“I made it a point to visit the bloke, just about every day. He was tight-lipped but could speak English. Not a lot, but enough.
His name was Chan Ho. I tested him for TB without anyone else knowing, but was disappointed when he tested negative because it blew holes in my theory. Still in the process of stopping by every day I got to know the fellow a bit. I learned he was some kind of Buddhist monk. He’d learned Chinese martial arts as part of his studies. Now, that caught my attention; martial arts have been my sport since I’ve been knee-high to a wallaby. When the bloke got out of the hospital, I invited him to come to my gym.
He turned out to be unbelievable at kung fu.”
Marissa remembered how the Chinese man in the gray suit had disarmed Paul Abrums with a deft kick.
“Then I learned something else: Chan loved beer. He’d never had any until he’d come to Australia, or so he said. I discovered that after a few good Australian beers he loosened up. That’s when he really surprised me. I found out he wasn’t from Hong Kong at all, he came from a town near Guangzhou in the People’s
Republic of China.”
“He was from Communist China?” Marissa asked.
“That’s what he told me,” Tristan said.
“I was surprised too.
Apparently he’d just passed through Hong Kong-illegally, I might add. One night I managed to get him really pissed-” “You got him angry?” Marissa was confused.
“No! Drunk,” Tristan said.
“Then he really opened up. He told me that in the PRC he’d been a member of a secret society, a martial arts organization called the White Lotus. He said that it was because of his martial arts ability that he’d been brought out of China by one of the Hong Kong triads called the Wing Sin.
Apparently the FCA footed the bill. He led me to believe that they paid big bucks for him and his companion to be smuggled here to Australia.”
“But why?” Marissa asked. Tristan’s story was going in directions she’d never anticipated. They seemed far afield from the issue of
TB.
“I had no idea,” Tristan admitted.
“But it all intrigued me.
Seemed like a weird kind of program, especially since it was supposed to involve the government. I started thinking all sorts of things, like maybe it had something to do with Hong Kong being turned over to the PRC in 1997.”
“The last thing Communist China needs is in-vitro fertilization,”
Marissa said.
“Don’t I know it,” Tristan said.
“Nothing made sense to me.
So I tried quietly asking around the clinic again, but still I couldn’t find anyone who would say anything about these visitors, especially anyone in administration. I talked to the director again, but he warned me to leave it alone. I should have taken his advice.”
Tristan tipped his head back and finished his beer. Standing, he asked Marissa if she was ready for another. She shook her head.
She hadn’t finished the one she had. While Tristan went back into the kitchen, she reviewed in her mind what he’d told her. it was certainly curious, but hardly what she’d come thousands of miles to hear.
Tristan came back with a new beer and reclaimed his seat.
“I know this all sounds weird,” he admitted.
“But I was convinced that if I could figure out why the Chinese were there, then I’d be able to explain the salpingitis cases. That might sound strange, but they were happening at the same time, and I was convinced it couldn’t have been by chance. And whether the PRC needed it or not, I thought that these Chinese technicians were being trained in in-vitro techniques. When they were at the clinic, they were always in the in-vitro lab.”
“Do you think it could have been the other way around?”
Marissa asked.
“Maybe the Chinese were providing information rather than getting it.”
“I doubt that,” Tristan said.
“Modern technical medicine is not one of China’s strong suits.”
“Yet around the time you’re talking about,” Marissa said, “the FCA did start to show a rather sudden increase in overall efficiency with their in-vitro. I read about it in the medical school library.”