A Loyal Character Dancer

it.”
     
    “Don’t worry, Inspector Rohn,” Wen echoed. “Your work here is successfully completed.”
     
    She did not feel “successful.” As she tried to find something else to say, she saw Chen and Liu enter the airport carrying several plastic shopping bags.
     
    “Oh, Liu Qing’s has come with Chief Inspector Chen to see you off!” Catherine exclaimed.
     
    “What?” Party Secretary Li hurried over to them. Yu and Qian followed. Wen took a step backward in disbelief.
     
    “I have brought Comrade Liu from Suzhou, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “I did not have time to ask for your approval.”
     
    “Liu has cooperated with us,” Catherine said. “We could not have succeeded in persuading Wen without his help. They should have the chance to say good-bye.”
     
    “Not just that, Inspector Rohn. There is something further I need to discuss with Comrade Wen Liping,” Chen said. “Let’s move to the airport meeting room over there. We have to talk.”
     
    It was an oblong meeting room, elegantly furnished with a marble table and two rows of leather-covered chairs, where city officials met distinguished foreign guests during their brief, temporary stays in Shanghai. Catherine seated herself with Wen and Liu on one side of the table, Chen with his colleagues on the other. At the end of the meeting room, there was a small anteroom, in which the travelers could relax on the sectional sofas.
     
    “Inspector Rohn, Party Secretary Li, Detective Yu, I apologize for having not discussed a new development with you,” Chen said.
     
    Catherine looked at Yu, and then at Li, and they both looked back at her in puzzlement. She noticed that Chen did not address Qian, who seemed to be fidgeting with his drink. Was it because Qian was just one of his low-level subordinates?
     
    “Where were you last night?” Yu was the first to ask. “I waited for your call for hours.”
     
    “Well, my original plan was to bring Old Hunter with me to a meeting with Gu Haiguang, but Gu called me first and wanted to meet me alone, earlier. So I came to your dumpling feast early and then met with Gu.”
     
    “You did not tell me about this appointment,” Catherine said.
     
    “I had no clue as to what Gu was going to say. Then there was no time to fill you in. I had Little Zhou drive me to Suzhou immediately. Liu had a late business meeting. I waited until he came home, spoke with him, and we started back before dawn. That’s why we have just made it to the airport.” Chen paused to take a breath, saying in a suddenly official tone. “Inspector Rohn, can you promise us one thing on behalf of the U.S. Marshals?”
     
    “What’s that, Chief Inspector Chen?”
     
    “As soon as you arrive in the United States, relocate Wen and Feng. At once.”
     
    “That’s what we planned, but why the urgency, Chief Inspector Chen?”
     
    “Because the gangsters will make every attempt to harm Wen even after she joins Feng.”
     
    “Why?” Yu took out a cigarette.
     
    “It’s a long story. The Flying Axes learned about Feng’s deal in the States early in January, weeks before Wen started to make her passport application. She preferred to stay in Fujian rather than go to live with him. But they coerced her into a conspiracy: she was to join Feng and then to poison him. They promised to get her out of trouble afterward. She agreed. Not because she hated Feng so much that she wanted to kill him, but because she knew what the gangsters would do to her if she refused.
     
    “Now the situation is even more complicated,” Chen went on, heedless of the effect of his revelation upon his audience. “Once she gets there, she will be in danger not only from the Flying Axes, but from the Green Bamboo as well. The latter have a branch in the United States. They present a very serious threat to her.”
     
    “What are you talking about?” Yu asked again. “What do these Green Bamboo have to do with anything?”
     
    “The Green Bamboo is an international gang, far larger and more powerful than the Fujian-based Flying Axes. In their effort to extend their operations, and to take over the human smuggling operation in the Fujian area, they planned to extort crucial information from Feng by holding Wen as a hostage. In fact, it was the Green Bamboo, not the Flying Axes, that approached Feng in the United States. And they were the masked men who attacked us in Changle Village.”
     
    “How did you learn all this, Chief