The bike path runs along the northerly extension of the storm channel. Zak veers right toward the center of the Zijing dorms, a group of hi rise buildings, and past two dining halls. He approaches the International Students Dormitory, looking for anything out of the ordinary. But there’s nothing.
So he down shifts the bike and slowly goes around the building. He can see a portion of Caijing East Road and he looks for cars that might be parked along the side of the road. He sees none. There is a student parking lot nearby but it would be full this time of day. The sidewalk takes him up to the back door of the high rise where he dismounts his bike, leaning it carefully against a pillar. Walking up to the partially glass door he uses his key card, which he swipes, and he hears it unlock.
He enters the small rear lobby of the building, sees some kid reading over in a corner, a book bag at his feet, and walks over to the elevators. Kim will be gone. She likes to have breakfast with her friends at the Yu Shu Yuan Dining Hall nearby. Now that he is in the building he feels his paranoia slipping away and begins to relax. What was the man’s name again? Wasn’t it Li Hua something? Wang! That was it.
Grad students exit the elevator as soon as it arrives and Zak takes it up to his floor. He steps out and hears familiar sounds: doors slamming, the washing machine at the end of the hall. Even the voices he hears, the other languages used, sound familiar. The hall is significantly too warm, overheated, like the rest of the building. It’s all very usual, comforting really.
Stepping over to his door, he unlocks it with a key and enters. But now, for a fleeting instant, he has a bad feeling. He doesn’t have time for it to take root before he hears a loud male voice call out to him from the living room.
“Please come in Mr. Gray!”
Zak’s heart sinks all the way to his feet.
His hand is still on the doorknob and he is suddenly considering making a run for it, seriously thinking of making a run for it, when the doorknob and the door it’s attached to move all on their own. He turns and is startled to see a rather large Chinese guy right in his face, and Zak realizes the man must have moved out from behind the door just as Zak was entering. His face is expressionless and remains that way as he reaches past to shut the door behind Zak, cutting off any possibility of escape.
Zak is in a short hallway that has a coat closet and then gives way to the living room and as he steps through it another unfriendly guy moves into his line of sight, standing at the opposite end of the room. Zak turns, and seated on the sofa is the man who appears to have spoken. He is Chinese, is dressed in a good suit of foreign manufacture, is older than Zak, but is still young. He is not bald but has shaved his head, completely. His old hairline is still visible, but shows only mild recession. His face is tight, as if under laid by wire with skin stretched over the top.
“Ah, Mr. Gray! How nice that you could join us.”
Zak may have lost confidence in the moment, but he is not without the resentment that comes from having one’s home invaded
“Who the hell are you and how the hell did you get in here?” Zak asks with more than a little fake bravado.
Standing in the warm room, having just biked several miles at top speed, he sweats profusely and his face becomes a shiny sluiceway.
The athletic bald man is sitting casually on Zak’s sofa, one leg crossed over the other in such a way that Zak can see that the sole of one of his shoes is barely broken in. The man smiles curiously and pulls a card from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, extending it toward Zak.
Zak steps forward, taking the card. Noticeably, the man in the corner also steps closer. Zak also sees the guy at the door has edged into the room. So Zak steps back before looking at what is a business card in Chinese and English.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Christopher. I am Hui Lee.” He speaks with a flourish, “I am with the Ministry of State Security. I am sure you have heard of us, have you not?”
The man’s English is good, but it has an accent that is different from that common in Beijing. Zak hasn’t been in China long enough to really be familiar. Maybe the accent is a little British. Maybe it’s Cantonese too. The card has an insignia with a coat of arms lying on top of a gold seal. On one quadrant of the coat of arms is a hammer and sickle. It looks real enough for that sickening feeling he had earlier to return.
“I have no idea who this guy is that you are looking for. My name is Zachary Miller and I’m a grad student from Stanford in an exchange program.”
The man who says his name is Hui Lee laughs. His face scrunches up as he does so, its tight skin threatening to rip. He looks at the man at the side of the room, the man who has no neck and very little forehead.
“What a funny guy!”
He points at Zak and continues to address his friend.
“He’s a funny guy!”
No neck chuckles without smiling.
Hui Lee turns his attention back to Zak, not in an unfriendly way.
“Sure you are. And I’m the Easter Bunny,” he says.
