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  They walked beneath the wet, shiny leaves of dripping trees, and Margaret saw that they each left trailing footprints in the dew. The first few cars were turning off the freeway into the grid system of streets in the city’s centre, the vanguard of the 137,000 people who worked in downtown during the day. The early morning air was chill yet, but they were warmed by the coffee they had picked up from a Starbucks, minutes after it opened.

  Hrycyk’s face was a pasty, puffy white, and there were deep shadows under his eyes. He had refused to be taken to hospital for treatment, and the medics had cleaned and dressed his wound at the stadium and put his arm in a sling. He had found an overcoat in the trunk of his Santana and draped it now over his shoulders for warmth. The stadium manager had allowed Li access to the home team dressing room to shower, and got him pants, tee-shirt and a jacket from the Astros shop. He looked like a walking ad for the team. The long shadow of his peaked baseball hat hid the bruising on his face and the newly acquired gash in his cheek.

  Margaret rubbed the goosebumps on her arm. She shivered in the cold each time they moved out of the sunlight, and she was glad of the hot, sweet coffee burning its way down inside her.

  It had been Hrycyk’s idea to come here, a short fifteen-minute walk from the stadium. All hell was going to break loose in the hours ahead, he had said, and they were unlikely to have another chance like this to exchange information.

  So far they had exchanged nothing. Soong had been taken, under armed police guard, for emergency treatment at a facility in medicine city. He would face hours and days of intensive interrogation when he was fit. None of them knew yet whether he would make it easy or hard. But Li suspected Soong would fight it all the way, although he had said nothing as they walked in silence through the deserted downtown streets. Now he accepted an offer of a cigarette from Hrycyk and struck a match to light them both.

  Hrycyk sucked in a lungful of smoke and squinted at Li. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I hate you people.’ He paused. ‘But I hate the FBI more.’ He rubbed his face with his left hand, cigarette pinched at the end of his index and middle fingers. ‘Thing is, it was you that put me on to him. Way back at Yu Lin’s house. When you said it was too big a coincidence that he got murdered the day we were going to pull him back in. That there had to be a leak in the agency.’ He pulled up a gob of phlegm from his chest and spat on the grass. He glanced self-consciously at Margaret. ‘Sorry, Doc.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘After two years in China I’m used to it.’

  He gave her a look, as if he resented the implication that he might be guilty of behaving in some way like a Chinese. Then he turned back to Li. ‘Thing is, I spent my life in the INS. No way could I believe any of the guys I worked with would be capable of betraying one of their own like that.’

  ‘Even a Chinese?’ Li asked.

  Hrycyk grinned reluctantly. ‘Even a Chinese.’ He paused, and the smile faded. ‘Only person outside the agency who knew we were bringing him in was Fuller.’ Some bitter thought flitted through his mind and soured his expression. ‘We had the bastard tailed. Tapped his phones, even his mobile. All strictly in-house, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘In other words you didn’t have the authority to do it,’ Margaret said.

  Hrycyk shrugged. ‘I couldn’t comment.’

  They walked past the perfectly preserved homes of Houston’s earliest worthies, saved from demolition and transplanted here by the visionaries of the Harris County Heritage Society. Pillars and balconies, white picket fences, shady terraces. An old log cabin, an ornate Victorian bungalow. They contrasted bizarrely against the downtown skyline.

  Hrycyk said to Margaret, ‘My people got me out my bed last night after your call to Fuller. He came right off the line and called Soong at the stadium. I alerted the cops and went straight there.’ He looked at Li. ‘Lucky for you guys I did, otherwise you’d both be dead meat by now.’ He chuckled, amused by what he perceived as the irony of the situation. ‘Jesus. I can’t believe I actually saved the life of a Chinaman.’

  ‘So now you are stuck with me forever,’ Li said.

  Hrycyk frowned. ‘How come?’

  Margaret said, ‘There is an ancient custom in China, Agent Hrycyk, which says if you save a person’s life, you become responsible for them for the rest of it.’

