Flower Net

by Lisa See

  Gray winter light filtered into the drab room. It was sparsely outfitted with a proletarian metal desk, two swivel chairs, a telephone, a bookcase lined with notebooks, and a single file drawer, which she kept locked. The only decorations on the walls were a calendar left over from last year and a hook on which to hang her jacket. The room was chilly—most government buildings in the capital were—so she kept her coat on and her muffler draped around her shoulders as she sat down at her desk to write her report.

  Five hours later, as frigid darkness settled on the city, Liu Hulan still worked at her desk. The phone rang. “Wei?” she said into the receiver.

  A voice said, “You’re wanted in the vice minister’s office. Please come immediately.” The caller didn’t wait for a response.

  Hulan sat in the anteroom of the vice minister’s office for a half-hour before being summoned inside. She stepped into the room and, not for the first time, marveled at its richness. The crimson carpet felt plush and thick under her feet. A Ming dynasty altar table served as a credenza. On it were gaily painted ceramic cups each with its own ceramic top to keep tea warm, an oversized flowered thermos, which Hulan assumed was filled with tea, and a tin of Danish sugar cookies. Several straight-backed chairs lined the walls. The windows were covered with red velvet drapes edged with thick gold trim.

  At the center of the room was a desk. On her side, two overstuffed chairs, upholstered in a deep blue velvet, angled toward each other. On the backs and arms were tatted antimacassars. In one chair sat her immediate supervisor and the head of her work unit, Section Chief Zai. Behind the desk, Vice Minister Liu leveled his enigmatic gaze on his daughter.

  “You may sit down,” he said.

  Hulan did as she was told, then waited. She knew that silence was one of her father’s favorite ways of making people ill at ease. Although she had known both men her entire life and saw both weekly and sometimes daily, it had been many months since she was last in their company at the same time. Her father looked prosperous, as usual. His suit was natty—probably custom-made in Hong Kong. The appearance he presented gave no hint of the hardships of his life. His hair was still black, his face unlined, and his back rigid. He was lean, sinewy, and still strong. Like many in his generation, he wore severe black-framed glasses. Other than this last concession to his age, he looked to Hulan every inch the smooth politician as he feigned disinterest in their presence and impatiently tapped a stack of papers with the sharp tip of a pencil. Section Chief Zai—her father’s old friend—brooded in his chair. His suit bagged at all the wrong places, his cuffs were frayed, his hair was mostly gray. He looked more beaten down than usual, and Hulan wondered if his pallor was due to illness.

  Finally Vice Minister Liu looked up. “I have been wondering about your progress with the case of the death of the son of the American ambassador. No one has been arrested.”

  “This is correct, Vice Minister Liu,” Hulan said.

  Section Chief Zai cleared his throat. “We understood that the ministry did not want our department to pursue this matter.”

  The vice minister waved his hand, as if dispersing a bad smell. “I am waiting for Inspector Liu to explain herself.”

  Zai sank deeper into his chair.

  “What we know is this,” Hulan began, “Billy Watson was found in Bei Hai Lake. Pathologist Fong and I did not believe that it was an accident. I requested that he perform a full autopsy. The boy’s parents did not want us to go ahead with this.”

  “And yet,” Vice Minister Liu observed, “I see from the file that you disregarded their wish in this instance.”

  “Yes, I did,” Hulan admitted. “I took it upon myself to authorize the autopsy. I did not plan to attend, but after Pathologist Fong opened the body, he asked me to come to his laboratory. The boy showed no outward signs of physical deterioration. Pathologist Fong expected this, as the body had been frozen and therefore preserved. However, what he found inside the boy gave us considerable cause for concern. The postmortem showed damage to all of his major organs. They had begun to liquefy. Clusters of capillaries had burst in several of his organs. The worst damage was in his lungs, which showed hemorrhaging and a buildup of other fluids in addition to general deterioration. Pathologist Fong concluded that the immediate cause of death was that the boy had drowned in his own blood.”

