False Witness Read online

  “I think he would have erased it from that computer,” Clark offered. “And the ones in his apartment as well. Kumari was no dummy.”

  That assessment prompted a long and piercing look from Parcelli, as if he knew something he wasn’t saying. Clark decided it might be time for a quick change of subject.

  “Did you figure out how the explosive device ended up on the helicopter?” he asked.

  Parcelli said he was working two different theories on that one. It might have been that Kumari’s laptop was on the helicopter. Perhaps his hard drive was protected by a code that Kumari wouldn’t reveal even under extreme interrogation. Maybe the helicopter crew was supposed to finish off Clark and Jessica and then take the computer to an expert someplace.

  On the other hand, Parcelli said, he tended to favor the explanation that Kumari intentionally and secretly dropped the explosive device out of his laptop’s battery compartment before he got off the helicopter.

  “Maybe Kumari heard them say they were going back for you and Jessica,” Parcelli offered. “Later, Huang Xu might have taken the computer when he left the triad’s hideout—before our agents arrived.”

  Knowing Kumari, just from the short time they had spent together, Clark favored this second theory. But there was another possible factor, in Clark’s opinion, one he wasn’t about to suggest to a no-nonsense FBI agent.

  Maybe the explosion was an answer to a desperate prayer.

  Clark closed his eyes and wished it were all simply a nightmare. “Was he tortured?” Clark asked.

  Parcelli hesitated. His silence became Clark’s answer.

  “What did they do to him?” Clark asked. “How bad?”

  Parcelli shifted from one foot to the other. “I really can’t say.”

  The machines hummed, and neither man spoke for a few minutes. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” Parcelli eventually said. “The doc says he’s got some pretty strong painkillers in you right now. We’ll need a coherent and detailed statement. Three other triad members were apprehended on the interstate, about thirty miles from the hideout. Two of them are suspects in Ms. Shealy’s kidnapping. We’ll need both of you as witnesses—voice identifications, descriptions of size and build, distinguishing marks that weren’t covered by the masks, eye color—all those things will be critical for us to make our case.”

  “What about all my felonies?”

  “First things first. You help us bring down the triad. Then we’ll talk about the felonies.”

  “It was bad, wasn’t it?” Clark persisted.

  Parcelli nodded slowly. “Scalding water,” he said.

  When the agent left, Clark was grateful for the solitude. He heard his wife’s rhythmic breathing on the other side of the curtain. It should have brought him tremendous comfort, having her back, but there were so many shattered pieces that could never be made right.

  Jessica was alive because Clark had traded Kumari’s life for hers. A good and decent man had been murdered. He was tortured because Clark didn’t have the courage to trigger the detonation device as soon as he left the blasting area, even though Kumari sent the signal almost immediately. Clark could never forgive himself for that.

  And then there was the matter of the algorithm—a secret at once so magnificent and so terrible that it seemed to reside at the very axis between ultimate good and evil. Soon, it would belong to him. Like the crosshairs of a target emblazoned on the base of his skull.

  31

  On judgment day, Huang Xu rose early, stretched, performed his exercises, and centered himself. As a teenager, training under the watchful eye of the triad’s Hung Kwan, he had mastered the martial arts, mind and body. He learned, among other things, how to enter an alternate state of perception, what Westerners called self-hypnosis. Xu had excelled, earning a place with the chosen seven, selected for leadership and education by Li Gwah himself.

  He had been sent to America for a Western education.

  In college, Xu continued his mastery of pain tolerance, disassociating mind from body, and put into practice the Buddhist principle of nonattachment. He held little regard for the things that motivated American college students, including the college women who found his disciplined body, long dark hair, sideburns, close-cropped beard, and mysterious ways magnetic. To defeat lust, Xu contemplated the loathsomeness of the body.

  “Examine the body as a corpse,” Li Gwah had taught him, “and see the process of decay that has already begun. Contemplate the various aspects of the body—the lungs, the spleen, the fat, the feces, and the liver. What is the body but a skin bag filled with bones, organs, and fluids?”

