The Hua Shan Hospital Murders (8 page)

“Will do, sir.” The man left.

“Thank you,” Chen said, then turned to the other cop. “Get me a list of all registered artists in the Shanghai district. The Great Leap ended in 1958. That’s more than forty years ago. I want to find out where all artists who are presently over fifty-five years of age lived during the Great Leap.”

“So, they would be . . .”

“Old enough to learn basic metallurgy during the Leap.”

“This could take a while.”

“Even the longest journey begins with a single step.”

“We don’t quote Mao much anymore in Shanghai, sir.”

“Nor do we in the country, but sometimes he was right. Just like a broken clock.”

“Sir?”

“Twice a day a broken clock tells the right time.”

“Ah.” The man smiled at Chen then headed out to compile the list. Chen was pleased. These Shanghai cops weren’t half as nasty as he thought they’d be – and they even liked the only joke he knew.

Then he looked at the cage and stopped smiling. There was nothing funny about a baby in a cage.

The door to the Hua Shan Hospital had remained shut for what seemed like hours. No sound. No word from within. Finally the door opened slowly and Wu Fan-zi, still in full bomb protection gear, lumbered out onto the steps. He pulled the suit’s heavy headpiece off and let it drop to the ground with a thud. Then, still without saying a word, he re-opened the hospital door and went back inside. When he reemerged, he was carrying a large plaster fresco, almost five feet tall and a foot across. The lower half of it was still covered in flimsy brown wrap.

Wu Fan-zi raised the thing over his head – looking to Angel Michael like Moses raising the tablets in rage upon seeing the Israelites worshipping the golden calf.

Wu Fan-zi’s mouth opened and he shouted in fury, “What idiot had this delivered to the reception desk?”

Fong felt Lily’s hand slip from his. He looked toward her but she was running up the steps yelling at Wu Fan-zi to be careful with that – that it was an antique.

As she grabbed the fresco from Wu Fan-zi the wrapping came loose and exposed the entirety of the piece.

Angel Michael gasped. The exposed section revealed a beautifully rendered figure of Prometheus, the god who had stolen fire from the other gods and given it to man.

What little doubt Angel Michael had about his mission vanished. He whispered a prayer of thanks for this sign – this reassurance – and faded back into the crowd – so pleased with himself that he didn’t notice the round-bellied white man with the camcorder not twenty yards away – or the fact that he’d dropped the note he had in his left hand. As Angel Michael effortlessly moved through the street traffic he thought, “The Hua Shan Hospital’s abortion clinic could wait for another day. After all, there were so many other dark places in this town of eighteen million souls.”

Fong closed the door to their apartment and before Lily could even put the fresco down Fong was on her, “What’s wrong with you? You’re a police officer. It’s illegal to own something like that. And to have it delivered to the hospital was just plain stupid.”

The last word had come out so forcefully that he cringed, but he refused to back down. He was happy that the baby was at his mother-in-law’s.

“So!” he demanded.

Lily didn’t say anything. She turned from him and looked out the window at the grass courtyard – such a luxury in this city of pavement.

Then the phone rang. Fong grabbed it. He listened for a moment then shouted into the mouthpiece, “What!” The desperation in his voice made Lily turn to him. He was ghostly pale as he hung up the phone.

“What?” Lily asked carefully.

Fong had to steady himself against the bureau.

“What?” Lily asked again but even more quietly.

Fong shook his head trying to clear it, then looked at Lily. He held out his arms to her and she slowly moved toward him.

He held her tight. Very tight.

“What was that, Fong?” she asked, a tremble in her voice.

“It was the hospital.”

“The Hua Shan Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“A bomb, Fong?”

“No.”

Lily relaxed a little, slumping against him.

“Another cage . . . with a fetus.” Lily stifled a cry. “In the third abortion surgery. Directly below your office.”

“But no bomb?”

“No bomb.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the commotion caused by your fresco arriving scared him off.”

Lily pulled away a bit. “Maybe it did?”

“Maybe . . .” Fong said, “it did.” Fong turned to go.

“Do you need me at the hospital?”

“Soon.”

“See if the head nurse from the People’s Twenty-Second Hospital was seen, Fong.”

“Good point, Lily. Very good point. . . . Lily?” He hesitated.

“What Fong?”

“I’d hang the fresco on the other side of the window so the figure is turned toward the centre of the room, not the side. It’s exquisite, Lily. Really special.”

He smiled.

She smiled back.

Then he took a long look at her and wondered what his life would be like without her. “Call Chen. I want him at the hospital.”

As Fong approached the Hua Shan Hospital he was once again met by the head of hospital security. The man’s mouth opened but Fong put up a hand for him to stop. Something had struck an odd chord in Fong. A very odd chord.

