by Max McCoy
"Yes," Indy said. "He is an excellent employee. You should congratulate yourself on being a good judge of character—and a shrewd businessman."
"It just takes the right incentive," Lao Che said modestly.
"You also seem to be a fine judge of collectibles," Indy continued. "From our table, I couldn't help but admire your collection of funerary vases. Wu Han attempted to discourage me from asking you about it, saying that you would be too modest to discuss them. But I would really like to see them up close."
"They are nothing," Lao Che said.
"Really, they are quite compelling," Indy said, sounding more and more sober. "Even from a distance, I could tell it is a rather complete collection. If you would grant me just a quick examination, I would be most grateful."
Lao Che fingered the key to the cabinet, which hung from a golden chain around his neck.
"Really, Dr. Jones," he said. "Most of them are quite common."
"Where are your manners?" Joan scolded. "Can't you see that you are embarrassing Mr. Che?"
"I wasn't trying to embarrass him," Indy said. "Actually, the museum would be interested in purchasing some of the jars to complete its funerary exhibit. But I can understand how he would be reluctant to part with them."
"Dr. Jones!" Wu Han protested. "Such things are not for sale."
Lao Che smiled broadly.
"Come now," he said. "In the interest of contributing to a museum collection, it is possible I could be persuaded. Which of the urns were you most interested in?"
Lao Che slipped the chain over his head and turned, poised with the key in his hand.
"The jade one on the top shelf," Indy said.
"Some of them still contain ashes, unfortunately," the gangster said as he swung open the cabinet door. "After so much time, who knows who they belong to? But propriety insists that the remains stay here in Shanghai, where they belong, because eventually a descendant may be found."
"Of course," Indy said. "The museum is interested only in the pieces themselves."
Lao Che carefully took down the jade urn and placed it on the table, under the watchful eyes of his sons.
"Exquisite," Indy said. He drew his glasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them onto the bridge of his nose. He bent down so that he would be at eye level with the piece.
"May I?" he asked.
Lao Che hesitated.
"The museum would be willing to offer a handsome price for pieces of this quality," Indy said.
"Please," Lao Che beamed. "Be my guest."
Indy picked up the jar and cradled it in his hands. He brushed his thumbs over the intricate reliefs of hissing dragons and soaring cranes.
"It is Manchu," Lao Che said.
"From the Manchu Dynasty?" Joan asked.
"No," Indy said. "It is a relatively recent piece from the large ethnic group called the Manchus. There are more than fifty such groups in China, each with a separate culture, set of beliefs, and language. That's why there's been an almost constant state of civil war, and why travel and politics are so difficult here. Properly, only the Han are considered true Chinese. But even among the Han there are scores of subgroups, and hundreds of dialects."
"Is there an example of a Han vase?"
"Yes," Indy said, and returned the jade container to Lao Che. "This stone one here in the center. Lao, do you mind?"
The gangster picked up an urn beside the one Indy wanted.
"No," Indy said. "The Han vase, there. Yes."
Lao Che nervously handed over the stone vase. Wu Han sucked in his breath and closed his eyes.
"See how plain this one is?" Indy said, and he held it just below the edge of the table as he showed it to Joan. As he did, Joan leaned over and pretended to inspect it. With his thumb, Indy tapped the pocket of his jacket. Joan tugged upon the pocket with a forefinger, and in one motion Indy lifted the top from the urn and poured the remains of Wu Han's immediate family into the right pocket of his dinner jacket.
"No ornamentation except for the bold characters for peace and prosperity. Rather simple, don't you think?" Indy held the vase up. "Now, on the bottom here—"
"Dr. Jones!" Joan shouted.
The vase slipped from Indy's fingers and fell to the floor. Indy dove to retrieve it and pulled the handkerchief with the ashtray sand from his sock. He spilled the contents onto the floor around the vase.
"Oh no, look what I've done," Indy said. "It seems I've scattered the remains of some poor devil all over the floor. Here, let me gather it up."
Wu Han nearly passed out, and had to clutch Joan's arm to keep from joining Indy on the floor.
"My sons will clean up the mess," Lao Che said.
"Are you sure?" Indy said, placing the urn on the table and shaking his handkerchief into it. "I think I've got most of it here."
Lao Che's skinny son joined Indy beneath the table while the fat one peered into the urn and made a sound of disgust. With his thumb and forefinger he removed a cigarette butt from the sand.
"Sorry," Indy said, his head bobbing above the table. "Must have come from the floor."
Lao Che grunted.
"Perhaps we should continue this another time," Indy suggested, getting to his feet and patting the sand from his knees. "Maybe when I'm a little more sober than I am right now."
Lao Che stared at Indy in surprise.
"Come along, Dr. Jones," Wu Han said, pulling him by the arm. "Let's get you to bed. The first stage of a very long journey starts in the morning, and you need to be ready."