  Hrycyk stared at her. ‘You’re shitting me?’

  Margaret said, ‘It is an obligation you cannot escape.’

  And Li said, ‘So whenever I am in trouble you can expect a call.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Hrycyk spluttered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I

  A gentle wind, warm now that the chill had been burned off it, blew across the parking lot as Li and Margaret walked from her car toward the terminal building. The dust it raised off the tarmac blew around their ankles. Li carried his overnight bag in his left hand, a cigarette in his right, and a silence laden with tension.

  After Hrycyk left them, they had gone back to the hotel and eaten a light breakfast before collecting Li’s bag from his room and driving out to Hobby. There hadn’t been much to say. Li’s part in the investigation was effectively over. A message on his answering service had summoned him back to Washington to report to his Embassy. And then he had the whole mess of his family to deal with, to resolve somehow. Of course, he would have to return to Huntsville with Xiao Ling for the second hearing in front of the immigration court. Between now and then there was no reason for him to be in Houston, nor Margaret in Washington. They were still separated by half a continent, and neither of them appeared to know how to bridge the gap.

  In the departures hall, Li collected his ticket, and Margaret walked with him to the gate. The first available flight went via Dallas and would take more than two hours. Li was not looking forward to it. They stood awkwardly before the entrance to the baggage check. Still neither of them knew what to say. Finally Li forced a smile and said, ‘I’ll e-mail you.’

  ‘Will you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why?’

  He was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  She sighed. ‘What would we have to say to each other in an e-mail, Li Yan? If we’re not together, if we can’t say the things we want to face to face, what’s the point?’

  He studied her features for a long time. ‘Do you want us to be together?’

  ‘More than anything in the world.’

  ‘But?’ He knew there was a ‘but’. Somehow there always was with Margaret.

  ‘I’m not sure it would work any better here than it did in China.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For all the same reasons. Because of what we are. An American and a Chinese. Oil and water. Because of where we are. Houston and Washington. Still a world apart.’ People always said if you were in love nothing else mattered. She wanted to believe that, but couldn’t. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but was scared that would only hurt them more. She said, ‘Tell Xinxin I’m thinking of her.’

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Then he laid his bag at his feet and took her in his arms, almost crushing her. They stood that way for so long that people were beginning to stare. When, finally, he let her go, her face was wet with silent tears. She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him, and then turned and hurried out of the building without once looking back.

  II

  Lucy looked up from her desk in surprise and said, ‘You look terrible, Dr. Campbell.’

  ‘Thank you, Lucy,’ Margaret said. ‘That makes me feel a whole helluva lot better.’ She stopped immediately and raised both her hands in instant apology. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. Hell is very real to some of us.’

  ‘Particularly,’ Lucy said dryly, ‘those of us who have been left trying to keep the ship afloat with nobody at the helm.’

  ‘Stormy waters, Lucy,’ Margaret said. ‘Forced me to abandon ship. But I’m back now, and I’ll try to sail us into calmer seas.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to hav
e to do a lot of calming at the Houston Police department. Homicide has been agitating for twenty-four hours now for reports on two autopsies that have not even been carried out yet.’

  ‘I thought we arranged for Dr. Cullen…’

  ‘Called back to say he couldn’t make it.’ Lucy smiled sweetly. ‘Of course, that was after you’d, uh…disappeared…yesterday afternoon.’ She paused. ‘Something wrong with your cellphone?’

  Margaret ignored the jibe and sighed. ‘You didn’t tell them the autopsies hadn’t been done, did you?’

  ‘Now you know I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, Doctor.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve been…stalling them.’

  Margaret smiled. ‘Thank you, Lucy. Ask Jack to wheel them out, would you? I’ll do them now.’

  She went wearily into her office and her heart sank when she saw her desk groaning under the weight of paperwork that had accumulated, even since yesterday. She sat down with her head in her hands and felt her headache returning. It was all she could do to stop herself bursting into tears. She was tired and sore and sorry for herself. She took a deep breath and sat up. There was nothing for it but to get on with it. On with life. On with death.

