The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [80]
The officer spotted the official limousine and hurriedly stopped the other traffic and waved it through. Normally, Xao would have told his driver to wait, but today he was in a hurry. On most other days he loved to linger on Chengdu’s wide, tree-lined streets, to get out of the car and walk the sidewalks, look over the shoulders at the many artists who painted the flowers, the trees, and the pretty old buildings. Or perhaps stop in at one of the many small restaurants and sample some noodles in bean paste, or tofu in the fiery pepper sauce that was the city’s specialty. Sometimes he would stand and chat with the crowd that inevitably formed around him, listen to their concerns, their complaints, or maybe just share the latest joke.
But there was no time for joking today, he had no appetite for noodles or tofu, and the only painter that concerned him was the one he had code-named China Doll. She had—unwittingly—left a mess behind her in Hong Kong, a mess that threatened to ruin his entire plan, the one he had worked on for so many years. Ah, well, he reminded himself, she was still something of an amateur, and amateurs will make mistakes. But still their mistakes must be made right.
She had done well, however. She had made her way through and brought her package with her to Guangzhou, where his secret ally controlled the security police. Despite his eagerness to see her, and finally to meet the scientist she had brought with her, he had let them sit hidden in Guangzhou until it was safe to bring them into Sichuan.
He had thought that would be a matter of a few weeks, but then the trouble started in Hong Kong. Who would ever have thought there would be so much commotion over one young man? So many people looking for him, making so much noise. If that noise reached certain ears in Beijing … well, he wouldn’t let it, that was all. He would take the necessary steps, had taken the necessary steps, and that, after all, was the best way to set one’s anxieties to rest.
He looked out the tinted windows at the neat row of mulberry trees that lined the road. Soon the pavement would end, and the road would turn to that deep red earth so distinctive of Sichuan. Already he was seeing the signs of the countryside: peasants laboring beneath shoulder poles, cyclists maneuvering bicycles heavily laden with bamboo mats or cages of chickens—even one with a pig tied across the rear hub, children riding on the necks of their buffaloes, urging them off the road toward the rice paddies.
The sights raised his spirits, reminding him of the ultimate aim of all his planning and plotting. Beijing would doubtless call it treason, would give him the bullet or the rope if they caught him, but Xao knew that his treachery was the most patriotic act of a patriotic lifetime. May the god we don’t believe exists bless Li Lan, he thought. She has brought us the scientist—the expert—and with his help these children riding so happily to their chores will never know the suffering their parents did. They will never be hungry.
If you want to eat, go see Xao Xiyang, he thought, mocking himself. Well, the great Xao Xiyang had better clean up this mess in Hong Kong, clean it up before those red ideologue bastards in Beijing use it to gain the upper hand again. Use his disgrace to embarrass Deng and tie his hands.
He used the cigarette butt to light a fresh one. He told his driver to speed up and then sat back to think.
It took an hour to get to the production team headquarters. His car had been spotted and the word of his arrival had preceded him. Old Zhu was standing in the circular gravel driveway to greet him. Old Zhu, the production team leader, was only thirty-three, but he looked old. Xao suspected that even his schoolmates had called him Old Zhu. Old Zhu was impossibly earnest. He cared about only one thing: growing rice. And in China, Xao mused, that would tend to make one old