Sunshine or Lead
Page 1
“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” - Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
Copyright © 2014 by Adam Van Susteren. All rights reserved. Revised Second Edition.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014913482
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC
ISBN-13: 978-1500549800
ISBN-10: 1500549800
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual person, organization, event, or locale does not mean to imply any real actions, occurrences, or endorsement of any part of this book.
Edited by Ann Van Susteren
The Aaron Baker Series by Adam Van Susteren
Wounded By Her Guardian
Sunshine or Lead
The Dinosaur Lawyer
Sunshine
Or
Lead
An Aaron Baker novel by:
Adam Van Susteren
Chapter 1
It was Friday July 13 and Tina Lee was bringing a box of Aaron Baker’s files from his office down to his car. On her way outside of the building a familiar face opened the door for her. It was Xiaowan Lerma, the wife of one of Aaron’s closest friends.
“Thank you Xiaowan. What a nice surprise.”
“Can I help with that?”
“I think I got it,” Tina responded and walked with Xiaowan to Aaron’s car. Xiaowan reached out and took the box while Tina opened the trunk.
Xiaowan noticed a sparkle on Tina’s hand and exclaimed with her ever remaining Chinese accent, “So pretty! Congratulations!”
“Thanks. He did well,” Tina said while happily admiring the sparkle after getting the box in the trunk. “And thanks for the help.”
Xiaowan’s face quickly lost the joy of the moment. “I’m here for a legal question with Aaron. Do you mind if I talk with him for a couple hours?”
“We are kind of busy…” Tina began to say, but after recognizing fear and apprehension in Xiaowan’s face, she smiled warmly. “Sure. You know what, I’m going to bring lunch over to my friend Peter at the salon and see if he can squeeze me in for a cut. Tell Aaron I’ll call him in an hour or two. Oh, can you bring these up to him?”
“Thanks Tina.” Xiaowan accepted Aaron’s car keys from Tina and headed towards the office where Tina just came from.
Xiaowan headed inside the building and took the elevator up to the third floor of four. She walked into Aaron’s office. She didn’t see anyone inside the front office space but heard someone rustling in one of the private offices to her left.
Aaron heard the door open and called out, “That was fast Tina.”
“It’s not Tina. It’s Xiaowan.”
Aaron Baker thought Tina, being Chinese herself, might have been making some sort of fresh off the boat accent joke that he didn’t understand so he popped his head out of the office. “Oh. Hi.”
Xiaowan looked at him with urgency in her eyes. “Aaron Baker, I need your help.”
Aaron was wearing tan cargo shorts, a red polo shirt, and tennis shoes for packing and moving; he was not expecting to meet any clients. The artwork was all down off the walls and boxes were filled with files and books that he would let the movers load and drive up to his new home until he found his new office. He surveyed the empty office. “Sorry it’s a mess, come on in and let’s see if I can help.”
“Thanks Aaron.”
Aaron felt a little awkward as she approached because normally when they saw each other they were at social situations and greeted each other with a hug. But this was different, more formal; she even said his name before asking for help. Ever wary from his last adventure, Aaron looked at her purse. “Do you have your cell phone on you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you either please take the battery out of it or leave it on that counter there before we start talking?”
Xiaowan fumbled through her purse and left her phone on the counter then followed Aaron into his office and he shut the door. “Why do you want my phone outside?”
“I have learned that conversations are monitored without warrants at an alarmingly high rate. The right to privacy has been so eroded that if you have anything sensitive to say I want to make sure we have true confidentiality.”
In the month that Aaron had been back in his office, he had started to break his addiction to his cell phone by giving up his smart phone. He bought a dozen prepaid dumb phones and set his office number to forward calls to his cell phone. It wasn’t a guarantee for privacy but it was a huge help according to a new mysterious friend from the National Security Agency that he corresponded with via text message.
Aaron referred to this mystery friend as Ozzy, short for Ozymandias in the poem by Percy Shelley where a man comes across a broken half-buried statue in the desert that no doubt one day had been impressive. On it, a plaque reads, ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Aaron appreciated the reminder that he was able to help topple a regime, the mighty works of former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Montgomery Singe.
Ever since that adventure, Aaron routinely had his office swept for recording devices. His perceived paranoia was confirmed just two days ago when an audio transmitter was found in his office. He text messaged a picture of it to Ozzy, who speculated that it was placed by an amateur. It was likely placed by a newspaper trying to get a scoop on something juicy and so was probably not much to be concerned with. Even so, it spooked Aaron and he started taking additional measures to ensure his and his clients’ privacy.
Aaron peaked into a few boxes. “Please have a seat, I’m just trying to find a pen and pad.” After a long twenty seconds, he found them and sat down across the desk from Xiaowan.
“Where do I start?”
Aaron clicked his ballpoint pen. “At the beginning.”
“Before I get there, I want you to know that I love my husband very much. And that’s why I need your help. And this is all confidential?”
