Seng also understood Cheng’s passion for his work. He may have refused to reveal it to Lin’s men, but he certainly wouldn’t go to his death without assuring that his secret lived on.
Seng smiled. Every contingency was covered, the culmination of a long and careful plan finally within his reach. No more delays. Tomorrow he’d interrogate Lili to determine what she already knew, advise her that unless her grandfather cooperated, she, Ni-Fu, and Chi-Wen would suffer the consequences. Even if torture proved necessary, the girl could never endure the torment her grandfather had. Soft American, he thought contemptuously.
For Lili Quan, there would be no escape.
It wouldn’t be long now. Soon he’d leave this stinking city behind. So close, he could almost feel the wonderful tumult of Beijing. A real city. Close to the heart of power.
His reverie was interrupted by a banging on his door. “Dr. Seng! Come quickly! Dr. Cheng has collapsed.”
“Lili, we’ve got to get out of here!”
She was weeping uncontrollably. “Grandfather.”
Gently, Chi-Wen pulled her up from the floor. “There’s nothing more we can do for him. He’s at peace now.” Chi-Wen held her against his chest until her sobs subsided. “Come on. We’ve only got a few minutes before Seng shows up.” He grabbed her hand and led her, like a child, from the ward.
“Oh my God,” Lili gasped. “Chi-Wen, look.” She pointed to the thirty men and women who’d been part of her grandfather’s experiment. An hour before they had been performing graceful, surreal tai chi. They now lay on the floor, eyes closed, in peaceful repose. “They’re dead.”
“He said he was completing the circle.”
Lili shook her head. “A time to live and a time to die.” But Grandfather, she thought, sadly, for us there was so little time.
Newport Beach, California
It wasn’t until morning that the housekeeper discovered DeForest’s body. In keeping with her boss’s obsession with privacy, she called in Dr. March, not the police. As far as the family doctor was concerned, his longtime patient was a man who’d lived too hard for many years. He’d tried often to get him to slow down. That’s why Dr. March had no qualms signing the death certificate, certifying the manner of death as natural.
Xi’an, China
Lili and Chi-Wen reached the corridor between the hospital and the Institute before they heard the sound of footsteps clicking against tile. And though the voices were low, they recognized them. Seng and the cadre were approaching, still out of sight.
Chi-Wen pointed to the door leading to the hospital, but Lili shook her head. They’d be seen by medical staff who would report back to Seng. Instead, she indicted the elevator. It was not only closer, but coincidentally settled on their floor. She’d seen workmen there yesterday. Hopefully it had been fixed.
“Okay,” Chi-Wen mouthed. He led the dash to the elevator, pulled open the heavy door, and slid the rickety metal gate just enough to allow them passage. Its loud creaking sound echoed off the corridor walls.
Please God, Lili prayed as she frantically pressed the button for ground. Let it work!
From outside, the footsteps grew fainter. Seng and the cadre had turned off the main corridor.
Seconds passed as if hours. Finally they heard the machinery start up inside the shaft.
Numb with fear, Lili pressed against the back of the car, her eyes shut tightly, her hand clutching Chi-Wen’s. With agonizing slowness the Russian-built elevator descended to the ground floor.
“What the —”
Seng surveyed the thirty corpses, then hurried into the small office where the cadre pointed to Ni-Fu Cheng’s body. Seng stooped to take a pulse, but he knew Cheng was dead too. Spotting the tray of empty vials, his face reddened with rage. Damn it. Cheng had gone to his death with the secret. Unless —
He stood up. “Where’s Dr. Quan?” he demanded.
“Gone,” the cadre reported. “So is Chi-Wen Zhou.”
Ni-Fu must have told her the secret.
Then he saw it — the tiny compartment in Cheng’s desk. Open and empty. In the confusion, Lili had neglected to shut it.
So that’s where he’d stashed his notes! Clever bastard. Seng had spent weeks searching the Institute. He’d almost believed the old man’s story that it was all in his head. Nothing on paper. For security reasons.
