Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

Then the Neighborhood Committee director started to reminisce in the way of old-timers about the Civil War and his part in it. He had carried messages from camp to camp. He had met his wife while marching back to Beijing. “Only one problem,” he said. “She didn’t speak my dialect. My comrades tell me, ‘This is good. You won’t understand her complaints.’ For fifty years, this is true. All we care about are the unspoken words of the bedchamber.” When Hulan translated this to David, he surprised himself by laughing.

David’s grin soon collapsed. How can I laugh, he thought guiltily, when death surrounds me?

Hulan reached over and put an arm around him. “We’re human, David,” she said. “All we can do is eat, breathe, maybe laugh a little. It shows we’re still alive.”

Meanwhile the committee director rambled on about his wartime exploits. Hulan had heard this sort of nonsense many times. If all of the old-timers who said they’d been on the Long March had made that journey, every village and city in China would have been emptied. Then the old man was chuckling about how he hadn’t seen a bomb like this one for forty or more years. Hulan’s attention snapped back into focus. “So simple to make,” he was saying. “Any soldier, any peasant, can construct it, and it’s deadly enough to accomplish Liberation. So easy, set the timer, walk away, and bam! That’s why Mao liked it so much.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your bomb brings back many memories. Only an old-timer like me would remember how to make one. Only an old-timer like me could even savor the handiwork.”

“You used bombs like this during the war?” Hulan asked.

“Yes. Mao liked it, but you can see the problem.”

“No, I can’t.”

The old man sipped his tea, then said. “It’s unreliable. It has a timer, yes. But half the time it goes off when it wants. Bam! Maybe you kill the right person. Maybe you kill the wrong person. Maybe you don’t kill anyone at all.”

David and Hulan hitched a ride in the back of a truck loaded with grain to downtown Beijing. With the wind, the temperature was well below freezing. David and Hulan huddled together against the filled burlap sacks, trying to keep warm. “When I get back to L.A.,” David said, “I can open a real investigation. I may not get the Rising Phoenix on what’s already happened, but money laundering and tax evasion ought to be easy.”

“Do you really think they had anything to do with today?”

“Oh, Hulan, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“The Rising Phoenix is a relatively young organization,” she mused. David looked at her questioningly. She tilted her head, thinking. “It doesn’t have a long history, and the members are young.”

“So?”

“Remember what the old man said about that type of bomb? It was used during the Civil War.” David nodded, and she went on. “Whoever built it had to be of a certain age. He had to have been in the army with Mao during the thirties or forties.”

“An old guy’s done all this?”

“You suspected Guang until this morning,” she said. “He’s certainly old enough.”

“Who else do we know who’s that age?” he asked.

“Zai. My father.”

“Come on, Hulan.” David laughed. When she didn’t join in, he turned serious again. “What about this Lee Dawei? Maybe he was in the army.”

“But, David, that’s what I’m saying. The Rising Phoenix is a young organization. Spencer Lee was in his twenties and was the number two or number three man. If the dragon head was in his late sixties or early seventies, would he place that much trust in someone so young?”

“No. Lee Dawei is probably a kid, too.”

“Exactly. So here’s what’s bothering me. We were the targets of the bomb.”

“I know.”

“The old man told us that it was easy to build but unreliable. Doesn’t that suggest it had to be planted recently?”

“I suppose so. Otherwise it might have gone off when we weren’t in the car.”

“I think it was put there when we were in Guang’s office.”

“Now you’re back to Guang?” His voice registered surprise.

“I know,” she admitted. “But maybe he told us about the bear bile and Henglai because he knew we’d never be able to use it.”