China Dolls

by Rob Wood

  “Well, I suppose we better forget the container ships and look for our ride among the smaller boats out past the commercial docks,” said Purdy. “Beyond that, I have no idea what we’re going to find or how to find it.”

  They walked up and down piers. They climbed up and down steel catwalks. The harbor was fogged in with the odor of fish, smoke, oil, and damp concrete.

  “Well, at least we’re thorough,” said Cochrane, perspiration on her forehead and upper lip.

  “Yeah, going boat by boat,” said Purdy, “wearing out the shoe leather.”

  “Say!” said Cochrane suddenly, “that’s real pretty. What do you suppose that is?”

  She pointed to a black arc lying low in the water. It may have, in truth, been 80 feet long, but it looked like the prow alone ran out for a mile or more.

  Purdy whistled. “That’s a custom job. Open cockpit, considerable area below decks. Looks like a couple of hog-size diesel engines from Caterpillar Marine. Bet she does 60 knots.”

  “And I’m betting that’s our ride,” said Cochrane.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Purdy. “What makes you think so?”

  “It’s got your name on it.”

  Written in blazing script on the stern were the words, “Yue Fei.”

  “Just like your scroll, sailor.”

  “Yue Fei. The warrior poet. I remember.”

  They approached the boat and were greeted by a Chinese wearing military fatigues. His short stature, bull-neck, stout arms, and a torso with no discernible waist, made it look as if the fatigues were draped over a boulder.

  “Yeah?” he scowled at them.

  “We were looking for a ride,” said Purdy.

  “I don’t charter.”

  “We were hoping you’d give us a freebie. Lily Zhang sent us.”

  “Don’t know her.”

  “I’m Lieutenant James Purdy. This is Constance Cochrane.”

  The Chinese did not relax any of his hostility. He stared hard, then retrieved a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. He glanced at it and glowered back at Purdy, seeming to review every square millimeter of his face.

  “Where is your home, Lieutenant Purdy?” He sounded like a grumpy game show host.

  “Fostoria, Ohio,” Purdy replied evenly, wondering what this was all about.

  “And who is Bob Feller?”

  “Bob who?” sputtered Cochrane.

  Purdy’s chuckle started out small and kind of escalated into a full-blown laugh.

  When it had passed, he smiled back at the Chinese skipper.

  “Bob Feller was the winningest pitcher in the history of the Cleveland Indians.”

  The Chinese, still glowering into his piece of paper, hesitated a moment, then nodded, “Come aboard. There’s a cabin below decks with a water closet. Each of you buckle into a life preserver, please. When we hit top speed, you’ll feel the bounce. The life vests reassure some people.”

  As soon as they had cleared the main deck, they heard the engines chug and the swish of water stirred by the propeller blades. They were moving out. Once they were out of the harbor, the engine chug morphed into a roar, and they knifed through the water with twin rooster tails arcing up aft. The bow bounced on the incoming ocean swells, so that Cochrane and Purdy were tossed into each other’s arms, rolling on the bed. This was a circumstance that didn’t altogether displease Purdy, who was surprised at the feelings he was developing for his partner.

  They stayed below decks for hours while their marine roadster skipped over the ocean. They slept a little—but only a little. The roar of the engines was at least constant, but the bounce was random, jarring and disconcerting.

  In the early morning hours, they felt the boat slow, while the engine roar ratcheted back to a chug. They bounded up the ladder to the deck where chalk sticks of light descended from a dark shape above them, pooling into ovals that slipped back and forth along the deck, moving with the rise and fall of the boat in the swell of ocean.

  Looming above them, they could make out the hull of another, larger boat, rising blue out of the water and turning cream toward the forepeak and main deck. This then, thought Cochrane, was their rendezvous with Lily Zhang’s fishing trawler. As the Pacific sun broke over the horizon, they glimpsed the wheelhouse bristling with antennae, a gantry dripping with fishing lines, and cranes outfitted with hydraulic winches on the aft deck.

  They bumped down the length of the Yue Fei toward the stern where one of the trawler’s cranes swung out and dropped a mess of stout rope on the speedboat deck. The rope collapsed from a teardrop to a sprawl of lines. Their Chinese skipper helped pull it out into a perfect octagon, a spiderweb of rope running out from a rubber circle in the center.

