Darkness Under Heaven (6 page)

“And the purpose of this?”

“If no one notices him and the work inside gets done, all the better. If he's noticed and chased off, everyone's attention is focused on the outside of the building and my inside people get away. And, if we're lucky, everyone thinks that because the amateur reconnaissance was blown the plotters were scared off. If he gets caught, he doesn't know anything except the cover story.”

Commissioner Zhou mulled that over for a while. “I do not say your theory is not interesting. But there is less evidence to support it than that a Chinese taking photographs was frightened by a foreigner and ran away.”

“I really didn't expect to convince anyone whose mind was already made up,” said Avakian. “Anything on those people who got in my way?”

Now Commissioner Zhou looked embarrassed. “You must understand, Colonel, that for many decades the Chinese people were taught to both fear and hate all foreigners. These were just simple people…”

“Who saw a foreigner chasing a Chinese man.” That was just about what Avakian had thought. He understood the ugly side of nationalism. Particularly the Chinese variety.

“Even though my country has joined the outside world, many of my countrymen still fear the outside world. I must apologize.”

“Not necessary, Commissioner. This is also not unique to China.”

That was all the face Commissioner Zhou was prepared to give up. “We will search the inside of the stadium again.”

“Bomb dogs?” said Avakian, though he knew there were a million places to hide something in that kind of building.

“With bomb dogs,” said Commissioner Zhou.

“I'd consider planting a few cell-phone jammers inside. The spectators will only think they can't get a signal. If you can't command-detonate an explosive from a distance, someone's going to have to try and get in close.”

Commissioner Zhou did not reply to that. Avakian was pretty sure Zhou could order a search on his own authority, but the jammers would require higher permission. So, being Chinese, he probably wouldn't ask.

“You will be attending the gymnastics competition?” said Commissioner Zhou.

“I was thinking about it. If the Chinese government has no objections.”

“I doubt this.”

“Then I wouldn't miss it.”

Commissioner Zhou looked at his watch. “Allow me to take you to your fellow citizen.”

Avakian followed the commissioner down another hallway and into an elevator that brought them even lower in the building and let them out into what he imagined was the Chinese version of a holding slash release area. It was much louder, and the walls were tiled about halfway up to the ceiling. For easier hosing down, he guessed.

The sound of plaintive female weeping echoed down the hall.

“I believe your countrywoman is ready to be released,” said Commissioner Zhou.

Well, if anything was going to scare the shit out of you, Avakian thought, it was an overnight stay in a Chinese jail. With any luck it had tightened the kid up. Hopefully it had,
because when he was on the job nobody ever did anything the easy way.

They went around a corner and through an open door into what looked like some kind of hearing room. Heavy wood benches facing a big raised desk with a Commissioner 3rd Grade in uniform behind it. A bunch of Chinese in plainclothes, higher authority, milling around the edges of the room. They weren't making any bones about both their personal distaste and lack of patience. There was one older gent with a snow-white crew cut who everyone was taking their cues from.

The gymnast and shoplifter in question was an elfin blonde holding her hands over her beet-red face and blubbering away in the center of the room, flanked by two stone-faced policewomen. She must have been a teenager except she looked like she went to Munchkin-land Elementary School. Doctor Rose was alongside looking like she had no idea what to do about the young girl's histrionics.

Avakian ignored Commissioner Zhou beside him. Without a word, he walked up to the kid and said, “Have a seat on the bench over there and don't say anything.”

The weeping clicked off and she looked up over her hands at him. “Who are you?”

Oh, she was slick, Avakian thought. “The guy who got sent to get you out.”

The mouth opened up and Avakian knew he was about to receive a stream of teenage consciousness, without commas or periods. “Not a word,” he said. “No matter what happens. You're not out of here yet.”

The mouth screwed up into an angry little pout, but he had to give her credit. She sat down and shut up. Most teenagers didn't have instincts that good. Avakian glanced
over at Doctor Rose. She got it instantly and went over to sit down beside the girl.

Without looking back at them, Avakian took a few steps closer to the desk. That the officer was the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel was another subtle Chinese message. Making him deal with a supposed inferior in rank. Which would only be an issue to someone who cared. Looking at the desk officer but directing his voice toward everyone, he said, “Gentlemen, shall we take care of business?”

The desk officer looked over Avakian's shoulder. Avakian didn't have to see the older party's nod to know it had happened. The officer slid a sheaf of papers across the desk and said in English, “Please sign the release form.”

Avakian picked them up, wet a thumb and forefinger, and leafed through them. Everything was written in Chinese characters. “I would like to see the English translation of this document, please.”

“I will translate for you,” the desk officer said.

“Thank you,” Avakian replied. “But I will wait for a printed English translation.” He heard an inrush of breath from the kid behind him, and took that as his signal to move across the room and take a seat on the bench beside her. “Relax and keep quiet,” he muttered. “You kick up any fuss and they'll drag you back to your cell.” He leaned forward and spoke across him to Doctor Rose on the other side. “Did you get your tea?”

“Yes, I did,” she said. And then in a whisper, “How long will it take them to translate that?”

“Oh, it's already done,” Avakian replied under his breath. “Only question is how long they make us wait before they pull it out.”

“I
have
to get out of here,” the girl whimpered.

“Keep your mouth shut and you will,” Avakian muttered back.