  * * *

  The body on the table was that of a young Caucasian male, Margaret guessed in his early twenties. He was short, only about five-seven, but powerfully built and covered with thick body hair. The hair on his head was already thinning. There was evidence of trauma around his face and neck. The knuckles of his right hand were bruised and deformed as though one or more might be broken. She would look at the x-rays in a few minutes. His penis had been severed, almost in its entirety, and was absent. There were multiple stab wounds in his chest and abdomen. Margaret counted thirty-three.

  She looked at the photographs from the crime scene on the stainless steel counter behind her. It looked like someone’s bedroom, but not that of the deceased, according to the report. There was a lot of blood on the floor around the body, but not much of it seemed to have come from the stab wounds. Margaret guessed that the penis had been severed first, and that the victim might have bled to death even before the frenzied knife attack.

  She returned to the body, and Jack helped her turn it over. Jack Sweeney was one of her autopsy assistants. He was in his mid-thirties and of indeterminate sexual orientation. He had been working for the Medical Examiner’s Office for nearly ten years. ‘Be careful with this one,’ he said. ‘I read the report. Apparently he was a male prostitute.’

  Margaret glanced up, surprised. ‘He’s not what I would have thought of as typical,’ she said.

  ‘Some men like them rough,’ Jack said. Then added, smirking, ‘So I’ve heard.’

  Margaret found evidence of trauma and semen in the anal passage and immediately felt herself breaking into a sweat. She ran a sleeve across her forehead and found her breath coming with difficulty. ‘Is it very hot in here?’ she asked.

  Jack shrugged. ‘Usual, Dr. Campbell. Pretty cool.’ He peered at her. ‘You okay? You look a bit flushed.’

  Margaret put both hands on the table to steady herself. She was light-headed now and starting to feel nauseous. The sweat turned cold on the back of her neck.

  She made a dash for the sink and was violently sick into it. Jack was at her side instantly, arms around her shoulders. But she shrugged him off. ‘I’m sorry, Jack, I need a little space.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Doctor? Something you ate?’ He was concerned for her.

  She saw her breakfast in the stainless steel sink and turned on the tap to wash it away. ‘Probably.’ She took off her latex gloves, filled her hands with cold water and sluiced her face, then stood, leaning against the sink, willing the trembling in her legs to stop. She remained like that for several minutes, until she began to feel some control returning. She snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and returned to the table.

  ‘You sure you’re up to this?’ Jack asked.

  She nodded, but even as she turned her attentions back to the bloodless white flesh on the table, the sweat began beading across her forehead, and a further wave of nausea rose from her stomach. ‘Jesus.’ She made another dash for the sink and acid bile burned its way up her throat into her mouth.

  Lucy looked up in surprise as Margaret hurried through the outer office, still in her green surgeon’s pyjamas and apron, hair tucked away under her shower cap. She was deathly pale. She stopped in the doorway to her office. ‘No one’s to come in here, Lucy. And I mean no one. Lock the door. Do not leave the office. Stay at your desk.’

  Lucy was alarmed now. ‘What’s wrong, Dr. Campbell?’

  ‘Just do what I tell you, please.’ Margaret slammed the door and crossed to her desk, digging out the phone list from her bag with trembling fingers, and snatching the phone from its cradle. Her breathing was tremulous and erratic, her body wracked by uncontrollable shivering. Fear and dread had balled themselves up together in a huge knot in her stomach. She listened as the phone rang twice at the other end before the operator picked up.

  ‘USAMRIID Fort Detrick. How may I help you?’

  ‘Dr. Margaret Campbell for Colonel Robert Zeiss. It’s an emergency.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  The one moment stretched into eternity. Margaret rounded her desk and dropped into her chair, but perched on the edge of it, only barely in control.

  ‘Colonel Zeiss.’

  ‘Colonel, I think I’ve got the flu.’

  There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. Margaret could almost hear the colonel thinking. ‘Why do you think that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I’ve just had two bouts of vomiting, I’m sweating and shaking from head to toe.’

