“I’m ashamed of myself,” said Judy.
Pete Avakian resisted the temptation to look over at her. Which he wouldn’t anyway because people who kept turning their heads to talk face to face when they were supposed to be driving drove him crazy. He also had no immediate plans to jump into the conversation. Any that began with a statement like that had danger written all over it—no matter what a guy said, it was going to be the wrong thing.
But she called his silence and raised with one of her own.
Checkmated, Avakian steeled himself for the worst. He hadn’t thought the bank was much different from what they’d done before. But he was also aware that women felt differently about most things. “Ashamed of what?”
“There was a teller in the bank. When I jumped over the counter she was sitting there with her finger just stuck on the alarm button.” Judy jabbed her finger furiously in the air. “And that made me so mad I grabbed her hair and kicked her until she cried out. I have never done anything like that in my life.”
Avakian didn’t say anything.
“And then I was feeling like a real hot shit on the bike,” she went on. “I was in control, for the first time in a while.” She turned to watch his face. “And I was loving it. Especially the fact that you weren’t in control.”
Avakian concentrated on the road, because he didn’t think smiling at that would be such a good idea.
“I went into the bike lane as if I had to live up to all the smack I’d been talking,” she said. “We might have been caught. That policeman didn’t need to die. I killed him. And none of it had to happen.”
She stopped then, near tears.
“That’s why you’re ashamed of yourself?” Avakian said.
“I am.”
“Good for you.”
“What?”
“For feeling ashamed.”
“Why should that be good?”
“In our heart of hearts we all want to rob banks and blow things up instead of going to the office from nine to five. Which is why every functioning society makes all that fun stuff, what everyone really wants to do, illegal. Why do you think bored young men become terrorists? And more people know who Jesse James was than Jonas Salk? And why we flock to the movies to watch violence presented as a cartoon where all our fantasies are fulfilled and only the characters we don’t identify with suffer any consequences? We’re drawn to violence and destruction like bugs to one of those blue light zappers on the back porch. But in the real world every action has consequences. I’d like to comfort you, but I think you’d see right through that. So I’ll just say, as a friend: welcome to the real world.”
More silence. Then she said, “You know, Pete, you’re a really good guy.”
“Likewise, I’m sure. Except for the guy part.”
“When am I going to start listening to you?”
“You can always tell a real combat veteran from a wannabe because the vets never talk about it. Everyone wants to hear a good war story, but you can’t really understand one if you haven’t experienced it. You loved doing it, didn’t you?”
She hesitated before answering. “Yes, I did.”
“And you’re also sickened by what you did.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Welcome to the club. Only a sociopath doesn’t carry a combat mistake around like a rock in their chest.”
She leaned over and kissed him very tenderly on the cheek. He took a hand off the wheel and stroked her hair. She sat back in her seat and said, “What was your combat mistake?”
“Oh, there’s a whole fistful of them. Biggest one? Once in El Salvador we had decent intelligence that our training base was going to get hit by about a thousand guerrillas. The Salvo officer was a worthless thug who stole babies from guerrilla areas and sold them off for adoption in the U.S. The irony is that all the atrocities the American left complained about would have stopped if we’d been allowed to go out on combat operations with them, but there was this post-Vietnam hypocrisy that we were only trainers. Well, my counterpart wouldn’t listen to me. He sent half the base home on leave because he was an idiot in addition to being a thug. And, I’d let him know how I felt about him—totally wrong move—and he was going to show me that my advice was crap. The advisory group at the embassy wouldn’t listen to me because I was self-righteous about everything in those days, and they didn’t want to hear it. So we got hit one night. We hung onto the base, but a lot of good Salvadoran soldiers got killed who wouldn’t have if I’d been as smart as I was loud and immature.”
“They stole babies?”
“They looked at it as one less guerrilla to grow up and shoot at them, and childless Yankee couples pay big money for pretty foreign babies. Poor people always get trapped in the middle of every dirty war. The guerrillas would steal their kids, too, to be soldiers.”
Judy could see the tendons standing out in his neck. “And it’s still a rock in your chest.”
“Twenty-three years later. Dawn breaks, and there are all the dead bodies. You can’t cut to the next scene. You have to go pick them up and put them in coffins.”
Okay, Judy, you started it again. Now find a way to change the subject. “You know, the first time I ever heard you use serious profanity was on that bike.”
“It’s also the first time I learned what my own heart tastes like.”
“Welcome to my world of the last few days. But we were speaking of profanity.”
“I try not to drop the F-bomb under normal circumstances.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I was probably the most profane guy in the U.S. Army, which is saying something. When I moved out into the civilian world I realized I had to modify that behavior.”
