Fire And Ice (30 page)

"Can you take me to Mr. Jack?"

Ah Lee responded with Ronnie's latest version of the affirmative, which she had picked up from the captain, "You got it, Mum."

In the elevator she tried to picture where Michael was at this moment. It was absolutely surreal to think of him within a hundred yards, and terrifying to imagine the risk. He had no conception of the power that Mr. Jack wielded in Shanghai

There were VHF radios on the bridge deck, their batteries topped up by chargers. She glanced at Ah Lee, who was gazing impassively at the floor. How brave could he be after a savage beating? How brave was she after hers?

She touched Ah Lee lightly on the shoulder. He started as if she had jabbed him with a cattle prod. His eyes widened as she touched her fingers to her lips and pointed up toward the bridge. The car stopped and the door slid open. Sarah lowered her hands, but gave him a questioning smile.

Ah Lee shook his head, and instead of waiting for her to exit the elevator first, as he usually did, he darted out ahead of her and practically ran to the gymnasium door. She found Moss pressing weights with his legs, streaming perspiration and grunting with effort. Mr. Jack and Ronnie were huddled over cans of Coke, deep in conversation like a pair of yachties in the club bar. "Whoa, Doc. Caught me."

"He just stopped, Mum. He was real good. You should have seen him." He had acquired some color. She took his wrist and felt his pulse. Brisk and smooth. " You know, Mr. Jack, you're really all but recovered."

" You going to stop harping on hospitals?"

"It's time to let us go."

Moss stopped grunting. Mr. Jack smiled coldly. "Christmas, Doc. I promised you a bang-up Christmas."

Ronnie looked up at Sarah, gauging her reaction. "Mummy," she said quietly, "Mr. Jack wants to tell me about the Japs—"

"Japanese!"

"But he said you have to give permission."

"What do you mean?"

"Kid wants to know what happened to my hands." "No. No, I'm sorry, Mr. Jack, that is not on." "Mummmm!"

"You're too young, Ronnie."

"No I'm not. Mr. Jack says I'm really grown-up."

"Forget it, kid. Mum's made her mind up—Hey, stop moping. You're worse than Moss in a bad mood. Tell you what. I'll give your Mum the story—straight dope. She'll fill you in when she thinks you're ready. How's that?"

"Lousy."

"Take it, kid. Best deal you're gonna get— Hey." His face hardened abruptly. "Get out of here. I want to talk to your mother. Take her upstairs, Ah Lee. Get her some ice cream. Go on. Scram. All of you. You too, Moss. Get out."

He had gone red in the face. Ah Lee fled with Ronnie. Moss trailed, his expression grave. The old man shuffled to one of the machines.

"I think you've had enough," said Sarah, puzzled by what was, even for him, an unusually abrupt shift of mood.

"Shut up, 'Mummy'!" He sat on the machine, seized the handgrips, and pulled them repeatedly. "Do you need a manicure?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me."

"But I don't understand."

"Something's up. I don't know what. But I don't want any monkey business outta you."

"Nothing is 'up.' "

"I can feel it in the air. See it on your face." "I don't know—" He cut her off. "Doc, I don't know if you got balls of steel, or maybe you dig pain. All I know is you're not afraid of Moss. I'm thinking of having him rape you."

"There's nothing—"

"But I don't think even rape'll help. Balls of steel. Fortunately, I got an ace in the hole."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you know that the Shanghainese do a lot of business with the Arabs?"

"I was not aware," she answered slowly. Where was this going?

"They started out smuggling rhino horn aphrodisiacs. Big market, except they discovered there's bigger bucks in human beings. . . . You see, with their one-child law, the Chinese peasants sell their daughters, hoping for a son next time. They're all doing it, my friends tell me, so of course, little Chinese girls are a glut on the market. But a little black girl?"

"What?" She felt the blood drain from her face. "Ronnie would fetch a hell of a price."

"No! You can't mean that."

"Excellent bloodlines—gonna be a knockout with such a Mum—young enough to be trained . . ."

"Please, Mr. Jack."

"Pull any funny stuff and I'll sell Ronnie to a slaver." Her blood rushed back in furious heat. Her hand plunged without thought into her pocket, to stab him with the hypo. She could barely hear the voice that said that it would be insane to run before she made contact with Michael.

