Ip made two circuits of the town along the optimistically named Tourist Ring Road, before pulling off near the Nahe Reservoir to give them a chance to work out a plan. The pavement ended some two hundred feet or so from the shoreline, but following the rutted dirt track closer to the water had the advantage of concealment, as well as affording them a view of two men turning over a fallow field on the opposite shore. Something about the scene commanded their attention, the field being relatively small and surrounded by woodlands that seemed to stretch past the horizon. Why till this little plot of land, and not the rest… and why situate it so close to what must be the main source of potable water for the city? Weren’t they worried about fertilizer runoff? Still, the two men pushed and pulled a large roto-tiller back and forth across the clearing, exposing the dark soil below and uprooting the weeds that had so eagerly filled the area.
“Tea,” Ip said, out of the blue. “Pu’er tea, very famous, fermented green tea.”
“But why here, along the lake?”
“Most pu’er grown in Banna, in the Six Tea Mountains… very expensive, come from wild trees. Men plant small plot of trees here, protected from wind by forest and lake, come back in two, three years and call it wild, make more money.”
Connie scanned the opposite shore and recognized several other plots that must have been planted in previous years. The camelia trees had grown in and were indistinguishable at this distance from the surrounding forest.
“It’s a scam, then?”
“Scam?” Ip tilted her head to consider the new word.
“They’re selling fake wild tea?”
“Yes, fake… scam.” Ip smiled broadly as she spoke. “But Australia and India, don’t taste difference. Every-body happy.”
“Who gets the real pu’er?”
“Mountain people.”
It had gradually dawned on Connie just how much this end of Yunnan province was home to Ip. One of the few places in China without a Han ethnic majority, more than half the people looked like her, and though they all seemed able to speak Mandarin, as far as Connie could tell, most of what she heard seemed to be something else. Later, as they sat in a restaurant whose name Ip translated for her as “Spicy Shack,” Connie couldn’t help wondering how she’d ended up in Burma trailing the Wa army. Those were her people, too, but they weren’t her family, and they had no connection to her important enough to keep her from getting on the back of a scooter with two foreign strangers.
“My parents die last year,” Ip said.
She’d ordered fried banana flower and some baba bread filled with savory bean curd for them, and Connie tried not to admit how spicy the ‘Across the Bridge’ Noodles, really were, though her eyes had begun to water. Perhaps this was only to be expected this far south and so near Sichuan, but the pineapple rice promised some relief.
“Don’t you have other relatives here?”
“Uncle wanted marry me to merchant in Lincang for…”
“A pair of oxen?”
“No, just renminbi.”
“Would that have been so bad?”
“He very old, and his son will return me after he die, and…”
“Your uncle would have found another old man?” Ip nodded. “So you left to find your own way. I respect that.” Ip’s eyes lit up to hear Connie’s approval, and she nudged the pineapple rice in her direction.
“We need a new phone,” Connie said, as they stood in the parking lot under the mercury lights that had flickered on prematurely. The sun wouldn’t abandon the sky for another hour, but the shadow of the surrounding mountains had already crept across the western end of town. As it happened, shops and street vendors hawking prepaid phones were not far to seek, and Ip negotiated for one with a car charger so they could use it right away. Once they found a spot with good reception, Connie punched in the new string of numbers and waited for the call to find a route to Michael.
“It’s a small city,” Connie said. “About the size of Roanoke. We’ve got the lay of the land… if she comes this way.”
“The news is of a terrorist attack in Kunming, another knife slashing like one last year. Reports have them scouring the countryside for a small band of Uighurs who apparently made off with a ministry vehicle.”
“Do you have a timeframe?”
“The best we can tell is it happened yesterday, around sunset.”
“If they have a car, they’re not limited by the bus routes… they could be anywhere by now. But the ministry can track one of their own cars, right?”
“Maybe, but you said yourself that Beijing’s control down there isn’t tight, and the tech infrastructure probably isn’t state of the art…” Michael’s voice trailed off.
“She’d know to ditch the car as soon as possible, right?” Connie paused to consider the likelihoods, and noticed the silence on the other end, which must have included two other hushed voices as well. The true weight of the responsibility she’d taken on began to make itself felt, and she glanced over to Ip with a sense of relief that she’d insisted on coming along. The odds were already against her finding Emily in time to be of any use, but without Ip, they’d have been overwhelming. “The fact there’s no reports of another incident in the other towns on the route, like Pu’er or Xishuangbanna, or even Dali… that might mean they haven’t gotten this far south.”
“You mean because the tracking signal would be easier to pick up in the cities,” Michael said, completing the logic of her speculation. “If she couldn’t give up the car, that’s a risk she might have been willing to take.”
“There aren’t that many roads between here and Kunming, because of the mountains. Before nightfall, I think we should drive north and see if there’s any signs…”
Michael didn’t want to finish this thought, certainly not out loud if Andie and Yuki were standing next to him, though they both knew how it had to go: “… of another bloody encounter.”
“Two hundred kilometers to Yuxi, all farms and mountains,” Ip said. “After, towns all way to Kunming.”
