Girl Goes To Wudang (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 7)

by Jacques Antoine

  True to her word – not counting the deception about their destination – they had gone within seconds, or at least a few minutes, during which time Yu Fei bound them all with tape. Five minutes later, they’d turned down three corners, and were moving toward the Eastern Bus Station as quickly as Shao Yao could manage the wheelchair on a public street. The situation was beset by paradoxes – move too quickly and every bystander notices, but move too slowly and a simple search would find them; stick to the back streets and the uneven sidewalks would jostle Emily too much, but move to the smoother promenades of the main avenues and they’d be easy to spot.

  “This way, Yao,” Yu Fei said. It’s only ten blocks.”

  “But they’re long blocks,” he said. “We’ll be totally exposed the whole way.”

  “Let Li Li push me ahead,” Emily said, as loudly as she could manage. “You follow at a distance. They’ll be looking for four people, not two.”

  It was difficult to stay focused, but at least the fever had come down, and the searing pain at every bump in the sidewalk kept Emily awake. Yu Fei walked ahead by a dozen or so yards, and Shao Yao trailed them by a short distance. Perhaps now they weren’t quite as distinctive a grouping as when they left the clinic. Also in their favor, in the early evening the crowds on the avenue had thinned, which meant Emily was subject to less jostling, and it was easier to spread out further.

  In a city composed mainly of vast housing blocks, at least near the center, the rhythms of work and play were very sharply marked, with many hours in which locals and tourists might dominate the scene, and others in which the sidewalks and great public squares could feel deserted. As the sun crept below the horizon, streetlights flickered to life, individually, here and there, and then in platoons and battalions, until artificial light had completely supplanted the natural, and most people had retreated indoors, either for a dinner or for rest and respite after a long day.

  As they approached the area of the East Bus Station in Nanbu, the avenue broadened and massive stone gates decorated with pagoda-style roofs marked off the space into vast, now almost vacant squares. In the distance, it was almost possible to glimpse the shimmering surface of Dianchi Lake, and the inevitably dry, thin air of a city at an altitude of over six thousand feet felt at least the tiniest bit more humid.

  Shao Yao recognized the danger before the others, that they’d be exposed out in the open, and called out a warning: “Take cover.” But the cars had already arrived, three dark sedans screeched to a halt around them, and the few bystanders still out on the streets scattered.

  Closed circuit TV cameras whirred and panned, perhaps automatically, but Emily was alert. “Stay calm, sweetheart,” she said, as loudly as she could manage, and reached for Li Li’s hand.

  Shao Yao darted for one edge of the square, and Yu Fei ran to the other side, and the men emerging from the cars seemed frozen in a moment of indecision.

  “Emmy, they’re abandoning us,” Li Li cried out.

  “Don’t worry… just keep close,” she said, struggling to remain conscious for Li Li’s sake, though there was so little she could do to avert the danger.

  Two men ran in pursuit of Shao Yao, and when he suddenly turned on them, swinging the chain whip, one man fell, his neck gushing blood, a puddle forming on the pavement, while the second man was slashed across the forehead, cheek and chest. Stunned by the blow, and the warm blood bathing his face, he hardly knew what to do, assist his fallen comrade or seek assistance for himself. Finally, he regained enough self-possession to scream in pain and clutch at the wound.

  The men chasing after Yu Fei turned at the sound, and she turned too, doubling back onto them in this instant of vulnerability. With shocking ferocity, she kicked through the back of a knee, upending her man and pivoting in time to kick his upturned face and crack his head into the pavement. Another man saw his chance, and attempted to fire a wired stun gun at her, but she evaded the barbed spikes, catching them on the baton she carried just in time to apply them to his face. The electric shock is not as paralyzing in a head strike as it would be in the chest, but it immobilized him long enough to allow her to strike him with the baton several more times.

  The savagery with which their newfound friends attacked these men surprised even Emily, in part because she feared Li Li’s reaction. “Wheel me back to the stone gate,” she croaked through the closing darkness, though it took a second for Li Li to collect herself. “The gate, sweetheart. Now’s our chance, while they’re distracted.”

