Chapter 2916: Mai Ruibao's Benefactor (2)

The ring of the telephone was exceptionally shrill in the quiet office. As Ding Ding reached for the receiver, his elbow knocked over the teacup on the desk; half a cup of cold tea spilled across the document envelope, blooming into a dark stain. He swore, snatched the envelope up and shook it dry in a flustered fumble, and only then grabbed the receiver and gave his habitual self-announcement.

"This is Ding Ding."

"This is Wumu."

The voice on the other end startled him. Wumu — wasn't he serving as bureau chief in Guangzhou? Why would he suddenly be calling here?

A direct call from Guangzhou to his desk telephone was no ordinary courtesy. Save for a handful of Senators with real power, few could avail themselves of a communications method that required elaborate telephone exchanges and the coordination of who knew how many pieces of equipment.

Ding Ding's acquaintance with the man was not deep — a few meetings at conferences, a few glasses raised at the Nanhai Café, the usual polite nothings. But his heart had already sunk: when the Political Security Bureau telephoned, it was never with good news.

"Bureau Chief Wumu, what wind blows—" He got no further before the voice in the receiver cut him off, and within a few minutes of listening the color had drained from his face.

"What? Mai Ruibao was arrested? On suspicion of espionage? In Hong Kong?"

Ding Ding's voice shot up an octave. He shoved his chair back — the legs shrieked across the floor — and found himself on his feet before he knew it, palms slick with sweat.

"It was a misunderstanding," Wumu's voice in the receiver maintained that comradely courtesy peculiar to the Political Security Bureau. "As you know, the Ming hardliners and Gou Er's agents have been unusually active of late, so some of our covert operatives have had to heighten their vigilance. Mm — and excessive vigilance, regrettably, is liable to commit the occasional error."

Ding Ding's mind raced. Mai Ruibao arrested in Hong Kong? Espionage? What had the kid gone to Hong Kong for again — right, to cover the shipyard expansion, and take a few photographs of the newly commissioned berths at the port. He'd filed a formal report before departing: route, schedule, interview subjects, all set down in black and white. How had "espionage" entered into it?

"What exactly happened?" He did his best to make his voice sound calm.

Wumu, at the far end, gave the outline of it. The gist: during Mai Ruibao's stay in Hong Kong he had spent a long while on the waterfront observing and sketching a vessel at anchor; the Bureau's covert operatives had discovered him and taken him into control. Upon verification his identity as a journalist was confirmed, and the vessel in question — Wumu did not say what vessel — had been determined to involve nothing touching core secrets, whereupon he had been released.

"Naturally, Mai Ruibao has now been freed, and as a gesture of apology our officers provided and purchased him a steamer ticket back to Lingao." Here Wumu's tone paused, with a subtle shift. "As a matter of fact, I have a debt of thanks to pay this comrade journalist — and his two friends. Their act of courage at the Great World wharf has been of great assistance to our work."

"That awkward dunking again," Ding Ding thought. Mu Min had told him earlier that the preliminary interrogation showed Sun Shangxiang's robbers were neither great river pirates nor Gou Er saboteurs — just two common little sneak-thieves. At the time he'd assumed the matter closed: an ordinary street robbery, the sort no city in the world lacks. Now here it was again from Wumu's mouth — and from the sound of it, the affair was perhaps not as simple as it appeared.

"Small sneak-thieves, yes — and addicts besides," Wumu's voice dropped lower. "The reason they grew bold enough to rob in broad daylight in the crowded streets around the Great World was that they could no longer scrape together the money for Joy Water."

Ding Ding's hand tightened on the receiver.

"Addicts?" His interest kindled instantly; the string tuned to a newsman's pitch pulled taut in his skull. "And what exactly is this 'Joy Water'? Narco—"

He suddenly realized there was no need to ask. What else would an "addict" be addicted to? At once there surfaced in his memory the threads of the fake-medicine case in Guangzhou, in which several varieties of "miracle cure" had turned out to involve opium.

Wumu fell silent a few seconds. Down the line came the faint sound of his breathing, as if he were weighing his words.

"A wine infused with extracts of coca leaf." He handled the subject with caution, each word evidently measured before it left his mouth. "We cannot yet fully reconstruct how it entered Guangzhou, but we can say the source is almost certainly connected with that mysterious transmigrator in Luzon — the base liquor of the seized shipments has tested as Philippine tuba palm wine and home-distilled cane spirit, both times."

Ding Ding's pen nib raced across his notepad, pinning down every keyword. Coca leaf. Luzon. Mysterious transmigrator. Tuba wine. Strung together, the words sketched out a hazy yet distinctly unsettling thread.

"In addition," Wumu continued, with a carefulness not quite concealed, "members of the Stone Elder group have taken part in trafficking the stuff, and together with the Fujian Zhengs have constructed a smuggling and distribution network. The particulars await further investigation."

On the Guangzhou Joy Water case that Sun Shangxiang's robbery had dragged into daylight, Wumu said only that it remained under investigation, and that this was all he could reveal for now. Ding Ding heard the meaning beneath the words: the affair could not yet reach print. The Political Security Bureau had its own tempo and its own calculations, and the newspaper must not bolt ahead and let the story out of the bag.

