Zak is staring across the silent lily pond, concentrating on memorizing some classwork, and as he does so a fish snaps out of the water and makes a noisy splash. It is just after dawn in the Jinchun Gardens of the University. He has ridden his bike down campus just to get here at the break of day, and now he is sitting in the Han Pavilion, a large pagoda like structure that sits triumphantly over the center of the former Imperial Garden of the Qing Dynasty, the old Summer Palace. The Garden is covered in a thin veneer of white from last night’s early snow event, but it is rapidly disappearing under the fast warming of the sun.
The restored Pavilion can easily seat dozens of people, but this dawn he is alone and practicing a one thousand yard stare as he prepares for an exam. His mind is clear and empty of everything, the perfect condition for cramming. The Gardens are breathtakingly beautiful, tended as they have been for many hundreds of years, and it is the most peacefully tranquil place on the very hurried campus. He has come here before at exam time and rarely encounters anyone this early, maybe a runner or two, a young romantic couple having just spent the night together, or a nature lover trying to take pictures.
But for some reason, this morning is different. He hears the tramp of many feet and from around the bend of the pathway flies a group of young runners, all dressed similarly, huffing and puffing. The group descends upon him, interrupting his train of thought. Soon there are other runners, some apparently lagging the team ahead, a few just on their own. Following them are bicyclists, pedestrians, leaf peepers, and couples. They pierce the silence with laughter and conversation.
They stare at Zak as they walk by. He notices that somebody is photographing the Pavilion and he is being included. He can’t hide his annoyance and glares at the photographer as he thinks of packing it in.
A man cries out at the other end of the pavilion, and in the immediate silence that follows, Zak turns to see someone else racing away. There is a figure lying supine across the Pavilion’s entrance. Even the group of runners slows to a halt. Zak reacts without thought and runs quickly over to the man, who is clearly injured. He wears street clothes and the bottom of his shirt is stained in blood, blood which he appears to be fast losing. The man supports himself with one arm.
“Sir, you are hurt?” Zak asks, dropping to a knee.
The fellow looks at Zak with a grimace spread wide across his face, in the kind of pain that cannot be expressed.
“What is your name?”
“Li Hua Wang,” the stricken man can barely speak.
“You’re going to be ok.”
By this time a crowd has begun to assemble around the scene. Zak turns to the first person holding a cell.
“Call emergency, right away.”
The woman with the cell nods and begins to dial.
He is thinking that the hospital is just West of the Gardens, close. He is pulling the torn shirt away from the man’s abdomen, which is obscured by so much blood. It is not a simple stab wound, but rather a deep incision all the way across the abdomen. Zak pulls his own t-shirt over his head to place pressure on the wound, but Li Hua stops him with a raised hand.
He falls back, his head coming to rest on the path. Wang pulls Zach closer, his eyes starting to lose focus.
“Please help me, Christopher Gray,” he says breathlessly, grabbing his hand.
Zak, taken aback by being called a name which means nothing to him, feels a small object being pressed into his hand in such a way that it cannot be noticed by the others.
“You must get this to UNK.”
He closes his eyes. Pain and lack of oxygen overtake him.
“Only UNK. UNK. Only UNK.”
Li Hua loses consciousness.
Zak is holding the now soaked t-shirt as a compress and signals a man nearby to take over. He makes his way through the crowd to the corner of the Pavilion and turns away from them to find out what Li Hua has given him, a tiny flash drive. The danger of carrying someone else’s presumably stolen data around, especially in China, spooks him. And then there is the matter of being called Christopher Gray. Why would this man, whom he has never met, call him by someone else’s name? That was just weird. And who, for that matter, is this UNK?
Zak looks up from the drive in his palm, only to see a westerner further down the pathway giving him the once over and then quickly look away. Zak is certain that the man’s interest is much more than casual. Heat rises up the back of Zak’s neck and flushes his face. If he doesn’t get out of here really soon they’re going to be joined by the authorities, who will no doubt detain him, question him, find out about the passing of a mnemonic device by the dead man, assume he is in on something, arrest him for possession of stolen data, and basically end his life as he knows it. Under the circumstances, Zak figures sticking around is something he should not feel overly obliged to do.
So with another glance at the mystery man, he wonders is the guy looking his way again or not, Zak, mindful not to run or draw attention to himself, skirts around the crowd and back through the Pavilion to his bicycle, which, fortunately, is, despite all the chaos, still there. He sets out like a light, down the opposite side pathway, as fast as the bike will carry him.
Zak hits a tiny ornamental pedestrian bridge of a traditional Chinese design going so fast that he literally blows back the few pedestrians who are there, forcing them to retreat to the sides. The bridge rises in a short, high curve over the water and this curve actually launches him and his bike a short ways into the air. Coming down hard he nearly blows a tire and the bike wobbles. He fights to regain control and turns down the path, dodging people along the way.
The thumb drive is burning a hole in his pocket and a plan is formulating in the back of his head at the same time. He has to ditch the drive as soon as possible. But where? Anywhere where it will not be disturbed and he can come back and find it later on. Anywhere that a needle can be lost in a haystack of possibilities.
But another thought has crossed Zak’s mind and he zig zags the bicycle through the paths, going right, then left, trying to avoid hitting anyone. He comes up on the center meadow of the campus, a Quad, much like any campus in the United States, and heads North along the West edge. Sidewalks ring and criss cross the plain of open grass, grass still wet with the morning dew. Young students clutching bags and books mill about on the way to their first class of the day, mostly in ones and twos.
What if someone is already following him? He looks behind for pursuers as he approaches the Jeffersonian style Auditorium Building at the North end of the Quad. The buildings are all traditionally European, going back to when Tsinghua was funded by the Boxers, becoming a prep school for Chinese preparing to study in America.
Zak’s backward glances are quick but he is traveling fast. As he turns back on the bike he is suddenly accosted by a young student obliviously wandering too near his path.
Zak veers, too late, and hits one of the kid’s running shoes. This throws the bike off at a crazy angle that says only one thing to him, “You’re going down!” But he makes it to the grass. The lawn, wet from the remains of last night’s snow and kind of soft, grabs hold of his tires the instant that they hit the grass, abruptly slowing the bike. Zak’s inertia keeps going however and he flies over the handlebars. He flails a bit in the air but comes down rolling, and he keeps rolling on the soft damp ground, until, like some kind of football receiver, he is back on his feet. Zak looks around but there are only a few students who even seem to have noticed.
Zak grabs the bike, which is none the worse, climbs on quickly and heads rapidly around the Auditorium. He spins onto one of several pedestrian bridges across a narrow, concrete-lined storm channel that drains the grounds of the campus and the Haidian District of Beijing, to the University Library. He picks the nearest entrance, leaves the bike, and makes his way inside using his student card key. He takes the first elevator up to the seventh floor, gets off, and runs to the nearest stack of books all the way to the end. Mo
st everything here is in Chinese, which he is only slightly conversant in, so he chooses a fairly nondescript text. He presses the flash into the middle of the book, puts the book back on the shelf, and does his best to memorize the title characters, making sure that he can find the book easily when he returns.
After quietly leaving the library, Zak grabs his bike and gets on the path heading to his and Kim’s housing complex.
Chapter 6
On Fire Page 5