Marie lay on the narrow bed staring up at the ceiling. The rays of the noonday sun streamed through the shadeless windows, filling the small room with blinding light and too much heat. Sweat matted her face, and her torn blouse clung to her moist skin. Her feet ached from the midmorning madness that had begun as a walk down an unfinished coastal road to a rocky beach below—a stupid thing to do, but at the time the only thing she could do; she had been going out of her mind.
The sounds of the street floated up, a strange cacophony of high-pitched voices, sudden shrieks and bicycle bells and the blaring horns of trucks and public buses. It was as if a crowded, bustling, hustling section of Hong Kong had been ripped out of the island and set down in some faraway place where a wide river and endless fields and distant mountains replaced Victoria Harbor and the countless rows of ascending tall buildings made of glass and stone. In a sense the transplant had happened, she reflected. The miniature city of Tuen Mun was one of those space-oriented phenomena that had sprung up north of Kowloon in the New Territories. One year it had been an arid river plain, the next a rapidly developing metropolis of paved roads and factories, shopping districts, and spreading apartment buildings, all beckoning those from the south with the promise of housing and jobs in the thousands, and those who heeded the call brought with them the unmistakable hysteria of Hong Kong’s commerce. Without it they would be filled with innocuous anxieties too placid to contend with; these were the descendants of Guangzhou—the province of Canton—not world-weary Shanghai.
Marie had awakened with the first light, what sleep she had managed had been wracked with nightmares—and knew that she faced another suspension of time until Catherine called her. Staples had telephoned late last night, dragging her out of a sleep induced by total exhaustion, only to tell her cryptically that several unusual things had happened that could lead to favorable news. She was meeting a man who had taken an interest, a remarkable man who could help. Marie was to stay in the flat by the telephone in case there were new developments. Since Catherine had instructed her not to use names or specifics on the phone, Marie had not questioned the brevity of the call. “I’ll phone you first thing in the morning, my dear.” Staples had abruptly hung up.
She had not called by 8:30 or by 9:00, and by 9:36 Marie could stand it no longer. She reasoned that names were unnecessary, each knew the other’s voice, and Catherine had to understand that David Webb’s wife was entitled to something “first thing in the morning.” Marie had dialed Staples’s flat in Hong Kong; there was no answer, so she dialed again to make sure she had spun the correct numbers. Nothing. In frustration and without caring, she had called the consulate.
“Foreign Service Officer Staples, please. I’m a friend from the Treasury Board in Ottawa. I’d like to surprise her.”
“The connection’s very good, honey.”
“I’m not in Ottawa, I’m here,” said Marie, picturing the face of the talkative receptionist only too well.
“Sorry, hon, Mrs. Staples is off-premises with no instructions. To tell you the truth, the High Commish is looking for her too. Why don’t you give me a number—”
Marie lowered the phone into its cradle, panic rising in her. It was nearly 10:00, and Catherine was an early riser. “First thing in the morning” might be anytime between 7:30 and 9:30, most likely splitting the difference, but not ten o’clock, not under the circumstances. And then twelve minutes later the phone had rung. It was the beginning of a far less subtle panic.
“Marie?”
“Catherine, are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You said ‘first thing in the morning’! Why didn’t you call before? I’ve been going out of my mind! Can you talk?”
“Yes, I’m in a public booth—”
“What’s happened? What’s happening? Who’s the man you met with?”
There had been a brief pause on the line from Hong Kong. For an instant it seemed awkward and Marie had not known why. “I want you to stay calm, my dear,” said Staples. “I didn’t call before because you need all the rest you can get. I may have the answers that you want, that you need. Things are not as terrible as you think, and you must stay calm.”
“Damn it, I am calm, at least I’m reasonably sensible! What the hell are you talking about?”
“I can tell you that your husband’s alive.”
“And I can tell you that he’s very good at what he does—what he did. You’re not telling me anything!”
“I’m driving out to see you in a few minutes. The traffic’s rotten, as usual, made worse by all the security surrounding the Sino-British delegations, tying up the streets and the tunnel, but it shouldn’t take me more than an hour and a half, perhaps two.”
“Catherine, I want answers!”
“I’m bringing them to you, a few at least. Rest, Marie, try to relax. Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll be there soon.”
“This man,” asked David Webb’s wife, pleading. “Will he be with you?”
“No, I’ll be alone, no one with me. I want to talk. You’ll see him later.”
“All right.”
