A Loyal Character Dancer

few seconds, only bodies scattered on the ground remained. Armed policemen were chasing the running men, guns held high.
     
    To his amazement, Chen saw Yu coming toward them, waving a pistol.
     
    The battle was over.

Chapter 34
     
     
    D
    etective Yu!” Chen grasped Yu’s hand.
     
    “It’s good to see you, Chief.” Yu was too excited to say more.
     
    Catherine clasped Yu’s other hand, her face smudged, her blouse torn at the shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you here, Detective Yu.”
     
    “Me too, Inspector Rohn. I am happy to meet you.”
     
    “I thought you were on your way back to Shanghai,” Chen said.
     
    “My plane was delayed. So I checked my phone one more time before boarding. I got the message left by Inspector Rohn that no one had picked you up at the station.”
     
    “When did you place that call, Inspector Rohn?”
     
    “While we were waiting for you to rent a car.”
     
    “The absence of the local police at the station did not make sense,” Yu said. “The more I thought about it, the more suspicious it appeared to me. After all those accidents, you know—”
     
    “Yes, I do.” Chen had to cut Yu short. It was more than suspicious, he knew. Inspector Rohn knew, too. The fact that she had mentioned the absence of the local cops in her message spoke for itself. Still, they did not have to discuss this problem in front of her.
     
    “So I approached the airport police and got a jeep from them. Some of them rode back with me. I had a hunch.”
     
    “A good hunch.”
     
    As they were talking, Chen heard more cars and people arriving. Looking up, he was not too surprised to see Superintendent Hong, the head of the Fuzhou Police Bureau, leading a group of armed policemen.
     
    “I’m so sorry, Chief Inspector Chen,” Hong said in a voice full of apologies. “We missed you at the station. My assistant made a mistake about the arrival time. On our way back to the bureau, we heard about the fight and rushed over.”
     
    “Don’t worry, Superintendent Hong. It’s all over now.”
     
    The belated appearance of Hong and his men was intended to be a footnote to a finished chapter.
     
    Was it possible for Chen to attempt to remedy the situation here and now? The answer was no. As an outsider, he had to congratulate himself on being lucky as it was. Their mission was completed, none of them had been seriously hurt, and a handful of gangsters had been punished. He simply said, “The Flying Axes are well-informed. We hardly reached the village when they came upon us.”
     
    “Some village folks must have spotted Wen and informed them.”
     
    “So they got the news faster than the local police.” Chen found it hard not to be sarcastic.
     
    “Now you know how difficult things can be here, Chief Inspector Chen,” Hong said, shaking his head before he turned to Inspector Rohn. “I’m sorry about meeting you like this, Inspector Rohn. I apologize on behalf of my colleagues in Fujian.”
     
    “You don’t have to apologize to me, Superintendent Hong,” Inspector Rohn said. “I thank you for your cooperation on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.”
     
    More policemen appeared to clean up the battlefield. There were several wounded gangsters lying on the ground. One of them might be dead. Chen was about to interrogate another who was muttering something to a local cop, when Hong made a request.
     
    “Can you explain a Chinese proverb for me, Chief Inspector Chen— Mogao yice, daogao yizhang?”
     
    “The literal translation is this: The devil is ten inches tall, and the way, or justice, is a hundred inches tall. In other words, powerful as evil is, justice will prevail.” The original proverb actually read the other way around. The ancient Chinese sage had been more pessimistic about the power of the evil.
     
    “The Chinese government is determined,” Hong declared pompously, “to deal a crushing blow to all evil forces.”
     
    Chen nodded as he observed a policeman kicking a wounded gangster viciously and cursing, “Damn it! Shut up with your damned Mandarin.”
     
    The gangster uttered a blood-chilling scream that cut into their conversation like another flying ax.
     
    “I apologize, Inspector Rohn,” Hong said. “Those gangsters are the worst scum under the sun.”
     
    “I have had my fill of apologies every day I’ve spent here,” Detective Yu remarked bitterly, crossing his arms. “What a Fujian experience!”
     
    But Chief Inspector Chen