“Odd? How?”
“Gaps. They are usually explained in his record as ‘ time,’ which is military vocabulary for a holiday. A vacation. One occurred after the death of his fiancee from a virus she was working with.”
“Yes, I know that virus. Frightening. Surely an absence is understandable after such a cruel misfortune?”
“Possibly.” Major Pan nodded as if he had really heard, but his eyes said his mind was somewhere else. “You did not see Smith again last night?”
“No.”
“But you attended various talks and meetings?”
“Of course. It was why we were there.”
“Would you have expected that he’d be around, too?”
“Yes.” Liang frowned. “There were two in particular. One by an American colleague, and another by a personal friend of his from the Pasteur. But remember, he did tell me he was in meetings late into the night. There were many to choose from.”
Major Pan considered. “It was the next morning that he suddenly approached you to come to Shanghai to visit your institute?”
“Well, not in so many words. But I would say … he made it quite clear he would be interested in an immediate invitation.”.
“How so? How did he happen to be with you this morning?” Dr. Liang thought. “He joined us for breakfast. Usually he ate with his friend from the Pasteur. During the meal, he casually mentioned he would like to see our facility and speak to us about USAMRIID’s work.
When I said I could certainly arrange it in the near future, he became regretful, suggesting it was difficult for him to travel so far, which meant he was rarely in Asia. At that point I, of course, suggested that since he was so close, why not now?”
“And he liked the idea?”
“He hemmed and hawed, but I could see it appealed to him.”
The major nodded to himself again. He abruptly slid off the filing cabinet and was gone.
Dr. Liang stared at the closed door of his office, wondering what had happened. He was certain he had reported everything by phone to the Security Bureau, as he was required to do after every trip outside China. Why had Major Pan come here, and what could he have learned just now that made him leave so suddenly? The major had a reputation as a man who succeeded in his work where everyone else failed. Liang shook his head, feeling a disorienting chill of fear.
The highly secure conclave of Zhongnanhai stood in the shadow of the legendary Forbidden City in central Beijing, where China’s emperors and empresses once played and governed. For centuries, Zhongnanhai was the imperial court’s pleasure garden, where horse races, hunts, and festivals were held for nobility and their retainers on the green banks of two lakes. In fact, Zhongnanhai meant “Central and Southern Lake.”
After the Communists captured the country in 1949, they moved into the vast complex and refurbished and remodeled the pagoda-roofed buildings.
Today, Zhongnanhai was alternately revered and reviled as the all-powerful national seat of Chinese government — the new Forbidden City. Here the Politburo, which numbered twenty-five, held forth in regal splendor.
Although ultimate authority rested with them, the truth was that it was the Politburo’s Standing Committee that really ruled. They were the elite of the elite. Recently, the Standing Committee had been increased from seven members to nine. Their decisions were rubber-stamped by the Politburo and implemented by ministries and lower- level departments.
Many lived on the highly secure grounds with their families, in traditional courtyard-style estates of several buildings, surrounded by walls. Top staff members did, too, in apartments far more comfortable than most of those available outside, in the metropolis.
Still, this was not the White House or 10 Downing Street or even the Kremlin. Secretive, media-averse, Zhongnanhai showed on few tourist maps, even though its general office address at 2 Fuyoujie was printed clearly on Communist Party stationery. Surrounded by a vermillion-colored wall like the one that had once shut the old Forbidden City off from the world, the compound was so well designed that seeing in or over the high walls from anywhere in Beijing was impossible. Ordinary Chinese were not welcome. Foreigners even less so, unless they were ruling heads of state.
Some of this pleased Niu Jianxing, but not all. Although he was one of the elite Standing Committee and worked in Zhongnanhai, he chose to live outside it, in the city itself. Instead of being decorated with ornamental scrolls, dragons, and photographs, his office was spartan. He believed in the basic socialist principle of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. His physical needs were simple and unpretentious. His intellectual needs were something else again.
Niu Jianxing leaned back behind his cluttered desk, entwined his fingers, and closed his eyes. He was still within the circular pool of light cast by his old desk lamp. It glared on his sunken cheeks and delicate features, which were partially hidden behind tortoiseshell glasses. The harsh light did not appear to bother him, as if he were so deep in concentration he did not know there was any light at all, as if nothing disturbing could exist in the tranquil world inside his mind.
Niu Jianxing had become a very important man by acquiring power step by clandestine step. Ever since entering the party and the government, he had found repose to be a great aid to concentration and correct decisions. He would often sit silently like this at Politburo and Standing Committee meetings. At first, the others had thought he was asleep and had dismissed him as a lightweight from the countryside of Tianjin. They talked as if he were not there — in fact, as if he did not exist at all — until it became clear, to the permanent regret of a few who had spoken too freely, that he heard every word and usually had their problems solved or dismissed before they could even articulate them.
After that, his admirers nicknamed him the Owl, a catchy name that spread through the ranks and made him someone to be remembered. A savvy politician as well as tactician, he had made it his personal chop.
At the moment, the Owl was pondering the disquieting rumor that some of his colleagues on the Standing Committee had second thoughts about signing the human-rights agreement with the United States he had worked so hard to negotiate. He had spent the morning putting out feelers to identify who those backsliders might be.
Strange that he’d had no warning of such serious dissension. This concerned him, too, hinting as it did of an organized opposition waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves and kill the treaty. Now that China was entering the capitalist world, it was inevitable that some in government would be determined to destroy it to preserve their own dominance.
A light knock yanked him from his reverie. His eyes snapped open. His windows were shuttered against the bright Beijing day and the magnificent gardens of Zhongnanhai. The years had taught him the importance of his secluded office. The single knock came again — one he recognized only too well. It always signaled trouble.
“Come in, General.”
General Chu Kuairong, PLA (Ret.), marched into the cloistered room, took off his hat, and sat. Hunched forward in the hard wood chair that faced the desk, he had a scarred face, thick shoulders, and barrel chest. His tiny eyes were sunk in deep, wind-and-sun creases. They squinted at Niu as if looking through the raw desert sunlight. His shaved head reflected like polished steel in the circle of light from the desk lamp. In his medal-bedecked uniform, he resembled some old Soviet marshal, contemplating the destruction of Berlin in World War II.
Only the thin cigar clamped between his teeth spoiled the image. “It’s the spycatcher.”
“Major Pan?” The Owl hid his impatience.
“Yes. Major Pan thinks Dr. Liang could be jumping at shadows, but he’s not sure.” General Chu was the chief of the Public Security Bureau, one of the organs under the Owl’s control. Major Pan was one of the general’s top counterintelligence operatives. “It’s possible Colonel Smith is a spy who’s maneuvered an invitation for a specific purpose.
Perhaps scientific espionage.”
“Why does Major Pan think that?”
“Two things. First, there are some oddities in Smith’s paper record.