Had it been Staples’s tone of voice? Marie had wondered after hanging up. Or that Catherine had literally told her nothing after admitting she could talk freely over a public phone? The Staples she knew would try to allay the fears of a terrified friend if she had concrete facts to offer in comfort, even a single piece of vital information, if the fabric of the whole was too complex. Something. David Webb’s wife deserved something! Instead there had been a diplomat’s talk, the allusion to but not the substance of reality. Something was wrong, but it was beyond her understanding. Catherine had protected her, taken enormous risks for her both professionally, in terms of not seeking guidance from her consulate, and personally, in confronting acute physical danger. Marie knew that she should feel gratitude, overwhelming gratitude, but instead she felt a growing sense of doubt. Say it again, Catherine, she had screamed inside herself, say everything will be all right! I can’t think anymore. I can’t think in here! I’ve got to get out … I’ve got to have air!
She had lurched about unsteadily for the clothes they had bought for her when they had reached Tuen Mun last night, clothes purchased after Staples had taken her to a doctor who ministered to her feet, applying cushioned gauze, giving her hospital slippers and prescribing thick-soled sneakers if she had to do any extended walking during the next several days. Actually, Catherine had picked out the clothes while Marie waited in the car, and considering the tension Staples was under, her selections were both functional and attractive. A light green, sheer cotton skirt was complemented by a white cotton blouse and a small white-shell purse. Also a pair of dark green slacks—shorts were inappropriate—and a second, casual blouse. All were successful counterfeits of well-known designers, the labels correctly spelled.
“They’re very nice, Catherine. Thank you.”
“They go with your hair,” Staples had said. “Not that anyone in Tuen Mun will notice—I want you to stay in the flat—but we’ll have to leave here sometime. Also, in case I get stuck at the office and you need anything, I’ve put some money in the purse.”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to leave the flat, that we were going to pick up a few things at a market.”
“I don’t know what’s back in Hong Kong any more than you do. Lin could be so furious he might dig up an old colonial law and put me under house arrest.… There’s a shoe store in Blossom Soon Street. You’ll have to go inside and try on the sneakers yourself. I’ll come with you, of course.”
Several moments had passed and Marie spoke. “Catherine, how do you know so much about this place? I’ve yet to see another Occidental in the streets. Whose flat is it?”
“A friend’s,” said Staples without further elaboration. “There’s no one using it a great deal of the time, so I come up here to get away from it all.” Catherine had said no more; the subject was not to be explored. Even when they had talked for most of the night, no amount of prodding had brought forth any more information from Staples. It was a topic she simply would not discuss.
Marie had put on the slacks and the blouse and struggled with the outsized sneakers. Cautiously she had walked down the stairs and into the busy street, instantly aware of the stares she attracted, wondering whether she should turn around and go back inside. She could not; she was finding a few minutes of freedom from the stifling confines of the small apartment and they were like a tonic. She strolled slowly, painfully, down the pavement, mesmerized by the color and the hectic movement and the unending, staccato chatter all around her. As in Hong Kong, garish signs rose everywhere above the buildings, and everywhere people haggled with one another alongside stands and in storefront doorways. It was as if a slice of the colony had been uprooted and set down on a vast frontier.
She had found an unfinished road at the end of a back street, the work apparently abandoned but only temporarily, as leveling machinery—unused and rusting—stood on the borders. Two signs in Chinese were on either side of the road at the top of a slope. Taking each step carefully, she made her way down the steep decline to the deserted shoreline and sat on a cluster of rocks; the minutes of freedom were opening up precious moments of peace. She looked out and watched the boats sailing from the docks of Tuen Mun, as well as those heading in from the People’s Republic. From what she could see, the first were fishing craft, nets draped over bows and gunwales, while those from the Chinese Mainland were mostly small cargo ships, their decks bulging with crates of produce. There were also the sleek, gray navy patrol boats flying the colors of the People’s Republic. Ominous black guns were mounted on all sides of the various craft, uniformed men standing motionless next to them, peering through binoculars. Every now and then a naval vessel would pull alongside a fishing boat, provoking wildly excited gestures from the fishermen. Stoic responses were the replies as the powerful patrols would slowly spin and slip away. It was all a game, thought Marie. The North was quietly asserting its total control while the South was left to protest the disturbance of its fishing grounds. The former had the strength of hard steel and a disciplined chain of command, the latter soft nets and perseverance. No one was the victor except those opposing sisters, Boredom and Anxiety.
“Jing-cha!” shouted a male voice from behind in the distance.
“Shei!” shrieked a second. “Ni zai zher gan shemma?”
Marie spun around. Two men up on the road had broken into a run; they were racing down the unfinished access toward her, their screams directed at her, commanding her. Awkwardly she got to her feet, steadying herself on the rocks as they ran up to her. Both men were dressed in some sort of paramilitary clothing, and as she looked at them she realized they were young—late teenagers, twenty at most.
