Two Peasants and a President

by Frederick Aldrich

  “There is a doctor in the hospital who detests what he has been forced to do. He has joined us. There is also an ambulance driver, in addition to a woman on the cleaning staff. Finally, one of our comrades is with the Tianjin Police, an ally of Wen. He will pose as the officer who has been charged with moving the patients. He is also helping us to create a set of orders that will look official. Everything depends on him, so we must act when he can be there.”

  “Since people in China greatly fear the police, we do not anticipate that the release order will be challenged. But we will have two police Tasers that our friend will bring, just in case. We plan to use them on anyone we encounter at the loading dock, afterward tying them up and concealing them until we have left. Our friend will also have his police firearm, which he will only use if there no other alternative.”

  “We will move at night when most patients are asleep and only nursing and emergency staff are present. Our friend, the police officer, will meet the doctor in the hospital. With his help and that of the ambulance driver, the patients will be put in wheelchairs and moved to the dock area where ambulances drop off patients. Then they will be loaded into the ambulance.”

  “The ambulance will bring them to a warehouse in the port area, where we will make a video in which they will describe how they were taken and for what purpose. Copies will be made and placed in safe locations. Then we will put them on the fishing boat that belongs to Zhou and his family, and they will defect to South Korea. The boat will carry extra fuel in the fish hold. Aside from the doctor, ambulance driver and the police officer, who will have become identified with the crime, the rest of us will remain here to continue the struggle.”

  “How long have you been planning this?” asked the captain.

  “For a very long time. At first our plan was to take Chinese patients who were going to be sacrificed. But when our friend, the cleaning lady, told us that there are two Westerners there, we knew they would be much more valuable to us. You see, many of those who have been sacrificed were prisoners convicted of some crime. The authorities convinced many people that since they would be executed anyway, why not harvest their organs. But then when they needed someone with a certain blood type and they didn’t have one, they would simply convict the one they needed of some crime he didn’t commit and then sacrifice him. There are some in this city who have grown very rich from this.”

  “We had to do something, but we were afraid that if we exposed what’s going on, the authorities would simply deny that they had used anyone who is innocent. Then the people might not believe us. But they cannot just tell everyone that the Americans are convicted criminals; no one would believe it. The whole world will know the crimes that have been committed here. Captain, we are all prepared to sacrifice ourselves if it is necessary to stop this horrible crime.”

  The captain was silent for several moments as he contemplated both the courage of these young people and the plan. Finally he looked around the table and said:

  “Your plan is very bold and courageous, but once you leave the hospital, I would not stop for anything. You can make your video later.”

  Zhou said something in Chinese which Jun translated:

  “How do we know that once your family is free that you will make the video and not just leave us?”

  “Two reasons. First, as soon as the alarm is sounded, the police and military will close this city down. Train stations, highways, the port, everything will be closed. We would have little chance of leaving then or making a video that would ever see the light of day. Second, I know that Holly and Raymond would not want this to ever happen to anyone else. Their anger at what has been done to them and what was being contemplated will make them sworn enemies of the Chinese authorities. They will want to make the video even more than you do.”

  “Allow me to return to your plan. The ambulance is perfect for leaving the hospital. From there on it attracts the attention of all who see it. The maps I have studied indicate that the port is a long way from the hospital. Once the alarm has been raised, everyone will be looking for an ambulance. I would suggest that a place be found to transfer to private cars or taxis or perhaps a small van, something that will not attract attention. It is imperative that no one witness the changeover.”

  “Finally, assuming you make it safely to the port and onboard, you still have roughly seven hundred miles to go before you are in South Korea. Given the aggressive behavior of Chinese warships recently, you would likely not be safe until you are actually in a South Korean port. Even if the authorities are completely unaware that we have escaped by sea, and that’s a big if, we still have to hope that no patrol craft decide to board us.” Jun translated and then relayed Zhou’s response.

  “My family has built a secret compartment into our fishing boat. We can hide as many as three people there. The extra fuel bladders will be hidden in the fish hold. Only if someone does a very thorough search will they notice them. The problem is that we will have several Chinese aboard who are not fishermen, the doctor, the ambulance driver, the cleaning lady and the policeman. These people can never live in China again. The policeman has helped us forge papers for them to make it appear they are fishermen, but if they are questioned, they will not be able to talk like fishermen and their hands will not look like those of fishermen. Captain, we understand that our plan is not perfect, but it is the best we have been able to come up with.”

  “How much time before we move?” asked the captain.

  “Tomorrow night,” said Jun. “The police officer will be on duty and available.”

  “How will we communicate between now and then?”

  “Captain,” said Jun, “we cannot trust our phones in a way that would allow us to communicate freely; the authorities employ technology and large numbers of people to listen to what its citizens are talking about. I suggest that tomorrow morning I pick you up in my cab at 7:00 and take you to a busy restaurant for breakfast. We can talk there.”

  46

  As she cleaned each room on her list, Ping tried to appear calm, struggling not to show the excitement that was growing within her. She knew that although her mission was nearing its culmination, danger was everywhere. She hoped to be able to deliver her new message, and that once again the lethargic guard would just sit in his chair looking at his hands.