He studied Cheng’s inert body. Well, my friend, I guess in the end you were no less a liar than the best of us.
He turned to the cadre. “Find Dr. Quan,” he snapped. “She’s got to be somewhere in the Institute.”
Somewhere, he thought, almost smiling, with the secret in her pocket.
In a small classroom at Jiaotong University the mood was somber.
Despite several all-night meetings with Yuan Mu, the State Council spokesman in Beijing, there had been no resolution of the students’ primary issue: a call for dialogue. Now, after speaking with their counterparts in Beijing by phone, the students in Xi’an argued strategy.
“The battle lines between the students and government are drawn. Us against them,” Zheng Tu declared. “We must step up our demonstrations. Beginning tomorrow, May fourth, we will march across the country, from Guangchou to Beijing.”
“Be careful,” someone warned. “Tomorrow’s not only the historical seventieth anniversary celebration, it’s the same day the Asian Development Bank holds its annual meeting. Party conservatives will claim we sabotaged the chance to show the world China can become a leader in business relations.”
“Remember nineteen eighty-seven,” another said. “Reformers were blamed for social unrest and Hu Yaobang was ousted.”
A young woman in the back stood up. “Everyone knows there’s an internal Party struggle. I hope we proceed cautiously or our movement will hurt reformers like Zhao Ziyang. The hard liners want to blame him for promoting social unrest.”
“You undergraduates are too young to understand,” a math student who lived through the Cultural Revolution asserted. “The government lied and ignored us again and again. We only want them to talk to us and admit we’re not traitors.”
“And what if they don’t?” the girl challenged.
“If they don’t,” Tu responded, “we are ready to die, to use our lives to pursue the truth. We will sacrifice ourselves.”
“Qiuhousuuanzhang,” someone intoned, bringing an almost instant, palpable chill to everyone in the room. It meant one settles scores after autumn. If they didn’t succeed in convincing the government, they would all surely be punished after it was over.
For the girl in the back of the room, such a possibility was unacceptable.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. Lili remained inside, her fingers poised over the “door close” button while Chi-Wen scanned the lobby. Empty. At five minutes to six, the day clerk hadn’t yet come on duty. The night clerk was probably at breakfast. He motioned to Lili to exit the car.
“We’ll never get out of here,” she whispered. Even if they made it outside, they couldn’t climb over the wall. Not with barb wire. Less likely they could slip by the guard at the gatehouse. It was only a matter of minutes before Seng alerted him they were missing.
“Look!” Chi-Wen pointed to a canvas-covered lorry parked outside the Institute entrance. “That farmer just made a vegetable delivery.” Puffs of smoke rose near the front of the vehicle where the driver stood, his back to them, enjoying a cigarette before taking off.
“Come on!”
“Are you crazy? I can’t drive that out of here. The guard will stop me.”
“We’re going to be passengers,” Chi-Wen explained. “Hide under the canvas. The farmer will drive us outside the Institute walls. No one will see us.”
Lili held back, uncertain.
“He’s bound to head back to the countryside. As long as we get far enough from the city, I can hitch a ride to the university. My friends will help us.”
Lili could offer no alternative. If they remained, they’d sure
ly be caught.
“Okay.”
The driver hawked a bolus of phlegm into the street, then resumed his smoking.
“Now!”
They tried to appear nonchalant, but their steps through the lobby to the front door were hurried. Following Chi-Wen’s lead, Lili climbed into the back of the truck. As quietly as possible, Chi-Wen pushed aside enough empty vegetable crates to create a nest. They faced each other, using a couple of old burlap bags smelling of ripe turnips as a makeshift blanket. Chest to chest, it was difficult to tell whose heart hammered more loudly.
The slam of the lorry door was followed by the rattle of the motor turning over. Overhead, their vault of olive-drab canvas fluttered.
Lili squeezed her eyes shut.
“Don’t worry,” Chi-Wen whispered.