“Bu xing!” barked the taller boy, looking back up the hill, and gesturing for his companion to grab her. Whatever it was, it was to be done quickly. The second boy pinned her arms from behind.
“Stop this!” cried Marie, struggling. “Who are you?”
“Lady speaks English,” observed the first young man. “I speak English,” he added proudly, unctuously. “I worked for a jeweler in Kowloon.” Again he glanced up at the unfinished road.
“Then tell your friend to take his hands off me!”
“The lady does not tell me what to do. I tell the lady.” The postadolescent came closer, his eyes fixed on the swell of Marie’s breasts under the blouse. “This is forbidden road, a forbidden part of the shore. The lady did not see the signs?”
“I don’t read Chinese. I’m sorry, I’ll leave. Just tell him to let go of me.” Suddenly Marie felt the body of the young man behind her pressing against her own. “Stop it!” she yelled, hearing quiet laughter in her ear, feeling a warm breath on her neck.
“Is the lady to meet a boat with criminals from the People’s Republic? Does she signal men on the water?” The taller Chinese raised both his hands to Marie’s blouse, his fingers on the top buttons. “Is she concealing a radio perhaps, a signaling device? It is our duty to learn these things. The police expect it of us.”
“Goddamn you, take your hands off me!” Marie twisted violently, kicking out in front of her. The man behind pulled her back off her feet as the taller boy grabbed her legs, straddling them with his own and scissoring them. She could not move; her body was stretched taut diagonally up from the rocky beach, held firmly in place. The first Chinese ripped off her blouse and then her brassiere, and cupped her breasts with both hands. She screamed and thrashed and screamed again until she was slapped and two fingers pincered her throat, cutting off all sound but throated coughs. The nightmare of Zurich came back to her—rape and death on the Guisan Quai.
They carried her to a stretch of tall grass, the boy behind clamping his hand over her mouth, then replacing it quickly with his right arm, cutting off air and any screams she might have managed as he yanked her forward. She was thrown to the ground, one of her attackers now covering her face with his bare stomach as the other began pulling off her slacks and thrusting his hands between her legs. It was Zurich, and instead of writhing in the cold Swiss darkness there was the wet heat of the Orient; instead of the Limmat, another river, far wider, far more deserted; instead of one animal there were two. She could feel the body of the tall Chinese on top of her, thrusting in his panic, furious that he was not able to enter her, her thrashing repelling his assault. For an instant the boy across her face reached under his trousers to his groin—there was a brief moment of space and for Marie the world went mad! She sank her teeth into the flesh above her, drawing blood, feeling the sickening flesh in her mouth.
Screams followed; her arms were released. She kicked as the young Oriental rolled away clutching his stomach; she crashed her knee up into the exposed organ above her waist, then clawed at the wild-eyed, sweating face of the taller man, now screaming herself—yelling, pleading, shouting as she had never shouted in her life before. Holding his testicles beneath his shorts, the infuriated boy threw himself down on her, but rape was no longer a consideration, he wanted only to keep her quiet. Suffocating, the darkness had begun to close in on Marie—and then she had heard other voices in the distance, excited voices closing that distance, and she knew she had to send up a final cry for help. In a desperate surge, she dug her nails into the contorted face above her, for an instant freeing her mouth from the grip.
“Here! Down here! Over here!”
Bodies were suddenly swarming around her; she could hear slaps and kicks and furious screams, but none of the madness was directed at her. Then the darkness had come, her last thoughts only partly about herself. David! David, for God’s sake where are you? Stay alive, my dearest! Don’t let them take your mind again. Above all, don’t allow that! They want mine and I won’t give it to them! Why are they doing this to us? Oh, my God, why?
She had awakened on a cot in a small room with no windows, a young Chinese woman wiping her forehead with a cool, perfumed cloth. “Where …?” whispered Marie. “Where is this? Where am I?”
The girl smiled sweetly and shrugged, nodding at a man on the other side of the cot, a Chinese Marie judged to be in his thirties, dressed in tropical clothes, a white guayabera instead of a shirt. “Permit me to introduce myself,” said the man in accented but clear English. “My name is Jitai, and I am with the Tuen Mun branch of the Hang Chow Bank. You are in the back room of a fabric shop belonging to a friend and client, Mr. Chang. They brought you here and called for me. You were attacked by two hoodlums of the Di-di Jing Cha, which can be translated as the Young People’s Auxiliary Police. It is one of those well-meant social programs that have many benefits, but on occasion also have their very rotten apples, as you Americans say.”