  “In here,” he gestured toward the circle.

  Purdy and Cochrane stood close together in the center, Purdy fighting the desire to clasp his arms protectively around Cochrane. The ropes around them were winched up so that Purdy and Cochrane were caught in a mesh bag, holding on to the grid of rope. Up they went, swaying slowly, to be deposited on the trawler deck more than 15 feet above them.

  There they were met by a small detail of sailors dressed identically in blue jumpsuits.

  “I’m Chang. I’m a boat master for Zhang Enterprises,” said a burly Chinese, sticking out his hand. “I work a number of boats for Zhang.” He nodded at the main superstructure rising from the deck, a two-story block clad in marine steel with wrap-around panels of glass at the topmost level. “Our Captain is occupied presently in the wheelhouse.” Turning back, he finished the introductions—“This is Yuan Jun, one of our deckhands, and this nguoi tau apprentice is Li Yuchon. He will show you to your quarters where you will find boots and clothes—everything necessary to turn you into trawler fishermen. Just follow him.”

  Li Yuchon did not offer a handshake. Instead, he inclined his head forward and slightly to one side, pursing his lips as if contemplating Purdy and Cochrane as he would an exotic painting in the national art museum. He swept a hand back and flounced his soft brown hair, cut in a poufy shag. He said nothing. He turned on his heel and was off.

  Following him across the deck, down the companionway and through the passageway to their cabin was, thought Purdy, what it must feel like to follow someone down a runway at a fashion show. Li Yuchon, slender as a reed, filled his jumpsuit with a rhythmic sway, just as if it were a Dior gown.

  “Whew!” whistled Purdy, once they were safely ensconced in their cabin, “that was interesting. I’d like to see him do that in a heavy sea.”

  “Knock it off, Purdy,” warned Cochrane, “that’s probably one very unhappy kid.”

  “Li Yuchon?”

  “Well, I doubt that’s his real name. He either took that name—or they gave it to him—in imitation of the singer who’s all the rage in China now. They call her the mother of unisex.”

  “Never heard of him . . . or her,” Purdy shook his head.

  “Her!” muttered Cochrane. “You know anything about entertainment? How about Dani Shay, Rebecca Black, or Selena Gomez?”

  “No. No. And no.”

  “Get a life, Purdy. And while you’re at it, add a dose of compassion. How would you like to be a kid experimenting with sexual identity onboard a fishing trawler of all places? You know, when the boat master called him ‘nguoi tau?’ That was kind of a slam. It’s an Asian slang term for boat person, but it’s basically derogatory.”

  “Geez, this is like summer camp. We had assholes in Fostoria, too, Cochrane—even if our musical tastes ran to Lawrence Welk.”

  “Assholes are the same all over the world.” Cochrane cracked a wry smile to show there were no hard feelings. “You know I did a 200-page paper on that topic.”

  Once they had showered and changed into the regulation trawler issue—rubber boots, hard hats, and blue jumpsuits—Purdy and Cochrane went topside, where they were greeted by Boat Master Chang.

  Chang pointedly directed his conversation to Purdy. “Lieutenant, if you’d car
e to come up with me to the bridge, perhaps you could radio the Vinson. You could coordinate the rendezvous.”

  “Lieutenant Purdy and I would be pleased to do so,” replied Cochrane, intent on illustrating that the Vinson had a team of two on board.

  The part of the trawler bridge devoted to operations and communications looked like NASA Central. Purdy let out an involuntary whistle.

  There were monitors that followed the trim of the drag nets, and monitors keeping tabs on the engines, compressors, and temperature in the hold. A Sestrel MK 12 magnetic compass interfaced with the autopilot. In addition, there was a Sperry SR 50 gyro compass, PhoneTech intercom, Furuno radar, a fish finding echo sounder, an impressive SSB transceiver, a satellite link, and an SP radio.

  “Hey Purdy,” Cochrane elbowed him, “look over here.”

  On the far wall there was a weapons cache with rack-mounted rifles, scopes, field glasses, and ammunition magazines, ready to lock and load.

