The familiar buzzing sound brought Emily back to the moment – the embassy phone she’d handed to Li Li on the plane, she’d forgotten to switch it off. This was an oversight, though how serious remained to be seen. She dug it out of her bag and looked at the number, and realized that since she’d never bothered to set up an official address book with DSS, no name was displayed.
“Where are you? Everyone is asking.”
Emily glanced over to Li Li, who was halfway along the largest bamboo yet. “Who’s asking, Margie?”
“Everyone. Jepsen thinks you’re AWOL or UA, or whatever the correct acronym is… and Redmond has been bugging me for the past two days.”
“What about Nyquist? Has he said anything?” He was supposed to have cleared her leave. It didn’t matter what Jepsen said, and especially not Redmond, as long as Nyquist backed her.
“Who’s Nyquist?”
“You know, the Cultural Attaché.”
“Oh… you mean the creepy guy with the office in the basement. I haven’t seen him. But where have you been? Are you still in Japan?”
“Don’t worry about us, Margie. We’re fine.”
“I’m sorry, Capt Tenno. I’m going to have to enter this contact into the official log.”
Margie ended the connection before Emily could ask why she’d turned suddenly formal. Had Nyquist somehow burned her? She could call Michael to straighten out whatever had happened, but involving him might bring unwanted complications, too. It occurred to her that she might just have time to call Nyquist directly, while Li Li played in the bamboo, and she scratched her head trying to think through how such a call might go.
“Let’s go, Li Li,” she said, with an eye on the beginnings of twilight. “I think the music may already have begun.”
“Do we have to?”
“Aren’t you hungry? I’m sure there will be food vendors.”
Eventually, Li Li relented, and the prospect of a skewered bird claw in spicy peanut sauce probably didn’t hurt – and Emily thought that any Chinese girl should be acquainted with the full range of stick-food available on the streets of most cities. In the event, they arrived at the bandstand in time to hear the last two songs, one the ballad of a long lost love from Hunan, and the other a rousing anthem to the annual dragon boat race, sung with the accompaniment of flutes, drums, a gong and a large stringed instrument that resembled an oversized lute.
A change of musical regime took about thirty minutes, while the acoustic instruments were packed up and an electric band set up their equipment. The embassy phone buzzed again, and another unfamiliar number appeared on the readout. If Margie had been serious about logging the previous call, she half-expected to hear Jepsen’s voice booming out of the earpiece.
“What happened to your windowless basement office?” A familiar voice caressed her ear, much more welcome than the Defense Attaché’s, but not entirely welcome either.
“How did you get this number?”
“I have my ways,” Wu Dao said.
“You mean your father has ways. But I really wish you hadn’t made use of them, whatever they were.”
“Not only do I have your number, I also know where you are, which is more than I can say for the people at your embassy.”
“You’re tracking my phone?” Emily’s face grew warm at this thought, and she turned away to keep Li Li from seeing it. If need be, she’d buy her another bird claw.
“I must, say, Daozi, you’re not very good at making a fellow feel welcome. I can be down there tomorrow evening, if that would demonstrate my devotion sufficiently. I gather that’s what American girls like, commitment… or something like that.”
“I’d better not see you here,” she snapped at him. “I told you, I need some space. Is that so hard to comprehend?” Even as the last words left her mouth, she snapped her head around, worried that he was already there. But he was nowhere to be seen… though a few men in business suits could be seen scattered around the concert venue. Office workers lingering under the glow of the red lanterns perhaps… or something more sinister? She couldn’t tell. “Does your father have people down here?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. But if you’ll let me…”
Emily cut him off before he could unwind his latest declaration of undying affection. It wouldn’t be as obvious as that, but the result of his call might well be his presence in Shiyan, and she expected him to arrive a good deal earlier than tomorrow evening. The only solution she could think of was to make sure they were already up on the mountain before he got there. In the meantime, they might as well enjoy the music.
