"I " Her voice broke. She swallowed and tried again. "I was staying with the family of Ha, the rice merchant. Mother and Dad had been called into the city to talk to some government official. I waited until my friend was asleep and then I tiptoed out the back way and went to my uncle's house. No one was there. I was scared. It was windy and the moon was full and cold. I went to the church. He wasn't there, either."
Catlin felt the tension building in Lindsay. His arms tightened but his hand never stopped its slow, soothing motion over her head and back.
"I kept feeling like I was being followed," Lindsay whispered. "I would stop and turn suddenly but no one would be there. The shadows were all wild and twisted beneath the trees or is that my nightmare?" She shivered. "It's hard to tell the difference after all these years. Memory. Nightmare. But two things are true and always will be. Uncle Mark died, and I killed him."
"You were only seven," Catlin murmured.
"How old does a Judas goat have to be?" she asked bleakly.
Catlin's eyes closed for an instant. He could guess what was coming, and it enraged him. He could guess just how a young girl's trust could be twisted to an assassin's use, but it was for Lindsay to discover that and put her discovery into words. It was her truth, her nightmare, her mind that had been unable to fully accept an act that had occurred long ago and was still tearing her apart.
"I knew that there was a place where Uncle Mark sometimes met with other men," said Lindsay. Her voice was flat, raw, the voice of a woman again rather than a child. As she spoke, nightmare was receding slowly, but not horror. That would stay with her for the rest of her life. "I knew that it was supposed to be a secret. But I wasn't going to tell anyone. I was just going to surprise him with a visit. So I ran through the village to the meeting place at one of the outlying farms. He was there. So were four other men."
Lindsay began to tremble. She started to speak, failed and tried again. Catlin watched the tears streaming silently down her face and wished he could spare her whatever was to come. Yet he knew he must not. She needed the knowledge that she had both sought and denied through years of nightmares.
"The other men were angry with me, but not Uncle Mark," said Lindsay, words rushing out, leaving her no time to breathe, words demanding to be said. "He just held out his arms and hugged me and then there were shots and screams and he fell. I tried to push the blood back into his body I tried and it just spurted through my fingers. He he cried out a word and then he died and I ran and ran and ran."
"What did he say?" Catlin asked gently.
Lindsay closed her eyes, sending a veil of tears down her cheeks. "Betrayed."
"He didn't mean you," Catlin said, rocking her slowly. "You were too young to know that soldiers would follow you to the secret meeting place."
"I think yes, I remember now that's what my parents said to me when they found me the next day." Lindsay drew a shuddering breath. "They washed me, held me, and then " Her eyes widened as she remembered. "They had me look at pictures. Like now. That's what brought back the nightmare. Faces and more faces, years of mother's snapshots pouring over me, picture after picture, face after face. 'Is this one of the men who shot your uncle? This one? This one?' And when I said, 'No! I killed him,' they held me and told me over and over that it wasn't my fault, that I didn't kill him." Lindsay closed her eyes. "But it was my fault. I was greedy for his presents, his laughter."
"You were a child, Lindsay," Catlin said, kissing her eyelids. "Just a child. Someone used you."
"If I hadn't been greedy "
"If your uncle hadn't been up to his neck in politics," Catlin interrupted grimly, "he wouldn't have been shot."
Lindsay's eyes opened, surprise clear in their indigo depths. "How did you know about the soldiers and the politics? I didn't find out until just a few years ago, and even then all mother would say was that Uncle Mark was dead and times were changing, and it was better that the past die with him." Catlin rubbed his cheek slowly against Lindsay's soft hair.
"I knew because in those days in China, there wasn't much else besides soldiers and politics." He kissed her cheek gently, tasting tears that should have been cried years before. "Was your uncle a missionary?"
She nodded.