  “What would cause that?”

  “We have no idea. Pathologist Fong found a strange residue on the lung and esophageal linings. As the vice minister knows, Pathologist Fong was unable to complete his investigation.”

  “But what does he suspect?”

  “He doesn’t like to speculate, but it must have been a very strong poison. There’s no doubt that the boy’s death was not an accident, but the American ambassador was not interested in these facts.” Hulan hesitated, then added, “But you know all of this, Vice Minister. You spoke with Ambassador Watson yourself. The order to release the body to the Americans came from you.”

  Vice Minister Liu changed the subject. “A delicate situation has arisen. I’m sure that you have heard about the death of the son of Guang Mingyun. Officially, the boy’s body was found in U.S. territory, but those foreign devils, they believe that the boy died here, in China. None of this would be our concern, except that there are some similarities between the two deaths.”

  Hulan sneaked a glance at Mr. Zai, who remained silent. Again Hulan spoke. “What similarities?”

  “Apparently the foreign devils have also discovered—what did you call it?—a strange residue in the boy’s lungs.” Vice Minister Liu held up a hand to keep Hulan and Zai from interrupting him. “I won’t explain the rest now. What matters is that Guang Mingyun is as important a man to us as Ambassador Watson is to the Americans. Because of who these boys were, our two governments have agreed to ally themselves to each other so we might look for the person who committed these crimes. The ministry has decided that Inspector Liu—because of her experience with foreigners and her facility with their language—should work with them.”

  Hulan and Zai took this news in stunned silence. Neither could remember a single instance when law enforcement agencies from the two countries had worked together successfully. The only previous joint effort—the infamous “Goldfish” case—had ended in disaster. The Chinese had arrested, convicted, and sentenced a man, Ding Yao, for his involvement in the drug trade. The DEA had asked that he be sent to the United States to testify against the people implicated on that side of the Pacific. The Americans promised that nothing could go wrong. But as soon as Ding Yao took the stand, he asked for political asylum. The American judge ignored the facts and took the view that China was inhumane. Not only was the case against the American smugglers thrown out of court, but Ding Yao was now living in Las Vegas. In the end, the Goldfish case had proven two things. One, it was politically dangerous to become involved with Americans. (The Chinese agents who had worked on the case had lost face and their positions.) And two, Americans did not operate fairly or honestly. Now Vice Minister Liu was assigning his daughter to work with them.

  As if reading Hulan’s thoughts, Liu said, “This is not my decision. It comes from much higher up. It is not my job to argue with my superiors. Besides, you have the most experience with foreigners. You lived in the United States. You speak their language. You are familiar with their decadent ways.”

  Once again, Liu looked down at his notes. “So,” he said after a few tense moments, “the best news I can give you is that this time the United States is sending a representative here. Let me see…I have his name here somewhere. Donald, Daniel, Darren?” The American names rolled smoothly off his tongue. “No. His name is David Stark, an assistant U.S. attorney.”

  Vice Minister Liu looked up and smiled expectantly at Hulan. Next to her, Zai shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Hulan said nothing.

  “We must give this American a helping hand,” Vice Minister Liu continued, still smiling. “In doing this, we will also be helping our countryman Guang Mingyun. But
I must stress to you both how important it is that the foreigner not see anything unpleasant.”

  “That’s rather difficult in a murder investigation, wouldn’t you say?”

  The man opposite her laughed heartily. “Inspector Liu, do I need to remind you that China has customs and rituals for dealing with guests? Use your shigu—your worldly wisdom. Remember that all foreigners—whether strangers to a family or foreign devils like these visitors—are potentially dangerous. Don’t be tempted to say what you think. Don’t show anger or irritation. Be humble and careful and gracious.” Vice Minister Liu stood and walked around the desk. He put his hand awkwardly on Hulan’s shoulder. “Draw them in. Let them think they have a connection to you, that they owe you, that they should never cause you any embarrassment. This is how we have treated outsiders for centuries. This is how you will treat this foreigner as long as he is our guest.”