As it happened, Li Li was already quite curious, especially since some of the performers seemed not much older than her, and one or two brushed past her on the edge of the stage speaking Korean. K-pop had become the latest fad at her high school, and she recognized one of the tunes the first band covered, a ballad about love that shifted into English and Mandarin at a few points – five young boys sang at the front of the stage, and Li Li couldn’t get close enough to see them. The next band featured three girls, who couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than Li Li, and she sang along with their cover of an American pop song. The kids standing around her began to hop up and down, and she did the same, hoping to catch a better glimpse of the singers. Eventually, it seemed like the entire crowd consisted of teenagers, all hopping in time with the music.
At first, Emily wanted to hop alongside Li Li, but her shoulder bag made this difficult, and she drifted to the side of the crowd. A riser along one edge allowed her to keep Li Li in view the whole time, and she gestured in a futile effort to attract her attention to this spot, from which she’d have a clear, if more aloof view of the bands. Eventually, perhaps, she’d notice Emily was no longer by her side, and until that moment, it would have to be enough to scan the crowd for any threats. By now, the office workers in gray suits had cleared out and the scene was the province of a younger, more casually dressed set. A cluster of older men stood on the far side of the bandstand, chatting above the music, slapping backs – these weren’t operatives
A few boys had noticed her, long braid trailing behind her, dressed in clothes from a Seoul flea market – Emily would never have noticed the subtle fashion cues, but everyone Li Li’s age would. How many chances did a teenage girl get to occupy the sweet spot of pop culture? There was no way Emily could imagine cheating her of this moment.
In between songs, other kids spoke to her, and from where she stood, Emily could only imagine what they said. Would they notice the distinctiveness of her accent, the difference in her consonants? They’d both commented on the peculiarities of the Wuhan-hua spoken by the locals. Perhaps the other kids would think she was ‘cool’ for coming from Beijing – that’s what she’d sound like to them.
After the last song, the park maintenance team turned on the floodlights, and the harsh glow nudged the crowd on their way. Approaching from her side vantage, Emily circled warily as a cluster of teens – two boys and two girls – commiserated with Li Li on the end of the entertainment. They laughed, she even shrieked when one of the girls whispered in her ear. How much she wanted to be able to say yes a few minutes later when Li Li said, “They say there’s a party. Can I go?” This was the life Emily wanted for her, carefree, making friends easily, just another Chinese kid, accepted by her peers. This was the life Emily herself had never known. Even if the answer had to be ‘no’, the reassurance of her ability to fit in precisely where she belonged offered both of them some consolation.
25
Wudangshan
A bus from the train station would take them to the main gate, roughly halfway up the mountain, but the seventy minutes it would take made the taxi ride look much more attractive. Fortunately, even the taxi fare was cheap by American standards, and they stood outside the gate by half past seven.
“It’s cloudy,” Li Li said. “There’s no sign of the sun…”
“There will be, soon.”
“…
and I’m cold.”
Emily held out the cotton hoodie she’d remembered to bring for just this eventuality. This must be what it feels like to be Mom. Another handful of coins got them two entry passes, and their spiritual journey was about to begin. Eight hundred or so meters in elevation to the top, and though shuttle buses were available for weary tourists, Emily had every reason to expect the girl who ran to the top of Mt. Inari in Kyoto would have no trouble scaling what remained of Wudangshan. But somehow, in the absence of Stone, Li Li’s competitive spirit had flagged a bit. The better part of valor was to pay a little extra for the cable car ride up the main peak and limit their walking to the downhill slope, as well as whatever it would take to see the Jinding, or Golden Palace, at the very summit.
“What kind of helicopter is that, Emmy?”
“Mi-8, Russian-made,” she said with a glance, her mind someplace else.
“What’s the hook for?”
Emily picked up her head from a closer scene that had captured her attention. “Oh, that’s a cargo hook. That bird is rated to haul a ton, or a ton and a half. I’d guess it’s part of the mountain fire service, and they use it to haul water. I wonder why they didn’t remove the hook… are they carrying passengers?”
