Dragon Bones (Red Princess 3)

“Do you recognize my name?” she asked.

“You were named for Liu Hulan, martyr for the revolution.”

“I’ve lived my whole life with the burden of that name,” she confided, “but I’ve been like her in name only. I was given opportunities to save others which I didn’t take, and I saved myself at the expense of people I loved. But I want to tell you something. The real Liu Hulan revealed herself to be a Communist and had her head cut off by the Kuomintang so that others in her village could live. It was a moment of immense bravery for a foolish teenager, and she paid with her life.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the real Liu Hulan never got a second chance or even a chance to change her mind. She was fifteen. A year earlier, a year later, she might have made a very different choice. You have a chance now to change your position. Follow the rules and you could still save yourself.”

“Inspector, unlike that poor girl, I am a grown man who’s had several years to think about my decision.”

“Do you know what will happen to you?”

“Not much.” He held up his cigarette. “One in every eight male deaths in China is caused by smoking. It seems I’m to be added to those statistics, but I hope I live long enough to see my people safely moved and Bashan underwater.”

He pushed back his chair and stood. The conversational tone he’d just used was replaced by bureaucratic formality. “Thank you for coming by. If there’s anything else I can do to assist you, please let me know.”

Hulan stood for several minutes at the top of the steps leading to the dock, noting that there were far fewer stairs visible than there’d been when she and David arrived three days ago. The water had risen at least six meters, and the floating dock had been repositioned to accommodate the higher level. She took all this in, but her mind was occupied by thoughts of Captain Hom. The people of Bashan believed he was corrupt, but he was one of the most honorable men she’d ever met. She looked up to Hom’s office window and caught him staring down at her. He was a man swimming against the tide. His honesty and his convictions would bring him to a no-good end. She turned and began walking through the rain back up the hill toward the Panda Guesthouse.

She thought about what Hom had said about the people of Bashan and realized that from the moment she’d stepped off the ferry she’d sensed something unsettled about this place. On the surface it seemed like any other little town in the interior of China, with its cafés, dry goods shops, and vegetable stands, but there was an energy that percolated just under the surface. She had initially thought it had to do with the dam—the spirit of the great project infecting the populace with civic pride.

She realized now that this strange vitality boiled out of something far more intimate—fear, anger, and the uncertainty of the unknown. Everything these people had known would be gone soon. Longtime neighbors would be dispersed. All of the alliances, all of the petty arguments, all of the secrets traded, would disappear into the ether as though they’d never existed. Strange sights would replace street corners that had been as familiar as the back of one’s hand. Houses that had been homes for generations would be lost under the lake, and that thought would have to be terribly unsettling because of the joys and sorrows that would be drowned and gone forever. And all the past generations, who’d been laid to rest in places selected for their good feng shui, would never again be visited, their graves never again cleaned for Spring Festival, offerings never again brought.

Hulan was jolted out of these ruminations by a voice repeating her name. She turned and saw Michael Quon. He held a hand over his chest, panting, then he smiled and said, “I’ve been running after you, calling you. You obviously were very lost in thought, something I’m afraid I’m always accused of.”

“Dr. Quon.”

“Michael is fine.” He dropped his hand and smiled again.

“Can I help you?”

“Ha!”

It seemed to Hulan that the light and airy syllable reached into the deepest darkness of her heart.

“I was out for a walk. I saw you and you looked”—his forehead knit as he searched for the right word—“pensive. Are you all right?”

“I was thinking.”

“As I said, that’s what I’m always accused of doing. That’s when it’s best to get some fresh air, take a walk, clear the mind. Want to join me?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but when he started up the hill she found herself keeping pace with him.

“Have you walked the Qutang Gorge yet?” he asked, his voice buoyant. When Hulan said she hadn’t, he said, “Take an hour, Inspector, and come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Take it from a fellow brooder, you’ll think better.”

After everything that had happened today—the tense exchanges with David, the parries with Stuart Miller, the hours with the paperwork, the retracing of what might have happened to Lily, the interview with the gatekeeper, and this last meeting with Hom—she was weary in spirit. She had only one person left on her list, but Angela McCarthy could wait an hour. So Hulan walked with Michael Quon.

They left the main road and joined a path that continued west. The land here was completely different from the scorched earth near Site 518. Pine groves clung to the hills. Waterfalls cascaded from high precipices into deep gullies. Then suddenly she and Quon were on the old towpath cut right into the cliff she’d seen that first day from the ferry. She closed her umbrella, because the path was little more than a meter wide and she could touch the rocky ceiling above her. Below, the swollen river raged past. If the rain continued another day or two, this path would be submerged.

Without speaking, they walked single file until up ahead Hulan could see the two imposing mountains that formed the Kuimen Gate at the entrance to the gorge. For the first time in days the sun broke through the clouds, and Quon abruptly stopped.

“Look!” Rays of sunlight caught on wet outcroppings of rock even as high above them mists still hid the peaks. “When you see something like this,” he said, his voice a respectful whisper, “you know why the landscape painters were inspired to reflect on the insignificance of man in the face of nature.”

“It’s beautiful,” she agreed.