Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (23 page)

This man-who-looked-like Cyrus regarded them all
with interest, his gaze coming to rest at last on Mrs. Pollifax. “Good morning,” this person said cheerfully. “Elevator’s rather slow today.”

“Oh?” said Eric the Red curtly.

His eyes were so kind, she thought—just like Cyrus’s eyes—and his voice sounded so much like Cyrus’s that tears came to her eyes. But Cyrus was a world away, he wasn’t even in Hong Kong yet, was he? and she stared at him suspiciously, hating him for reminding her of Cyrus.

“Ah—coming down now,” said this man who was impersonating Cyrus so deftly. “Some sort of army maneuvers?” he asked in a kindly voice, with a nod toward their weapons.

“Mmmm,” grunted Carl.

Heads turned toward the arriving elevator but Mrs. Pollifax was stealing a second hungry glance at this man who looked like Cyrus. He had managed to move closer until he stood beside her, and she looked up at him wonderingly, turning away only when she heard the cage of the elevator jar to a halt at their floor.

She had assumed that she had gone beyond shock; she had assumed the elevator would be empty, she had assumed—

The doors opened and she screamed, confronted by an elevator crammed full of men and guns—Liberation 80’s men cradling submachine guns pointed directly at them … it was to be a massacre after all, and this was the end … And then with a beautiful rush of sanity she saw the faces of Marko and Robin and Krugg and Upshot among the men in the elevator and understood at last: she had
not
been hallucinating, it had really been Sheng Ti outside, and it was truly Cyrus standing beside her now.

“Down, Emily!” shouted Cyrus, and, hurling himself at Mrs. Pollifax and Alec, he carried them both to the floor as the machine guns began spewing out their deadly fire.

“Outwitted by a bunch of amateurs,” Marko was saying with a smile and a shake of his head. “Interpol is incredulous and the Governor still somewhat in shock, amateurs having come to be regarded lately as relics from the Stone Age.”

“Not in fashion at all,” agreed Robin, and turning to Mrs. Pollifax he said, “It was Cyrus—entirely Cyrus, you know. If it hadn’t been for him—”

They were seated around a table in the Golden Lotus restaurant—where it had all begun, remembered Mrs. Pollifax, thinking back to Monday’s breakfast with Mr. Hitchens, when he had pointed out the appearance of Lars Petterson to her; and now it was Friday evening and she was astonished at all that had happened in five days, and even more astonished at being alive and here at all.

Yet only partially here, she conceded, aware that she still hovered between two worlds, the darker violent world holding her back from this one, whose language
she had misplaced for the moment. Nevertheless she had insisted on being here, because at midnight Robin and Marko would be flying off to Rome, and as she had explained to Cyrus, the only alternative to sitting on a chair was to lie flat on her stomach, which was not only tiresome but boring.

“From what we’ve learned,” said Marko quietly, “it would have been a terrible bloodbath. That position on the Peak is nearly impregnable: the government could have brought in helicopters, police, Army, Navy—” He shook his head. “At the slightest sign of activity the terrorists would have launched their rockets into the city below and killed crowds of innocent people. The terrorists could have held out for days, leveling whole sections of Hong Kong and leaving thousands homeless and dead.”

Yes, that would have happened, she thought, nodding; she had no doubts about this because she had experienced—however briefly—the minds and the psyches of the men involved. As Marko knew, she thought, her eyes resting for a moment on his scarred face, and as Cyrus guessed, with his sensitivity so attuned to possibilities lurking behind the criminal mind.

For herself there had been X rays but she had refused to be hospitalized, wanting to stay with Cyrus. Instead she had placed herself in the capable hands of Dr. Chiang, who had biblically annointed her back with herbal and antibiotic salves, given her antitetanus injections, chicken broth and tea and a sedative, following which she had slept all afternoon. Her back would retain the scars of the beating for the rest of her life, he’d told her, but it was plain to him that, with her U.S. connections, she’d had value to them as a hostage or matters would have been much worse. He had then calmly described
to her how much worse it could have been, naming the more sophisticated torture devices invented in this modem civilized world.

To this Mrs. Pollifax had listened attentively, wanting to learn what she would eventually be thankful for when the fires stopped raging up and down her back, and ultimately she had decided that yes, she had been very fortunate indeed.

