Darkness Under Heaven

by F. J. Chase

  That was the breakthrough he’d been hoping for. But he just said, “It was a route we had to take.”

  That definitely rubbed her the wrong way. “What are you saying?”

  He almost told her to calm down, but a man saying that to a woman was like waving a red flag at a bull. “I’m saying that if we were in the army, if we’d met for the first time and had to do something dangerous I’d give you orders and you’d carry them out, because I outranked you. Then after a while you’d see that I knew what I was doing, and you’d follow me willingly. Here, I couldn’t just give you orders.”

  She was torn between knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer, and dying to know the answer. “Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t be a surgeon if you weren’t very smart. And if you didn’t have an ego you wouldn’t be a good surgeon. So if I told you that you needed to follow my lead because your lack of experience with this kind of work made it impossible for you to make the right decisions on your own, that wouldn’t go over all that well, would it?”

  This was going to be harder than she thought. But once again, Judy, you brought it up. “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “Even though it would be like me trying to make surgical decisions against your advice.”

  Once again, it stuck in her craw but she had to admit it. She was the surgeon and he’d just been a soldier. Well, she’d learned her lesson about the skill set involved in just being a soldier. “You’re right.”

  “Okay, we’ve worked it all out and you realize I know what I’m doing. We managed not to get hurt during the learning process, and we’re still friends. Right?”

  She had to give him credit. Compared to the arrogant and abusive way doctors were educated—especially women doctors—he was like the laid-back uncle who taught you to drive because your father made you cry. Especially considering that she could have blown them both up or had a full-blown panic attack in the middle of a Chinese sewer. “Right.”

  He stuck his hand across the cab, and for a moment she didn’t know why. Then she got it and shook it. “I’ll stick by the ladder.” That was still very hard to get out. “I thought the military was all about yelling and screaming.”

  “Only in the beginning, when they’re teaching you to function under pressure. Otherwise it’s usually counterproductive. The trick, of course, is to keep yourself from yelling and screaming.”

  “Do you have an ulcer?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  “High blood pressure?”

  “No. At West Point they called me Tas.”

  “Tas?”

  “Short for Tasmanian Devil. Remember I told you about the little guy with the chip on his shoulder? It’s been a lifelong project.”

  She smiled as she thought about the cartoon. She would have liked to have seen that young guy. Now—well, maybe with the Chinese soldiers. But even then he switched it on and off like she never would have believed possible.

  At the next two manholes their new agreement made everything go a lot faster. That and practice really cut the equipment setup time. They did number two in twenty minutes, and three in under fifteen.

  After that they’d finished the trip west and were driving north. Avakian suddenly pulled over. Carefully, because it seemed that sometimes the Chinese considered highway breakdown lanes to be a waste of expensive asphalt.

  “There’s a sewer around here?” Judy said.

  “No, a railway bridge,” Avakian replied, pointing ahead. “That’s the Beijing-Qinhuangdao line below. Bring your flashlight, and wear your helmet.”

  He turned on the revolving lights, and set the traffic cones out behind them. Opening the back door, he grabbed one of the toolboxes. He already had the duffel bag slung across his back. “Follow me. Use your flashlight.” He headed down the hill.

  Standing on the edge of the highway embankment, nostrils assaulted by the transition between leaded gasoline exhaust and newly cut sun-scorched brown grass, Judy Rose felt like her legs were made out of stone. Every step had to be consciously forced. She’d thought being out in the open would be easier than underground with the rats. But she was wrong. Even though it was pitch dark, it still felt like walking naked across the Rose Bowl field on New Year’s Day. But Avakian’s light disappeared down the hill and she was not going to be left there alone.

  Avakian waited at the bottom of the hill for her to catch up. They reached the tracks and followed them under the bridge. He half expected to find a vagabond or two camping out there, but they were alone. Picking his spot, he opened up the toolbox. “Light, please.”

  Judy was practically hopping up and down from the sheer tension. What made it even worse was the fact that they were standing under a bridge in downtown Beijing about to put a bomb on a railroad track, and he was acting like he was only sorry he’d forgotten his lawn chair, tiki torches and margarita. Not only that, but she was wearing reflective clothing and holding a flashlight on him while he was doing it. She felt like digging her own manhole just for someplace to hide.

  Focused on the job at hand, Avakian was oblivious to her mood. He’d made up a few bombs with an entirely different firing mechanism. The one he was holding had its wires soldered to two thin sheets of copper. Positive and negative circuits, the sheets were held apart by only a few nonconductive pencil erasers. He slipped that in a narrow gap between the steel track and a tie. The weight of a train would squeeze the plates together and complete the circuit. But there was also a clock attached to the system. Until the timer went off there would be no power running through the circuit, so any number of trains could pass over harmlessly until then. He used the roll of duct tape in the toolbox to secure the bomb to the track channel. Then the can of black spray paint to camouflage the shiny metal pipe, and a couple of handfuls of dirt thrown onto the wet paint for good measure.

  “We’re done,” he said. It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes. He put his hand to the track. “Train coming. Don’t worry, that’s not a problem. We’ve got plenty of time to get out from under the bridge.”

