Chapter 20 #2
She’d been warned that returning to China would be a mistake. But she ignored everyone. She knew that the great Vivien Li was far too important for Chen to do anything. He’d never dare move against her.
Furthermore, once those ready to rebel against the regime saw her in person, they’d be inspired by, in awe of, her courage, and rise up. The revolution would begin.
Or, she now told herself as the man took her arm none too gently and frog-marched her through the airport, they’d think she was a dangerous, delusional old woman trying to recapture some semblance of glory. Of significance. A pathetic has-been who followed her ego right into the arms of the MSS.
And they’d be right.
“You have the wrong person.” As she spoke, she looked around, trying to catch the eyes of passersby. But everyone looked away.
With no other option, and all the dignity she could muster, Vivien climbed into the SUV. She comforted herself with the knowledge that once the world found out what had happened to her, there’d be such an outcry, such a protest, that China wouldn’t know what—
She stopped there. No. There’d be no outcry. The world had better things to do, the American administration had better things to do after the attack, than protest the arrest of someone delusional enough to stroll right into a trap.
She was, it seemed, exactly what that Alan Zhou thought of her.
Old. Useless.
Disposable.
And, worst of all, stupid. And, as a result, a danger to anyone who had ever trusted her.
At least her children were safe at home.
Alice hadn’t thought it all the way through. She’d assumed that once in Hong Kong, she could just get on a flight to Xi’an. It was internal after all.
“Your visa?”
“Right here.” She brought out her card to pay for the flight.
“Bù.” No. “Your travel pass, your visa.”
The woman at the Air China desk was speaking slowly and gesturing, as though to a puppy.
“I don’t have one.”
“Then you need to step aside.” She looked beyond Alice to the anxious people behind her in the long line. More people who had grown to dislike her.
“But…”
A man shoved her aside and began speaking in rapid Cantonese. Something, Alice felt sure, about a picture frame, earwax, and a potato peeler.
She turned full circle, slowly, wondering what to do next. Maybe the US embassy could help get her a visa.
But then she’d have to explain why she was there. They’d quickly realize who her mother was. And that could get Vivien into trouble.
No, there must be another way. While she thought, Alice decided to do something useful.
She grabbed a cab and asked to be taken to the Kam Fung bakery.
Then she sat back and stared out the window.
She’d intended to use the drive to come up with some other way to get to Xi’an, but now she found herself distracted.
Overwhelmed by the sights, the cacophony.
The people, the people, all those people.
She’d thought the chaos was restricted to the airport. She was wrong. After the elevator attacks, people everywhere had streamed out of buildings and were on the street. In the street. The never restful city of Hong Kong was in turmoil.
Eventually they arrived at her destination. Alice paid the driver and asked him to wait. But either he didn’t understand her Mandarin, or he did and didn’t care.
He took off and she was alone in the whirl of people.
Looking up, she saw a nondescript sign. Kam Fung. He’d at least dropped her at the right place.
She tried the door. It was locked.
She tugged on it again. In case.
Nothing.
Of course it would be closed. After what happened, would anyone really want baked goods?
Shit.
It had been a long shot that the bun in Liam’s hand was from here. But it was a start.
Or would be, if the bakery were open. And even if she found where he’d bought it, could that possibly matter?
She turned around. What now?
Her next move, if she couldn’t get to Xi’an yet, was to go to fish ball island. The place whose name Liam had misspelled in his email.
She had no idea what to look for there, but she did know Liam had wanted someone to go. And it fell to her.
Alice turned around, scanning for a taxi or an Uber. She put out her arm in the hopes someone would stop.
“May I help?” It was a pleasant voice.
She turned around and stumbled backward. There in front of her was the durian man. From the boat. The MSS agent.
“Bù!” she said right into his face, as though saying, Boo! Then took off into the crowd.
She only got a few steps before an arm circled her waist and lifted her off her feet, winding her in the process.
“No!” she wheezed, squirming and trying to break free. Either no one heard or, more likely, no one wanted to know. Certainly no one came to help. They had their own troubles.
Her mind shrieked. Where was she being taken?
To the harbor? To the boat? To …
They’d traveled half an hour, and two thousand years.
Vivien had known for the last few kilometers exactly where they were going. It was, perhaps not completely coincidently, exactly where she needed to be since that one word dropped.
