Darkness Under Heaven (15 page)

“It was a terrible thing to say. I know he was going to hurt me, and you saved my life.”

He held up a hand to stop her.

She had to give it to him. It took a lot to get him upset. Just how much she'd seen. But the embarrassment still burned. “My God, what a cliché. Bad movie dialogue if I ever heard it.”

Avakian was still unperturbed. “Ironically, if they'd been a couple of older soldiers we wouldn't have had that kind of trouble. Teenagers with guns and uniforms and power. And, most important, nobody watching them. Bad things happen then.”

“Are all Chinese soldiers like that?”

He got up, walked across the room, and sat down on the couch beside her. “Judy, all armies have soldiers like that. You think what happened to us didn't happen somewhere in Iraq every week?”

She knew she was staring at him again, but she had no idea how to respond to that. Not for the first time that night. But he just matter-of-factly came out and said what other people were usually careful to only think about.

He continued along those lines by saying, “And no, at the risk of freaking you out, it didn't bother me. And it doesn't now.”

She wanted to, but she couldn't hold his gaze. “Okay, I was going to ask you that.”

“It's the question no one can ever resist. It makes people feel better to hear that the men you killed torment your soul. But they don't.”

“I'm going to change the subject now.”

“Well, that's up to you,” Avakian said.

“Is this your apartment?”

“No. The government pays…or should I say they paid for my room at the St. Regis.”

“I remember you told me that.”

“This belongs to a friend of mine. Works for the World Bank—they pay his rent. He makes sure he's out of Beijing in the summertime. He gave me his keys, and I stuck them in my wallet and forgot all about them until now. Good thing he didn't want me to feed his goldfish. I'd never involve anyone I know in something like this, but I have a feeling he won't be back in China for a good long time. If ever.”

“Nice robe,” she said.

Avakian grinned. “We've got multiple robes and a whole drawer of toothbrushes. Clearly, my boy is a player.”

Okay, Judy, she told herself. Time for the big question. “What do we do now?”

“Lay low tonight, let the city calm down. Then tomorrow I get you back to your hotel like nothing happened. You went out to dinner, got caught up in all the ruckus, and we waited it out in a bar or something. There'll be world opinion and propaganda points to make. Eventually the Chinese will let all the gymnastics teams fly home. Even the American.”

“What about you?”

“That's a little different. I really don't feel like being interned along with the rest of the U.S. diplomats. So I'll see what happens, maybe try and make my way out of the country on my own.”

“You're going to try to get out of China? In the middle of all this? On your own?”

Avakian shrugged.

“That's why you took the rifle and all their equipment, isn't it?”

“You're a smart lady.”

She was momentarily in awe that he'd been thinking that far in advance in the midst of everything last night. “I'm staying with you.”

Avakian shook his head slowly. “Now
that's
bad movie dialogue. And no, you're not.”

“If those two kids went to the police like their friend went to the soldiers they're going to be looking for me as well as you. Especially with Kangmei dropping us off at the lake and never picking us up. It's not going to be that hard to figure out it was us.”

“The odds on that are better than hanging with me. With everything that must have gone on last night those soldiers and the kid could have been killed by anyone. If the cops do come for you, the three kids attacked us and you watched me break that one's arm. But you don't know anything about any soldiers getting shot. You never saw them. And now,” he said, picking a folded bed sheet up off the coffee table and snapping it open, “I'm evicting you from the couch. The bedroom is yours. I'm going to get some sleep.”

He stacked the cushions up at one end and motioned her off. She got up grudgingly. “We'll talk about this more in the morning.”

“That remains to be seen,” he replied, tucking the sheet around his feet. “Please be good enough to turn the lights off on your way out of the room.”

She stood before the couch, stubbornly unwilling to let it go, but just as unwilling to start an argument after all that had transpired. “Thank you for taking care of me tonight, Pete. Thank you for saving my life.”

His voice was already drowsy. “Let's hope I didn't ruin it.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but his breathing had already changed. He was actually asleep. Unbelievable.

A
vakian woke to thin cracks of intense sunlight highlighting the edges of the window drapes. He could tell all those old instincts were coming back because he woke up instantly, alert and not wondering where he was. The only problem was that he thought he might be having a heart attack. Then he realized why he could barely move his left arm. He'd been carrying that bundle of rifle and equipment in it all night long.

Judy Rose was sitting in front of the TV, watching it with the sound off. The light from it haloed her hair in the dark room. She was wearing a man's dress shirt and too-big sweatpants. Avakian wondered if she'd gotten any sleep at all.

He checked his watch. “Good morning.”

She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. “Good morning.”

At least she was smiling. Avakian sat up and flexed his fist to try and work some blood back into that dead arm. “Any news?”

“All the non-Chinese channels are black,” she reported. “No CNN.”

“They don't want anyone getting any unapproved news.”

“They can just turn it off like that?”

“The Chinese are the world's experts at censorship. And all the Western companies who sold them their hardware and software built in everything they need to flip the switch. Anything for a buck. That is, if the Chinese haven't jammed the satellites or even blown them out of orbit. Satellites are something they can live without. We can't.”

“The channels that are on have been showing nothing except people giving speeches, soldiers singing, and the same video of missiles being fired all morning.”

Chinese news anchors came from a much geekier prep school than their Western counterparts. The reader was speaking rapid-fire Mandarin, much too rapid for Avakian to follow reliably. He could only catch a word here and there. “I'm going to take a shower.” He'd wanted to last night, but held off because he wanted to bring the debate to a close. And now, sensing another one in the offing, it was time to scamper away.