“Why do you think I’m American?”
“Your speech. While you were unconscious you spoke about a man named David. A dear friend, no doubt. You wish to find him.”
“What else did I say?”
“Nothing, really. You were not very coherent.”
“I don’t know anyone named David,” said Marie firmly. “Not in that way. It must have been one of those deliriums that go back to the first grade.”
“It is immaterial. It is your well-being that matters. We are filled with shame and sorrow at what happened.”
“Where are those two punks, those bastards?”
“They are caught and will be punished.”
“I hope they spend ten years in jail.”
The Chinese frowned. “To bring that about will mean involving the police—a formal complaint, a hearing before a magistrate, so many legalities.” Marie stared at the banker. “Now, if you wish, I will accompany you to the police and act as your interpreter, but it was our opinion that we should first hear your desires in this regard. You have been through so much—and you are alone here in Tuen Mun for reasons only you know.”
“No, Mr. Jitai,” said Marie quietly. “I’d rather not press charges. I’m all right, and vengeance isn’t a high priority with me.”
“It is with us, madame.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your attackers will carry our shame to their wedding beds, where their performances will be less than expected.”
“I see. They are young—”
“This morning, as we have learned, is not their first offense. They are filth, and lessons must be taught.”
“This morning? Oh, my God, what time is it? How long have I been here?”
The banker looked at his watch. “Nearly an hour.”
“I’ve got to get back to the apartment—the flat—right away. It’s important.”
“The ladies wish to mend your clothing. They’re excellent seamstresses and it will not take long. However, they believed you should not wake up without your clothes.”
“I haven’t time. I have to get back now. Oh, Christ! I don’t know where it is and I don’t have an address!”
“We know the building, madame. A tall, attractive white woman alone in Tuen Mun is noticed. Word spreads. We’ll take you there at once.” The banker turned and spoke in rapid Chinese, addressing a half-opened door behind him, as Marie sat up. She was suddenly aware of the crowd of people peering inside. She got to her feet—her painful feet—and stood for a moment, weaving but slowly finding her balance, holding the ripped folds of her blouse together.
The door was pulled back and two old women entered, each carrying an article of brightly colored silk. The first was a kimonolike garment, which was gently lowered over her head to cover her torn blouse and much of her soiled green slacks. The second was a long, wide sash, which was wrapped around her waist and tied, also gently. Tense as she was, Marie saw that each article was exquisite.
“Come, madame,” said the banker, touching her elbow. “I will escort you.” They walked out into the fabric shop, Marie nodding and trying to smile as the crowd of Chinese men and women bowed to her, their dark eyes filled with sadness.
She had returned to the small apartment, removed the beautiful sash and garment, and lay down on the bed trying to make sense where no reason was to be found. She buried her face in the pillow, trying to push the horrible images of the morning out of her head, but the ugliness was beyond purging. Instead, it made the sweat pour out of her, and the tighter she closed her eyes, the more violent the images became, interweaving the terrible memories of Zurich on the Guisan Quai when a man named Jason Bourne had saved her life.
She stifled a scream and leaped off the bed, standing there, trembling. She walked into the tiny kitchen and turned on the faucet, reaching for a glass. The stream of water was weak and thin and she watched vacantly as the glass filled, her mind elsewhere.
There are times when people should put their heads on hold—God knows I do it more than a reasonably respected psychiatrist should.… Things overwhelm us … we have to get our acts together. Morris Panov, friend to Jason Bourne.
She shut off the faucet, drank the lukewarm water, and went back toward the confining room that served the triple functions of sleeping, sitting, and pacing. She stood in the doorframe and looked around, knowing what she found so grotesque about her sanctuary. It was a cell, as surely as if it were in some remote prison. Worse, it was a very real form of solitary confinement. She was again isolated with her thoughts, with her terrors. She walked to a window as a prisoner might, and peered at the world outside. What she saw was an extension of her cell; she was not free down in that teeming street below either. It was not a world she knew, and it did not welcome her. Quite aside from the obscene madness of the morning on the beach, she was an intruder who could neither understand nor be understood. She was alone, and that loneliness was driving her crazy.
Numbly Marie gazed at the street. The street? There she was? Catherine! She was standing with a man by a gray car, their heads turned, watching three other men ten yards behind them by a second car. All five were glaringly apparent, for they were like no other people in the street. They were Occidentals in a sea of Chinese, strangers in an unfamiliar place. They were obviously excited, concerned about something, as they kept nodding their heads and looking in all directions, especially across the street. At the apartment house. Three of the men had close-cropped hair—military cuts … marines. American marines!
