by Philip Dole
“Agreed.”
They sat in silence as the plane descended. The pilots lowered the landing gear, and the noise increased.
“Tyler.” She began softly, distracting him from the imminent landing. “When you were sleeping, something occurred to me.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“Well, it might not be as easy to satisfy Mr. Hacker as we think.”
“Really? I don’t think it will be hard to show him who Niko is.”
“That is not what I meant.” She seemed reluctant to continue. Then she began spelling it out for him. “The problem is the Pengs, right?”
“Yeah,” he answered slowly, still confused about her point. “So what? When we prove who Niko is, case closed. He’s not Peng Wu or Peng Fu.”
“But what if after they realize Niko is not a Peng, they instead jump to the conclusion that Niko works for them.” She let that sink in for a moment. “After all, he did have some of Wu’s business documents. Would not they jump to that conclusion?”
She was right, and that put everything in a different light. “Yes, they might consider that possibility. In fact, I’m sure they will.”
“And they will not transfer custody of Niko as long as they think he may be the Pengs’ associate, will they?”
“No, until they are convinced Niko was trying to undermine the Pengs rather than trying to assist them, Niko will stay put.”
“So how can we convince the authorities Niko is Wu’s enemy and actually was trying to undermine him?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.”
She sat in silence as the plane banked sharply to begin its landing approach. When the plane leveled off, she suggested, “I know one way. It is simple and may not be as difficult as you might think at first.”
She waited until he looked directly at her, giving her his undivided attention. “I have not told you, but my family has been trying to keep tabs on both of the Pengs. We know Fu is in Yangon, Myanmar where he has been in retirement ever since Wu took over the day-to-day management of most of their operations, but no one can touch him there. Wu is the one whom the U.S. government should go after. In fact, my family is looking for him right now. If we can get his location and then give it to the authorities, that should show he’s not working with Wu. And then they can deal with him.”
A puzzled look crossed his face because he didn’t see where she was headed. So she spelled it out for him. “If we can turn Wu into the authorities, it will clear up any suspicions about my brother’s loyalties.”
“Let me see if I understand you correctly. You want to hunt down a dangerous arms dealer. Really, Lei. You’re kidding. You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, of course I’m serious. Don’t you see we might have no other choice? It is the only way to persuade Hacker.” Then she grasped one of his hands and pleaded. “We need your help. I need your help. Please help me, Tyler.”
“No way, Jose. You’ve got to be out of your frickin’ mind. Tracking down an arms dealer. That’s crazy.”
Chapter Seven
The Chang residence
Prinzengracht 45
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Sunday, December 5, 2005
1:08 p.m.
The Mercedes S600 sedan pulled to a stop on the street that ran along the Prinzengracht, one of the concentric semicircle canals radiating out from the train station at Amsterdam’s center. An underground garage door opened. Tyler and Lei sat in a silence as chilly as the winter air outside. Each was waiting for an apology.
Lei alighted as soon as the uniformed driver opened her door, leaving Tyler to fend for himself. When he stepped out, he saw her approaching red columns trimmed with gold. They framed a pair of brass doors tooled with dragons and symbolic images. As he neared, the doors opened and revealed an elevator. It smelt of incense and was paneled with lustrous honey-colored wood.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so flippant. I know how much Niko means to you.” Tyler regretted the tone of his response to her plea. Lei gave him a half-shrug that matched his half-apology.
They stepped out of the elevator into a formal sitting room that also smelt of incense. Ancient Chinese tapestries graced plasterwork walls topped by a frescoed ceiling. Oriental rugs covered the ebony floor. Leaded bay windows towered two-and-a-half meters above built-in padded benches. The windows dominated the room. A marble-topped table held a hand-cut crystal vase, cascading fresh flowers. Ponderous black silk brocade furniture added to the impression the room belonged to yesteryear.
A domestic staff person appeared, bowed, and vanished. Then a mature Chinese woman entered, dressed in a silk brocade cheongsam with matching silk slippers. She hurried to Lei without uttering a word. They bowed several times, speaking in Chinese at the same time. Then the woman pulled Lei to her in a crushing Western hug. Lei stepped back and stretched out her arm. “Tyler, may I introduce my aunt, Ho Di. And this is Mr. Pierce. He is Niko’s attorney.” Aunt Di bowed and welcomed him into their home.
Aunt Di ushered them through an adjacent room similar in size and style to the first sitting room and turned into a smaller room, a den furnished contemporarily with two sofas and two loveseats fronting a gigantic stone fireplace in which a fire burned.
“May I offer you a small repast, Mr. Pierce?”
“Yes, thank you, ma’am. I slept through the meals served on the plane.”
“What would you like to drink?”
“Black coffee, please.”
Aunt Di dispatched a domestic staff person with a wave of her hand. He returned in several minutes, bearing a tray with small sandwiches and a cup of steaming coffee. Another staff person brought the women tea with sterling silver accoutrements and bone china cups.
As the women chatted in Chinese, Tyler ate and watched the fire. He loved watching fires and fell easily into a hypnotic trance. He didn’t notice the staff person refill his cup. Lei explained Niko’s plight to Aunt Di and twice intruded on Tyler’s reverie to ask questions about the American legal process.