Aaron nodded. “I won’t even tell James or Tina unless you tell me I can.”
Xiaowan sighed. “I guess it started back in 1988 when Li Peng became the Premier of the People’s Republic of China. You might call him Prime Minister; it is like our President but with more power. I was thirteen years old and was a straight A student and a second tier elite gymnast. If I was just a little better, I would have been in the Olympics and would never have made it to the U.S.”
Aaron jotted this down on his paper and listened intently. “Do you know what Li Peng is most famous for?”
“No.”
“He created the Three Gorges Dam and authorized a force to quell the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Do you know what happened in Tiananmen Square?”
“Yes, some protestors were shot. Kind of like what happened at Kent State here in the United States in the 70s, right?”
“Well, not exactly. At Kent State, you had a handful of people killed by some soldiers without direct orders from the President. At Tiananmen Square, Premier Peng authorized martial law that resulted in one thousand protestors being killed.”
“Wow.” Aaron shook his head somberly. “I didn’t realize it was that big.”
“Yes. So it’s important to understand the consequences of disloyalty when understanding my story. And do you know anything about the Three Gorges Dam?”
“Biggest dam in the world. On a river. I’d guess that creates a ton of power. A modern wonder of the world, right?”
“That’s right. Premier Peng started construction on it in the 90s. The controversies of its success are not important for my story, but what happened before it is. In t
he 1940s, a United States engineer drew up plans for a dam on the Yangtze River. Fifty Chinese engineers went to the United States for training and then started drawing plans for the river.”
Aaron listened intently, focusing on her story more than taking down notes.
“It was Li Peng’s predecessor Li Xiannian, I think, that started a program to try to get information from other countries to help China. The Three Gorges Dam project would need turbines built by America’s General Electric or Germany’s Siemens. Li Xiannian wanted to be able to rely upon Chinese manufacturers for projects like this and started an official carrot and stick program for Chinese kids to go to foreign countries. You know carrot and stick?”
Aaron nodded. “Sure. When you want to encourage the horse to move forward, you offer a reward of a carrot. And if the horse doesn’t move, you hit it with the stick. Two methods to get to the end result.”
Xiaowan asked that question so she would have a second to breathe and gather herself before she had to continue. She had never told anyone what she was about to say. She inhaled some courage. “That’s right. There was an official program to reward families who would send excellent, but not exceptionally excellent, children to be educated and live primarily in the United States, but also in Europe, Canada, and Japan. Their families would be given favors and the child leaving China would receive a monthly allowance and have their education paid for.”
“The carrot.”
Xiaowan nodded.
“The stick?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. But the program was started by Li Xiannian, who was advisor to Li Peng. Premier Peng gave the order for tanks to kill a thousand citizens just for protesting in the 1980s. This is not some emperor in the 1400s, not some secret assassination, but a brazen mass killing of his own citizens in 1989. I was a freshman in high school here in the States, listening to Michael Jackson. For my entire life I have been very afraid of their stick.”
Aaron starting putting pieces together but wanted a bit more information. In dozens of depositions and interviews, Aaron learned to make a silence last because the other person would often volunteer information to end the uncomfortable silence. This time the technique was working too well, Xiaowan trembled uncomfortably. Aaron wanted to soothe her pain so he ripped off the band-aid. “Xiaowan, are you a Chinese spy?”
Tears overflowed from her eyes as she blinked them out. Her trembling stopped as she closed her eyes and focused her nervous energy into rapidly shaking her head and whole body in a vertical motion in affirmation. She rocked like this for several seconds.
Aaron’s mind swam through a sea of conflicts. ‘Get up and hug her? Call one of his best friends, her husband James?’ Aaron remembered that she and James celebrated their one year anniversary by attending a naturalization ceremony when she became an American citizen. His mind then flashed back to the charges and how he could help her. He understood this could possibly be treason, the only crime enumerated in the Constitution and punishable by death.
Xiaowan worked at Ameriprobe, the largest biotech and pharmaceutical company in the biotech hotbed that is San Diego, CA. Aaron wondered if this could be espionage to the level of treason or maybe just a potential breach of a confidentiality agreement. After letting his mind swim for a few seconds he realized he had to pull his head out of the water and try to soothe her. “We’ll figure this out, Xiaowan. Trust me, we’ll figure something out.”
Her rocking slowed and she choked out, “Aaron, I’ve lived with that secret for twenty-five years. I came to the U.S. when I was thirteen and haven’t talked about it with anyone else. I forget about it most days. I mean, I had forgotten about it until I was contacted last week.”
“By whom?”
She reached into her purse to find her phone and realized she left it outside. “Do you remember my wedding? I was going to show you a picture of it.”
“Sure, I remember your wedding. It was a lot of fun. Great times,” Aaron said with a soft smile.
