“So if Masuyo wasn’t in the prison, where was she?”
“You said she was a loyal agent of China?”
“Yes. Dropped into Japan decades ago to disrupt that country’s democracy before she turned to crime.”
“Maybe her turning to crime was the plan all along,” said Nash.
“Explain that.”
“It’s never made sense to me that someone like Masuyo, loyal to her country’s ideology, would suddenly turn to building a criminal empire. What if she was placed into Japan to do just that? Marry a Westerner to throw off suspicion and then start building this global outfit that would end up benefiting Beijing?”
“To do what, exactly?” asked Morris.
“Exactly what she has been doing. Flooding the U.S. and other countries with drugs, crime, and violence. That by itself is more disruptive than anything she could have done as strictly an agent of the Chinese in Japan.”
“And her family?”
“She had five kids. But only Victoria Steers is the child of the man she actually loved. The others were fathered by Joseph Steers.”
“How did you come by that knowledge?”
Nash said, “Steers’s nanny. That’s why Victoria has always been her mother’s favorite. And the nanny also believed that Masuyo actually killed her other children, but tricked Victoria into thinking she did it.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that before. Do you really think this nanny was right?”
“She could be. Steers has compassion and empathy. Masuyo has none.”
“But Steers had your daughter killed!”
“I’ve been trying to reconcile that,” conceded Nash. He was now thinking of his wife and her inability to figure out why Maggie would have said those things about him.
I was innocent. Is Steers also somehow innocent? And do you want that to be true for personal reasons?
“So do you think Masuyo was back in China instead of at the prison?” said Morris.
“When I saw her in Myanmar she looked beaten down, dirty, thin. But that could all be staged. Idothink she went back to China because her daughter was running the empire and doing it well. She also might have suspected that her enemies might try to kill her. And therewasan attempt on the family’s lives after Masuyo left.”
“By taking down that plane, you mean?” said Morris.
“Yes. Her father died and Steers almost did, too.”
“Why did Steers finally decide to break her mother out then?”
“I’m not sure about the timing.”
“So, presumably Connor Lord had Masuyo brought back to the prison so she could—what?—be rescued by her daughter?”
“That has to be it. Which means they knew Steers was going to make an attempt. She had one inside person at the prison. He could have been working for Connor Lord, too.”
“But why let Steers get her mother out, then, if they knew it was coming?”
“I think I have the answer to that. The Chinese might want Masuyo to return to power to get the fentanyl deaths back up. You alluded to it before, but now I’m convinced that their falling number was due in large part to Victoria swapping out fentanyl in the pill production for other, less fatal substances. The Chinese must be working with Lord to get Masuyo back in power to reverse that.”
“So Masuyo was brought back onto the scene to take over the empire. But how does that mesh with Steers now selling her business to Lord?”
“I don’t think the Chinese or Lord or even Masuyo saw that coming. Steers threw them a curveball, and Lord is one of the best chess players in the world. That must have done a number on his ego. I think she did it deliberately to throw them all off their stride. A bold chess move of her own. And, Reed, she didn’t have to tinker with the pill production. She put herself in danger with that. That should count for something.”
“All right,” said Morris slowly, clearly not reading as much into this gesture as Nash obviously did. “I told you that Lord was on his way to the U.S. He’s now on the West Coast.”