"Then he was probably involved with the Christian underground," said Catlin. He watched Lindsay, but saw no understanding on her face. "Various missionaries banded together and smuggled out their parishioners particularly those who had fought against communism and lost and had been declared traitors to be executed on sight," he explained. "It took a lot of guts to hide those people, feed them, steal their families out from under armed guards and smuggle the whole lot out of China to a new life in Hong Kong or Taiwan or North America. It was the Church Militant in action. Quite impressive and quite dangerous, as subversive action is always dangerous."
"Subversive!" Lindsay said, startled. "My parents were missionaries, not revolutionaries. They didn't want to rule. All they cared about was God and their converts."
"The Communists viewed religion as dangerous political competition," pointed out Catlin, smiling crookedly. "Which it was, so long as politics were pursued with religious fervor. Mao didn't permit moral competition from anyone, even Christ. Since Mao's death, things have changed. Politics is slowly becoming a profession again, rather than a holy calling. That could change, though," Catlin admitted. "It could change in an instant. The balance is very precarious."
"Chen Yi," murmured Lindsay. "That's what he's afraid of, isn't it?"
"Partly. Like a lot of intelligent, educated Chinese, he didn't enjoy the Cultural Revolution, or any of China's recent stabs at creating its very own version of the Dark Ages."
"What happens if we don't find the bronzes?"
Catlin leaned back against the couch, pulling Lindsay with him, resettling her in his lap. "If no one else finds them, either, the prodevelopment element of China's government will probably manage to patch things up and continue dragging China into the twentieth century, trading in the people's Little Red Books for radios and refrigerators and leaving people's souls to priests rather than politicians."
"And if we do find the bronzes?"
"Chen Yi and his colleagues will have a little housecleaning to do," Catlin said. Then he added sardonically, "Assuming they manage to hang on to the broom and their own necks long enough, that is. Otherwise " Catlin shrugged " the isolationists and ideological purists will win. There will be another round of purges and withdrawal from the world, and once again millions of Chinese will starve while their rulers learn a simple truth: pure ideology is a piss poor guide to running a country."
"Chen Yi," Lindsay murmured again, resting her head on Catlin's chest. "He must hope we don't find the bronzes."
Catlin laughed softly. "Not quite. He's hoping we find the bronzes all right but he's hoping they're frauds."
Lindsay sat up and fixed Catlin with an intent glance. "Why?"
"Then it would be America's face at risk, not China's. It would be a joke on greedy capitalists, not a slur on the morals of the Chinese race.''
"Do you think the bronzes will be frauds?"
"If the bronzes exist at all. I could make arguments on either side of the question," said Catlin. "In the end, what I think doesn't matter. True Qin or recent fake, you'll know the difference. And when you tell us, we'll know. That's why the Chinese would have no one but you for the job. You have an unimpeachable reputation for knowing the truth about bronzes and telling it, no matter whose ox is gored. Truth is a religion with you, and you're its shining missionary. Yi knows all about religions and missionaries." Catlin smiled sardonically. "Chen Yi is one shrewd son of a bitch."
Lindsay searched Catlin's golden eyes for a long time, feeling his words sink into her, wondering what he was trying to tell her that he wouldn't put into words. "And betrayal?" she asked. "Does he know all about betrayal?"
"He's Chinese. They wrote the
book on loyalty and betrayal."
"But was he the one Did he ?" Lindsay's voice broke.
"Is he the kind of man who would whisper Christmas in a child's ear so he could follow her to Santa Claus and kill him? Is that what you're asking me?"
Lindsay flinched but didn't look away. "Yes," she whispered, "that's what I'm asking."
"He could have," Catlin said flatly. "He would have, too, if he'd wanted to kill your uncle badly enough. But did he?" Catlin shrugged. "I doubt it. The world is full of men like Chen Yi and your uncle, men passionately committed to opposing causes, men in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd bet that Ha the rice merchant was one of them. I'd bet that he told his daughter to whisper in your ear and then watched from the shadows while you tiptoed out into the night."
Lindsay shuddered. "Oh, God," she whispered. "To be used like that, betrayed. I hate lies."
