Sheng Ti beamed and nodded. "With walkie-talkie, too. Not bad!"
Robin smiled. "But I must admit we were all of us— every one of us—completely shocked when we began to understand that terrorists were actually arriving and that this was to be the day. And the hour. "
Sheng Ti said proudly, "I was first to see."
Ruthie nodded. "Yes, all Hitch and I did was report another car on its way to the Peak but it was Sheng Ti who watched two men park the car and leave it, carrying guns and heading for the coffee shop."
"Where eight people plus Krugg and Upshot were eating breakfast," pointed out Mr. Hitchens. "All ten of them were herded together by the Liberation 80's men with machine guns—it must have been terrifying for those eight people—and taken up to the tower."
"Where we were waiting for them," said Cyrus, his eyes resting warmly on his wife. "Myself, Robin and Marko, that third Interpol chap, Whatsisname, and Duncan's seven men."
"It all happened so fast," breathed Mr. Hitchens.
"After which," added Marko, "there came the glorious news from Ruthie and Mr. Hitchens that a van was on its way to the Peak to join the advance party, and that Mrs. Pollifax had actually been seen at one of the windows."
Startled, Mrs. Pollifax realized that she was entering the story, and remembering back to that lonely, despairing ride up Peak Road she contrasted it with the triumphant scenario being described to her now and her sense of separateness from them all nearly overwhelmed her: she felt anchored in the estrangement that came from returning to life after an unsharable ordeal, and desperately aware, still, of those who had not returned and who never could. And then two things happened: across the table she met Alec Hao's gaze and saw the same grief in his eyes and shared it with him, smiling at him reassuringly; and sensing her withdrawal from them all Cyrus reached for her hand and pressed it.
And suddenly the darkness lifted from her and she experienced the miracle of feeling again. Of being connected ... to herself ... to life ... to Cyrus ... to Alec ... to these warm and wonderful people. It was like stepping out of a tomb to be met with sunlight and a flood of tenderness.
"So Cyrus came down to ground level," Robin explained. "To wait for you, hoping that his standing so innocently by the elevators would alert you to the fact that something was going to happen."
"Not wishing," pointed out Marko, "to lose you in the crossfire."
Mrs. Pollifax smiled ruefully as she remembered, grateful to be entering their story willingly now. "I thought—I really believed I was hallucinating," she told them. "That it couldn't possibly be Sheng Ti outside pruning rosebushes, and as for Cyrus already in Hong Kong and waiting for an elevator at the tower, of all places! I had to have gone mad."
"But you were in shock," Ruthie reminded her. "As Dr. Chiang pointed out . . . From being beaten," she added gently. "From seeing Mr. Detwiler killed."
From being beaten, from seeing Detwiler killed . . . Mrs. Pollifax thought that someday, perhaps on a summer's day among her flowers, she would allow it all to come back to her and she would try to make sense out of a world that could produce trips to the moon and silicon chips and computer robots and satellites, yet never touch the impoverished hearts that could still torture, terrorize and kill without mercy or feeling. But not now, not yet.
She would think about Detwiler instead: Detwiler, who had been abused and tricked and manipulated, and who had fluctuated between weakness and strength, vanity and sacrifice, until he had determined at last to assert himself and to act, even to die rather than to submit any longer . . . yes, she must remember Detwiler instead just now.
She saw that they were all staring at her, anxious and wondering. "I was thinking of Mr. Detwiler," she explained. "When he sacrificed himself to turn on the radio signal it wasn't entirely in vain, was it?"
Marko shook his head. "No, my dear Mrs. P., not entirely. In fact if it had not been for Cyrus, rallying us all in our most discouraged moment, Mr. Detwiler's act could have been all that might have saved you and Alec. The signal was heard and the building found. The three men in the radio van had to call for reinforcements, at which time Duncan told them that two terrorists had already arrived at the tower and that the situation was so far under control. They were instructed to follow you in a car to the Peak, keeping their distance. No—Detwiler's act was not wasted."
