David Rotenberg - The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

Fong opened the door to the large room and stepped in leaving the distant sounds of dharma kids’ song behind him. He had chosen not to evacuate the children from the rest of the building and insisted on going in to confront the bomber alone. He left Chen to keep Lily and the other cops outside.

The room in which the bomber held the children had originally been a ballroom. Up above was a balustrade that encircled the entire space from which guests could watch the dancers. Now the room was a big open space with a raised circular dais in the centre. In the middle of the platform the beautiful man from the photograph stood holding Xiao Ming in the crook of his left arm. In his right hand he held one of the Tibetan’s razor-sharp swolta blades. The other sixty or so children were sitting, back to the man, with their feet dangling over the sides of the platform. All faced out. Some cried. Many had urinated in their pants. All showed the extremis of fear on their faces. The teacher who Angel Michael had executed ten minutes ago, to prove he was serious, lay on the floor – the fresh swolta cut across her throat still leaking crimson.

“Message conveyed?” the man shouted toward Fong.

Fong nodded.

“Good. So now we wait – we wait for the light to come.”

There was a silence and then a voice came from above, “Don’t you need this to make the light come?”

The man looked up to the balustrade. Devil Robert stood there holding the fake scroll he had received from the Chinese men on the Bund Promenade his first day back in Shanghai. Robert undid the ribbon and, holding one end, with a mighty heave tossed the other end toward the ceiling. The scroll unwound in an elongated flutter and seemed to hang in the air.

Angel Michael looked up.

Fong reached inside his coat and felt the butt of Chen’s pistol. Suddenly Xiao Ming began to cry. Her howls immediately set off the other children.

Robert heard the crying and for a moment felt the sick sensation of being seven years old and hearing his brother: “ No, Mommy. No Mommy no. ”He swallowed hard then pulled out a Zippo lighter and scraped it along his pant leg. The flame leapt up almost six inches high. Robert used all his will power to control his fear and whipped his end of the scroll hard so the rest of the thing rose like a dragon’s tail.

A quiet took the room.

Robert looked at Fong. He saw Fong’s hand pull out the gun.

Robert’s voice bloomed inside Fong’s head: “I thought you were a lousy shot.”

Fong answered inside Robert’s head: “I am.”

Devil Robert shouted at Angel Michael, “It’s real. No Islam Akhun forgery here.”

Angel Michael gasped and reached upward, toward the scroll.

Holding the Zippo aloft Robert shouted, “Let them go or I light this.”

Angel Michael screamed, “No.”

Robert touched the flame to the treated parchment. The paper whooshed into life, the flame leaping along its length aided by the chemical treatment used to make the scroll appear to be ancient. The paper raced fire across the space like a flash of heat lightning on a moonless night.

All eyes in the room looked up.

Then the part of the scroll that Robert held in his hand burst into flame. The smell of his own burning flesh brought a rush of memory to Robert: No, Mommy. No Mommy no. But now Robert wasn’t sure if it was his brother’s voice or his own.

Angel Michael opened his arms to the burning pathway above him, a luminous smile suddenly appearing on his face. For an instant Robert saw the innocent child Angel Michael had been, not the madman he now was.

Angel Michael put Xiao Ming on the dais then lay down beside her. He turned the baby’s head so she faced away from him. Then he slipped his even-sided cross from his neck and placed it in his mouth.

Fong raced toward the dais, the gun at his side.

Angel Michael raised the swolta knife and moved it toward Xiao Ming’s throat – an arm’s-length away.

A potent thought bloomed in Fong’s mind: “It was a sacrifice – the baby in the construction pit was not made to watch the father die – the baby was sacrificed by the father!”

The swolta touched Xiao Ming’s throat.

Fong raised his gun. But as he pressed the trigger everything changed. Suddenly he was in a modern room with a curved staircase at the far side. Music was playing. People were dressed for a celebration of some sort. Ahand tapped him on the shoulder and he turned. Commissioner Hu, the man in charge when Fong had first joined Special Investigations and who everyone referred to as His Huness, smiled his connected party smile and said to Fong, “Keep your eyes open, you’re here on business.”

The guy always knew how to ruin a good time.

“Right, sir,” Fong said. He was surprised at how young his voice sounded. Then he recognized where this was – no, what this was. It was a party after a performance at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. He and a few of the other candidates for Special Investigations had been tapped to provide security because they were cops and could speak enough English to overhear conversations between the Chinese actors and the many visiting foreign dignitaries.

It was the night that he had first met Fu Tsong, his deceased wife.

The band was playing – something forties, swinging. He moved toward the music and struck up a conversation with one of the men listening. “How was the play?”

“Sensational. This new actress Fu Tsong is truly amazing.”

“What was it?”

“ Twelfth Night . She plays a girl who dresses as a boy, then reveals herself at the end as a woman.”

“Sounds like a Peking Opera.”

“In fact, at first I thought it was a Peking Opera then I read the notes in the program.”

“It’s not Peking Opera then?”

“Plot sounds like it but no. British. By a guy named Shakespeare. Hey look, there she is.”

Fong looked. On the sweeping set of stairs stood an extraordinary, delicate creature flanked by two men. She seemed to glide effortlessly down the steps. At the bottom she nodded to the people waiting to talk to her. Then she headed toward the door. Halfway there the band completed their tune. She stopped to offer her applause.

When she did she saw Fong for the first time.

She tilted her head slightly and took a step toward him. He remembered little else except that they had danced together that night in a small bar. Then found a taxi and took it down to the river. They walked till a clear dawn came up over the Huangpo – the Huangpo that led to the mighty Yangtze, that in turn led to the sea. The details of the evening were lost to Fong. It was as if they had happened to someone else.

“It’s ephemeral, Fong,” said Fu Tsong. Then she laughed. “In fact, it could just as easily not have happened at all.”

“Look.”

Fong looked where she pointed. He found himself in the same room, with the same conversations both with his Huness and the man who had seen Twelfth Night . “No. British. By a guy named Shakespeare. Hey look, there she is.”

And there she was again. Fu Tsong glided effortlessly down the sweeping steps. At the bottom she nodded to the people waiting to talk to her and then she headed toward the door just as she had done before. Halfway there the band completed their tune with the exact same ending as the other time. Fu Tsong stopped to offer her applause but this time the band picked up a tag and segued directly into a more modern number.

Fu Tsong threw back her head and laughed as she continued to the door and left – without, even for a moment, casting a glance in Fong’s direction.

Fong looked down – his finger was pulling the trigger of the gun.

The shot thundered in his ears.