Remember

Remember Me [067-011-5.0]

By: Barbra Taylor Bradford

Synopsis:

None available

Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land, When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I ha,if turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you planned, Only remember me, you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve, For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

—Christina Rossetti.

PART ONE.

Sleep eluded her.

She lay in the darkness, trying to empty her head of every thought, troubling or otherwise, but this seemed to be an impossibility. Bone tired though she had been earlier, when she had stripped off her clothes and fallen into bed, she was now wideawake. All of her senses were alerted, she strained to catch any untoward sounds from outside.

At this moment, though, very little noise penetrated the walls of the plush hotel suite. It was curious, ominous, the silence outside.

That’s where I should be, she thought. Outside.

Certainly that was where she belonged, where her heart and mind were.

Outside … with her crew, Jimmy Trainer, her cameraman, Luke Michaels, her sound engineer, and Arch Lever son, her producer. They usually hung together most of the time, like any good news team on foreign assignment.

It was rare for her not to be with them, but tonight, over an early dinner, she had been so weary, her eyelids drooping after several nights with little or no sleep, that Arch had insisted she grab a few hours in bed. He had promised to wake her in plenty of time for her to prepare for her nightly broadcast to the States. Common sense plus fatigue had prevailed, she had agreed, only to find herself unable to relax and drop off the moment she was between the cool sheets.

She was tense, expectant. Suddenly she knew the reason why. Her intelligence, judgment and instinct, combined with her experience as a war correspondent, were all telling her the same thing. It was going to happen tonight. The crackdown that had been in the wind for days would be tonight.

Involuntarily she shivered at this foreknowledge and turned cold.

Blessed with a prescience that was unusual, she knew better than to doubt herself, and she shivered again at the thought of bloodshed. And blood would be spilled if the People’s Army moved against the people.

Pushing herself up against the pillows, she switched on the bedside lamp and glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes before ten.

Throwing back the covers decisively, she got out of bed and hurried across the floor to the window. Opening it wide, she stepped out onto the balcony, anxious to see what, if anything, was happening in the streets of Beijing.

Her suite was on the fourteenth floor of the Beijing Hotel, overlooking Changan Avenue, also known as the Avenue of Eternal Peace, which led into Tiananmen Square. Below her on this wide boulevard, illuminated by cluster lights shaded in green, people were moving along steadily in a continuous flow, like trout heading upstream. As they passed through the pools of light cast by the lamps she saw that they were mostly wearing white shirts or tops, and she was amazed that they moved so quietly, so silently.

They were making for Tiananmen Square, that vast rectangle of stone dating back to 1651 in the early Qing Dynasty, built to hold a million people in its one-hundred-acre expanse. She had come to understand that it was the symbolic heart of political power in China, and over the centuries the square had been the site of some momentous events in the country’s turbulent history.

She sniffed the air. It was clear, held no hint of tear gas or the smell of the yellow dust that perpetually blew in from the Gobi Desert and was normally all-pervasive in the congested capital. Perhaps the light wind was carrying both smells away from the hotel, or perhaps tear gas had not been used tonight. As she glanced up and down the long avenue quickly, her eyes shifted back to the crowded pavement below her balcony and the people walking toward the square in such an orderly fashion. Everything appeared to be peaceful, and certainly the military were nowhere to be seen—at the moment.

The calm before the storm, she thought dismally, as she turned and went back into the suite.

After switching on the rest of the lights in the bedroom, she hurried into the adjoining bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face, patted it dry with a towel and began to brush her hair in swift, even strokes.

The face surrounded by the soft blond hair was somewhat wide with a strong jawline, but its individual features were classical, cleancut, well defined—high cheekbones, straight nose, pretty mouth, chin that was firm and resolute without being pugnacious.

The eyes, set wide apart under arched blond brows, were large and clear, their color a bright sea-blue that was almost but not quite turquoise. The features came together to create a face

that was unusually attractive, lively with vivid intelligence and humor, and highly photogenic. In her bare feet, as she was now, she stood five feet six inches tall, slender of frame yet surprisingly strong, she had long legs and possessed a willowy grace.

The young woman’s name was Nicole Wells, she was commonly known as Nicky to the world at large. But her family, crew and closest friends affectionately called her Nick most of the time.

At thirty-six she was at the height of her profession, as war correspondent for the American Television Network, headquartered in New York. Renowned as a brilliant investigative reporter as well as an expert chronicler of war, and respected for her spectacular coverage of world events, she had a reputation for being intrepid, and on camera she was very charismatic. She had become a genuine superstar in the media.

Nicky put down the brush, pulled her hair straight back into a ponytail and anchored it firmly before reaching into her makeup kit for a lipstick. Once she had outlined her mouth in pink, she leaned closer, grimacing at herself. Tonight she looked washedout, pallid without makeup, but she was in too much of a hurry to start applying it.

Besides, she was certain she would not be on camera tonight. When martial law had been declared on May 20, almost two weeks ago now, the Chinese government had turned off the satellite, furthermore, television cameras had been banned in the square. No more live-spot location shots without that satellite feed or Jimmy behind his camera.

At least not in Tiananmen Square, and that’s where the story was—at the center of the action. Once again, she would have to make do with a phoned-in report.

Swinging away from the mirror, Nicky returned to the bedroom, where she dressed rapidly in the clothes she had shed only a briefwhile ago, beige cotton trousers, a blue cotton T-shirt, and a short-sleeved safari-style jacket that matched the pants. This was her standard uniform when she was abroad on assignment in the summer, and she always packed three identical safari suits, plus a selection of T-shirts and man-tailored cotton shirts to add color to the suits, and for the benefit of the camera.

