Razing Beijing: A Thriller (17 page)

Stuart had phoned late yesterday to inform her that two
weeks were all they were going to have for reconstructing the electronic
control. And so tonight, Emily sat before one of three computer terminals which
she had had set up in the electronics lab. Jean Stuyvick-Coble occupied one of
the others. She had sent Sean Thompson home for a break, and so the third
terminal sat idle.

What she had tried to explain to Stuart and the
investigation committee was that the original job of designing the ECU
circuitry entailed having engineers code, or write, a sophisticated artificial
intelligence program—which subsequently designed the digital engine control
circuitry itself. What this meant was that her Software Team needed to have the
AI program extract the original specifications of each sub-component within the
engine’s electronic brain in a way never intended. As soon as she or
Stuyvick-Coble isolated another specification, they rushed the information
across the lab to whoever was working the night’s repair shift.

Tonight that job belonged to Rick Abrams, a senior engineer
and computer hack who built them nearly from scratch at home in his spare time.
Abrams was presently huddled over a workbench surrounded by carts of diagnostic
gear, his hands buried within the open carcass of the damaged ECU. A thin trail
of smoke twirled up from the tip of a soldering iron past the fluorescent desk
lamp. Abrams removed the smoldering iron and positioned the leads of a signal
generator to some of the more visibly damaged circuitry. The sophisticated jet
engine control included over four hundred miniature plug-in circuit cards, so
the work was tedious and delicate. It was also not going well.

“SHIT!”

Chang spun around, her heart pounding against the wall of
her chest. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” Abrams knelt to retrieve the box of
Dinky Donuts he’d knocked to the floor. “Don’t be so jumpy. The effin’ gun
touched the end of my finger, that’s all.”

Chang exchanged a worried glance with Stuyvick-Coble. Abrams
was diligent and possessed the best skills demanded by the job. That defective
soldering equipment had previously overheated and burnt a hole through one of
the circuit boards was no fault of Abrams. Unfortunately, the incident resulted
in the obliteration of
one
of only
two
memory modules. The odds
of isolating aberrant lines of code that were slim to begin with now hung by a
thread. Emily found herself panicking at the sound of every gasp, sneeze, and
cough emanating from the other side of the lab.

“I’m curious about something.” Abrams finished reattaching
a tiny transistor torn away during the crash. He let out a deep breath and flipped
away the magnifying goggles strapped around his forehead. “Is Stuart stupid or
just crazy? Exactly what is it he’s hoping we find?”

Emily turned from her monitor toward Abrams. She understood
why he might be on the defensive; the implication that one of her staff might
be responsible for the crash was hard to gloss over. Her own personal thoughts
regarding Stuart ran the extremes; she simply did not know what to think any
more. She was aware of the rumors, that he had disregarded and ultimately
abandoned his family, yet she had seen the warmth in Stuart’s eyes when
unashamedly dropping pressing business to receive a call from his daughter. Emily
found it difficult to ignore how she felt whenever she saw him—the flare of his
shoulders and back against the slim of his waist, the chiseled line of his jaw.
There was that intense way he looked at her, as if he knew what she was thinking.
For one so strong and decisive, had his flip-flop first to cancel and then
proceed with the flight been a responsible decision—or an act of spineless
capitulation? “We’ll know what he’s looking for when we find it.”

“Maybe.” Abrams lowered the goggles back into place. He
picked up the soldering iron and held the tip to the light so he could study
it. “Maybe not. Especially if what I heard about Stuart is true.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hasn’t anyone else heard?” Even from fifteen feet away the
goggles made Abrams’s eyes appear comically huge. “Rumor has it our vee-pee is
getting the boot.”

Monday, May 4

SETTING HIS JAW
against
the inevitable pain in his hip, and with the aid of a cane that his colleagues
rarely if ever saw, Deng lumbered to his feet from inside the car. He made his
way up the gravel walk to his home and readied himself for the embrace of his
jubilant grandson.