  Xu attended medical school at Gwah’s insistence but developed little respect for the American system of medicine. Drugs, surgery, rehabilitation—all the things held dear by his instructors had little to do with the real causes of disease. At age twenty-five, Xu helped perform clinical studies using self-hypnosis to reduce anesthesia and accelerate postoperative healing. The next year, he left the practice of medicine, concluding that the capitalist health-care system was more concerned with profit than holistic wellness.

  “You have learned well,” Li Gwah told him.

  That same year, Xu began serving full-time in the Manchurian Triad.

  His education continued under the tutelage of Gwah, the Shan Chu of the triad, a man who combined spiritual insight with political zealotry. It gave Xu, who had lost both parents in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, purpose and a cause worthy of his devotion—a new China undergirded by a revival of the old spiritualism. Nationalistic, but enlightened in the ways of Buddha. China, assuming her proper place at the top of the world’s superpowers. China, resisting the dominance of Western cultural imperialism.

  Xu believed fanatically in the triad’s goals, rising quickly through its ranks, forging alliances and making enemies as each task required. Exposure to the West brought with it free thinking. But it was tempered by the memory of his parents’ deaths. And a vision of the glory of China restored.

  Which was one more reason why the events of the past few days had caused him so much frustration. The Abacus Algorithm had been developed by an Indian professor. That country, China’s ancient rival, was experiencing its own economic revival. It competed with China for the attention of the West and, because of China’s family-planning policies, would soon pass China as the world’s most populous country. India, where the majority of people still worshiped millions of Hindu gods, had possession of one of the most powerful secrets in the world. If used skillfully, this simple formula could impact commerce, expose the secrets of other nations, and make the Indian subcontinent the hub for mathematical innovation. If used clumsily, the algorithm would throw the Internet into chaos. That much power did not belong in the hands of an Indian mathematician.

  Like his mentor, Huang Xu followed the teachings of Buddha. But his was an imminently practical faith, which is to say, he molded the religion to fit comfortably with his agenda. He had no time for moral platitudes or hyperspiritualism. He spoke little of the Eightfold Path to righteousness and all but ignored the stringent moral code that had constricted the Buddha. He focused instead on individual enlightenment, inward peace, and mastering his emotions. He developed his own moral code, using the Buddha’s teachings of nonattachment to fortify a cold-blooded approach toward reaching his goals. This strain of Buddhism, his own creation, he followed with total devotion. Emotions counted for nothing. Regular people counted for nothing.

  The triad counted for everything. As did the man who ran it.

  Xu remained steadfast in his desire to please the Master of the Mountain, the Shan Chu. It was not a blind loyalty, for Gwah had been forced out of China and lived a life of luxury in the United States that mocked his ascetic teachings. But the man had passion, vision, and a prophetic voice. His vices made him human.

  At thirty-five, Xu’s loyalty and tenacity had been rewarded with a position of power, heading the triad’s operations in the United
States. More important, Gwah had hinted on more than one occasion that someday Xu might be the Chosen One. His meteoric rise had brought with it jealousy and distrust. Today, as Xu faced Li Gwah to account for the debacle over the algorithm, Xu’s colleagues would be gloating.

  They, too, had learned the principle of nonattachment.

  Xu bowed slightly at the waist, and Li Gwah returned the gesture. Except for the shaved head, the older man looked every inch the CEO of a major U.S. corporation, not the leader of a Chinese organized-crime ring. He wore a custom-designed suit from Hong Kong, expensive Italian loafers, a Swiss Blancpain watch, and cologne by Calvin Klein. His couture set the tone for almost the entire organization, except for former golden boy Huang Xu, who arrived in a pair of linen slacks and a button-down, untucked shirt. He meant no disrespect, but he had learned to be his own man in an organization that valued conformity in the extreme.

  Gwah’s office, like the man, was a cross between Eastern religion and Western capitalism. Minimalist. A tabletop desk with a glass top and black legs. A few twenty-first-century swivel chairs, also black. A glass coffee table. There was no computer—Gwah didn’t use one. Same for a fax machine or smartphone. Gwah’s only concession to modern technology was a simple cell phone.

