Stratton worked the knots at his wrists. "So you were a jealous little brother," he prodded. "That's your explanation."
"For murder?" Wang Bin seemed amused. "No."
"How could you hate him so much?"
"I am not sure I did. Not at the end." His voice was level, emotionless. "The day finally came for my big brother to leave for the United States. How sad was my mother, how proud my father. All the servants wept, and I wept, too. I wept for the joy of it, Professor Stratton. He was gone and I would be the elder son.
My parents thought I wept from sadness. How I fooled them! My father took me aside and said, 'Bin, do not weep. You must be strong and brave like your brother and in another year, perhaps two, you will join him to study.' I never would have gone. To follow him. In anything. Never. How little my father understood of me, or of China.
"When my mother left for the Revolution I joined her instantly. Here was something my brother could not do, or my father. To fight a revolution. War is very exciting, Professor Stratton. Do you remember how the skin tingles, the senses race? I was barely sixteen-imagine, not yet sixteen!-and I would call my soldiers and say, 'Comrades, we must take that bridge. The people's struggle demands it.' And they would say, 'Yes, Comrade,' and they would march with fifty-year-old rifles into artillery and machine-gun fire. They would die unflinching, uncomplaining, with a mindless zeal that someone like you would admire. I loathed their stupidity. And I loathed the Revolution, too. Loved and loathed it.
"It should have been a bright dream, a dream so great my brother could never have known its like. Instead it was a theater of the absurd. 'Yes, Comrade, we will go off and die because the people demand it.' Is it heroic to roll in the mud like a pig when you can be clean, or to march through snow in bare feet when you can ride? It was a peasant's revolution. The peasants won. And ever since, in their bungling, they have disgraced the heritage of the nation with the most splendid history of all.
"The imperial times! The dynasties! That was when China was great. That is when I should have lived." Wang Bin spoke with a trace of sadness. "In the times of the emperor."
"You'd fit right in," Stratton said. "A greedy old man who murdered his brother for profit."
"My brother. My brother."
The thumb and forefinger of Stratton's left hand were mobile now, and with them he feverishly worried the knots.
" 'Dear elder brother,' " Wang Bin recited in mockery. " 'I think of you often after all these years, so many miles away. I should like to see you before I die. It would be wonderful if you could come to China… ' "
"And so he came, with his cameras and his loud synthetic clothes. 'You must help me, brother,' I said. 'I must leave China for reasons that you would not understand, and I must take with me what is my due.' I showed him my treasures in Xian. He stood beside me and looked at them."
"Clay soldiers, that's all."
Wang Bin stared at Stratton scornfully. Through the heavy drapes a gust of wind rattled the windows and Stratton heard the sudden assault of rain on the glass.
He used the sound to mask his movements, tilting the chair just a fraction to give his feet greater purchase against the ropes.
Wang Bin said, "The soldiers are toys for children, a pittance. In Xian I showed my brother the real treasure. Even he was left speechless by its majesty."
" 'You must help me,' I said to him. 'With the soldiers we will have enough money to live in splendor wherever we choose. I ask but two things of you: That you allow me to hide you here in China so that I may leave the country on your passport. After two weeks you have only to go to your embassy to say that you lost your passport, and they will give you a new one. Then, once we are together in the United States, you can help me recover the soldiers and sell them. Is that too much to ask of a brother, after all these years? Help me, please. I have lived more than once as a peasant. I cannot live like that again. I will not.' "
"You should've known what his answer would be," Stratton said.
Wang Bin nodded. "He said, 'It is wrong what you are doing, it is a crime. I cannot help you.' " The deputy minister shrugged.
"So you killed him." Stratton's thumb was abraded and hurt painfully. He wished he had longer fingernails. Keep him talking. Above all, keep him talking.
"I did not plan to murder him," Wang Bin said. "I had his room searched, and I had him followed because I was afraid he would rush to his embassy like an old woman. In the end I did kill him, but because I had no choice. In his death was the only means of accomplishing my escape and saving my treasure."
Stratton said, "You're a weak old man, Comrade. Even in death your brother intimidates you. Listen to yourself-the lies, the jealousy, the way you pervert his memory."
One of the knots came loose. The pressure on Stratton's right wrist eased; he twisted it back and forth within the growing circle of rope.
"But that's your stock in trade, isn't it, Comrade Deputy Minister? The perversion of history. That's why we're here."
"Ah, yes." Wang Bin smiled a winter's smile. "My artifacts."
"And your coffins!"
"They make excellent shipping crates." Wang Bin folded his hands but looked impatient. "Don't tell me you mourn the tourists, Professor. I did not kill them all. The first, a fat capitalist, died quite naturally. Death by duck, your embassy called it. A clever name for a common occurrence, I learned. And it gave me the idea. His was the first coffin."
The rope rubbed raw against Stratton's wrist. Feeling flooded back into his fingers. Another minute…
"You couldn't have done it all alone."
"Certainly not. I had many trusted associates-a doctor for the lethal poisons, welders for the caskets, diggers, of course. Fortunately they understood that I was directing a secret project for the Party. That lie was necessary, you see, to assure their complete loyalty and their perpetual silence."
"And your buddy, Harold Broom. Was he, too, working for the glory of the Party?"
"Broom was a worm, a drunken cheat. I chose him only because David would not cooperate. Broom cheated me about money, and then he conspired with the Greer woman."
"Poor Harold," Stratton sneered. And poor Linda.
Another twist. Just one more. Make the fist small. Slide the rope over… there!
Stratton's right hand was free. He clawed at the knot on his left wrist, blessing the rain pummeling the house.
"The Greer woman was another worm, wasn't she?" Stratton said harshly. "Well, she was the only one who could have saved you, Comrade."
Wang Bin looked quizzically at Stratton. "It is not my salvation that brings us here, but your death. You must die as Miss Greer had to die. The difference is that you are troublesome and she was dangerous-more dangerous than you because she was smarter. She did not come as you have, thrashing about, making great noise and great threats. She did not care about smuggling or murder. Or morality, Professor. She had only one goaclass="underline" information. I respected that. She was not like the professor of stupidity who seeks revenge for a pompous friend, or perhaps merely wants to cleanse himself of past sins… "
Wang Bin allowed the phrase to dangle, watching Stratton.
"Did you think that I did not know about the pregnant peasant woman who was slashed from her throat to her belly? It had to be you. You were the only invader who escaped from Man-ling."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh yes, you know. Your face says so. You would have lived longer, Stratton, if you had been less impulsive and more clever. Miss Greer was very clever; she must have been a good spy. The way she dealt with you, for example, quickly and noiselessly, outside the cemetery. Then she rode with us, Broom and I, bought us dinner, talked… and made her proposal. It was very civilized. 'I know everything,' she said, 'about your brother and the soldiers. I know everything and none of it matters. If you come with me and talk to us-tell us what you know-you may keep the money and remain in the United States under our protection.' "