The Interior

He felt Hulan move. She turned and faced him. Her cheeks were drained of color.

"Let's go back to Beijing," she said.

She pushed away from the wall and, while David waited, went inside the Tsais' house to say good-bye to Suchee. She reemerged quickly, headed across the dirt expanse, and stepped into the cornfield. David, Lo, and Henry followed swiftly. When they reached Suchee's farm, Hulan took one last look around, then ducked into the front seat of the car Lo had commandeered. Once David and Henry settled in the back, Lo started the engine and they pulled out of the little compound.

Each person seemed lost in his or her thoughts as they bumped across the rutted dirt road leading back to the main highway. Hulan slumped in the front seat, her head resting against the window. She felt hot, sick, exhausted. Next to her, Lo drove with his usual quiet determination, yet his thoughts were very much on the report he would give to his superiors back in Beijing. How would he explain Hulan's actions at the Tsai farm? In the backseat, Henry stared morosely out the window. David contemplated Henry, thinking.

When they reached the crossroads, Lo asked Hulan where she wanted to go. "Back to Beijing," she muttered in Mandarin. When his eyes continued to question her, she expanded. "On the expressway. We can't take Knight's jet. The man is a criminal of the worst sort. Once we get in the air, we are with his people. We can't allow that to happen. Just drive, Investigator. We'll be back home soon enough." Lo turned right and began to speed along.

David sat forward and asked, "How'd you know about Tang Dan?"

Hulan sighed tiredly. "It always bothered me that the killer didn't take Miaoshan's papers. He took Guy's and those were only copies, which verified that Miaoshan hadn't been killed for them. She'd been killed for another reason altogether."

David leaned back. How had Miaoshan gotten the papers? Guy said an American gave them to her. She didn't get them from Keith; she gave them to him. Was Aaron Rodgers still a possibility? Or Sandy Newheart? They came to the turnoff to Knight International. The compound was hidden behind a low rise, but David glanced in that direction and saw Henry looking suddenly alert. His dreams and his failures lay just over that rise, and as soon as they passed it Henry drooped down once again, looking more dejected than before.

"Lo, turn around," David said.

"Attorney Stark?"

"Stop the car and turn around."

Lo slowed, and Hulan said, "No, keep going. Let's get home."

The car sped up again.

"No! We have to turn around!" David put a hand on Lo's shoulder. "Please!"

Lo pulled over. Hulan turned in her seat to look at David. Her face was ashen and covered with a thin sheen of sweat.

"We've done what we came to do," Hulan said, utterly exhausted. "I solved Miaoshan's murder. You found the person behind the bribes. I suspect that with further questioning at Beijing Municipal Jail Number Five, Mr. Knight will confess to killing or hiring someone to kill your friend."

"This isn't finished," David said, then turned to Henry. "Is it?"

"The inspector is right," Henry said. "We should get back to Beijing."

David smiled. Sadly, triumphantly, Hulan wasn't sure which.

"Let's go back to the factory," David repeated.

"There's no reason to do that, Inspector Liu," Henry said. She stared at him. He was a broken man, but she didn't feel sorry for him. As if reading her thoughts, he continued. "I've made some terrible mistakes in my life. One of the worst was underestimating you and Mr. Stark. As you say, we're all tired. Let's go back to Beijing. Once we're there I'll explain everything. You'll have your case, and I suspect you'll be a hero…" He tipped his head and amended, "A heroine."

Hulan passed her good hand over her eyes. They ached and she longed for ice to put on her lids, for a cold drink to refresh her parched throat, for cool sheets to appease her burning skin, and something, anything, to stop the throbbing in her arm.

David pressed his case. "We should secure the records in the computers. They may have already been erased, but I think we should see if they're still there."

Tired, Hulan ordered Lo to turn the car around.

"Please, no!" Henry blurted. "There's no reason to go back."

But whatever sympathy Hulan might have had had been used up in the last hour, and she wordlessly stared out the windshield.

The car turned onto the side road that led to the factory. As they passed the billboards with the gaily rendered Sam amp; His Friends, Henry increased his ranting, his confessions, his pleas to go on to Beijing.

"I was at fault for all of it. I allowed the employees to live and work in bad conditions. This is why I came to China! No one was looking and I thought-I knew-I could get away with it. And that woman? David, remember that woman who jumped off the roof? You were right all along. She was thrown off and I did it. And that reporter and that union-izer? They got what they deserved."

"How could you throw Xiao Yang off the roof when you were in a meeting with me? And why try to frame your old friend Sun?" David asked as Lo stopped at the compound's gate. When the guard came out to see who it was, Lo jerked his thumb toward the backseat. The guard peered in, saw his employer, and quickly retreated inside his kiosk to press the button for the gate. Lo pulled through, drove directly to the Administration Building, and parked between a Lexus and a Mercedes, the drivers of which were nowhere to be seen.

Lo and Hulan opened their doors and got out. Henry looked desperately about him, but there was no place for him to run. David could see some activity around the warehouse. A forklift loaded a pallet of what David presumed were Sam amp; His Friends onto the back of a flatbed truck. But otherwise the large, barren courtyard was deserted as usual, while behind the windowless walls hundreds of women labored on the assembly lines.

"I'm sorry, Henry," David said quietly.

Henry's eyes widened. Then a curtain of utter resignation closed down over his face. "Please," he begged.

David weighed the word. In that single syllable was all of Henry's life. It was an appeal for compassion, forgiveness, and an acceptance of the way things were. "I take full responsibility," Henry added. "Let me take the blame for everything that's happened."

David hardened himself against these words, then answered Henry by opening the door and getting out.