Day Of Confession

115

Beijing. Thursday, July 16.

Pierre Weggen's black chauffer-driven limousine entered Zhongnanhai compound, the private complex where China's most preeminent leaders resided, shortly after one in the morning. Five minutes later, the Swiss investment banker was being shown into a large living room in the home of Wu Xian, general secretary of the Communist Party, by the solemn president of the People's Bank of China, Yan Yeh.

The general secretary stood to meet Weggen as he came in, taking his hand genuinely and introducing him to the half dozen ranking members of the Politburo waiting to hear the details of his proposal; among them were the heads of the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Communication, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs. What they wanted to know was the full extent of it, how it might be accomplished, at what cost and in how short a time.

'Thank you for your hospitality, gentlemen,' Weggen began in Chinese. And then, extending his deepest sympathies not only to those present but to the country as a whole and especially the people of Hefei, he began to lay out his recommendations for a very rapid and highly visible rebuilding of the country's water delivery systems.

Taking a chair to one side, Yan Yeh sat down and lit a cigarette. Deeply shaken by the horror of what had happened and exhausted from the events of the day, he remained hopeful that the men gathered here in the early-morning hours would see that the plan Weggen was presenting was vital to national security and national interests. He hoped they would bury their pride and political infighting, along with their suspicions of the West, and undertake to endorse the project and begin work as quickly as was humanly possible – before the same thing happened again.

There was something else, too, and more personal. Whether it was spoken of or not, everyone in China who knew of the incident in Hefei was fearful of the drinking water, especially the water that was drawn from the lakes; and as powerful and influential a leader as he was, Yan Yeh was no different. Only three days before, his wife and ten-year-old son had left to visit his wife's family in the lake city of Wuxi. And hours earlier he had called her to tell her the tragedy at Hefei had been a lone incident, reassuring her, as the public was being reassured, that the quality of the drinking water across the country was being heavily monitored. And that the government was well into taking a plan of action that, if it followed his counsel, would hastily rebuild the nation's entire water system. More than anything, Yan Yeh had made the call simply to talk to his wife and calm her fears and tell her he loved her. And secretly, he hoped he was right, that Hefei had been an isolated incident.

But somehow, in the pit of his stomach, he knew it wasn't.

Rome, Vatican City. Wednesday July 15, 7:40 p.m.

Palestrina stood by the window in his library office and looked out on the crowds that still filled St Peter's Square enjoying its ambience and the day's last hours of light.

Turning from the window he looked back across his office. On the credenza behind his desk, the marble head of Alexander stared out eternally, and Palestrina looked at it almost wistfully.

Then, in an abrupt change of mood, he crossed to his desk, sat down, and lifted the telephone from its console. Clearing a line, he punched in a number and waited, listening as a switching station in Venice took the call and automatically forwarded it to a station in Milan, which in turn rang a number in Hong Kong and was immediately switched to Beijing.

The chirp of Chen Yin's cell phone brought him quickly from a sound sleep. By the third ring, he was out of bed and standing naked in the dark of his bedroom above his flower shop.

'Yes?' he said in Chinese.

'I have an order for an early-morning delivery to the land of fish and rice', an electronically altered voice said in Chinese.

'I understand,' Chen Yin said and hung up.

Palestrina let the phone slide back into its cradle, then slowly swiveled in his chair to look again at the marble presence of Alexander. He had used Pierre Weggen's close friendship with Yan Yeh – a casual probing about the Chinese banker's daily life, his friends and family – to select the second lake. A fertile area of water and mild climate and booming industry called 'the land of fish and rice', it was south of Nanjing and little more than a few hours' train ride for the poisoner Li Wen. The lake was called Taihu. The city was Wuxi.