The vehicle inched toward the gatehouse.
“Zao an. Good morning, comrade.”
Lili imagined the zebra-striped gate being lifted.
“And to you,” the farmer returned the greeting.
The truck surged forward causing several crates to fall with a loud bang.
“Shall I help you tie your cargo down?”
Chi-Wen translated.
Dear God, we’re done for, Lili thought.
“No, the crates are empty. I’m used to the rattling.”
“Okay, see you next week.”
“Zai jian.”
A sudden bump as they pulled outside the Institute walls onto the main road. Still, Lili waited several miles before breathing normally. “In Hong Kong we stay at the Peninsula Hotel,” she murmured into Chi-Wen’s ear. “The beds are softer.”
Within five minutes, lulled by the rocking motion of the loosely sprung lorry, she surrendered to her emotional exhaustion, falling into a deep, dark sleep.
Washington, D.C.
Waiting for the final call to board the jumbo jet for Hong Kong, Halliday savored the last of DeForest’s cigars and pondered the permutations of death: two down, he thought with a secret smile; one to go.
Xi’an, China
When Lili drifted up from the blackness, it was much hotter under the canopy. Sprawled supine in the bed of the truck, she opened her eyes. Chi-Wen hunkered at the tailgate, his tired face in need of a shave, his left hand holding one of the rear flaps open. Through it Lili spotted a sliver of bright, azure sky.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Shh, he might hear us.”
Lili doubted anything could be heard over the noisy rumbling of the lorry’s engine, but she lowered her voice. “Sorry.”
“Less than an hour.”
Her head ached. Standing up, Lili carefully crawled through the vegetable crates to Chi-Wen. He was peering over the tailgate, an odd, pensive look in his eyes, as though he sensed that a decisive moment in his life had arrived. She wondered whether he foresaw liberation or doom. Fearing his answer, she asked: “Where are we?”
“About a mile from the railway station, I think,” he whispered. “We’ll get off here and walk the rest of the way. I’ll use the public phone to call my friends at the university.” He looked directly at her. “We can grab some breakfast.”
The truck slowed as the driver maneuvered around a sharp corner. Chi-Wen grabbed her hand. “Now. Jump!”
Seconds later, they both cleared the tailgate and stood, breathless, in the middle of the dusty road, watching the lorry fade into the distance.
More than an hour passed before Seng admited that Lili and Chi-Wen had literally evaporated. He had the cadre check with his contact at Jiotong University — a pretty undergraduate convinced that informing on her fellow students was the only way to survive the inevitable upcoming purge.
Just inside the Long-Hai Railroad station, Chi-Wen bought Lili a breakfast of steamed buns and tea.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I have to make my call first.” He pointed toward the platform across the room. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Don’t be long.”
At half past seven, the station was already a beehive of activity. Lili edged through the noisy crowd with deliberate slowness, hoping it would swallow her up and offer concealment. She must remain calm, remove fear from her eyes. At least here she looked enough like everyone else to avoid attracting attention. The irony of the thought almost made her smile.
“Lili Quan?”
Startled, Lili turned. The face beneath the flat-brimmed parody of a Hakka woman’s hat belonged to Dorothy Diehl.
“Hello, Dottie.”
“What a small world. I thought I recognized you. I’m glad we bumped into each other. With only a day in Xi’an, I never had time to look you up.”
“No problem,” Lili replied, distracted. She hoped no one overheard Dottie call her name. If Seng had alerted officials, the train station would be a natural place to search. “I’ve been busy . . . at the hospital.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Uh . . . I’m meeting a friend,” she replied, glancing in the direction of the telephones. Pointless to say more. There was no way anyone could help her. Except, of course, Chi-Wen. Surely he wouldn’t be much longer.
“Well I hope it’s a handsome he.” Dottie produced her Dr. Ruth giggle. “Me, I’ve had no such luck. But then there’s still Guilin. That’s next.” She pointed to the group huddled in the far corner of the hall.
