The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

"And if they don't?"

"Why do you dishonor me like this?" Chang asked angrily.

Pushing inside the apartment, William shook his head, a look of exasperation on his face, and walked brusquely into the bedroom. He slammed the door.

Chang took the tea his wife offered him.

Chang Jiechi asked, "Where did he go?"

"Up the street. He got this." He showed him the gun and the elder Chang took it in his gnarled hands.

Chang asked, "Is it loaded?"

His father had been a soldier, resisting Mao Zedong on the Long March that swept Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists into the sea, and was familiar with weapons. He examined it closely. "Yes. Be careful. Keep the safety lever in this position." He handed the gun back to his son.

"Why does he disrespect me?" Chang asked angrily. He hid the weapon on the top shelf of the front closet and led the old man to the musty couch.

His father said nothing for a moment. The pause was so long that Chang looked at the old man expectantly. Finally, with a wry look in his eyes, his father responded, "Where did you learn all your wisdom, son? What formed your mind, your heart?"

"My professors, books, colleagues. You mostly, Baba."

"Ah, me? You learned from your father?" Chang Jiechi asked in mock surprise.

"Yes, of course." Chang frowned, unsure what the man was getting at.

The old man said nothing but a faint smile crossed his gray face.

A moment passed. Then Chang said, "And you are saying that William learned from me? I've never been insolent to you, Baba."

"Not to me. But you certainly have been to the Communists. To Beijing. To the Fujianese government. Son, you're a dissident. Your whole life has been rebellion

."

"But . . . "

"If Beijing said to you, 'Why does Sam Chang dishonor us?' what would your response be?"

"I'd say, 'What have you done to earn my respect?' "

"William might say the same to you." Chang Jiechi lifted his hands, his argument complete.

"But my enemies have been oppression, violence, corruption." Sam Chang loved China with his complete heart. He loved the people. The culture. The history. His life for the past twelve years had been a consuming, passionate struggle to help his country step into a more enlightened era.

Chang Jiechi said, "But all William sees is you hunched over your computer at night, attacking authority and being unconcerned about the consequences."

Words of protest formed in Chang's mind but he fell silent. Then he realized with a shock that his father perhaps was right. He laughed faintly. He thought about going to speak to his son but something was holding him back. Anger, confusion--maybe even fear of what his son might say to him. No, he'd speak to the boy later. When--

Suddenly the old man winced in pain.

"Baba!" Chang said, alarmed.

One of their few possessions that had survived the sinking of the Dragon was the nearly full bottle of Chang Jiechi's morphine. Chang had given his father a tablet just before the ship sank and he'd had the bottle in his pocket. It was tightly sealed and no seawater had gotten inside.

He now gave his father two more pills and placed a blanket over him. The man lay back on the couch and closed his eyes.

Sam Chang sat heavily in a musty chair.

Their possessions gone, his father desperately needing treatment, a ruthless killer their enemy, his own son a renegade and criminal . . .