Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“Pavel Georgeyevich, you need to see this.”

Provalov was there when the chief of the decryption section walked in. The printout was in a manila folder, which the head cryppie handed over without a word.

“Well, Pasha?” the homicide investigator asked.

“Well, we have answered our first question.”

The motorcar was even purchased at the same dealership in central Moscow, the sheet read. There is no fault to be found here. The men who performed the mission are both dead in St. P. Before I can make another attempt, I need an indication from you on the time line, and also on the payment to my contractors.

“Golovko was the target, then,” Provalov observed. And the head of our country’s intelligence service owes his life to a pimp.

“So it would appear,” Yefremov agreed. “Note that he doesn’t ask payment for himself. I would imagine he’s somewhat embarrassed at having missed his target on the first attempt.”

“But he’s working for the Chinese?”

“So that would appear as well,” the FSS man observed, with an inward chill. Why, he asked himself, would the Chinese wish to do such a thing? Isn’t that nearly an act of war? He sat back in his chair and lit up a smoke, looking into the eyes of his police colleague. Neither man knew what to say at the moment, and both kept silent. It would all soon be out of and far beyond their hands. With that decided, both men headed home for dinner.

The morning broke more brightly than usual in Beijing. Mrs. Yu had slept deeply and well, and though she awoke with a slight headache, she was grateful for Wen’s insistence on a couple of drinks before retiring. Then she remembered why she was in Beijing, and any good feelings departed from her mind. Breakfast was mainly green tea and was spent looking down, remembering the sound of her husband’s voice in the bleak acceptance of the fact that she’d never hear it again. He’d always been in a good mood over breakfast, never forgetting, as she had just done, to say grace over the morning meal and thank God for another day in which to serve Him. No more. No more would he do that, she reminded herself. But she had duties of her own to perform.

“What can we do, Zhong?” she asked, when her host appeared.

“I will go with you to the police post and we will ask for Fa An’s body, and then I will help you fly our friend home, and we will have a memorial prayer service at the-”

“No, you can’t, Zhong. There are police there to keep everyone out. They wouldn’t even let me in, even though I had my papers in order.”

“Then we will have it outside, and they will watch us pray for our friend,” the restaurateur told his guest with gentle resolve.

Ten minutes later, she’d cleaned up and was ready to leave. The police station was only four blocks away, a simple building, ordinary in all respects except for the sign over the door.

“Yes?” the desk officer said when his peripheral vision noted the presence of people by his desk. He looked up from the paper forms that had occupied his attention for the past few minutes to see a woman and a man of about the same age.

“I am Yu Chun,” Mrs. Yu answered, seeing some recognition in the desk officer’s eyes result from her words.

“You are the wife of Yu Fa An?” he asked.

“That is correct.”

“Your husband was an enemy of the people,” the cop said next, sure of that but not sure of much else in this awkward case.

“I believe he was not, but all I ask is for his body, so that I might fly it home for burial with his family.”

“I do not know where his body is,” the cop said.

“But he was shot by a policeman,” Wen put in, “and the disposal of his body is therefore a police matter. So, might you be so kind, comrade, as to call the proper number so that we can remove our friend’s body?” His manners did not allow anger on the part of the desk officer.

But the desk cop really didn’t know what number to call, and so he called someone inside the building, in the large administration division. He found this embarrassing to do with two citizens standing by his desk, but there was no avoiding that.

“Yes?” a voice answered on his third internal call.

“This is Sergeant Jiang at the desk in the public lobby. I have Yu Chun here, seeking the body of her husband, Yu Fa An. I need to tell her where to go.”

The reply took a few seconds for the man on the other end of the phone, who had to remember…. “Ah, yes, tell her she can go to the Da Yunhe River. His body was cremated and the ashes dumped in the water last evening.”

And, enemy of the people or not, it would not be a pleasant thing to tell his widow, who’d probably had feelings for him. Sergeant Jiang set the phone down and decided to give her the news.

“The body of Yu Fa An was cremated and the ashes scattered in the river, comrade.”

“That is cruel!” Wen said at once. Chun was too stunned to say anything at the moment.

“I cannot help you more than that,” Jiang told his visitors and looked back down at his paperwork to dismiss them.

“Where is my husband?” Yu Chun managed to blurt, after thirty seconds or so of silence.

“Your husband’s body was cremated and the ashes scattered,” Jiang said, without looking up, because he really didn’t wish to see her eyes under these circumstances. “I cannot help you further. You may leave now.”

“I want my husband back!” she insisted.

“Your husband is dead and his body has been cremated. Be gone now!” Sergeant Jiang insisted in return, wishing she’d just go away and allow him to get back to his paperwork.

“I want my husband,” she said louder now, causing a few eyes to turn her way in the lobby.

“He is gone, Chun,” Wen Zhong told her, taking her arm and steering her to the door. “Come, we will pray for him outside.”

“But why did they-I mean, why is he-and why did they-” It had just been too much for one twenty-four-hour period. Despite the night’s sleep, Yu Chun was still too disoriented. Her husband of over twenty years had vanished, and now she could not even see the urn containing his ashes? It was a lot to absorb for a woman who’d never so much as bumped into a policeman on the street, who’d never done a single thing to offend the state-except, perhaps, to marry a Christian-but what did that hurt, anyway? Had either of them, had any of their congregation ever plotted treason against the state? No. Had any of them so much as violated the criminal or civil law? No. And so why had this misfortune fallen upon her? She felt as though she’d been struck by an invisible truck while crossing the street, then had it decided that her injuries were all her fault. Behind one invisible truck was just another, and all the more merciless at that.

There was nothing left for her to do, no recourse, legal or otherwise. They couldn’t even go into her home, whose living room had so often served as their church, there to pray for Yu’s soul and entreat God for mercy and help. Instead they’d pray … where? she wondered. One thing at a time. She and Wen walked outside, escaping the eyes of the lobby, which had zoomed in on them with almost physical impact. The eyes and the weight they’d carried were soon left behind, but the sun outside was just one more thing that intruded on what ought to have been, and what needed to be, a day of peace and lonely prayer to a God whose mercy was not very evident at the moment. Instead, the brightness of the sun defeated her eyelids, bringing unwanted brilliance into the darkness that might have simulated, if not exactly granted, peace. She had a flight booked back to Hong Kong, and from there back to Taipei, where she could at least weep in the presence of her mother, who was awaiting her death as well, for the woman was over ninety and frail.