Mrs. Pollifax's glance went to Alec Hao. "You can perhaps forgive him now?"
"Forgive but not forget," Alec said in a hard voice. "At least he didn't actually kill my father, it's Mr. Feng who—who—" His voice broke.
Marko said curtly, "Feng's dead, he shot himself after being questioned."
Alec said, "Then for God's sake tell me what was behind all this hell he created!"
Marko sighed. "Once the terrorists had taken over Hong Kong they were to demand—Feng's words—that all talks between Peking and Great Britain be suspended until the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could be included in the 1997 restoration of Hong Kong to China."
"Was the man insane?" exploded Alec.
Marko's voice was dry. "All fanatics are more or less insane, I suppose. He'd been working for years to undermine Communist China and—failing that—he was determined to prevent Hong Kong being given to them. He spoke of years of planning," said Marko. "The acquiring of property in different sections of Hong Kong where arms and ammunition could be hidden away—we think there must have been help from his brother and other sympathizers in Taiwan on this—and then the first contact with the Liberation 80's group through his nephew Xian Pi, followed by the theft of diamonds to finance the operation, and then the methodical distribution of those diamonds to buy guns and silence, bribes everywhere to close the eyes and ears of men."
And to subjugate Mr. Detwiler, thought Mrs. Pollifax.
"But in the end," Marko added sadly, "I think his motives were reduced to the same motives as the Liberation 80's group: he wanted to bring Hong Kong down in ruins and to express his hate and rage to the world. He must have known it was too late, that his dream of a Nationalist government returning to mainland China was impossible, but he'd given his entire life to the scheme, and he believed Taiwan to still be the true government of China."
Rubin broke in to say, "That was Feng's passion, but the Liberation 80's group, on the other hand, were going to demand ten million in gold for themselves and safe passage out of Hong Kong, probably to Libya."
Mrs. Pollifax shook her head over the madness of it all. "And Eric the Red?"
"Dead," Robin told her without expression. "He and two others were killed at the elevator. The remaining terrorists have been showing the police where the random bombs were planted—rather a lot of them, too," he added, "thereby hoping for reduced prison sentences, which is highly unlikely. Rumors are running high in Hong Kong, but the Governor's suppressed all news about this until the last bombs have been found. To avoid panic."
"But of course," said Marko quietly, "the main purpose of the Liberation 80's group—and the reason they were open to Mr. Feng's diabolical scheme—was the sense of power they'd achieve. Still another strike against law and order and civilizing governments—and undoubtedly a sense of renewal at being in action again, at sitting up in the tower with their guns and hostages and looking down at the rest of us with contempt.
There was silence and then Cyrus said, "But it didn't happen."
"Not this time, no," said Marko. "Not here, not now, not this time."
They reflected on these words until Mr. Hitchens lifted his glass of champagne and said, "Then I suggest we drink a toast to what didn't happen, and perhaps Mrs. Pollifax would care to add something to that?"
She smiled at him. "Yes—yes I think I'd like to," she said, and thought about this while her gaze moved from one person to the next at the table around her: to Marko with his wise-old-soul eyes, to Robin with whom she'd shared a second adventure, to Sheng Ti who would soon enter the United States with Lotus—Carstairs had assured her of this only an hour ago—and to Alec Hao who had lost a f
ather but regained a future.
Her glance moved to Mr. Hitchens, diligently collecting his Learning Experiences, and to Ruthie, who had apparently collected him . . . She thought too of the cable she'd received only an hour ago from Bishop: don't ever ever do this to us again stop carstairs applying ice packs and taking sedatives stop cable arrival time new york and warn cyrus of large affectionate demonstrations to thank for rescuing stop all love blshop.
Her eyes met Cyrus's last of all—Cyrus, with whom she was to continue living after all, savoring those small exquisite joys of sharing.
Lifting her glass she gave him a radiant smile and said with feeling, "To amateurs—angry, determined, caring amateurs . . . And to what almost—but didn't— happen in Hong Kong."
Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha Page 18