  Xu had been summoned here a few times before and knew better than to take a seat. A couple of Gwah’s staff lieutenants stood off to the side.

  Gwah picked up a folder and handed it to Xu. “Look at these, please.”

  Xu braced himself. Calm. Focused. Centered.

  The folder contained a few newspaper articles and pictures. He had expected something about the algorithm, but these articles had to do with misdeeds by the Chinese government. Xu had seen these allegations before.

  “Falun Gong practitioners in our country say the government is harvesting organs from live Falun Gong prisoners,” Gwah stated casually. “They remove kidneys, livers, and corneas from the prisoners before they kill them. They throw the prisoners into incinerators to destroy the evidence. A kidney is sold for a hundred thousand American.” Gwah stopped, waiting for Xu’s reaction.

  Xu stood stoically, puzzled at why Gwah was bringing this up now. Xu knew Falun Gong to be a nonviolent, quasi-spiritual movement that combined tai chi–like exercises with bits of philosophy from a number of Eastern sects. After a nonviolent protest at the main Chinese government compound in 1999, adherents of the religion were branded an “evil cult” by the government, jailed, and persecuted. But the Manchurian Triad had never been allies with the Falun Gong. Xu had never seen their persecution as an issue that merited his concern.

  “Our government denies this reprehensible conduct, but the statistics suggest the allegations are true,” Gwah continued. He showed Xu a chart demonstrating a dramatic increase in organ transplants from Chinese donors. “What do you think?”

  “Despicable,” Xu said. He had learned to be a man of few words around Gwah. Today, he would be especially careful.

  Gwah seemed to appreciate the succinct response. “What does the civilized world do about this atrocity—this ‘despicable’ conduct as you say? They turn their heads and pretend it does not exist. Why do they turn their heads? Because Falun Gong practitioners are the victims, and they would have died in prison anyway.”

  Xu could not see where this was going. What did this have to do with his failure to obtain the Abacus Algorithm? Gwah had always been unpredictable in an effort to keep his charges off-balance. But this came out of nowhere.

  “If, however, this same thing happened to Christians in China, the world would take notice. They would demand investigations. They would scream about human rights violations. They would stop propping up a failed Communist regime. It might even open the door for a return to a Chinese dynasty. Do you agree?”

  A light glowed faintly—dim, creating shadows in his mind, but still illuminating a few thoughts, a few connections. Xu understood part of Gwah’s thinking now, but the part still lurking in the dark corners concerned Xu most. “Yes,” Xu said tentatively, “I agree.”

  “Good. It will be our next initiative. We will place blame on the government and increase our profits. I need someone to oversee it. Someone I can trust.”

  In that instant, the point became clear, every dark corner illuminated. The great Li Gwah would never even mention Xu’s contemptible performance in the fiasco with Clark Shealy. Gwah knew that Huang Xu would be prepared for that discussion. Xu would take his verbal tongue-lashing, offer an apology, and redeem himself with the next assignment. Gwah wasn’t about to let him off that easy.

  Xu’s mind returned to his teenage years. The matter of pain. He could not graduate from his tutelage with Gwah until he could stand in front of his mentor, allow the jujitsu master to inflict pain at Xu’s most sensitive areas, and never flinch. Xu was prepared for equal amounts of emotional pain now—and a humiliating lecture. He would handle it with the same resiliency he had mastered for physical pain. But to simply ignore the issue and pretend it didn’t exist? To use it as leverage against Xu, without giving him a chance to defend himself?

  “You have an American medical school education,” Gwah continued. “You have learned the intricacies of surgery. I need you to return to China and make this your mission.”

  This whole line of discussion caught Xu entirely off guard. He was not prepared for this—torture as a job. Dismembering live human beings for profit. Was this what the Manchurian Triad had come to? In the past few years, he had felt himself losing touch with his mentor, but never had he expected something this barbaric. The very thought of it ran contrary to every fiber of his being. Was this the glory of China? The way of the Buddha?

