A sense of personal inevitability can be a dangerous thing, and Fa had believed that his theory on Charles Merrick would be the key to fast-tracking his career. Government corruption had been a hot-button issue even in 2006, and Fa’s instincts told him that there was more to Charles Merrick’s success than financial genius. Merrick’s first two funds, Merrick I and Merrick II, were simply too staggeringly successful. From 1997 to 2006, his funds’ returns had averaged 28 percent and without a single down year. In Fa’s opinion, no one invested with that kind of accuracy without the benefit of inside information. No one was that good.
So Fa had gone to work, and gradually he’d uncovered the genius of Merrick’s strategy: he never invested directly in China. Anything that blatant would have been spotted by MSS analysts back in ’96, when Merrick Capital’s first fund—Merrick I—launched. No, what Merrick did was so much more sophisticated. Instead, he invested ahead of China. By 1996, the Chinese economy was booming, thanks to the introduction of the special economic zones. GDP grew by almost 10 percent that year alone. Growth fueled by raw materials from all over the world: oil from Angola, bauxite from Indonesia, copper from Chile, tin from Myanmar and Bolivia, and on and on it went. All flowing into the insatiable cauldron of Chinese industry. Yet somehow, with remarkable prescience, Merrick Capital managed to arrive just ahead of major new deals, buying up infrastructure and mineral rights and making a fortune when China’s economic interests became a matter of public record and drove prices sky high.
To Fa, there had been only one possible conclusion—Merrick Capital had a source inside the Chinese government, funneling classified strategic planning to the American businessman. Fa’s intelligence report, based on fourteen months of exhaustive research and analysis, had been unimpeachable. Its conclusions unassailable. Zhu Zhi had seen it otherwise, dismissing Fa’s report on Merrick as the fanciful skywriting of an ambitious young agent whose imagination had gotten the better of him. Fa, in a disgraceful act of youthful arrogance, had attempted to circumvent Zhi and go directly to Zhi’s superior. Circumventing the chain of command in the Ministry of State Security was an unforgivable act of disrespect, and it had been an all-or-nothing play.
Nothing, as it turned out.
Now, because of his arrogance, Fa remained sequestered in Zhi’s bureaucratic limbo, performing demeaning clerical work for the Ministry of Agriculture. Zhi, a genius at torturing his enemies, had recognized that being underutilized would drive Fa mad. As a result, Fa had so few responsibilities that he was always weeks ahead of schedule. In the early days, Fa filled his time reading intelligence briefs, saturating himself with American politics, and keeping current with MSS operations. But as the months turned to years and it dawned on Fa that his banishment was permanent, a lethargic depression had crept into his outlook.
He felt with certainty something that he had never experienced before: that his fate had fallen out of his control. Today, his most realistic ambition was not to be the kind of person found sleeping at his desk in the afternoon. He filled his time with a purgatory of crossword puzzles and online chess. It gave Fa ample time to reflect bitterly on the ruins of his career. He had considered resigning, of course. He missed Shanghai; he missed home. But it would have embarrassed his father, and besides, he wasn’t about to give Zhi the satisfaction. So he sat in his ever more depressing office, did his job, such as it was, and dreamed about his next fishing trip.
Fishing was the one real pleasure he derived from living in America. The rivers here were heaven-sent. And such fish. Fa had fished up and down the East Coast—the Willowemoc Creek, a personal favorite. He’d been fly-fishing in the Blackfoot and Bitterroot Rivers in Montana. Stood waist deep in the frigid Kenai River in Alaska as salmon thicker than his leg surged past him. His next grand excursion would be to Michigan to fish the Fox and Two Hearted Rivers. In preparation, he was rereading Hemingway’s short stories that had made the two rivers famous. These trips were all that had kept him sane during his eight-year exile within the Ministry. In the interim, Fa had forgotten all about Charles Merrick, who ultimately had been arrested by his own government for defrauding his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.
But now, all these years later, Fa knew that he had been right and Zhi wrong. Merrick’s interview vindicated his theory. But what to do? His responsibility was to take his suspicions directly to Zhi. Unfortunately, Fa knew what Zhi would do. If it turned out now that Fa’s suspicions about Merrick had been correct—about something like this—and it became known that Zhi had suppressed his report . . . it would mean the end of Zhi’s career. Zhi would have no choice but to bury it and Fa with it. For good, this time.
And it would be easy to do, for while Merrick’s interview subtly corroborated Fa’s suspicion, it was far from the smoking gun that Zhi would demand. Merrick was ancient history, and Fa’s theory regarding Merrick’s source in Beijing had never seen the light of day: Zhi had ensured that. Zhi would never endorse Fa’s hunch. It would be an enormous loss of face to admit that Fa had been right all this time. And Fa’s credibility within the Ministry was nonexistent; no one would take his side over Zhi’s, even if he were foolhardy enough to go outside of regular channels again. So what to do? Fa sighed and gathered up his materials. What choice did he have? This was the job. He would take what he had to Zhi, who would summarily reject it, and that would be the end of it. No doubt retribution would follow, but he’d have done his duty; he would sleep with a clear conscience and wait for Zhi’s reprisal.
Fa rode the elevator up to Zhi’s office and considered taking the rest of the afternoon off. Get out of the city before rush hour and go fishing for a few hours to clear his head. A reward for the undignified abuse he was about to receive. It was personal with Zhi, who called him “Fa Gao” behind his back—“the cupcake.” Perhaps he should consider resigning after all. He had served the cause for twelve years; it would not be such a great humiliation for his family now. Would he really sacrifice himself to a losing battle of wills with Zhu Zhi?
Apparently he would.
Fa stuck his head in the antechamber outside Zhi’s office, where Zhi’s secretary worked. When he asked to see Zhi, she masked her surprise with a demure cough—Fa hadn’t met with Zhi in nearly four years. She replied that he would be tied up all day in the weekly operations meeting. Fa had forgotten it was a Monday. A further reminder of his ongoing humiliation, since the operations meeting had once been a staple of his calendar. Fa could guess at the meeting’s agenda. In the last twelve months, directives from Beijing had taken on increasing urgency over uncovering the identity of Zhenniao—the Poisonfeather bird.