“Wouldn’t it have been cool to get a helicopter ride to the top?”
“Look at them go.” Emily had already lost interest in Li Li’s speculation, and touched her shoulder and gestured to a couple running along a path some fifty feet below the cable car. A tall man dressed in loose clothes, and a shorter woman with a long braid who sprinted on ahead and then paused by the reaching branch of a gingko tree to let him catch up. A moment later, they were off again, and quickly disappeared into a stand of oaks.
“Are they monks, or something?”
“I don’t think they have female monks here,” Emily said. “Whatever they are, it looks like they’re in superb condition.”
“There they are.” Li Li pointed to a ridgeline path on the far side of the trees, where the pair was silhouetted against the last few clouds the sun had yet to burn off. Was she envious? Emily hoped the sight had sparked something in her little charge. “No, I don’t wish I was running with them,” Li Li added, when she noticed Emily’s arched eyebrow.
It was a short walk from the cable car landing to the Jinding entryway, but for some reason not readily apparent to any of the tourists present, the old man at the gate wouldn’t allow anyone through the walls surrounding the small ‘forbidden city’, even the ones waving the twenty-seven yuan entry fee at him. Li Li stepped back to catch a glimpse of the Golden Palace over the wall, and spotted the two runners again.
“How’d they get in, Emmy?”
“Is there another entrance, do you think… or did they just find a low spot on the wall?” The thought of hopping the wall had a certain appeal, though she wasn’t confident it would be the best example to set. Another tourist, who spoke enough Mandarin to guess at what the man at the gate said into a telephone, reported to the people around him that the delay seemed to be caused by the arrival of a VIP. Emily hadn’t begun to put it all together until that moment, and when she saw a burly man in a dark gray suit approach from the temple and signal to keep the gate closed, she knew. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to Li Li.
“What is it, Emmy?”
“Nothing, sweetheart, but maybe this isn’t really worth waiting all this time for.” The burly man looked in their direction and when he caught Emily’s eye, she recognized him as Wu Wei’s man, one of the bodyguards assigned to Wu Dao. She nudged Li Li behind a knot of impatient tourists and pointed to a nearby stand of trees. “Wait for me there. No questions. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Li Li protested briefly, but the expression in Emily’s eyes persuaded her to comply, and she trotted off. Emily then stepped to the front of the crowd to confront the men at the gate.
“You may inform Wu Dao that I will not be entertaining his company today,” she said.
”Please, Miss…” The burly bodyguard reached for her arm, no doubt to escort her up to the Golden Palace, but a simple twist of his wrist, her fingers coiled across his palm and thumb, and a bit of pressure applied to the back of his contorted hand, brought him to his knees in pain.
She crouched to whisper, her lips a few inches from his ear: “Your errand here is done. Your master has inconvenienced these people long enough. Go now, and do not trouble me again.” She released him and turned to the old gatekeeper: “Allow these people in, and stop catering to the idle son of a rich man. Show some dignity.”
True to her word, a moment later Emily held Li Li by the hand and stepped quickly toward the path down the mountain. Mostly they just walked at a brisk pace, but here and there – in places where they wouldn’t be noticed – she broke into a run.
“Not so fast, Emmy, please. Why are we running?”
“We need to move quickly…” She paused to consider what she was saying. What exactly was the threat here? Did she merely want to avoid letting Wu Dao learn of Li Li’s existence? It might lead to a sticky conversation later, but it could probably be managed, at least when it came to soothing Perry. Of course, no explanation would save her from some share of mortification in front of Li Li, and it would be well-deserved. But this was no reason to frighten her now. Still, if Wu Dao had been able to find her, and get down here already, others might have been able to track her phone, too. She hardly knew who these others might be – Jiang Xi, but he would hardly be a threat; or Wu Wei’s people, but they were not likely to be dangerous; or Jepsen, but what could he want other than to embarrass her with a charge that would easily be cleared up – but this accounting did not set her mind at ease and she still felt an imperative to act decisively.
