"It's not here?" Powell asked lamely.
"No." Stratton watched the consul's composure drain. The cool eyes fluttered.
"It must be here," Powell said. "Something so important."
"What are the regulations in a case like this?"
"Our regulations, or theirs?" Powell grumbled as he fished in the empty pockets of David Wang's neatly folded trousers. "Jesus, this is unbelievable. Just what I need. You say you went through the room as well?"
"Nothing much," Stratton said. "Socks, handkerchiefs. What happens if you can't find the passport?"
Powell had given up. He stuffed the sad remnants of David Wang's life into the paper bags. "Well, if we can't find it, then I have to write a report. That's about it. I'll have a few forms to fill out." He eyed Stratton with annoyance.
"What should happen? I mean, Christ, the man's dead, isn't he? He doesn't need a passport anymore. A corpse travels on a bill of lading."
Back at the consul's office, Stratton waited while Powell checked another office for David Wang's passport. Stratton sat in a chair directly across from Powell's empty desk; there was a different file on top now. It was light blue. Stratton could see his own name on the tab. Instantly, he reached for it.
"Sir?" A woman's voice, behind him. "Sir, please don't. That's confidential, for Mr. Powell only."
Stratton faced a young woman who had emerged from an adjoining office. She had long auburn hair and brown eyes, and wore a dark blue dress with a round white collar. "You don't have to sneak a peek," she teased. "You know what's in there.
Want some coffee?"
"Please." When she came back-"Watch it now, the cup's very hot"-Stratton asked,
"Where did that file come from?"
"Washington. By telex. It's routine. It would please both governments to know that the person we're sending home with Dr. Wang's remains is not a smuggler or a thief or a fugitive of some sort. It's just a routine check."
"That's a pretty thick file," Stratton noted, "for routine." The coffee was much too hot to drink, but it smelled glorious.
"You're a war hero," she said. "The Pentagon writes books on its war heroes. In your case, they were happy to pass it along. Proud even. Langley, too."
"Step right up and read all about it. Hurry, hurry."
"Sometimes Steve prefers a little synopsis," she said, ignoring the sarcasm. "It saves time if I'm familiar with the material. Don't worry, I've got clearance on stuff like this."
"You know my name, what's yours?" Stratton asked.
"Linda," she answered. "Linda Greer. I'm vice-consul."
Linda Greer. He looked at her for a moment and wondered. This hardly seemed the time, but… the only women he had talked with for days had been Alice and her gaggle, and little Miss Sun. Right now, he certainly could use some company.
"Would you like to have dinner sometime?" he tried.
"No, thank you, Mr. Stratton."
"A movie?"
"The embassy movie doesn't change for another two weeks, and I've already seen it four times. Besides, you're leaving for the States on Monday morning."
Stratton sat back in the chair and tested the coffee again. Well, it was what he'd deserved. Linda disappeared. Powell walked in and crisply stationed himself at the desk.
"I'll be looking into the passport matter. I hope to have some sort of explanation by the time you leave."
"Monday morning," Stratton said.
"Linda told you. Well, good. Did she tell you the itinerary? It's Hong Kong, San Francisco, Cleveland. The body stays on the plane in Hong Kong, but you'll have a customs layover in California. We're trying to get a diplomatic waiver from Washington on that now."
Stratton did not react outwardly. Powell shifted.
"Do you have a suit and tie?" the consul asked.
Puzzled, Stratton said: "I have a tie and a blazer. I suppose it's good enough for Pan Am."
"And for the deputy minister as well," Powell said. "He'd like to see you tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock. Any taxi at the hotel will take you. Here's the address."
Powell walked Stratton to the door. Stratton got the impression that this was a vital part of his job, walking tourists to the door.
"Linda says you were at Man-ling."
"Yes," Stratton replied.
Powell asked, "Was it as bad as they say?"
"Worse," Stratton said as he walked out. "I'm sure it's all in the file."
CHAPTER 5
In the hotel courtyard, amid gleaming rows of Chinese-made automobiles that looked like boxy stegosaur-uses, off-duty waiters played uproarious catch with a red Frisbee. Stratton sat on the stone front steps, elbows on his knees, palms supporting his face, a brown study. He watched without seeing. David Wang was dead and he did not know how to mourn him. Wang had come late to Stratton's life, and yet for a time Stratton had felt closer to him than he had ever felt to his own father. Stratton had the feeling, without really knowing, that he had been but one of a number of private reclamation projects Wang must have quietly undertaken over the years at St. Edward's. In Stratton's case, it had worked.
Wang had molded a scarred young officer-no, that was a euphemism; a cynical young killer-into the shape of a civilized man who could honestly savor poetry and the whisper of breeze on a pine branch. Who could sleep deeply and rise remorseless, without scrabbling for a cigarette and a gun. Who could even, more than a decade later, return to China, feeling legitimate, almost comfortable, as a genuine if unheralded and rough-hewn college professor.
But Wang had worked too well, had he not? Stratton had slipped away from him, further every year. Two disparate clouds that had met improbably, intermingled and then sailed away to different horizons. Had he been back home teaching, word of David Wang's death might have provoked a few minutes of sharp but distanced regret, then hurried cancellation of classes and a trip to the funeral, complete, surely, with the trappings of a Catholicism that Wang knew and loved as much as the priests who would recite the final incantation. Here it was different. Was it cruel for Wang to have died in his native China? Or was it poetic? Regardless, Stratton felt grievously hurt by his death and fiercely protective of the body that lay somewhere in Peking, being prepared for a journey home. How banal, yet how true. In their last gossamer encounter, David had seemed so well…
An insistent horn snapped the reverie. Stratton levered up off the steps and strode into the parking lot. The passenger door of a tan Toyota opened invitingly. As he slid in, his gloom began to lift.
"I'm glad you changed your mind," he said.
Linda Greer smiled. She had changed into a beige shirtwaist dress, a fetching advertisement for her long, bronzed legs that scissored with a rustle of unseen silk as she expertly maneuvered the car into bike-laden streets.
"Usually when I say 'no,' it's because I mean 'no.' When I say 'no' and mean 'yes,' I am not above confessing my mistake. One look at your face in there, and I could tell you needed someone to talk to. And I am sorry about your friend."
He gave her a curious look, then settled back against the seat. She swung the car quickly around a yellow-and-red bus bursting with empty-faced workers on their way home, then pulled sharply behind a three-wheel motorbike spewing a noxious trail of black smoke.
"Ugh," Linda said. "And the Chinese wonder why the air is so bad."
They drove past the majestic Qianmen, once the front gate of a walled Peking.
Linda turned to enter the gigantic square named after the gate. Stratton's guidebook said it was ninety-eight acres.
"Postcards hardly do the place justice," Linda remarked. "You could land a plane in here."
In the vastness of the square, a handful of Chinese on their haunches nursed kites through the light summer air. The handmade kites-frogs and princes, fat fish, and a clever troop of tiny sparrows suspended from the same string-danced against the backdrop of the Forbidden City, the network of palaces that had housed imperial dynasties for six hundred years. On the left stood the stark white mausoleum where the rubber-looking remains of Chairman Mao lay under glass. Beyond the mausoleum rose the Great Hall of the People, more massive than majestic.