  Her mind kept drifting back to her son, who is the sole reason she drags herself from bed each morning and soldiers on, desperately working to make this succeed. She tried to force herself to think only of what she must do. But as she and the guard once again approached the door to the room of the young American, she felt her heart beating faster. The guard inserted his key and swung the door open, motioning for her to enter.

  She shuffled into the room pushing her mop and bucket and looked up. Suddenly she felt a tightness in her chest and everything began to swirl around her. Unconsciously she reached for the arm of the guard to steady herself.

  The room was empty.

  He asked her if she was sick. For a moment she said nothing as her mind reeled. Then, as she regained her balance, she let go of his arm, excusing herself.

  “I’m a little under the weather. What happened to the patient?” she asked, trying to sound casual, as though only curious.

  “Probably upstairs,” he replied disinterestedly. “They said to clean the room just the same.”

  Ping was scarcely aware that she was mopping the floor. Upstairs could mean two places, either the operating rooms on the 11th or 12th floors or the patient rooms on the 4th and 7th. She had learned that the transplants usually took place in the middle of the night when fewer people were about, so the young lady was probably on the 4th or 7th being prepped.

  She finished the room and the next two and then was taken to the other side to clean. This was where the young American man was being held. She had not communicated with him at all, fearing that his youth and testosterone might tempt him to try to escape on his own, which would certainly result in his capture and de
ath. But now she knew what she must do. As she had with the woman, she slipped the tightly rolled message into one of the small holes in the sink drain. Then she glanced over at the American and tilted her head toward the sink – twice.

  When they were walking down the hall she turned to the guard and told him she needed to use the restroom. There she pulled out the cell phone that they had given her to use if something went wrong. She had to wait in a stall until the restroom was empty. Then she dialed, finally hearing a voice on the other end.

  “Hello.”

  “She is not in the room. They have taken her out. The male is still in his room.”

  “Where have they taken her?” the voice on the other end asked.

  “I am not certain, perhaps 4 or 7, I have no way of knowing,” she answered. The line clicked dead. Someone entered the rest room then and Ping emerged from the stall and washed her hands. It would be another six hours before her shift was done. Then she would go home and wait, wait to find out if she and the Americans would on that night leave their nightmare behind or if a far worse nightmare had begun.

  “We have a problem,” Jun said. The captain’s heart skipped a beat. They were having their planned breakfast in a crowed restaurant where they could talk more.

  “They moved your granddaughter.”

  “Where?” asked the captain.

  “The cleaning lady says maybe to the fourth or seventh floor, she doesn’t know for sure. I think that’s where they prep patients for surgery and where the patients recuperate afterward, but I’m not certain.”

  “Then we need to move now!” said the captain. “If I have to, I’ll go in there alone and find them myself. I’ll raise so much hell they won’t be able to go through with it.”

  “One man?” Jun hrumphed. “They will knock you down and stick a needle in your neck,” he said. “Then you will become just another unwilling donor. You are in China, captain, they do what they want here and to hell with everyone. No one would ever hear from you or your family again. Do not act stupidly. Listen carefully, they only do the operations in the middle of the night to make it easier to keep them secret, so we still have a little time. Let’s go back to the place where we met yesterday and try to reach the others. Then we will make a new plan.”

  47

  The Thai food tasted much better without all the drama. Clifford had driven most of the night and had agreed to meet Baines and Molly for lunch.

  “Cliff, I am so very sorry. I had no idea I was putting you in so much danger,” said Baines.

  “Virg, I’ve had folks come after me before; it goes with the territory. I just didn’t expect to get rolled in broad daylight in an upscale neighborhood.”

  “What happened?” asked Baines.

  “Well, I gave the sleaze ball the bug and told him all he had to do was drop it in Brewer’s jacket pocket. Since he’d already told me that Brewer always hangs his suit jacket on a hook in the outer office, and the secretary is gone at that hour, it seemed like a cinch. And it was. Brewer was on the phone when the dirt bag came in and he just dropped the bug in the jacket pocket on the way into the inner office, slick as snot. Rawles told Brewer that the camera malfunctioned and he didn’t get anything. But he said that Molly had gotten close to you and they could try again. Then Brewer started giving Rawles shit ‘cause he screwed up and the thug blew up and stormed out.”

  “So the bug’s in Brewer’s jacket pocket at this point?” asked Baines.

  “Broadcasting like a loudspeaker. I got every word. So then Brewer leaves to go explain things to Shumer. I’m sitting downstairs by the window of a restaurant listening to everything being said on the third floor office, which is also next to a window. I would have preferred that it had been a bit more explicit, but the conversation left no doubt that they were blackmailing you.”

  “So what you recorded was unmistakable in terms of what it was they were trying to do,” said Baines.

  “Let me put it this way, Virg, a slick Washington law firm could probably keep Brewer and Shumer out of jail, but everyone would be crystal clear about what they were trying to do.”