The fires had now been reduced to smoldering embers, and six hours of sleep had restored her spirit so that she could say now, “Tell me—I want to hear all about it.”

And waited, feeling rather like a child about to hear a wonderful story that might place her more firmly in this world she must reenter.

Robin smiled at her. “Yes … all right … but first you have to picture us sitting around in frustration in the small hours before dawn, napping and waiting for news of you, waiting for all the red tape to be cut before the Army could send in its men, except there was no news of you and it looked endless hours before the Army would be available, with this huge gap yawning between then and Friday afternoon when they’d take over.

“It was Cyrus who very suddenly stood up and announced around 4
A.M.
that we were behaving like bloody fools, that we had five able-bodied men present in the room at that moment, plus Witkowski asleep in the bedroom, and Krugg and Upshot at their Dragon Alley posts, and there were Duncan’s seven men from the special unit if Duncan could be sold on the idea of enthusiastic volunteers—”

“He refused the word volunteers,” put in Mr. Hitchens.

“All right, amateurs,” conceded Robin with a flash
of a smile. “Amateurs like Cyrus and Mr. Hitchens and Sheng Ti and Ruthie who could help fill in those hours before the Army would arrive to do the job.”

This is very real to them
, thought Mrs. Pollifax, listening carefully and watching their faces, but realness still eluded her and the words came to her from a great distance.

Ruthie said cheerfully, “If I remember correctly, Cyrus pointed out that at least we’d feel we were
doing
something, and there was always the remote possibility that the Liberation 80’s group might act sooner than anyone expected.”

“As they certainly did,” said Mr. Hitchens with feeling. “My God, when I think what would have happened if we’d not been there—” He received a warning glance from Ruthie and tactfully subsided.

“Mercifully, Duncan embraced the idea,” continued Marko, “He didn’t appreciate that twelve-hour gap, it worried him, too. In fact Duncan was ready to risk his job to contribute his seven men, but
only
if we agreed to go about it in a most professional manner, as if the Liberation 80’s group might really strike.”

Robin grinned. “Which none of us thought possible, of course. Except Cyrus.”

Marko smiled back at him. “Yes, is that not startling? We gravely assured Duncan that we were most seriously intentioned and he gave us carte blanche and pledged himself and seven men. We conferred and decided we must concentrate our small group on the tower at the Peak, due to those two words
command post
inside Mrs. Pollifax’s Buddha, so out into the cold, dark predawn we went.”

Robin nodded. “We had Duncan’s seven men posted in the top off the tower, fully armed—”

“The restaurant at the top doesn’t open until noon, you see,” put in Ruthie. “Only the coffee shop on the third floor was open.”

“Yes,” said Marko, smiling at her, “and Ruthie and Mr. Hitchens were given walkie-talkies and concealed beside the road behind shrubbery—”

“—with blankets and coffee,” added Mr. Hitchens eagerly.

“—and with orders to report every vehicle that passed. Sheng Ti became a gardener outside, with a gun inside his sack—”

Sheng Ti beamed and nodded. “With walkie-talkie, too. Not bad!”

Robin smiled. “But I must admit we were all of us—every one of us—completely shocked when we began to understand that terrorists were actually
arriving
and that this was to be the day. And the
hour
.”

Sheng Ti said proudly, “I was first to see.”

Ruthie nodded. “Yes, all Hitch and I did was report another car on its way to the Peak but it was Sheng Ti who watched two men park the car and leave it, carrying guns and heading for the coffee shop.”

“Where eight people plus Krugg and Upshot were eating breakfast,” pointed out Mr. Hitchens. “All ten of them were herded together by the Liberation 80’s men with machine guns—it must have been terrifying for those eight people—and taken up to the tower.”

“Where we were waiting for them,” said Cyrus, his eyes resting warmly on his wife. “Myself, Robin and Marko, that third Interpol chap, Whatsisname, and Duncan’s seven men.”

“It all happened so fast,” breathed Mr. Hitchens.

“After which,” added Marko, “there came the glorious news from Ruthie and Mr. Hitchens that a van
was on its way to the Peak to join the advance party, and that Mrs. Pollifax had actually been seen at one of the windows.”

