The secure medical facility in Sydney was a low, unremarkable building on the outskirts of the city, its windows tinted black, its entrances guarded by men in civilian clothes who carried themselves with the unmistakable posture of military training. Li Yun arrived in an unmarked car driven by James Calloway, the Australian Federal Police officer who had become something between a handler and a friend.
"He has been asking for you every day," Calloway said as they passed through the first security checkpoint. "The doctors say the disease has accelerated. The stress of everything that happened, the capture, the escape, the destruction of the compound. It has taken a toll."
"How long does he have?"
"A week. Maybe less. He is lucid most of the time, but there are moments when he fades. When he talks to people who are not there."
Li Yun nodded. He had seen death before, on the Sea Vulture, on the mothership, in the faces of the men who had been thrown overboard like garbage. But this death was different. This death was the end of a story that had stretched across fifteen centuries.
The interior of the facility was sterile and quiet, the corridors lined with doors that had no handles on the outside. They passed through two more security checkpoints before reaching the final room. Calloway stopped at the door.
"I will wait here. He asked to see you alone."
"What did he say?"
"He said, 'The Prince of Wu would have come alone.' I do not know what it means, but I assume you do."
Li Yun opened the door and stepped inside.
The room was small but comfortable, more like a hotel suite than a hospital ward. The bed was positioned by the window, and the blinds were open, letting in the pale winter sunlight of a Sydney afternoon. Peter Changsun lay propped against a mountain of pillows, his body wasted to a shadow of what it had been, his face gaunt, his eyes sunken. But his gaze, when it found Li Yun, was still sharp. Still alive.
"You came," Peter Changsun said. His voice was a dry whisper, barely audible over the hum of the medical equipment.
"You asked for me."
"I asked for many things. Most of them were denied. But not you."
Li Yun sat down in the chair beside the bed. The distance between them was less than a meter, the same distance that had separated them on the mothership, in the laboratory corridor, on Solomon's rig. But now there was no rifle, no detonator, no compound. Only two men at the end of a long road.
"Calloway said you have been confessing. Hours of testimony."
"Yes. Everything. From the first ship my grandfather bought to the last order I gave. The fleet, the compound, the bribes, the murders. It is all on record. When I am gone, there will be no doubt about what the Changsun Group has done."
"Why? Why confess now, when you spent your whole life hiding?"
Peter Changsun closed his eyes. "Because I am dying. And because you were right, on the island. I do not get to wipe the slate clean with a single gesture. I do not get to be the hero of this story. But I can be the witness. I can make sure the truth is known, even if the truth damns me."
Li Yun looked at the dying man's face. The arrogance was gone, stripped away by pain and time and the slow erosion of disease. What remained was something else. Something that might have been peace.
"The compound is destroyed," Li Yun said. "The remaining samples on the island. The research data. Dr. Reyes's notes. All of it. There is nothing left."
"I know. Calloway told me. He also told me about the buyers, the soldiers on the island, the private military company. They are still out there."
"They are being investigated. Several governments have already issued denials, but the evidence is mounting. Elena's testimony, the recordings from the rig, the satellite data from the Cairns. It will take time, but they will be exposed."
"And Solomon?"
"In custody. He is being held in a separate facility, awaiting trial. He has not confessed. He will probably never confess. But the evidence against him is overwhelming. He will spend the rest of his life in prison."
Peter Changsun smiled, a thin, painful expression. "I would like to see that. The great Solomon, brought low by a lawyer from Seattle and a dying slaver. It is almost poetic."
"It is not poetry. It is justice."
"Justice." Peter Changsun tested the word, rolling it around in his mouth like a stone. "I used to believe justice was whatever the powerful decided it was. My family has believed that for fifteen centuries. But you do not believe that. You believe justice is something else. Something real."
"I believe justice is the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. The truth about what happened on those ships. The truth about the compound. The truth about your family and mine. When the truth is known, justice will follow. Not perfectly. Not completely. But enough."
Peter Changsun was silent for a long moment. The machines beeped softly, tracking the slow decline of his vital signs. Outside the window, the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold.
"There is something I need to tell you," he said finally. "Something I did not include in my confession."
"What?"
"The Young Master. My nephew. He is still on the mothership, still in custody. But he is not the only heir to the Changsun Group."
Li Yun felt the fire in his chest flicker. "What do you mean?"
"I have a daughter. She was born twenty-three years ago, to a woman I knew before my marriage. I never acknowledged her publicly, but I provided for her. She lives in Switzerland, under a different name. She knows nothing about the fleet, the compound, any of it. She is innocent."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because when I die, the Changsun Group will pass to her. The lawyers will find the paperwork, the hidden accounts, the contingency plans I put in place years ago. She will inherit everything. And I want you to protect her."
