Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

“So how do you and Peng get along?” Neal asked. “Okay?”

The reaction was infinitesimal, but it was there. You’re good, Neal thought, very good, but I’m better. I’ve been watching people blink all my life, and that was a blink.

“Who’s Peng?” Simms asked.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You picked a hell of time to stop being stupid,” Simms said. “I was going to let you walk.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“North Carolina.”

“They have a diving team? Were you on it? How did you do in the three-hundred-foot freestyle?”

“You’re just not a killer, boy. You’re a disaster. The big mistake the girl made was coming to see you. We didn’t have a line on her until now. And now it’s just a matter of time. You fucked her good, all right.”

Time, Neal thought. Time is the issue right now. Simms had missed with his shot intentionally. He didn’t want to kill Lan, he wanted to make her run. Just as he’d done every step of the way. What we need here is a little time, a little lead.

He stood up and raised the pistol.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Down the stairs.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m a funny boy. Come on.”

Simms eased himself off the railing and stepped onto the landing beside Buddha’s head. Neal gave him plenty of room and left four steps between them as he followed Simms down the steps. They walked down past Buddha’s chin, then his chest, paused at a landing by his belly, and finally made it down to his big toe. The brown river swirled just beneath them.

“Sit down,” Neal said.

Simms hesitated. He was thinking about taking his chance, but Neal stayed on the steps, out of reach but within pistol range. Simms sat down.

“Take off your shoes,” Neal said.

Simms untied his leather saddle shoes.

“Wallet and watch,” Neal said.

“What is this, a mugging?”

“You might want to take off your jacket.”

Simms got it just then.

“Carey, you don’t think I’m going to jump in the river, do you?”

“Now jump in the river.”

“I can’t swim.” “Float.” “Shoot me.”

Neal raised the pistol.

It was no good. He wasn’t going to shoot. He knew it and Simms knew it. Even Buddha knew it.

Neal stepped off the landing onto Buddha’s foot. Simms smiled and started to circle. He did a good job, maneuvering Neal between himself and the river. Neal kept the gun pointed at Simms’s chest, an easier target than his head.

“I can’t miss from here,” he said.

“Then shoot.”

Neal tightened his finger on the trigger. It was just enough to make Simms move. He jolted forward like he was on springs. He came in low, fast and hard, with his head down and his arms forward, straight at Neal’s chest.

Neal’s chest wasn’t there. Neal had dropped to the ground a half-second after bluffing with the trigger. All Simms hit was air, and then the water.

Neal watched the current carry Simms away.

Neal scurried back up the stairs, through the garden, and into the monastery. He went to his room and packed a few things into his bag. Then he went to Wu’s room and tapped on the door.

A groggy Wu came to the door, and Neal pushed him back inside the room.

“Are you drunk?” Wu asked.

“Where’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”

“What?”

“Where’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”

“On the silkworm?”

“No, it’s a mountain. In Chinese, what’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”

Wu came awake. “Oh! Mount Emei. ‘Emei’ means Silkwo-”

“How far is it?”

“Not far. Perhaps ten or twenty li.”

“I want to go there, right now.”

“Not possible at any time. Absolutely not.”

“I have to go there.”

“I cannot take you. I would get in big trouble.”

“Tell them I forced you.”

Wu chuckled. “How are you going to force me?”

Neal pulled the gun from his jacket and pointed it at Wu’s nose. Wu doesn’t know what a wimp I am with guns, he thought.

“You are crazy,” said Wu.

“This is a good thing for you to keep in mind. Now let’s go wake up the driver and go to Mount Emei.”

Wu flapped his hands in frustration. “Why do you want to do this?”

“Because I’m crazy. You have one minute to get dressed. Go.”

Wu got dressed and led Neal to the driver’s room. Neal greeted the driver with the pistol and held it on him while Wu explained the situation. The driver smiled calmly at Neal and shrugged.

“Emei?” he asked.

“Emei.”

The driver pulled his shoes on. Five minutes later they were in the car. Neal sat in the backseat and kept the pistol pressed to Wu’s head.

They were at the base of Mount Emei just as the sun came up.

The car climbed dirt switchbacks up the foothills of the mountain until the road ended on a broad knoll. A few thatch-roofed huts huddled on the edge of the treeless hill. The Sichuan basin stretched out below to the north. To the south and west, the heavily forested slopes of Mount Emei dominated the skyline, and to the far west the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayan foothills loomed like a promise and a threat.

The village had the tattered, dirty look of rural poverty. Acrid smoke poured from holes in the roofs of shacks. A scraggly garden plot fought for survival in a sea of wild grass. A few skinny sheep and goats bleated indignant protests at the arrival of the strange motorcar.

“This is as far as he can go,” Wu said as the driver pulled to a stop.

Neal could sense rather than see the eyes of the villagers observing the government car. No one came out to greet them. He pointed to a trodden dirt path that scarred the grass.

“Is that the only way up the mountain?”

Wu spoke to the driver.

“It’s the only way up,” Wu translated. “You go down on the other side.”

“What about airstrips? Helicopter pads?”

Another exchange.

“The only thing you can fly to that mountain is a dragon.”

“Good.”

Neal started to gather his bag together.

“The police will be right behind you, you know. You cannot escape.”

“I don’t need to escape. I just need a little time. If they have to walk, they won’t get there ahead of me.”

“I will come with you.”

Neal smiled at him. “I’m honored. But no thanks.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because your father went to jail for speaking English.”

“Do not joke.”

“I’m not.”

Neal got out of the car. The driver looked straight ahead, still smiling calmly. Wu looked as if he were about to cry.

“Good-bye, Xiao Wu,” Neal said.

“Good-bye, Neal Carey.”

“We will see each other again.”

“Fuck yes.”

“Fuck yes.”

Neal took the pistol from his jacket, pointed, and pulled the trigger. The right front tire hissed its death throes before expiring. Neal was pleased-he had never shot anything before. He executed the left rear tire in the same fashion.

“Sorry,” he said to the driver. “It’ll give me a little more of a start.”

The driver shrugged. He seemed to understand.

Neal walked backward along the trail and kept his eye on the car, just in case Xiao Wu and the driver were thinking about trying to catch him and wrestle him to the ground. The path took a dip out of sight about fifty yards away, so he turned around and headed for the mountain.

He felt exhilarated, almost carefree. It was strange, because he had nothing but cares. He had to catch Li Lan before Simms and Peng did-warn her that her organization had a mole and that she and Pendleton would never be safe. And he was now the proverbial man without a country-not America, not China. If he survived the next few days, which was a poor bet at best, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.