The Interior (Red Princess 2)

The car pulled onto the toll road. The traffic cleared immediately, and Lo was able to drive at a steady, though still restrained, pace.

“I assumed murder,” David said, “because it was so obvious, so dramatic. He wanted to flaunt what he was able to do.”

“Jesus Christ!” Henry exploded. “What’s wrong with you people? What we saw in there…God, it was horrific!”

“Is it the same person?” David repeated, totally ignoring Henry’s outburst.

“If you look at the modus operandi, it could be. Suffocation has been the key. Miaoshan—hung from a rope. Pearl and Guy—also hung by a rope.”

“But Keith and Xiao Yang were different,” David said.

“Yes, theirs were more physical deaths—hitting someone with a car, throwing someone from a roof. To me, those murders imply a person with a desire for a physical act, while the suffocation and ropes suggest a tighter mind, someone who wants to be hands-on during the project, someone who wants to feel and watch the breath stop. So to my mind, this could be one person who’s acquired a taste for murder and is embellishing the methods by which he kills, or it could be two or more people. We just don’t know yet.”

The car slowed as it got off the toll road. The airport wasn’t set up for private planes. There was no VIP lounge or even a private airfield. Instead, those few people who flew into China on private or government jets used a side entrance—the same one used by maintenance—to reach the tarmac. Up ahead they could see the guardhouse that protected that entrance and the two People’s Liberation Army soldiers in their summer greens with machine guns draped over their shoulders flanking it. Lo asked, “What do you want me to say?”

Hulan looked over at Henry. “You know what to do,” she said.

Henry shrank into his seat.

“You want to help Sun?” David asked. “The only way we’re going to do that is if we get on your plane.”

Henry nodded, resigned. It was one thing to talk bravely about saving an old friend, David thought sympathetically. It was another to risk arrest in China.

The car moved forward. When they reached the gate, Henry pushed a button and his window glided down. The guard approached, surly and stiff, but before he could speak, Henry snapped his fingers and said loudly, “Come over here, boy.”

The guard glanced over the roof of the car at his companion. What impertinence was this? his look seemed to say.

“Don’t dawdle!” Henry blasted. He hit the side of the car with his fist. “Come here!” The guard swaggered over. Henry pointed right at the guard’s chest, an insult of the highest order. “You! See that plane over there?” Henry dragged his finger away from the guard to the direction of his plane. “That’s my baby. Let me pass!”

The guard bent down to see who else was in the car. Henry pressed a button and the tinted window rolled up. The guard banged on the window and started yelling. Lo kept his eyes forward. David and Hulan pretended they didn’t hear a thing. After a moment Henry cracked the window an inch or so.

“Get out of the car,” the guard said in Mandarin. To emphasize his point, he tapped the muzzle of his machine gun on the glass.

“No speakee Chinese!” Henry yapped. David groaned. “Now look, buddy,” Henry went on. Somewhere along the way he seemed to have added a broad Southern accent. “I’m a personal friend of President Jiang Zemin. Jiang Zemin! Get it?” Henry snapped his fingers in the guard’s face, each time rapping out, “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”

The guard, flummoxed by this spectacle, motioned to the other guard. The gate rose, and Lo stepped on the gas.

Henry sank back into the leather seat. “You wanted bluster. I blustered.”

“You did a good job,” Hulan said.

“I acted like a total asshole and thoroughly insulted your countrymen.”

“It worked,” she replied.

The car stopped next to the plane. The pilot and copilot stood at the bottom of the stairs, sweating in the sun. “We’re ready to go, sir,” the pilot said.

“Just get us out of here as soon as you can,” Henry said, and with that they boarded the plane.

22

AS THE PILOT STARTED THE ENGINES, HENRY QUICKLY checked to see if the fax had come through. It hadn’t. They belted in, the plane taxied out to the runway, and after a short, though agonizing wait, they were given permission to take off. When the plane reached cruising altitude, Henry unbuckled his seat belt and said ironically, “I haven’t had this much excitement since the war. And I want you to know right now, I’m not enjoying it any better.”

David smiled. It took a special person to deal with this kind of danger with humor. He looked over to see if Hulan had had the same reaction, but she’d fallen asleep. He knew that sleep was a way to escape tough circumstances, but he’d been in life-threatening situations with Hulan before and he’d never seen her shut down like this. He reached over and touched her cheek. It was burning hot.

“Hulan? Honey? Are you okay?”

Her eyes blinked open. She straightened in the seat and smoothed her hair. “I must have dozed off.”