"Then stop lying to yourself," Catlin said bluntly. He watched as Lindsay's head jerked up and she stared at him in surprise. "You didn't kill your uncle, Lindsay. Men with guns did. If you'd stayed on your little straw pallet that night, your uncle still would have been betrayed and murdered. There have been a lot of times and places in China when life just wasn't worth a handful of shit. Hell, I'm surprised your parents weren't killed, too. They were lucky to have been out of town when the hunters closed in for the kill." Catlin's hand tilted up her chin. "And you, honey cat." He kissed her wet eyelashes gently. "It's a miracle those men didn't kill you, too. The life of a girl child, especially a foreign devil, meant nothing at all."
Lindsay's arms went around Catlin abruptly, and she shuddered. "But the blood," she whispered. "The blood!"
"I know," he said softly, rocking her, remembering his own horror when blood had first spilled over his hands. "I know."
Catlin didn't tell Lindsay how he knew, for that wouldn't comfort her at all. He simply held her while she pulled herself back together, settling pieces of the past into new places, letting the ramifications of that resettlement ripple up into her present. It was a process without an end, the adult reassessing the child's view of reality. The new knowledge was painful but necessary, for while nightmare ruled, ignorance was not bliss. Ignorance had brought weakness, not strength; and she needed strength to face and survive the demands of the present.
"Thank you," Lindsay said finally, kissing the hard line of Catlin's jaw. "No one else ever understood. Not even my parents. They wanted me to give my fear to God and then forget it. All of it. Mother said that no good ever came of remembering the past. I tried to forget. I thought I had forgotten, but-"
"You dreamed," said Catlin, stroking her hair.
"I dreamed," she agreed, sighing.
"And you hated lies."
"Yes."
"And you trusted no one. Not really. Not completely. Not even God."
Lindsay looked up and saw herself reflected in Catlin's desolate amber eyes. She wondered who had betrayed him and who had died and if he had ever trusted anyone or anything again.
And then she realized that distrust, like the nightmare, like the man called Rousseau, was part of the past. She lived in the present. So did the man called Catlin.
"I trust you," she whispered. "I feel safe with you. That's why I gave up fighting the nightmare. You were with me."
Pain clenched deep inside Catlin. He wanted to tell Lindsay not to trust him, that she wasn't safe with him, that he was the wrong man to be reflected in her dark, beautiful eyes. Yet even as denial sliced through him, he held her, kissed her and then kissed her again, because he knew that she must trust someone or become lost among the lies she was being forced to live. He had known that from the first.
But he had not known how much it would hurt to be the one she trusted.
"Will you be all right now?" Catlin asked.
Lindsay nodded and let herself relax against his hard, warm body. "I fee! tired," she said softly, "but it's a different kind of tired. Almost peaceful. Thank you, my dragon, my love," she whispered, sliding her arms around him again, holding him. "There's no one like you. There never has been."
Catlin closed his eyes for an instant as pain clenched again, wrenching his nerves, twisting along all the emotional pathways he had discovered last night and this morning with her. The cost of earning back half of a mutilated coin kept mounting, yet there was no way to stop, no way to go back, nowhere to go but forward.
Trust me if you must, Lindsay, he thought in agonized silence. But don't fool yourself into calling it love. That's too high a price to pay for both of us.
Yet he held her for a moment longer, savoring the soft weight of her in his arms, cursing the game they both had volunteered to play. Then he kissed her tear-starred eyelashes and gently lifted her aside.
"I'd better call Stone," Catlin said, "and tell him that we identified the Chinese man who was following us."
Lindsay's only answer was to take Catlin's hand and press a soft kiss into his palm. He closed his eyes, feeling the caress in every cell of his body. He could not stop himself from taking her face between his hands and kissing her softly, as though she were a beautiful dream shimmering as it condensed out of darkness. When he lifted his head there were new tears glittering on her eyelashes. He caught the brilliant drops on his lips and felt pain twist through him, ripping apart his control. He knew then that he wanted to be loved by Lindsay, to dissolve away his years of suspicion and chill in her hot honesty, to be fully alive in a way that he had never been.
