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wasn’t
squatting. I was trying to figure out where our shooter may have been.”
    Ping
looked at the victims. “Are you sure we’re not looking for a tank?”
    Li
chuckled then immediately cut himself off. “We must be serious. There are too
many eyes here,” he muttered.
    Ping
nodded, sipping her coffee. “Sorry,” she mumbled into the cup.
    Li gave
her a half wink, just for her benefit. She was young, only twenty-five, and the
first of her cohort to begin taking real jobs in society, and the first cohort
to have been corrupted by the modern influences of the Western decadent
lifestyle. He was of another generation, a little simpler perhaps, much more
conservative, but he had to admit the new freedoms and prosperity that had come
to his country over the past decade were welcome.
    And he
took a sip of one of those new freedoms.
    Li
beckoned one of the officers and he jumped it seemed several centimeters
straight up then rushed over.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Have
someone look at the top of that roof”—he pointed through the gates—“and see if
they find anything. Bullet casings, anything. Be careful not to destroy any
evidence—everyone wears gloves.”
    The man
bowed, then rushed off to carry out his orders with one of his fellow officers.
Li turned back to the blood splatter.
    “So what do we have here?” asked Ping.
    “It
looks like two tourists were shot with a very high-powered rifle from—I
would guess—the top of that roof.” Again he pointed.
    “Motive?”
    “None of
the traditional motives, I would think. Obviously not robbery, I doubt it was
jealousy or some love-triangle. Not with a weapon like that.” He rubbed his
chin then scratched behind his ear. “No, I’m guessing they were specifically
targeted—some sort of assassination—or randomly targeted, perhaps for being
tourists, for some political statement.”
    “I think
we can operate under the assumption that the latter is not true.”
    Li
jumped at the voice behind him and Ping almost spit her coffee. He instantly
recognized the voice of Superintendent Hong Zhi-kai, their boss.
    “Practicing
your stealth techniques again, sir?” asked Li with a smile as he turned to face
the man five years his junior—at least. With good family contacts, Hong had
risen up the ladder far faster than Li could ever dream, and would continue
rising so long as his family was in favor with the Party apparatchik. Li, on the other hand, came from a poor family, and was lucky to
have risen as far as he had.
    That was
one difference in Chinese society compared to Western. At least he thought it
was if he was to believe the limited Western propaganda he’d been exposed to.
In the West, you could advance on merit and hard work, all the way to the top.
A black president with a Muslim name was proof of that, or so he had heard. But
in China? You only advanced to the upper levels if you were connected.
    Or had
something on someone who was.
    But he
didn’t care. It was a good life. A life of service, a life he could be proud
of, and it afforded him a salary sufficient enough to take care of his beloved
Xiao, and their daughter Juan. And if things kept going the way they were
going, he could only see things getting better.
    “I
hardly think humor is appropriate at a time like this,” scolded Superintendent Hong.
    Li gave
a bow. “Of course, sorry, sir. It is just my way of relieving the tension such
a gruesome scene inevitably produces.”
    Hong
seemed satisfied with the explanation, and pointed to the roof inside the
Forbidden City that now had several officers on top.
    “What are
they doing?”
    “Looking
for shell casings. I believe the shooter may have been on top of that roof.”
    “Based
upon what?”
    “Just a
guess at the trajectory.”
    “We
don’t guess when it comes to homicides.”
    Li
bowed, getting a little pissed off. “Of course not, sir. It was simply an
hypothesis based upon my nearly thirty years of experience, sir.”
    There
was a yell