Carl Hiaasen - A Death in China

Kangmei shyly turned away. Stratton tenderly stroked the back of her neck; her skin was warm velvet.

"Are there more road checks?"

"I don't think so," she replied distractedly. "None that I remember."

"Are you tired?"

"Just a little, Thom-as. You are the one who needs to sleep."

Stratton cruised slowly through the hillsides until he found what he was looking for. He drove the truck off the asphalt and steered it down a washboard track until it was out of sight from the road. He parked and turned off the lights.

Tall trees swallowed them into shadows.

"We can nap here for an hour, but no more. We must not be on the road after the sun comes up."

"Yes, we must finish the journey tonight." Kangmei took Stratton's hand and led him through the trees until they found a clearing. They lay down together on a natural mat of pine needles, ivy and crisp cedar leaves. Stratton closed his eyes; his mind fell, spinning through the clouds toward sleep. He barely felt Kangmei's hands, gently pulling his shirt off. He heard her soft footsteps fade into the forest.

He quivered out of sleep when the cold water drenched his thigh.

"Ssshh. Lie still, Thom-as." She sponged his face with a rag and kissed him on the forehead.

"There is a brook nearby, with clean water." Kangmei washed the bullet wound in Stratton's leg. She had pulled his trousers off. In the grayness of deep night, he lay pale and limp.

"We will see a doctor tomorrow," she whispered. "He will treat the leg properly."

Stratton smiled and reached up to capture her hand. Tenderly he kissed it. She looked down at him for a long moment, a young woman of timeless wisdom.

"Yes," Stratton said at last. "Please."

In silence, Kangmei stripped. Suddenly she was astride him, a velvet presence.

She moved gently at first, back and forth, until she found his lips, and then his neck. Stratton closed his eyes and held her fiercely as she sank down on him again and again.

Later, when they were in the truck again, Kangmei revealed her secret. It was as if she had saved it for Stratton, saved it for the end.

"After they dragged me from your room in Xian, I was delivered to the police," she began. "They were told I had been caught pilfering at a market. I was thrown into a cell with three other women. Each had been accused of stealing items from the Qin burial vaults. They were not mere peasants, but trusted workers on the site. Petty thieves, my father called them. Their arrests were part of a new campaign-banners, leaflets, announcements on the loudspeakers-all arranged by my father to show the ministry that he was cracking down against pilfering. It was a charade, Thom-as."

"But I saw a big article in the People's Daily," Stratton broke in.

Kangmei said, "Certainly there is a problem with stealing, but only a minor problem. The artifacts are worth a fortune by Chinese standards. One of the women in my cell admitted that she had stolen a bridle from one of the bronze horses. The bridle was made only of stone beads, not gold or silver. Still, she was able to sell it to a street peddler for a hundred yuan. The peddler probably sold it to a tourist for three or four times as much. Such things do happen."

"In our country, too."

"But, Thom-as, something bigger is happening at Xian. If these prisoners were telling the truth, then I know why Uncle David quarreled with my father. I know what he had found out. During the past several months, the Qin site has suffered three major thefts-the crimes are so enormous that they would create a terrible scandal in Peking. There would be a large investigation by the Ke Ge Bo. People would go to jail, or worse."

"What was stolen, Kangmei?"

"Soldiers. Three soldiers, Thom-as, on three different occasions. A spear carrier, an archer and a charioteer. They are among the most priceless treasures in Chinese history, buried with the Emperor Qin-and now missing."

"My God." Stratton's mind juggled the pieces of the puzzle. "David found out!"

"I think so," Kangmei said sadly. "That is why I do not think he is still alive, Thom-as, no matter what my father told you."

"No, don't you see? Wang Bin needs David more than ever now. He needs him to get out. It's only a matter of time before Peking discovers this theft, and your father knows this. There is nothing left for him to do but run."

Stratton coaxed more speed from the recalcitrant truck. Once Wang Bin learned that Stratton had escaped, he would act quickly. Quickly enough, and there was a good chance he would never be caught.

"Kangmei, what could your father have done with the clay soldiers?"

"You assume that it was he who stole them."

"I am certain," Stratton said.

Kangmei swallowed to keep back the tears. "The women prisoners said the same thing. The rumor is that he smuggled them out of the country. To America."

"How?"

"I do not know," she said wearily. "Something so large and so delicate as a statue-it would be very difficult, Thom-as, even for Wang Bin. Every box or parcel destined for your country would be subject to automatic inspection, especially if it came from a government office. The Party has been watching my father closely. Some of the old men do not approve of the way he has handled the Qin project. I'm sure they are jealous of the publicity."

"Wang Bin would never ship the artifacts directly to the United States,"

Stratton agreed. "The risk would be too great. Boxes like that would never clear U.S. Customs without a search." Then it struck him. "Unless… "

"What?" Kangmei asked.

"Oh, God." Stratton could not bring himself to say it aloud, a theory so horrible with black irony, so devious that it could be the only explanation of how a Chinese deputy minister could actually steal the storied Celestial Army, one soldier at a time.

The car was a Shanghai, requisitioned without explanation from the ministry motor pool, and it veered without grace through empty streets, a whining gray shadow. Decades before, in the army, Wang Bin had briefly driven a truck. Since then, it had been beneath him to drive at all. David Wang slumped against the passenger door with the empty gaze of a vexed old man.

"Why?" he asked again.

"I have tried to explain. It was for your own protection, brother, I promise you." The strain of driving overwhelmed Wang Bin's English. He had lapsed into the Shanghai dialect of their childhood. "The radicals… the madmen, they are coming back, grabbing for power. I am one of their victims."

"You caged me like an animal."

"Only to save you… from the madmen."

David Wang shook himself like a dog awakening. He squinted at his brother in the pale reflection of the windshield. Like watching a mirror. A mirror of lies.

"It was not the 'madmen' who drugged me and jailed me. Not the Party, or any radicals. Just you, brother. Only you."

"It was not my choice or my liking, I promise you. I had to make you disappear.

They… they were going to arrest you."

"Nonsense. You invited me to China as a pretext. Somehow my presence was important to your conspiracy. But I still do not see-"

"A wish to see the brother that was robbed from me. That was the only conspiracy, I swear it."

"And I was so glad to see you, at first. Like seeing myself again, seeing what I might have been like, living another life in another country; the product of a totally different society, a revolution. It moved me to see you, my brother, more than I can explain."

"And I, too."

Ahead, the road wound darkly toward the northern hills.

"But how fragile are our illusions, how quickly dispelled. It was in Xian. One single day of joy, discovery. And then, disillusion when I saw what you had done."

"Forget Xian," Wang Bin hissed. "It is not important. It has nothing to do with you."