Chapter 34

Detective Yu!” Chen grasped Yu’s hand.

“It’s good to see you, Chief.” Yu was too excited to say more.

Catherine clasped Yu’s other hand, her face smudged, her blouse torn at the shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you here, Detective Yu.”

“Me too, Inspector Rohn. I am happy to meet you.”

“I thought you were on your way back to Shanghai,” Chen said.

“My plane was delayed. So I checked my phone one more time before boarding. I got the message left by Inspector Rohn that no one had picked you up at the station.”

“When did you place that call, Inspector Rohn?”

“While we were waiting for you to rent a car.”

“The absence of the local police at the station did not make sense,” Yu said. “The more I thought about it, the more suspicious it appeared to me. After all those accidents, you know-”

“Yes, I do.” Chen had to cut Yu short. It was more than suspicious, he knew. Inspector Rohn knew, too. The fact that she had mentioned the absence of the local cops in her message spoke for itself. Still, they did not have to discuss this problem in front of her.

“So I approached the airport police and got a jeep from them. Some of them rode back with me. I had a hunch.”

“A good hunch.”

As they were talking, Chen heard more cars and people arriving. Looking up, he was not too surprised to see Superintendent Hong, the head of the Fuzhou Police Bureau, leading a group of armed policemen.

“I’m so sorry, Chief Inspector Chen,” Hong said in a voice full of apologies. “We missed you at the station. My assistant made a mistake about the arrival time. On our way back to the bureau, we heard about the fight and rushed over.”

“Don’t worry, Superintendent Hong. It’s all over now.”

The belated appearance of Hong and his men was intended to be a footnote to a finished chapter.

Was it possible for Chen to attempt to remedy the situation here and now? The answer was no. As an outsider, he had to congratulate himself on being lucky as it was. Their mission was completed, none of them had been seriously hurt, and a handful of gangsters had been punished. He simply said, “The Flying Axes are well-informed. We hardly reached the village when they came upon us.”

“Some village folks must have spotted Wen and informed them.”

“So they got the news faster than the local police.” Chen found it hard not to be sarcastic.

“Now you know how difficult things can be here, Chief Inspector Chen,” Hong said, shaking his head before he turned to Inspector Rohn. “I’m sorry about meeting you like this, Inspector Rohn. I apologize on behalf of my colleagues in Fujian.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Superintendent Hong,” Inspector Rohn said. “I thank you for your cooperation on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.”

More policemen appeared to clean up the battlefield. There were several wounded gangsters lying on the ground. One of them might be dead. Chen was about to interrogate another who was muttering something to a local cop, when Hong made a request.

“Can you explain a Chinese proverb for me, Chief Inspector Chen-Mogao yice, daogao yizhang?”

“The literal translation is this: The devil is ten inches tall, and the way, or justice, is a hundred inches tall. In other words, powerful as evil is, justice will prevail.” The original proverb actually read the other way around. The ancient Chinese sage had been more pessimistic about the power of the evil.

“The Chinese government is determined,” Hong declared pompously, “to deal a crushing blow to all evil forces.”

Chen nodded as he observed a policeman kicking a wounded gangster viciously and cursing, “Damn it! Shut up with your damned Mandarin.”

The gangster uttered a blood-chilling scream that cut into their conversation like another flying ax.

“I apologize, Inspector Rohn,” Hong said. “Those gangsters are the worst scum under the sun.”

“I have had my fill of apologies every day I’ve spent here,” Detective Yu remarked bitterly, crossing his arms. “What a Fujian experience!”

But Chief Inspector Chen knew better than to push the matter further. On the surface, everything could be attributed to coincidence. There was no point going on with Inspector Rohn and Wen waiting.

“We local police can do little,” Hong said, looking Chen in the eye. “You know that, Chief Inspector Chen.”

Could that be a hint about the higher-level politics?

The doubts Chen had harbored at the beginning of the investigation were resurfacing. Wen’s disappearance might not have been orchestrated from above, but whether the authorities had been so eager to deliver her to the Americans, he was not sure. What was left for Chen to do was perhaps no more than a performance in an ancient shadow play, full of sound and fury, but no substance. In his eagerness to serve as a model Chinese chief inspector of police, however, he had stepped beyond the boundaries of the stage.

If this was so, the battle in the village might truly have been beyond the scope of the local police, as Superintendent Hong intimated.

Maybe “the order of the acts had been schemed and plotted,” at the highest level.

He did not really want to believe this.

Perhaps he would never know the truth. Perhaps it would be best if he could be content to be one of those brainless Chinese cops in the Hollywood movies, and to let Inspector Rohn think of him that way.

Whatever his suspicions, he was in no position to confide in her. Or another report by Internal Security would travel to Party Secretary Li’s desk even before he got back to Shanghai.

“Now the case has been concluded.” Superintendent Hong changed the topic with a ready smile. “You have found Wen. All is well. We should celebrate. The best Fujian cuisine, a banquet of a hundred fishes from the southern sea.”

“No thanks, Superintendent Hong,” Chen declined. “But I need to ask a favor of you.”

“We will do anything we can, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“We have to return to Shanghai right now. We are pressed for time.”

“That’s no problem. Let’s go to the airport directly. There are several flights to Shanghai every day. You can take the next one. It’s not the high season. I believe there should still be some seats available.”

Hong and the others drove off in their jeep, taking the lead. Yu followed with Wen in the car that had brought them from the airport. Chen rode with Catherine in the Dazhong.

The half bag of lichee still lay on the seat. The fruit no longer looked so fresh. Several appeared black rather than red. Or if the color remained the same, his mood had changed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“I should not have supported Wen’s wish to take this trip.”

“I was not opposed to the idea, either,” he said. “I’m sorry, Inspector Rohn.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

“How could the gang have found us so quickly?”

“That’s a good question.” That’s all he said. It was a question Superintendent Hong should have answered.

“You called the Fujian Police Bureau from Suzhou,” she said quietly. The tai chi term was: It is enough to touch the spot. She did not have to push.

“That was my mistake. But I did not mention Wen.” He was puzzled. Only the Suzhou police were aware that Wen was with them, but he went on, “Maybe some villager notified the gangsters as soon as we arrived. That’s Superintendent Hong’s story.”

“Maybe.”

“I do not know much about the local situation.” He caught himself talking to her in the same evasive way as Superintendent Hong had spoken to him. Still, what else could he say? “Maybe the gangsters were waiting for Wen. Just like ‘the old farmer waiting for the rabbit to knock itself out.’”

“Old farmers or not, the Flying Axes were here and the local police were not.”