  Another pause, then Zeiss said, ‘Stay where you are, Doctor. I’ll have a team with you as fast as I possibly can. We’ll need isolation facilities. What’s closest to you?’

  ‘Hermann Hospital, I think. They have an infectious diseases facility and isolation rooms.’ She could almost see the hospital, in Medicine City, from her window.

  ‘I’ll alert them.’ He paused again. ‘Who have you been in contact with in the last few hours?’

  ‘My secretary, my autopsy assistant. Li Yan, the Chinese criminal justice liaison…’ Her heart sank at the thought. Please, God, not Li as well. ‘But he’s on a plane to Washington, via Dallas.’

  ‘Shit!’ Zeiss almost whispered the oath. ‘What airline?’

  ‘Air Tran.’

  ‘We’ll try to intercept him. Make certain that your autopsy assistant and secretary have no contact with anyone until we can get them isolated. Is there anyone else?’

  Her mind raced. ‘INS Agent Hrycyk,’ she said. ‘Councilman Soong, and about a dozen Houston police officers — but that was several hours ago.’

  She heard Zeiss groan. ‘Let’s just hope you’re wrong about this,’ he said, and she wondered if he only hoped that in order to save himself trouble. ‘Sit tight until the team gets there.’

  He hung up, and she sat holding the phone, feeling like a criminal. As if somehow it was her fault that she had got the flu and had knowingly gone spreading it around. She replaced the receiver and sat numbly, wondering how she could possibly have contracted the virus. It could only have been during autopsy. Or could Steve somehow have passed it on to her? And, then, what had triggered it?

  She looked around her office, her eyes lighting on all the little personal things she had gathered there over the months. The Chinese wall hanging she had been given by Li’s former boss in Beijing, a soft woollen pencil case she had kept from her schooldays — sentimental value, something that connected her with who she had been in happier times. There was a paperweight that her father had given her. It was just a big flat pebble he had found on the lake, with the fossil of a fish clearly visible on the top of it. A photograph of herself sandwiched between her mother and father on the occasion of her tenth birthday. She looked at the chubby, round red cheeks and the bobbed hair, the shining blue eyes, the fondness in her father
’s gaze, the distance in her mother’s. There was a pair of old shoes, moulded to the shape of her feet, that she kept for changing into on return from a crime scene. They seemed ancient and empty and neglected, and she wondered if she would ever put them on again.

  Depression and self-pity descended on her like a chill mist on an autumn morning. All these things, she thought, belonged to someone else, someone with a life, someone who did not expect to die, at least not for a long time.

  The phone rang, crashing into her thoughts like a bucket of iced water. It was an internal call. She snatched at it. Lucy’s voice, small and scared, asked, ‘What’s wrong, Doctor? What’s going on?’

  Margaret said, ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. It is possible I have contracted a virus. Some people are going to come and take us all into an isolation facility at Hermann Hospital. Even if it’s confirmed, the chances are I won’t have given it to you.’

  There was a long silence. Then, ‘What virus, Doctor?’

  ‘It’s the flu, Lucy. A particularly nasty form of flu.’

  * * *

  The team arrived in under half an hour. Margaret saw them from the window of her office. Three army ambulances, drivers wearing Tivek suits and HEPA filter masks. Three two-man medical crews wearing full protective STEPO suits brought out litters for carrying contaminated patients. The litters were hooded in clear plastic and fitted with their own filtered air supply. They were all part of the national biowarfare defence force put in place during the Clinton regime. The sight of them made Margaret shiver.

  III

  The army interception team missed Li at Dulles by minutes. He had called home during his stopover at Dallas and told Xiao Ling to get a cab out to the airport to meet him. He needed to talk to her, away from Xinxin. To his astonishment, he had been met by both of them, Xinxin laughing, delighted to see him, gambolling around her mother as if they had never been apart. The transformation in Xiao Ling, too, was astonishing. Something had breathed life back into her broken spirit.