As they piled into a taxi outside the door of the Lotus Eaters, Indy took off his jacket and handed it to Wu Han. "I believe this," he said, "belongs to you."
The expedition's equipment, loaded onto a trio of flatcars at the railyard adjacent to the docks at Shanghai, looked suspiciously like a military campaign in the predawn light. The item that drew the most attention from the railway workers was the .30-caliber machine gun mounted on the back of one of the three brand-new trucks. The trucks had been donated to the expedition by the Dodge Motor Company, which had supplied the museum with vehicles in the past, but the machine gun had arrived from the British arsenal.
"Really," Joan fumed at Indy as a canvas was secured over the truck and the gun. "Do we need that horrible thing? We're here to find my father, not to start a war."
"Sister," Indy said, his breath hanging in the cold air, "that may amount to the same thing. There are things out there—bandits, warlords, private armies—of which you know absolutely nothing. Things that don't share your belief in the natural goodness of humanity."
Indy looked at his watch. It was four-fifteen.
"Wu Han," he said, and zipped up his leather jacket. "Is there any way we can slip out of here now? I would like us to be on our way well before anyone suspects we've gone."
"It is a freight train," Wu Han said. "There is a timetable. There are things to consider, such as other trains on the same track. But I will try to persuade the engineer."
"Try with this." Indy pressed a wad of bills into Wu's hand.
"Consider it done," Wu Han said.
Granger walked alongside, a clipboard in his hands and his pipe in his mouth, inspecting the flat-cars one last time for everything that was supposed to be on board.
"Let's get rolling," Indy called.
"In time," Granger said. "If we miss anything, there won't be a corner drugstore we can pop into and replace it. Not even Sears and Roebuck reaches this far out."
Indy stepped onto the platform at the back of the passenger car, which was coupled to the last of the expedition's flatcars. He pulled Joan up behind him.
Indy could hear the chugging of the cylinder head of the aging steam locomotive deepen in pitch as the boiler gained pressure.
"This train is moving whether you're on board or not," he called to Granger.
"All right, old man," Granger responded. "Keep your shirt on. I don't know what the rush is; we're not scheduled to leave for another forty-five minutes."
"Call it Yankee ambition," Indy said, and sat down next to Joan on one of the hard-backed wooden seats. As Granger came and sat opposite them the car lurched and the locomotive pulled forward to take the slack out of the line of cars. Then the engineer opened the throttle a couple of notches and the Shanghai railyard began to glide away around them.
"That was a wonderful thing that you did for Wu Han last night," Joan told Indy. Awkwardly, she patted his shoulder through his leather jacket.
"We're not out of Shanghai yet," Indy warned. He lowered the fedora, leaned back against the seat, and closed his eyes. He did not feel well. He was not exactly sick, but he did have a terrible case of indigestion. Joan had insisted on eating a traditional Chinese meal before their visit to the nightclub last night, and Indy was afraid that he had gotten a bad eel. "Let me know when we're safely in the country."
Wu Han stepped down from the locomotive and allowed the train to pass. As the passenger car neared he took a few steps to gain momentum and grabbed the rail, swinging himself up onto the rear platform.
In a Buddhist cemetery at the outskirts of the city, sticks of incense still burned as gaily colored prayer flags fluttered over the remains of his family. Their ashes had been safely entered into a secretly purchased granite vault. When Wu Han's time came, the lid of the vault would be lifted and his ashes would be sprinkled with those of his parents and baby sister.
Wu Han stood for a moment on the platform. A great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He breathed in great lungsful of air, and he noted, as if for the first time, the aroma of the city: sewage, seawater, wood smoke from the locomotive, and the unmistakable odor of spoiled meat and fish from the nearby open-air market.
"So long, Lao Che," Wu Han said to the wind. "May I never have to breathe your stench again."
Three hours outside of Shanghai, as the freight highballed on its ribbon of narrow-gauge rail through an endless quilt of canals and rice paddies, Joan shook Indiana Jones awake.
"Time for breakfast," she said, and placed a cardboard box on his lap.
Indy felt even worse than he had when the train had left. He inspected the contents of the box. Mostly rice, with a little bite of fish rolled up into a large piece of seaweed. Also, a pair of bamboo chopsticks and a rough paper napkin.
The fish smelled a little too much like eel for comfort.
"It's unappetizing," Indy said, and pushed the box aside. "Do we have any coffee?"
"Green tea," Joan said. "There's a pot of it on the brazier in the front of the car. There's also a cooler of water next to it. Aren't you feeling well?"
"I've felt better," Indy replied.
"You were warned about drinking too much last night."
"Very funny." Indy wasn't smiling. "I was just acting, remember?"
"I think you enjoyed it a little too much."