  “I cannot,” Xu said. “It is not the right way.”

  Even as he heard the words, he could hardly believe he had said them. Gwah had the unfettered power to decree executions of triad members. Insubordination to the Shan Chu was treason of the highest order.

  Gwah stood there for a moment, his eyes narrowed. “Are you sure, my son?” His voice was soft, but the words carried the ominous tone of a threat. “Killing fifty thousand people to rescue two billion is surely not wrong.”

  “With respect, Shan Chu, it is if there is any other way.” Xu bowed deeply. “Dismembering humans for profit makes us no different from the government we seek to displace.”

  Gwah took a step forward, his disappointment evident in every wrinkle on his face, every frowning muscle. Xu steeled himself for abandonment or perhaps living with a death sentence on his head. The Shan Chu had that kind of power.

  Instead, Xu was reminded once again that he could seldom discern his mentor’s intent. “You are right, of course. We cannot do this,” Li Gwah said. He paused, giving time for Xu’s relief to sink in. “But if we cannot, why did you torture Professor Kumari? Why order your men to execute him rather than allow him to be rescued?”

  “The greater good demanded it, Shan Chu. As you have pointed out, the government of our homeland dismembers thousands and sells their parts as if they are somehow less than human. Yet this one man held the key to power—the coming of a day when China would be ruled by the sons of enlightenment, not the sons of Marx. Because, Shan Chu, the salvation of two billion sometimes requires the sacrifice of one.”

  “You have spoken wisdom, my son. You have refused to do what should not be done. You are willing to do what should. You have proven your discretion—your capacity to lead.”

  Xu could hardly believe his ears. He was ready to accept his blame, to shoulder his responsibility. He had been prepared to fall on his sword. Instead, the Shan Chu had affirmed Xu’s leadership. At the lowest point in Xu’s career, Gwah had lifted him up. This Huang Xu would not forget. Xu would do anything for the man who believed so strongly in him.

  “Sometimes the salvation of two billion requires the sacrifice of more than one. Sometimes it is a few.”

  “Yes, Shan Chu.”

  “The last page in the folder I have entrusted to you records the names of se
veral persons associated with the church Professor Kumari attended. It is said that Kumari’s pastor, a man named Abhay Prasad, has knowledge of the Abacus Algorithm. This time, you must not fail to disgorge this man’s secrets. His weakness, the thing he loves more than anything else, is his church. The members.”

  The eyes of Li Gwah bored deeply into Xu’s, searching for any sign of weakness. “If you harvest the body parts of his small band of followers, Huang Xu, and Prasad alone has the power to stop the harvest by telling you what he knows, he will talk. These acts of atrocity can then be laid at the feet of the BJP and the Indian government. The world will condemn this persecution of Christians and we will possess the algorithm at an opportune time. You must not fail me again. This algorithm will be your legacy.”

  Xu considered this. He tried hard to swallow his repulsion at what he had been asked to do. The body is nothing but a skin bag filled with bones, organs, and fluids. “I have killed you all before. I was chopped up by all of you in previous lives,” the Buddha said. “We have all killed each other as enemies. So why should we be attached to each other?”

  The greater good for two billion people. Xu knew that a chance at restoration in the Manchurian Triad was rare and never easy. If he truly wanted to redeem his role as head of American operations, there was only one way.

  “I understand,” Huang Xu said.

  32

  Four years later

  Thursday, March 20

  Atlanta

  Jamie Brock watched every deliberate step Professor Walter Snead took on his way to the front of the classroom. The man was sixty-one going on eighty—a walking billboard that the life of a trial lawyer would take its toll. A year and a half ago, he had closed the doors on his prominent personal injury and criminal defense practice in Los Angeles to join the ranks of Southeastern Law School’s distinguished faculty. He said he made the move for quality-of-life reasons. The rumor mill posited a number of far more interesting scenarios. Nobody claimed it was because he loved law students.