Crowned by a green pyramid, it was twelve stories of Gothic architecture by way of the Chicago School. A notorious Shanghai millionaire, Victor Sas-soon, had built it in 1929, after making a fortune trading in opium and weapons.
As the limousine pulled to a stop before the arched entrance, Dr. Liang informed Smith, “I will register you in the name of the Biomedical Institute.” He climbed out.
Smith followed, casually making a 360-degree survey. He saw no sign of the dark-blue car that had left Pudong International with them. But as he stepped into the revolving doors, he noted their driver had also left the limo, raised the hood, and seemed to be examining the engine, which had been operating with the perfection of a Swiss timepiece, at least to Smith’s ear.
The lobby was Art Deco, little changed since the Roaring Twenties, which had roared especially loudly in Shanghai. Dr. Liang steered Smith left, across the white Italian-marble floor, to the registration desk. The haughty desk clerk looked down his nose at Dr. Liang as he registered and then over at Smith. He made little effort to conceal his arrogance. Dr. Liang spoke to him in low, harsh Chinese, and Smith heard what sounded like the name of the research institute. Fear flashed in the clerk’s eyes.
Instantly he became almost obsequious toward the Western guest. Despite the aura of freewheeling capitalism that had enlarged the city, Shanghai was in China, China was still a Communist country, and Dr. Liang appeared to be a great deal more influential than he had let anyone at the Taiwan conference see. As the clerk summoned a bellman, Dr. Liang presented Smith with his room key. “I regret a suite could not be authorized, but your room will be most spacious and comfortable. Do you wish to freshen up before we continue to the institute?”
“Today?” Smith acted surprised. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be at my best, Dr. Liang. I was in meetings and consultations until the small hours last night. A day of rest, and I’ll be able to do justice to our colleagues in the morning.”
Dr. Liang was startled. “Well, of course, that will be fine. I will alert my staff to rearrange our schedule. But surely you will join us for dinner. It would give all of us a great pleasure to reveal to you the beauty of Shanghai after dark.” Smith resisted an urge to bow; it was not a Chinese custom. “I’d be delighted, thank you. But perhaps we can have a late start? Would nine o’clock do?” “That is agreeable. We will be here.” Liang smiled and nodded understandingly. But there was an edge to his voice as he added, “We will not keep you up too late, Dr. Smith. That is a promise.” Was there suspicion behind the words and the smile? Or was Dr. Liang simply losing patience? For a simple scientist, he seemed to inspire a little too much fear in the desk clerk. Smith was acutely aware he might have raised his colleague’s doubts by putting him off in Taiwan, then seeking him out a few hours later, and, finally — no matter how subtly he had tried to make the invitation seem to come from Liang — hinting he would not turn down an immediate invitation. But with the time pressure, he’d had to take the risk. Suspicious or not, the scientist was at least smiling when he left. Smith watched through the glass doors as he stopped at the limo. The driver appeared from somewhere and spoke swiftly and urgently. Both got in, and the limo sped away.
The bellman had taken his suitcase. Smith rode the elevator up to his floor and found his room, still contemplating Dr. Liang, the limousine driver who had inspected an engine that had given no indication it needed inspecting, and the dark-blue Jetta. His bag was waiting, and the bellman was gone — tipping was frowned upon in the People’s Republic, although, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, it was a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance.
The room was everything Dr. Liang had promised. As large as a small suite in most modern American or European luxury hotels, it was atmospheric, with a king-sized bed and side tables recessed in a wood-paneled alcove lighted softly by antique table lamps. There was also a cozy sitting area with armchairs and coffee table, a leather-inlaid desk, green ivy plants, and a full bathroom behind a paneled wood door. With the chintz prints and piecrust tables, it looked very British. The windows were expansive, but the view was far from spectacular — neither the river, Pudong, the two suspension bridges, nor the Bund. Instead, Smith looked out on the older, lower office buildings and residences of the millions who staffed, fed, and operated the great city.
Smith checked inside his suitcase. The all-but-invisible filament he’d had installed in the interior was unbroken, which meant no one had searched it. He decided he must be too jumpy, probably overreacting …. Still, somewhere out there was the true manifest of the Empress as well as the people who had created it and the people who had stolen it from Mondragon. They might or might not be the same group. In any case, he was reasonably certain some had seen him close enough that they would recognize him again. By now, they might already know his name.
At the same time, all he had was a short glimpse of the big, tall leader of the attackers — a Han Chinese with unusual red hair — and a meaningless name scribbled on a coffeehouse napkin.
He was just starting to unpack when he heard footsteps in the corridor.
He slowed, listening. The sounds stopped outside his door. His pulse accelerating, he padded across the room and flattened against the wall, waiting.
As Dr. Liang Tianning entered the biomedical center, the staff secretary nodded toward his private office. “There’s a man waiting, Dr. Liang. He said he came to talk to you about your phone call. I … I couldn’t keep him out.” She looked down at her hands in her lap and shivered. She was young and shy, the way he preferred his secretaries. “I don’t like him.”
Dr. Liang admonished her. “He is an important man. Certainly not one you should dislike so openly. No phone calls, please, while he is here. You understand?”
She nodded, still looking down.
When Dr. Liang entered his office, the man was leaning against his filing cabinet, across from the desk. He was smiling and idly whistling, like a mischievous little boy.
Dr. Liang’s voice was uneasy. “I don’t know what I can add to what I reported over the telephone, Major Pan.”
“Possibly nothing. But let’s find out.”
Major Pan Aitu was small and pudgy, with soft hands, a gentle voice, and a benign smile. He wore a conservative gray European suit, clip-on floral bow tie, and horn-rimmed glasses. There was nothing about him to frighten anyone, until you looked behind the glasses. The eyes were completely unresponsive. When he smiled, the eyes did not. When he conversed in his quiet voice, the eyes did not animate or listen. They watched. They looked at you, but they did not see you. It was impossible to say at any given moment what they did see.
“Explain what has alarmed you about this Dr. Jon Smith,” Major Pan said.
“Has he been asking questions?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Liang fell into his desk chair. “It is only that in Taiwan he was so eager, and then when we have arranged an immediate visit to the research center here, he is quite suddenly too tired. He says that tomorrow would be better.”
“You don’t think he’s tired?”
“In Taiwan, at the conference, he did not seem tired. At the airport in Taipei, he was quite eager.”
“Explain to me exactly what happened in Taiwan.”
Liang described his approach to Smith, his invitation to dinner with himself and his colleagues from the institute, and Smith’s excuse and suggestion another time would be good.
“You thought he had no other engagement that night?”
Dr. Liang clicked his teeth, considering. “He was … well … evasive. You know how you can sense when someone has been taken by surprise and is quickly thinking of a polite way to refuse?”
Major Pan nodded, as much to himself as to Liang. “That’s when you left it that you’d contact him for a more convenient occasion to confer about your biomedical matters?”
“Yes.” There was something about Major Pan — perhaps the way he always seemed to be waiting — that compelled people to say more. “It seemed the right thing to do. His work at USAMRHD is important. We are anxious to understand what they are doing. Perhaps there is something there to aid our own research.”
“He is, then, a legitimate scientist?”
“A fine one.”
“But also an officer in the U.S. Army?”
“I suppose so. A colonel, I believe.”
“A lieutenant colonel,” Major Pan corrected absently, his expressionless eyes turned inward, as he thought. “I have studied his record since your call. There are, shall we say, odd occurrences in his past.”