Catherine’s companion, a civilian to judge by his hair, was talking rapidly, his index finger jabbing the air.… Marie knew him! It was the man from the State Department, the one who had come to see them in Maine! The undersecretary with the dead eyes, who kept rubbing his temples and barely protested when David told him he did not trust him. It was McAllister! He was the man Catherine said she was to meet.
Suddenly, abstract and terrible pieces of the horrible puzzle fell into place as Marie watched the scene below. The two marines by the second car crossed the street and separated. The one standing with Catherine talked briefly with McAllister, then ran to his right, pulling a small hand-held radio from his pocket. Staples spoke to the undersecretary of State and glanced up at the apartment house. Marie spun away from the window.
I’ll be alone, no one with me.
All right.
It was a trap! Catherine Staples had been reached. She was not a friend; she was the enemy! Marie knew she had to run. For God’s sake, get away! She grabbed the white-shell purse with the money, and for a split second stared at the silks from the fabric shop. She picked them up and ran out of the flat.
There were two hallways, one running the width of the building along the front with a staircase on the right leading down to the street, the other hallway bisecting the first to form an inverted T, and leading to a door in the rear. It was a second staircase used for carrying garbage to the bins in the back alley. Catherine had casually pointed it out when they arrived, explaining that there was an ordinance forbidding refuse in the street, which was the main thoroughfare of Tuen Mun. Marie raced down the bisecting hall to the rear door and opened it. She gasped, suddenly confronted by the stooped figure of an old man with a straw broom in his hand. He squinted at her for a moment, then shook his head, his expression one of intense curiosity. She stepped out into the dark landing as the Chinese went inside; she held the door slightly open, waiting for the sight of Staples emerging from the front stairs. If Catherine, finding the flat empty, quickly returned to the staircase so as to rush down into the street to McAllister and the marine contingent, Marie could slip back into the apartment and pick up the clothes Staples had bought for her. In her panic she had only fleetingly thought about them, grabbing the silks instead, not daring to lose precious moments rummaging through the closet where Catherine had hung them, stuffed among various other clothing. She thought about them now. She could not walk, much less run through the streets in a torn blouse and filthy slacks. Something was wrong. It was the old man! He just stood there staring at the crack in the doorframe.
“Go away!” whispered Marie.
Footsteps. The clacking of high-heeled shoes walking rapidly up the metal staircase in the front of the building. If it was Staples, she would pass the bisecting hallway on her way to the flat.
“Deng yi deng!” yelped the old Chinese, still standing motionless with his broom, still staring at her. Marie closed the door further, watching through barely a half inch of space.
Staples came into view, glancing briefly, curiously at the old man, apparently having heard his sharp, high-pitched angry voice. Without breaking stride she continued down the hall, intent only on reaching the flat. Marie waited; the pounding in her chest seemed to echo throughout the dark stairwell. Then the words came, pleas shouted in hysteria. “No! Marie! Marie, where are you?” The footsteps hammered now, racing on the cement. Catherine rounded the corner and began running toward the old Chinese and the door—toward her. “Marie, it’s not what you think! For God’s sake, stop!”
Marie Webb spun and ran down the dark steps. Suddenly, a shaft of bright yellow sunlight spread up the staircase, and just as suddenly was no more. The ground-floor door three stories below had been opened; a figure in a dark suit had entered swiftly, a marine taking up his post. The man raced up the steps; Marie crouched in the corner of the second landing. The marine reached the top step, about to round the turn, steadying himself on the railing. Marie lunged out, her hand—the hand with the bunched silks—crashing into the astonished soldier’s face, catching him off balance; she slammed her shoulder into the marine’s chest, sending him reeling backwards down the staircase. Marie passed his tumbling body on the steps as she heard the screams from above. “Marie! Marie! I know it’s you! For Christ’s sake, listen to me!”
She lurched out into the alley, and another nightmare began its dreadful course, played out in the blinding sunlight of Tuen Mun. Running through the connecting thoroughfare behind the row of apartment buildings, her feet now bleeding inside the sneakers, Marie threw the kimonolike garment over her head and stopped by a row of garbage cans, where she removed her green slacks and threw them inside the nearest one. She then draped the wide sash over her head, covering her hair, and ran into the next alleyway that led to the main street. She reached it and seconds later walked into the mass of humanity that was a slice of Hong Kong in the new frontier of the colony. She crossed the street.
“There!” shouted a male voice. “The tall one!”
