After getting out of the car, I went back to my hotel, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on my doorknob, and tried to sleep off the memory. At six o’clock, the doorbell rang.
“Room service.”
“Go away. Look at the sign.”
“That’s for the room-cleaning staff. I’m not cleaning. I’m checking the minibar.”
Sleep was impossible, so I had the hotel arrange for a taxi to take me to Kim’s office. Under blazing lights, both tanks followed the taxi as soon as it emerged from the tunnel. The duty officer at the entrance to the building almost wouldn’t let me in. I wasn’t in the mood for barriers. I bared my fangs. Duty officers don’t like trouble; it makes for work. He waved his pencil at the stairs. “Try not to have a heart attack on your way up.”
“You don’t look so good, Inspector. Did Zhao make a pass at you?” Major Kim stood up and walked around the desk to greet me.
“If you won’t do something about Zhao, maybe I will.” I sat down in the green chair.
Kim didn’t seem pleased. “Zhao’s a Chinese citizen. If something happens, our friends in Beijing will be unhappy. They will say we are endangering their countrymen, and that they must send in protection. They’re waiting for an excuse. Stay away from him.”
“Me stay away from him?” I laughed; it sounded like a cypress tree in a forest fire. “Zhao murdered Colonel Pang. That Beijing doesn’t mind?”
“So, you know about Pang’s demise. Word gets around, I guess.” He pointed out the other chair where he wanted me to sit, the brown one. “Everything is calculus, Inspector, a matter of mathematics, of complex equations. For example, according to the etiquette of nations, Pang was not supposed to be here. He was here illegally, you might say, skipped the normal entry procedures, so his death has no standing. He was running operations that never officially existed, using people without faces to obtain results that were never written down. Zhao, on the other hand, is a legitimate businessman representing the best interests of his country. He has documents. And he has money.”
“He rips out the lungs of people who get in his way.”
“A businessman, like I said.”
“He’s an animal. Worse than that, actually.”
“Yes, worse than that. And if you care to go to the east coast, I can introduce you to his Japanese counterpart. I won’t list the body parts that are his focus.”
“What about the Russian in the northeast?”
“Him we can handle, for the moment anyway. My big fear is that he will get himself eliminated and then we’ll have to deal with someone who has more brains than muscle.”
“Out of curiosity, how did Zhao get Pang?”
Kim studied my face, looking for clues. How much did I know? “Lack of attention, I guess. A momentary lapse, that’s all it takes. You might say it was a surprise. He was lying in bed, listening to music on his earphones. Maybe dozing. When the killer left, the CD player was set on continuous loop. A macabre touch. It would probably have gone on forever if we hadn’t broken the door down and found him there. The machine had been plugged into a wall socket. Him, too, as a matter of fact.”
“Did you look to see what CD it was?”
Kim shook his head. “I didn’t look, but from what I heard, it sounded like Chinese opera.”
What a bunch of sadists. “He hated Chinese opera.”
The television in the corner of Kim’s office was on, and the 8:00 P.M. news was ending. Kim started to say something more, but I shushed him. The announcer read a report about “unfavorable days” due to “geophysical factors” and warned that those afflicted with high blood pressure or other maladies needed to take precautions on November 1, 4, 9, 12, and 15. I took a scrap of paper out of my pocket and made a note to myself.
“You don’t believe that stuff, I hope, Inspector.”
“No, but you’d better. It’s what you told me to figure out.”
“Which was what?”
“The SSD code. They’re using the television, right under your nose.”
“Impossible.” Kim moved back to the safety of his side of the desk.
“Absolutely impossible. But they’re doing it anyway. I worked on it while I was traveling. Something to pass the time.”
“You only went to Macau.”
“True, but even a short flight can sometimes seem long. At the end of every month, the television announces what days in the coming month are bad for health. It’s a regular feature. No one thinks twice about it. Only old ladies pay attention, them and doting mothers.”
“And?” The major finally sat down.
