“Was there a single part of your plan he didn’t see coming?”
Tinseng threw up his hands. “It was just the two of us! I think I did pretty good! Next time you plan it!”
“I would’ve done better than you. Did you even think about what we’d think? Were you going to tell us he’d changed his name if you managed to clear this up? Oh, everyone, by the way, Shan Dao is going by Mei Jinzhao somehow?”
“No, that part I get,” Yingtung said unexpectedly. “You could say you were protecting his identity until he was safe on our territory.”
“How does it feel?” Tinseng asked Cheuk-Kwan. “Even Yingtung’s making more sense than you.”
“What I don’t understand,” Yingtung spoke over the ruckus of the brothers fighting, “Is why Mei Jinzhao didn’t ask for asylum. You know Whitehall would have slavered over the information he has.”
“Why would he agree to that? At least his father loved his country; he might’ve betrayed it, but he still loved it. To follow in his mother’s footsteps and become a pawn for a country that hates him? And why would he trust them? Why would he trust anyone?” Tinseng reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, needing something to do with his hands. “His father was a spy. His mother was a spy and a traitor. The country they’d raised him to love wants him dead. The country his mother betrayed them for wants him as long as he’s useful, and then they’ll discard him as scraps for the wolves. The English are imperialists, and the Americans are worse. Besides, I know exactly what Whitehall does to assets. It might not be as bloody on the outside, but they bleed you dry nonetheless.”
Tinseng fell back against the couch, out of words. They left him alone, talking around him as he smoked through two cigarettes in a row, drifting now that the adrenaline had worn off completely.
“-nseng?” Someone had been saying his name. He blinked his vision clear to find them all looking at him.
“Tinseng,” Yukying said gently, “we want to let you sleep, but we need to know the plan.”
“What?”
“What’s the plan?” Cheuk-Kwan’s tone rippled with tension. “You have to include us this time, because your last plan was shit.”
“What?” he said again.
“We still need to get the list, right? Or did you forget that detail?”
Tinseng hadn’t forgotten, but he was a little surprised to hear Cheuk-Kwan so adamant. Even more surprising was how Chiboon, Yukying, and even Yingtung nodded or looked resolute. Any other day before this one, he would have fought their help. Yukying had said to do his best, and he’d always thought his best was done alone. He looked around the room at all the people gathered around to help Jinzhao. Something shifted inside him, something tectonic: it wasn’t that he didn’t have to do this alone—he shouldn’t do it alone. He wasn’t the only piece on the board. Maybe he wasn’t a piece at all. There had to be a hand moving the pieces, and all his life he’d let others pick him up and discard him at will. Maybe it was his turn to play.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we should do.”
11 “To value justice above life.”
12 “Bright list.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
One Day Ago. June 24, 1963. Paris, France.
After their talk, Tinseng curled up next to Jinzhao in the bed and slept. For once, he didn’t dream. At 11:00 p.m., the ringing of the phone woke him. He sat up to find Jinzhao still asleep next to him. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as Yingtung (was he going to have to start thinking of him as Laurence after his support earlier?) told Yukying the call was for her.
“Mrs. Grodescu?” he heard Yukying say, and his exhaustion instantly dropped away. “Hold on a moment.” He bolted out of bed as she waved him over. They pressed their heads together over the phone to listen. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“There is not much time,” a woman’s tinny voice floated up between them. “I will leave something for you at the front desk.”
“Oh, but—”
“Give it to that man,” Marissa talked over her. “The one with the long hair you always talk to. He will know what to do.”
“What about you?” Yukying asked.
“Do not worry about me. I am stronger than I look. They forget, Mrs. Li.”
“They? They forget what?”
“Men. All they care about is that women can bear life. They forget the opposite is also true.” Their connection crackled as Marissa Grodescu said, “I hope we do not meet again,” and the phone line clicked.
Tinseng and Yukying exchanged a glance, then rushed down to the lobby. The clerk behind the desk handed Yukying an envelope. They walked a few steps away before Yukying pried it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper. She read it, then handed it to Tinseng.
It was blank except for two short lines of writing: an address, a note, and a time. The address was not in Paris; the name of the town sounded vaguely familiar to Tinseng, clicking in place when he remembered seeing it in a file at Julian’s. It was Grodescu’s home in the country. Next to the address was written, “Two lions mark the entrance. Wait in the WC attached to the study on the third floor.” The time was 8:00 p.m. the following evening.
“What happens tomorrow evening?” Chiboon asked when they brought the note upstairs.
Tinseng handed him the paper. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” he grinned, feeling no humor at all.
Tinseng left the others to rest. A few hours of uninterrupted rest had reset him. Re-energized, he returned to Julian’s apartment in search of the quietest piece he could find. He chose a Browning 1910 pocket auto slide combined with a 1922 .32 barrel. It was about as untraceable as a gun could get; thousands of 1922 Brownings had been manufactured by the Belgians while under German occupation, and thousands of 1910 models still floated around the market. To the barrel he attached a Maxim Silencer, modified from a silencer made for small-caliber hunting rifles. With hunting rifles still legal in several European countries, parts like a silencer were easy to buy without raising suspicion; naturally, a hunter would want their gun to be quiet. If one knew what they were doing, modifying the silencer to fit a Browning was no work at all. This specific make of slide, barrel, and silencer was known to both Jules and Tinseng as the type preferred by Belgian assassins. Tinseng didn’t ask why Julian had it. He just hoped it hadn’t been used for too many murders. It might be a fool’s errand, but he was trying to make it as hard for the police as possible.
They were so close now. Thanks to Marissa Grodescu’s help, he wouldn’t have to run around the city bribing information out of contacts or try to track down where Grodescu was staying. Yingtu—Laurence and Cheuk-Kwan wondered if it was a trap, of course, but Yukying seemed certain Marissa had no love for her husband, and Tinseng had heard the woman’s voice; if she’d been lying, she was a better actress than Lin Dai. Besides, Tinseng had another theory after listening to Yukying’s description of the woman: Perhaps she finally saw a way out. By setting Tinseng on a path leading directly to her husband, she ensured a confrontation. What better way to kill your husband than to let someone else do it for you?
He might be wrong. If he wasn’t, he was quietly impressed. He couldn’t even resent the manipulation, since it suited both their needs. Anyway, she wasn’t the one who deserved any of his anger.
When he returned, everyone had rearranged: Jinzhao on the couch, Yukying and Laurence sleeping on the bed, Cheuk-Kwan asleep on the floor next to Yukying’s side of the bed. There was at least one other suite in Laurence’s name, but no one seemed interested in leaving one another’s sight. Tinseng was grateful; the same fear had him triple-checking the lock. Chiboon was the only one still awake at this early hour. He sat on the floor next to the couch, legs stretched under the coffee table, sketching in his journal. Tinseng peered over his shoulder to find the page littered with quick impressions: Tinseng raising an eyebrow, Laurence in profile, an unknown pair of hands gesturing. Chiboon’s pencil hovered above a half-finished sketch of Jinzhao sleeping.
“How is it you’re so talented,” Tinseng asked as he sat at the table next to his friend, pouring himself wine, “yet you ran out three—no, four—art tutors?”
“Ah, I’m unappreciated.” Chiboon nudged his journal over to Tinseng. For a few minutes, Tinseng flipped through it and asked questions, and Chiboon answered, and they pretended to forget together. It ended when Tinseng flipped back to find a full page of Yukying laughing in their cabana on Tamariz Beach.