Miss Pu, the pert, cheerful tour guide, was handing out tickets for the next leg of their journey.
“What a bunch,” Dottie complained. Oblivious to Lili’s peril, she brought her up to date.
Charlotte was barely speaking to her. “I told her to keep her opinions about men to herself.”
They’d bought bargain souvenirs, lacquer ware, rugs, chopsticks, brassware, and fans. “The Chinese are nice, but they’ve never heard of fortune cookies!”
Lili resisted the urge to inform her that fortune cookies were the brainchild of San Francisco entrepreneurs, not a Chinese invention. She realized Dottie and her group had toured many of the same cities she’d been in, but wondered how much they’d seen through the windows of their air-conditioned minivans and soft sleeping cars.
Everyone was tired and irritable, Dottie confided. Like a school outing that had gone on too long. “This morning I wrote in my journal: ‘Day number eighteen, we’ve gone over two thousand miles and believe me, it hasn’t been a picnic.’ Thank goodness we leave for Guilin today and then to Hong Kong.”
“What did you say?” Lili had only been half-listening. “You’ve been keeping your journal?”
— in China today there is no hope that shou will ever be used for anything but evil.
“Yes, indeed.” The ex-geography teacher opened her over-size purse and removed her lined copybook. “For that novel I told you about. With some of the shenanigans going on in our group, I expect to give Jackie Collins a run for her money.”
“And you’re returning to Hong Kong?”
You can’t be suggesting that we bury probably the greatest discovery in history?
“We arrive on Saturday at one.”
Not necessarily bury it. Just remove it to a safe place.
“Dottie?”
“Yes, my dear.”
A long ringing bell announced the next train.
“That’s me!”
“Could I ask you for a small favor?”
By the time Chi-Wen returned ten minutes later, Dottie’s train for Guilin had departed, along with the secret of shou slipped inside her lined copybook.
Seng nodded as he considered the cadre’s report. This was the break he’d been hoping for. “All right. Get down to the station right away. Make certain you’re on their train,” he snapped. “No slipups this time.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the cadre left his office, Seng chuckled. By tomorrow morning Chi-Wen Zhou and Lili Quan would be hand delivered to Lin. After that, the foreign minister wouldn’t dare delay his promotion any longer.
“Beijing?”
&nbs
p; “Chi-Wen’s idea really,” Zheng Tu told Lili. “But I discussed it with the other students and they agreed.” He handed Lili and Chi-Wen train tickets. “They will expect you to go south. This way you’ll be safe.”
“You’re a good friend.”
Tu smiled at Chi-Wen. “Your faxes helped get our message to the world. The foreign press is pouring into China. Tomorrow’s rallies should get even more attention.” To Lili. “I’m sorry about your grandfather.”
“Thank you.”
He checked his watch. “I must go. When you reach Beijing, my cousin Bin Go will take you to a safe house until the plane leaves for Guangchou. From there you’ll follow the underground railroad to Macao.”
“Dr. Seng has my passport,” Lili said. “How will I get past customs?”
“Don’t worry,” Tu assured her. He wrote the name and address of another contact in Macao. “He’ll provide a counterfeit passport and visa to Hong Kong.”
“How can we thank you?” Chi-Wen asked.
“Just be careful,” he said seriously. “There are many spies and plainclothes police.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Thursday
May 4
Beijing, China
The driver steered the limousine along the special lanes used on Beijing streets by privileged travelers. A thick, seemingly solid pedaling column of bicyclists gave wide berth to the long black car.
“There’s a crowd up ahead, sir. Probably part of the May fourth celebrations.”
David Kim rolled down his window. They were less than a block from the New China News Agency building. Several dozen policemen had lined up at the entrance, arms linked to prevent journalists from getting outside where hundreds of students marched with banners and shouting slogans: “Never forget the spirit of May Fourth,” “Down with graft, fight official corruption.” All at once, several journalists broke through the police barricade and fell in line behind the defiant marchers who shouted demands for freedom of the press.
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