Startled, Mrs. Pollifax realized that she was entering the story, and remembering back to that lonely, despairing ride up Peak Road she contrasted it with the triumphant scenario being described to her now and her sense of separateness from them all nearly overwhelmed her: she felt anchored in the estrangement that came from returning to life after an unsharable ordeal, and desperately aware, still, of those who had not returned and who never could. And then two things happened: across the table she met Alec Hao’s gaze and saw the same grief in his eyes and shared it with him, smiling at him reassuringly; and sensing her withdrawal from them all Cyrus reached for her hand and pressed it.

And suddenly the darkness lifted from her and she experienced the miracle of feeling again. Of being connected … to herself … to life … to Cyrus … to Alec … to these warm and wonderful people. It was like stepping out of a tomb to be met with sunlight and a flood of tenderness.

“So Cyrus came down to ground level,” Robin explained. “To wait for you, hoping that his standing so innocently by the elevators would alert you to the fact that something was going to happen.”

“Not wishing,” pointed out Marko, “to lose you in the crossfire.”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled ruefully as she remembered, grateful to be entering their story willingly now. “I thought—I really believed I was hallucinating,” she told them. “That it couldn’t possibly be Sheng Ti outside pruning rosebushes, and as for Cyrus already in Hong
Kong and waiting for an elevator at the tower, of all places! I had to have gone mad.”

“But you were in shock,” Ruthie reminded her. “As Dr. Chiang pointed out … From being beaten,” she added gently. “From seeing Mr. Detwiler killed.”

From being beaten, from seeing Detwiler killed …
Mrs. Pollifax thought that someday, perhaps on a summer’s day among her flowers, she would allow it all to come back to her and she would try to make sense out of a world that could produce trips to the moon and silicon chips and computer robots and satellites, yet never touch the impoverished hearts that could still torture, terrorize and kill without mercy or feeling. But not now, not yet.

She would think about Detwiler instead: Detwiler, who had been abused and tricked and manipulated, and who had fluctuated between weakness and strength, vanity and sacrifice, until he had determined at last to assert himself and to act, even to die rather than to submit any longer … yes, she must remember Detwiler instead just now.

She saw that they were all staring at her, anxious and wondering. “I was thinking of Mr. Detwiler,” she explained. “When he sacrificed himself to turn on the radio signal it wasn’t entirely in vain, was it?”

Marko shook his head. “No, my dear Mrs. P., not entirely. In fact if it had not been for Cyrus, rallying us all in our most discouraged moment, Mr. Detwiler’s act could have been all that might have saved you and Alec. The signal was heard and the building found. The three men in the radio van had to call for reinforcements, at which time Duncan told them that two terrorists had already arrived at the tower and that the situation was so far under control. They were instructed to follow you
in a car to the Peak, keeping their distance. No—Detwiler’s act was not wasted.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s glance went to Alec Hao. “You can perhaps forgive him now?”

“Forgive but not forget,” Alec said in a hard voice. “At least he didn’t actually kill my father, it’s Mr. Feng who—who—” His voice broke.

Marko said curtly, “Feng’s dead, he shot himself after being questioned.”

Alec said, “Then for God’s sake tell me what was behind all this hell he created!”

Marko sighed. “Once the terrorists had taken over Hong Kong they were to demand—Feng’s words—that all talks between Peking and Great Britain be suspended until the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan could be included in the 1997 restoration of Hong Kong to China.”

“Was the man insane?” exploded Alec.

Marko’s voice was dry. “All fanatics are more or less insane, I suppose. He’d been working for years to undermine Communist China and—failing that—he was determined to prevent Hong Kong being given to them. He spoke of years of planning,” said Marko. “The acquiring of property in different sections of Hong Kong where arms and ammunition could be hidden away—we think there must have been help from his brother and other sympathizers in Taiwan on this—and then the first contact with the Liberation 80’s group through his nephew Xian Pi, followed by the theft of diamonds to finance the operation, and then the methodical distribution of those diamonds to buy guns and silence, bribes everywhere to close the eyes and ears of men.”

And to subjugate Mr. Detwiler
, thought Mrs. Pollifax.

“But in the end,” Marko added sadly, “I think his
motives were reduced to the same motives as the Liberation 80’s group: he wanted to bring Hong Kong down in ruins and to express his hate and rage to the world. He must have known it was too late, that his dream of a Nationalist government returning to mainland China was impossible, but he’d given his entire life to the scheme, and he believed Taiwan to still be the true government of China.”