Dragon's Eye

by Andy Oakes

  The highway rising across a grey junction of traffic, static in exhaust fumes. Ahead, thirty metres, forty … the Englishman. Legs, torso, head, distorted by the shimmer of the road surface as he ran from the bridge’s apex and down its gentle incline. A monochrome matchstick man, shifting against a wall of colour. Piao’s lungs bursting. Fire and lead. The slope tugging at his stride, pulling him down like a magnet. Sweat in streams … down his face, neck, chest. Aware that his thoughts were drifting, like feathers on a breeze. A glimpse across the parapet, below, a string of schoolchildren, five, six year olds, hand in hand and being led across the junction of snarls and belching smoke. Anywhere but here … at that instant wanting to be a child. On a swing, a slide, in a play pit. Crossing a junction, hand in hand in hand, with other children. Anywhere but here. And other thoughts, random and fired by delirium. Only one image holding. The Englishman, at his feet, dead. Centre of forehead, an unbleeding hole from a single round.

  So neat. So very neat.

  The distance between them, not closing. As if an invisible hand were holding them apart. As if that hand didn’t want blood on it. A moan of horns as Haven vaulted the barrier, parting the on-coming traffic. Waves of motorcycles curving, folding around his sprint. A mechanical waterfall engulfing him. Ahead, the slip road where the Tonghui River turned snakelike, meeting up with itself. The Senior Investigator following with gasped breaths. Oil and dust. Catching his foot on the top of the barrier, falling … gravel, stinging into the heels of his palms. Bleeding in deltas down his wrists and onto his shirt cuffs.

  “Fuck. Fuck.”

  Mentally pulling himself up, but wanting to stay on the road, clasped to the narrow central reservation. Starting to walk. Starting to run. In his mouth, the taste of blood. Face to the sky, pulling on breaths as if they were chains tethered to anchors. The sky … just knife-cuts of cloud in a cerulean wash, but praying that it would rain. Rain. Cold and relentless, like that night on the stained iron deck of the barge. Ahead, Haven. A stutter of glimpses through traffic. Shreds of white, riding in, riding out of focus through a bow wave of exhaust fumes. Moving down the slip road and onto the rough ground … the shadowed ground, beneath the spans of the flyover. Sunlight, shadow, back into sunlight. Haven, a chameleon of caramels and creams. Beyond the flyovers and the constant sigh of eight lanes, a series of dirt tracks. Government run yards hemmed by a holed wire fence. A topography of trash tips and snubnosed mountains. The Englishman already amongst them, in running relief against their detritus. Snared in the reflections of oil slicked and rainbowed puddles. Piao, through the gate. Corrugated iron shacks. Black dogs pissing gold. Bent men … dull-eyed. And the heavens achingly blue. Ridiculously blue. Broken only by the lonely scratch of a single telegraph wire, threaded between poles. Curve to curve. Curve to curve. Curve to curve.

  The track finishing in a cul-de-sac of dust, patches of black oil, snatches of exhausted grass. The Englishman already climbing, falling, negotiating a series of rubbish dunes. Looking around. A snatch of a glance … worried. Face catching the light. A sheen of sweat, as if he were fashioned from stainless steel. Piao stopping on the rough path, almost collapsing. Doubled up. Lungs … hotplates. Breath across his lips in a hot fan. Looking up, Haven, like an albino spider. Feeling for his pistol, its butt, but drawing his hand away from it. So easy to kill, now. So easy … but wanting to see his eyes. Needing to see his eyes as the round discharged. Punching, buzzing through material, skin, flesh, bone. So easy; too easy.

  And now he was running again, meeting the mountain. A jolt of surprise as it unveiled its face, its features. Ripples, waves, walls of electronic trash. Circuit boards. Computer parts. Television components. A technological ocean, receded and beaching a highland range of hitech carrion. At its boundaries, its beaches of bare earth, loose knots of women veiled against a merciless sun. Hands heavily gloved against the razor edges. Busy fingered and quick-eyed, as they stripped the precious metals, silver, copper, brass, sometimes gold … from the never-ending electronic flood. Recovered metals. A twelve hour day would earn the rice, the noodles, a few vegetables, to feed five … as long as they were not too hungry. To feed five and to put away a few fen for days when the dragon’s breath was too hot.