Her voice trembled. "Is your friendship with my child a sham?"

"I wouldn't call it a sham, Doc. I love the little kid like she was my own. But I got priorities. No monkey business."

Stone smeared mud on his face and prayed for night. Inland, he heard the trains, much closer. Toward the river, the PLA patrol was cracking branches and crunching dead leaves as they searched the field.

His coat was his one defense, nearly matching the gray-brown color of the brushy field and the dimming smoke-stained sky. Buttoned its full length, it had protected him as he scrambled his way off the paths into the dense growth.

They were approaching faster than the night. Shielding his bright orange backpack with his body, he retreated farther into the field, ducking low and trying with little success to move quietly. The dark seemed to come up from the ground, so that while he could see the branches

at eye level, and now and then a glimpse of the Chinese soldiers' silhouettes against the western sky, he could not see his own feet. Tripping repeatedly over roots and low branches, he made only a little less commotion than the soldiers. If they ever all stopped moving at once, they'd zero in on him like a pack of wolves.

The sunset was marked by a portion of sky slightly less gloomy than the rest, ribbed with sea clouds spawned on Hang-chou Bay. A soldier raised a weapon a hundred yards away, and Stone saw the stubby automatic rifle in silhouette. A peaked cap cut another shape. Then flashlight beams began to dart.

He listened intently. It sounded as if they had brought another squad in. Hugging the dark ground, he worked his way nearer the rail yard, careful not to silhouette himself against its lights.

A thudding sound in the distance, which he thought at first was one of the switch engines, grew suddenly louder. He looked up and saw a bright star grow swiftly brighter and bigger until it was a helicopter sweeping the field with a searchlight. The engine and thumping rotor blades were deafening.

He ran.

The light reached for him like an accusing finger. He crashed through the brush, diving to the ground as it swept closer. For a second he saw his own arm brightly lit beside him. Then the search beam swept on and away and he ran, while behind him the soldiers shouted and someone blew a whistle again and again, the shrill note chasing him like a demented bird.

The helicopter wheeled swiftly away and just as suddenly back, parting the air like a scythe. The searchlight drilled into the brush. A heavy gun started firing. There were screams, then angry shouting as the helicopter rose suddenly and hovered at a distance. Shouts and wails pierced the night—for it was night, quite abruptly pitch-black but for the glow of the rail yard and the lights of the helicopter, which backed away. Stone ran. They had shot their own men, but when they recovered they'd be coming after him with a vengeance. A railroad track embankment loomed above him, blocking the way. He heard the soldiers crashing after him through the brush. The helicopter had landed near where it had been shooting.

He crawled up the embankment. The helicopter took off, churning heavily into the sky, searchlight blazing. Stone scrambled toward the dubious cover of a runoff gully. But instead of resuming the search, the aircraft swung away and headed up the river. A whistle blew. Soldiers shouted. Face to the ground, Stone clawed his way up the embankment, terrified he would cast a silhouette against the glow of the rail yard. At the summit, when he raised his head warily and looked back at the field, he saw a dozen flashlight beams stabbing the dark.

The slope was littered with gravel that had tumbled down from the track bed. He shifted uneasily on it, hesitating. The PLA soldiers were working their way toward the embankment, spread out across the half-mile breadth of the field. If he didn't move, they would nail him here on the embankment. But if he went over the top to cross the track, the soldiers in the field were sure to see him silhouetted against the light. To turn to his right, down the line toward the ship breaker's yard, would bring him closer to Sarah but into the brighter lights glaring down from the ship shed. If he headed left, up the line toward the city, he would eventually reach the road to the ferry. But unlike William Sit he could hardly lose himself in a Chinese crowd, particularly a crowd that had seen the helicopter and heard it shooting.

He considered turning back, boldly breaching the search line itself and pushing right on to the river. It would be risky, the only advantage being surprise. But then what? Even if he passed undetected through the line, and remained undetected through the long night, daybreak would reveal him still trapped between the river and the rail yard, the breaker's yard and the ferry road.

