In Red Pursuit

PROLOGUE

In the spring of June 1989, thousands of troops entered Tiananmen Square and opened re on unarmed protestors. Thousands of mostly university-aged students had gathered there in the weeks prior, campaigning for far-ranging political and economic reforms. While the Chinese Communist Party had silenced previous demonstrations, the retaking of the square on the night of June 3rd. was so brutal that it became known as the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Ying Yue, a university student at that time, was horrified by what she saw taking place in the Square that night. The call for social justice that the protestors wanted was sufficiently broad-based so that most urban workers identified with them. The student protestors had publicly called for an end to the corruption of the communist cadres that were seen leading privileged lives and proting from the market reforms that they had implemented. The citizens’ movement was taking place in the heart of the world’s most populous country, under Chairman Mao’s colossal image, in the Square that had always been the center of political tension and attention. Protestors were frustrated that political reforms were not moving as fast as economic ones. The spontaneous demonstrations that were taking place that summer had never happened like that before. The weather was great, the mood was joyous, and the protestors almost felt as though they were attending an outdoor rock festival.

The government was unsure of how to quash the protest. They labeled the movement as antiparty and antisocialist. Hundreds of thousands of people had congregated in the streets to participate in the historic event. Students and workers were organizing into unions. A confrontation with the government seemed inevitable.

Ying Yue witnessed a ferocious government crackdown in response to this peaceful movement, that left streets stained with protestors’ blood. She saw heavy tanks flattening rows of parked bicycles and vehicles and saw pedal-powered three-wheelers carting wounded protestors to Beijing’s hospitals. The noise from the incessant gunre could be heard from all over the center of Beijing. On the streets leading to Tiananmen Square, people furiously stared in disbelief as things exploded and disintegrated into chaos. Troops in military trucks were ring indiscriminately at the crowds that had refused to leave. There was confusion and despair among the citizens, who couldn’t believe that it was their own army that was ring wildly at them, launching into an unarmed civilian population as if charging into battle. From Tiananmen Square, the sound of gunre confirmed that a battle was taking place, but it was one-sided. A line of soldiers faced a huge crowd. The air was filled with the sounds of protestors shouting at the soldiers, “Fascists, stop killing” and “Down with the government.”

Ying Yue tried to distance herself from that neighborhood that was in flames, from the teargas-induced irritation that hurt her eyes, and from the heavy gray gun smoke that stung her skin and permeated everywhere. A huge volley of shots sounded o just as she left the place, causing even more panic. A young man fell dead in front of her. She fell over him as she tried to make her escape. Several others were killed just yards away. Three more people lay wounded on the ground next to her. Ambulance sirens screamed as they tried to rush to the front lines, but they were being turned away. They couldn’t get to the Square. Two ambulance drivers were shot and injured. From the back of the Forbidden City, the old part of Beijing near the Square, she saw a woman with a bullet in her head being picked up by a rickshaw. She was being taken to the nearby children’s hospital, into a scene of near mayhem. Casualties were continuously being brought in for treatment by bikes, rickshaws, and even park benches used as stretchers, carried by groups of shocked citizens. All of the injured had gunshot wounds. The operating area was overwhelmed, and many of the staff were in tears. Within minutes, countless others seriously injured were being brought in for emergency surgery. Some were already dead. In the streets, many were shaking with anger, disbelief, and fear. Ying Yue became so anxious and agitated that her face began to nervously twitch and her hands shook frenetically.

People trying to evade bullets ran into alleys and streets on the north side of the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Ying Yue made a break for a twisting, narrow street that headed west, where the sound of gunfire seemed to be less frequent. There was not a voice in the streets that did not express rage and despair.

In China’s capital, there exists a different urban reality that often goes unnoticed. It is another version of Beijing that is more controlled, more sanitized, more private; pockets of space that are walled o from the rest of the city, unseen by anyone but its residents. In these enclosed spaces there are well- manicured paths, brightly painted exercise facilities, and landscaped gardens. Yet, they are surrounded by metal fences, broken shards of glass, barbed wire, CCTV surveillance cameras, and patrolling guards. These are the gated communities of China, and in one such community resided Ying Yue with her lover.

For several months now, Ying Yue had been staying on and owith the young affluent businessman that had often told her how much he loved her. That was why she had opted not to go to her crowded university dorm that night and to run instead directly to his place. She had believed him when he had said that she meant everything to him, and never doubted it. That was why on the night of the massacre she thought that the most prudent thing to do was to hurry to his place, to lay in his arms, and to pray that none of the horrors that she had witnessed that night had really happened.