  Just a view of the bottom of the Englishman’s shoes, his arse, jacket flapping, the back of his head … as Piao looked up. And a sky, cloudless and fired. An avalanche as Haven reached a snubnosed summit. The Senior Investigator, arm across his face protecting himself from the fall of razor sharp corners. His forehead in a blaze as something hit it … the blood, slow and full, running back into his scalp. Climbing, clambering to the top. Watching, wide-eyed, breathless, as the Englishman stumbled down a broken incline. Each foot riding the back of a slow, controlled slip … and into a short and scissored valley, before he started another climb. Instinctively, it seemed, knowing where Piao was; looking up and across, on his face a smile. Chisel cold. The Senior Investigator stumbling down the deep fall. Arriving in the valley … spit, blood, on his lips. And words, whispered, shouted. Ripped with frayed breath.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you.”

  Climbing again, each hand hold, a cut. A sense of everything moving in oil, slowed, silent. Against a candied scratch of cloud, the Englishman pulling himself up to a fractured and spiked plateau. Running, running. White turning to black in the fierce blind of sun. Piao following, in a delirious chase through a colour bleached landscape. Stopping, pulling his pistol. His hand shaking uncontrollably … hardly able to carry its weight. Moving to a double grip. Hand over hand. Centring himself. Calming himself. Panning with the sight. A running man … black on white.

  “Fuck seeing his eyes.”

  The trigger squeezed, round loosed. On a sharp bridge of electronic scatter, a spark of fire. A thud, in echo, playing out its shout over and over again. Missing Haven, but causing him to twist violently. Losing his footing and dropping. A wheel and blur of arms, legs, down the cutglass crag. For a while, laying motionless in the deep crease of valley shadow. Piao running. Pistol aloft. Exhaustion miraculously dissipated. As the white suited figure stirred. Sat. Stood. The Senior Investigator in position above him on the clip of the summit. So easy, but again, wanting to see his eyes before killing him. As if scripted, the Englishman raising his face. The Senior Investigator steadying his pistol for a head shot. An easy shot. At last, his eyes. But no satisfaction in the viewing of them. Nothing of worth within them. Piao’s finger in a slow, deliberate squeeze. Waiting for the gentle click that you hear an instant before the hammer strikes its blow. The gentle click that travels through the pistol’s metal body and into your hand … centring into the inside of your wrist. Faintly exhilarating. Faintly terrifying.

  Slipping … below Piao’s feet, component boards, switching units, terminals, keyboards, spent VDUs. A high ridge crumbling into its individual constituents. His pistol sight in a tremble. A waver. A jolt. Violent blurrings … Haven, an off-white elongated smudge. Slipping … arms pointing upward. Piao desperately trying to pull them down, back on target, as his feet struggled for a firm stance. But aware, the bitterness palpable, that he was already falling backward, away from the Englishman and down the other side of the ridge. Pistol sight aiming at the sun. Blurs, thuds, a violent carousel of dangerous motion, freeze-framed in twisted colours. A shot discharged, let loose. But its crack already fading into a darkness marbled with scarlet.

  *

  The darkness … a second, a minute, an hour? Pulling himself up, over the truncated ridge. The landscape transformed, but the pistol still in his hand. Tight, knuckles white. Wet with blood. Reaching the top of the ridge, looking down into the gash of valley. The Englishman gone.

  *

  In the shower, a man standing. Washing his hair, face, body. Concentrating on his hands … cleansing them again and again. Thoroughly. Intricately. The soap, the foam … red to pink to white. In slow, plump drips, from his fingers, his forearms. Down his torso, his legs. One, two, three languid revolutions ar
ound the waste hole and gone.

  A telephone rang and Charles Haven stepped out of the cubicle, its door already open … a pool of water across the marble floor. A white linen suit discarded. Half dry. Half wet. Rips, bloodstains edging them like lipsticked mouths. Walking to the table. A puddle beginning to form where he stood naked, slowly sinking into the thick piled carpet. Listening with an extraordinary attentiveness, then unleashing the words. Anger, raw and unrefined … undiluted. The very edge of a razor blade. The very edge of a madness.