Instead of throwing a tackle, young Deng Ping tugged on his
arm and, with a child’s lack of discretion, loudly announced that a
funny-looking stranger was waiting inside. They entered their home and he
relinquished the cane to his grandson, who ran off swinging it to-and-fro.

“Hello, Dr. Wu.” Deng concealed his surprise upon
recognizing their visitor, clad in blue smock and soiled white trousers. The
man’s close-cropped hair had receded, his eyeglass lenses several diopter strengths
thicker.

“It has been a few years,” Wu acknowledged with a smile. “Despite
my awkward intrusion, your family has been wonderfully gracious.”

Deng had first met the Swiss-trained neurosurgeon during
Wu’s lobbying effort on behalf of the Hebei Hospital Commission for approval to
import Western medical gear. Thoroughly stymied by the bureaucracy, Wu had
prompted Deng’s first foray into China’s woefully backward system for the
delivery of medicine. All he had done in the end was pull a few strings. Tonight
he wondered why Wu had chosen to seek him at home. “Is there some way I can be
of assistance?”

“Actually, I am here to see you regarding a personal
matter.” The doctor cast an uncomfortable glance at family members in the
kitchen.

Deng led his visitor out of the dining area to his private
study. There he gestured Wu to the only chair in the room as his
daughter-in-law appeared carrying another.

The doctor’s expression turned to one of deep concern. “I find
myself without the appropriate words,” Wu began after Guangmei had left them
alone. “You are likely to find them extremely distressing. For that, I am
sorry.”

Deng nodded patiently.

“Several days ago we admitted a patient, a fifty-three year
old female, complaining of an acute headache. She claimed not to have had any
recent injuries that might be related to the discomfort, which apparently began
some months ago. There is no prior history of severe headaches, memory loss,
difficulty with her vision, that sort of thing. Yet her pain became quite
severe and the next day she experienced a grand mal seizure.”

Deng wondered what expensive piece of equipment the doctor
was about to request. “I presume you know why?”

Wu furrowed his brow. “MRI revealed that a large tumor had
invaded the medulla oblongata.”

“How awful.”

“Yes. This sort of brainstem tumor is completely
inoperable. I have examined similar structures before. Often they are
associated with a history of physical trauma. Apparently, that is the case
here. This I cannot confirm, as the woman has never married and is without
immediate family.”

“But not recent trauma.”

“No, remote trauma. I suspect during the Turmoil.”

“Ah.” Sometimes, it seemed to Deng, their Cultural
Revolution was destined never to end. “Will she survive?”

“Her condition is terminal.” Wu frowned and gazed past
Deng’s shoulder, engrossed in the dire clinical minutiae.

The gravity of the pronouncement hung in the silence. Deng
shifted in his chair. “Doctor, I appreciate this poor woman’s dilemma. I fail
to see what I—”

“Forgive my confusing the issue. It is at her insistence
that I am here tonight. You are acquainted with a woman by the name of Liu
Qun?”

Deng was stunned; the
mishu’s
attractive face came
instantly to mind. He recalled that more than mere friendship had presented
itself, but at the time he was happily married and not predisposed to such
dalliance. They remained friendly over the years and on the rare occasion that
commission business brought him to Public Security headquarters, Deng found it
irresistible to stop and talk with the effervescent woman. “Yes,” Deng grimly
acknowledged. “I have known Liu for quite some time.”

Wu removed his glasses, carefully folded them and inserted
them into his shirt pocket. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he said: “It would
seem she wishes to help you—she expresses concern for your well being.”

“For
my
well being?”

“I must preface her message with my own professional
disclaimer of sorts. I have no basis to accept or deny the truth of her claims,
medically or otherwise. That said, I remind you she is suffering from a serious
malady of the brain. It is difficult to estimate the extent to which this
effects her mental acuity, particularly her long term memory.”

“It sounds as though the woman is on her deathbed.”

“She appears to be in complete control of her faculties,”
Wu assured him. “I would not have entertained her request to come here had she
not convinced me of the...
gravity
of the matter. She possesses a secret,
a secret she is only willing to share directly and in strict privacy with you.”

