Dragon Bones (Red Princess 3)

“I never lied to you, Hulan. You should know that. But I did omit a few things. I told you that I loved puzzles as a boy and that I liked Yu’s mathematical game. It was nothing special really, but I got hooked on the man. I even used his map as my company logo. When I came to China four years ago, I began searching in my own way to find my purpose. As I told you last night, I wasn’t going to fit in with organizations back home, not even the Committee of 100. I am a very rich man, yet I will always be seen as an outsider in America because of my race.” He leaned forward and confided, “You understand that. Being an outsider in your homeland is one of the things that binds us.” Then he relaxed and resumed his story. “But it’s all a process and, as you said, I began following Yu’s landmarks of the nine provinces. The next year I began making speeches as Xiao Da.”

“You began to believe your own propaganda.”

“Xiao Da has been an invigorating experience. He brought me closer to Da Yu.”

Quon spoke now of the transition from looking at arbitrary sites to something much more focused. “The most successful emperors understood the power of symbols. I knew that by bringing the past to the present I could consolidate the people, but what would our symbol be?”

He realized that the key to his grip on the multitudes lay in the mythology of the past. Mao Zedong had understood this very well when he’d said, “Make the past serve the present.” When Catherine Miller began talking about the missing ninth tripod, Quon was convinced he was following the right course, because even the conniving Lily had been caught up in its mythology, though all historical evidence said it couldn’t possibly be in the Yangzi. But Brian had tired of the game and, to avoid Lily’s nagging, found solace in caving.

“He invited me along, because I’m, well, I’m Michael Quon— inventor of VYRUSCAN. The first time we entered this cave it was like going back to the mother. You smell it, don’t you, how this place is alive?”

To Hulan these caves had always reeked of something moldy and rotting. Now she watched as Quon reached up, sank his fingers into the roof of the cave, and came away with a spongy mass, which he handed to Su. The officer took the blob, dipped it into one of the blood-filled buckets, then began coating Hom’s body with his own drained fluids.

“Last summer,” Quon went on, as though nothing had

happened, “Brian and I explored a lot of caves. I showed him this one.” He tilted his head deprecatingly. “I told him who I was. He became a convert, and I have to say he was very helpful. He did extra research on Da Yu, which I incorporated into Xiao Da. Brian gave me entire passages from the Shu Ching to use in my sermons, knowing they would speak to the people on an atavistic level. He came up with some of our better chants. ‘You can’t stop the river from flowing’ and ‘The river brings us life’ were his. Then the kid falls in love. I granted him religious power and he turned it down for a piece of ass.”

Hulan wished Xiao Da’s followers could hear him now.

“Maybe he had doubts about what you were doing.”

Quon shrugged off the idea. “I came back to Bashan this year after I bought my first chime from Cosgrove’s, because I knew Brian had hit pay dirt, so to speak. But Brian would no longer talk to me. He had a secret and he wouldn’t reveal it no matter what I offered him, not even money. I had to wonder why. So I kept exploring. I found the tunnel into the guesthouse and the life of this cave. While these things have served me well, they were not what I was looking for. Meanwhile, Lily continued to put up for auction some very interesting pieces. She also sold privately through Cathay Antiquities. I bought discreetly. Only I could see what the others didn’t—these pieces had all come from the same source, and her primary source within China was Brian.”

After Lily had gotten Wu Huadong to jump in the whirlpool, everything had changed. Which was a shame, because Quon had spent a lot of time with the boy, enticing him with spiritual and financial riches if he’d reveal the secrets of the earth. “He was ready to help me.”

“‘From the fist of the past to my fist to the fist of the future,’” Hulan recited Wu Huadong’s promise to his father.

But Lily had meddled and was fully responsible for what happened next. Two days after Wu’s drowning, Brian went to her with more of the chimes, the ruyi, and some other items, which were then listed in the Cosgrove’s catalog. Throughout it all, Quon kept an eye on Brian’s website. The photo addressed specifically to Angela—a mycologist—told him it was time to get back here.

“I went back and reread the Shu Ching and all of the other sources on Yu. I thought more about the ‘living earth’—the ‘swelling mold’—which Yu had used to stop the flood. Could this cave be the source of that living earth, and could the ruyi be somehow connected to it?”

Hulan understood only half of what Quon was saying, but the other half was transparent. He was trying to sound like a concerned scholar, but his real interest had been the growth of his political power. The dam might be a more monumental statement, but even the Central Committee would be in danger of losing its hold over the masses if Yu’s scepter could be found. But why hadn’t Quon gone to Hong Kong to buy the ruyi? His relaxed confidence told Hulan that he must have sent someone else to bid on it. He had to stay here and find the hidden chamber so that when he won the ruyi he could hide it again, then “discover” it in a place of great symbolic significance.

“There came a day when I found Brian coming out of one of the lower caves down by the river,” Quon recalled as he paced back and forth in the confines of the cave. “I demanded that he tell me the location of the tomb. We scuffled on the rocks, and Brian died. It was an accident, but how could I explain to the authorities the reasons behind our argument?”

Fortunately, one of the keys to the All-Patriotic Society’s success had been the conversion of local law enforcement through religion and/or money. In Bashan, Officer Su—a true religious convert—had been a great help in setting up Society meetings and keeping Captain Hom out of the way. Now Su suggested taking a bad situation and making use of it.

“As you noticed, Hulan, Su is quite clever,” Quon went on. “Brian’s nose had been broken in the fight, but it gave Su an idea. Cutting off the nose is the second of the ancient Five Punishments. I felt we couldn’t have the second punishment without the first, so we added the brand. I know you think this is cruel, but I was hoping to send a message to the other archaeologists: Don’t go digging into things that aren’t your business. But we didn’t imagine that Brian would wash so far away or that you would never mention these details.”

As Quon spoke, Hulan wondered why he hadn’t searched through Brian’s backpack when he killed the boy or why he hadn’t taken it later from Lily’s room. Had Lily been so avaricious that even as she’d been tortured she hadn’t revealed its whereabouts? Or had she gone into shock too quickly and been unable to respond? In both murders, had Quon, in his attention to the details of creating scenes that would send messages to anyone he considered a threat, simply overlooked the obvious?

“And Lily?” Hulan asked.

Lily had been far more forthcoming than Brian, admitting that she’d put together what he’d written in his journal with the stories she’d heard about the Wang compound.

“But she didn’t come through the tunnel,” Hulan said. “She left Bashan on the main road.”

“It turns out Lily was afraid of the dark,” Quon responded apologetically. “She was hoping to find another entrance. Imagine her surprise when she ran into my lieutenant on the road.” He’d said this as though Hulan would understand, but she had no idea why Lily Sinclair would have known anything about Tang Wenting. “She was even more surprised to see me when he escorted her here.”

Later they’d brought Lily’s body straight into the compound. Su, who’d appeared so shocked at the sight of Lily’s corpse, had played the perfect sycophant, even providing Hulan with a map showing the routes Lily and Catherine had taken through town. Now he went about his chores with methodical determination. She’d seen his kind so many times in her life. She should have known better.

Quon kneeled in front of her again and said softly, “I’d like that journal now.”

“I don’t have it.”

“But I do,” came a new voice to the chamber.

David processed the scene quickly. Hom and some other man killed by the Five Punishments. Officer Su aiming a gun at David’s torso. Michael Quon, possibly unarmed. The opening behind Quon, another opening on the far side of the chamber, and the opening David had come through. The look of great love and great fear that passed over his wife’s face when she realized he was there.