Razing Beijing: A Thriller (19 page)

“Very well.”

“Thank you, doctor.” He nodded to his driver and the car
started rolling again. Deng folded the letter back into the envelope and
stuffed it into his coat.

Tuesday, May 5

PAUL DEVINN WATCHED
a
pale and slouching Sean Thompson shuffle into the restaurant, his eyes puffy
and pink. The Stouffers located 47 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio was
unreasonably warm. Thompson unzipped his goose down ski jacket and sat,
shivering, in the opposite side of the booth.

Stuart’s investigation was apparently converging on the
cause of the crash. Devinn would have preferred not compounding the risk to his
operation by meeting with Thompson tonight simply to hear what he had already
independently confirmed.

“You look unhealthy,” Devinn observed. “You need to take
better care of yourself.”

Thompson instantly appeared angry, his lips narrowed, and
Devinn expected some sort of rebuke. “We’ve got a big problem and you’re
worried about my health. What the hell do we do?”

Devinn smiled disarmingly. “First, we get you something hot
to eat.” He waved down a waitress.

Thompson dipped his trembling spoon below the steaming
surface of bouillon, and Devinn realized that he now faced three separate
facets of the same root problem, the least of which was burying the evidence of
sabotage. Probably his greatest challenge was seated before him—Beijing’s
perception that the operation was spinning out of control could only be
hastened by the unraveling of his accomplice. Unfortunately, the options for
dealing with Thompson were few. Devinn imagined a dark, smoke-filled room where
a similar calculation was being made for dealing with him.

“Tell me something, Sean. How are you getting on with your
boss?”

Thompson slurped the last of his soup and put down his
spoon with a shrug. “We get along, I guess.”

“You guess. What about your colleagues, are they treating
you any differently?”

“What are you driving at? It’s not like anyone has time to
sit around—”

“It’s important not to change your behavior, either inside
or outside the workplace. Have you noticed unfamiliar vehicles following you to
or from work?”

Thompson shook his head.

Devinn looked into the parking lot at the midnight-blue
Porsche 911 that Thompson had driven to the restaurant.

Thompson followed his glance. “Relax, it’s only a lease.”

“I know things in Mojave didn’t exactly turn out the way
either one of us planned. If the engine had blown up on the ground—”

“I feel like a murderer.”

“I know how you feel, but you’ve got to sit tight.”

“What the
fuck
could you possibly
know
about
the way I feel?” Thompson’s eyes were wide and searching. “Now we got the
FAA”—Thompson counted them off with his fingers—“probably the FBI, a half-dozen
crazed vendors each frantically trying to prove somebody else is at fault,
Stuart’s whole division and specifically my boss, who is constantly breathing
down our necks and digging into every nook and cranny of the
fucking engine
control!
” Thompson’s eyes bulged as they stared at each other across the
booth.

“I think you’re overreacting,” Devinn said evenly. “I
haven’t heard a single word mentioned anywhere about foul play.”

“
I’m the one in the hot seat.”

Several other diners turned to cast disapproving looks. Devinn
scolded himself for meeting Thompson in so public a venue. “You really don’t
have so much to worry about.”

“And why is that?”

“You’re better off not knowing why.”

Thompson glared. “That’s it? I’m the one hung out to dry,
and you say I’m better off not knowing? Give me one reason...oh what’s the
difference.”

“Okay, look. In a few days you’ll begin to see indications
that the investigation is leading to a dead end. Why should you believe me? I’ll
let your net personal holdings speak to that.” Devinn’s tone was soothing,
conciliatory, convincing. “And the less you know about it, the less likely you
are to respond inappropriately when—”

“When I’m arrested? One less thing I’ll be able to sing
about?” Thompson shot quick, nervous glances around the room and out the
window, fidgeting with his spoon, shaking his head.