  “What do they need those for?” asked Cochrane. “Do they shoot the fish?”

  Just then a claxon somewhere overhead blared out a ululating wail, and the communications area flickered red and white, catching the reflection of turret lights spinning outside.

  “Go se!” cursed Chang. “Pirates!”

  25

  QUESTIONS

  Lily Zhang had let her hair grow long and straight, cutting it diagonally across her forehead about an inch over her eyes. She looked like an Anime cartoon. Beneath the dark slash, her eyes shone big and bewildered. She huddled inside a pink plastic raincoat belted over jeans. She stamped her foot, exhibiting a worn brown loafer.

  “But I am a good worker!” she told the guard. “I come from Hubei. Everyone knows that girls from Hubei are good workers. No boyfriend. Just work!”

  “Go to a job fair,” said the guard. He was a grim-faced old man in a baggy uniform and spoke to her from inside the golf cart he used to patrol the perimeter of the Sunrise Biodiesel plant.

  Lily gestured at Simon Raj, who seemed totally absorbed in studying the ground in front of him. “My father—you see him! He tells me I must work and send money home.”

  There was a big, billboard-size sign at the gate, improbably showing a housewife and her son dancing with a robot. In Chinese and English, it said, “The future is Sunrise Biodiesel!”

  “SB doesn’t hire here,” said the guard. “Go to a job fair.” He crawled back into his golf cart and started to chug off.

  Lily followed him down the perimeter of the fence, running through mud and calf-high grass.

  “But I want to work here! Green energy to make China clean and strong!”

  “Job fair,” the guard said.

  “Please can I talk to job boss—woman who gives job?” wailed Lily.

  “No such person here.”

  Lily ran after him, following the fence line. She ran in a wobbly, pigeon-toed bounce. A hapless young girl. A futile attempt. The golf cart rapidly outdistanced her. Lily walked back maybe half a mile to the gate and then continued on, sometimes going up to the fence, curling her fingers through the links, and staring in. Her body just sagged, a metaphor for a young girl’s dashed dreams.

  She trudged back to the gate where she hugged Simon Rai. Together they walked off, Lily resting her head on his shoulder.

  “Did you get some good photos?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I think so. But this is a real puzzle.”

  “Tell me.”

  “When we traced Cao’s investment in Shanghai Fittings and Valves, that at least made sense. An old established company. Good contacts in the shipping industry.”

  “And you don’t feel good about Sunrise Biodiesel?”

  “First of all, this is a start-up operation. Second, it feels wrong. The place reminds me of one of your movie sets. Built to impress. Just look at the tank farm!”

  “All leaf and no persimmons.” said Lily.

  “It’s a big tank farm,” repeated Raj.

  “Sure. It can hold a lot of feedstock and product, but it’s not scaled with the rest of the plant. For example, they’ve only got four 50-kilogram treatment towers and filter pots.”

  “What do those do?” asked Raj.

  “Biodiesel needs to be washed before it can be safely used in most engines. Washing and ‘polishing’ is essential for removing excess lye and other contaminants. The set up they’ve got just won’t handle much volume. And you notice we saw only one truck load and leave while we were here.”

  “The security filings said he intends to ship via pipeline.”

  “Possibly. But the prospectus also said the Colonel’s going to wholesale to PLA buyers. They’re pretty finicky customers. You don’t want fighter jets flying around on fuel that’s been contaminated in a pipeline.”

  “Could that happen?”

  “It could happen.”

  “The security filing also said he expects to sustain a 30 percent gross margin.” Raj tested that statement on his boss.

  “We can’t do that at Zhang Fuels,” said Lily. “Nobody I know can do that. The only way that happens is if your feedstock costs remain stable and your product price goes through the roof.”

  “Well, you said he seemed convinced oil prices were going to jump in the future. Wouldn’t that make bio-alternatives look good?”

  “Maybe. Feedstock costs would still rise.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. Like you said, it’s a puzzle.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Keep looking around. If you need to get in touch with me, Raj, go through the Xinjiang contacts. I promised the Americans I’d do them a favor. I’ll be banging heads on the border.”