  Hulan left the office deep in thought. She jumped when she felt a hand on her arm, then looked up to see Zai. He motioned for her to follow him. He didn’t stop until they had reached the back stairs. He looked around to see if anyone was nearby.

  “Your father has always been clever at getting facts,” he said.

  Hulan laughed. “I was thinking just the opposite.”

  Section Chief Zai spoke sharply. “Think, Hulan, think! He must be very familiar with your dangan to have made the connection between you and the U.S. attorney.”

  Hulan nodded pensively. “Yes, I was in America. Yes, Attorney Stark and I worked at the same law firm. But my situation was curious in those days. I don’t think it’s a secret, uncle.” She deliberately used the honorific to show that she understood and respected Zai’s concerns.

  “Don’t you wonder who agreed to this cooperation? It has to be someone very powerful. Maybe it’s come from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, maybe the Ministry of State Security, maybe—I don’t know…”

  Hulan looked into her mentor’s worried face. “Uncle, if the order comes from Deng himself, what do I care? This is my assignment. I have no choice.”

  5

  JANUARY 27–29

  Madeleine Prentice’s Office

  Thanks for coming, David,” Madeleine Prentice said, motioning him into her office. Jack Campbell stood near Madeleine’s desk with his arms crossed. A pale, redheaded man sat in a standard-issue executive-office armchair. “David, this is Patrick O’Kelly from the State Department. Patrick, David Stark.” After everyone shook hands, Madeleine said in her no-nonsense way, “Patrick, why don’t you get right to it?”

  When O’Kelly opened his mouth, David was surprised to see the shine of braces. “I am here because of the murder of Guang Henglai.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “His father is Guang Mingyun, the sixth-richest man in China. His company, the China Land and Economics Corporation, serves as an umbrella for a variety of businesses with assets of more than one and a half billion U.S. dollars. His personal wealth is in the neighborhood of four to five hundred million dollars.”

  Campbell whistled.

  O’Kelly spent the next few minutes summarizing the State Department’s dossier on Guang Mingyun. He was destined by birth to become a worker in a provincial glass factory like his parents before him, but his secondary-school achievements had attracted the attention of people in Beijing, who brought him to the capital to attend Beijing University, where he excelled in engineering and math.

  “By the early 1980s, Guang had started several privately owned factories,” O’Kelly explained. “But his biggest break came in 1991, when he traded five hundred railroad cars of Chinese goods for five Russian-made airplanes. This one transaction catapulted Guang from relative obscurity into the first rank of wheeler-dealers. Since then, he’s expanded into real estate, the stock market, and telecommunications. His profits allowed him to launch the Chinese Overseas Bank, an investment bank based in Monterey Park with several branches in California.”

  “I’m familiar with it,” David said. “How does owning a bank here help him?”

  “It gives him a way to funnel U.S. funds—specifically those of overseas Chinese—into China, and for Chinese nationals to send money to the U.S., where the political situation offers banking stability and security,” O’Kelly answered. “Now, what makes Guang truly different from other entrepreneurs is that he recognizes that change in China must happen across the country, not just along the coast.”

  “Excuse me?”

  O’Kelly nodded agreeably. “Here’s what we’re looking at. The Chinese economy is booming all along the coast—in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Fujian Province.”

  “And Tianjin?” Jack Campbell asked.

  “And in the city of Tianjin,” O’Kelly confirmed. “There are some villages in those areas where the average income is better than in the U.S. But if you were to go inland a thousand, five hundred, or even a hundred miles, you would see a very different picture.”

  “Isn’t that all rice farming?”

  “Farming of every sort. But the peasants make only about three hundred and fifty dollars a year. In China, capitalism has created an economic chasm unlike any seen before in history. The problems for the Chinese over the long term are: How can they bring prosperity to the entire country? If they can’t, what will they do when those peasants—nine hundred million strong, one in six people on the entire planet—get pissed off? In other words, how will the government control the have-nots, when the government’s mandate came originally from the peasants?”