  The train arrived just as they were preparing to reclimb the hill. The engineer was leaning out of the cab, wondering if there was a problem. Avakian flashed his light and waved. There was a friendly blast from the train whistle.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  The trip up was a little harder with rubber boots on dew-covered grass. Avakian set the toolbox back in the van. “I’ll get the cones.”

  Judy was standing behind the open back door when a police car coming up the highway changed lanes twice to get into the right-hand one and headed toward them, slowing down.

  Avakian just kept walking down the line, stacking up cones. Bending over to pick one up, his face turned away from the headlights, he gave the police car an everything-is-okay wave.

  The police car blinked its lights and swerved back into the center lane.

  Judy was afraid she’d peed in her plastic suit. Avakian just tossed the cones in the back and shut the door.

  After he pulled back onto the highway she said, “I nearly had a heart attack when you waved to that police car.”

  “Well, running away pretty much confirms to everyone that you need to be chased. Which is why you don’t sneak around wearing a black ski cap. I’ve gotten into more places just by walking in the door like I was supposed to be there than I have crawling around in the mud with a pair of wire cutters.”

  “Tell me, how is blowing up a train not killing people?”

  “That little shot?” Avakian scoffed. “Someone might spill some hot tea on their lap, and the engineer might bite his tongue, but otherwise it’ll just knock the engine off the tracks and tie up the line for a while. Inconvenience ticks people off worse than mayhem.”

  It was back underground after that. In northeast Beijing near the Bahe River it was just a plain old manhole. Barely big enough to turn around in. The bottom was flooded with water so Avakian had to place the bombs half-hanging off the ladder over the water. This wouldn’
t have been that much of a problem until he happened to shine his light down and saw that boiling up in the water was a writhing ball of snakes. He almost lost it and launched himself up through the manhole like a rocket before tamping his own panic down and realizing they were just water snakes. No kraits or cobras in downtown Beijing. Good thing Judy was higher up the ladder.

  After completing four more sewer visits they were rounding the clubhouse turn. Avakian put another of his railway bombs on the Number 13 subway line that swung around the northern suburbs of Beijing and didn’t disappear underground until closer to the city.

  The next manhole in the Shuangyushu district in northwest Beijing was comfortably bigger and much dryer. Avakian should have known that everything was going too well. As he was getting ready to set the timer on the second bomb Judy nearly came flying into his lap. She was so close he could feel her shaking and she whispered harshly into his ear, “Someone’s walking up to the manhole! I hear them talking.”

  Avakian was straddling a sewer pipe with a bomb in his hand. “What are they saying?” he whispered back through the respirator. And watched her eyes go wide.

  Judy almost yelled at him then. The only thing that held her back was the fact that someone was up on the street walking up to the manhole. She actually had that realization when she thought about yelling, then realized she wasn’t panicked anymore. How the hell did he know how to hit her with something just off-center enough to distract her from the latest cardiac event-level situation? And then that preternatural calm of his made getting upset seem totally inappropriate. Even when it was totally appropriate, like now. It was maddening because that was exactly how she was in surgery. The more serious the emergency, the calmer you had to be. She was a surgeon, for crying out loud. And just how many times was she going to have to keep telling herself that? Probably as long as she kept crawling around setting bombs in sewers instead of doing surgery in operating theaters. She took another deep breath and vowed not to be out-cooled by him again. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Something in Chinese.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “No. There’s at least two of them. I heard them talking as they came near, so I moved back from the hole.”

  Avakian tried to remember if he’d locked the toolbox with the remaining bombs. Yes he had. And there was still the matter of the one in his hand. He set the timer and placed the bomb behind the pipe. Then checked that everything he might need was at hand in the duffel bag. “Not a sound, no matter what,” he whispered, shinnying down the pipe a bit so he could get in front of her. “Okay?”

  She just nodded. The learning curve was high, but she was learning.

  Avakian made sure he wasn’t standing in the shaft of streetlight pouring down through the manhole. There was somebody up there all right. Nothing to do but take the bull by the horns. He shifted the duffel bag so it hung under his right armpit, opening the zipper about halfway. Concentrating on a good Chinese accent, he called out, “Qing wen?” Excuse me, but in the form to gain attention rather than beg pardon.

  “Jingcha!” the gruff voice of authority called out. Police.

  Then Avakian saw the head with the police cap, followed by a lot more Chinese he didn’t understand. He turned back to Judy and pointed: stay here.

  Unconsciously, Judy crossed her arms across her chest, grabbing her upper arms. The term getting a grip on yourself didn’t just come from nowhere. She had to pee so bad she squatted down, holding it in like a little kid.

  The voice from above was ordering him to do something. No matter what it was, Avakian started up the ladder, keeping his head down to conceal his round eyes.

  Two cops. The senior guy firing cop questions at him while the other watched. Avakian just grunted from the effort required to get up the ladder. As his body poked up from the hole the cop did some noisy sniffing and made a comment that probably had something to do with the smell. Must have been funny, because the other one laughed.

