Thursday
I checked the time; it was nearly noon. Luke, wherever he was, would be back soon. Before he could persuade me otherwise, I slid the papers back into the envelope, jumped into my car, and raced over to the place we used to call Kinko’s. I printed out a copy of everything, made sure the pages were collated, and drove over to my bank, which was just up the street. I ran in, waited impatiently as they led me to my safe-deposit box, and stashed the originals.
Luke was pawing through leftovers in the fridge when I got home.
I kissed him. “Where have you been?” I asked.
“I’ve been talking to Grizzly. I need to discuss something with you.”
“I have something to discuss with you, too.”
He bent his head sideways and closed the refrigerator door. “Okay. You go first.”
“Sit.” He did. “Dolan cracked the encryption on the drive.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “And?”
“Take a look.” I fished out the copies from my bag. “Take your time.”
As he started reading, I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a Diet Snapple. I came back to the table and waited. He didn’t say anything, and his face had that slight frown that comes from intense concentration. Occasionally his eyebrows arched, and once, he looked up at me in amazement. Finally he got to the last batch, which were in Chinese.
“This is incredible.”
I nodded. “But that’s only part of it.”
“What are you saying, Ellie?”
“Care to take a short drive?”
“Thanks for coming back to the party,” Melissa said when we walked into the library.
“We just can’t stay away,” I shot back. “For the Perle Mesta of the Dewey Decimal System, you throw a hell of a bash.”
“How gratifying,” she said. “Since she’s been dead for forty years.” She motioned us toward the computers.
We signed in and sat at one of the terminals. I went online to Google the articles and videos I’d seen yesterday. The video of the car exploding into flames in Beijing was there, but it was much shorter. It showed a clear jump cut in the progression of the video. First the car was rolling along; then it was already on fire. Someone had edited it! I tried to recall what had been there when I saw it yesterday. I think it was a sign that identified Beijing as the location.
I frowned. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?” Luke asked
“This video has been edited since I saw it yesterday. Yesterday, I could tell the exploding car was in Beijing. Today it doesn’t identify where the explosion is. See the jump cut?” I replayed the video so Luke could see it.
Luke stroked his beard. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Then I tried to pull up the SWAT team closing in on the checkpoint someplace in China. It was gone altogether. In its place was one of those benign statements that said, “We’re sorry, but this video has been removed by the copyright owners.”
“What is going on?” I asked.
“You’re the video expert.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, then gestured to him. “Come with me.”
Luke got up and followed me out the front door. We sat on a waist-high wall that surrounded the parking lot. I lowered my voice.
“There’s something else you need to know.”
I filled him in on my meeting with Grace Qasimi and what she’d told me about Parks and the Uyghurs. How Parks had been a double agent.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Uyghurs…aren’t they the Muslims in China?”
“Exactly. Remember the video of the car bursting into flames? The Chinese government alleges the Uyghurs are terrorists. That burning car was supposed to be a terrorist act.”
“But?”
“Grace says the Uyghurs aren’t terrorists. That they’re victims of persecution.”
“Like the Palestinians.”
I tensed. We’d had many conversations about Israel and Palestine. Not with Dad around, of course—he wore his politics on his sleeve. Luke, it turned out, was more sympathetic to the Palestinian situation. I could see both sides of the issue, but being Jewish, I usually refrained from entering that political minefield.
“Let’s stick with the Uyghurs, shall we?”
We went back in to the library computer. I clicked on some of the articles I’d read the day before. Two or three that had been the most critical of China bore those “404” error messages, meaning the link was broken and the article was no longer online.