He had not, however, done much reading about the niceties of tactful lead-up to a delicate matter.
“I am here with the full force and support of General Bai,” Tsai said tersely, standing rigid, as if he were at attention. “And, by extension, President Zhao Chengzhi, chairman of the Central Military Commission and paramount leader.”
“Of course,” Song said. “What can I do for you?”
“Am I to assume that you have chosen to go to America because you believe the care your granddaughter will receive there will be superior to that which she could receive in China?”
“That would be the obvious answer,” Song said, treading carefully. For all he knew, there was a recording device in Tsai’s pocket. “Dr. Berryhill has performed hundreds of these surgeries. It is not a matter of Chinese intellect, but of American experience. I could find no physician here with such a background in retinoblastoma. It is too great a risk.”
“The disease is only in one eye?” Tsai said, as if to imply,
“The doctors in Beijing believe that the tumor only affects one eye,” Song said. “But they tell me they cannot be certain.”
Tsai stood still for a moment, staring, blinking, birdlike. “And you fear Chinese surgeons will take your child’s eye?”
“It is possible she will lose the eye no matter where the surgery is completed. Our goal is to save her life.”
“So you believe she is in more danger of dying here than in the United States?”
Song clenched his fists, breathing steadily to keep his wits about him. He was, after all, a trained soldier, and professional soldiers in any country had an innate aversion to spies.
“Again,” he said. “It is a matter of experience. Dr. Berryhill simply has more.”
“And our doctors will remain inexperienced if everyone had your bourgeois attitude.”
“It is selfish, I know,” Song said. “But I would prefer them not to learn on my granddaughter.”
“I will accompany you on this trip of yours,” Tsai said. He tapped the side of his head with a finger. “You have a great deal of important information up here that the Americans would love to access. It has been a long time since I have been to the United States, but I remember that they are very tricky.”
“By all means,” Song said, forcing a smile. “If there is nothing else, I must return to my granddaughter.”
“Is it visible?”
“What?”
“The tumor?” Tsai asked. “May I see it?”
Song bit the inside of his lip, forcing a sigh, hoping it sounded more benign than it was.
“No,” he said. “You may not. In any case, the tumor is inside the eye.”
“How interesting,” Tsai said. “I should like to hear the story of how you discovered it.”
“It is in my report requesting leave for travel,” Song said, hackles up.
“I am aware of your report,” Tsai said. “But I would like to hear the story again — when we are on the plane.”
Song retrieved the golf jacket himself, sparing his maid the discomfort. As he shut the door, he couldn’t help but think how difficult it was going to be to keep his wife from stabbing the repugnant man.
Originally, the plan to get inside Lucky Optical had been to cut a hole in the drywall between the abandoned meat shop and the clinic, but a check of the flimsy back door and some quick work with a penknife made damaging any property unnecessary. The optomap was connected to an in-house server via Cat-5 cable. Midas connected a small notebook computer to one of the USB ports while Ryan checked the doctor’s desk for passwords that might be written down. It turned out that they didn’t need one, and they were soon scrolling through files on the server. There were no less than three male patients named Suparman. Gavin helped cross-reference with home addresses and telephone numbers, and they were quickly able to ascertain which one was their guy. The files were JPEGs, less than a gig for each eye, and downloaded quickly to a thumb drive. Ryan and Midas were back in their own Toyota Avanza twenty minutes after they went in.
Ryan drove while Midas talked to Gavin, working through the process of building the key to override the retina-scan lock, using the thumb drive and a Raspberry Pi — in the event the images on his smartphone didn’t do the trick.
Gavin held up the small green board, not much larger than a deck of playing cards. “I love these little computers. They can do almost anything.”
“Can that fight off a couple of armed guards?” Ryan asked. “Because that’s what Ding and Adara are going to need.”
Clark’s voice came across the radio, direct and taut.
Ryan and Midas both reached to check their radios, making certain they were on PTT instead of intercom mode. CODE BLACK was an order to cease all radio traffic immediately. It usually meant they were being monitored. Since the radios were encrypted, the only obvious way that could happen was for someone to get one of the handsets.