  “Comrade, don’t piss in my ear and then tell me that it’s raining. I need him dealt with tonight.”

  Silence. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty seconds. Unafraid of silence. Never seeking to fill it. When he spoke again it was more deliberate.

  “You owe me. Understand? You owe me.”

  Examining the cuts on his hands as he listened. Still bleeding. An hour and they were still bleeding. Wondering if they would ever stop. Wondering if they were a sign … stigmata.

  “Use him if you want. How many birds you kill with one stone is up to you. Just get him out of the way.”

  His anger cooling. Dabbing a tissue at the gouge that centred his palm. The shape of a harvest moon. Scarlet.

  “Tonight. And they are reliable, I have your assurance on this?”

  Squeezing the tissue into a tight ball, dropping it to the floor.

  “I will trust you when it is done, comrade. This is the start, a new arrangement. We are both still feeling our way. Trust has to be earned, and it has to be paid for. I have paid you. You now have to pay me. Tonight will be your first instalment.”

  Haven placed the receiver back onto its cradle with unnecessary care. Walking back into the bathroom, the shower still running. Entering its cleansing sting. A curtain wall of water around him. Again and again, washing his hands. The soap, the foam … red to pink to white.

  No end to the flow of blood. No end, until tonight.

  Chapter 42

  3:30am, the Qianmen Hotel

  The door to room 57 was thin, flimsy … they made swift work of it.

  Noise. Movement. Feet over splintered wood. Piao instantly awake. Adrenalin jolting through him. Black from black. Three bodies, four? Moving against him at speed. Unaware of his own actions, but feeling his feet on the floor. Hand reaching for the worn leather holster … the pistol. Rough hands. Strong, violent hands. Steel coming down upon his arm … instantly knowing that his wrist was broken. Pain, a ravenous hound leaping, centring its attentions, fangs sharp, on his temples. Feeling the blood, in freeflow, stream down his hand; tingling as it ran, as it fell from his fingers. The weight of a man on his chest. Arms. Legs. Fingers, callused, tasting of salt and sugar, thrust deeply into his mouth. Lips tearing. Gagging as a rubber ball was pushed roughly inside. Adhesive tape ripped from a roll. Bound around his head, mouth, feet, knees. Arms bound at the wrists, elbows, behind his back. Chest, stomach … heaving. Breaths in snuffs and spasms. Standing him on his feet. Kettledrums beating in his ears. No words, not a single word as they lifted him, carried him from the room and down the corridor. Doors ajar. Gaps with eyes. Watching, but no one helping … the silence thundering. Carrying him down the fire exit stairs. Outside, to the narrow alley, smelling of petrol and piss. A car sitting in darkness, starting up. Burning bright. The alley illuminated. Stilt-limbed shadows crossing each other in a thrash of movement. One, two, three, four of them … glimpsed in graduations of grey. Throwing Piao onto the floor in the rear of the foreign car. Two of them sitting on the back seat above him, using him as a mat. A constant smell of cigarette butts, rubber, adhesive tape … and one of the fuckers with dogshit on the sole of his shoe.

  A journey. Thirty minutes, forty? Trying to calm his panic. Concentrate on breathing. Calm. Calm. Priorities … just to breathe. No ball shoved down his throat. Think only of mountain tops. Wide spaces flowing with a firm breeze. Think of cormorants startled and in flight … their black torn wings over skies marbled silver. Think of anything, except the rubber ball thrust half way down his throat.

  *

  Gates leading to gates. Metal set in metal. Corridors intersecting corridors. Lone, discoloured light bulbs. Brickwork … green, damp. Feet on concrete. Piao’s toes dragging in-between the pairs of dirty shoes. And from his fingers and onto the floor, a spatter trail of blood, like the petals from red roses.

  The room that he was taken to was large. Windowless. A table. A metal framed bed, bolted to the concrete floor. A large, chipped enamel bowl … witnesses to the last inmate, streaked in shit along its bottom. The adhesive tape cut from him. The ball pulled from his mouth. With the gasp of air, an acrid taste of rubber and glue. The vomit flowing in a thin stream from his torn lips, baptising his acquaintance with the enamel bowl.

