Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

“Exactly.”

“Part of that price was Noel.”

“Yeah, I know,” Campbell said with regret. “But, Stark, he knew what he was getting into. It’s a risk we take every day.”

“What about Watson?”

“Power corrupts.” Campbell shrugged. “These things happen.”

“So you knew.”

“We knew something.” Campbell held up his hands again and spoke earnestly. “You understand that when I say ‘we’ that doesn’t necessarily mean me or even the Bureau. I just do what I’m told.” His hands dropped as he said, “Let’s just say that what happened came from the highest levels of government.”

David also remembered hearing that same phrase in China. Everything the president of the United States and all those officials in China had said these last few weeks had been bait used to ferret out the ambassador, Vice Minister Liu, and the generals—each guilty of their own crimes—and to keep Guang from reneging on his deal. All the rhetoric, all the threats, had been nothing more than a political smoke screen. Those people who made up Campbell’s “highest levels of government,” whether here or in China, had toyed with David’s and Hulan’s lives with complete dispassion and the certainty that they would never be revealed.

“We were pawns,” David said bitterly.

“You wanted the truth. There it is.”

“Hulan?”

Campbell tried a nod, but David was right there with his cast.

“Remember getting the security clearance for your AUSA job?” Campbell asked. “We knew about your involvement with a known Communist.”

At this, David released the agent in disgust and strode away. He turned back in anger. “How long did you know?”

“What does that matter now?”

“It matters to me. How long did you personally know about me and Hulan?”

“I guess from our first case. The Bureau gave me a file. You looked like a good guy, but one never can tell.”

“You played with our lives,” David said in anguish.

“It was for a greater good, Stark. We’ve picked the right side for once. You’re a part of that.”

There was a time when an argument like that would have worked on David, but no longer. He took one last look at the man he had once called his friend, turned, and continued his run alone.

Hulan stood at her kitchen window, waiting for the water to boil and looking out on the innermost courtyard of her old family home. Spring was just beginning and the temperature had finally started to rise. In the garden, the wisteria vine that an ancestor had planted more than one hundred years ago had begun to bud. Glossy green leaves were gradually opening on the jujube.

The kettle whistled. Hulan poured the hot water into a teapot. While it steeped, she set some peanuts, watermelon seeds, and a few salted plums in little dishes. With her tray ready, Hulan stepped out into the garden. She lingered for a moment under the colonnade and savored the tableau before her. Sitting under the twisting branches of the jujube were her mother and Uncle Zai. The man who had stood by Hulan’s family through good times and bad perched just opposite Jinli on a porcelain stool. The tilt of his head as he spoke to Jinli implied deep intimacy. Hulan crossed to them now. As she did, Uncle Zai self-consciously pulled his hand away from Jinli’s. Hulan set her tray on a low stone table and poured the tea. The three of them sat in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun.

After David’s departure, Hulan had moved her mother and her nurse back to the hutong, where the two of them had taken up residence in one of the bungalows that faced onto the garden. Jinli seemed unaware of her husband’s absence, let alone his death. Rather, she had experienced increasing moments of coherence, sometimes even engaging Hulan in conversation for five or more minutes at a time. Mostly her talk was of childhood memories—of the time she hid from her amah behind the spinning room, of the gardenias that her mother liked to float in bowls of water throughout the house, how her uncles had practiced their juggling and tumbling right here in this courtyard until their mother chased them out. At those moments, Jinli’s voice, although soft and unaccustomed to speech, was as beautiful as Hulan remembered.

There was so much Hulan could do for her mother now. Hulan had her own money, of course, but her father had left behind an estate appropriate to a patriarch of one of the Hundred Families. No land or buildings or stock, just cash. That some of it was profit from her father’s scheme troubled Hulan, but the Ministry of Public Security—under the advisement of Vice Minister Zai—had refused to confiscate any of it. This left Hulan with more than enough money to provide for her mother’s care, to begin restoring the buildings of the compound, and to put some aside for—

“Eeeah,” a voice called out. “Ni hao ma?” Neighborhood Committee director Zhang Junying stepped out onto the veranda.

“Huanying, huanying,” Hulan said in welcome, moving to meet her neighbor before she came all the way into the courtyard. “Come inside the house, auntie. Have you eaten? Do you drink tea?”

Madame Zhang looked longingly over Hulan’s shoulder to where the other two were sitting. “Your mother is looking very well.”

“Oh, she is very tired.” This traditional answer, though untrue, showed Hulan’s respect for her mother’s life of devotion, duty, and hard work.

Hulan took the Neighborhood Committee director’s elbow and led her back into the kitchen. “Sit here, auntie, where you can still see the garden and we can talk without disturbing the others.”

“Very well,” the old woman said coolly, understanding that she was not wanted.