Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

“Sorry. Go on.”

“We’ll be taking the body back to the Ministry of Public Security.”

“Absolutely not. Mrs. Watson and I have been through enough. We want to take our son home for burial. We need to do that as quickly as possible.”

“I understand your desire, but there are some things that are unexplained about your son’s death.”

“There’s nothing ‘unexplained.’ He obviously had some type of accident.”

“How can you possibly know that, sir? How”—and here she hesitated—“how can you be so sure that that is your son out there?”

“I’m telling you that if that’s my son, I’m taking him home to Montana, where we’ll bury him.”

“I have to apologize again, because that’s not going to happen anytime soon. You see, sir, I want to know why this young man—if he was your son—was out in the middle of winter without proper clothing. I want to know why he didn’t simply swim to shore. We need to do an autopsy and determine the true cause of death.”

“Let’s just see if we’re even talking about my son,” Watson said then strode out across the ice.

As Liu Hulan and Ambassador Watson reached the circle, the human cordon parted and the pair walked through. Fong stood and stepped away from the body. The ambassador stopped, looked down, and nodded. “That’s Billy.” He exhaled heavily. Liu Hulan waited. Finally Watson spoke again. “I want my son. I want him fully clothed and untouched by you or anyone in your department.”

“Ambassador…”

He held up his hand to silence her and continued. “I don’t want to hear any of your bureaucratic nonsense. This was an accident. You and your superiors are going to treat this that way.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You will do it!”

“Ambassador, I know this is painful, but look at your son. Something happened here.”

Bill Watson returned his gaze to the frozen form of his son’s body, seeing the open eyes, the ice-filled mouth and nostrils tinged with blood. The ambassador then looked up and contemplated the lake, the ancient buildings, the leafless willow trees. Liu Hulan wondered if he was memorizing this panorama as the last sight that his son had seen. Then Bill Watson addressed the group.

“This was an accident,” he said in the even tones of a polished politician.

“How do you know that, sir? How can you be so sure?”

But he turned away and walked wordlessly toward his waiting, pale wife.

Liu Hulan called out after

him. Her words seemed loud and harsh in the cold silence. “I’m not going to drop this, sir. I’m going to find out what happened to your son, and then you can take him home.”

2

JANUARY 20

Los Angeles

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Stark, dressed in a conservative, pinstriped suit, flipped open his identification—though all the lobby guards knew him on sight—then bypassed the metal detector. He took the elevator up to the twelfth floor. He offered up a hearty “Good morning, Lorraine” to the woman who sat behind the bulletproof glass reception area. She looked at him wordlessly and pressed the buzzer to let him in. One day, he thought, one day I’ll get a reaction.

David’s office—recently painted in pale gray and decorated in the practical style favored by the government—faced west and was considered to have a great view. Usually that meant miles and miles of smog, but this morning the sky shone a bright Tiffany blue, scrubbed clean by a series of storms that had washed over L.A. during the last two weeks. Sitting behind his desk, he could see over buildings and roadways all the way to the ocean. To his right in the far distance, the San Gabriels glistened with a pristine capping of snow from last night’s storm.

David had none of the framed diplomas and commendations that some attorneys hung on their walls, but details about his career and personal life could still be deciphered in the few photos he kept on his desk—a law school graduation photo with his mom and dad, David on the steps of the federal courthouse giving a press conference. Yet another was from his last year as a partner at Phillips, MacKenzie & Stout. The photo, taken during the firm’s annual gala, showed David in a tuxedo and his wife—his ex-wife—in a revealing burgundy cocktail dress.

David got right to work. He was between cases and took the time to catch up on mail and phone calls. He’d just gotten a conviction against a group of men caught smuggling heroin in from China. The FBI had impounded 1,200 kilos of the drug, which now would never make it to the street. David had also gotten good press coverage, which certainly wouldn’t harm his career if and when he wanted to leave the government to go back to private practice. The buzz around the office was great, which, in turn, would mean more high-profile cases. All this was good, outstanding even. But the conviction was a disappointment too.

Since coming to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, David had prosecuted drug, racketeering, and massive illegal immigration cases. He’d built a substantial reputation for the most federal convictions against Chinese organized crime, particularly against the Rising Phoenix, the most powerful gang in Southern California. But he’d never been able to tie the crimes to anyone high up in the organization.

In the meantime, the very face of organized crime continued to change in the United States. The Justice Department continued to pursue the Mafia, but today crime syndicates were multicultural. Some considered blacks and Hispanics—the Dominicans in particular—to be the new “royalty of organized crime.” Others were fixated on the Russian Mafia and the Vietnamese gangs. As a result, the FBI had formed special squads to infiltrate, harass, and arrest each of these groups.