“And the bad-health days are apparently the days that are bad for your health, literally. Those are the days of the SSD operations, or maybe when they pass around the plans for the next set of moves. Go back and look at those dates. Take the first date in the series, and apply it to the announcement of the lectures at the Grand Study Hall each month. If the first unfavorable day is the third, for example, you look for lecture number three.”
“Are you crazy? That’s unbelievably complicated.”
“No, it’s pretty simple. Ask me when we have more time, I’ll tell you about complicated operations.”
“So, I look through the records, then what? What does it tell me?”
“That you’ll have to figure out yourself. I didn’t even try to get that far-too many possibilities. If I had to guess, I’d guess it’s something about the lecture, or the lecturer, or the room where the lecture is being held.”
“Or something else entirely.”
“Could be. Meantime, you’d better hurry. The new series of lectures begins tomorrow.”
“It’s too simple. It’s too complicated, and that’s what makes it too simple. That’s how everything is up here. Madness, pure madness.” He gave me a wary look as he reached for the phone and pressed a button. “Get me the domestic radio transcripts for the last day of every month.”
Television, too, I mouthed.
“Television, too,” he said into the phone. “I want everything here in thirty minutes… What? Go back six months; no, wait, go back a year.” He hung up. “You’re sure about this? Not pulling my string?”
“When I do that, you’ll know.”
A half hour later, a man brought in a folder. “You want it, you got it.”
“Sit.” Kim waved the man into one of the plastic chairs near the wall.
I stood up to leave. “No, you stay, too, Inspector.”
Kim went through the transcripts. He used a pencil to make marks here and there, but mostly he bit on the end of it.
“You can get lead poisoning that way,” I said.
“You can get lead poisoning from a bullet, too. Only I don’t think anyone in the Grand Study Hall will be armed tomorrow. Let’s hope not, because no one on our team will be. I’m not handing out firearms until I know who is doing what to whom.” He looked at the transcripts again. “I don’t know if I see a pattern or not. Cracking codes is not part of my job description.”
“You’re supposed to be in Paris, eating fine food and recruiting college girls.”
“Don’t remind me.” He put the transcripts to one side. “I hope you don’t have a picnic already planned for tomorrow, Inspector.”
“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think I’m coming down with the flu.”
“Well, drink plenty of fluids tonight, because you lead the team tomorrow afternoon to the lectures to find out what is going on. There isn’t time for a long investigation, so we might have to jump from gathering facts to shooting people in a hurry.”
I coughed. “With what? You said no firearms.”
“Not tomorrow. Maybe the day after that.”
“Ever have the flu that makes your joints ache? That’s what I’ve got. Most likely, I’m in the most contagious period right now.”
“Tough for you and your joints.”
“We’d better be careful. It could be the start of a pandemic. Maybe I picked up something in Macau eating monkey parts. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Forget it, Inspector; I’m not giving you sick leave tomorrow. I don’t care if you infect the whole country.”
I coughed in Kim’s direction. “How can I lead a team I’ve never met? It’s not even assembled yet. We need at least a couple of days to get to know each other’s quirks.”
“Your quirks alone could take years to explain. Besides, a team of strangers doesn’t bother me. I’m not worried about people not knowing each other. I’ll go through the files tonight, and we’ll notify the ones we pick at the last minute. It’s much better that no one has an inkling about this operation until the last possible minute. If the first they know about it is when they get to my office at the crack of dawn tomorrow, there’s no chance someone will mention it to someone else on the phone. That should cut the possibility of SSD picking up a reference to the plans to zero. You,” he pointed to the man who had brought in the files, “shut up if you know what’s good for you. And you,” he turned to me, “I know won’t talk to anyone. You don’t have anyone to talk to.” He looked at his watch. “Get some rest. I don’t want you falling asleep during the lectures. See you in the morning, early. Think about the operation overnight while you feverishly toss and turn. There will be a car in the usual place, at four A.M. If the night clerk asks where you’re going so early, tell him you have a business meeting with an Egyptian investor. Everyone thinks the Egyptians are crazy anyway.”
“I’m not on your payroll, Major. Don’t forget that.” My joints really were aching. I sneezed twice on the way out.