The chase began again, but abruptly, without any indication, it was different. A man raced down the pavement after her, suddenly stopped by a wheeled stand blocking his way; he tried to shove it aside, only to put his hands into recessed pots of boiling fat. He screamed, overturning the cart, and was now met with shrieks by the proprietor obviously demanding payment, as he and others surrounded the marine, forcing him back into the curb.
“There’s the bitch!”
As Marie heard the words she was confronted by a phalanx of women shoppers. She spun to her right and ran into another alley off the street, an alley she suddenly discovered was a dead end, ending with the wall of a Chinese temple. It happened again! Five young men—teenagers in paramilitary outfits—suddenly appeared from a doorway and gestured for her to pass.
“Yankee criminal! Yankee thief!” The shouts were in the cadence of a rehearsed foreign language. The young men locked arms and without violence intercepted the man with close-cropped hair, crowding him against a wall.
“Get out of my way, you pricks!” shouted the marine. “Get out of my way or I’ll take every one of you brats!”
“You raise your arms … or a weapon—” cried a voice in the background.
“I never said anything about a weapon!” broke in the soldier from Victoria Peak.
“But if you do either,” continued the voice, “they will release their arms, and five Di-di Jing Cha—so many trained by our American friends—will certainly contain one man.”
“Goddamn it, sir! I’m only trying to do my job! It’s none of your business!”
“I’m afraid it is, sir. For reasons you do not know.”
“Shit!” The marine leaned against the wall, out of breath, and looked at the smiling young faces in front of him.
“Lai!” said a woman to Marie, pointing to a wide, oddly shaped door with no visible handle on what appeared to be a thick, impenetrable exterior. “Xiao xin. Kaa-fill.”
“Careful? I understand.” An aproned figure opened the door and Marie rushed inside, instantly feeling the harsh blasts of cold air. She was standing in a large walk-in refrigerator where carcasses of meat hung eerily on hooks under the glow of mesh-encased light bulbs. The man in the apron waited a full minute, his ear at the door. Marie wrapped the wide silk sash around her neck and clutched her arms to ward off the sudden, bitter cold made worse by the contrasting oppressive heat outside. Finally, the clerk gestured for her to follow him; she did so, threading her way around the carcasses until they reached the huge refrigerator’s entrance. The Chinese yanked a metal lever and pushed the heavy door open, nodding for Marie, who was shivering, to walk through. She now found herself in a long, narrow deserted butcher shop, the bamboo blinds on the front windows filtering the intense noonday sunlight. A white-haired man stood behind the counter by the far-right window, peering through the slats at the street outside. He beckoned for Marie to join him quickly. Again she did as she was instructed, and noticed an oddly shaped floral wreath behind the glass of the front door, which appeared to be locked.
The older man indicated that Marie should look through the window. She parted two curved bamboo slats and gasped, astonished at the scene outside. The search was at its frenzied peak. The marine with scalded hands kept waving them in the air as he went from store to store across the street. She saw Catherine Staples and McAllister in a heated conversation with a crowd of Chinese who obviously were objecting to the foreigners disturbing the peaceful if hectic way of life in Tuen Mun. McAllister in his panic apparently had shouted something offensive and was challenged by a man twice his age, an ancient in an Oriental gown, who had to be restrained by younger, cooler heads. The undersecretary of State backed away, his arms raised, pleading innocence, as Staples shouted to no avail in her efforts to extricate them both from the angry mob.
Suddenly, the marine with the wounded hands came crashing out of a doorway across the street; shattered glass flew in all directions as he rolled on the pavement, yelling in pain as his hands touched the cement. He was pursued by a young Chinese dressed in the white tunic, sash, and knee-length trousers of a martial-arts instructor. The marine sprang to his feet, and as his Oriental adversary ran up to him he pounded a low left hook into the young man’s kidney, and followed it with a well-aimed right fist into the Oriental face, pummeling his assailant back into the storefront while screaming in agony at the pain both blows caused his scalded hands.
A last marine from Victoria Peak came running down the street, one leg limping, his shoulders sagging as if damaged from a fall—a fall down a flight of stairs, thought Marie, as she watched in amazement. He came to the aid of his anguished comrade and was very effective. The amateurish attempts at combat by the berobed students of the unconscious martial-arts instructor were met by a flurry of slashing legs, crashing chops, and the whirling maneuvers of a judo expert.
Suddenly again, with no warning whatsoever, the cacophonic strains of Oriental music swelled in the street, the cymbals and the primitive wood instruments reaching abrupt Crescendos with each stride of the ragtag band that marched down the street, its followers carrying placards mounted with flowers. The fighting stopped as arms were restrained everywhere. Silence spread along the main avenue of commerce of Tuen Mun. The Americans were confused; Catherine Staples choked back her frustration and Edward McAllister threw up his hands in exasperation.
