“A baby.”

“Yes,” says Ming-Mei. “I haven’t even kissed this strange man, and already they are talking about when I have the baby.”

“They?”

“She and Jonny. This has been their plan all along. So of course I respond with a temper tantrum. How dare they! I am not a whore paid to have babies! And so on and so forth. They played it like on American TV. Good cop and bad cop. She was the bad cop. Fail to cooperate and I would be sent to a ‘reeducation camp’ in one of the northern provinces. And Jonny would be sweet and understanding and explain that everything would be okay, and that having a baby didn’t mean I couldn’t be a big star like Gillian Chung.”

“So you agreed to the plan.”

“Yes, to my shame, I did.”

“And eventually you got pregnant.”

She nods.

“Did Professor Keener ever discuss his company with you? What he was working on at QuantaGate?”

“No, never.”

“So you don’t know what he was developing.”

She shrugs. “Something to do with computers, that’s all. Please understand, everything changed when I got pregnant. The stupid girl who wants to be like Gillian Chung? She grew up. All she could think about was the baby, the baby. So that’s what we talked about, Joe and me. By then I had ‘learned’ enough English to have a real conversation. In a strange way, I began to like him. I say strange, because he was like no man I had ever met before. I understood that he was a great genius in his work, but at home, in his personal life, he was more like a child. In social matters he was very unsure of himself. He knew he didn’t really understand other people, or how they think, but there was nothing he could do about that.” She pauses, once again with her eyes downcast and her hands folded palm up in her lap. “The thing I am most ashamed of is not seducing poor Joe, because that’s what I did, I seduced him in every way a man can be seduced. No, it was making him think he could trust me, and knowing that when I lied he would believe me. I lied to him about everything. This was shameful. Because even if they didn’t tell me why they wanted me to have Joe’s baby, I understood that it had to do with tricking him, using him.”

“He would be compromised.”

“Yes.”

“Because he would want to protect you and the baby.”

“Yes.”

“And is that what happened?”

“More or less. The strategy was to keep him off balance. While I was pregnant I stayed here in Boston and saw him every few days. He went with me to the birthing center the day Joey was born, although he could not make himself witness the delivery. After a few days he held the baby, briefly, but I could tell he really didn’t like it.”

“He didn’t like Joey?” Naomi says, surprised.

“No, no. He loved Joey in his way, of this I am sure. It was the holding part he didn’t enjoy. He kept saying, ‘I’m afraid I’ll break him.’ He was frightened. I was frightened, too, but not about holding Joey. I loved that part right from the start. It was being a mother that scared me. I had no idea what to do, not at first.”

“It’s our understanding that soon after giving birth you returned to Hong Kong.”

“Yes, true. When Joey was about a month old I went home.”

“This was your idea?”

“I made no objection—I wanted to go home, to resume my old life—but no, it was not my idea. They arranged it. I was to tell him I wanted to show the baby to my relatives and then I would simply keep making excuses and never get around to coming back to the U.S.A. Their intention was that Joe would want to visit me and the baby in Hong Kong and they would make contact with him there.”

“This is what I find puzzling,” Naomi says. “According to what you’ve told us, Jonny Bing was cooperating with this woman spy who acted as your translator. He was also partners with Professor Keener, so why couldn’t Keener simply be induced to pass information through Mr. Bing?”

Ming-Mei says, “They felt it was important that Joe not suspect Jonny, or he would also suspect that the whole relationship with me was arranged for that purpose. Which it was, of course. Also Jonny told me he was always under surveillance, they were keeping an eye on him because he was Chinese-American.”

“A Chinese-American deeply invested in a company developing a secret computer system for the Pentagon.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“And you remained in Hong Kong for about a year?”

“Thirteen months.”

“Why did you return?”

“Because he never came to visit! They couldn’t get over it. The colonel made sure I kept sending video clips of Joey, to induce him into visiting, but eventually it became clear that for him the video clips were enough. He loved seeing the pictures but it didn’t make him want to visit us in person. So then the decision is made, and I am to return to U.S.A. We are to live in a very nice condo Joe has purchased in Arlington. At first I refuse, and that’s when the colonel makes it clear exactly what my situation was.”

“They threatened to take the baby.”

Now it’s Ming-Mei’s turn to look shocked. “How did you know?”

“Because that’s the logical choice. The baby gives them leverage over you, even if it hasn’t yet worked with the professor.”

“I had no choice. But it turns out to be maybe the best thing I did. Because Joey does get to know his father a little bit, for a little while. And that’s when he discovered music.”

“Music?” I ask, piping up from the peanut gallery.

“Did you not know? Like his father my son is a genius. Not a science or math genius, a musical genius. In other ways Joey is normal, he is a regular little boy who likes to have his mi ma hold him and fuss over him and tickle his tummy and read him stories. But what his father did, he played some classical music on a CD, and Joey got so excited—he was two years old at the time, a toddler—that his father went out and bought a little piano keyboard, with special child-size keys. It was like watching magic happen. His father shows him how to hit two keys, an octave apart, and Joey right away starts using six fingers, three on each hand, to make simple chords. He liked it so much it made him laugh. By the time he’s three he’s making up his own music. He’s spending so much time at his keyboard, playing for hours, that I’m worried, but his teacher tells me not to worry, this is the way it is with true musical prodigies, you can’t keep them away from the music, it’s opening up whole new worlds and they want to explore.”

“Professor Keener’s birth parents were both musicians,” Naomi points out. “You’re a singer, and therefore musically inclined. I’m not really surprised that music is in the boy’s DNA.”

“That’s what Joe said,” Ming-Mei says, nodding eagerly. “He said, ‘on my side it skipped a generation.’ It helped both of them, I think. Joe still didn’t want to pick up Joey, but the music was a connection. He was fascinated by Joey’s progress, and very pleased, very proud.”

“Okay, let me see if we understand the chronology,” Naomi says. “On your second visit you and Joey stay at the Arlington condo for about a year and a half, is that correct?”

Ming-Mei nods firmly. “Yes.”

“And then, abruptly, you return again to Hong Kong. Why was that?”

“The excuse, my grandmother has taken ill. In reality, both my grandmothers died long ago. The colonel was by then very eager to get Joe’s cooperation. They thought he had bonded so much with his son that he would surely visit us in Hong Kong, where they could spring their trap and make him share secrets. I was not to send him videos or emails, if he wanted to see Joey he would have to come to us. And six months later, he did.”

“What happened, exactly?” Naomi says, a little too casually. Those familiar with her technique pick up the signals—she’s about to bore in, shaking out something crucial to the case.

“Everything went wrong,” Ming-Mei says with a sigh. “That was the beginning of the end. At first it was very nice—he was so glad to see Joey, so amazed by his musical progress—by then Joey was starting to read music, and practicing some of the simpler Mozart sonatas. He came every day to watch and listen, and seemed to me to be as happy as I had ever seen him. Then one day he comes and I can see right away that he’s very upset. Some Chinese men came to his hotel and threatened him in some way, or said something that made him suspicious. He has decided that I am part of this conspiracy and I don’t admit it, but of course he’s right. Suddenly he’s looking at me like he looks at everybody else in the world, like I’m not quite there.”