by James Church
“Not especially. Although there is one thing I would like to know.”
Even with his brain half submerged in alcohol, Wu knew what was coming. His fingers tightened around the arms of the chair.
My uncle leaned into the question. “Who did you hire to kill Lu Xin at that clinic?”
I’ve seen men sober up quickly before, but never as fast as Wu did. He had himself under complete control when he answered. “You don’t want to ask me that, Inspector. First of all, I don’t know. Second of all, simply asking the question puts you in a lot of danger.”
“That’s friendly advice?”
“Beijing already thinks you never retired. Some people in MSS are sure you’re an enemy agent. Didn’t the major tell you?”
My uncle slowly drummed his fingers on the desk for what seemed a lifetime. I hate whiskey, but I never wanted a drink so bad in my life.
“What Major Bing and I discuss is not for you or anyone else to know.” It was not what I expected my uncle to say. I could tell it wasn’t what Wu expected either. “As to what Beijing thinks, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I’ve been through plenty in my life; there’s nothing left that can scare me. I think we all understand each other, and I think from this point on we’re all sort of in this together. So let’s put the remaining pieces of the puzzle on the table and see if we can make them fit, shall we?”
Wu knew it was useless to argue or even to bluff. “Sure, you can try to make the pieces fit. The problem is, just when they look like they will, they won’t. And you know why? Because Mike got greedy again, like he did in New York. He decided that if the seal was so valuable, he could keep it for himself, to forge South Korean government documents that would get him as much money as he wanted, even political access. Who needs a lousy few million? Mike tells everyone how much he hates it here in the northeast. He must have figured the seal could be his ticket up and out to better things.”
“Touching tale of social mobility.” My uncle looked at his watch. “End of story.”
“No, that was the easy part. From here on it gets complicated. I’ll summarize. Beijing dropped the operation when it pulled on a string and discovered that the seal had gone missing. From somewhere—if you ask me, it was from Lu Xin stirring the pot—the story started circulating that the North Koreans might have it. A report came in via Handout that the seal was on its way to Mongolia. This news arrived like a rocket from hell in the special MSS section running the operation. A hasty decision was made to send you, Inspector, and the major here to Mongolia to retrieve the seal, and once you did that, to get rid of both of you. That’s what Ding does for a living.”
I poured myself the rest of the whiskey.
My uncle excused himself. “It’s getting late,” he said. “Good night, Wu. Come by again some time for noodles.”
Wu stood up. “I’ll do that the next time I’m up here in the northeast, Inspector.” They shook hands, and my uncle, after a brief nod in my direction, stepped into the hall. A moment later, the side door to his workshop opened and slammed shut.
Wu drained the last drop from his glass. “Amazing man,” he said. “Well, that’s it for me, Major. We have a lot to do tomorrow. We’d both better get some sleep. I’ll see you in your office bright and early. How do you people in Jilin do it?”
“Do what?”
“Drink all the time. I guess there’s nothing else to do in winter.”
“It’s almost June.”
He looked at the empty whiskey bottle. “Must be something about this part of the country. Thanks for dinner, Major. I think I can find my way out.”
Once Wu was gone, I went back to the library and sat in the dark. I needed the chance to go over things in my head. Some of what happened over the past few weeks was clear, no nuance. Li Xun didn’t make it home; the counterfeit seal was in Mike’s pocket somewhere between my sector and South Korea. I’d never see Tuya again, and on my desk there was the same pile of unpaid bills.
The rest wasn’t so stark. Li Bo-ting had been loyal and reliable, only there was something in him I hadn’t seen. The doctor in the clinic in Mongolia knew more about suffering than he let on, but he was still the kindest man I’d ever meet. Madame Fang? Where she fit I would never know. A lot of loose threads, and I was too tired to pull on them.
Walking down the hall to my bedroom, I stopped to open the door to the courtyard for a breath of air. A light was on in the workshop, and I could hear snatches of a melancholy Korean folk song. The voice quavered, and then all was still.
Somewhere I’d read that the human eye can distinguish 500 shades of gray. Or, in the case of my uncle, 501.
Ulan Bator
July 2009
Also by James Church
A Corpse in the Koryo
Hidden Moon
Bamboo and Blood
The Man with the Baltic Stare
About the Author
JAMES CHURCH (a pseudonym) is a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DROP OF CHINESE BLOOD. Copyright ©2012 by James Church. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Church, James, 1947–
A drop of Chinese blood / James Church.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-55063-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-01792-5 (e-book)
1. National security—Korea (North)—Fiction. 2. National security—China—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. Suspense fiction. 5. Mystery fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.H88D76 2012
813'.6—dc23
2012033780
e-ISBN 9781250017925
First Edition: November 2012