  Two more men got out of the third car, guns drawn, and raced across the square to neutralize Shao Yao and Yu Fei, with no thought of Emily and her little charge. How far could they get, an invalid and a child? There would be plenty of time to deal with them later. A shot rang out, and then another, and Li Li turned to look.

  “It’s Shao Yao, Emmy. He’s been hit.” She wheeled Emily around in time to see the men incapacitate Yu Fei with repeated jolts from a stun gun. She’d run to the side of her ‘sibling by oath’ and met swift retribution from these men in gray suits. Lying helpless next to Shao Yao, they kicked and beat her prone and helpless body. “It’s too horrible, Emmy. Can’t we help them?”

  The question hung in the air for a moment, and as Emily’s head spun and the world began to tilt at an impossible angle, she caught a glimpse of Li Li launching herself at the last two men, kicking the back of a knee to force one to the ground and then turning to kick the other off of Yu Fei. “No, my darling girl, settle with the first man while he’s helpless,” a voice cried in her heart. In the twilight moment before, or perhaps after she lost consciousness, Emily felt the approach of another, sprinting, galloping across a distant pavement, like a lion running hyenas to ground on the Serengeti, heart pounding, surging as he runs. For an instant she saw through his eyes, the scene tinged lurid yellow, closer than she expected, aimed directly at her, at Li Li , all of them, like a guided missile. If only she could pick herself up, stand and stretch out her arms to absorb the impact and protect the others, wrap him up in her arms and keep him forever close… and then she heard his growl, his scream, the cry of a small boy across an impossible distance: “Ama.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and came to a brief, dusty focus, and she cringed to see both men recover themselves and turn to deal with her Li Li. She was skilled enough to land forceful strikes on these men, who outweighed her by fifty or sixty pounds. But Emily knew she wasn’t nasty enough, or cruel enough, to make them count in a real fight. She wanted to tear herself from the wheelchair and do something to protect her, but the pain was blinding and she hit the pavement hard, her eyes fixed on Li Li just as one of the men struck her face and shoved her to the ground. Emily’s heart pounded as if it would burst to see her manhandled in this way, one man crouching over her to strike again as the other turned back to Yu Fei.

  “Ama,” the voice roared, as if from deep in her chest.

  A sickening crack, and then a scream tore the air, and Emily opened her eyes again and saw one man stumble back, his face distorted as if he’d been struck by some sort of sledge, though she couldn’t quite see who had done it… Shao Yao, perhaps? But he was hardly strong enough for such a blow, and she hadn’t seen a weapon heavy enough to inflict such an injury in his kit. The last man turned to run as a looming figure seized him – broad shoulders and shaggy black hair, arms taut – and hurled the man head first through the rear window of one of the official cars idling nearby.

  Garbled images flashed before her eyes, if they were even open – Li Li driving, haltingly, with Yu Fei barking out orders to her from the back seat as she applied pressure to Shao Yao’s chest. The sound of gulping and shallow breaths; Yu Fei in the driver’s seat shouting back over the headrest. With a bump and a heave, the car veered off the pavement and all three people in the back leaned against the passenger door, and she hoped it wouldn’t pop open and spill them out. Now a much larger hand was holding Shao Yao’s wound together, and Emily’s touched it and traced it back to its owne
r, and saw his face for the first time.

  Eyes watering, she watched Stone carry Shao Yao into the farmhouse, and reached forward to clutch at Li Li in the front seat. Yu Fei flitted about Shao Yao, opening the front door to the decrepit structure – the windows were intact, but the roof didn’t appear able to keep out the elements – and following in after them. The scrapes and bruises on her face painted a mask of care. One question burned in her throat above all others and she was afraid to give it voice for fear it would make something true just to ask it.

  “Where are we?”

  Li Li stared at her in disbelief. “He’s here, Emmy. He found us. Why are you crying?”

  Emily hardly knew why she wept – not tears of joy, though she was glad of his miraculous appearance – more like dread, and deep-seated sorrow, that he had discovered a new dimension of his personality, which had been the entire meaning of Ba We’s existence, Stone’s “big brother.” It had consumed him and all his days until the last one, and Emily had hoped to give Stone a different kind of life.

