The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [147]
“Money,” Xao answered. “We paid him a great deal of money. But with Lan returning to China, Mr. Crowe saw that income about to disappear. He sought out the Taiwanese and tried to sell his special knowledge. They laughed at him and threatened to turn him in to the FBI. He panicked and ran. We arranged his defection to protect ourselves. It was fortunate timing.”
“Not for Crowe.”
“He was a mercenary. Mercenaries get killed.”
Neal turned back to Xao. “So it all worked out for you. Peng and I saw your two stand-ins go off the edge. So why am I here? Why aren’t I back in the States, spreading your ‘disinformation’?”
“Simms. Mr. Simms was going to kill you. For reasons I have explained, we could not let that happen. So we had to kill Mr. Simms to save you.”
“You trusted that job to Xiao Wu, a lit student, a tour guide?”
“You are somewhat naive, Mr. Carey. Xiao Wu was graduated in literature, but his tour guide status is what you would call a cover. He works for us in a different capacity.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re holding me.”
“Several reasons. First, we are afraid you will talk about Simms’s death. Killing a CIA agent… even a renegade one … is a serious matter we would just as soon avoid. So the word had been put out that Mr. Simms has defected. It is Mr. Frazier that fell off the mountain.”
“But I’m Mr. Frazier.”
“Just so. Your employers will be informed that you used this alias to enter the People’s Republic, where you met your untimely death. Second, Mr. Peng had been quite conscientious in telling all parties concerned about the suicides of Dr. Robert Pendleton and the treacherous Li Lan.”
“So the CIA will stop looking for them, and my people will stop looking for me.”
“Third, I am afraid you know too much.”
“Why did you tell me?”
Li Lan walked over to him and took his hand. “You were dying from your guilt. If we had sent you home, you would have died there.”
Neal shook her hand off.
“Can I ever leave?”
“Perhaps someday, when we are secure in power and it will no longer matter,” Xao said. “When it is safe.”
Neal thought about Graham, about Graham becoming another victim of this damn mess.
“You will stay here at the monastery,” Xao explained. “As your injury heals, you may move about. You need not become a Buddhist, of course, but you will be expected to share in the work. If you attempt to escape, you will be executed. Do you understand?”
Neal nodded.
“I am sorry for your situation, Mr. Carey. But you are—as are we all—responsible for your own fate.”
Xao walked out into the sun.
“I am sorry,” Li Lan said.
Neal shook his head.
“I mourn her deeply,” she said. “I mourn for all of us.”
She knelt in front of him, forcing him to look at her face.
“When you looked into the Buddha’s Mirror,” she asked, “what did you see?”
He stared into her eyes before he answered.
“Nothing.”
She squeezed his hands and then left him alone.
Joe Graham stepped out of the chauffeured limousine and walked the last hundred yards to the border checkpoint. The August heat was brutal, and he sweated even in his light khaki suit. A hot wind blew in his face as he scanned the checkpoint, where a chain-link gate topped by concertina wire stood between two concrete bunkers.
He stood on the Hong Kong side. Behind him were the New Territories, ahead of him was the People’s Republic of China. All around him were the barren brown hills. The only sound was the rushing wind, and he felt the quiet in eerie contrast to the incessant cacophony of Kowloon.
He watched as the guards checked the papers of a young man dressed in a sedate gray suit. They didn’t search the bundle the kid carried under his arm. Diplomatic immunity, Graham thought, as the emissary cleared the checkpoint and walked pigeon-toed down the road toward him. Graham stepped forward to meet him.
“Mr. Joseph Graham?”
The boy stole a glance at Graham’s arm.
Jesus, he’s young, Graham thought. Or maybe I’m just old. They say that grief ages you. They’re right.
“Mister Wu?” Graham asked
The boy bowed. “I wish to express my own sympathy and