  “So then somebody hit you over the head and took the recording,” said Baines.

  “Well, sort of. You see, while I was sitting in the bar listening to everything, I noticed someone in the third floor window of the building right across the street, the office across from Shumer’s. The guy’s looking down at me, and I’m wondering why someone up there would be lookin’ at me, but I figured maybe he’s just taking a break and lookin’ out the window. So, anyway, a little later I happened to look up and the guy’s back in the window with someone standing next to him. One of ‘em’s pointing his finger right at me, you know, like the first guy saw something interesting and called the other guy over to show him.”

  “At that point, it’s starting to creep me out, but by then I was done so I just packed up and left. Halfway back to the car I heard someone behind me and the next think I know I’m in the hospital with an egg the size of a baseball on my head.”

  “Listen, Cliff, I’m just glad you’re OK. We can live without the recording, I should have known better than to send you into enemy territory.”

  “We don’t have to live without the recording, Virg,” he said.

  “What? I thought you said they took all your gear.”

  “They did, but whenever I make a recording, the first thing I do is put it to sleep on the cloud.”

  “You just lost me,” said Baines.

  “I have an internet account with online storage,” Virg. “I just hit a button and the recording goes to the server in the sky where I can retrieve it later. Before I came here I checked; it’s still there. I made another backup and put it in a safe place just in case.”

  A smile crept over Baines face.

  48

  At 10:30 pm an ambulance pulled up to the emergency entrance of the Tianjin Hospital #77. A taxi following it parked nearby. The ambulance honked and the overhead door rose slowly, allowing it to back up to the dock. A police officer and three others got out of the taxi and walked into the dock area before the overhead door closed again.

  The ambulance driver greeted a familiar face, telling him that he was there for a pickup and not carrying a patient, in which case they would have called ahead and had emergency personnel waiting. The man on duty returned the greeting and looked briefly at the others, noticing that one was a police officer. When the police appear, a wise man disappears goes an old saying in China. He smiled and then said hello to the doctor, whom he recognized as one of the staff.

  The group strode purposefully past a now closed visitors kiosk and into the elevator. A minute later the light on the numbers over the doors reached four. In unison the group walked up to the nurses station where Dr. Min, dressed in his hospital uniform, asked the nurse for the room number of the young American woman. He was told that she was not on this floor. Her eyes followed the group as they headed back to the elevator.

  The captain watched the lit numbers climbing toward seven, trying not to think about the possibility that Holly would not be on that floor either. The march to the nurses station was repeated, but this time the nurse, who appeared both sterner and more fearless than the first, asked the reason. The police officer showed her the forged set of orders indicating that they had been ordered to take the patient to People’s Liberation Army (PLA) No. 1602 Hospital in Beijing. The nurse was well aware that the Army hospital also did transplants and she seemed to relax, pointing down to the end of the hall, but then something struck her and she picked up the duty board she had just set down a moment earlier.

  She looked puzzled because her duty board clearly showed that in other rooms on this floor a Scandinavian woman, a Spanish woman and a Russian woman were all awaiting organ transplants scheduled for later tonight. When it occurred to her that the only patient being prepped as a donor was the one they were about to move, she said:

  “Wait! You can’t remove her, she’s scheduled for s
urgery in two hours.”

  Dr. Min, whom she recognized, said evenly: “It’s OK, there’s been a change. The PLA has ordered her moved. They will be here shortly with another female.”

  The familiar doctor’s soothing words and the police officer watching her seemed to abort whatever it was she was about to say and she decided not to protest further. But when she noticed that the tall one with them appeared to be an American, it seemed rather strange.

  As the group moved down the hall, they saw that a police officer was seated outside the closed door. He looked up when he saw another officer with a doctor. Presented with what appeared to be a legitimate set of orders, he unlocked the door. The doctor went in first. Then the guard who had been seated outside was invited in by his fellow officer and the others followed, closing the door behind them.

  Holly looked up in fear at the sudden arrivals, two of whom were police officers. Then the tall man in back moved between them and approached the bed, saying simply:

  “Hello, darlin’.”

  She was speechless. Her eyes told her what her brain said was not possible. Her grandfather reached out and took her into his arms and she began to sob.

  “Holly, you’ve got to pull yourself together,” he said. “There’s no time now. We’ve got to get you and Ray out of here.” She looked up into his eyes:

  “Ray is here?” she asked, her tear-streaked face a mixture of joy and incredulity.

  “Yes, but there’s no time to talk. I want you to get in the wheelchair and look like you’ve been sedated. Now! Hurry.”

  The police guard looked over at his fellow officer as what was taking place began to dawn on him. But his words were stillborn as the Taser touched his neck. The others quickly cuffed him, relieved him of his sidearm and radio and filled his mouth with Kleenex. Then they dragged him into the tiny closet, folding his legs so they could close the door. Two minutes later, the procession emerged from the room with an apparently sedated patient and proceeded back down the hall. Glancing into the rooms they passed, the captain noticed a Westerner in the bed of one. He ducked inside.