He scanned the steps. Wu Fan-zi had been over there – the head of hospital security had been exactly where he was now – that had spurred Fong’s memory – but memory of what?

“What?” he screamed at himself as Chen’s car screeched to a halt and the ugly young cop ran up to him.

“Where is it, sir?”

“In one of the operating theatres.”

“Near where Lily works?” Chen asked. If Fong hadn’t been so preoccupied with his memory he would have noted the obvious terror in Chen’s voice. The terror of a man frightened of losing a lover, not of a man in fear of losing a friend.

The head of security ushered Fong and Chen into the third operating room. The surgical team was standing to one side. The security chief stepped forward and pointed to one of the lower cabinets.

Fong and Chen leaned down and there behind stacks of surgical supplies was the cage complete with fetus. Fong pushed aside the supplies and pulled out the cage. On the metal sheathing that was wrapped around the fetus was etched a phrase, in English: THIS BLASPHEMY WILL STOP. THE LIGHT WILL COME.

Fong looked around the room and spotted the window high up on the south wall. “Do the ORs all have windows?”

“One other does, the other four don’t.”

Fong grunted, then turned to the head of security. “Has the room been swept?”

“The whole area, sir. If there’s a bomb here we would have found it. Wu Fan-zi has been summoned.”

“Twice in one day, he’ll be thrilled.” The man nodded and raised his shoulders in a what-can-you-do gesture. Fong turned to the surgical team. “Who found this . . . thing?”

A young nurse stepped forward. Chen waited for Fong to begin his interrogation. When he didn’t, Chen took down the basics. While he did, Fong hurried out of the room and ran back to the front steps of the hospital. That’s where Chen found him twenty minutes later. Fong was standing at the bottom of the wide set of concrete steps scanning the now almost entirely empty vista in front of him. Chen approached him carefully. Without looking at the younger man Fong said, “Wu Fan-zi was over there, the head of hospital security was right there, Lily was beside me.” Fong looked around. “The crowd had gathered there behind the police line . . . the . . . the . . . the man . . . the white man . . . with the video camera had been over there.”

After a prolonged silence, Chen prompted, “Sir?”

“Shit,” Fong said aloud.

“What, sir?”

“A tourist–” Fong thought for a moment. “An American. White shoes. White belt. Golf shirt. Reading glasses on a silver chain around his neck. Red hair – though all Westerners seem to have red hair. Freckles. A Fujitsu video camera.” Fong was moving fast now and shouting orders to the nearby cops, “Find him for me. Start with the local five-star hotels. Set up a command post in the lobby of the Hilton. I want the hotels to know that we mean business.”

“Sir, should I continue to track down the cage?” asked Chen.

Fong stopped and looked at his ugly companion. “Take ten men. Tape off the entire area. I want every scrap of anything brought to me. Then you follow the cage, I’ll follow the tourist.”

Chen handed Fong the notes he’d taken from the OR nurse. “I had her wait for you, sir.”

“Thanks.”

The young nurse was country-round and her eyes were dark saucers of fear.

Fong sat opposite her in a small office that security had provided. “Would you like some tea?” Fong asked. She shook her head. “Fanta?” Again she shook her head. Her mouth opened and a few remarkably quiet words came out: “I’m afraid I may vomit.”

“Why? What have you done?” Fong asked.

Her “nothing” came out with a small quantity of spittle.

Fong knew that vulnerable witnesses were sometimes valuable witnesses. “Fine,” Fong said. “Were you close with the head nurse of the abortion clinic at the People’s Twenty-Second Hospital?”

“Who?”

“The head nurse of the People’s Twenty-Second Hospital.”

“Why would I know this person?” she demanded.

“No reason,” Fong answered, then changed tack. “Do you like your work here?”

She checked his face for traces of condemnation and seeing none said, “We are helping these women. Most of them are just girls.” Fong said nothing. He was waiting for more and it finally came. “Sometimes, though, it’s hard. So many. So small. Sometimes so . . .”

Fong prompted with the word, “Lifelike?”

Anger blossomed on the young nurse’s face. “How dare you! We are not killers here! We are . . .” but once again she ran out of words.

Fong got the nurse to give him the basic facts about the use of the operating room in which the cage with the fetus had been found. It had been closed down at 10 p.m. the previous night like all the ORs. But in the morning they hadn’t opened up the room because there had been a bad smell that they couldn’t locate. So they’d ordered in a cleaning crew and doubled up the use of the other ORs.

Fong thanked her and went to the hospital’s housekeeping office. An elderly man showed him the charts for cleaning rotation. As Fong leafed through the papers the man said, “It’s almost impossible to keep people at this kind of work now that the government doesn’t force people to do what needs doing.”