He always did his best thinking in the shower. Not knowing exactly what was going on was really complicating the decision-making. And there was no place to call for the real scoop. The Chinese would definitely have an electronic monitoring blanket around the U.S. Embassy.

He stepped under the water and reminded himself not to make assumptions. So what do you know for sure? Not much. The Chinese might be firing missiles at Taiwan's cities while they prepared for an invasion, or they might be firing them onto military bases or unpopulated areas to pressure them into surrendering. A full-blown war, including the U.S., might be in progress right now. Or it might not.

As he soaped himself down he felt the rough stubble
on his head. Time to stop shaving the old grape and start changing the appearance. And the way he grew hair, facial at least, a couple of days max for a good start on a beard. Maybe just a goatee.

He began mentally assembling a shopping list. Not a good idea to be walking around in the daytime. Everything would have to be done at night from now on. No cabs. Definitely no subway—every station had surveillance cameras. Which meant that if the Chinese happened to pick up on one of his movements some good old-fashioned detective shoe leather and pattern analysis would probably get them to within maybe a square mile of this apartment. Then they could flood the zone with manpower. He'd have to move every two days, max.

As soon as he got her back to her hotel he could get started. The Chinese would probably take her in but at least she'd be alive. He'd tell her to give them anything they wanted to know. It was the only way. The two of them would never be able to make it out of Beijing. She might get roughed up a bit but they wouldn't kill her. And if she stayed with him she was going to get killed. That was not something he wanted to deal with.

He felt better then. His gut always told him when he'd made the right call. Get her out, and then he could start moving.

He was toweling himself off when she yelled, “Pete!”

That wasn't the news—there was some real panic in her voice. Avakian cursed himself for leaving the rifle out in the living room. He whipped on the shorts and dashed out, ready for combat.

But she was just pointing at the TV. That really ticked him off. He was going to have to restrict TV hours around here. Then he immediately felt like a jerk. She was still
dealing with what happened last night. He focused on the screen. The talking head was still babbling Mandarin way too fast. “What?”

“Wait for it,” she said.

An insert appeared over the anchor's shoulder. Photos of the two dead soldiers. Record book ID shots. Well, that was inevitable, Avakian thought. The heroic soldiers giving their lives for the preservation of order. Now they were doing an interview with an army officer in dress uniform. The camera angle was such that he couldn't see the rank on the shoulder boards. Then another insert, of the kid he'd shot. School picture this time. Much younger. Grieving family. If they'd kept the little bastard on a tighter leash it never would have happened. And finally another interview, from the hospital, of the punk with his broken arm in a cast. Looking a lot more innocent than he had last night.

That wasn't good, Avakian thought. That they'd put two and two together that fast.

The talking head again, speaking gravely now. And an abrupt transition to a grainy black and white photo of the alley where he'd broken the kid's arm. A cell phone camera shot. Shit. There he was, just a dark blob with his face obscured by shadows and his hat. But Judy Rose standing behind him as clear as day, caught by a streetlight or whatever.

Total silence in the apartment, for quite some time. Then Avakian broke it. “I hate cell phones.”

“Right now I'm not feeling so hot about them myself,” said Doctor Rose.

Avakian sat down. She started to say something but he cut her off. “Hold that thought for a few minutes.”

They watched the TV in silence, but he didn't see what he'd been waiting for. “No photo of me.”

“Maybe they still don't know who we are?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe they don't have a photo of you?”

“Sure they do. On file from my credentials.” He quickly let that go as irrelevant. “No matter. It's always a mistake to assume that police states are unfailingly efficient. We know what happened, and we're looking at it from that perspective. They may not, and could be appealing to the public for help in putting it together. Where's your phone?”

The abrupt transition threw her. “What?”

“Your phone.”

“In my purse.”

“Could I see it, please?”

She rooted around in her bag and handed it over. “I turned it off last night to save the battery.”

“I'm very glad to hear that.” He cupped the phone in his large hand and then slammed it onto the wooden arm of the couch. Still holding the pieces, he twisted the battery pack loose and ripped the wires free.

“So much for checking my voice mail,” she said.

“Whenever you turn on a cell phone it pings the nearest tower, indicates it's ready to receive calls, and identifies itself by number for billing purposes. Which means you can track any phone to a general area. How close depends on how close the towers are to each other.”

“Okay. Are you going to break your phone, too?”

“As soon as I get far away from here and make one call.”

“What now?”

She was regarding him quite calmly, he thought. “Now everything's changed. I can't take you back to your hotel, so it looks like you're stuck with me. If that's all right with you?”

“I wasn't all that thrilled about going back anyway. But I repeat: what now?”

“Well, I'm going to spend the day thinking this through. And then tonight I'll go out and call my former boss at the embassy and see what's really going on. And then it'll be decision time.”

“So what you're telling me is: you don't know what to do.”

Avakian was not offended. “Actually, I have a whole bunch of ideas. But I'm not going to act on any of them until I know exactly where we stand. Nothing wrong with bouncing off the walls, you understand, but you don't want to do it until it's
time
to bounce off the walls.”

“Okay.”

“Just as an exploratory question, how do you feel about changing your appearance?”

“My appearance?”

“Since they have your picture. We can't make you look Chinese, but we can make you look less like that photo on TV. How do you feel about becoming a blonde?”

“I hear they have more fun.”