AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Zhang Daiyu said something to her in a murmur.
“Zhang Zhang here sent me the photographs of the man leaving Liu Bao’s office. The man you followed to Guoanbu,” Fensaid. “His name is Fang Wenyan and he is a mid-ranking field operative. He is in the ascendancy.”
“Ascendancy?”
“There is a never-ending battle for the soul of China,” Fen explained. “On one side there are those like me who believe we should look inwards and solve our domestic problems as a nation. And then there are those like Liu Bao and Fang Wenyan, who believe in empire and conquest. They think power comes from engaging in the affairs of the world. I and others like me think China can set a better example by disengaging from global power struggles. No offense, but America knows only too well the cost of geopolitical meddling and misadventure.”
“I wouldn’t call it meddling,” I protested.
It certainly hadn’t felt that way when I’d been deployed to Afghanistan. We were on an important mission to wrest control of the country from an evil regime that harbored and supported terrorism, but now after twenty years that same regime was back in power with the tacit approval of our leadership. Maybe there was something in what she’d said?
“Okay, not meddling,” Fen conceded. “I’m not here to hold a debate. Let’s call it pursuing an international agenda. Liu Bao and his friends won’t be happy until China rules the world.”
“Is he Guoanbu?” I asked.
“Who can say? Fang Wenyan might be his handler or just a well-connected friend. Either way, he’s not to be underestimated.”
“Do you recognize this?” I asked, producing my phone and showing her a photo of the tattoo we’d seen on so many of our assailants.
She studied the image of the three dragons emblazoned on Wang Yichen’s arm, and shook her head. “I’ve never seen it.”
“The men who have attacked us all carry this mark,” Zhang Daiyu explained.
“A secret society perhaps?” Fen suggested. “Or a gang?”
She’d reached the same conclusion as Zhang Daiyu and I.
“Whoever they are, they’re sufficiently clever to have gone undetected by the apparatus of the state,” Fen remarked. “Which means they’re dangerous.”
She hesitated before continuing.
“China used to be an ideal. It used to be an objective, a utopia of equality, but now we’re just like you, Mr. Morgan. Here a person can satisfy their greed even if that means they have too much while another starves. We have imported the worst of American thinking—the greed, ambition, dishonesty—but unlike America, here there are no checks and balances. This is a single-party state. Control the party and you control everything. That makes the men you face far more dangerous than anyone you’ve ever encountered. There is nothing to hold them back.”
She turned to leave.
“America is more than greed, ambition, and dishonesty,” I insisted. “There is community, faith, kindness, and so much more. There are good people everywhere. And bad.”
She smiled wistfully, as though she didn’t believe me.
“Well, you certainly found the bad ones here. And I wish you luck with them.”
CHAPTER 58
JUSTINE’S PHONE RANG at 8:27 a.m. and she woke feeling half stunned from a dreamless and all too brief sleep. She answered the call.
“Hello.”
“Miss Smith,” Detective Salazar said. “If you bring her down to the precinct, I can get Mrs. Lucas five minutes with her husband.”
“We’re on our way,” Justine said, running her hand over her face as she rose from the chair.
She hung up and crossed the room to rouse Alison.
After Angel had been flown away by helicopter yesterday, Salazar had arranged for an ambulance to take Alison to Presbyterian Hospital, and Justine had gone with her. A uniformed female police officer, a specialist in violence against women, had taken Alison’s statement while she was waiting for the results of medical tests. Justine had been relived to discover Angel hadn’tbeen overtly violent toward her during her ordeal locked in one of the bedrooms of the run-down house, though she had been manhandled when he’d snatched her off the street.
She had finally been discharged at 3 a.m. but couldn’t stand the idea of going home while Rafael was being held in custody, so Justine had taken her to the New York Edition and shared her own hotel room.
Justine had sat in an armchair and watched Alison toss and turn in bed. She was deeply distressed, but it was hard to tell whether she was more traumatized by the abduction or by her husband’s incarceration. It had been around 6 a.m. when Alison finally fell into a deep sleep, which allowed Justine to drift off too.