As of late, security was tight at the entrance to his compound. A sentry was permanently posted to scrutinize all those trying to gain access. While crime rates in Beijing were low by Western standards, the fear of crime had grown in the transition to a market system. Fortunately for Ying Yue, the security guard on call that night recognized her and allowed her to quickly enter without checking her credentials. The protocol was for guards to call residents for approval before granting access, and Ying Yue should not have been given automatic access since she did not appear as a registered co-owner of the apartment.

Once past the guard, ginkgo trees lined both sides of the main entryway and marched down the picturesque street. The trees were planted close together so that the roots were shaded and so that the bark and canopy were protected from extreme temperatures and winds. The origins of the Chinese design for closely spaced street tree-planting could be partially traced to regulations enacted by Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century, where trees had to be planted only two paces apart along both sides of all public roads.

The main street was unusually silent, empty of pedestrians. As she turned left toward the serpentine street that led to her lover’s apartment, she passed by the beautiful weeping willow by the small lake. When the wind blew, the weeping willow leaves swayed and presented a phenomenon dubbed “willow waves,” which were often depicted in Chinese poems and paintings. Further along the path were the bamboos. The bamboo, that bent in the wind and did not break, was universally considered as the emblem of an honorable man. Show‐ casing poetic and artistic beauty, the garden was meant to deliver a profound philosophical message that reflected the ancient Chinese aspiration to harmonize with nature. The garden had a momentary charming and relaxing effect on Ying Yue.

Totally exhausted, Ying Yue finally entered the building where her lover resided. As she slowly began climbing the short flight of stairs to his floor, the movement seemed to take the air out of her lungs. Her muscles were cold, her heart rate was low, and her body was not ready for the climb. But she forced herself, climbing the stairs with difficulty, clinging to the railing with her right hand until she reached the top landing. She could hardly catch her breath as she moved along the corridor to his door. Then she inserted the key in the lock and turned it until it opened. After pausing for a moment to catch her breath, she finally went in and closed the door behind her.

The curtains were drawn in the living room, but a single lamp was thoughtfully left on for her at this late hour. At least that was what she imagined.

Ying Yue proceeded toward their bedroom. She was sure that she was safe now and didn’t have to think anymore. She just had to keep moving forward, carefully, before being able to totally collapse before him from sheer exhaustion. The flickering light ahead spread from the bedroom, and she immediately sensed that the air was wrong. The smell was unexpected. It was an unusual scent from a burning candle. Then she saw that on their bed her lover was lying with a young woman. She was sleeping beside him, her head nestled against his shoulder, her legs entangled with his. Through the curtain slightly pulled aside, a shaft of moonlight peeped in, and her naked body presented a beautiful glow. A small pool of sweat was in the hollow between her breasts, barely covered by the rumpled silk sheet.

The apartment suddenly felt suffocating to her. Ying Yue, totally disoriented, found her mind helplessly wandering away. She pursed her lips like a child and tried to think. She still found it hard to believe. She looked at him again as he turned toward the woman curled up beside him, the serene radiance of his clear features, vivid in a flood of moonlight. All this was too much for her to bear and so unfair.

She stood still, completely static, as if frozen in time. Circum‐ stances that night had joined link by link, like an invisible rope in an ancient Chinese tale that had brought them together to this moment. The Kit-Cat clock on the wall with its wagging tail and its rolling eyes was ticking, smiling at her. Her ashen face showed tears that finally came after a night of exhaustion, terror, and betrayal. In one night, her world had been turned upside down.

The Kit-Cat clock had never kept the proper time, and maybe that was why the image appeared to be always laughing. But now when she looked at the cat in the clock, she imagined that it was laughing at her because she had been caught in an uncertain place in time. She was trapped in an area of ambiguity between two distinct states or conditions. Or was it a situation or state of mind seemingly between reality and fantasy? She wasn’t well, couldn’t think straight, didn’t know how to react or what to do. She didn’t understand any of it. She was in a conceptual area that was undefined or intermediate.

Ying Yue stumbled out into the night, into the clear moonlight, trying to make sense of things. The so-called twilight zone that people experienced had a different kind of dimension and meaning for her. She had lost her footing, tumbling into a dimension that felt as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It was a middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lay between the pit of her fears and the summit of her knowledge. The night’s bizarre reality had forced her to reflect on the way that things were or at least how she perceived them to be in order to deal with them in a way that made some sense to her. So far, things that night were terribly unsettling. It was bizarre how everything that she had been feeling, everything that she had wanted was opposite to what was really happening to her. Her brain searched for the patterns in disappointments, and the ironic negative outcomes led her to conclude that she had to expect some twisted ending ahead.