She said it slowly. “The most profane man in the army.”
“Well, officer at least.”
“Excuse me, but men are not supposed to be capable of change.”
“I am not men,” Avakian told her. “I am DEVO.”
More than anything else, it was the voice he used that made her giggle uncontrollably. “Of course. How could I be so blind?”
“I don’t reveal myself to many, Doctor.”
I’ll bet you don’t, she thought, feeling the pull from him letting her in.
A nagging sensation that he’d forgotten something had been eating at Avakian for a while, and at that moment the insight jabbed its way into his brain. “By the way, did you happen to find any GPS trackers in the bills you grabbed?”
“Were those the metal things hidden inside stacks of money?”
“That’s right,” he said, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. “You did leave them behind, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
That was a relief. “Wonderful.” He really hated it when he let things slip by him.
“GPS trackers?”
“The Chinese version of the exploding dye pack. A cop told me once they haven’t had a successful bank robbery since they started hiding them in stacks of cash.”
“And the police just show up at your hideout?”
“Correct.”
“I guess you learn these things when you’re one of the good guys who goes bad.”
“Correct again.” He saw the turn coming up. “Okay, here we are.”
“Nice place.” A modern slab of an apartment building that looked close to twenty stories. “Is that a lake over there?”
“Shuidui Lake. We’re really just across the Ring Road and the Airport Expressway from the SAS Royal. And what you’re looking at is the Dongyuan Apartments.”
“Another hideout?”
“No. This is where we pick up our ride. So let’s keep a good thought that all our mischief hasn’t knocked him off schedule.”
“Him?”
“Major General Dong. Not related to the apartments. Army military intelligence type. And, as his name might imply, the biggest tool you’d ever want to meet. He keeps his mistress in an apartment here, and every day he waits out rush hour with her before returning home to the family. I’m told you can set your watch by him. And he’s just the kind of creep who’d blow off a national emergency to get laid.”
As he’d figured, her female face was set in total disapproval. “And you know this how?”
“I needed to get in touch with him one afternoon and all the Chinese started tittering. Official minders are only human after all. The longer they hang around with you the more torn they get between official circumspection and a natural desire to be informative. Eventually you end up hearing all the gossip.”
“And this general is going to be our hostage?”
“Perish the thought. You wouldn’t be able to stand him for fifteen minutes, let along a long drive. We’re just going to borrow his official vehicle for the trip.” While explaining this Avakian had been slowly cruising through the parking lot.
“I assume you know what his car looks like.”
Now Avakian did turn and look at her.
“Okay, stupid question. I must be getting nervous again.”
Avakian was beginning to despair that they’d kept the general at work. Then he realized the car wouldn’t necessarily be near the building. The general would call his driver while he was on the way down, and be met at the front door.
Slightly encouraged by that thought, he made a wider circuit of the lot. “There we go. That’s my boy.”
“Which one?”
“The black Mercedes 350 SUV with the tinted windows.”
“It’s nice, I guess. Did we want an SUV?”
“What we really want is the license plate.”
“Judy’s confused again.”
“Look closely at the other cars, Doctor. A regular Chinese registration is a blue plate with white letters and numbers. While this one is…?”
“White with a red letter prefix and black letters and numbers.”
“It’s a special military plate. The number also indicates the occupant’s rank. Military vehicles do not have to stop and pay road tolls. More importantly, no cop who values his career is going to pull over a major general’s car for any reason whatsoever. Likewise any military checkpoints. Hopefully.”
“And you’ve been planning this for how long?”
“Ah, I see what you’re getting at. You’ve got to understand that the countries I work in usually have some pretty serious governance problems. So whenever I take a job I always like to think about how I’m going to get out if, say, the insurgents overrun the capital and the airport gets closed. Or shelled. This actually happens more often than you’d think. Gets to be a habit.”
“You always think about what could go wrong in surgery, too.”
“Wouldn’t doubt it.”
“It’s certainly turned out to be a big help lately, hasn’t it?”
“We’ll see.”
“You know, Pete, I just realized who you are.”
“Why am I not sure I want to hear this?”
“You’re Eeyore as a criminal mastermind.”
Avakian’s mind was on the task at hand. “Eeyore?”
“Winnie-the-Pooh?” She did the Eeyore voice: “It’ll never work. We’ll die in a hail of bullets.”
Avakian laughed loudly. “Recognizing you have a problem is always the first step, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But not doing it anymore is always the final step.”