Li Yun stared at the dying man. "Protect her? From what?"
"From the buyers. From the governments that wanted Chimera. From everyone who believes the compound still exists and that she knows where to find it. They will come for her, Mr. Li. They will threaten her, kidnap her, torture her. And she will have no idea why."
"Then tell the authorities. Have her brought into protective custody."
"I have. Calloway knows. The Australian government has already contacted the Swiss authorities. But official protection is not enough. The buyers are too powerful, too well-connected. They will find a way around any government. What she needs is someone who understands what they are dealing with. Someone who has fought them and won."
Li Yun rose from the chair and walked to the window. The sunset was fading, the gold giving way to the deep blue of twilight. Somewhere out there, a young woman was living her life, unaware of the storm that was about to descend on her. An innocent heir to a legacy of blood and fire.
"You are asking me to protect the last of the Changsun bloodline," Li Yun said. "After everything your family has done to mine."
"I am asking you to protect an innocent person. The same way you protected the men on the Sea Vulture. The same way you protected Dr. Reyes on the island. You do not punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. That is not who you are."
Li Yun turned back to face him. "And if I refuse?"
"Then she will die. Or worse, she will be taken and used as a bargaining chip. The buyers will force her to reveal secrets she does not know. They will destroy her, and when they realize she has nothing to give them, they will discard her like all the others."
The machines beeped steadily. Peter Changsun's eyes were fixed on Li Yun's face, and in them was something Li Yun had never seen before. Not calculation. Not defiance. Desperation.
"I will find her," Li Yun said. "I will make sure she is protected. But I am not doing this for you. I am doing it because it is the right thing to do."
"I know. That is why I asked you."
Li Yun walked back to the bed and sat down. "Tell me her name. Tell me where to find her."
"Her name is Elena. Elena Voss. She lives in Geneva. She works for a non-profit organization, something to do with ocean conservation. Ironic, I know."
"Does she know about you? About your connection to her?"
"No. She believes her father was a businessman who died when she was young. The money for her education came from a trust fund, administered by lawyers. She has never questioned it."
"Then how will I convince her to trust me? A stranger, showing up at her door, telling her that her father was a slaver and that people are trying to kill her?"
Peter Changsun reached under his pillow and withdrew a small object. It was a pendant, a silver cherry blossom on a thin chain. "Give her this. She has the matching one. Her mother gave them to us, years ago. She will know it means the message is genuine."
Li Yun took the pendant. It was light, delicate, the cherry blossom petals rendered in exquisite detail. He thought of the code phrase Peter Changsun had given him for Dr. Reyes. The cherry blossoms are still blooming. The same symbol, used to unlock two different doors.
"I will go to Geneva," Li Yun said. "I will find her. I will protect her."
"Thank you."
The machines continued their steady beeping. Outside, the last light of the sun faded below the horizon, and the room was filled with shadows.
"There is one more thing," Peter Changsun said. "The drive. The one Dr. Reyes gave you."
Li Yun felt the weight of the drive in his pocket, where he had carried it since leaving the island. "What about it?"
"I know you have it. Corazon told Calloway, and Calloway told me. You have not turned it over to the authorities."
"No. I have not."
"Why?"
Li Yun was silent for a moment. "Because I do not know what to do with it. The knowledge on that drive could change the world. It could cure diseases, extend life, end suffering. Or it could be used to commit genocide. I am not ready to make that choice."
"You will have to, eventually. The world will not wait forever."
"I know. But when I make that choice, it will be my choice. Not yours. Not Solomon's. Not any government's. Mine."
Peter Changsun nodded slowly. "You really are the Wu Prince's descendant. He would have said the same thing."
"He drank the wine."
"Yes. He did. But he drank it believing it was the only way to protect the people he loved. It was not a surrender. It was a sacrifice."
Li Yun looked at the dying man, at the wasted body and the sharp eyes and the pendant in his hand. "You are not the Wu Prince."
"No. I am not. I am the man who framed him. The man who destroyed his family and profited from their suffering. I am the villain of this story. But at the end, I am trying to do something good. That is not redemption. I know that. But it is something."
Li Yun stood up. "I will come back tomorrow. We can talk more then."
"There may not be a tomorrow. The doctors say it could be tonight, or it could be a week. The disease does not keep a schedule."
"Then I will stay."
He sat back down in the chair. Outside, the stars were beginning to appear, cold and distant and indifferent. Inside, the machines beeped softly, counting down the seconds of a life that was almost over.
And Li Yun kept his vigil, watching over his enemy, waiting for the end.
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