A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [69]
The sluggish truck picked up speed alarmingly on a long downhill stretch. A quarter-mile ahead, Stratton could make out a group of commune workers, trudging home down the middle of the road. He pressed on the horn and they parted slowly. Their ox, however, was disinclined to yield the right of way. Stratton honked again and pumped the brakes slowly. Incredibly, the barn-shouldered animal turned to face the noisy intruder.
“Oh, shit,” Stratton said. As the truck bore down on the ox, Stratton leaned hard on the horn. At the last second, he cut the wheel and steered onto the shoulder, around the ox and its peasant entourage. In the rearview mirror, he saw several men shake their fists at the truck. Kangmei trembled next to him.
“Sorry,” Stratton said sheepishly. “They acted like they own the road.”
“They do,” Kangmei said evenly.
The unlit road was newly paved in some sections, pocked and dangerous in others. The hilly countryside was lush with citrus stands, cane fields and banana groves. Here and there the night was broken by a commune’s lights or the pinprick headlights of a distant truck, but mostly Kangmei and Tom Stratton were alone. Stratton recounted his confrontation with Wang Bin in the museum cell.
“But how could my uncle be alive?” Kangmei asked.
“Because your father is planning something, and he needs his brother—at least for a while,” Stratton conjectured. “When he’s done, I think Wang Bin will kill David. We don’t have much time. Kangmei, it’s important that we get out of China so I can contact the State Department. Hong Kong would be the best.”
“An overnight train from where we are going,” she said. “But you have no papers. How will you leave China?”
“Can we go tomorrow?”
Kangmei did not answer right away.
“If I return to Peking, your father will have me arrested,” Stratton said. “There is nowhere I can go but out. There’s nothing I can do here for David.”
“The place I’m taking you is very safe, Thom-as.”
“For me, maybe. Think of your uncle. If the U.S. Embassy only knew he was alive. Kangmei, we could call them in the morning—”
She shook her head glumly. “Where we are going, there are no telephones.”
“Do you believe what I’m telling you, that David is alive?”
Kangmei said, “I don’t know. It is hard to accept.” In the darkness, Stratton could not see the tension on her face, but he could sense it.
The boundaries of the mountain road became indistinct as it snaked through acres of tall pines. When the truck rattled past a plywood sign erected at the foot of a hill, Kangmei sat up and grabbed Stratton’s elbow.
“Slow down, Thom-as. The sign says there is a police stop ahead. One half a kilometer.”
Stratton quickly downshifted, pulled off the road and dimmed the lights. “We’ll never slip through with me at the wheel,” he said, turning to Kangmei. “How’d you like a driving lesson?”
Her eyes surveyed the simple dashboard instruments with trepidation. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“You’ve got to. Come here, sit closer and I’ll show you.” Stratton kept his foot on the clutch and ran through the gears one time.
“Hell,” he said, “my father drove one of these tanks for thirty years. How hard can it be?”
Kangmei practiced, with the truck idling.
“That’s good,” Stratton encouraged. “Remember to watch the speedometer needle. When it gets to here, shift into second. And here, third. When we get to the checkpoint, press the clutch pedal with your left foot, and put your right foot on the brake. You’ll have to use most of your weight because the drums on this truck are nearly shot. The important thing is to slow down smoothly so we don’t attract attention.”
“There is no one else on the road at this time of night,” Kangmei remarked. “The police certainly will ask questions.”
“I’ll be hiding in the back. There’s a bundle of wood and some old vegetable crates back there—”
“Thom-as, I don’t have any identification papers. They might arrest me.”
Stratton got out of the cab. Kangmei moved into the driver’s seat.
“Make up a story,” Stratton said, scouting the foggy highway.