Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

“I don’t know,” Pendleton said. “Can we trust them?”

“It’s not a matter of trust. You have something they want.”

“Li Lan, you mean.”

“There’s a wicked kind of symmetry in this situation. You can go to China, where she turns you over, or back to the States, where you turn her. The issue is simple. Which is better? You go to China, you’re a prisoner for life and so is she. You go back to the States, she’s a prisoner for a while and you’re a free man. They’ll even let you stay together, as long as you’re a good boy.”

“What’s in it for you?”

Good question, Doc. What is in it for me? I lose Li Lan, but then again, I never had her. And maybe if I bring you back, the powers that be will let me come back too, back to my comfortable cell. Maybe that’s the best you can expect in this world, a comfortable cell.

So he explained his deal to them. If he could bring them in, he could go back to school, back to his own research.

“We can have it all,” he said. “You can play with your test tubes, you can paint, I can muck around with eighteenth-century literature. It’s what I’d call a happy ending.”

“Except Li has to betray her country,” Pendleton said, although it was more like a question.

She stared at the floor. “It is not a country. It is a prison.”

“What about family?” Neal asked.

“Dead.”

He wanted to hold her. Throw his arms around her and tell her that it was all right, that there were all kinds of families and that she had found herself a new one. She looked tired and hurt and played out.

“Shall I make the call?” he asked.

Pendleton looked at Lan. It was her decision to make.

“Please,” she said.

Neal picked up the phone and dialed the number Simms had given him. It took a couple of minutes to clear for Simms to come to the phone.

“Did you forget something?” asked Simms.

“Your order’s ready. You want to pick it up or you want me to deliver?”

“Jesus H. Christ. Where are you?”

“A YMCA on Waterloo, near Nathan Road.”

“Stay put! I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Hurry up.”

Simms’s voice took on an edge. “Is there a problem?”

“There could be,” Neal said, wondering where Ben Chin was, “but I don’t think the problem will happen as long as I’m here.”

“I’ll get someone right there.”

“How will I know him?”

“Ask him the subject of your would-be master’s thesis. He’ll know.”

“You guys think of everything.”

“We try.”

“I’m only turning them over to you personally. Deal?”

“Deal.” See ya.

So that’s that, Neal thought. An hour or so and it’s over. And I’ll never see her again.

That’s when he heard the awful screech of the elevator, heard the doors slamming shut on the third floor, and stopped wondering where Ben Chin was.

Neal met him in the hallway. “What are you doing here?”

Ben Chin raised his hands into a fighting position. “The game’s over, Neal. I’m here to get them.”

“You’ve been trumped.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that they represent some valuable assets to the CIA, who are not going to be happy with you if you waste them. So let’s not fuck around, okay?”

Chin dropped his hands and smiled. Then his right hand came up and it had an automatic pistol in it. He pointed the silenced muzzle at Neal’s face.

“I don’t give a shit about the CIA. I don’t work for the CIA. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t care very much one way or the other. So you walk away and we both forget we ever met. Or I do you right here. Either way, they die. So let’s not fuck around, okay?”

Either way they die. Simms’s second choice. And Pendleton and Lan didn’t care about you getting killed, Neal. They figured it was better you than them. Well, better them than me.

“Okay.”

“That’s what I thought. Door locked?”

“Not anymore.”

“You get out of here, Neal. You’re too far up Nathan Road. Way too far.”

Neal walked past him down the hallway. Chin turned the doorknob with his left hand and slowly opened the door. Pendleton was sitting on the bed. Lan was standing by the window. Chin dropped into the shooter’s position-knees bent, both hands on the pistol’s grip-and brought the barrel down until it was pointed at Li Lan’s heart. She looked at his eyes.

Neal barrel-rolled him from behind, taking him in the back of the knees and sending him flying onto his ass. Neal jumped on top of him and grabbed his wrist.

Chin was fast. He used his free hand to punch Neal in the side of the head and then he threw him off. He kicked Neal in the ribs, and the force of the blow crashed Neal into the hallway wall. This took about a second and a half, and neither Li nor Pendleton moved an inch. Neal slumped against the wall. His head was spinning and he couldn’t catch his breath to move. The pain in his ribs doubled him over.

“Asshole,” Chin said. He raised the gun to finish him off.

Li Lan flew, or at least it seemed that way to Neal. One second she was standing against the wall and the next instant she was flying through the air, her legs curled beneath her. She flew until she was even with

Chin’s head, and then her right leg shot out like a snake striking. The foot hit him on the underside of his jaw and his head snapped backward. He was unconscious even before the back of his head hit the wall and he slid to the floor.

He woke up hearing Li Lan urging him, “Come, come. We must go.”

He was lying on the bed in their room. He felt like throwing up, and his rib cage felt as if somebody had stuck burning matches into it. She would have looked like an angel to him if he hadn’t just seen her kick a man’s head about off. Maybe she looked like an angel anyway.

“Come on. We must go,” she said.

He shook his head. That was a mistake-Quasimodo crawled in and started ringing the bells. “We have to stay put. Simms will be here soon.”

Pendleton pointed to Chin. “He won’t be out forever.”

“He might be dead,” Neal said.

“Yes, he may be,” said Li Lan. “We must go now.”

Pendleton jerked him to his feet. The corridor wasn’t spinning. It was lurching like a broken carny ride with a drunken operator at the controls.

“Where are we going?” Neal asked.

“I know a place to hide until we can call your Mr. Simms,” Li Lan said. “Now come, please.”

“We should take the stairs. Elevators are traps,” Neal said. He leaned over painfully and picked up Chin’s gun. “I suppose you know how to use one of these things?”

“Yes.” Li Lan took the pistol, unscrewed the silencer and dropped it to the floor, then stuck the pistol in the front of her jeans, under the jersey. “Can you walk down the stairs?”

“If you’re absolutely sure I can’t just lie here and take a nap.”

“Where we are going you can rest.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see Kuan Yin.”

“Naturally.”

Elevators may have been traps, but the stairs were murder. Each step drove a jolt of pain through Neal’s ribs and up into his head. He was beginning to wish Li Lan had let Chin shoot him.

When they reached the door to the lobby he said, “You’d better let me go first. Chin may have friends down here.”

He didn’t. He was so fucking arrogant he had come alone. Neal signaled his new friends and he, Li, and Pendleton strolled right out the front door onto the street.

Chin’s crew stood across the street, leaning against a parked car.

“Hi!” Neal shouted as he waved. “Boy, I’ll bet you never thought you’d see me again, huh?”

The three thugs straightened up and started for him, spreading out as they did. Neal walked slowly toward them as Lan and Pendleton moved sideways behind Neal’s screen, getting ready to run up Waterloo to Nathan.