  As Avakian swung his leg onto the pavement and stepped off the ladder, head still down, his right hand fell casually into the duffel bag. His fist closed around the plastic handgrip of the rifle, flicking the safety off. The range was point-blank.

  He straightened up and swung around so the end of the duffel bag was pointed at the cop’s torso. The two cracks were barely muffled, and as the recoil made the bag jump the muzzle gasses puffed the end up like a balloon. The cop crumpled to the ground.

  He pivoted toward the second one. Who was going for his pistol. Two more shots and he was sprawled out on the pavement. And the end of the duffel bag was on fire from the muzzle blast. Avakian slapped at the bag with his gloved hand to put it out. It was all over in three seconds. And like every good ambush the other side never had a chance.

  He looked around for witnesses. None. And no traffic on the street at that hour of the morning. The cruiser was parked behind them on the other side of the manhole opening.

  Keeping one eye on the cops, Avakian leaned his head down toward the hole and called out, “Judy! Come up quick!”

  The ladder clattered as she pounded up it.

  The yellow helmet popped out of the hole and looked around.

  Judy’s first thought at seeing two bodies on the ground and Pete Avakian bent over one was indescribable relief. Something she then had some very conflicting emotions about.

  He said, “Go check and see if the keys are in that police car.”

  As she went clomping off in her rubber boots, he stripped the cops of their pistol belts and turned out their pockets.

  She came back and reported, “The keys are in the ignition.” Then, looking down at one of the policemen, “This man is still alive.”

  Avakian handed her the pistol belts. “Go wait in the van. Driver’s seat.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then turned and went to the van. Stuffing the pistol belts under the seat, she peeked out through the open back door.

  Avakian pulled the ladder up just far enough to disengage the locking hooks, then dropped it back into the hole. It collapsed and disappeared from sight. The plastic sawhorses of the construction barrier got kicked apart and tossed down into the hole, too.

  She watched as he dragged one body over, and, picking up the legs, dumped it into the manhole like garbage down a chute.

  The next was the one who was only wounded. Avakian pulled him by the arms and kept going by straddling the hole, dropping the arms when just the head dangled over. Judy saw him lift his leg and deliver a savage kick onto the back of the neck.

  She recoiled and turned back to the windshield. And only heard and felt the back door slam, and the ringing clank as he set the manhole cover back into place.

  “Follow me,” said the sudden voice in the window that made her jump right out of her seat.

  “Sorry,” Avakian said. “You okay to follow me?”

  “I’m fine.” She started the engine by turning the screwdriver stuck into the steering column.

  The police car pulled out in front of her and she stepped on the gas. Avakian kept making turns onto side streets. With no idea where they were she hung on his fender, terrified of losing him and being lost.

  He turned into an alley and waved at her not to follow. She parked across the entrance. A minute later he came trotting out with a green metal can and two cloth bags in his arms.

  She slid over to the passenger side as he threw his burden in the back. “What are those?”

  “An ammo can full of tear gas grenades and two gas masks I found in the trunk. As Chairman Mao said, let the enemy be your quartermaster.”

  “You’re not keeping the car?”

  “I’d love to,” he said, shifting and accelerating out. “But when those guys don’t show up at the end of their shift—or sooner if they made a radio call when they stopped—every cop in Beijing is going to be looking for that cruiser.”

  “Then what now?”

  “Hop into the back and change into your street clothes. Throw the
suit, gloves and boots into the garbage bag along with your seat plastic.”

  “Don’t we have more sewers to crawl through?”

  “No more sewers tonight. No sense pushing it.”

  She had to admit it, he had a surgeon’s attention to detail. Sitting atop her clothes in the plastic shopping bag was a neatly folded towel. Which was a necessity because she was so bathed in sweat the plastic suit stuck to her body. And a big bottle of waterless hand sanitizer. Which was a godsend.

  Whenever Avakian made a turn he gave her fair warning. “Right turn coming up.” And then he snuck a look in the rearview mirror, when she was too busy holding on to catch him at it. Nice body.

  Freshened up, and with dry new underwear, blouse and jeans on she swung back into the passenger seat, pulling on her sneakers and feeling a million times better.

  “Water?” she said, opening one of the bottles.

  “Now we’ve cleared the area, I think I’m going to pull over and change first.”

  He parked unnoticed among all the late-night deliveries at Zhongguancun Agricultural Products Market. Doctor Rose had the same idea he did, but was not positioned to use the rearview mirror. He changed much faster than she had.

  “Did I take too long?” she said.

  “We just need to get rid of this van in case they called in the plate. I’ll have that water now.” He chugged the whole bottle down. “Ah, that’s good. That Tyvek is worse than an NBC suit.”

  “NBC?”

  “Nuclear, biological and chemical. Very unpleasant.”

  “What kind of vehicle are we looking for?”

  “A car, not a van or a truck. Something common and nondescript. Luxury models are too hard to get into without leaving visible damage. We’re not going to look anywhere around here, though.”

  He got back on the West 4th Ring Road and headed south, exiting the highway near the Fengtai Sports Center.

  They cruised around a bit, Avakian keeping well away from the nearby railway station.

  “What about that one?” said Judy, pointing.