  The smaller of the men, a Bai Country Lisu, as mean featured as the leftovers of a banquet, moved forward directly under the single light bulb, holding a handkerchief. Gently, he dabbed the Senior Investigator’s lips. Across the white cotton … spit, blood, vomit.

  “Strip.”

  Piao refused. They stripped him, roughly. Examining, searching him. Tending to his arm. Binding it. Re-dressing him. In silence. All in silence. They turned to leave.

  “Haven, is this who you are working for?”

  The Lisu turned. His face, a fish skeleton picked clean. He smiled, the steel door closing on it, cutting it adrift.

  Piao, shouting,

  “I am protected from what you are doing by the late Minister of Security. By Kang Zhu. There are papers, official papers. You cannot prosecute me. You cannot harm me. Check with your fucking Party advisors and your superiors. It’s official. You can’t touch me, I’m protected.”

  The door closed. Metal set in metal. Bolts sliding into place. And through the small security grill set deeply into the door’s heart, a voice as thin as rice paper.

  “Protected? Words. Paper. How easily they are blown away, Senior Investigator.”

  Chapter 43

  The Beijing Hotel, Chang’anjie.

  The sixth meeting. The last meeting. The Beijing Hotel. A private suite on the top floor. Electronically swept. Furniture removed. A round table at the very centre of the main room. Four chairs. The delegate and negotiator from the People’s Republic of China. A personal secretary. The delegate and negotiator from the United States of America. Another personal secretary.

  “Comrade Dun, we wish to conduct these negotiations in a swift and positive manner. The President, as conveyed to me by the Vice-President only two hours ago, wants these matters settled …”

  Pouring a glass of water. Slowly. Deliberately. Raising it to his lips. Dun knowing that all of the eyes in the room were upon him. Feeling their heat, but only thinking about water. Why Chinese water tasted so good; American water tasting of nothing. No character.

  “… Comrade Dun, it is becoming increasingly apparent that you do not recognise the seriousness of the problem that confronts your country.”

  Putting the glass down onto the tabletop. Once, twice. Watching the rings of water skate on the deep lacquer imprisoning the walnut grain. Watching them run into each other. Link into link.

  “But we do not have a problem, negotiator. It is you who have a problem. It is you who have been the initiators of these contacts. Of these discussions. The mouse chasing the cat.”

  In the answer, a cul-de-sac that they had been down so many times before. The negotiator meeting the comrade’s smile.

  “Shall we be solution focused rather than problem focussed, and call our negotiations a means by which we can create answers for both of our countries. Developing a relationship that will provide us with a garden from a desert?”

  Comrade Dun smiled. Perfect teeth, engineered with the support of American dentistry.

  “Beautifully phrased, negotiator. Beautifully. Your President, your Vice-President, they would be most proud of you. But, of course, you are correct. We should be swift, positive with our negotiations. Swiftness and decisiveness
, are these not excellent bedfellows? Of course they are, and it is to the advantage of all of us that a garden be planted. But we must be sure, must we not, negotiator, about whose land this garden is on?”

  Another smile, folding onto his lips like a delicate, but well designed and thought out piece of origami.

  “Perhaps you should continue from the very organised note pad that you constantly tap, negotiator. Continue with swiftness. With decisiveness. And a sense of the planting of gardens in the mind …”

  The negotiator’s pen froze in mid-arc, desisting from tapping the note pad. A burn of anger, but controlling it and drawing it in. Finger running across the type of the next page. A clear agenda in black print on white paper. A clear synopsis of what was wanted and of what would be given up in return.

  Black and white.

  “My government’s starting point is an attempt to solve two difficulties. The first being the high levels of hepatitis, HIV, and later AIDS, being introduced into the United States of America as the results of undergoing organ transplantation in the People’s Republic of China. Estimates on our part, through the relevant government departments, suggest that eighty per cent of those visiting your country for the transplantation of organs, are either American nationals or people who will visit the U.S. within the next five years. Twenty per cent of these will become infected from the organs that they have received. An estimated fifty thousand infected people crossing back into the United States of America over that same five year period. A very significant figure that will be multiplied tenfold as they infect others. A half a million infected people. A very significant figure that will result in a major drain on our resources. Figures that, as I recall, you did not, and do not now, dispute, Comrade Dun?”