After she had slipped into soft brown loafers, she went to the closet and took out her big shoulder bag. This was a commodious carryall made of sage-green waterproofed fabric, and it contained what she laughingly referred to as “my entire life”, she rarely went anywhere without it when she was on foreign assignment. And now, as she always did before going out, she unlocked it, doublechecked that her “life” was indeed safely inside the bag.

Passport, press credentials, plastic money, real money including U.S. dollars, Hong Kong dollars, English pounds and the local yuan, door keys for her Manhattan apartment, world address book, a small cosmetics bag containing toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, makeup, makeup mirror, hairbrush and a packet of tissues. All were neatly stashed in separate compartments within the interior section of the bag, in the two large outside pockets were her cellular phone, tape recorder, notebook, pens, reading glasses, sunglasses and a packet of gauze surgical masks to protect against tear gas.

As long as she had the bag with her, Nicky knew she could survive anywhere in the world without any other luggage and, just as important, do her job efficiently and effectively. But tonight she needed only a few of its contents. These she now took out of the carryall and locked it. Her passport and press credentials, the cellular phone, reading glasses, notebook and pens, gauze masks, some of the U.S. dollars and local yuan were the essential items, and she popped them into a much smaller shoulder bag made of brown leather.

Slinging the small bag over her shoulder, she pocketed the door key and returned the carryall to the closet. As she left the suite she glanced at her watch. It was just ten-twenty.

Despite her sense of urgency about the need to be outside in the square, Nicky nevertheless headed for the ATN suite a few doors away from her own, just in case Arch Leverson had returned to call New York.

The time difference between China and the United States was thirteen hours, and China being ahead, it was nine-twenty on Friday morning back home. This was about the time Arch generally checked in with Larry Anderson, the president of news at the ATN network.

The suite served as a makeshift newsroom-office for them, and when she got there it was her cameraman’s voice she heard faintly echoing at the other side of the door. She knocked lightly.

A second later the door was wrenched open and Jimmy flashed a huge grin when he saw her. “Hi, honey,” he said, then, walking back toward the desk, added over his shoulder, “I won’t be a minute—just finishing a call to the States.”

Closing the door behind her, Nicky followed him into the room and stood with her hand on the chair back, waiting.

At fifty-two Jimmy Trainer was in his prime. He was of medium height, slim and spry, with graying dark hair, rosy cheeks in a merry face and a twinkle in his pale-blue eyes. An ace of a cameraman who had won an endless number of awards, he loved his work and being part of Nick’s team, and his job was his life, even though he had a wonderful wife, a happy marriage and two children. And, like Luke and Arch, he was totally devoted to Nicky Wells. To Jimmy she was a dream to work with, and he would have put his life on the line for her.

Jimmy resumed his phone conversation, talking fast in a low tone to end the call to his wife. “Nicky just came in, Jo honey. I gotta go.

Duty calls.” After listening a moment or two longer, he finally said an affectionate good-bye and hung up. Turning to Nicky, he remarked, “This is the best damned phone system. Got to hand it to the Chinese, they certainly installed the most up-to date equipment. Joanna sounded as if she were in the next room, instead of on Eighty-third and Park, and she—” “It’s French,” Nicky interrupted. “The phone system, I mean.”

“Yep, I guess I knew that. Jo sends her love.”

Nicky smiled at him. “How is she?”

“Sounds fine. But she’s watching the news on television, listening to the same news on the radio, and worrying about the four of us. She seems to be handling it well, though, as she usually does.” His brow furrowed. “But hey, kiddo, you’re supposed to be grabbing a few hours’ sleep, not hovering around here obviously anxious to start planning tonight’s newscast.”

“I know, I know, but I couldn’t sleep. I have a premonition something … no, everythin is going to blow up tonight. My gut instinct tells me there’s going to be a crackdown. Probably around midnight, or thereabouts.”

Catching the tension in her voice and noting her worried expression, Jimmy looked at her keenly. After five and a half years of working with Nicky Wells in the trouble spots of the world, he trusted her intuition implicitly. Her judgment had rarely, if ever, been flawed.

“If you say so, Nick. You know I’m with you all the way. But look, I gotta tell you this, it is pretty quiet out there. At least it was twenty minutes ago.”

Nicky focused her eyes on him quizzically. “Nothing’s happening in the square?”

“Not really. The kids in the tent encampment were starting to come out of their tents, mingling with each other and chatting, sort of sharing experiences, I suppose, as they appear to do every night.” For a moment he was thoughtful, then went on, “To tell you the truth, I was reminded of Woodstock tonight, without the

drugs, of course. Or, if you prefer, one of those summer street festivals we have in New York.

Everything was very relaxed, friendly, easygoing I’d say.”

“It won’t be for much longer,” Nicky announced with suppressed vehemence, and sat down heavily in a chair. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I believe that Deng Xiaoping is at the end of his tether.

He’s been provoked and frustrated by the students for some time, and I’m sure he’s about to make his move. It’ll be a bungled move, just as he and the government have bungled the whole Tiananmen Square affair ever since it began. But he’ll have no compunction, you know. He’ll order the troops to move on the students.” She sighed and finished in a low, sad voice, “I’m afraid there’s going to be a bloodbath, Jimmy.”