by Jeff Edwards
The helicopter’s turbine began to pick up speed again. In two or three minutes, the aircraft was lifting away into the sky.
When it was gone, the soldiers began packing up the wooden barricades. In a few minutes more, the soldiers were gone, and people began flooding back into the square. Beyond the aroused curiosity of the crowd, there was no sign at all that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
Lu Shi stared vacantly out the side window as the streets of Lhasa scrolled past. Colors and shapes slid into his field of vision and then slid out again, without making any impression on his conscious mind. His eyes were unfocused, and so were his thoughts.
For a man whose intellect was practically the stuff of legend, such an utter lack of acuity was—quite literally—unheard of. For the first time in his life, Lu Shi could not make himself think. Moreover, he didn’t really want to think.
One of the heavy-grade military tires hit a pothole. The vehicle’s stiff suspension did little to cushion the impact, transmitting the shock directly into the passenger compartment, and sending a jolt up the spine of every passenger. The ride was not smooth; the seats were not at all like the well-padded luxury of the limousines that Lu Shi traditionally rode in. He didn’t notice.
His fingers absently fidgeted with his red silk necktie. It had been a gift many years before, from Lu Jianguo. Even the mental recognition of his son’s name brought a tremor to his hands.
Unwanted images came surging into his brain. Photographs of the burned and twisted wreckage of the train... Video footage of the wreck site… Smoke still rising from the smoldering remains of the passenger cars. Soldiers and emergency crews carrying stretchers loaded with the bodies of the wounded and the dead.
Lu Shi clenched his eyes shut, and tried to block out the visions of blood and mangled flesh.
None of the photographs or accident footage he had seen contained the face of Lu Jianguo. For that small blessing, he could be grateful. He had not been forced to look upon images of his son’s broken body. But Lu Jianguo had been there, among the dead and the dying, unrecognized by the first rescue teams to arrive. Known only to the medical personnel and the soldiers as another injured passenger: another victim of the carnage.
Somewhere in Lu Shi’s mind—below the threshold of conscious awareness—fear, and anger, and grief were circling like sharks. But for now, his emotions were as paralyzed as his higher thinking processes.
His fingers went through the motions of straightening his necktie, tightening the knot, smoothing the silk, loosening it a fraction, and then beginning the sequence again.
After some unmeasured interval, a hand touched his shoulder. “Comrade Vice Premier, we have arrived.”
Lu Shi looked up, willing his eyes to focus. The vehicle had stopped at the entrance to a whitewashed stone building with curved glass doors. He glanced at the raised metal sign long enough to confirm that this was indeed the Tibet People’s Hospital, and then allowed his eyes to drift away. His fingers found the red necktie again.
The rear door opened, and Lu Shi followed the Army major out of the vehicle, across a short stretch of sidewalk, and through the double glass doors into the lobby.
A clutch of white-jacketed hospital personnel inclined their heads respectfully, and then shuffled forward to greet him. Some of them were probably doctors, or perhaps the directors of the facility, but Lu Shi’s guards weren’t interested in credentials. They stepped forward to form a barrier between the Vice Premier and his would-be visitors.
Neither of the guards spoke a word, but their facial expressions and body language announced quite plainly that they would not hesitate to use lethal force on anyone foolish enough to approach the invisible perimeter around their protectee.
The Army major selected one of the white-jacketed men, apparently at random. “You!” He poked a finger in the man’s direction. “Take us to the room.”
The man nodded vigorously, and said something unintelligible.
Lu Shi, his guards, and the major followed the unnamed man down a hall and into an elevator. Three floors later, the man led them out of the elevator, past the circular desk of a nurse’s station, and to the door of a room.
The man opened the door, stepping out of the way so that Vice Premier Lu and his flankers could enter.
Lu Shi stood before the open doorway without moving. He had arrived at a threshold, both figuratively, and literally. This was the place. He had reached the moment that his subconscious had been struggling to postpone, or even to deny entirely.