  Other questions lingered, like how he’d located them, or even found his way to the mainland at all. This was utterly mysterious, and Emily wondered how to ask them, when Stone emerged from the farmhouse and came for them. Of course, carrying Emily in was no problem for him, and Li Li wrestled the wheelchair from the trunk.

  Inside the front door, they found Yu Fei examining Shao Yao’s body for wounds. He’d been laid out on a wooden table, and a few wooden chairs scattered about the room accounted for the rest of the available furniture, as if the house had long since been scavenged for odds and ends. The light wasn’t good, and Emily sent Li Li back out to the car to fetch anything that might be useful – flashlights, lanterns, a first aid kit, blankets, whatever she could think of… and carry.

  “Stone, go help her.”

  “He’s not breathing,” Yu Fei cried out, and Emily tried to balance herself against the edge of the table, the first time she’d managed to stand successfully. From this new vantage, and relying on the light from the headlights of the car, she pressed a finger against an artery in his neck.

  “He has a pulse, but it’s too fast,” Emily said, beginning to feel dizzy. She pointed to a bloody hole in this chest in the upper right quadrant – “A gunshot… is there an exit wound?”

  Yu Fei nodded. “It’s bigger, just below the shoulder blade.”

  “They usually are. His lung’s collapsed, that’s why he can’t breathe. We need to ventilate the chest cavity on this side… you understand? We need to let the air out, before it smothers his heart.”

  “What do we need, Sifu?

  Li Li returned with an armload of blankets, and Stone followed her in carrying a few bags and pouches, an electric lantern and two flashlights. Emily lowered herself into one of the wooden chairs to avoid passing out again, and gestured to Stone.

  “A large needle, or a tube, and a scalpel. Bring me that bag.” She checked the contents and turned to Yu Fei. “We can stabilize him here, but you need to find a doctor.”

  “Not possible… too dangerous…” Yu Fei paused to consider the impossibilities. “…and too far away.”

  “Take the car, find someone.” Yu Fei considered Emily’s advice. “We have what we need to take care of him until you get back. Go, now. Hurry.”

  Once Yu Fei had driven off, Emily guided Li Li’s fingers to a spot between two ribs near the sternum, and had her insert a large needle – Stone turned out to be too squeamish for the work, which Emily took as a sign of deep sympathy for Shao Yao’s suffering, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The rush of air through the needle was audible, and he began to breathe more easily, and his heart rate slowed. A broken rib probably caused the collapse, judging from the bruising, but Emily focused on showing Li Li how to apply an occlusive bandage to the entry and exit wounds on the opposite side.

  29

  The Road to Pu’er

  Once they’d crossed, Ip had been true to her word, and located a cousin with a car in Daluozhen who was willing to drive them to Pu’er, and Connie passed through Chinese border control with as little scrutiny as Tammy had expected. Perhaps having Ip on her arm helped distract the rather listless officials in this semi-autonomous province from the rigorous prosecution of their duties, since their faces resembled hers in one way or another. Any of them could turn out to be another relative, and a surprising number shared the family name Bao.

  Less clear, however was why Ip felt the need to accompany her any further. The going might get ugly at any moment, and though Ip’s local knowledge could prove invaluable – and her knowledge of English, or at least her willingness to use it, seemed to have grown at a surprising rate –the girl’s commitment to a cause not her own, and to people she’d known less than a month was even more startling. Connie hadn’t persuaded Danko to pluck her away from the Wa army merely as a way to recruit a spotter, though perhaps she didn’t realize the extent to which Ip felt she’d been rescued.

  Acquiring a long-barreled sniper rifle on this side of the border involved a few more complexities. At a meeting with smugglers, who may have been merely more cousins, outside the city of Banna – that was how Ip referred to Sipsongpanna, though the ethnic Chinese in the region called it Xishuangbanna – a long metal case changed hands, and when Connie offered a small roll of yuan it was refused, and bows and smiles were exchanged.

  “Hsu Qi?” she asked, once they’d gone.

  “Yes, Mrs. Connie, they also honor the Lady.”