“That so?” Fong asked looking up from the paperwork.

“It’s so. This past week I’ve had six new faces and already I’ve lost three. Nobody wants to clean up anymore. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

“Who was supposed to clean the OR?–”

“The one with the thing in it?”

“Yeah, that one.”

The old man flicked over a page and came up with a name.

“Is he new?” Fong asked.

“No. Been with us almost two months. A veteran.”

“What does he look like?” asked Fong.

“A peasant. What do peasants look like – mud that got up and walked.”

“Young, old, male, female, what?”

“Youngish. Male.”

“Where is he now?” The man gave him a blank stare. Fong snapped open his cell phone, “Surround the hospital. No one is to go in or out.” Then he turned to the elderly man, “Find that man, now!”

CHAPTER TEN

Larry arrived at his suburban Connecticut home the second night after the meeting in Virginia and fell to his knees in the darkened front hall. He hadn’t slept since the meeting and its startling news about Angel Michael’s activities in Shanghai. Already newspapers were full of lurid stories. Amassive right-to-life campaign swung into action supporting the Shanghai bombings with startling figures on the rate of abortion in China. These figures were immediately rebuked by pro-choice advocates. Abortion was back on the front page – just as the old man who Matthew called his father wanted at this time of a crucial Congressional election.

That first night Larry’s wife had suggested they pray. He had done his best but he was unable to clear his head of the images that had taken root there. A woman on a table – a fetus in a cage beneath. Larry had no doubt that abortion was murder and that it was the most open manifestation of the wrong turn that society had taken. That it must be stopped before it ushered in the devil himself.

And Larry knew of the devil and his awful works. Until the meeting two nights ago in Virginia he was certain that his profoundly retarded CP-wracked daughter in the next room was the devil’s price for his momentary lapse into faithlessness. But since the meeting he was less sure of that – of anything. He caught an image of himself in the hall mirror. His classical “Yalie” looks were deserting him. Yalie looks he thought appropriate for a Yale man to have – even faded or fading Yalie looks.

He opened the door to his daughter’s room. For a moment he questioned why he hadn’t climbed the stairs to see his wife. Then he put aside the question. He knew why he was going into his daughter’s room. She lay on her side, twisted, so her body faced the wall. Her head craned back toward the door as he entered. Her eyes, as always, were open and full of pain. Didn’t she ever sleep? Didn’t she ever get relief?

Larry whispered a prayer for forgiveness – but not to God – to her. Then he knelt by her bed and recited his prayers. But for the first time since his relapse he wondered if there really was anyone up there to hear him – or if He was there, if He cared. His daughter’s hand touched his face. He looked up into her dark eyes and searched for a message – anything that said her life was worth the price of her pain.

Then he thought back to his wild days as a student at Yale. To a beach house in West Haven – and a roommate, Joel, who had become an FBI agent. Yes, Yale produced more CIA guys, but it also produced its share of high-ranking FBI agents. He hadn’t seen his roommate for years, but Joel was his class rep so he communicated periodically by group e-mail.

Larry’s daughter rolled over and let out a cry. Her back arched in a vain effort to move away from one of her many sources of pain.

“Like a woman on a surgery table,” he thought. Then he wondered why that thought had come to him. Then he wondered if he should call his roommate – and tell him what? That I’m part of an international conspiracy? No – that this blasphemy must stop!

Yes. This blasphemy must stop. Of that he was sure. The only problem was which blasphemy. Of that Larry was unsure.

His wife found him the next morning asleep in the chair beside their daughter’s bed. The girl’s sheets and blankets were wet; her face was constricted in yet another spasm of pain. As she watched her daughter’s features contort she thought for the thousandth time, “I should never have let Larry talk me out of having the abortion.” Then she apologized to whatever powers could hear her secret thoughts.

Larry’s e-mail note to his college roommate was a botched attempt at circumspection. Not exactly an I-have-a-friend-who letter – but close.

In his austere office in the FBI building, Joel dredged up an impression of his ex-roommate before he proceeded. If even a small fraction of what Larry implied in his e-mail was true, Joel knew he could be in the centre of an immensely complicated international incident. There were just too many people in the Washington office who salivated every time something awful happened to the Chinese. And among those salivating were many who were both powerful and very, very pro-life.

So Joel carefully deleted Larry’s “what-if” e-mail, then its backup, then any history link, checked for cookies, then applied the deep erase available to him as a ranking FBI official. He thought of it as a cleanser. In fact, that’s exactly how it’s marketed on hundreds of porn sites on the Net – Boy Are You In Trouble, Pal – But Buy This Cleanser and She’ll Never Know What You’re Up To!!!

And he forgot about it.

Forgot about it until four days later – when he picked up his morning copy of the
Washington Post
.