“We’re looking for places pressed against the mountains, and smaller roads that go up into the hills.”
“Empty farms, many up there. Families die or move away.”
“That means empty houses, right?” Ip nodded. “That’s what we’re looking for. Places the satellites might not find.”
They followed the highway as far north as Yangwuzhen, a small town straddling a junction with another highway. Connie paid for a tank of gas at the Yangwu Service area and they considered the options.
“No more mountains that way,” Ip said, pointing north. “East road leads to more mountains…”
“But it leads to Honghe, and that means trying to enter Vietnam. I don’t think she would go there.”
“Go back, search side roads?”
“Yes, the side roads.” Connie unfolded a relief map she’d found in the service station, and spread it across the hood of the car. “Tell me what you see.”
“Here… and here, maybe this road, paved. There, dirt roads, hard to see. Go down each one.”
It was a finite task, even if a daunting one, but Connie found some reassurance in being able to see it from above, as it were. Twenty minutes south, Ip pulled into a cut-out shoulder whose pine trees afforded a bit of shelter from the headlights of passing cars, and Connie retrieved the long case from the trunk to examine the contents. She inspected the rifle, the magazines – Danko had included enough rounds for a prolonged encounter – and two sidearms, a Sig GSR 1911 and a smaller .22 cal.
“He always did have good taste in weapons,” Connie mused, and handed the .22 to Ip. “Do you know how to fire one of these?”
Ip shook her head, and Connie demonstrated the slide action, how to insert and eject a magazine, the safeties and how to clear the chamber.
“You sight along the barrel, and squeeze the trigger for each round.”
It took a bit of coaxing, but finally she persuaded Ip to squeeze off two rounds.
&
nbsp; “Loud,” she said.
“Aim here.” Connie indicated her torso, and Ip frowned. “That’s the biggest target, easy to hit.” She stood next to Ip, towering over the smaller woman. “Maybe, if you are very close, a leg wound can incapacitate your enemy, keep him from pursuing you. But here is the easy target. You have ten rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber.” Connie slipped the Sig GSR into the pocket of her jacket and handed the .22 back to Ip. “If things get nasty, you need to be brave. Don’t hesitate, and don’t panic.”
Before Ip could pull onto the Pu’er road, which was mainly quiet at this hour, a dark sedan sped by with the headlights off. A moment later, four more sedans, all with the look of official vehicles, roared past in a tight formation, followed closely by a black van with tinted windows. Connie’s eyes lit up and she turned to Ip: “Step on it. I think we may have found a way to locate her a lot sooner.” Once Ip had managed to bring the van into view, about a half klick ahead, Connie put a hand on her shoulder -- “Don’t get too close. We don’t want to alert them to our presence until we know who they are.”
30
Yu Fei’s Story
Turning the wheel produced a searing pain that scorched Emily’s side, but there was no time to complain, and certainly not to slow down. Even though Li Li’s feet reached the pedals, and she’d already shown she could pilot a car out of Kunming, there was no way she’d be able to maneuver behind the wheel the way Emily feared might be necessary. Stone was larger and stronger, but he certainly didn’t have the driving skills needed at this moment either, and Emily made a mental note: “I have to give these guys lessons… if we ever get back to Virginia.”
She’d torn out the IVs before leaving the farmhouse, since they’d only get in the way. Maybe they could salvage the antibiotic drip for Shao Yao, and the plasma if the typing was a match. She felt the sticky streak of blood from where the needle had come out. Yu Fei thought the authorities wouldn’t be able to track the car even if it had a GPS transmitter because of the mountains, but Emily wasn’t so confident. What she mainly knew was that south meant safety, and they’d figure out how to get across the border once they’d lured whoever might be looking for them away from the lovers.
That’s what Li Li had called them earlier, when she whispered in Emily’s ear – “Don’t they know they’re in love?” – and she was right. Emily could almost laugh, if it didn’t hurt so much, and if they weren’t running for their lives, but Li Li was right. All this talk of a ‘peach garden oath’ was just more of Shao Yao’s romanticism, and Yu Fei would have mocked him for it, if she’d heard his little speech, but she’d hidden the truth from herself in other ways.
“It’s nobody’s… what do I care, or anyone else for that matter,” Yu Fei said, in a quiet voice, when Emily first asked. She’d just stepped outside to catch a breath, while the doctor she’d fetched tied off the last of Shao Yao’s dressings. Li Li had turned out to be a capable assistant, with a strong stomach, and Emily had followed Yu Fei out to the front porch, holding onto the back of a chair and then the door frame to steady herself until she could find a bench.
“But how did you know it was safe to come here?”
“Why would anyone care about this place? There’s nothing here, and the village land-use committee gave up on it after my parents died.”
“This is your family home, then?”
“It was until they died… and then Auntie moved in with her son, after their place was wiped out in the landslide…”
“How old were you when that happened?”
“I remember the day they came. It was supposed to be my eighth birthday, but no one bothered to notice, and the village council brought them here and they signed some papers… it was all so horrible. Shao Yao promised we’d never have to come back here, and now…” Yu Fei’s eyes burned as she spoke, too hot to shed any tears.