There was face involved now, and because of that Avakian knew they wouldn't give anything up easily. The only thing he had going in his favor was that the authority in the room didn't want to leave in case the American barbarian Avakian made a scene or otherwise embarrassed himself, but they also weren't willing to wait around all day. He settled back, crossed his legs, and refused to look at his watch.

Finally another uniformed cop came in with papers and handed them to the desk officer. Who motioned Avakian back up.

With one elbow on the desk and cupping his chin in his hand, Avakian read every word. Then he flipped back to the front page and pulled a black Sharpie from his jacket pocket. And carefully blacked out all the propaganda. That is, all the admissions of guilt and responsibility, all the promises that the United States would never allow such a thing to happen again, and all the groveling thanks to the Chinese people for their forbearance. “I understand the shopkeeper has been compensated?” he said to the desk officer.

The commissioner nodded.

Avakian crumbled up the page dealing with that and dropped it into the wastebasket next to the desk. The only sound in the room was his marker squeaking across the paper. He initialed the beginning and end of each blacked-out section, and signed and hand-numbered each page before affixing his signature at the end. He walked the paper over to the bench and handed Brandi the pen. “Sign it.”

“I can't sign anything without my lawyer,” she said in a too-loud little girl whisper.

Avakian bobbed down until they were mouth to ear and hissed, “Sign the damn thing!” She signed.

Avakian took it back to the desk. “I will wait for a photocopy of
this
particular document,” he said, pointing down at it.

The desk officer again looked over Avakian's shoulder, then barked out an order. One of the enlisted cops grabbed the papers and ran off with them. “You must sign these,” he said, sliding the Chinese version across again.

Avakian pushed it back. “You can sign that you witnessed me put my signature to the English version.”

Another look over the shoulder. The Chinese document was withdrawn.

The cop returned with the copy. Avakian flipped through it again. “There seem to be two pages missing.”

For the sake of form, the uniform was dressed down for his carelessness. He dashed off again and returned with the two pages.

Avakian checked them, too. “Are we finished, gentlemen? If so we'll let you all get back to work.”

A bag of personal effects was turned over.

One of the cops held a hand to the door. Avakian gave Commissioner Zhou a small bow. Wouldn't do to act too buddy-buddy in front of all his people—someone might get the wrong idea. He nodded to the rest of them. “Thank you, gentlemen.”

The car just happened to be waiting outside that particular exit.

Doctor Rose looked at it and said, “How did that happen?”

“Chinese efficiency,” Avakian said.

Once they were in the car Brandi took a deep breath and said, “Am I out now?”

“Well, you're out. For now,” Avakian replied from the front seat.

She took another deep breath, and it came out at just shy of a scream. “I want to know why the FUCK it took so long to get me out of there!”

Avakian glanced over at Doctor Rose, whose eyelids were at half staff and who gave him a weary little nod, like this was exactly what she'd been expecting.

Avakian was only amused. The kid was quite a piece of work. “It didn't take us this long to get you out. It took the Chinese this long to let you go.”

“What the
fuck
does that mean?”

“It means they were sending the message they didn't want anything like this happening again,” Avakian said, still calmly. “And just so you know, if this was a major competition, and the Chinese thought you were in the running for a medal, you'd still be behind bars.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to compete after this?”

“Was that a question for me?” Avakian inquired.

“Yeah, I'm still talking to you…” Avakian gave her his warning look and she held up before she said
motherfucker.

“If you really cared, you would have paid for your shopping instead of trying to lift it. Now, you want to go to the hospital or the team hotel?”

“Just take me to the fucking hotel.” And then a lapse into sullen silence.

Avakian had been leaning over the seat. The bang and squeal of skidding tires turned him back around even before the car started swerving. Avakian instinctively braced his feet against the floorboard, though for all the good that would do.

The pileup began down the street, the collisions in neat
succession as each driver jammed on their brakes too late. Avakian was pretty sure that any advice he might offer Kangmei would be counterproductive at this stage.

The car in front of them spun out, and Kangmei cut the wheel before they smashed into it broadside. The two cars swapped paint side by side, which was probably a good thing since it slowed them down as they approached the sidewalk. Little Brandi let out a scream so impressive that it felt like someone had forcibly rammed their thumbs into Avakian's ear canals.

Even with Kangmei standing on the brakes, they punched between two parked cars, knocking them both out of the way, and went up over the curb and onto the sidewalk. Avakian prepared himself for impact with the upcoming storefront, but the front end only lightly tapped the building as they came to a stop. He let out the breath he'd been holding in and checked the back seats. “Everyone all right?”

The two women, eyes wide, only nodded. Kangmei, ashen-faced, still gripped the steering wheel. Avakian reached over to shift into Park for him, and turned the key off. “Sit tight,” he said. “I'm going to see what happened.”

He was able to get out his door, but had to climb over the hood to make his way up the sidewalk. It was about an eight-car pileup, but most of the drivers were already out on the street and shaking it off by screaming at each other. No one seemed badly hurt.

Up ahead on the sidewalk a China-sized crowd had gathered, and Avakian pushed his way through. The spectators had formed themselves into a neat ring around a young Chinese guy lying in the street. The impact with the pavement had left his exposed skin looking like it had been run through a cheese grater, and the handlebar of his
scooter was sticking right through his left leg, just above the knee. He was moaning and thrashing, breathing hard, and rapidly slipping into shock.