After his snack Lei showed Tyler to his room. It had with a spacious view of the Prinsengracht. He saw a woman watering plants on the top deck of a long, low houseboat moored to the canal’s wall.
“This is Niko’s room. I thought it might help you connect with him.”
“Perhaps it will.” He thought Lei was clever to give him Niko’s room so he could examine Niko’s belongings at his leisure. Maybe he could find a snapshot or a memento that would be helpful.
“And my room is just down the hall if you need me,” she hesitated just a second before adding, “for any reason. Make yourself at home. I hope you will sleep as well in my brother’s bed as you did on the plane. I have already asked Aunt Di to gather Niko’s birth certificate and school transcripts.”
“Excellent. Thank you for getting started already. We can’t waste any time. Please see if you can set up a visit to his doctor’s office. Medical records will help confirm his identity. And also please get his dental records.” Tyler hoped Niko had old bone fractures or bridgework that would make identification easier.
Lei was willing to do whatever might help Niko. She focused on those tasks and spent the rest of Sunday afternoon gathering documents to prove Niko’s identity. On Monday Tyler interviewed Niko’s cousin and spoke with the Dutch lawyer who would be assisting him.
Tyler had asked Lei to book him on a Tuesday afternoon flight back to Hawaii. He figured that would be enough time to do everything he had to do in Amsterdam.
He had put aside his wounded feelings. She had pulled a classic “bait and switch.” And he suspected she’d planned doing it all along. It just seemed too convenient that the thought of having him help track down Wu had first popped into her head while he was asleep on a plane flying over the North Atlantic. But even if he had come to Amsterdam unde
r false pretenses, he understood he owed a professional duty to Niko and a personal commitment to the Chang family. Both require he do everything he could to help Niko.
Tyler briefly considered the possibility Hacker wouldn’t suspect Niko was Wu’s accomplice. But he dismissed it. He realized the government would never free Niko until it had convincing proof he was not helping the Pengs. Proof of Niko’s true identity wouldn’t be enough. Tyler consoled himself with the thought he was acting professionally. He had left Maui for a few days to gather critical evidence personally. Flying to Europe first class had jet-set overtones that reminded him of how his father did business. He didn’t want to follow that path.
Lei knocked softly on Niko’s door and opened it without being bidden. Tyler looked up from a mahogany desk nestled under another set of enormous leaded bay windows.
“Aloha. I thought you might be napping.”
“Not after that ten hour ‘nap’ I took on the plane. Thanks to my beautiful traveling companion. Your touch worked magic.”
“No magic, darling, just centuries of Chinese practice. Are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry. Always hungry, snores like a champ, and puts calls on speakerphones when he shouldn’t. You know all my faults.”
“Prepare yourself for an old-fashioned celebration, Chinese style. Tonight is a special occasion.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to do something special for me.”
“My, my, you are full of yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Pierce? The celebration is for my twenty-eighth birthday.”
Tyler blushed at another faux pas. Then he smiled broadly. “Congratulations, Lei. Happy Birthday. That’s wonderful. Shoot, what can I give you?” He stepped closer and held her in a friendly embrace. “May I kiss the birthday girl?”
She ignored his question. “You could give me something. You could help me find Peng Wu. I need you, Tyler. Really I do.” She stood on her tiptoes and nestled the top of her head against his neck as she laid her cheek on his chest. She squeezed him and let go without saying more. He watched her move toward the door where she turned. “Dinner is served promptly at eight-thirty.” She gestured toward an ornate brass button near the door, “Just ring for someone to show you the way when you’re ready.”
He finished sticking identifying tabs on the various documents Aunt Di had assembled. She’d summarized the content in English. Lei could get them fully translated and authenticated. Their family doctor had provided a properly identified x-ray showing the spiral leg fracture Niko had sustained skiing. And he had found a dozen pertinent photos of Niko, including one of him holding a banner in Dutch that had his name in big letters.
Tyler was confident he could convince any judge of Niko’s true identity. He’d had that job to do, and he’d done well. And he hadn’t stepped out of bounds. Despite the temptation he’d held his libido in check. He felt like a dieter who’d pushed aside a serving of favorite food. He was proud to have resisted temptation. But he still felt unfairly deprived.
Tyler showered, shaved and dressed in country club informal- a navy blazer, striped tie, button-down shirt, and khakis. Then he put on the silk slippers Lei had given him to wear indoors.
When he was ready, he summoned one of the staff to escort him to the birthday celebration. The same male staffer who had driven them from the airport appeared and escorted him to the dining room. Lei had explained her grandmother Cherry had raised her and Niko in the adjoining house. They had moved into her granduncle and grandaunt’s house after Cherry’s passing. All the houses on the canal were row houses, sharing a common wall, and he supposed the two residences had been combined long ago.
Red banners with gold lettering festooned the dining room. The large round dining table covered with a red linen tablecloth had a dozen settings although they expected only eight persons. The largest “lazy Susan” he had ever seen was surrounded by an embroidered gold collar. Red lacquered chopsticks leaned on gold rests. Tyler’s setting had gold cutlery. Gold chargers underlain white porcelain plates rimmed in gold, and each place had red linen napkins. Red tapers in the chandelier, mirrored sconces and candelabras atop credenzas and sideboards cast soft candlelight on the birthday table.