Marie watched, literally hypnotized by the change outside. Everything came to a stop, as if a halt had been ordered by an announcement from some sepulchral presence not to be denied. She shifted her angle of sight between the bamboo blinds and looked at the ragged group approaching. It was led by the banker Jitai! It was heading for the butcher shop!
Her eyes darting, Marie saw Catherine Staples and McAllister race past the odd gathering in front of the shop. Then across the street the two marines once again took up the chase. They all disappeared in the blinding sunlight.
There was a knock on the front door of the butcher shop. The old man with white hair removed the wreath and opened it. The banker, Jitai, walked in and bowed to Marie.
“Did you enjoy the parade, madame?” he asked.
“I wasn’t sure what it was.”
“A funeral march for the dead. In this instance, no doubt, for the slain animals in Mr. Woo’s cold storage.”
“You …? This was all planned?”
“In a state of readiness, you might say,” explained Jitai. “Frequently our cousins from the north manage to get across the border—not the thieves but family members wishing to join their own—and the soldiers want only to capture them and send them back. We must be prepared to protect our own.”
“But me …? You knew?”
“We watched; we waited. You were in hiding, running from someone, that much we did know. You told us that when you said you did not care to go before the magistrate, to ‘press charges,’ as you put it. You were directed into the alley outside.”
“The line of women with the shopping bags—”
“Yes. They crossed the street when you did. We must help you.”
Marie glanced at the anxious faces of the crowd beyond the bamboo slats, then looked at the banker. “How do you know I’m not a criminal?”
“It doesn’t matter. The outrage against you resulting from two of our people is what matters. Also, madame, you do not look or speak like a fugitive from justice.”
“I’m not. And I do need help. I have to get back to Hong Kong, to a hotel where they won’t find me, where there’s a telephone I can use. I don’t really know who, but I have to reach people who can help me … help us.” Marie paused, her eyes locked with Jitai’s. “The man named David is my husband.”
“I can understand,” said the banker. “But first you have to see a doctor.”
“What?”
“Your feet are bleeding.”
Marie looked down. Blood had seeped through the bandages, penetrating the canvas of her sneakers. They were a sickening mess. “I guess you’re right,” she agreed.
“Then there will be clothes, transportation—I myself will find you a hotel under any name you wish. And there is the matter of money. Do you have funds?”
“I don’t know,” said Marie, putting the silks on the counter and opening the white-shell purse. “That is, I haven’t looked. A friend—someone that I thought was a friend—left me money.” She pulled out the bills Staples had placed in the purse.
“We are not wealthy here in Tuen Mun, but perhaps we can help. There was talk of taking up a collection.”
“I’m not a poor woman, Mr. Jitai,” interrupted Marie. “If that is necessary and, frankly, if I’m alive, every cent will be returned with interest far in excess of the prime rate.”
“As you wish. I am a banker. But what would such a lovely lady like yourself know of interests and prime rates?” Jitai smiled.
“You’re a banker and I’m an economist. What do bankers know about the impacts on floating currencies caused by inflated interests, especially in the prime rates?” Marie smiled for the first time in a very long time.
She had over an hour to think in the countryside quiet as she sat in the taxi that drove her down to Kowloon. It would be another forty-five minutes once they reached the less quiet outskirts, particularly a congested district called Mongkok. The contrite people of Tuen Mun had been not only generous and protective, but inventive as well. The banker, Jitai, apparently had confirmed that the hoodlums’ victim was indeed a white woman in hiding and running for her life, and therefore, as she was in the process of reaching people who might help her, perhaps her appearance might be altered. Western clothes were brought from several shops, clothes that struck Marie as odd; they seemed drab and utilitarian, neat but dreary. Not cheap, but the kind of clothes that would be selected by a woman who had either no sense of design or felt herself above it. Then after an hour in the back room of a beauty shop she understood why such a costume had been chosen. The women fussed over her; her hair was washed and blown dry, and when the process was over she had looked in the mirror, barely breathing as she did so. Her face—drawn, pale and tired—was framed by a shell of hair no longer a striking auburn but mouse-gray with subtle tinges of white. She had aged more than a decade; it was an extension of what she had attempted after escaping from the hospital but far bolder, far more complete. She was the Chinese image of the upper-middle-class, serious, no-nonsense tourist—probably a widow—who peremptorily issued instructions, counted her money, and never went anywhere without a guidebook, which she continuously checked off with each site visited on her well-organized itinerary. The people of Tuen Mun knew such tourists well and their portrait was accurate. Jason Bourne would approve.