  “I think this is where we part ways, Ip.”

  “Yes, Mrs, Connie,” she said, and picked up the long case to carry it to the car.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand. It could be dangerous.”

  Ip nodded and had a brief word with her ‘cousin,’ who promptly handed her the keys. “Not worry about him,” she said. “Friend get him later. Let’s go, Mrs. Connie.”

  Connie shook her head in wonder at the girl’s stubbornness, then got into the passenger seat. “You drive. I’ve got to check in.” She took out the mobile phone and punched in the new series of numbers Michael had given her.

  “We’ve had no contact,” Michael said, once Yuki and Andie had finished grilling her. If only she’d been able to give them good news, or really any news at all.

  “We’re on the road just north of Banna,” she said, and waited for him to locate it on a map. “Do you have anything to give me?”

  “Whose we?”

  “That’s a long story… just a kindred spirit I picked up en route.”

  “You’re probably five or six hours from Kunming… and we just picked up a few scattered reports of another bloody encounter with Interior Ministry operatives near the main bus station.”

  “You think it’s her?”

  “Hard to say. The Chinese usually keep this sort of thing quiet, unless they can blame it on the Uighurs, or some other terrorist group.”

  “… and they haven’t done that?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If she was in Kunming… how long ago?”

  “It’s hard to say, maybe a few hours or a few days.”

  “If she was there, what are her options?”

  “If she’s using buses, then it’s either Dali, where she can get a bus through Dehong and cross into Burma at Muse…”

  “Great. That’s where I was two days ago.”

  “… or she goes through Pu’er and Banna… the route you’re on now, and crosses at Daluozhen… or a bus through Honghe to a crossing into Vietnam at Lao Cai.”

  “You have to give me some way to choose. I can’t cover all those routes. Where’s Ethan now?”

  “He diverted to Kunming, should arrive there in two hours. You should rendezvous with him.”

  “No, send him to Dali, and I’ll go through Pu’er. That way we cover two out of three.”

  Ip squawked to get Connie’s attention. “Drug smugglers in Dali, many police agents there.”

  Connie relayed this information to
Michael, who thought it might not matter, since Emily probably wouldn’t be aware of the situation. “Smugglers will know the unwatched crossings,” he said.

  “My little friend thinks the crossing at Daluozhen is safer. That’s how we got in, and it’s not high tech. Also, Yunnan is a different ethnic mix than elsewhere in China, lots of Wa and Dai people. It’s not all Han, and Beijing’s control seems not quite as tight here. It’s a tropical backwater, up in the mountains.”

  “What about Vietnam?”

  “Those crossings will be fully manned, with the latest tech. Too much commerce, I think, for it to be safe. She’d realize that, don’t you think?”

  In the end, they decided she should go to Pu’er and look for any signs of Emily or Stone, at the bus station. Of course, the prospect of Stone stumbling upon her remained both absurd, and practically inevitable. The boy never spoke, but he always seemed to know how to find Emily. She didn’t doubt that his peculiar bond might be effective over thousands of miles. Of course, mysticism wouldn’t be necessary to explain it. He’d have access to better data than Michael’s SIGINT merely by listening to chatter on the ground in Wudang and Chengdu, since Emily seemed incapable of traveling quietly.

  Ninety minutes later, they crossed the outskirts of Simao, the southern suburb of Pu’er. Farmland brushed up against the western edge of the Pu’er Simao airport, and a sea of brightly colored roofs stretched out to the east. The local architectural taste had plumped for various shades of blue, though the favorite seemed to be the turquoise that had also captivated the imagination of so many painters in northern New Mexico.

  The virtual fossil record of the city was easy to see. A few irregularly shaped neighborhoods, with smaller, single family residences, clustered along the banks and fields of the Simao River, while further in, vast apartment complexes punctuated the burgeoning factory and warehouse districts, housing the workers who would service those enterprises. At the northern end of town, the government center buildings formed a huge circle, enclosing a sea of parking spaces, most of which would hardly ever be used – a sort of monument to the civic engagement the city planners imagined for the populace, but which seemed not to have materialized.