Rain streamed past the slim oval window as a storm brewed over Shanghai. Snippets of news coverage labeled it the worst ever to hit the city. Alan Zhang saw that his plane was approaching the thicket of skyscrapers in the Pudong district, swathed in smog and heavy storm clouds. The Yangtze River, usually clogged with cargo ships and ferries, was empty. The closer the plane got, the uneasier Alan felt. The place looked dead, a ghost town.
This nightmare of a trip started when he received a cryptic message from Father early that morning. He had just finished a marathon run of his lecture on construction engineering at his old university when he listened to a voice mail on his cell. "Come to Shanghai immediately. Our lives depend upon this." That was it. Alan hadn't been able to contact Father since. Frantically, he had checked out of his hotel in San Francisco, calling his assistant to tell her to cancel the rest of his appointments. Whatever made Father scared made him absolutely terrified.