. And she wasn’t scared of getting infected.”
“Thank you. No further questions.”
The court summoned the next witness.
“Name and profession, please.”
“I’m Xue Yu, I work at Wuhan Institute of Virology. I was once Mei Yin’s doctoral student.”
“Before the epidemic, the defendant told you this lab contained a mutated, possibly infectious white pox virus, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And the defendant took you to see this lab before the outbreak?”
“Yes. She asked me to work there and take over this research project. I didn’t agree.”
“Could you tell the court why you didn’t agree?”
“The project was important, but it was fairly danger
ous, and ought to have public oversight rather than being carried out privately. Of course, I later found out that Ms. Mei hadn’t told me the truth. The infectious virus she’d mentioned wasn’t mutated white pox, but smallpox.”
“That day, did she open the liquid nitrogen containers or the biological reactors?”
“I was in the lab for a very short time, and only have a vague impression of the visit. I think she did open them.”
“No further questions.”
The court heard more evidence, by which time the outlines of the case were fairly clear. It was time for both sides to give their concluding speeches.
The prosecutor said, “The defendant secretly stored a Level-Four virus in an open-plan laboratory, where improper storage procedures caused a leak, which led to an epidemic. The evidence on this point is incontrovertible. As for the defendant illegally smuggling the smallpox virus from Russia into China, only Stebushkin, now deceased, could have provided conclusive testimony. But we believe that the depositions of the Klaznov Police, Zhang Jun, Hu Cuihua, and others, added to the fact that the laboratory did indeed contain the smallpox virus, constitute a complete chain of evidence, from which a logical inference can be made about how the virus was transported into this country.”
He glanced at Du Chunming. The defense lawyer’s case was largely on the ropes, yet he still appeared unruffled, as if he had something up his sleeve. This was crunch time. Could he be holding something in reserve?
As it came to the defense’s turn, the audience heard a disturbance. An elderly Caucasian man, unsteady on his feet, was being led into the courtroom by a middle-aged woman. He was silvery haired, with a wispy white beard, his features withered but his eyes bright, a crucifix hanging around his neck. He looked like a fasting, meditating prophet from some religious painting. The five crucifix-wearing foreigners hastily ushered him to his place. In the defendant’s chair, Mei Yin’s eyes moistened as she saw her adoptive father arrive. When she shot him a worried glance, the old man waved and nodded reassuringly.