  “Where the hell are Purdy and Cochrane?” Izquidero barked. She was sitting in the U.S. consulate office in Hong Kong. She was hooked up on a hot line to Brian Partridge aboard the Vinson. And she was not happy. Her general level of testiness was read in the way her hands shook as she tore open a tiny foil pouch of Prilosec.

  “The last we had them they were in Beijing,” Partridge said in a gravelly voice. He was feeling sleep-deprived. “They flew there from Hong Kong, thinking they had a lead on Lily Zhang. “

  “So, the answer is: you don’t know where they are,” Izquidero said bitterly. “Did they make Zhang in Beijing?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “You don’t know much, do you? Do we know where Zhang is?”

  “We don’t. Do you?” Partridge couldn’t help himself. The sarcasm just seeped out. He didn’t like being cross-examined by this testy tough-guy who happened to be a woman.

  “I wouldn’t be asking if I did,” said Izquidero shortly. “It’s easy enough when she’s being a film celebrity, but when she’s attending to other business, it’s tough. We had her last in Beijing, then she dropped off the map. But back to our people. You know that shortly after our last contact there was some kind of dust-up involving government security officers around the Lusongyuan Hotel in Beijing?”

  “You get a lot of Western tourists there,” Partridge said. “They could have gone there for cover,” he suggested.

  “They could have,” Izquidero nodded to the disembodied voice from the Vinson. “Xinhua News is saying there was, and I quote, ‘a spectacular and destructive rampage by members of the Falun Gong’ in that neighborhood. Retail shops were damaged. A bomb went off. A multi-vehicle traffic accident resulted in loss of life and several injuries.”

  “Falun Gong?” Partridge’s tone signaled doubt. “That’s not likely. They’re peaceful. They believe in spiritual release through meditation and contemplative exercise—not mayhem. Doesn’t sound like them.” He paused. “But Purdy has been known to mix it up a bit. And Cochrane’s a firecracker.”

  “Falun gong.” Izquidero shook her head. “That’s just what Xinhua is saying. I don’t believe it. Other people are whispering that the targets were ‘round-eyes.’”

  “Westerners?”

  “Could be, but there’s other speculation
that it was a crackdown on Uighurs. The World Uighur Congress—the group of exiles working for Xinjiang separatism—is only too happy to suggest that their people may be targets of government harassment.”

  “So, where does that leave us?”

  “In the dark, as usual.”

  “What does your gut tell you.”

  Izquidero lit a cigarette. “This Lusongyuan Hotel incident happened just about the time Zhang dropped off the map, and we lost contact with Purdy and Cochrane. It’s extremely circumstantial, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We’ll touch base with the staffers at the U. S. Embassy in Beijing. We’ll talk to our friends working news bureaus there. We’ll do our best to find out what happened around the Lusongyuan Hotel. But that still may not get our people back. I hope to God they check in—just for the sake of my ulcer. Anything you’d suggest doing, Partridge?’

  “What about the CIA?”

  “The CIA. . .” Izquidero paused, trying to phrase it right. “I’m not sure they’re on the same page with us. Anything else?”

  At the other end of the line, Partridge said nothing, but his lips mouthed the word, “Pray.”

  26

  MAKING FRIENDS

  “You can understand why we vet persons such as yourself.”

  The voice, although pitched persuasively low, had a hard edge to it that contrasted with the comfortable Sheraton wing chairs, stuffed ottoman, and faux American hospitality. Cao Kai swirled the two fingers of whiskey in his glass. Somewhere—perhaps in the ceiling sconces or the walnut library shelves—there were cameras and microphones following the whole exchange.

  “And you can understand why a debriefing is important,” the man continued. He was large and comfortably built. Although he was not even middle-aged, already the man’s close-cropped hair was receding quickly up the furrowed brow, giving him the look of a Buddha with big ears. This Buddha with the persuasive voice toyed with an expensive smartphone as if it were an amulet. He wore a dark suit and regimental tie.

  “So, this is the CIA?” Cao thought to himself. Another personal discovery: he could do this; he could handle the handler. As his confidence grew, his mind wandered. “I really like that walnut armoire,” Cao mused, “I wonder how I could get one? And where can you go to buy several yards of leather-bound books?”