Deng had no idea what this could possibly mean. Liu’s
position in the Ministry of Public Security undoubtedly gave her an
extraordinary amount of access. Had she heard something in particular about his
vulnerability to the succession? “Then, you know the nature of this secret?”

The doctor studied him for a moment, his eyes heavy with
sympathy. “The patient claims that during the turmoil of our Cultural Revolution,
your parents and sister were victims of a horrible crime, an unsolved murder. Like
so many of us... Comrade Deng, is this true?”

Deng returned the doctor’s inquisitive stare; he felt the
familiar throbbing inside his head. Another thought was forming—more a warning,
a faintly buzzing alarm to silence the unassuming doctor, when Wu leaned
forward and said: “Liu claims to know who murdered them. It is apparently
someone you know.”

STATE SECURITY DEPUTY
MINISTER
Chen Ruihan gazed through the window of his new office. Beyond the
ministry’s East Chang’an Avenue gate, and PLA sentries bearing Kalashnikovs, the
chaotic Beijing mix of bicycles and vehicles clogging the pavement between Pudu
Temple and the Forbidden City had receded with the arrival of dusk. A
white-gloved traffic policeman stood passing the time, swinging his arms and
conversing with the occasional Tiananmen Square pedestrian. Chen found himself
somehow drawn to the scene, unambiguous in its tranquility, a scene probably
gazed upon countless times by his predecessor—right until the man’s abrupt
elimination.

Behind him, the ministry’s director of foreign affairs, Ni
Tanxing, cleared his throat.

Chen turned from the window. “I suppose it’s plausible that
the dissident is unaware of the fate of her parents,” he said, reluctantly
ceding a point. “What about the agent?”

“You mean, could the agent be aware of the family
connection?” asked Ni.

Chen held his stare on the older man.

Ni shrugged. “I do not see how the American agent could or
should be aware of something so remote from his world. Furthermore, the dissident
woman he refers to has Anglicized her name. The agent’s request to have us
apply pressure through her parents here, in China, appears legitimate in every
other aspect. The agent claims that his primary asset up to this point, a young
engineer, is no longer considered reliable. So far as the identity of the dissident’s
father, and his recent apprehension,” Ni shook his head, “a strange
coincidence.”

“But if their authorities—”

“Respectfully, I believe the danger of a link being drawn
between the girl and her father is dwarfed by the potential consequences of our
inaction. We have been following the situation there very closely. Our inaction
risks an expanded investigation, one possibly leading to
us
, with all of
the unpleasant repercussions.”

Chen was reluctantly inclined to agree, yet their American
agent was suggesting a precarious solution. He realized that being only
recently appointed to deputy minister hampered his ability to more properly
assess the risk of the astounding operation. Chen lowered his gaze to the
message. The American’s handler had endorsed his agent’s sense of urgency by
way of a footnote to the body of the encrypted request.

An anxious young man appeared in the doorway and realized
he had interrupted. He turned to leave but Chen waved him inside. The intelligence
officer approached the desk and crisply saluted his superiors. In his hand he
held a small recording device.

“What is it, Major?” Chen asked.

“This surveillance was taken barely an hour ago and
immediately brought to my attention.” He explained whose voices they would
hear, that a child evidently generated the tapping sounds in the background,
and that the end of the recording coincided with the sound of both subjects
departing the technology commissioner’s flat.

They listened to the most critical few minutes of a roughly
nineteen minute recording. Chen and Ni looked at each other in stunned
disbelief.

Chen shut off the recorder. “Did they go to the hospital?”

“The housing official claims they took a short walk around
the commissioner’s residence. Afterward they observed the doctor drive away in
his car. The commissioner returned to his flat, bid his family good night and
promptly retired for the evening.”

Deputy Minister Chen took several moments to contemplate
what he had just heard. He glanced at his watch; it was only 7:47
P.M.
“Very good, Major.” Chen stood from his
chair and rounded his desk. “My congratulations to your staff. You will
accompany me at once to Vice Chairman Rong’s residence and present this
discovery to him.”