His senses, which had been dulled into near lassitude, seemed to stir fitfully. The doorframe, the walls, and even the white-coated stranger gradually loomed into sharper focus. His hearing, which had filtered out the majority of the sounds in his environment, began to return. He slowly became aware of the murmur of distant voices, the low hum of electrical equipment, and—he did not want to hear this—the cyclical hiss of a mechanical respirator.
This last sound was both repelling, and hypnotic. The high-pitched shush of a forced inhalation, followed by the gurgling rasp of the suction cycle, and then the shush of another forced breath. There was something obscene about the idea of a machine pumping air into a man’s lungs, and then sucking it out again.
Lu Shi shuddered involuntarily, realizing as he did so that his sense of smell was recovering as well. Accompanying the surge of returning sights and sounds came a torrent of odors. The sharp alcohol reek of disinfectants. The coppery-tang of blood. The fetid scent of human misery.
The numbness was beginning to recede, but he was not ready to let go of it yet. He wasn’t ready to think, or to feel, and he was definitely not ready to walk through the door in front of him.
He became conscious of the fact that his fingers were toying with his necktie. He let his hand drop to his side.
No one spoke.
His guards stood at his elbows like a pair of temple dogs, ready to react instantly, or to wait for a thousand years—hovering one hair breadth away from lethal action.
The Army major waited as well. He was a different breed of warrior. His body and senses were not tuned for instantaneous combat. As a soldier, he was prepared to fight—even to die—if he ever came to a time and place that made such things necessary. But now was not that time, and this was not the place. For the moment, his job was to wait for his superior to make the next move, or to issue the next order.
The stranger in the white lab coat continued to stand without speaking. He did not have the extraordinary discipline of the guards, or even the situational discipline of the soldier. But he was not an idiot. He would stand, holding the door open, for as long as necessary. He would not speak; he would not move; and he most assuredly would not allow the door to close in the face of the First Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China.
The comforting envelope of disorientation was eroding rapidly now, replaced by a growing sense of fearful expectation.
Lu Shi’s rise to power had not been uncontested, and it had certainly not been gentle. He was no stranger to conflict or adversity. He was not easily frightened, but he was afraid of what he would find on the other side of that open doorway.
He forced down a fleeting urge to turn and walk away from this place. He exhaled slowly, steeling his nerve. Before he could change his mind, he moved forward, walking briskly through the open doorway.
The room had obviously been intended for at least three patients, but there was only one occupant now. The other beds had probably been bundled off to some storage closet, to make room for the son of Vice Premier Lu. The hospital staff was perceptive enough to understand that this was the most important patient their facility would ever care for.
The lone bed was positioned near the window, surrounded by IV racks, medical sensors, and several pieces of equipment that were less easily identified. The entire array was cross-connected by hoses, ribbon cables, and loops of clear plastic tubing.
On the bed, covered by a green hospital sheet, lay a vagu
ely human shape. Lu Shi averted his eyes from the shape as he crossed the room toward the bed. He was not ready to look. Not yet. He kept his attention on the baffling collection of medical devices. Nearly every piece of equipment seemed to have a wire or a tube that snaked across the floor to disappear under the green sheet. The patient—Lu Shi could not yet bring himself to think of this inert shape as his son—was wired up like a laboratory rat in some hideous medical experiment.
Finally, Lu Shi forced his gaze to travel up the length of the bed, taking in every detail. He paused when his eyes reached the knee level, or rather where knee level should have been. The sheet lay almost flat against the surface of the bed. There was no tenting of the fabric, no raised contours to indicate the presence of legs.
Lu Shi’s throat tightened a fraction. He had been briefed about his son’s injuries, but it was one thing to hear the words, and quite another thing to witness the reality for himself.
His eyes continued their journey up the length of the sheet-draped form, gliding over a pair of telltale bulges that must be the bandages covering the stumps of amputated legs. When he reached the upper body, the left arm lay above the sheet, wrapped in bandages, but essentially intact—at least in form. The dressings on the right arm were much heavier, and—like the legs—they ended suddenly, just above the wrist.
