“Gotta say, Jimmy Wei looked really shocked,” Brooks told Rena.
She could still feel the flush in her face. The run-up to the house, the FBI agents with their guns drawn in their FBI jackets like in the movies. Wei in handcuffs. His wife screaming. His yelling for her to call his lawyer.
Randi wasn’t a cop. She had never done anything like that before.
Wei was being questioned for espionage. His company and the Chinese government had been alerted. So had the press—all according to plan.
The State Department was signaling to the Chinese government that if they wanted to avoid a scandal, Wei would be allowed to quietly leave the country. If he didn’t want to flee, Wei could fight his case in American courts. He had lived most of his life in America, after all, and his wife and kids were all born here. But the publicity of a trial, the discovery that the U.S. government prosecutors would seek, would hardly please the Chinese government. Imagine, the whole “Strategy of the Human Wave” outlined for an American jury and in the newspapers and on cable for weeks. The president had also directed the Justice Department to open an investigation into GCM Investments. James Wei had a major decision to make. So did his bosses in Beijing.
“I gotta tell you, Peter, he looked like an innocent man,” Brooks said.
“Don’t be fooled,” Jazz Bhalla said. “Like I always say, these aren’t Boy Scouts. Even if he didn’t think he was a spy, he knew his company was connected to state security.”
What a stink it would all make, Brooks thought. The Chinese would start tossing out American companies. The culture of the Valley would be changed, at least for a while. Maybe forever.
But Upton had figured on all that, Brooks thought. She had learned from Traynor to play boldly, but with more calculation.
Peter was quiet, even more than usual.
“Hey,” she said. “Can we talk?”
They went outside and began to walk on the old frontage road by the freeway. They were met by the wooshing sound of speeding cars rushing past on the other side of the fence.
“You okay?”
She still couldn’t believe someone had shown up at Peter’s house with guns. Rena still looked troubled by the incident, but he didn’t want to show it, or probably even admit it to himself. She loved her partner, but he was hopelessly a dude.
“There’s a lot we don’t know,” he said. That wasn’t what she had expected him to say.
“That’s what’s eating you?”
“I’d like to know if Kim Matsuda was poisoned,” he said. It would take more tests to be sure, but now the pressure to do them had eased. “And did Jimmy Wei have her killed, or did she just learn that Jimmy and GCM Investments were not to be trusted?” They might never know.
And what about Abbad or Singh?
Rena continued. “I know the president was using what we found to make a statement about security and technology—and to save the battery program. But I’d still like to know.”
“The greater good, Pete. Don’t you think?”
“The greater good always makes me nervous.”
“Like Jazz said, these weren’t Boy Scouts.”
Then she realized that remark, too, rubbed him the wrong way. Peter had been a Boy Scout, an Eagle Scout, and proud of it.
“We saved this battery project, Peter. Something good happened here.” But he didn’t respond.
He didn’t have anything more to say. She knew he wouldn’t. She knew him better than almost anyone. But you never really know other people, do you? She had lived probably half of her lifetime already and she was only learning that now.
She put her arm around her partner and they walked back inside.