Dragon Bones (Red Princess 3)

“Why aren’t these materials in the evidence locker?”

Fong grimaced, then leaned forward as if to tell her something in confidence. “He’s a foreigner. Special care, Inspector, special care.”

Did he know something she didn’t? Probably. Undoubtedly.

She quickly sorted through the artifacts. A driver’s license would have made her job easy, but she didn’t see one. Various other papers—probably discount cards, old receipts, and business cards—had come through the arduous and wet journey, but whatever information had been on them was now illegible. She picked up another plastic sleeve. Inside was a piece of lined paper about twelve by eighteen centimeters that had been torn from a notebook.

“You found this in the wallet?”

“Wedged in his back pocket.”

“What is it?”

“Notebook paper obviously. Judging from the quality, I’d say foreign. It might be easier to trace than if it were Chinese, but what are the odds?”

She turned it over in her hand, then held it under the light on Fong’s desk. She could see something still on the paper. She looked at Fong, who said, “I checked under a microscope, and it looks like symbols of some sort.”

She examined the paper more closely. Could it be shorthand? Fong wouldn’t be familiar with those squiggles, but she’d seen enough of them when she’d worked at Phillips & MacKenzie to recognize them. But this definitely wasn’t shorthand. She put the paper back on the desk. Fong waited for her to speak, then when she didn’t he gestured to the plastic sleeves. “Just because you don’t see the words doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I have tests I can do to see what I can pull up.”

For a moment she seemed lost in thought, then she said, “Let me make a couple of calls first.”

Anyone in the building could have done what Hulan did next, which was call the American Embassy—a logical step because Americans outnumbered all other foreigners who entered China on tourist or work visas. Although Hulan hadn’t been in contact with anyone at the embassy for a long time, she felt no awkwardness in making the call. Those who’d been there during her last encounter were now dead, in jail, or long gone.

The receptionist patched her through to a junior staffer, Charlie Freer, who seemed personable, informative, and tactful, which made him altogether perfect for his job. “Car accidents, heart attacks, that’s what I usually deal with,” Freer explained by way of introduction. “We always get information on those cases quickly, and it’s my job to make arrangements to get the deceased back home. But I haven’t had many missing persons cases per se. Actually this is my first. I mean, what American goes missing in China?”

What he said was true. Most tourists traveled the country in tours and on set routes, while the people who worked here were watched in much the way the Chinese themselves were watched.

“But to answer your question,” Freer continued, “I do have a report of a missing archaeologist. It took a couple days to get it. The phone lines are iffy where this guy was working, but you know how that is.”

Hulan did. If Freer’s missing person worked on the Yangzi, that could explain a lot. The phone lines weren’t bad in the major cities along the river, but there were few phones in small towns and villages, and cell connections were notoriously bad because of the height of the gorges.

“We did our usual bit,” Freer conceded. “We have a system that we use wherever Americans travel. We notify expats living in the region by fax and e-mail. We send out notices to tourist hotels and restaurants. I like to think that I can find anyone here in China by nightfall.”

“I thought you didn’t get missing persons,” Hulan said.

“Well, there are missing persons and missing persons, Inspector. I had a situation just last week where I got a call from a family in California. A man back home had had a stroke and was officially brain-dead. They needed someone to pull the plug, but the brother, who had medical power of attorney, happened to be here on vacation. The sister-in-law made it clear that we weren’t going to find this guy in the usual places. In my job you can tell when you’re going down a certain path. You know how I deal with problems like that?”

Hulan admitted she didn’t.

“I ask, Would your brother

—sister, father, aunt, fill in the blank—be what you might call a free spirit? These are people who travel under the radar, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t want the local Public Security Bureau turning up and finding our Joe mellowing out and smoking a joint or, worse, being a Goody Two-shoes and working with some human rights group. That would be a real diplomatic fiasco.”

“So where was the brother?”

“Tibet.”

Enough said. Both sides had their watchers. Both sides had their policies. Both sides had their own reasons to track people down and spirit them away.

“About your missing person—”

“Brian McCarthy, a graduate student from Seattle,” Freer said. “He was reported missing on July twentieth, but I wasn’t called until Monday the twenty-second. I called his sister in the States to let her know but only got her answering machine. Next thing I heard she was on her way to the Three Gorges. And of course I informed your ministry of the details, since McCarthy was here as an expert.”

Why hadn’t Vice Minister Zai just given Hulan McCarthy’s name? She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She knew she was being used, but she didn’t know why.

“McCarthy was working near a town called Bashan on the Yangzi as part of a cooperative archaeological program between China and other nations,” Freer continued. “From what I could tell in my conversations with Dr. Ma—he’s the supervisor down on the site who called me—this Brian seemed very reliable. Not the sort who’d go off without notifying his superiors.”

“Do you have a physical description?” she asked.