In the near future, tech whiz Milo Warwick, an MIT grad student, is murdered, and the laptop containing his PhD thesis -- a program and a hearing aid-like device that would think for you and recall your past if you couldn’t -- is missing.
His best friend, rising tennis star and American “prince” Alex Darlington suspects Chinese espionage and interjects himself into the investigation, led by his godfather, CIA China Bureau chief Mitch Abramson.
But the more immersed Alex becomes in the investigation, the more he is drawn into the past and the world of Tamara Chen, the cool Chinese cultural attaché whose staging of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot for China’s One World Festival may hold the key to why the opera-crazed Milo died and the whereabouts and password of his computer.
“Did you know that the story of Turandot has its origins in a Persian tale of Alexander the Great and how his love for the Nubian Candace, or Queen, spurred him to risk everything -- indeed, his very life -- to answer three riddles and so win her love?” Tamara Chen asked Alex Darlington. “We’ll have a panel on that at the One World Festival, along with one on storytelling. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? How stories get transmuted over time. Everything is narrative, Alex.”
“And that narrative seems to be boy meets girl, girl tests boy, boy is found wanting,” he said, trying not to sound petulant. “I mean, demanding you solve life-threatening riddles to win a woman’s love -- pretty extreme, isn’t it? It always seems -- even in the animal kingdom -- that the male has to prove himself over and over again, often for a capricious female who may reject that proof and him.”
“But the female in turn has to relinquish so much, the very citadel of herself, which becomes the vessel for future life,” Tamara countered. “Sometimes her body isn’t even hers to relinquish. In Turandot’s case, her famous aria, ‘In questa reggia,’ ‘In This Palace,’ is all about the great ancestress who reigned in peace and joy until she was torn from the palace by a foreign invader and then ripped from the citadel of herself. I don’t see Turandot as some monster to be tamed by a man. I see her as a princess protecting the sanctity of all women, of womanhood itself.”
“By playing a stacked game that no man can hope to win?” Alex asked. He was warming to the serve and volley of the conversation, his cheeks growing flushed. Or was it the Champagne?
“By assuring that she -- or any other woman -- at least can’t lose on an uneven playing field. Isn’t that what your American President Gayle Robbins, the one who succeeded your father, pledged -- a new era for women? But I’m afraid that this is no way to enlist your help in persuading your fellow players to join you and Ramon in the festival tournament and make it more than an exhibition.”
Wait, was she dissing him and Ramon in that pivot? Alex wondered. Equally baffling to him was his response: “Tamara, tell me what and who you need and I’ll deliver them.” What happened to the bitch goddess, Alex? What happened to you being mad at her? But he couldn’t stay mad at her, any more than he could deny someone in need and he still so wanted to impress her.
“That,” she said, “is more than I hoped for. Okay, I’ll draw up my wish list and let you get cracking on it. And I promise from now on, we’ll be in close communication.” She raised her glass. “To our partnership.”
“To us,” Alex said.
But as he made his way back to his suite -- alone again, he thought -- he was beginning to wonder if he had it all backward. Tamara’s coolness wasn’t about being Chinese or professional or ambitious or some kind of industrial spy. Rather, she was some kind of super-feminist who didn’t want women to be hurt, who didn’t want herself to be hurt. She wasn’t about to give herself to a man who was less than worthy, and what really did he have to offer -- he who was in reality the son of an assassin and the married woman who not so unwittingly loved him?
Maybe it was all that Champagne and wild game with black truffle this and bittersweet chocolate that -- to go along with the bitterness of his romantic prospects -- but he was beginning to feel woozy and slightly nauseated as he made his way back to his suite at the Ritz Paris, where he suddenly snapped to attention. CIA China Bureau chief Mitch Abramson, his godfather and sometime coach, was sitting there under the portrait of Maria Callas, a woman as tragic as the opera heroines she portrayed, waiting for him.
“You know, I’m seriously beginning to hate surprises in hotel suites,” Alex said.