Lu Shi raised his eyes still further, to look at the face (if that torn and engorged mass of flesh could be called a face). A thick cervical collar held the neck in place, keeping the head tilted slightly back, to allow for the bundle of plastic tubing that disappeared into the mouth and nostrils.
The right eye and right ear were both swathed in surgical gauze, and the visible portions of the face were swollen, discolored by bruising, and crisscrossed by wandering trails of sutures. The left eye was open, and staring sightlessly toward the ceiling.
As he focused on that unblinking eye, Lu Shi felt an entirely unwelcome stab of recognition. The patient was approximately the correct age: in his middle-to-late thirties, but Lu Shi decided instantly that the similarity in ages didn’t prove a thing. He did not want to recognize this face. He wanted it to be the face of a stranger; he needed it to be the face of a stranger.
A minute spark of hope still flickered somewhere deep inside of him, just the tiniest glimmer of a chance… This might not be Lu Jianguo. This could be a bizarrely elaborate case of mistaken identity. Somehow, someone had misidentified this poor wretch as his son. And somewhere, somehow—Lu Jianguo was safe, and whole, and alive.
Lu Shi felt the heat of tears on his cheeks. Let it be so. Oh please… let it be so… Let this mangled wreck of a man be anyone but Lu Jianguo.
And then his final hope was extinguished. He could feel the last tiny flare of the spark as it was swallowed by darkness. The face of the man on the bed was ravaged and distorted, but it was not the face of a stranger. The last shreds of denial were ripped from Lu Shi with the force of a hurricane. This thing… this lump of broken humanity… was Lu Jianguo.
Something broke at the very core of Lu Shi’s being—something indefinable and incalculably fragile. He could not have named this thing, and he had no idea what it was. But he was instantly aware of its loss, and he knew without question that it could never be restored. Nothing would ever be the same again.
He stared down at the wounded animal that had once been his son. The raw silk of the red necktie flowed smoothly between his groping fingers.
During his early years, Lu Jianguo had brought his father all the usual gifts of childhood… handmade ashtrays… colorful paper ornaments… picture frames decorated with beads and bits of shell. All the worthlessly priceless trinkets made by children for their parents. The necktie had been different, not just because it was expensive, but because of the care that had gone into its selection. It had been Lu Jianguo’s first attempt to understand his father’s preferences and desires, his first attempt to offer a gift that was utterly appropriate to the tastes and needs of the recipient. It had been a boy’s first act of manhood. Lu Jianguo had been nine years old.
At that moment, Lu Shi had known that he had named his son correctly. Jianguo, meant ‘building the country.’ Looking into the shining eyes of his nine year old son, Lu Shi had seen his own wisdom in selecting that name. Lu Jianguo would build the country. And Lu Shi had not had any doubt that he was standing in the presence of the future leader of China.
Lu Shi blinked, and the memory of that long-past day fell away. He had been so certain that he knew the future of China… the future of his son.
Now, staring at Lu Jianguo’s sheet-draped form, Lu Shi was certain of nothing. After a lifetime spent planning and preparing for the future, Lu Shi discovered that there was no future. There were only dreams and plans that could be snatched away without a second’s warning. The future had been stolen, from Lu Shi, from Lu Jianguo, and from China. For the first time in his life, Lu Shi did not care about tomorrow.
He discovered that his eyes had drifted back down to the flat stretch of bed sheets where his son’s legs should have been.
“Where are they?” he asked quietly.
The man in the white coat seemed to follow the direction of Lu Shi’s gaze. He cleared his throat nervously. “Your son’s legs, Comrade Vice Premier? I… I’m not really sure. One of them was severed before he arrived, and the other…”
Lu Shi silenced the man with a glare. “Not my son’s legs!” he hissed. He turned his head toward the Army major.
The man stiffened visibly. “Yes, Comrade Vice Premier?”
