selection of brutal modern art prints on the wall. There was the smell of strong coffee. A Chinese woman was sprawled across the solitary armchair with one leg hanging over the arm. Skinny black jeans and a black singlet, pulled tight over her breasts. No Asian subservience from this woman, that was for sure.
She wore a laconic smile, but said nothing, looking at Stone while chewing on crackers from a box, one after the other. Her eyes ran over his tall body like a thirsty woman looking at a long, cold drink. A smile played around her lips and she made sure her eyes stayed on Stone until he could be in absolutely no doubt that he’d been checked out.
‘A simple handshake would have sufficed,’ Stone said without looking, and walked over to pour a coffee for himself. ‘Do I pass inspection?’
He glanced at her again. Yep. That arrogant smile was unmistakable.
It’s not so difficult to find people if they want to be found. The signal came from Ying Ning not long after Stone’s posting on the NotFutile.com blog; Stone noticed a new blog entry on the web site.
No one else would take notice of this post. China21’s bland language of “struggle”, “bourgeois” and “revolution” meant nothing. And how retarded would any Chinese have to be in the 21st Century to sign off with “
No. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Ying Ning had posted on Stone's site to make contact. After that it was simple to get in touch through the anonymized email server.
Ying Ning. The woman dressed as a tart when Junko was murdered in the Snake Market. That arrogant laconic smile was her trade mark. But she looked better without the lipstick and red wig for sure. So this was Ying Ning, with the spiky hair and the slim, angular body. The source of Junko’s information on ShinComm Corporation and New Machine Technologies.
Stone stood while he poured himself a coffee. Did she think he was going to blush or something? Her eyes stayed on him, drinking him in, and who knows what she was thinking.
‘Did you learn about Semyonov by sipping wine with his capitalist cronies?’ she asked. ‘Did he explain about his weapons factories? No? Or did you learn more from your visit with Professor Zhang?’
‘I found out more than you think,’ he said. ‘But Junko’s file tells me you’re the expert. So you can tell me, since you bought me here.’
‘OK. I tell you one thing. They will execute you, Stone,’ she said, coolly. ‘Zhang gave you one day to leave Hong Kong, but you are still here. If
She’d spotted the bullet wound scar just above his elbow, then. ‘What about you?’ said Stone. ‘They shoot subversives like you, don’t they? Or is it a prison camp in Qinghai?’
‘Could be.’ She shrugged. ‘But I know what I’m doing. I have the contacts, and I am Chinese. For yellow- haired
‘Cool,’ said Stone. His calm, grey eyes searched into her. ‘Sounds like you’re the person I need to get me into China. Help me blend in.’
Ying Ning was still lounging back, one leg over the arm of the chair. She chose that point to take out a carton of cigarettes and tap it on the arm of the chair, then carefully take a cigarette and begin to smoke. It was like Ying Ning was marking her territory. ‘I’m the right girl for a lot of things,’ she replied. Stone could see she was thinking. Making a decision in her mind. ‘You ready for a holiday in Jiangsu province, Mr
She helped him out, smiling with disdain. ‘It means Rock-head,’ she said, and breathed out a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘I heard you learned some Chinese,
Stone laughed back into her black eyes. He liked her already. He ran his gaze for a second over her hips. The ones he remembered from the leather miniskirt in the Snake Market. ‘Come on then, Cat-Woman,’ he said. ‘I may just let you come along. We’re going to China to meet a man called Robert Oyang. But first you need to tell me all you know about Semyonov and ShinComm Corporation.’
He turned to get more coffee. Ying Ning lounged in the chair and checked him out from behind, then stubbed out her cigarette in deliberate fashion and walked up behind him. Pulled at his shirt to turn him around to face her.
‘You haven’t explained why you came here, Rockhead,’ she sa id. ‘You have not been honest before we go any further.’
‘I told you. I want to find out about what Semyonov was doing at ShinComm.’
‘You lie,’ she said. ‘You are looking for the Machine. Everybody is looking for the Machine.’
She was right of course.
Chapter 26 — 9:40am 1 April — Hung Hom, Hong Kong
As soon as Ying Ning contacted Stone through NotFutile.com, the question had come into Stone’s mind. Why was Ying Ning happy to have Stone alongside her in her campaigns against “China’s billionaire clique”? Why should she even trust him?
So Stone had done some background work on Ying Ning before he went to find her in that apartment. Even he would have to say what he found out was fascinating.
Ying Ning was an enigma. It wasn’t Ying Ning’s clever arrogance, her sarcasm, her plume of spiky black hair, her sexy angular body or that trademark crooked smile that made her mysterious. It wasn’t just her background story of bad-luck, suffering and violence. Or where on earth she found the information she used to expose and ridicule all those newly-rich businessmen and factory owners she was at war with. All that was understandable. It was just her. Her closedness. Stone sensed Ying Ning had hidden depths, but no one was going to see them.
After a couple of web searches, Stone had realised that Ying Ning was quite a famous individual — in fact she was a cult figure in China. China lacks a “free” press in the Western sense, but has a thriving scene of micro- bloggers. Literally millions of them, and millions more who read the blogs. Ying Ning and her banned protest organization, China21, were very well known, in an electronic-word-of-mouth way that can’t be replicated in the West. For the simple reason that they were banned.
Ying Ning was not a real name of course. As soon as she posted it on the NotFutile.com site, that was obvious. But this wasn’t just any made-up name. Ying Ning was a girl in a Chinese fairy tale. The Fox Girl. The fictional Ying Ning was a shape-changer girl who alternates between being a fox and a beautiful girl. Apparently, Fox Girls are not uncommon in Chinese and Japanese fairytales, and Ying Ning was one of the best known. She was not only beautiful. She used her powers, magical and sexual, to entrance and deceive. This Fox Girl name of Ying Ning, it turned out, was instantly memorable in China. Almost as if Stone had called himself “Robin Hood”. No one would forget it. The modern Ying Ning was known across China on blogs and forums, and she was already a myth in her own right.
The Chinese authorities took a less charitable view of the name Ying Ning, however. The official Chinese news site
