Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

“But it didn’t. It happened to you.”

The American took a long pull on the bottle of beer.

“It won’t happen again,” he said. He raised the pellet gun to his hip and casually pulled the trigger. The pellet hit the target between the eyes. So did the next four shots.

“Let us hope you get the opportunity,” Peng said.

“That’s your job.”

And a good thing, Peng thought. The plan was working beautifully. Carey had spotted China Doll and had not so much as blinked. The same could not be said for her; her eyes had widened and her breath had caught. She could not have been more obvious, and Peng would have arrested her on the spot if he hadn’t had bigger plans.

She will run, now that she has seen Carey. Run like a rabbit, right to the burrow, to hide from the Carey dog. Well, you may have seen the dog, but you missed the fox. And you will lead me right to your lover, the great scientist, the great expert.

Xao will go, too, of course. The great romantic will not be able to resist. Then I will bag you all. Rightists, capitalists… traitors.

He squeezed off another shot.

Xao Xiyang put out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and answered the phone.

“Yes?” he said. It was his driver.

“Your foreign guest had a good day.”

“Did he have any complaints?”

“If he did, he didn’t say a word.”

“Perhaps you can take him to see the Buddha tomorrow.” There was a silence, a hesitation. Xao lit another cigarette.

“So you do not wish to change Mr. Frazier’s itinerary?”

“Not at all.”

“As you wish, sir.” The driver hung up.

It is not as I wish, Xao thought. It is what I must do.

The smoke tasted bitter in his mouth.

Neal Carey looked up at Buddha.

Buddha didn’t look back. Buddha just sat there and gazed serenely across the water and ignored Neal entirely. Buddha was 231 feet tall and made of stone. Buddha was carved from a red rock cliff that rose straight up from the broad Min River.

Neal was standing on Buddha’s big toe. So were Wu, Peng, and a couple of PLA soldiers. There was plenty of room.

“Pretty big Buddha,” Neal said stupidly.

“It is the biggest sitting Buddha in the world,” Wu said.

“A relic of the superstitious past,” Peng said.

“Where’s Mao’s statue?” Neal asked. “Upriver? Next to the Gang of Four montage?”

Neal was back on his Piss Off Peng Program. Peng had whipped him out of Dwaizhou like they were trying to stiff the bill. They had driven about an hour before coming to the industrial town of Leshan, a squat gray battlement on the green floodplain, and boarded a ferryboat across the river. The ferry had dropped them off at Buddha’s right foot.

“There are no statues to the Gang of Four,” Peng said. “They betrayed Chairman Mao.”

“Yeah, by carrying out his orders.”

Neal turned around to look at the river, which was dotted with fishing boats. Fishermen, balanced precariously on the back ends of their small boats, maneuvered in the swirling currents with large poles that were both oar and rudder. Larger boats had crews of oarsmen to struggle with the fast-moving water. The Min River was deceptive. From a distance it had looked lazy and muddy. Up close it looked dangerous, almost evil, and it was small wonder that the local people had built a large Buddha to watch over them on a large river.

“Would you like to see Buddha’s head?” Wu asked.

They climbed up a white wooden staircase beside Buddha’s right arm. A wide railed landing wrapped around Buddha’s head, and Neal stood about twenty feet away from Buddha’s left eye, which was about the size of a small boat, and contemplated Buddha’s face. It was certainly serene, he had to admit. Of course, anything that big, made of rock, and almost one thousand years old had pretty good reasons for being serene. And Buddha had a nice view. The wide river and its valley stretched out directly below, and if Buddha shifted his eyes to the right or left, he’d be treated to the sight of dramatic red cliffs topped with lush green vegetation.

The scenery hadn’t changed much for Buddha over the millennium, except for the big smokestacks that poked up from Leshan’s gray walls and the smaller smokestacks on the few power boats that plied the river.

Buddha had seen a lot change in China in a thousand years, but he’d seen a lot stay the same, too.

“It’s beautiful!” Wu said.

“Haven’t you been here before?” Neal asked.

Wu whispered, “I’d never been out of Chengdu until yesterday.”

It was funny, Neal thought, standing around a gigantic head, gazing at the huge, unblinking eyes. Sort of ludicrous and awesome at the same time. He wondered about the depth of faith it would take to carve something this large on a dangerous cliff above a dangerous river.

“How did this Buddha make out during the Cultural Revolution?” Neal asked. He saw Peng’s jaw get tight.

“The Buddha itself was not damaged. But the temple and the monastery behind us,” Peng said, pointing into a manicured forest, “suffered significant damage, which is still being repaired.”

“Why didn’t the Red Guard vandalize the Buddha?”

“Afraid to,” Wu said.

I’d sure as hell be afraid to, Neal thought. One look from those stone eyes would stop me in my tracks. Not to mention the thought of hurtling two hundred feet down into those currents. Old Buddha didn’t last here a thousand years by being an easy mark.

“So they didn’t have the balls to put a dunce cap on old Buddha here, huh?”

Peng’s glare cut short Wu’s nervous laughter.

“We should get you settled in your room,” Peng said. “The driver took the car there directly.”

“I’m staying in a garage?”

“You are staying in the monastery’s guesthouse. It is back behind the temple, through those trees.”

“Where are you boys staying?”

“The guesthouse is for foreign guests, but Mr. Wu will stay there to serve as your translator. I will stay at a Party facility nearby.” “I’ll miss you.”

Peng smiled. “It is only for the night. This afternoon we will escort you on a walk, and take you to dinner.”

Swell.

“Then tomorrow you may start your journey home.”

Well, you slipped that little tidbit in, didn’t you? Well, well, well… you’ve found out whatever it was you wanted to find out. Now what could that be? I saw Li Lan, and I kept my mouth shut, and I didn’t start screaming about her or Dr. Robert Pendleton… and that’s what you needed to know. That I’m beat… that I don’t want any more trouble… that I’m going to be a good boy… that you could snatch Pendleton and get away with it and that Tar Baby here ain’t saying nothing.

And that’s why Lan warned me off. She knew that if I opened my mouth I’d be here forever. Well, thank you, Li Lan.

Thank you Li Lan?! What the fuck are you talking about?! She’s the one who dumped you in the shit in the first place, and now you’re eaten up with gratitude because she’s rescued you?! And what’s her story? What had Olivia Kendall said about Lan’s paintings? Some artsy-fartsy babble about “the duality of the mirror images reflecting both conflict and harmony”? No shit. The woman is a schiz, that’s all. No wonder Pendleton is so pussy-whipped-he has himself a one-woman harem.

Well, he can have her. I’m getting out of here.

But first, the monastery.

He followed his guide-guards around the back of Buddha’s head, where the cliff flattened out to a wooded plateau. An enormous temple, made entirely of dark wood, blended into the forest like a shadow. On the other side of the temple was a large garden with twisting paths, and Neal could only orient himself by looking over his shoulder at the back of Buddha’s head. Bamboo, ferns, and creeping vines competed for space under a canopy of fir trees, and the garden was dark even at midday. The path eventually led past two smaller temples and another wooden building that looked like a barracks. There were a bunch of brown-robed monks doing chores around these buildings, so Neal quickly put it together that this was the monastery. The path ended at a circular gateway.