“Where are the men who did this?” Lu Shi asked. “Where are the criminals who…” His voice trailed off in mid-sentence. He paused, and continued at a volume just above a whisper. “The terrorists who… did this thing… Where are they?”
The major swallowed before answering. “We… ah… We believe their plan is to escape through the mountains into India. Given current weather conditions, it is likely that they will travel by way of the Nathu La pass.”
“I see,” Lu Shi said softly. “Then you do not know where they are?”
The major responded with a single shake of his head. “Not yet, Comrade Vice Premier. General Zhou has men and aircraft combing the mountain passes between here and the Indian border. The General has also ordered increased satellite surveillance of the most likely escape routes. We will locate the terrorists, Comrade Vice Premier. They can’t hide from us indefinitely.”
Lu Shi nodded slowly. “What of the prisoner? The terrorist you have in custody… Has he broken?”
“Not yet, sir,” the major said. “But he will.”
Lu Shi turned his eyes back to the bed. “Inform General Zhou that the Army is to immediately surrender the prisoner to the Ministry of State Security.”
The words were spoken calmly, but the major could not entirely conceal his grimace. “Comrade Vice Premier… That won’t be necessary. I assure you that our interrogators will soon have the information we need.”
Lu Shi did not look at him. “I’m not offering you a suggestion, major. I’m giving you a direct order. I don’t want the information soon. I want it now. Do you understand?”
The major snapped to attention and saluted. “Yes, Comrade Vice Premier!”
He executed an abrupt about-face, and marched briskly from the room.
Lu Shi stood without moving for several minutes after the major had gone. The only sounds in the room were the sibilant rasp and gurgle of the mechanical respirator.
At last, he looked up and made eye contact with the man in the white lab coat. “Disconnect the machines.”
The man’s face was suffused by a look of pure horror. “Comrade Vice Premier, we can’t do that! These machines provide critical life support functions. If we disconnect them, your son will die!”
Lu Shi turned back toward the bed. “Will he ever be free of these machines? Will he recover enough to leave this bed?”
The man cringed under the hard edge of Lu Shi’s voice. “That… That seems
unlikely, Comrade Vice Premier. Your son has suffered massive cerebral trauma.”
The man swallowed. “I… I don’t believe he will ever be entirely free of the need for life support.”
Lu Shi’s voice was low and cold. “Then my son is already dead,” he said. “Disconnect the machines.”
CHAPTER 3
QUSHUI PRISON
SOUTHWEST OF LHASA, TIBET
WEDNESDAY; 19 NOVEMBER
7:42 PM
TIME ZONE +8 ‘HOTEL’
There was a sound somewhere on the other side of the door. Strapped to a steel chair in the dimly-lighted gloom of the interrogation cell, Sonam came awake instantly.
He had been drifting in that strange half-world between consciousness and oblivion. The pain was still too constant and too insistent to let him sleep, but he could find some relief by letting himself slide down into a haze of senselessness.
His face and upper body ached from repeated beatings and frequent jolts from an electric cattle prod. At least two of his ribs were broken, and every breath brought a stab of pain. The bullet hole in his left thigh throbbed in time with his pulse. The vicious bastards had done a good job of patching up his leg; he had to give them that much. The bullet had been removed; the wound had been neatly sutured, and they kept the dressings clean. Of course, their reasons hadn’t been humanitarian. The Chinese Army was not concerned with his health. They just wanted him kept alive for questioning.
Sonam’s interrogators had been careful to keep well clear of the injury. They had limited their attentions to the parts of his body above the waist. That still left them quite a bit of territory to work with, and they had used it with appalling brutality.
The noise was repeated, and this time Sonam recognized it—the scrape of a boot heel on concrete. It was followed almost immediately by the sound of a heavy key sliding into the door lock, and the dull rasp of the bolt being withdrawn. The soldiers were coming for him again.
Sonam felt a surge of panic, coupled with a sudden urge to urinate, or vomit, or both. He forced himself to slow his breathing.