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“I think so, too, because as complicated as this has been, as twisted…” She didn’t finish. She smoothed a few strands of hair from her face. She looked exhausted. “They want Peter and me to come home.”
“I thought we decided you wouldn’t do that.”
“I know, David, but let’s look at this. Five people have died. Someone is making a profit—on people, on medicines. We thought the answer was here, but we were wrong. I think we have to start over again. I have to go back. It’s my duty. You see that, don’t you?”
That he saw it didn’t make him feel any better about it.
“Then I’ll come with you.”
Madeleine Prentice thought otherwise. “I’ve had calls from both the State Department and the Ministry of Public Security. Everyone is satisfied that the culprit is in custody. The Bureau, of course, isn’t too thrilled, but I think they’ll take some consolation in the fact that the Chinese have a very different judicial system than we do.”
“He’s not the murderer.”
Madeleine shrugged. “It’s political now, David. Let the Chinese handle it. Spencer Lee’s the scapegoat. Take it. Be happy with it. Try to put this whole disaster behind you.”
As David walked down the corridor, he thought over what Madeleine had said. In his office, Hulan waited for him. No matter how things turned out, they would be together.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He took her hand and they went down the hall to find Peter. The trio left the Federal Courthouse Building and walked to David’s car. When they got to his house, David opened his wallet, pulled out his American Express card, and made three reservations on United to Beijing via Tokyo.
Later, after they stopped at the bank to get as much cash as he could, David and Hulan didn’t speak much. They were taking a tremendous risk. David’s career in the government was effectively over, a realization that gave him a strangely exhilarating sense of freedom.
He did, however, worry about Hulan. In the last week, as the story of the illegal sale of the nuclear trigger components continued to come out, the political situation between the United States and China had regressed to its worst state since the Bamboo Curtain fell. Most of the dependents from the U.S. embassy as well as from its consulates in other parts of China had been sent home; the Chinese had reciprocated by doing the same with about 50 percent of its personnel stationed in the United States. The State Department—while not yet issuing an official advisory against travel to China—had announced that visitors to that country should be “careful” better yet they should postpone their trips indefinitely.
David and Hulan would go to China. They would see this thing through to the end. And then? The answer to that was out of reach, beyond anything David could imagine.
17
FEBRUARY 10
Beijing
You’re about to see why I don’t practice law,” Hulan said as she and David took two seats in Beijing’s People’s Court. The room was large and typically cold. Several observers still wore their coats and scarves. But the air was oddly stuffy from cigarette smoke and, he presumed, fear. For David, who watched as several cases were tried and sentences meted out with amazing dispatch by a panel of three judges in military uniforms, the whole scene had a surreal quality.
The first trial of the day involved a man accused of bank robbery. The prosecutor shouted out the facts of the case while the defendant stood with his head bowed. There were no witnesses, and the defendant chose not to speak. His wife and two children, however, were present at the proceedings and listened as the lead magistrate announced the decision less than forty-five minutes later. “You are not an honest man, Gong Yuan,” the judge said. “You were trying to leapfrog to a new level of prosperity by stealing from your countrymen. This cannot be allowed. The only justice for you is immediate execution.”
The second case involved a habitual housebreaker who had come to Beijing from Shanghai. This time, after the prosecutor had itemized his accusations, the judge asked the defendant several questions. Had he known his victims? Had he come to Beijing legally? Did he understand that if he confessed he would be dealt with more leniently? The answers were no, no, and yes. Still, the defendant chose not to accept responsibility for his crimes. The judge said that twenty years at hard labor might make him see otherwise.
And on it went.
These trials, Hulan explained, were the result of the “Strike Hard” campaign that
had begun a little over a year ago. Fueled by the rise in crimes for profit, the government began a crackdown that had produced tens of thousands of arrests and well over one thousand executions. “Once convicted,” she said, “the criminals are paraded through the streets, marched through sports arenas, and displayed on television. They wear placards around their necks listing their crimes. They are denounced as barbarians by their jailers and heckled by crowds. Then it’s off to labor camp or death.”
Such harsh justice had a long pedigree in China. Twice a year in days gone by, posters would be displayed in cities across the nation—not in public places where foreigners might see them, but behind walls in the neighborhoods—listing the names of those executed and their offenses.
“Families of those who are put to death have to pay for the bullet,” Hulan continued.
“But all that must be for serious crimes,” David said.
Hulan shook her head. “Even minor crimes merit tough sentences. Being fired from a job and having no other way to make a living, refusing to accept an employment assignment or housing transfer, or simply ‘making trouble’ can mean a four-year sentence to a labor camp.”
“And many of those camps,” David said, remembering articles he’d read, “provide cheap labor to American-owned factories in China.”
“That’s right. The U.S. profits from my countrymen’s transgressions.” Hulan motioned around the room. “And as you can see, justice proceeds quickly here. We have no pretrial hearings, no delays, no extensions, and rarely any defense witnesses to muddy the waters. The defendant is guilty until proven innocent. When that guilt is verified, punishment is determined and carried out promptly. An appeal is as rare as a solar eclipse.”
A door opened and Spencer Lee was brought in. His fashionably wrinkled linen suit had been exchanged for a white shirt, black slacks, and leg irons. His head was bowed, but at one point he glanced up. Then, just as quickly, a guard bopped Lee’s head with the heel of his fist and the prisoner’s head dropped back down submissively.
