by F. J. Chase
“Is that the law here?”
That tweaked Avakian’s funny bone. “No. You’ll see people dangling out windows like they were in clown cars rolling down the street. Seat belts are your only faint hope of surviving Chinese driving.”
“That I’ve seen.”
“Fifteen years ago you could have put all the cars in Beijing into an average American high school parking lot. Everyone was riding bikes.”
“They do have driving tests, don’t they?”
“Have you seen those cell phone numbers painted on walls all over the city?” Avakian asked.
“Yes, I have.”
“Those are the numbers of forgers. And from what I understand, the preferred method for getting a driver’s license in Beijing is to have a forger knock one off for you. Next is to bribe someone at the Motor Vehicle Administration. I hear you take the driving test only if you don’t have the cash for either of those options.”
“That does explain a lot of what I’ve seen so far.”
“Never drive in China. And if at all possible, try not to watch while it’s being done for you.”
It took over an hour to get across town, even with traffic relatively light and Kangmei hitting all his favorite shortcuts.
“Something else I forgot,” said Avakian. “Do you have your team credentials with you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You’ll have to show them. I’ve been in the national ministry building, but never the city office before.”
But the guards apparently knew Avakian by sight and were expecting him. They were bowed through without a document check.
“Impressive,” said Doctor Rose.
“Somebody ordered that,” said Avakian. “By the way, they’re very interested in you.”
“Are they?”
“They are. Don’t be offended if I don’t introduce you at first.”
On the other side of the security desk was a tall Chinese inspector Avakian was pretty sure he’d met before. “Colonel Avakian, how good to see you again.”
Avakian shook the hand. “Likewise, Inspector.”
The inspector turned to Doctor Rose and awaited an introduction, but none was forthcoming.
“Lead the way, Inspector,” said Avakian.
The inspector smiled tightly and led them through the building.
Doctor Rose took a step closer to Avakian and whispered, “Will be we taken to the cells?”
“You can depend on one thing,” Avakian whispered back. “We won’t be seeing any cells.”
The inspector led them deeper into the building, then down a couple of floors and through a wing of administrative offices. Then into a sort of waiting room. “Please make yourselves comfortable. Would you like some tea?”
The doctor glanced over at Avakian, who gave her a “go ahead” look. “That would be nice. Thank you.”
The inspector left them.
Doctor Rose took in the nondescript room. Plain white walls, carpeting so thin it almost wasn’t there, padded vinyl furniture, and the usual faint smell of body odor. She was a little disappointed that there weren’t any revolutionary posters hanging on the walls. It could have been a waiting room anywhere. “How long are we going to be here?”
“There’s only one answer to that,” said Avakian. “As long as the Chinese feel like it.”
A moment later the door opened and Commissioner Zhou walked in.
Avakian stifled a smile and stood to shake his hand. “Commissioner Zhou, what an unexpected pleasure.”
“Colonel Avakian, I hope you are well.”
“As we observe the nations of Asia gather together in an expression of peace and understanding, how can I be otherwise?”
Commissioner Zhou chuckled softly and turned expectantly to Doctor Rose.
Avakian said, “Doctor Rose, allow me to introduce Commissioner Zhou Deming of the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China. Commissioner Zhou, Doctor Judith Rose of the United States women’s gymnastics team.”
Commissioner Zhou bent over her chair and took her hand. “My pleasure, Doctor.”
“Ni Hao,” she said.
Commissioner Zhou beamed. “Ni Hao. How charming. You are a physician, Doctor Rose?”
“Yes, I am. An orthopedic surgeon.”
“I congratulate you. My sister is what I believe you would call a general surgeon. Do you come from a family of physicians?”
“No, I’m the first.”
“As is my sister. Would it be an imposition if I spoke with Colonel Avakian in private for a few moments?”
“Not at all. Would you like me to leave?”
“Certainly not. May I offer you something while you wait?”
“I believe there’s some tea on the way, thank you.”
As Avakian went out the door he hoped he hadn’t laid the spy stuff on so thick she’d think the tea contained truth serum or something. And pour it into the plants. Except there were no plants in the waiting room. This was why he always liked working alone.
Commissioner Zhou led him into a nearby office.
“I hope I’m not taking you away from your duties,” Avakian said. He always liked to begin by reminding the Chinese it wasn’t his first time in the big city.
“You are not. I have been requested to convey my government’s strong concern over the seriousness of this incident.”
“My government shares this concern and expresses its thanks to the Chinese government for the speedy resolution of this regrettable matter.” But that was it—it didn’t apologize for the actions of spoiled brat athletes.
“Usually our legal process would take much longer than this. But as a firm advocate of sportsmanship, the Chinese government could not permit an athlete to miss an event, no matter the grave provocation. And I must say that this speedy release is also an expression of our great regard for you. We hope the United States government appreciates this.”
Commissioner Zhou didn’t need to put that little drone in his voice to make it clear he was reading off a script. But he also gave Avakian a good idea how to nip the whole favor issue in the bud. “I’m very flattered,” he said. “But the U.S. government only cares about you holding one of its citizens. Not about her missing a meet. I know I certainly don’t.”
“Yet you are here to retrieve her.”
“I do my job, Commissioner. Just like you. I get the same paycheck whether you decide to keep her or let her go.”
Commissioner Zhou was now giving him that familiar faint little smile. “Tell me, Colonel Avakian, have you ever played the board game Go? It is our chess.”
“I’ve seen it but I’ve never played it.”
“I suspect you would be good at it.”
“I understand studying doesn’t help much. You have to play the game to get good at it.”
“This is correct.”
“Sounds like fun.”
Now came that moment when the official business was done and everyone had questions of their own they wanted to ask. Something Avakian stubbornly refused to do. He sat patiently, not moving a muscle or changing expression, until the silence had run way past the awkward stage.
Commissioner Zhou had been matching him silence for silence until he finally sighed and said, “Our…people do not believe there was a reconnaissance of the Indoor Stadium.”
“Our spooks think the same thing,” said Avakian. “And in my personal experience, whenever the intelligence community reaches unanimity on any issue you can be absolutely sure they’re wrong.”
“Unfortunately,” Commissioner Zhou replied, “that belief alone is not likely to persuade any who have made up their minds. They feel convinced by the clumsiness of the individual involved. The inability to detect any other accomplices upon review of the closed circuit television. And the absence of any other indications of a reconnaissance.”
“Nothing in his notebook?” said Avakian.
“No, nothing.”
“All those conclusions you
mentioned happen to be the exact same ones our side reached,” said Avakian. “But as for myself, if I needed to work something on the inside of a building that was under pretty effective visual and video surveillance, I might hire myself some half-criminal fool who knew nothing about my team or plans, feed him a cover story in case he gets caught, and tell him to take a hundred pictures of the outside of the building and run away if he’s spotted.”
“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 in
itialed 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.
