Stephanie looked at the computer as if it were a lover.
"We have as much time on him as we need. We'll input the book. You create the matrix for me, I'll program it in. Then we let it run."
Selena took a notebook from her handbag.
"I've already started."
They sat down and got to work. Carter thought about the discussion upstairs. Everything came back to Yang and Wu, and through them, to the White Jade Society.
White jade, immortality and Chinese Triads. It was like something out of a 50s comic book, but it wasn't funny.
On the other side of the country, Colonel Wu's scrambled phone signaled a caller. Very few people had that number. He hoped it wasn't the General on the line.
"Wu."
"This is Juggler," a voice said in English.
Wu sat up in his chair. Juggler was the code name of one of his best informants, stationed in Washington.
"Yes, Juggler."
"The Connor woman is here in Washington. She is traveling with a man who works in one of the counter-terrorist units. Apparently there was an armed confrontation with your men? In any event, they arrived last night."
"You are certain it is the right woman?"
"Certain. There is concern here. Speculation is high as to reasons for events, but there is no firm analysis yet. You have been identified as involved and your meetings with certain individuals in San Francisco have been noted."
Wu smiled. Confirmation the FBI had trailed him, but he already knew that. It was part of the plan. His negotiations with the Triads were complete and it was almost time to return to China. But not yet. There was still a chance to get the book. The day had just gotten better.
"The woman is staying with the agent, a man named Carter. It is a non-secure building." Juggler gave him the address.
"Good, Juggler. There will be a deposit in the usual way. Inform me of any new developments."
"Yes." The call ended.
With an address and a name Wu had a man's life in his hands. Whoever Carter was, his secrets would soon be Wu's. He knew Carter had been in California, from the insurance slip Choy had recovered.
Carter was probably the man who had stopped the attempt to kidnap the niece. He'd killed two agents in California and stopped Choy. The direct approach had failed. It was time for something more subtle. Wu knew the perfect person for what he had in mind. He picked up his phone and dialed a number in Washington to make the arrangements.
Now he could contact the General and give him a positive update. Things were looking up.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In a corner office on the fourth floor of the Ministry of State Security in Beijing, Senior Investigator Yao Aiguo studied a folder of reports. It was a hot day. The windows were open to the humid, smog-filled air outside. A small black electric fan fluttered the papers on his desk.
A large portrait of a beaming Chairman Mao hung on one wall of the office, across from a picture of the current President and Party Chairman. The room was painted a dingy yellow. It was sparsely furnished with a few wooden chairs, the desk where Yao sat and some filing cabinets. A picture of Yao and his parents provided the only personal note in the room. A cheap print of the famous mountains on the Yangtze River, now submerged under the waters of the Three Gorges dam, rounded out the decorations.
Yao looked at the latest report from the West and picked his nose. He looked at the result and wiped it off under his chair.
The reports from San Francisco about Colonel Wu bothered him.
Yao looked out his window at the heavy traffic crawling along on the broad avenue below. Motorcycles and scooters wove like manic squirrels in and out through thick clouds of exhaust smoke spewing from the trucks and busses. The leaves of the trees lining the boulevard hung wilted and defeated in the stifling heat.
An agent reported a meeting in a restaurant between Wu and his sergeant, Choy. Wu had sent Choy after a book belonging to a capitalist banker. The banker was dead. Yao had a thick file on the man, Connor, a heavy investor in Chinese industry. According to the report, Wu was responsible for the death. Why had Wu killed the American and sent someone after the dead man's book?
Inquiries had been made at the Consulate regarding Choy and the death of an American police officer. Now Choy was on his way back to China. It was all spread out in the papers on his desk. The eyes and ears of the Te-Wu, the Chinese Secret Service, reached across the Pacific as easily as to the next room.
Wu was supposed to be in San Francisco to probe the Chinese community there about money being funneled from America to the independence movement in the Tibet Autonomous Region. But Wu walked in the shadow of General Yang.
Why would Yang concern himself with a rabble of monks and peasants who had no possibility of achieving their revisionist goals? That kind of intelligence wasn't important enough to send a high ranking officer to investigate. Something wasn't right.
Few people in China had the authority and resources Yao wielded as a Senior Investigator of the Secret Service. He never gave up on an investigation until it was finished. He lived by the words of Sun Tzu, and it had made him one of the most successful agents in the two thousand year history of the Service.
If one waits patiently by the banks of the river, the Master had said, sooner or later the bodies of one's enemies will float by.
When they did, Yao would be there to pluck them from the water and make sure they were dead.
For Yao, it was simple. Loyalty to the nation and the Communist Party formed the foundation of a stable society. Yao thought society was even more important than family, the bedrock of Chinese culture. The greater good of the nation was the standard that must be followed. Yao's given name meant Love of Country. He considered himself a patriot and guardian of the greater good.
He reached for another file, this one on General Yang. In the People's Republic, no one was above investigation. All top military leaders received periodic scrutiny. If there was nothing irregular, there was no need for concern. If there was, measures were taken to correct the situation.
Yang's file gave no indication he was anything but an outstanding example of the professionalism now infusing the People's Liberation Army.
The file noted that Yang had founded a social and cultural group called the White Jade Society. Membership consisted of high-ranking officers and senior government leaders. Such societies were common. Belonging to a group of powerful associates was expected for someone in Yang's high position. The General was a man of influence in today's China.
He studied the file. Yang was Chief of Military Intelligence, the most powerful position on the General Staff, important in the daily oversight of China's considerable military might. He was also a member of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party Central Committee. Anything to do with the Commission was political at the highest level and therefore dangerous. Yao would have to pursue his inquiries with care.
Yao's success as an investigator was based on obsessive attention to detail and a highly developed ability to think like his quarry. Why did Yang want Connor's money? Connor had been wealthy beyond belief. Yao made a note to follow the money trail.
Wu would never kill such an important man without orders, so there had to be some direct benefit to Yang. Money had always been a corrupter of men. If money was behind this, Yao would root out and expose Yang's complicity, but somehow it didn't feel right. Yang would not be able to spend that kind of money without being discovered and punished.