"Mr. Powell?" Stratton called.
The sandy-haired player ambled to the fence. Stratton introduced himself. He told the American consul about David Wang.
"Mr. Stratton, I usually don't hear about American citizens in China unless they get in some sort of trouble. Professor Wang is a man of some distinction, however, and I'll bet the culture folks have his itinerary."
"Yes, well, Jim McCarthy said-er-suggested… "
Powell smiled. "He said, 'Those culture vultures are crosseyed, close-minded sonofabitches,' " he drawled in fair imitation. "Well, I suppose he's right.
Tell you what, soon as I polish off Ingemar here, I'll make a couple calls."
Powell was an excellent tennis player and he ended the game with a fierce flurry. With a towel around his neck and his racket under one arm, he led Stratton into the main building of the club.
Stratton waited in the lobby while Powell used the phone in an adjoining booth.
"They're checking on your friend," he reported when he came out. "Have you read Too Late, the King?"
"Yes, of course." Stratton was impressed. It was not David Wang's best-known book, but it was his best work.
"I admired it very much," Powell said. "Clear, sharp, almost lyrical. We've got a copy in the library here."
"He's a special man. Very talented," Stratton said.
"Tell me more." Powell spread out the towel and sat down on an old leather chair.
"God, by the time I met David in the early seventies he'd already been around forever. He was born here in China, of course, but came to the U.S. to study just before World War II broke out. He never went back. By the time I entered graduate school he was famous in academia for his scholarship. I was"-Stratton hesitated-"just getting interested in Asian art. So it was natural to gravitate to Dr. Wang."
"He was originally from Shanghai, right?"
Stratton nodded. "An entrepreneurial family of the old sort. It had been making money, from salt or silk, opium or tea, from time immemorial. Toward the end of the nineteenth century both of David's grandparents, who were business rivals, I guess, got modern. David's father went to Columbia. His mother, who had studied at the Philadelphia Conservatory, was about fifteen years younger. When David's time came to go off to school in the States, he was still a teenager. In the normal course of events, he would have gone home and, as the eldest son, taken over the business."
"They were hardly normal times, were they?"
"No. Civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists. Invasion by Japan.
Then the knockdown years until the Communists finally won in forty-nine. I would guess that David's father told him not to come back until it was all over. And then, of course, the wrong people had won-if you were a Shanghai millionaire.
David bounced around, quietly accumulating degrees; money was never a problem, I gather, and at the end of it all, there was nothing to come back to-the Wang empire was just one more victim of revolution. Whether he was cut off from his family or broke with them I don't know, but he never mentioned them. He settled in at St. Edward's and never left. I suppose he-"
"Excuse me. That'll be my boys." Powell caught the phone on the second ring.
Stratton stared out the window at weeping willows in the overgrown courtyard.
When the consul returned, Stratton sensed there was no news.
"We've got Dr. Wang listed at the Heping Hotel. The culture officers had invited him to call or come by when he got back from Xian, but so far no one's heard from him. Maybe he just decided to spend an extra day or two at the digs."
"Maybe so," Stratton said, unconvinced.
"Our fellas are a little disappointed, too. They're looking forward to meeting your Dr. Wang. You know about his brother?"
"David told me he was a vice minister or something."
"A deputy minister, Mr. Stratton. Deputy minister of art and culture. A big gun.
His name is Wang Bin. He's in charge of new archaeological digs and the big museum here."
Stratton said, "Maybe I'll just drop by David's hotel to see if there's a message for me. What was the name again?"
"Heping," Powell said. "It means 'peace.' It's a nice place, off the usual Peking trails. I can draw you a map… "
"No thanks. David would be pleased if an old student proved intrepid enough to track him down. In the meantime, if you hear anything, could you call me? I'm at the Minzu."
"Sure," Powell said. "Good tracking."
Stratton nearly missed the hotel. It was tucked away in a lane barely wide enough for one car. Stratton left the bicycle in a parking lot near Wangfujing, Peking's main shopping street. An old woman with a can affixed a wooden marker with a number on the handlebars, handed him a paper receipt, and took a fee from among the aluminum coins Stratton displayed in an open palm.
It was a smaller hotel than the one he was in, and more graceful. Stratton did a full circle in the lobby looking for the front desk. There was the usual assortment of work spaces, but none of them identifiable. Finally, he chose one at random.
"Excuse me, could you tell me the room number for a guest named David Wang. He's American."
Three desks later a hunchback with a gray Mao jacket and some English took Stratton's request into an inner office. Through the open door Stratton could see him staring farsightedly at what was obviously a handwritten guest register.
Just as Stratton was succumbing to the sinking feeling that Wang had registered in his Chinese name-which he didn't know-the hunchback emerged. He had obviously found something.
"You wait," the man ordered.
Stratton watched curiously while the man trundled into a second office. There he spoke animatedly with another man whose face Stratton could not see.
It seemed to Stratton they were arguing.
Finally, the second man appeared alone. He had a hook nose and an obvious habit of command.
"The Wang man is not here," the Chinese said in labored English.
"Couldn't you check again? I'm a friend of his."
"Not here." The man turned away, walked back into his office and closed the door.
Perplexed, Stratton cycled slowly back to his own hotel. He had been lied to. Of that he was certain. Hook Nose had known something about "the Wang man" that he had chosen not to tell. Why would a hotel in Peking deny the presence of a guest?
Stratton was still thinking about it when he got back to his room.
The phone was ringing as he walked in.
"David?"
It was not David.
"Mr. Stratton, this is Steve Powell, at the consulate."
"Oh, hello. I went to the hotel and they claimed never to have heard of any David Wang-"
Powell interrupted brusquely.
"Mr. Stratton, I am sorry to have to tell you this. David Wang is dead."
CHAPTER 3
Tom Stratton could smell the smoke. He could taste the cordite. He could see the gray shape, feel its struggle, hear its scream. He could sense the impatient clatter of the helicopter, hovering, waiting, anxious to be gone. Fire. Run. Run to the chopper, its rope ladder slowly dangling, the only lifeline he would ever get. Drop. Fire. Run from a black night and a devil-scorched patch of earth, all memory and no meaning.
Run, captain. Rope swaying. Lungs burning. Side burning as the black medic cut away the cloth and applied a salve. Eyes burning, exhaustion and shame, in the cramped cabin of a blacked-out aircraft carrier.
"You're sure there were no prisoners?" A man, a colonel, trying to be professional, sounding only disheartened.
"No POWs." A dirt-poor commune with a PLA company stationed on its fringes.
"Intelligence was so damn sure about the prisoners. They said there were American prisoners."
"Not anymore."
"How did they get on to you?"
"We made a mistake."
"Your team?"
"Gone, all gone."
"How long did they have you?"