CHAPTER ONE

Ying Yue’s was a journey of constant reinvention. For a decade, she defied convention and created a new identity for herself, distinct from what her college classmates could have ever envisioned. She had forged for herself a new set of memories that helped to transport her to another world. These days, the soft- spoken thirty-two-year-old graduate from Beijing University spoke three languages and had a lovely apartment on a gorgeous tree-lined avenue in Shanghai’s French Concession. The night‐ mares produced by her memories of Tiananmen Square no longer haunted her, as she put that period of her life farther and farther behind her.

On autumn nights, she liked to stroll along the Bund, taking in the mile-long stretch of waterfront promenade along the Huangpu River. For more than a century, the Bund had been one of Shanghai’s most recognizable symbols with its famed architecture of the colonial period. From the Bund, there was also the most magnificent view across the river of the highest skyscrapers in the city, such as the World Financial Center, Oriental Pearl Tower, Jin Mao Tower, and Shanghai Tower. Tonight, she was meeting potential clients at the Jinn Xuan Chinese restaurant, located on the 53rd. floor of the Ritz-Carlton in Pudong.

The two bank executives immediately stood up from their table when Ying Yue was brought over by the hostess. There was a loveliness about the woman that surprised them. She had a creamy complexion that indicated a sheltered lifestyle. But her legs were long with tight curves, and her stomach was

at with a slim waist. She was quite t, while still displaying sensual beauty and a definite sex appeal. The executives had not been given much information about her to go on, but their source was extremely reliable.

Ying Yue, on the other hand, had done an extensive background check on the two businessmen; otherwise, she would not have considered taking on an assignment from them. Chun Huang was in his late forties, the vice president of a bank, and a member of the Jockey Club. Guo Wang, a little older, was in his early fifties, a member of Capital Club, and held the position of independent non-executive director at the same bank. Both were millionaires, and both were supposedly very well connected to the Chinese Communist Party. What she didn’t know was that both men were also silent partners of a private corporation that was currently under indictment. But that was of no concern to her and wouldn’t factor in any way with her decision-making.

“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Huang said, pleased to finally get the ball rolling.

“Yes, we’re anxious to begin,” came from the senior man.

Ying Yue was seated in front of the two men, but she did not utter a single word in response to either of them. She just smiled, scanned her surroundings, and waited to hear what it was that they wanted to be executed and how much they were willing to pay for it. Her head was tilted to one side, the body language was clear. The confident beauty was demonstrating that she was all ears.

The very smart-looking waitress took a glance at the three of them and quickly sized up the situation before giving them their menus.

“May I suggest a bottle of the Dom Perignon 2010 Vintage? It is a favorite with the Michelin Tasting Menu, if that is what you are intending to have. The Tasting Menu includes authentic, creative Cantonese dishes and regional favorites from other provinces. It is very popular with our guests.”

Both men looked at their guest to see if she approved of the waitress’ suggestion.

“That’s fine,” she said, nodding her head. “Perfectly fine,” she addressed the waitress, who promptly smiled in turn as she retrieved their menus.

“I’ll be right back with the champagne,” the waitress said as she was leaving. She smiled inwardly, satisfied that she had sized them up correctly.

The two executives smiled at Ying Yue, pleased that they had gotten that little scene out of the way. But they didn’t seem to be in any rush to get on with the rest of the preliminary discussions. First, they wanted to get a better feel for her, to make certain that she was the right candidate for what they wanted.

She looked at the two of them and could immediately sense what they were thinking. It was obvious to her that they were still undecided. She perfectly understood that they could have doubts but was annoyed that they should now be wasting her time. They should have done their homework before calling her.

When the waitress appeared with the bubbly, Ying Yue turned toward Guo Wang and slapped him hard in the face, very hard! The blow came out of the blue and surprised everyone. Then she looked at the younger man and smiled at him, clearly putting him on notice. The nervous waitress just stood with the unopened bottle of champagne in her hands, not knowing what to do. But Guo Wang reassured her, stating that everything was ne and that she should proceed with the uncorking.

“Sure,” said the waitress. “I understand. I guess you’re just having a little fun,” she added knowingly, then giggled, imagining that it was just some kind of kinky game that they were playing.

“Exactly,” said Chun Huang, reassuringly. “We are just getting to know each other.”

The two men didn’t say anything else. They didn’t want any additional theatrics in the restaurant. The woman had a definite edge about her. She seemed to have wanted to make the point that she was quite capable, effective, and decisive. Money had not yet entered into the equation.