The Changs waited for their American guest in the adjoining sitting room. When he arrived, Lei gestured to a staff person who stepped forward with his lei, laid out on a sterling silver serving tray. As she explained in Chinese what he had told her about the Hawaiian custom of flower lei, Tyler draped one around every person’s neck. Lei wrapped both of her arms around one of Tyler’s. Everyone took their places around the dining table, waiting on Sunny to sit. Tyler noticed Lei’s despised uncle Hung Ho wasn’t there and wondered if he was coming at all.
Pleasant conversations in two languages crossed the round table. All made toasts with small glasses of du kang, potent Chinese liquor made from fermented millet. Tyler pretended to drink to be polite. He entertained the table, recounting the reasons he had fallen in love with Maui. Lei supplemented his narrative with her own comments.
Lei’s cousin, Jenny, admitted a fascination with the shape of heads and what they reveal about personalities.
“Excuse me for asking, Tyler, but I’m interested in phrenology. That is nineteenth century science that reveals a person’s characteristics by studying their head. And I have never had a chance to examine a shaved head. Please, Tyler, don’t be embarrassed, but may I feel your skull? Please.”
“It won’t hurt, will it?”
“Not a bit.”
“Go ahead, but leave out all the bad stuff.”
Everyone laughed. Jenny moved behind him and wiped her hands on her napkin.
“Oh, your hands are cold.”
“Sorry.” Jenny rubbed her hands vigorously. And then she ran them all over his bald head.
“What do you see? Anything interesting? But don’t look inside because it might be empty.” Everyone laughed again.
“I don’t look inside. I feel the outside, silly, and because you are bald, I can feel all the bumps. No way to hide the truth.” Jenny closed her eyes and continued caressing his skull.
“Tell me if he is trustworthy.” Lei wanted to know.
Jenny felt Tyler’s forehead and then his crown.
“I don’t know about trustworthy, but he is self-confident.” She kept moving her hands. “And courageous.”
“Will he help us?” Lei asked.
“Jenny can’t answer that question because I don’t even know,” Tyler said. “But I’ll try my best. That’s what my head tells you, isn’t it?”
Lei spoke up. “Jenny doesn’t need to answer that anyway because Tyler’s already given us his solemn word he will do everything he can to help Niko.”
Sunny raised his glass and proposed a toast to oaths of honor.
“Hear, hear,” they all said in unison.
Aunt Di noticed Tyler’s gold ring with its six rows of diamonds, two solid rows on the top and bottom and two interrupted rows in the middle. “Mr. Pierce, do you know what your interesting ring means?”
Tyler shook his head. “No, I didn’t know it had any meaning. I won it in a game of rummy with my friend, an exchange student from Hong Kong.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s Chinese. Did he ever tell you what it represents?”
“No.”
“It’s the I Ching hexagram Chung Fu. In English you would say ‘Inner Truth.’ This hexagram symbolizes a gentle wind stirring the joyous lake.”
“Oh really?”
“According to the I Ching the hexagram’s open center indicates where the heart holds its inner truth.”
“I like to believe my heart holds the truth.”
“This hexagram warns persons to search for the genuine inner truths in others’ hearts because common interests forge bonds that can obscure reality. Only bonds that are based on the heart’s genuine trut
h can endure.
“The I Ching advises the superior man to go beyond superficial appearances to grasp the genuine inner truth in others’ hearts.”
“Thank you very much, Aunt Di. That’s excellent advice. I’ll remember it.”
Lei approached each family member one by one. They bowed and took their turn addressing Lei at some length. Then each handed her a red envelope which she later explained contained birthday gifts of money, another Chinese tradition.
Tyler ate heartily of the unfamiliar and delicious dishes, going back for three portions. Although Sunny said little, he presided with dignity over what had been an enjoyable meal until Hung Ho appeared. He came an hour late. He brought palpable tension to the room, barking at the staff who cowered in the shadows. Aunt Di said something that prompted Hung Ho to rebuke her harshly. Lei cringed. Hung Ho deferred to Sunny, but he lorded over the others. He was abrasive and brusque. He didn’t seem to care he was spoiling Lei’s celebration.
“Please excuse my uncle. He’s been entertaining business associates which means he’s been drinking, obviously a little too much.”
Hung Ho exploded. A blood vessel popped out on his head, zigzagging across his forehead and disappearing under a thatch of hair dyed as black as coal. His face, already flushed with alcohol, darkened to purple.
He responded in English, probably so Tyler could understand. “What did you say? In my own house you dare to apologize for my behavior to this American monkey with a phallic head. You, the mongrel granddaughter of a whore, dare to apologize for me, you impudent bitch.” He yanked the napkin from his collar and threw it down on the table. “It is I who should apologize to the world for you and your corrupted heritage. It is our eternal misfortune your polluted mother did not die before she compounded your grandmother’s shame. You will never be able to wash out your English blood no matter what you do.”
