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“Yes.”
“But you didn’t back out of the deal because nothing went as it was supposed to. I gave that little tramp the information, and what does she do? She fucks it all up. I wanted her to give the works to that measly little do-gooder who’d been nosing around. But instead she splits it up. Keith shows a variation of it to Miles, who buries it for his own personal gain. Keith died because he didn’t have the guts to expose what he knew. She also sends some of the papers to Sun, and he does everything he can to cover his ass. But I still counted on Guy Lin. He at least did what he was supposed to do.”
“But for what end? I still don’t understand.”
“Any piece of it—the bribery, the problems on the factory floor—should have been enough to alert you. I knew you’d start an internal investigation, and once you did you’d pull out of the Tartan deal, because the idea that Tartan would keep the place running like this would make you sick.”
“What you’ve done here does make me sick. You could have avoided all this just by telling me what you wanted. Did you think I wouldn’t pull out if you asked me to? And why promise to sell your shares to Tartan, then back out of that?”
“You still don’t get it, Dad. Think Knight. Think chess. Think next move. Finally, rather later than I expected, you did exactly what I wanted. You heard about the hostile takeover and ordered your brokers to start buying stock. You were to increase our shares overall.”
“Meaning more profits to you. But,” Henry said, gesturing around him, “this can’t be the checkmate you wanted.”
A small smile played on Doug’s lips. “It will do.”
“Come on, Doug,” Amy interrupted. “Let’s get moving.”
Doug nodded and motioned for Amy to get to work. The woman tucked her revolver in the waistband of her skirt and began pulling handfuls of fiber out of big burlap sacks and tossing it on the floor. The intention of this action was immediately felt by the hundreds of women in the room. These foreigners planned to light a fire.
“And what will this get you? You’ll destroy your prize,” Henry said.
“It covers this mess,” Doug answered. “I figured we could deal with a lawyer, but the police? Once the inspector showed up we had to change strategies. But don’t worry. We’ve made plans to pick up from the ashes.”
David’s eyes darted back to where Hulan had collapsed. She hadn’t moved, but the two girls had. One was on her feet, darting from the safety of one machine to another, while the other crawled along more cautiously. Both were passing word of some sort. Their movements went unnoticed by Amy Gao, who now looked ghostly in a cloud of fluff, while the two men in the center of the room seemed completely unaware of the electric fear pulsating throughout the room.
“All you had to do was walk away from the deal,” Doug said. “But look what it took! It makes me think you’re not as smart as everyone says.”
“And you’re still telling me you did this for the technology?” Henry asked skeptically.
“Dad.” The word was drawn out and as patronizing as any from a rebellious teenager. “It was the skim. It was the potential of this land. I mean, my God, look around! We could have had all of it for nothing. But yes, it was the damn technology. You hit it, Dad. You actually hit it. It’s so much bigger than Sam & His Friends. The other toy companies want it. The studios have been banging at the door. Think what this could mean to Warner Brothers and the Batman films or to Paramount and the Star Trek franchise or to Lucas and the Star Wars empire. Everything that’s old could be new again, and everything that’s new could be…Well, others have talked about interactive toys, but you did it. Seven hundred million was peanuts. Even if we make one hundred million a year and the stock market values us at thirty times earnings—which is modest these days—we’ll have a company worth three billion, with nowhere to go but up.”
Henry’s face was unreadable. Finally he said, his voice disappointed, “Our family has been in the toy business. Did you once stop to think what that meant?”
Doug turned his eyes away from his father and settled on some women cowering nearby. Seeing them seemed to remind him what had to happen next. When he looked back at his father, he seemed determined. “I’m sorry you see it that way, Dad.” Then, “Amy, I think that’s enough. Let’s go.” Amy walked to his side, her heels clicking staccato against the floor and wafting bits of fluff and lint behind her. Doug reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, weighing it in his left hand.
“There’s just one thing I need to know,” he said. “Did you ever think I could run the company? Did it ever just once cross your mind?”
David moved into a crouch, ready to pounce. He kept his eyes on Henry, primed for a signal, so he saw, just as Doug saw, the look that came over the older man’s face.
“No, Doug, it didn’t,” Henry admitted sadly, and as he spoke these words it was abundantly clear that the realization that he’d so little faith in his son was even more painful than the fact that his son was a murderer.
Doug, the revolver steady in his right hand, flicked open the lighter. Just as he did so, hundreds of women rose en masse. Immediately they were joined by those who hadn’t gotten the word that had circulated. Whatever opportunity David had to attack was blocked. In that same instant a shrill voice screamed something in Mandarin, something clicked and clicked again, and the machines revved to life.
Doug took a step backward and waved his revolver around. Amy reached for hers. In that second the women rushed forward. Amy was wrestled to the ground. Doug struggled, got off a couple of shots, pushed away from the grabbing hands, lost his balance, and flew back into one of the machines. Blood spurted from the center of the crowd of women. Doug’s scream was cruel and very short.
A moment later the machines were shut down and an eerie quiet fell over the room. David picked his way through the pink-smocked women. Doug had been grabbed by the claws of the fiber-shredding machine. His body was a mangled and bloody mess. Henry stood at Doug’s side, a hand touching his son’s lifeless ankle.
David heard Madame Leung’s voice over the loudspeaker, giving instructions of some sort. The women obeyed and began drifting in an orderly fashion toward the exit. David hurried to Hulan’s crumpled form. Two girls—one about fourteen, the other also a teenager—kneeled at her side. He felt for a pulse and didn’t feel one. He put his ear on her chest and heard nothing.
Then someone screamed. Then another scream, and another, and another as the preternatural calm of moments before was replaced by panic. One of the girls holding Hulan’s hand looked at David in terror. She moved her lips. He didn’t understand the word. She repeated it again and again. Finally he understood the word through her heavy accent. Fire.
He scooped Hulan up into his arms and stood. Now that he was upright, he saw the flames kicking up from the fiber fluff. Hundreds of women shoved and pushed to get out the door as the flames spread quickly through the piles. David, holding Hulan, with the two girls clinging close to his side, joined the others in a desperate attempt to escape. Acrid smoke filled the air, creating even more panic. A lot of people would die in here if someone didn’t do something. David lowered Hulan’s feet to the ground and motioned for the two girls to take her arms and get her out of the building. He took one last look at Hulan’s ashen face, then turned and walked into the smoke.
25
BECAUSE OF THE SOUNDPROOFING IN THE BUILDING, MOST of the fatalities were in the final assembly room. By the time the fire had spread far enough to alert the women there, the fumes from the burning plastic and fiber had made any chance of survival impossible. Fortunately, almost all of the women had made it out of the primary assembly area where Hulan had worked. But here too many women lost their lives due to smoke inhalation or being crushed in the stampede. The remoteness of the factory had done little to help matters. Many women died on the way to Taiyuan. More died in the hospital, inundated as it was by so many injuries. The final death toll reached 176.
David had done his best to fight back the fire, swatting the flames with the empty burlap bags that had once held the stuffing for Sam & His Friends. Madame Leung, who stayed at David’s side until the very end, helped his efforts. Miraculously, she’d found a couple of fire extinguishers. If not for these, they wouldn’t have made it out of the building alive. For her efforts Madame Leung was given a medal by the central government.