“I’m sorry to have been the occasion for unhappy memories.” Stone stepped out to check on Emily, and she gestured to the car. “We won’t need the wheelchair,” she whispered into his ear. “Let’s leave it for Shao Yao.”
“It was happy enough out here,” Yu Fei continued. “The soil is good, and the Telecom company wasn’t interested in grabbing up the land so close to the mountains, so we were safe, even though we didn’t have much money. But when the village commune broke up, that meant no more subsidized seeds, and Auntie’s son said he couldn’t stay any longer, that there was no future here.”
“What did he do?”
“He moved to the city, to Guangzhou, and got work in a factory. Auntie and I followed him the next year, but… she got sick and was dead a year later, because the hospital wouldn’t take her with out a residence permit… and her son had no use for me, so I moved out and tried to find work on my own.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s terrible,” Emily said.
“It was what it was.” She pulled herself up with this pronouncement, perhaps feeling a bit of satisfaction at having survived the ordeal, and more willing to talk about it. Stone had removed most of the contents of the trunk by this point. “I ended up living on the streets, and dodging the authorities and their vagrant sweeps. I learned how to take care of myself, and figured out the best places to sleep were near the university. The students throw away so much good food, and there was this one heating vent near a residence hall…”
Her eyes practically glistened as she recalled this period, and Emily noticed. This must have been the beginning of the happiest passage in her life.
“Is that when you met Shao Yao?”
Li Li and the doctor – who turned out actually to be an herbalist, despite Yu Fei’s disdain for wushu medicine – emerged from the house, looking a little worse for the wear.
“He’s resting easier now,” the doctor said.
“You’ll need the weapons,” Yu Fei said, when she saw Stone pull two rifles from the trunk.
“Can we drop you somewhere?” Emily asked.
“Are we leaving?” Li Li asked.
“No, we’ll manage just fine here.” Yu Fei glanced at the herbalist, who looked like a ride back across the neighboring ridge would suit him fine, and then turned back to Emily. “Just head south, through Pu’er, and then Banna… after that, it’s the border. Don’t try to cross before the morning shift… less suspicious that way.”
The lights pursuing them disappeared briefly after a bend in a tunnel, and Emily pressed the gas pedal to the floor. Stone reached forward to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder when the world started to tilt, and she pulled herself together and straightened the wheel as they roared out from under the electric amber tunnel illumination into the dark night. Unfortunately, there were no bends or turnoffs for the next few miles, and the trailing lights came back into view, and the tires seemed to float over the imperfections in the pavement. The glow of the lights from the next large city reflected off a few clouds scudding across the sky.
A decision had to be made soon: continue at top speed down the highway, or veer down the next ramp and try to lose them in the warren of side streets.
“Get off here.” Connie hunched over the map open on her lap, the flashlight in her mouth garbling her words. “Here,” she said, spitting out the light. “Get off here.”
“But van not turn, still on highway.”
“She’ll turn off at one of the next ramps. It’s her only chance. All the other roads lead into the mountains. Those are traps.” Connie turned back to scrutinize the map. “I think she’ll know to take the ring road. If she goes into town, the local authorities will get involved.”
Tires squealed as Ip pulled off the bottom of the ramp road, Connie barking out directions the whole way. Eventually, the paved roads gave out, and they bounced along dirt roads, going as fast as seemed safe, and perhaps a little faster than the car’s suspension could handle.
“Are you sure, Mrs. Connie? What if we are wrong?”
“We can’t
follow the van in. They’d neutralize us in seconds.”
“Neutralize?”
Connie paused to consider what she had in mind for her young friend, and whether she could expose her to the same dangers she was willing to face, to rescue someone she’d never met. How could Ip know what she’d signed on for? She came along to be of service to the Lady, and since Hsu Qi had supported this mission, she’d also made it her own. But Connie couldn’t allow her to pay the ultimate price for such a cause.
“These people will shoot back. We need concealment, not an exchange of fire. Understand?”
The car skidded to a halt at the end of a dirt road. Actually, the road had probably ended a quarter klick earlier, but the density of the forest made any further progress on this line impossible. Ip slid over to examine the map.
“Right here,” Connie said, with a finger holding a spot, then gesturing with a thumb over one shoulder. “Over that ridge is the dam. They’re going to funnel her into that area, so they can control the scene with no witnesses, which will work to our advantage.”
“How you know, Mrs. Connie?”
“Because it’s what I would do in their place.”
“Then, we climb hill. Ready.”
“You don’t have to come with me. Stay here and guard the car… you know, with the gun… like I showed you.”
One look into Ip’s eyes told her everything she needed to know about this girl. She would not stay behind, or hide from the danger. It occurred to Connie that they’d found her with the Wa army because she’d chosen to follow them, and not merely been swept along, even if none of the commanders had recognized that she might be of service. This was the moment to find out if she could keep cool in battlefield conditions.
“You’re sure?” When Ip nodded, Connie shouldered the rifle, and handed her the ammo pack and the spotting scope. “Okay, let’s get moving.”
Girl Goes To Wudang (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 7) Page 32