At that comment she wanted to completely break down into a sobbing mess, but instead she gathered her composure. “And that’s why I’m here to see you. I love my husband and I love this country. I want him to be safe and to get through this.”
“Let’s figure out where to start. You said that you were just contacted. What happened?”
“There was a man at my wedding. He came in with my family and I thought he was a distant cousin. My parents introduced him as a cousin that they said I should remember from my childhood. He is younger than me, so I didn’t think much of it that I didn’t remember him. When I saw him last week, his face was not familiar. I couldn’t place him from my wedding five years ago.”
“Okay, good. There was a man who might be a cousin who came back into your life after five years. Where did you see him recently?”
“I was pumping gas when this guy who came into the gas station right behind me said in Mandarin, ‘Cousin Xiaowan, it’s me, Zhou from China here for a holiday,’” she said in a deeper voice. “He then came over to give me a hug and whispered in my ear that the program has a request for me.”
“What was it?”
“Ameriprobe’s influenza research.”
“The flu?”
“Yes. Ameriprobe, like every other major pharma company, is working on a competitor to Genentech’s somewhat successful anti-viral flu treatment drug called Tamiflu. Every pharma is looking for ways to fight viruses. Usually for the flu, the best that can be done is to develop a vaccine that works by exposing someone to mild doses of a few particular strains of inactive influenza virus so the body creates antibodies. Then if the person is exposed to that particular strain of the flu virus, the body is ready to fight it off with the antibodies without ever getting very sick. In the United States, people generally think it’s a few days of missed work, but did you know that nearly half a million people die every year from the different strains of influenza in the world?”
“I had no idea it was really deadly. I always thought it was like a really terrible three-day hangover with hot flashes that I would pay a lot to get rid of. Is Ameriprobe close to a cure?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not in the labs so I don’t know if there is something promising, but there is nothing that I know of. I help with balancing budgets and ensuring funding for research is allocated correctly for long-term sustainability. While I have a master’s in biochemistry and can understand a lot of what the scientists do, I am not specialized and trained for the research. The key research is done by MD-DVMs.”
“I don’t even know what a MD-DVM is.”
“Medical Doctor and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Useful for animal studies and how the drugs will transfer to humans. Even if Ameriprobe’s research into the flu doesn’t yield a cure, it could still be incredibly valuable if it can be a better vaccine for humans and animals. In China, there are huge problems every year with swine flu in pigs and avian flu in chickens. As quickly as China is developing, it is hard to go from small ranches to the massive food farms that have grown over time here in the United States.”
Aaron acknowledged proudly, “The specialization and trade from our free markets have created prosperity that is the envy of the world.”
“Yes. And every other year we hear about a hoof and mouth or mad cow outbreak in Europe, a swine or bird flu in Asia, but almost never anything serious here.”
Aaron pondered that for a while thinking about how rare it was for that kind of outbreak in the United States. She interrupted his thought. “Our scientists in the lab think the United States is special because there is so much land and fresh water that when diseases are found we are quick to quarantine and prevent a mass contagion. But the obvious implication of Ameriprobe’s research and vaccine would be the usefulness of preventing all sorts of viruses. If the research bears fruit, it would lead to a trillion dollar global marketplace for the drug.”
Aaron leaned his head back slightly. “Trillion with a T?”
Sh
e nodded. “A cure for the flu could be useful for every man, woman, child, and animal on the planet. The offshoots of a successful anti-viral could be used to help find cures for many other currently incurable viruses. Over the lifetime of the patent, twenty years from filing in the United States, the global marketplace for such a drug could literally make it the world’s first trillion dollar drug.”
“And the Chinese government wants you to steal this research?”
Xiaowan nodded.
“How did the Chinese know twenty-five years ago when they sent you here for high school that you would possibly uncover something so big?”
“I wonder the same thing. I have been afraid to Google Chinese espionage for fear of being monitored, not only by the Chinese, but I’m sure Ameriprobe has alerts for certain searches on its computer systems at the office too. So there is much I don’t know. What I know is there is no way cousin Zhou bumped into me at the gas station without first following me for some time.”
“You haven’t stolen any secrets yet?”
“No. I am supposed to meet with Zhou tomorrow morning at my house.”
“That’s great. I think this means you haven’t committed a crime. If I remember my criminal law, conspiracy to commit a crime involves a conspiracy and act in furtherance. I don’t think you’ve broken the law yet.”
Xiaowan looked at him. “I’m not as worried about the American laws as I am the Chinese stick.”
“Is there a way to get out of this meeting? If they are following you now, they will probably put some monitoring devices in your house if it hasn’t already been done. These days, the technology to video and audio record, and even track with satellites, is truly scary. There’s a good chance that he knows you’re here now, which you might have to be prepared to explain.” Aaron thought about the recording device he recently found in his office.
“I might have to do what they ask. The carrot was my life with James. The stick… These people killed a thousand Chinese citizens just for protesting peacefully. What would they do to me and James? Niáng and Diē?”