A cold, wet wind sloughing through the brush carried the crackle of breaking branches. Stone shivered. Several searchers had forged ahead of the rest, their lights flickering within a hundred yards of where he lay. He looked out over them at the river, dotted with red and green running lights, and then down at the breaker's yard where Sarah and Ronnie waited, so close. Light swept the dark aside.

Stone pressed his face to the slope. The ground began to tremble, cold gravel vibrating against his cheek. A heavy engine thundered. The light glared and suddenly he saw the source: a diesel locomotive approaching slowly from the right, its headlamp gleaming silver on the rails and splashing the embankment.

From the field came shouts. They'd seen him.

He saw another shallow gully that rainwater had scoured from the embankment and rolled into it. Whistles shrilled, gathering the hunters. And then, as the locomotive trundled past with a string of freight cars, he scrambled up the gully to the top of the embankment and threw himself under the train.

He tumbled a foot behind the lead wheels of a freight car, landing on the ties between the rails. His backpack, which he held by the handgrip, snagged a shoulder strap on a spike, the bag itself splayed across the rail as the freight car's rear wheels rolled toward it. Stone tugged frantically. In the bag was the radio—his only link to Sarah. But as he pulled, he saw, too late, that the other strap had wedged itself under a deep splinter. He braced to pull harder and in doing so lifted his head. Something of enormous mass—

some part of the train rumbling over him—brushed through his hair, knocking him flat to the ties. As the rear wheels bore down on him, he shoved the bag over the rail, waited for the rear wheels and then the front wheels of the next car to pass, grabbed it again and wrenched it free, falling backward and rolling over the far rail and down the opposite side of the embankment.

The pack had ripped. The gun and the radio had fallen out. The train still blocked the soldiers, but the end was coming up fast. He pawed frantically, found the radio but not the gun. He rolled to his feet, crouched and running, the train at his back, the sprawling rail yard ahead, lit here and there by lanterns and the red glow of signals. He leaped a second track and a third, running hard, sticking to the dark. Ahead was another set of tracks and

coming from the right another train, moving faster than the first. He hesitated. Should he expose himself to the headlamp or wait while the soldiers advanced behind him? It was moving too fast to tumble under it.

He waited too long. The locomotive was suddenly past and he was blocked. It was hauling a long string of boxcars and it looked endless, an endless tail disappearing into the night. He heard the whistles again. He ran forward, close to the moving train, trying to judge its speed to see if he could make it between the wheels. He saw an open boxcar, ran alongside, threw his bag into the dark opening, and then, planting both hands on the splintery floor, tried to vault aboard.

It was moving faster than he could run. His feet flew out from under him. As he gripped the floor of the car, his shoes dragged on the gravel and the ties. He gathered his strength for one effort and heaved. He never knew where his legs went or his dragging feet or his suddenly pain-racked knees, but the next instant he was lying on his back in the boxcar, breathing like a bellows, his head storming, with the train trundling under him, wheels slamming hard on the seams in the rails.

It was heading toward Shanghai, gathering speed, away from the soldiers. He looked out the other side: pitch-black darkness. He had fled across the entire width of the rail yard before the freight had rescued him. Now he was safe, the soldiers, the breaker's yard, and Sarah falling behind.

If he let himself think about the signal boxes, signposts, and rusty junk that littered the yard, he would stand in the door of the boxcar halfway across China. The train was accelerating. He felt the wind of its passage begin to cut. Beyond the door it was pitchdark. He buried his face in the soft side of the backpack and jumped. Now he had time to regret as he flew forever through the air. Something tugged hard at his coat. A frozen second of terror. His feet skidded on gravel. He pitched forward, out of control, frantically trying to tuck his arms and legs and roll.

The impact knocked the wind out of him and splayed

him like a crucifix. Sliding on his back, he saw two red lights on the back of the train, and came to a rest in a ditch below the embankment. There, he cataloged the hurts in his body and tried to assess his situation.

He could move his arms and legs. He was at the farthest reaches of the rail yard. It was blessedly dark. But before the rumble of steel on steel had faded, he heard the soldiers'

whistles.

He limped silently away. Keeping the glow of the rail yard and the ship breaker's behind him, he moved across the broken ground, stumbling, falling repeatedly. He thought he had lost the soldiers, but when he stopped to listen to the wind, he heard them calling. And then a flashlight beam swirled in the dark.