  “And Guang has an answer?”

  “Perhaps. He’s not only privatizing industries—and I’m talking here about everyday essentials like salt, pharmaceuticals, and coal—but he’s taking them inland to the poorest provinces. He’s bringing modern technology to the countryside and rewarding people who work hard.”

  “For profit.”

  “Absolutely. He can pay peasants far less money than workers along the coast. Simultaneously, he’s building their loyalty and trust.”

  “How does this connect to the case?” David queried. “Are you suggesting that Guang Mingyun was trying to cut in on the triads’ businesses in the interior? That his son was kidnapped as a warning or for ransom? That the whole thing was botched and they dumped the body?”

  “We don’t know yet. We’ve already been in contact with Beijing…”

  “You what?” David asked sharply.

  “Let me say at the outset that we at the State Department were well aware of Guang Henglai’s disappearance.” O’Kelly paused to let this revelation sink in, then went on. “The boy has been missing for almost a month. Those of us at the State Department—even recent tourists to China—are familiar with the case. China is well known for being able to find anyone at anytime anywhere. During these last few weeks China has mounted its largest manhunt ever. Needless to say, they found neither Guang Henglai nor anyone who could give them any information as to his whereabouts.”

  “So there’s been no evidence of foul play on Chinese soil?” David asked.

  “I’m not saying that. But with the current political tensions—the ballyhoo in the Taiwan Strait last year and Hong Kong this summer—the State Department felt it was important to notify the Chinese government and thus Guang Mingyun as soon as possible. We don’t want it to appear as though the U.S. could be involved in any way.”

  “How could we be involved?” David asked. “The body was found rotting on a Chinese freighter, for Christ’s sake!”

  “David,” Madeleine cautioned. “Let’s hear him out.”

  “We know the body was found on the Peony,” O’Kelly continued. “We know that Guang Henglai has been dead a long time. But how do we prove that to the Chinese? How can we prove that he didn’t die at the hands of an immigration officer—either on the boat or at Terminal Island? With things the way they are right now, the Chinese have every reason not to believe us.”

  David shook his head skeptically. “I have to assume that his parents wil
l want the body for burial. Their own experts could tell them how long he’s been dead, and that he certainly wasn’t the victim of a beating or gunshot wound or whatever else they might imagine.”

  “Let me throw something else into the mix,” O’Kelly went on. “If the coroner is right that the boy died before he left China, the timing would coincide with the death of the son of Ambassador Watson.”

  Jack Campbell’s lips formed for another low whistle.

  “You just lost me,” David said.

  “Watson’s the ambassador to China,” O’Kelly explained. “His son was found dead in Beijing at the beginning of the year. It was written off as an accident.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  O’Kelly shook his head. “As you might expect, relations with China are rather chilly right now. Nevertheless, when we contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—our Chinese counterpart—we were informed of several things. First, the Chinese themselves don’t believe the accident theory.”

  “And there’s evidence to support that?”

  “I must stress that what we’re talking about here is extremely confidential.”

  “Go on.”

  “Despite what you may read in the paper, we do have friends in China. A copy of Billy Watson’s autopsy was wired to us. I think you’ll be interested to note several similarities. Both Watson and Guang were the same age. Both Watson and Guang were found in water. And”—O’Kelly paused to get their full attention—“both boys had a mysterious substance in their lungs.”

  “What are we talking about here?” Madeleine asked. “A Chinese serial killer?” She looked around the room. “Is there such a thing?”

  “It’s too early to draw any conclusions. We need more investigation, and we need to get our own man in that investigation. This is where you come in, Stark. The Chinese have apparently heard what happened on the Peony and they are willing to work with you, whether out of respect, gratitude, or because they want to look you in the eye when you relate the details of finding Guang Henglai’s body. We think…”