Grow up, Catlin, he told himself harshly. You're no rookie to forget the difference between the act and reality. You know what being undercover is like, the wild adrenaline ride out and down to the frozen reaches of the human soul. When this is all over, Lindsay isn't going to want a reminder of her time in hell. She's going to want to forget as fast as she can. She certainly won't want her demon lover hanging around, reminding her with every look, every touch.
"I have some other phone calls to make," Catlin said finally. "I can't make them from here. Bolt the door when I go. Don't leave the room. Don't let anybody but O'Donnel in while I'm gone."
Lindsay nodded.
"I mean it," Catlin said, trying unsuccessfully to stem the urgency in his voice.
"I know," she said, standing on tiptoe, brushing her mouth over his. "I won't leave. I won't let anyone but O'Donnel in."
Catlin felt the warmth of Lindsay's promise against his lips and drew back as though he had been burned. He turned and went to the table, memorized the ID number of the snapshot and left without looking back, pausing only long enough in the hallway to hear the sound of the dead bolt going home behind him.
Once outside the hotel he passed up the first two public phones he found. The third was inside a coffee shop. As soon as he began feeding in coins, a man came to stand in line behind him. Catlin had expected it, just as he had expected the two other men who had followed discreetly from the hotel; and the fourth man, a Chinese, who had hung back and looked in shop windows.
"Stone?" said Catlin into the receiver, making no effort to lower his voice.
"Speaking. Catlin?"
"Got a pencil?"
"Right here."
Catlin gave Stone the ID number, waited while it was read back to him, and then said, "That's the one who followed us. I'll hold the line while you get the information on him."
"It will take several hours " Stone began.
"Bullshit," snapped Catlin.
"Look-"
"No, you look," Catlin said savagely. "There's a different tail this morning. Chinese. I can lead him down an alley and have the information I want in a New York minute. And that's just what I'm going to do if you don't quit cocking around."
There was a long silence. Catlin didn't mind. He knew that Stone had put down the phone, gone to another room and called the local Bureau office.
"His name is Joe Sheng," Stone said, picking up the phone again. "He's a free-lance, but he does a lot of lean
ing for one of the Chinese benevolent societies."
"Tom Lee's society?"
"Once or twice, but nothing regular. Lee's a crook, pure and simple. Mostly Sheng works for the Taiwanese faction. The True China Benevolent Society, or some such thing. Apparently the ideographs that make up the name can have several translations."
"Yes. Like poetry. What else?"
"Hell, Catlin, we're not miracle workers," Stone said angrily. "I'll have a list of the True China members soon, for what good it will do. We'll cross-match with people who had access to the Chinese Christian Benevolent Society car and maybe we'll come up with something meaningful and maybe we won't. Seems like everybody in Chinatown belongs to at least six societies."
Catlin couldn't argue with that for the simple reason that it was true. The various Chinese societies formed a maze of interlocking and overlapping interests that were religious, social personal and political. It was the societies that knit together the disparate goals and dreams of recent Chinese refugees and fifth generation, American-born ethnic Chinese.
"And," Stone continued, "ninety-five percent of the societies are absolutely legitimate."
"So send them a Presidential Citation for good citizenship," retorted Catlin. "Call me when you have a match on names. And it better be fast." He hung up and felt that subtle crowding of the FBI agent behind him as the man maneuvered for a view of the numeral pad. Catlin spun around suddenly, fed up with the game, fed up with being crowded down paths he had chosen to leave a long time ago.
"Back up," Catlin snarled.
The stranger read the barely suppressed violence in Catlin's stance. Slowly the man took a few steps backward. Catlin turned around again, shielded the numbers with his body and made another call. He listened while the call was switched and then switched again at least one more time. When the line was picked up, Catlin very softly repeated the number that Chen Yi had given him in New York. He was switched to another operator. He repeated Yi's number.
"Have any information on that number yet?" asked Catlin.
He waited, listening to the tiny, hollow sounds of computer keys being hit as the man on the other end of the line input the telephone number.
Tell Me No Lies Page 34