“Where are we going?” Li Li had managed to extricate her hand from Emily’s grip and find a seat on a stone wall. A trio of macaques watched from the branches of a nearby tree, eyes wide with curiosity.
“Nan Yan Gong,” Emily said, pointing at a signpost. “The South Cliff Temple, it’s just a few hundred yards down this path.” This was an understatement, since the winding path could take almost an hour, but she didn’t want to discourage her little charge.
“But why are we running?”
This was a fair question, and Emily crouched in front of Li Li to answer it. “I’m not sure, sweetheart, but it doesn’t feel quite right up here. I think we need to be extra cautious.”
“Was it that man in the dark suit?”
“Yes, in part…”
“Who is he, Emmy? I saw you speaking to him.”
“He works for a very powerful man in Beijing. He’s not a threat to us, but other people may have followed him… we need to get down the mountain as quickly as we can, and without being seen… and avoid anyone who looks like him. Can you do that?”
Li Li stood up and turned toward the signpost. “Let’s go, then.”
The path to Nan Yan Gong was a combination of stone steps and well-worn dirt and gravel trails, and they were deserted enough that they could run most of the way. At one point, Emily pulled Li Li into a glade of gingko trees to avoid a knot of tourists climbing toward them. In the rocks over head, a peregrine falcon alighted near what must have been its nest, and Emily resisted the urge to point it out to Li Li. While they stood under the gingkos, the couple they’d noticed earlier ran past, probably continuing their morning exercise ritual.
“Would you like to run with them now?” Emily asked.
Catching up took a bit more effort than Li Li probably expected, and maybe they slowed a bit when they became aware of the pursuit. Just outside the main courtyard of the South Cliff Temple, the couple stepped to the side of the main path and bowed as Li Li dashed past, and Emily got a better look at them. The man was dressed in the old style, loose cotton pants and a brown tunic, the overall effect being more that of a scholar than a monk, and the woman, lean and trim, wore something a bit more modern, cargo pants and a dark hoodie covered by a denim jacket.
At its peak, over a hundred buildings had huddled near the cliff’s edge, many of which were mere ruins or currently under renovation now. But the main buildings, carved out of the stone of the mountain itself, were still extensive, and monks could be seen bustling about on various terraces and courtyards, or in some of the larger chambers. Across the gorge, the neighboring peaks were still shrouded in mist, and a flight of swallows swooped and careened on the morning air currents. Li Li wanted to explore inside the complex, and Emily thought it might be as well to let her rest, especially since she’d be indoors at a convenient time.
“Look, Emmy… isn’t that Zhenwu?” She’d found a large installation of bronze statues, with a central figure standing on a turtle and a snake, and surrounded by a retinue of warriors.
“Do you see the octagon in the floor?” Emily placed her feet on one edge and held her hands just as she remembered Wu Yutian doing. “Come, stand next to me… and do what I do.”
“It’s a yin and a yang.”
“Exactly. We should bear that in mind as we practice. Everything changes into something else, and our technique must be flexible.” She took a low, lunging step to the right and shifted her hands, and Li Li tried to copy her. Another step and another hand position, and they gradually moved around the octagon. The tourists had not discovered this chamber yet, though a few hours later it would probably be impossible to move with any amount of freedom.
“It’s just like in those paintings, Emmy.” Four rows of sixteen tiles stretched around three walls, and Li Li ran over to examine them more closely. Emily walked over and stood next to her.
“Each stance leads to the next, and see how the hands flow into each other?” Emily held her arms out and demonstrated several poses. Initially rigid, stopping at fixed points, pausing for an instant each time, but after the first cycle of eight she moved faster, her arms swirling in elaborate circles and spirals as she traced the circle around Li Li.
Girl Goes To Wudang (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 7) Page 27