“We’re in this together.” Devinn turned up his palms. “You’re
just going to have to trust me. I’ve had to steer through far worse than this. Be
patient. On the bright side, by all rights you are a wealthy young man. Have you
forgotten Cole’s deadline? All you have to do is ride this out another few
days.” He glanced outside again at Thompson’s car, glistening ostentatiously
beneath the exterior floodlights where the moron had chosen to park it, two
spaces away from the entrance. “I would have advised against the Porsche,” he
lightly observed. “But I must admit it’s a beauty.”

HIDDEN DEEP WITHIN
an
old and crumbling section of its sprawling Cleveland aircraft engine complex was
the Thanatechnology Electronics Lab.

Emily Chang could not help being both nervous and a little
amused. Nervous, because the company’s top technical intellect were huddled in
front of her computer, poised to pass judgment; and amused because she thought
standing shoulder-to-nose would demand a degree of civility. Instead, the bickering
only intensified. A final protest over the glare on the screen extinguished the
fluorescent lights. Now each peered breathlessly over the shoulder in front of
them, focused stares reflecting the green wash of a computer screen.

The analog simulation of their focus depicted the flat
panel display of a modern airline cockpit, with the important distinction that
several dozen engine parameters were being tracked. The object was not to
simulate an airplane but the rotating masses and various fluid flows and
pressures that comprise a jet engine, the behavior of which was mimicked by
hundreds of computerized algorithms. Thanatech routinely used this particular
simulator to qualify new electronic control units before their shipment to
airline customers.

Robert Stuart reached out his right hand and gripped the
simulator’s throttle lever. He eased it gently forward—Emily held her breath. The
ECU retrieved from the debris in Mojave, which she and her staff had finished
nursing back to health a few hours earlier, interpreted Stuart’s command to
deliver more thrust. Cockpit dial indicators for fan speed, fuel flow, exhaust
gas temperature, compressor discharge pressure, variable stator and propeller
pitch angles all danced around before settling into their acceptable range
within the green arcs.

Stuart hesitantly removed his hand from the lever, and
turned toward Emily. She knew instantly by his expression that her boss was
firmly in the camp of the persuaded. Morton Hackett stood nearby, the corners
of his mouth turned down in their customary sneer.

“You still don’t believe it,” Stuart accused him.

The chief engineer responded as if poked in the ribs. “I
don’t believe what?”

“You think we’re putting you on.”

Hackett brushed past Stuart in order to peer over the recovered
‘box.’ Hundreds of multicolored wires neatly drawn together with plastic ties
and spilling over the sides of the box failed to repair the image of a crushed
and disemboweled robot. “My friend,” Hackett muttered, “engineering is not a
faith experience. It isn’t religion. Something either merely
is
. Or
something merely
isn’t
.”

Stuart laughed.

Hackett’s face burned red as he looked Stuart squarely in
the eye. Then he turned to Emily and softly complimented her. “Very nice work, Emily.”

“Thank you, but my staff truly deserves all the credit,”
she said, smiling.

Hackett nodded graciously, turned to leave, paused as if to
say something else, and continued out of the room.

“This thing actually works,” Ian Vickers pointed out.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Emily replied airily.

Stuart asked, “Have you found anything unusual?”

“We haven’t had a chance to put it through its paces. Unfortunately
the next phase of the effort is not going so smoothly.”

Stuart stared questioningly. Emily Chang quietly suggested
they step outside the electronics lab. He followed her slender, blue-jean-clad
figure into the corridor, where the two were alone.

Stuart again noted the faint, pleasant aroma of perfume. “What
seems to be the problem?”

“I’m having a personnel problem.” This she confided with a
whisper.

“Anything I can do to help?”

Emily shook her head vigorously. “Thank you, but no. To be
fair, the code we are trying to write is very complex. It’s difficult to know
whether this particular engineer’s delay is legitimate or...or attributable to something
else.”

“Who are we talking about?”

“I’d rather not say, not yet.”