There were other thoughts, however, that occupied her on the ride to Kowloon, desperate thoughts that she tried to control and keep in perspective, pushing away the panic that could so easily engulf her, causing her to do the wrong thing, make a wrong move that could harm David—kill David. Oh, God, where are you? How can I find you? How?
She searched her memory for anyone who could help her, constantly rejecting every name and every face that came to her because in one way or another each had been a part of that horrible strategy so ominously termed beyond-salvage—the death of an individual the only acceptable solution. Except, of course, Morris Panov, but Mo was a pariah in the eyes of the government; he had called the official killers by their rightful names: incompetents and murderers. He would get nowhere, and conceivably bring about a second order for beyond-salvage.
Beyond-salvage … A face came to her, a face with tears running down his cheeks, muted cries for mercy in his tremulous voice, a once-close friend of a young foreign service officer and his wife and children in a remote outpost called Phnom Penh. Conklin! His name was Alexander Conklin! Throughout David’s long convalescence he had tried repeatedly to see her husband, but David would not permit it, saying that he would kill the CIA man if he walked through the door. The crippled Conklin had wrongfully, stupidly made accusations against David, not listening to the pleas of an amnesiac, instead assuming treachery and “turning”—to the point where he had tried to kill David himself outside of Paris. And, finally, he had mounted a last attempt on New York’s Seventy-first Street, at a sterile house called Treadstone 71, that nearly succeeded. When the truth about David was known, Conklin had been consumed with guilt, shattered by what he had done. She had actually felt sorry for him; his anguish was so genuine, his guilt so devastating to him. She had talked with Alex over coffee on the porch, but David would never see him. He was the only one she could think of that made sense—any sense at all!
The hotel was called the Empress, on Chatham Road in Kowloon. It was a small hotel in the crowded Tsim Sha Tsui frequented by a mix of cultures, neither rich nor poor, by and large salesmen from the East and West who had business to do without the largess of executive expense accounts. The banker, Jitai, had done his job; a single room had been reserved for a Mrs. Austin, Penelope Austin. The “Penelope” had been Jitai’s idea, for he had read many English novels, and Penelope seemed “so right.” So be it, as Jason Bourne would have said, thought Marie.
She sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the telephone, unsure of what to say but knowing she had to say it. “I need the number of a person in Washington, D.C., in the United States,” she said to the operator. “It’s an emergency.”
“There is a charge for overseas information—”
“Charge it,” broke in Marie. “It’s urgent. I’ll stay on the line.”
“Yes?” said the voice filled with sleep. “Hello?”
“Alex, it’s Marie Webb.”
“Goddamn you, where are you? Where are both of you? We found you!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t found him and he hasn’t found me. You know about all this?”
“Who the hell do you think almost broke my neck last week when he flew into Washington? David! I’ve got relays on every phone that can reach me! Mo Panov’s got the same! Where are you?”
“Hong Kong—Kowloon, I guess. The Empress Hotel, under the name of Austin. David reached you?”
“And Mo! He and I have turned every trick in the deck to find out what the hell is going on and we’ve been stonewalled! No, I take it back—not stonewalled—no one else knows what’s going on either! I’d know if they did! Good Christ, Marie, I haven’t had a drink since last Thursday!”
“I didn’t know you missed it.”
“I miss it! What’s happening?”
Marie told him, including the unmistakable stamp of government bureaucracy on the part of her captors, and her escape, and the help given by Catherine Staples that turned into a trap, engineered by a man named McAllister, whom she had seen on the street with Staples.
“McAllister? You saw him?”
“He’s here, Alex. He wants to take me back. With me he controls David, and he’ll kill him! They tried before!”
There was a pause on the line, a pause filled with anguish. “We tried before,” said Conklin softly. “But that was then, not now.”
“Stay where you are,” ordered Alex. “I’ll be on the earliest plane to Hong Kong. Don’t go out of your room. Don’t make any more calls. They’re searching for you, they have to be.”
“David’s out there, Alex! Whatever they’ve forced him to do because of me, I’m frightened to death!”
“Delta was the best man ever developed in Medusa. No one better ever walked into that field. I know. I saw.”
“That’s one aspect, and I’ve taught myself to live with it. But not the other, Alex! His mind! What will happen to his mind?”
Conklin paused again, and when he spoke his voice was pensive. “I’ll bring a friend with me, a friend to all of us. Mo won’t refuse. Stay put, Marie. It’s time for a showdown. And, by Christ, there’s going to be one!”