Don Winslow: The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

So… soon he would see his true nature. A dangerous undertaking, considering what he was about to do. He was by no means certain he wanted even a glimpse at his own soul. He leaned over the low railing and sneaked a peek at the mists below. He saw no mirror; it looked like a bowl full of clouds, that was all. But hadn’t the Yi guide assured him that the Buddha’s Mirror appeared every day at dawn and dusk? Superstitions, he thought. They will hold us back.

He felt the quiet presence of his driver behind him. If I am tired, he thought, this good soldier must be exhausted, having raced all the way around to the west side of the mountain and then climbed the treacherous western trail. A true soldier, a good man who should not fear seeing his own soul.

“Is the American with you?” he asked.

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

“Good. He is well?”

“He is breathing somewhat heavily.”

“We do not all enjoy your sturdy constitution.”

He offered the driver a cigarette, which the man accepted.

“I take it, then,” Xao said, “that young Mr. Carey took the bait.”

“You have seen the fish in the pool at Dwaizhou?”

“Yes.”

“Like that.”

“Ah.”

Xao considered his contradictory emotions: satisfaction that the plan was working, sadness that the plan had to work to its unrelenting end. The duality of nature-that a great good was always coupled with a great evil, a wonderful gift with a tragic sacrifice. Perhaps the Buddha’s Mirror will show me two faces.

“When do you think they will arrive?” Xao asked.

“For the sunset.”

So it will be sad and beautiful, Xao thought. Appropriate.

“Have him ready,” Xao ordered.

He could sense the driver’s unease.

“Yes?” Xao asked. “Speak up, we are all socialist comrades.”

“Are you certain, Comrade Secretary, that you want to… complete the operation? There are alternatives.”

“You have become fond of him.”

There was no answer.

Xao said, “There are alternatives, but they are risky. Risks are unacceptable when so much is at stake. Our personal feelings cannot matter.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

“You must be hungry.”

“I am fine.”

“Go eat.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

The driver stepped away. Xao watched the sun rise over the Sichuan basin. He knew what the driver had been hinting at-there was no operational reason for Xao to be here at all.

True, he thought, but there is a personal one. A moral reason. When one orders the death of an innocent, one must have the character to watch it.

Xao peered into the mists below him to search for his soul.

Simms was just goddamn miserable. He had spent the night in a damp, dirty, rat-infested Buddhist Disneyland, had to squat over an open trench to take a dump, and now he was standing in the cold fog, trying to choke down a bowl of rice gruel, waiting for the sun to rise so he could climb a few thousand more steps.

He yearned for the comforts of the Peak: a decent meal, a good bottle of bourbon, a young lady wrapped in silk. The thought of spending the rest of his life in the PRC made his stomach turn more than the rice gruel did. It was so dull here, so frigging monotonous, so spartan.

The thought galvanized him, made him urge the sun to hurry up. If he didn’t do what he had to do-grease Neal Carey-he might very well have to spend his remaining days here in this communist paradise. If Carey made it back to the States and slobbered about what the mean Mr. Simms did to him, the folks at the Company might notice the conflict with his job description. They might start asking some unfortunate questions. Then even those shit-for-brains might figure out that he was taking a regular paycheck from the Chinese. And that could get ugly. Probably even that stupid geek Pendleton had put it together.

He unzipped the long case and pulled out the rifle. The Chinese 7.62 Type 53 was by no means his favorite, but it would do. He favored bolt action, and the telescopic sight adjusted nicely. He sat down behind a large rock and screwed the sight onto the barrel. Then he hoisted the rifle to his shoulder, braced it against his cheek, and checked the sight out in the gathering light.

He spotted a band of monkeys in some bamboo about two hundred yards down the slope. He thought about his confrontation the day before with the fucking little bastards. I’ll show them an ambush. He centered the cross hairs on the chest of the largest monkey in the group, and squeezed the trigger. The shot threw high and to the left. He adjusted the sights accordingly, and aimed again. The monkey continued to gnaw on some exotic piece of fruit. The bullet slammed squarely into his chest and sent him tumbling down the hill.

Okey-dokey, Simms thought as he slung the rifle over his shoulder. He tried to force the excitement of imminent revenge out of his system, but every time he thought about struggling out of that fucking river, he got angry. He had damned near drowned, and he had sure as hell scraped the shit out of his legs crawling onto those rocks and pulling himself out. So, while revenge might be unprofessional…

He walked back to the old dining hall to find Peng and that other little slant. He’d probably need a crowbar to pry them from their rice bowls. He’d just about needed a gun to force them to walk in the dark last night, the little chickenshits. What did they think flashlights were for, the movies? Well, anyway, they’d picked up a couple of hours before packing it in for the night. Now it was time to get moving again.

Neal struggled out of the kang. Just turning to put his feet on the floor hurt, and bending over to put on his shoes was an exercise in advanced masochism. Lan wanted to do it for him, but Neal figured that if he couldn’t put his own shoes on, he damned well couldn’t climb the rest of the mountain.

Lan diplomatically withdrew as Neal winced with pain, and reappeared a few minutes later with two steaming bowls of porridge.

“What’s that?” Neal asked.

“Congee,” she replied. “Rice gruel.”

Neal ate the Chinese version of oatmeal gratefully-the thin cereal warmed his stomach in the early morning cold. He ate standing up; he didn’t want to put himself through the small torture of having to sit down and get up again. They finished their breakfast quietly, the tension between them palpable. The mountain’s summit would be the deciding point in their relationship, and they both felt it but didn’t want to talk about it. First they must get to the top of the mountain.

The trail started gently and led through a thick cedar forest. It was cold and dark, and Neal shivered. The altitude was starting to get to him, and he noticed that he was starting to breath heavily. He couldn’t help but notice; each breath stabbed his rib cage.

They walked for about twenty minutes to the far edge of the woods. Neal looked ahead on the trail and wished that he hadn’t; the steps ahead seemed to go straight up.

“Three Look Stairway,” Li said. “Pilgrims look at it three times before they want to climb it.”

“I’ve looked at it three times,” Neal answered, “and I still don’t want to climb it.”

The grade was so steep that his knees practically touched his chest with every step. He consciously pushed off the balls of his feet, trying to concentrate on his legs as his ribs burned and stabbed him. He had to stop after the first twenty steps.

Li turned around. “Please go back to the monastery. I will bring Robert down.”

“Right.”

“I promise.”

“I started out to climb the fucking mountain. I am going to climb the fucking mountain.”

“You are a fool.”

“I’m not arguing.”

She turned and started back up. He caught his breath and went after her. Yi, ar, yi, ar, yi, aaarrgh! His ribs threatened him. He felt the sun begin to beat on his hunched-over back. Yi, ar, yi, ar… yi… ar … yi… ar… yi… ar… yi. He stopped to rest again. He wanted to collapse on the stairs, to lie down and rest, but he knew he probably couldn’t get up again, so he forced himself to take another step. Wrapping one arm around his ribs, he took another step. The pain nauseated him. Another step. More pain. Another. Yi, ar, yi, ar. Another rest.