Chapter 24 #3
They headed that way, then slipped through a gap in the chain-link fence. The grass had surrendered to packed dirt and cigarette butts. Ethan led her to a low concrete bench on the edge of the space. She sat, and he settled close enough that their shoulders touched.
He thumbed at the screen, then put the phone on speaker and held it between them.
“Hold on,” Michael said when he answered. There was a pause and a click.
“Are you all right?” This wasn’t Michael’s voice.
“It’s Gavin,” Ethan whispered. Then louder, “We’re fine.”
This was his father, the good man who’d done a bad thing—and seemed to be working very hard to do the right thing now.
“How are you?” Gavin asked, the words crisp. “And Mei Lin. Is she all right?”
Ethan gave her a go-ahead nod.
She leaned closer to the phone. “I’m here. Hello.”
“Hello. Glad to hear your voice.” He sounded like he meant it. “Where are you?”
“Uh. I forget. Let me look.” Ethan tapped the phone screen.
She told them the name of the town, then spelled it in pinyin.
“Got it,” Michael said.
“That works.” There was a rustle on Gavin’s end. “Stand by.”
The background noise got quieter, but Michael was still there. “We’re working on a way to get you out by boat.”
“How?” Maybe she shouldn’t question him, but… “The harbors are watched. They have ways to see if people are hiding on boats. We will be caught.”
She’d surprised herself, contradicting him, but she knew firsthand how good China was at guarding its walls.
“You’re right.” Michael didn’t sound put off. “All those systems depend on someone watching them, though. And people can be bought.”
“You will bribe somebody?”
“It’s the simplest solution, unless you have a better idea.”
She considered the problem. “I don’t. No matter what we do, it will be a risk. A person can take money and feel clever, and then they get nervous and go to the police. Maybe they’re reprimanded, but if they’re smart, maybe they’re rewarded for being a good citizen.”
“I understand,” Michael said. “We’ll choose someone carefully, someone we’ve worked with before. It’s a risk we have to take.”
Ethan shifted beside her. “I’m not excited about risks.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you went to China.”
Her husband’s mouth tightened, perhaps trapping his response in his mouth.
Gavin’s voice returned. “A contact will meet you in two hours. There’s a town northeast of you…”
He named it, and Ethan thumbed the phone, brought up the map, and zoomed in.
“Found it.”
Gavin recited an address, and Ethan typed it into the phone. “You’ll meet at an apartment complex on the edge of town.”
“I’ve got it,” Ethan said.
“Why there?” she asked.
“There are back roads to get there, no cameras near the complex. As long as you can get out of town, you should be safe. Don’t go into the complex. There’s a wooded area. Hide there.”
“How will we know who we’re looking for?”
“You’ll know,” Gavin said.
Ethan nodded as if that made perfect sense. “And then what? You have any details?”
“Get to the meeting place. We’ll figure out the rest.”
A muscle in Ethan’s jaw moved, but all he said was, “Okay.”
“Talk soon. Be safe.”
The line went dead.
He tucked the phone into his pocket. “At least we have a plan.”
“Part of a plan.”
“More than we had ten minutes ago.”
“True.” She didn’t understand how an American man could find people to help who were within two hours of them in a town she’d named two minutes ago, or how those strangers would get them across a country without getting caught.
But Ethan had said he’d come for her, and he had.
Gavin had said he’d put people in the area, and he had.
Michael had directed them over and over.
The men on the other end of that phone knew what they were doing, but God must be leading them.
Thank You.
She stood and brushed dirt from the back of her trousers.
Ethan took her hand, and they crossed back the way they’d come.
“Two hours,” he said.
“Enough time to get gas for the moped. And helmets.”
“Good idea. They’ll hide us better.”
“Plus, it is illegal to ride in China without a helmet, and that’s a stupid reason to get caught.”
“I didn’t know that.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m lucky you’re with me.”
They turned a corner, and she froze, urging her husband to stop while she made sense of what she was seeing.
Two blocks ahead, lying on its side on the edge of the road, was a moped that looked very much like the one they’d stolen that morning.
She pulled Ethan into the recessed doorway of a shuttered shop and edged forward to see what was happening.
Two boys—twelve or thirteen—stood a few yards from the bike, one of them gesturing with both hands. A uniformed police officer stood in front of them.
The wind carried their voices to her in pieces.
“…the man and the woman…” the officer said in Mandarin. “A foreigner?”
“Foreign.” The smaller boy’s voice was clear. “He was tall.” He lifted his hand high above his head. “They went that way.”
He pointed almost right at the spot where Mei Lin and Ethan hid.
She backed up.
“What’s going—?”
“They know we’re here.” She backed down the alley, tugging Ethan with her. When they were out of sight of the police officer and the boys, they turned and ran.