“I’ll take it under advisement until I have reason to be optimistic. Now, when I get out you hop behind the wheel and keep the engine running. Then follow me—we won’t go far. Any questions?”
“What are we going to do about the driver?”
He just looked at her again.
“Oh,” she said. “All right. I’ll shut up now.”
Avakian parked two rows back and off to the side of the Mercedes so they wouldn’t be visible in any mirrors.
He drew the pistol as he exited the car but kept it out of view behind his back. The attraction of the Mercedes was now a definite disadvantage. With the tinted windows he had no idea what the driver might be doing. Maybe in the back seat taking a nap.
As he turned into the narrow space between the driver’s side of the Mercedes and the car parked next to it he ducked down below the side mirror. Most people didn’t lock the driver’s door while they were in the car, which was how carjackers made their money.
He reached up, grabbed the door handle, and yanked it open. The driver’s startled face twisted around to meet his. Late twenties, senior sergeant’s epaulets, phone buds in his ears as he rocked out to his MP3 player. Avakian swung the pistol across his body like a backhand tennis shot, catching the sergeant on the side of the temple.
He fell back against the seat and Avakian pistol-whipped him again just to be sure.
Judy lifted herself over the center console and settled in behind the wheel. She could just imagine the phone conversation. Mom, I met a great guy. Well educated, great sense of humor, incredibly sensitive, and a stone-cold killer and criminal genius. And she could just hear her mother’s voice in her head telling her not to be so picky—it was a little thing she should overlook.
And her girlfriends? They’d tell her to let him kill anyone he wanted to as long as he had a job, was good in bed, and didn’t leave wet towels on the bathroom floor. No problems there. He even refused to leave dirty dishes in the sink in a hideout, for heaven’s sake.
She chuckled out loud—something that under the circumstances probably would have appalled her a week ago. But she was certainly getting the most from her travel dollar. If any adventure tour company offered the trapped in Beijing in the middle of a war package the price would definitely be in the six figures. Only cheap compared to visiting the International Space Station.
Avakian rolled the driver onto the passenger-side floorboard. It was kind of strange using a key to start a car. Three-quarters of a tank of gas. Outstanding. He backed out of the parking space and checked the mirror to be sure Judy was behind him.
Less than half a mile south was Chaoyang Park, one of northeastern Beijing’s largest green spaces. Avakian found a quiet lane. They parked the two vehicles back to back, and after he jimmied the trunk of the Xiali they transferred everything into the Mercedes.
“Now I know why we’ve been carrying around all this gasoline and water,” Judy said. “I got the water part, and it’s nice to be the only people around who have some, but I admit I thought you might be contemplating arson.”
“Two foreign devils in enemy country aren’t going to be driving into a rural service station and telling the attendant to fill ’er up and check the tires. When they make the movie of this they won’t have to worry about stopping for gas or running out of ammo, but for us my best-laid plans mean nothing if I didn’t pre-stage the right supplies. As it is, we’re going to be on the water and energy bar diet for a while.”
“No more instant noodles?”
“I know it’s hard.”
“I’ll try and be strong for both of us.”
Avakian went to the front of the Mercedes. He lifted the driver onto his shoulder and carried him over to the now-empty trunk of the car. “You might want to take a quick walk around the block.”
Standing next to him and looking down into the trunk, the doctor made her diagnosis with clinical detachment. Depressed skull fracture, right side subdural hemorrhage indicated by the unequal pupil, bloody cerebrospinal fluid drainage from the nostrils. Comatose and expectant. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Strip off his uniform and ID so he can’t be identified.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me anymore. The fact that it doesn’t maybe bothers me, but nothing else does.”
Avakian took out his knife and cut off the pale green uniform shirt and darker trousers. He balled the clothing up under his arm and Judy slammed the trunk shut.
They left the Xiali in the park. The afternoon shadows were lengthening into dusk. Avakian drove until they were clear of the car and then stopped. He disappeared underneath the Mercedes with a flashlight and pliers.
“Engine sounded fine to me,” Judy said.
“I’m looking for a GPS,” came the muffled voice. “The Chinese had a rash of official vehicle thefts, which annoyed the generals to no end. So they had anti-theft GPS transmitters installed. You know, like LoJack or OnStar? In their cars first, of course.”
“How are you going to find something like that without a lift and power tools?”
“Same way I found the burglar alarm. All these widgets have to have power. Nobody ever thinks to hide the power cable.”
He traced the wire bundles from the battery on back, and quickly found the lonely pair that seemed to be going not to the tail lights but the rear wheel well. “Judy, can you hand me the crowbar?”