“Pangu.”
There in the distance rose the mountain.
For centuries, it had been thought a natural formation, pushed up from the earth in some tectonic shift. They now knew, and had known since March of 1974, that they were wrong.
It was man-made. A vast structure built to look like a mountain. An engineering marvel that hid untold wonders and horrors.
It was the resting place of Qin Shi Huang. The man who’d united China by force of will. And brute, brutal force.
To protect his necropolis, the first emperor had created the Terracotta Warriors. Thousands of them. Should he be disturbed, they would spring to life and avenge the desecration.
For years, centuries, millennia, the army had been buried under many feet of earth. Forgotten. The land above them turned to hardscrabble farmland. No one knowing, no one guessing, what lay beneath the flat land, or the mountain.
Until that farmer dug the well and found the inconceivable.
But so far, no one had dared enter the tomb itself. It remained sealed. The lunatic emperor safe inside, and the rest of the world safe outside.
As the vehicle approached, Vivien felt both dread and a sort of elation. She would see the Terracotta Army again. Probably, she knew, the last thing she’d see. Well, there were worse ways to go. Like in a plunging elevator.
Though Vivien suspected Chen and the MSS would not simply put a bullet in her head. First they’d want to know what was in there. Names. Contact information.
An elevator was looking more attractive.
What also worried her, as the vehicle got closer, was who else they’d picked up. She’d come all this way, risking arrest and worse, hoping to stop the next attack.
She thought of the first time she came here. With him. Would he sense something was wrong? Would he come to try to rescue her? It would be futile. But then she would know.
The car had pulled up to a low concrete building without windows.
Off to the side was the huge domed structure, like some massive aerodrome. Many football fields long. And wide.
Inside were the row upon row upon row of clay figures. Just a portion of what was actually there, still waiting to be released from the earth. Such an extraordinary find it was almost impossible to believe, even when looking right at them.
But this building was different.
They stepped inside. It was dim, and her eyes needed time to adjust. But before they could, she heard, “Madame Li?”
She stopped in her tracks and squinted.
A man was standing a few feet away. He was about her age, she guessed.
Maybe slightly older. Despite the fact those around all deferred to him, he looked like a beggar, someone who’d fallen on hard times.
Disheveled. His hair greasy, unkempt. He was wearing a nice tailored suit, but his shirt was stained and untucked. His fly was halfway down.
He walked up to her. As he got close, she could smell him. It was not a natural smell. Not feces or urine or rotting food. Not even normal body odor. He smelled metallic.
It was all she could do to hold her ground.
Do not step back. Do not lean away. Do not drop your eyes. Do not blink.
Hold your head up.
She wondered if it would hurt.
Through the shriek in her head and the pounding of her heart, something registered. She knew this man. Not personally but by reputation.
What she knew was that he was a monster in a dirty bespoke suit.
She had her answer. Yes, it would hurt.
“We haven’t met, but I’ve been following your activities in the United States. My name is Wang Lai.”
He held out his hand. She stared at it, then took it. This was, she knew, the first of many betrayals to come. It always started like this. First you betrayed yourself. As she’s just done, by accepting the hand of the man who ran the MSS, who was the de facto head of the Chinese secret police.
She was touching the flesh of the architect of so much misery.
And then, one by one, you betrayed everyone and everything you held dear. But yes, it always started this way. With the easy one.
She held his eyes. There was something about them. Not malevolence—they were almost blank. Like a shark’s, she thought.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Wang took her elbow and guided her through a thick metal door and down two flights of stairs.
She didn’t resist. But she kept her eyes open and sharp. If an opportunity arose to fight back, she’d take it.
They passed through another door, into a work site. It smelled of dirt, and there was a slight muskiness. Industrial lights had been set up, but there was no work being done. It was very, very quiet. Deserted. Except for one man, standing in the shadows.
“I’ll leave you here,” said Wang.
The door locked behind her, but Vivien only had eyes for the man standing at the edge of the pit. He had his back to her, his hands clasped together in a familiar pose. He turned and smiled. His chubby face breaking into dimples.
“It’s good to see you again.”
“Nǐ hǎo, húndàn.” Hello, shithead, she said to her former husband.