Zak reaches for his wallet and the big guy shows how fast he can move, which is pretty fast. He is on Zak before he can pull the wallet out of his pocket, knocking Zak’s hand away and grabbing the wallet himself. He takes a quick look at it and tosses it to Lee. Lee demonstrates a sudden reaction, picking it out of the air like a catcher.
And Zack is thinking, “Who are these guys? No way can they be government desk jockeys.”
“Search him!” Lee growls.
The big guy is apparently not big on English. He looks at Zak and tugs at his own shirt and points. Zak gets the message and starts to strip. The guy takes each item like he’s some sort of valet. He motions for Zak to keep going. After Zak gets naked, the other guy comes over and the two henchmen go through his pants pockets and the bag he brought in with him, confiscating anything even remotely electronic. Finally the big guy pulls out some rubber gloves.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Do we look like we’re kidding, Mr. Gray?” he turns to the big guy. “Do it!”
Zak feels a hand on his back.
“Hey!”
The guy does a quick prostate exam. Zak would never have thought of hiding anything there, but from now on and for the rest of his life, he will never fail to consider it.
In the meantime, Lee is pulling plastic cards out of the wallet. He finds Zak’s student ID.
“Oh and what’s this? Fake ID?”
“It’s not fake. It’s who I am. I’m Zachary Miller, an engineering grad student from Stanford, an American, and you are making a big mistake.”
Hui Lee’s face hardens as if about to crack.
“Quite the contrary, Mr. Gray. I have it on good authority that you are an American agent who has just come from the Imperial Gardens, where a leading Chinese dissident just passed you information intended to negatively affect the interests of the Chinese people. What is not clear is whether you had a hand in this man’s death.”
“I assure you I had nothing to do with it.”
“Ah! So you admit you were there?”
Zak tilts his head and grimaces a look of disgust. They are in the process of handing back his clothes and he dresses quickly.
“If you are going to question me, I have a right to see someone from the American Embassy.”
“You disappoint me, Mr. Gray! You keep on insisting you are someone else and things are going to get very unpleasant for you. Please, drop your ridiculous act so we can deal with this like gentlemen.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“That’s a shame. It really is. Here I was hoping we could resolve this just between us. But you force my hand.”
He nods to both of his men, who take up positions on either side of Zak. He places the ID back in the wallet and hands it to one of them as he walks to the door. The guy sticks it back in Zak’s rear pocket.
Zak is figuring that they are going
to bum rush him out of the apartment. But he knows that once they are out of this room their actions will be recorded by University CCTV. Heck, they probably tapped into the system if they know what went down in Jinchun. What Zak can’t understand is why everybody suddenly thinks he is someone else.
They start to move and as they reach the hallway they hesitate only long enough to close the apartment door. The men pull down on his arms, forcing him to jut his lower body outward to maintain his balance, while pushing him forward in a kind of crab walk. He is forced to concentrate on moving his feet to avoid falling. Hui Lee has an empty elevator waiting for them. They sweep into it fast and he is momentarily dragged off his feet.
But the elevator does not stay empty for long. It is the middle of the morning as well as the middle of the week, and there are plenty of students coming and going from class.
At the next stop a young blonde woman in blue tartan capri pants with sandals and a sleeveless navy top walks in followed by a guy of similar age in an ochre t-shirt and blue jeans. They go a few more floors in silence and a girl in a distinctive orange sari joins them. She turns around, and this reveals a petite back which is completely bare except for her matching orange bra. The eyes of all the men in the back of the elevator, Zak scrunched between them, go immediately to this girl.
Zak prefers to wear hard leather shoes when biking and this becomes important when he viciously plants his heel on the toe of the smaller man, who grunts in sudden pain. Zak tears lose from his grasp and knees the big guy on his left as hard as he can, pulling free of him as well. Pushing past the students, he grabs the door just as it is closing, and is out and down the hall to the stairs. He is followed by shouting and heavy footfalls, but is soon launching himself down the half staircases, somehow landing on his feet each time. He crashes through the door leading into the lobby and he runs past the front desk, practically colliding with the front door, making it to the broad lawn at the front of the building.
Zak crosses the lawn at top speed and, before he really has a chance to think, he is dodging traffic on Caijing East Road. On the other side of the barrier is a railroad track overgrown with brush at this time of year. It’s a hundred yards North along the tracks and he heads straight for it.
Chapter 7
On Fire Page 6