She passed it underneath, and soon there was a sound of bending metal. The SUV rocked a bit. Some more protesting metal. And a sharper bang. Then something being beaten back into place.
Avakian reappeared and hurled a small metal box into the trees. “Okay,” he said, tossing the pliers and crowbar into the back. “Now where did we put the hand sanitizer?”
“I thought you might attach that to something interesting.”
“I considered it,” he said, wiping his hands in a towel. “But one of those calls to the driver’s cell phone was probably the general. And generals aren’t patient.” He folded the towel neatly and paused, holding the open door, his head slightly bowed.
“Are you praying?” she asked.
“I probably should,” he said, looking at her under his arm. “But I was just trying to think if I’d forgotten anything. Nope, don’t have that feeling.”
He jumped into the seat and started the engine.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Just as long as it’s not theological.”
“It’s not. What are these two switches underneath the center dashboard console here?”
“Are you telling me a doctor doesn’t know Mercedes?”
“Very funny. Okay, I drive one. But mine doesn’t have two add-on switches on the dash.”
“You’re talking about one of my major buying points,” said Avakian. He flipped the first switch and a siren came alive, nearly levitating Judy off her seat.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed.
Avakian immediately shut it off and flipped the other one. Blue flashing lights began popping just above the headlights.
“We were getting a security walk-through,” he said, shutting them off. “And we’re all standing around outside The Great Hall of the People. Chinese and most of the countries’ security liaisons. And then there’s a siren and flashing lights and this Mercedes pulls up and General Dong steps out like he was ready to sign autographs. And everyone goes: what a tool.” He grinned at her. “For some reason it stuck in my mind.”
“I feel better about stealing the car of someone who’s a tool.”
“Don’t even get me started on the guy.” As he pulled out he noticed that she’d emptied the ashtrays. “Sorry about not stealing a nonsmoking car.”
“I’m not going to complain about the color, either. You’ve got enough on your mind.” She stroked her seat. “Leather’s nice, though.”
“I think we’ve got everything. Need to go to the bathroom?”
“No, dad.”
“Okay then. Road trip?”
“Road trip,” she said.
Avakian made his way slowly north along back roads while Judy backed up his navigation with a map and a flashlight.
He actually had the gall to drive right through the Olympic Park. They wound up on a low hill a few miles farther north, near the Xisanqi High-Tech Industrial Park and overlooking the Badaling Expressway. Which was a solid mass of unmoving headlights.
“This is what I was hoping to see,” said Avakian.
“A traffic jam?”
“You’re as smart as you are beautiful, Doctor, but you are not observing two rows of headlights going each way on a double three-lane highway. Any good civil defense plan always leaves one highway lane open for emergency vehicles, military convoys, that sort of thing.”
“I guess we have to hope it stays open then.”
“Who’s Eeyore now, Doctor?”
“My God, it’s contagious.”
“Actually, you’ve just voiced my one real concern. The Chinese military would bulldoze cars right out of the lane to keep it open. But our friends the Chinese public, whose devotion to rules and regulations is marginal at best, may still have completely jammed everything up in their usual attempt to get over. If that’s the case we go to Plan B. Now you’ll ask me what Plan B is.”
“It’s like I don’t even have to be here to have this conversation.”
“And I would tell you Plan B, I really would. But we’ve had a fair amount of success so far with me not giving you a whole lot of time to dwell on what you’re going to have to do. Do we really want to break that winning formula?”
She dwelled on that a bit. “No, probably not.” Though Plan B couldn’t be any worse than her imagination was making it out to be.
“Okay, then. Let’s do it.”
The highway on-ramp was completely blocked. Avakian hit the flashing lights and went up in the breakdown lane. There was an old Russian UAZ jeep with military police markings sitting there at the end, just waiting for someone to try it. Avakian goosed the siren. A helmeted figure with a flashlight hopped out of the jeep and blinded him by shining the beam at the windshield.
Avakian reached back over the seat and drew the rifle out of the duffel bag, laying it across his lap.
Judy was reevaluating her previous statement about not needing to go to the bathroom.
The flashlight beam dropped down to check out their plate. The soldier shouted something.
Avakian had one hand on the door latch and the other on the rifle.
The jeep pulled out of the way, and the MP beckoned them on with his torch.
Avakian didn’t give anyone a chance to change their mind. The right hand lane was sealed off from the other two with traffic cones and stretched out before them, empty and inviting.
“What do you know,” said Doctor Rose. “How far is it to Mongolia?”
“Little over three hundred miles,” Avakian replied.
“Then out of China by morning.”
“This is probably the wrong time to tempt fortune,” said Avakian.