Hidden Moon

3

When we returned to the hotel later that afternoon, Boswell told me he could find his way to his room, thanked me for my cooperation to this point, and disappeared through the glass doors. The doorman bent back slightly, pretending to look up as the visitor strolled by, then grinned at me. I started the car so violently it frightened a woman walking up the drive, and she fled back onto the sidewalk. What was the man talking about, cooperation “to this point”? My shoulder hurt and my fingers were tingling. It made me think of the man in the brown suit, and the uses of ash wood. That was just as they’d intended.

Min was at his desk, reading a magazine, his face serene, like an October moon coming up over the hills. “Our Englishman all settled in? Where have you been?”

I’d calmed down on the ride to the office, but only slightly. Min could tell I was riled about something. I could see his ears trying to tune themselves to catch my tone. “He insisted on seeing the ‘lay of the land,’ as he put it. We drove around the city.”

“Unwise.” Min was instantly sorry he had offered any criticism and strained to pull back the word before it reached me.

“Don’t worry.” It was something I always said when I was worried. “I was followed by two SSD cars and someone I didn’t recognize the whole way, so no one can say we did anything untoward. The only time we stopped was in the square.”

“Did he like it?”

“He said the man with the beard didn’t look Korean.”

“What did you say?”

“I said he was probably right.”

“You didn’t tell him who it was?”

“I didn’t have the heart. If he doesn’t recognize Lenin, I’m not going to rub his nose in it.”

We both laughed, Min a little harder than necessary.

“So, where is he now?” Min asked in what he meant to be an offhand manner.

“Safely in his room, I hope. He’s probably going through the lamps and the outlets. He will take it as a personal affront if he finds anything, or maybe if he doesn’t. Give this duty to someone else, Min.” I paused. “Please, I don’t have time for it. You know as well as I do that they didn’t beat me up for practice.”

Min started to respond, then thought better of it. He tapped his pencil on the desk. “Did you check the security route? Let’s handle one thing at a time.” He looked out the window at the Operations Building.

I could feel my shoulder getting stiff, and I only had part of one pain pill left. “We did, in a manner of speaking. Mr. Oaktree said he needed to drive the same route again tomorrow, at exactly the same time of day the visitor will, so he can check the shadows and the sun angles. He wasn’t very happy to hear about the holiday; he kept asking why I can’t get a pass or something to allow us to drive around tomorrow. Don’t ask me why or what he expects to discover or why he seems to be in such a hurry. He wasn’t talkative, spent a lot of time drumming those big fingers of his on the dashboard.”

“Mr. Oaktree?”

“He’s very big, Min.”

Min put his hand over his eyes and slumped in his chair. “Can we not bring foliage into this, Inspector? It’s complicated enough for me to keep track of everything that is going on.”

“We could use it as a code name, on the radio,” I said, “if we still used radios.”

I kicked myself for raising the subject of devices. It would lead us onto cameras, and I didn’t want the topic to come up. Photography was a painful area for Min. A visiting public security delegation from Syria once refused to attend a banquet he was obliged to throw them. In the hotel lobby, they informed us with a lot of shouting and rude gestures that we had insulted them by confiscating their delegation leader’s camera. The delegation leader hopped up and down, bellowing that the trainload of army tanks was in plain view, none of them was covered with a tarp. This was true, but it was still against regulations to take any pictures of military equipment. In the middle of this, Min got called away to the Ministry. On his return, somewhat paler around the gills than when he left, he told me to give them the camera back.

“Please tell me he didn’t take pictures during your drive.” The chief inspector didn’t have to spell out what he was thinking. He looked queasy.

“Not many.” The Scotsman did not seem the type who would listen to even a short lecture on rules for taking photographs. And it was obvious he wouldn’t hand over his camera without a fight, probably a protest, and a lot of irritation. “Maybe a few more day after tomorrow. But not with me. I need off of this duty.”

Min groaned and went another shade more pale. “He understands he isn’t to step out on his own this evening?”

“Who cares? He’ll be obvious wherever he goes. There are plenty of checkpoints for the holiday already set up. He can’t get into trouble.”

“No, he can’t. But we can, if he gets lost, or trips on a curb in the dark and breaks his leg. Slip over to the hotel later and sit around the lobby, just to keep your eye on him, would you?”

“I really don’t want this duty. Don’t ask me why. Send someone else, someone his size.”

“You mean Li? Forget it.”

“Why? Maybe they’ll get along. Besides, my shoulder hurts. It hurts more at night. And, if you need another reason, I’ve got a lot of work to do on this whole mess before every single lead goes cold. People keep dying or disappearing. I think the robbery has something to do with it, though I don’t think the robbery means a damned thing by itself. No one gives a shit about the money.”

Again, Min put his hand over his eyes. He looked like he was getting a headache. “The leads are already frozen solid, Inspector, and you know it. Let’s don’t get ourselves tangled up in murder cases.” He paused a moment, then glanced up at me. “By the way, when am I going to get the report on your surveillance of the first bank clerk?”

“When I type it up, which will have to be when I find her again. I lost her in an underpass.”

“You lost her? That was a week ago. Why wasn’t I told?”

“She disappeared in the dark. I was going to tell you”-the pain flared in my shoulder-“but I was preoccupied.”

“You’ll have to get back to her as soon as we get rid of this Englishman.”

“He’s not English. He’s Scottish.”

“He doesn’t have a Scottish passport.” Min rummaged through a pile of papers on his desk.

“Don’t they teach geography in the schools anymore? Scotland doesn’t issue passports. It’s barely a country.”

“Calmly, Inspector, speak calmly. You’re giving me a headache. Yes, here. He’s connected with the Scottish police. It’s mentioned in the message we received from our man in Beijing this afternoon.”

“All I know is what he told me. He said the Scottish police are a separate branch. To hear him describe things, they do their own farming; he says they have their own yard. It wouldn’t hurt us to grow some vegetables, maybe out in the courtyard.” Min didn’t look like he wanted to discuss cabbage, so I dropped it. “The main thing is, he’s a superintendent, which means he outranks me. Not to be too blunt about it, he also outranks you. The Ministry should have assigned a higher-level escort. It was embarrassing when he asked how many people I supervise. I can’t escort someone of his rank.”

Min considered that news, gloom gathering above his eyebrows. “He might take it as an insult. How was I supposed to know a superintendent outranks a chief inspector?”

I was silent, in what I hoped would seem a gesture of commiseration. “Never mind.” Min waved a hand. “We’re stuck with him. No one in the Ministry cares what the Scottish police think, or the English police, or the Germans. We’re only babysitting to please the Foreign Ministry.” Min looked where the calendar should have been on his wall. “He’s out of here in three days, Inspector. Surely you can keep him busy for three days. Show him the sights. Get him drunk at night. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll have an upset stomach for a day.”

“What if he doesn’t drink?”

“Trust me, Inspector. I may not know about passports, but I know someone who drinks when I see him. This Superintendent James likes to drink.”