The nurse propped a worn pillow behind Li Na’s back, allowing her to sit up straighter. Once she was settled, the nurse straightened the sheets and blanket again before nodding to Lee and leaving the room.
It was far too soon in his opinion, but a pledge was a pledge. If she awakened, Wei wanted his daughter informed immediately. A decision Lee still felt was excessive given the girl’s current state of health. The last thing she needed at the moment was an emotional blow like this.
He sat down on the foot of her bed and leaned forward with a soft look on his face. “You are doing very well, Li Na. Very well. But there are things I need to tell you. Things about your father and things about how you got here.”
“Okay,” she said, peering at him curiously. Her body still felt weak, but her eyes were wide awake.
Lee reached inside his dingy white coat and retrieved an envelope. Without a word, he handed it to Li Na.
She took it in her right hand, examining it, and then turned it over to find a familiar seal on the back. It was her father’s chop. She slid her finger under a loose section and ripped the flap open, breaking the wax seal. Several sheets of paper were folded neatly inside.
Li Na glanced at the doctor nervously as she pulled them out and unfolded the pages. Her father’s handwriting covered both sides of every one.
Beneath the room’s single fluorescent light, and while Dr. Lee waited, Li Na began reading.
When she finished, she was weeping.
“Is this true?”
Lee frowned. “I don’t know what it says.”
“My father is dead?”
The doctor nodded solemnly. “Yes. I’m very sorry, Li Na.”
She covered her eyes with both hands and sobbed. “Why?!”
She knew why. It was all in the letter. Her final days of a deteriorating disease, most of which she was not conscious for. Her father’s depression after losing Li Na’s mother, and his utter devastation at the impending loss of his daughter. His princess.
But unlike many fathers who might be struggling with the same agony, there was something he could do. There was a slight chance that Wei could still save his daughter’s life by giving his own. By sacrificing everything he had, including their family name. Their honor. He wrote about the many memories he had of her as a young girl. The dancing, the smiles, the laughs. And her hugs that made him feel as though there was no one else in the world but them.
He explained that in the final days, those memories were all that enabled him to get out of bed in the morning. To continue on, accompanied only by desperation and the fear that he would run out of time.
He never revealed to her that he’d been in charge of a project investigating a unique discovery deep in the jungle. One that proved to be as important as they hoped. And just as dangerous to the world as he feared. Something utterly miraculous.
Alas, to use the discovery meant erasing every link or reference to it that he could, including himself to her. It was why he sought out Dr. Lee and secretly moved Li Na from her hospital in Beijing. It was why he destroyed much of the information and falsified the rest. And ultimately, why he took his own life, returning to the eternal arms of Li Na’s mother. He died just for the hope that his precious daughter might live.
Some Chinese fathers were bound by honor. Others were bound by love.
Finally, he told her to remember how much they both loved her, what an amazing young woman she was, and that one day she would change the world. The greatest honor of his life had been as her father, and he would be grateful for eternity for that distinction.
Li Na kept her head against the headboard and slowly opened her eyes. “I don’t want to live,” she said, shaking her head. “Not without either of them.”
Lee didn’t answer.
She brushed several strands of wet hair out of her face and stared at Lee. Parents were the only true anchors a child had to the Earth. And now… now she was cast adrift. What did anything even matter now?
As if reading her mind, Dr. Lee cleared his voice. “This might be difficult for you to hear, but your father was proud to do what he did.”
She laid a hand back over one of her eyes. “I know.”
“I learned something, Li Na, when my father died several years ago. He was very old, but I was happy to spend time with him before he passed. We talked for hours, and I told him the most important thing to me, as his child, was to know that he was proud of me.”
She lowered her hand and blinked. “I know he was proud of me.”
“Do you know what my father told me?”
She shook her head.
“He told me that the most important thing to him, as my father, was to see me live.” Lee thought for a moment before his eyes returned to hers. “I’ve been a doctor for many years. I’ve seen a lot. And still it’s hard to explain. Understand, Li Na, that when a man loses a spouse, it destroys his heart. But when a father loses a child it destroys his soul.”
Across the bed, her bottom lip began to tremble.
“I can promise you, there was nothing more important to him than saving your life.”
She didn’t speak again for several minutes. Finally she asked, “What exactly did he do?”
Dr. Lee shook his head. “I have no idea.” When she looked puzzled, he continued. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said it would only make things more dangerous. That no matter how thorough he was, someone would still find out what he had done. Of that he was sure. The discovery was so important to the government that they would never give up.”
“I can’t stay here, can I?”
Lee was hesitant but shook his head. “Not for long.”
“How long?”
“That depends on you. On when you’re ready. I personally think you have a lot more healing to do, but then again, I don’t know the things that your father did.”
“Neither of us does.”
Lee’s lip curled slightly. “That’s true.”
The room fell quiet before Lee promptly stood up.
“I have some things for you. From your father.” He left the room and returned a few minutes later. In one hand was a soft leather satchel. In the other was a square case made of metal. Lee put them both on the bed within reach of her good hand.
“Take your time. These were left for you and they have not been opened.” He walked to the door where he turned back to her. “Don’t try to figure everything out today. We have time, and I’ll help you.”
Li Na watched him pull the old wooden door closed behind him. She peered down curiously at the two items resting on her bed and picked up the leather satchel first. She began to open it but paused. Her emotions might not be ready for what was inside.
She set it back down and instead pulled the metal case closer. After studying it, she tried one of the clasps which promptly sprung open. She followed with the second, which opened just as easily.
Slowly, Li Na lifted the cold top, pushing it up and away. The contents were surprising given the bulkiness of the case’s exterior. Inside were three large vials fitted neatly into a hard interior gel.
One was filled with a frozen, pinkish material. The other two were empty.
39
In South America, just over the Peruvian border, another wind shear hit the C-12 Huron hard, sending everyone in the cabin sideways and clinging desperately to the arms of their seats.
They were less than fifty miles from Iquitos and running on fumes. The pilots fought to keep the plane’s altitude level as the pounding rain reduced their visibility to what was directly in front of them. They were now fighting for a controlled descent.