Ding Ding was somewhat deflated at failing to dig out more news — but at that moment a light flashed in his head, and he put a proposition to Wumu. "Do me a favor. Call it settling a debt — you'll owe us one fewer."

Wumu went silent again. This time the silence ran longer; only the faint electric hum of the line crossed it. Ding Ding could nearly picture the man's face — brows slightly knitted, lips pressed to a seam, fingers tapping softly on the desktop while the scales turned in his head.

"Minister Ding," Wumu said at last, in a strictly-business register, "the tasks and working environment of the political security apparatus are highly particular, and our weapons-training curriculum is built entirely around them. I fear it is not suited to training a journalist from your paper."

He paused, apparently leafing through something; the dry rustle of pages came over the wire.

"However, since your aim is simply to have a naturalized citizen learn firearms for self-defense, the training courses of the General Bureau of Senator Guards would plainly suit better. I will convey your request to Director Salina."

Holding the receiver, Ding Ding felt the corners of his mouth curl upward. It was not the outcome he had first wanted — sending Mai Ruibao to train with Political Security would have let the kid bask in a faint "Political Security background" at the paper, a certain insurance for his person where the Army was concerned — but the General Bureau of Senator Guards was fine too. That woman Salina might be frost-tempered with one and all, but her training was renowned across the whole of Lingao.

"Then I'm in your debt, Bureau Chief." Ding Ding's voice carried a thread of genuine warmth.

After hanging up, Ding Ding sat in his chair and stared into space awhile. Outside the window the sky had gone fully dark; the lamps of Lingao were lighting one by one, and seen from here they lay like drifts of gold dust scattered over black velvet. On the Wenlan River in the distance the lights floated in reflection, glittering on the water — a different city entirely from the one by day.

It struck him that he could turn the Sun Shangxiang robbery to advantage after all. What Wumu had just said — that Mai Ruibao's "act of courage" at the Great World wharf had been of "great assistance" to the Political Security Bureau — was a ready-made warrant. A naturalized-citizen journalist entangled, however mildly, with the Political Security Bureau — who would dare touch him casually now?

Ding Ding lifted the receiver again, and spun the dial twice with his finger. "Please connect me to Director Salina's office," he told the operator, his voice carrying the settled confidence of a man who intended to succeed. "There are things better said by one's own tongue."

In the seconds of waiting before the connection, his gaze fell on Mai Ruibao's application lying on the desk. The last line of the letter was written in a wavering scrawl — by that point, no doubt, the nib had been running dry: "...Your student was born to poverty, yet reared by the Senate's grace, and dare not let private matters overthrow public duty. Should war come, I beg to go with the army, to record with brush and ink the deeds of officers and men, and not betray the Chiefs' instruction."

Passion, drive, a newsman's curiosity and appetite for risk — the man was worth cultivating. At last, he thought, a proper seedling had come along!

"Director Salina? This is Ding Ding — Ding Ding of the Propaganda Department. There's a matter I'd like to discuss with you..."

Beyond the window the lamplight had thickened. The night breeze drifted in through the half-open casement, carrying the damp breath of the Wenlan River and the smell of supper from the distant canteen. Telephone cradled at his ear, Ding Ding gathered the scattered photographs from his desk one by one and slid them back into the document envelope. The images of the Zhaoqing maneuvers — the infantry squares, the gun lines, the flying colors, the soldiers' sun-blackened faces — were sealed away again in kraft paper, like a worry postponed.

At the other end of the line Salina's voice was cold and hard, an unedged knife. She asked a few clipped questions — "purpose of training," "background of the trainee," "whether Senator security is implicated." Ding Ding answered each in turn, neither humble nor pert, garnishing his replies now and then with a glaze of faint praise.

In the end Salina apparently relented, saying only: "Send the man next Monday. An assessment first."

Ding Ding rang off and let out a long breath. He sank against the chair back, tilted his face to the ceiling, and let the smile spread slowly.

"Ruibao, oh Ruibao," he murmured to himself, "you lucky little wretch — to have run into a minister like me." And he could not help being, in some small way, moved by himself.

The desk lamp flickered — the light dimmed an instant, then steadied. Ding Ding put the application away in a drawer, and as he shut it his fingers lingered on the latch. Something had just occurred to him — that ship Mai Ruibao had been sketching in Hong Kong: what in the world was it? A vessel that could put the Bureau's covert operatives tense enough to clap a man in custody on the spot was no ordinary vessel. Wumu had not gone into it on the phone, and it was not his place to press — but the thing had caught at his curiosity.

Never mind. When the boy was back in Lingao he would ask him face to face.

He rose, walked to the window, and pushed the half-open casement wider. The night wind poured in at once, bearing a faint breath of the sea; far off, the factory district blazed with light, whitening the sky above it.

Ding Ding stood looking a long while — until the distant clock tower struck nine — and only then turned to shut the window, douse the lamp, and lock the door. A nameless sense of ease welled up and rippled through him. Tonight he would have to discuss safety issues with his wife. Yes — safety issues.