Stuart was reminded of this particular manager’s
inclination to struggle with unresolved issues rather than kick them out in the
open. “We’re not exactly in a position to let problems drag on. What
something
else
are you alluding to?”

Emily sighed. “Well, there is personal illness involved. I
just think he should be making more progress. He and I disagree on this point. We’ll
work it out.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I am sure.”

“Listen, I’d already decided to talk to Cole about a
deadline extension. Your success here with the ECU ought to help.” He noted the
dark circles under Emily’s eyes. “How are you holding up?”

She smiled. “We’re all a little tired, I suppose.”

Stuart nodded reflectively. “I’ve been meaning to discuss
something with you.”

She smiled expectantly. “Have you?”

“I know there’s been a lot of controversy regarding my role.
You know, after all of your inputs I yielded to my boss and his decision that
we finish the Mojave test flight.” As usual, Stuart tried and failed to read
her expression. Her dark and inquisitive eyes seemed to track every movement of
his own, to convey understanding yet dispel invitation. She was beautiful,
extraordinarily intelligent—and complicated. “I’m not trying to defend myself. Obviously
it was a tragic error.”

“It don’t see how it matters, really, what I or anyone else
might have to say about that.”

“Perhaps. I could see how lingering doubts about my judgment
could make it tough on anyone’s motivation around here. Your own, for that
matter. Not that you’ve given me any reason to think so. Quite the opposite.”

Emily reached behind her neck and shifted her hair around
in front of her shoulder. “I’m not aware of any problems stemming from that.”

“Well, keep up the good work, Emily. But not tonight,
okay? You owe it to yourself to just go home, or go out and have a good time or
whatever it is you like to do. You deserve some time off.”

*     *     *

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT
by
the time Emily did arrive home, Stuart’s advice roundly ignored.

Atop the short flight of steps from the parking lot to her
studio, she clutched the grocery bag to her hip while unlocking the door. Stuart’s
expression of remorse earlier that day had surprised her—again she found
herself not certain what to think of the man. It was frustrating keeping her
every emotion a secret. Since Sandy’s calamitous death, she had virtually no
one to confide in or turn to for advice. She reprimanded herself for the
self-pity; if after university she had returned home to China, by now her
parents would have goaded her into marrying someone whom she might not even
love. For all she felt for her parents, it was difficult to relate to many of
their traditional values. Yet she would give anything to one day introduce them
to the man she did love.

The good news was that she knew they were alive—missing
perhaps, but alive. Encouraging news had finally come the night before last
through her cousin. According to Jake’s e-mail, a neighbor reported seeing her
parents slip out of their home before dawn one morning several weeks ago. Word
had spread that her father stole his mother away to get the medical treatment
she needed to survive. Emily was certain that they would contact her as soon as
possible from wherever that happened to be. Still, the lack of any such word
was cause for worry.
Thank God there’s work to bury myself in.
In truth,
she did have one friend to whom she could turn.

Emily pushed the door open into the studio and, expecting
the familiar brush of her cat warmly wrapping around her ankle, she instead
felt nothing. “Hello, King-Pu!” The darkened apartment yielded not even the
soothing rumble of his purr. “King-Pu?”

She silenced her breathing and listened for her companion’s
familiar meow.

Something was wrong. She groped along the wall for the
switch and flipped on the light. The Himalayan was nowhere in sight. On the
floor was a large manila envelope, scrawled on it the letters, ‘OPEN THIS.’

Emily’s heart raced; nothing could possibly fit between the
weather strip and the floor. Someone would have to have been inside her
apartment—were they perhaps still there? The studio suddenly no longer felt
lifeless. At length she heard only the steady
drip, drip
of the faucet.

Perhaps, she thought, the envelope was there as some sort
of a joke by her colleagues. She didn’t find it amusing, especially if King-Pu
had slipped through the door past them and raced off, terrified, into the
night. But how could anyone have gotten inside? She glanced through the doorway
into the darkness and found that she felt better leaving it open for now.