"This is the worst first impression I've ever made," Indy muttered, and worked his way to the aisle. Although the train was slated as a freight, the passenger car had filled with people from a half-dozen stops since leaving Shanghai. All of them were Chinese, and many of them had their belongings in bundles at their feet. Indy smiled repeatedly as he made his way to the front of the car, but got no smiles in return.
He peered into the open top of the battered five-gallon can that was used as a watercooler. Bugs and other less identifiable bits of debris were floating in it. He took a tin cup, rinsed it out with water from the can, and poured some tea from the kettle that sat atop the coal-fired brazier.
As he sipped the scalding liquid he looked out through the dirty glass in the front of the car at the expedition's equipment. The canvas was in place and everything was still in order. Then he looked around idly at the interior of the passenger car, and decided from its style and its well-worn condition that it must have been in use since the turn of the century.
When he looked at the brake system hanging beneath the flatcar ahead as the train rounded a curve, however, he knew that estimate was overly generous. Although the train was equipped with air brakes, they were the older kind, which required the application of air pressure, pumped from the locomotive, in order to work. The newer safety brakes—which had been in use in America since the 1890s—were designed so that the brakes were applied when air pressure was lost; if the system were ruptured or if the cars became separated from the locomotive, the brakes would automatically engage.
But the only way to brake this train if the system failed would be to manually turn a huge hand wheel at the end of each car.
"Great," Indy said, and spat out a bug.
He dumped the rest of the cup out the window.
"Do you not care for the tea?" Wu Han asked, coming up from behind. "Can I get you something else, Indy? There is a small supply of chocolate bars and American soda loaded onto the flatcars. Would you care for something?"
"Soda?" Indy asked.
"Yes," Wu Han said. "Root beer."
"I would kill for a root beer," Indy said. "My stomach has been queer all morning."
"I could get you some medicine, too."
"No, a root beer is what I need. The carbonation, you know. But the flatcars are secured, and it would be too much trouble. Maybe even dangerous, if you lost your balance."
"No trouble," Wu Han said. "I come from a long line of acrobats. And I know exactly where to look, on the middle car. Just lift the edge of one canvas and there they are."
"I'll go with you." As he spoke, Indy suppressed a murderous belch.
"Sit down," Wu Han said cheerfully. "I'll be back in a spark."
"Flash," Indy corrected. "Back in a flash."
"Of course. Thank you."
Wu Han was suddenly out the door and walking expertly over the cargo. Indy sat down and watched while his young Chinese friend hopped onto the middle car. He paused at the corner of one bundle, unknotted the cord that held the canvas, and pried open the top of one of the crates with his fingers.
"Don't want to arm-wrestle that one," Indy told himself.
Wu Han withdrew two bottles of root beer, then secured the crate and retied the canvas. As Wu Han worked Indy noticed a second figure darting behind the cargo on the flatcar, sneaking up behind him. It was a man, dressed in black, with a knife between his teeth.
"Watch out behind you!" Indy shouted from the open door of the passenger car, but his words were lost in the rush of the wind and the rumble of the train.
Wu Han smiled and held up the bottles of root beer.
The figure had crept to within arm's reach of Wu Han.
Indy opened the door and vaulted onto the platform. He drew the Webley from its holster, then hesitated. The lurching of the train would make aiming difficult. Indy was afraid he would hit Wu Han instead of his assailant.
"Get down!" he shouted.
The assassin had the knife raised in his right hand.
"What?" Wu Han shouted back.
Indy aimed over Wu Han's shoulder and fired.
The bullet struck the assassin in the shoulder, knocking him backward onto the covered hood of one of the Dodge trucks. He scrambled for a secure grip for a moment, then tumbled over the edge of the flatcar onto the roadbed.
Indy crossed the first flatcar and joined Wu Han.
"When you say you would kill for a root beer," Wu Han said, "you weren't kidding."
"Get back to the passenger car," Indy ordered. "There may be more of them out here. Tell Granger that we've got some trouble, and keep Sister Joan inside with her head down."
"Right."
"Wait," Indy said. He took one of the bottles of root beer.
"Bottle opener?"
"Right here," Wu Han said.
Indy flipped off the cap and guzzled down a third of the bottle before Wu Han had made it back to the passenger car. Indy sat down on a cargo box. While he waited, with his gun in his right hand, he finished off the rest of the bottle.
"I love root beer," he announced.
Indy felt a magnificent burp building in t
he pit of his stomach, and since he was alone on the flatcar, he opened his mouth and allowed nature to take its course. He belched long and loud, and immediately the pressure in his tortured guts subsided.
"Dr. Jones," a voice said in Mandarin as he felt the prick of a knife blade at the back of his neck. "Have you forgotten your manners? But then, I suppose you never had any."
"Did Lao Che send you?"
"Who else?" the voice asked, changing to English with a British accent. "No, don't turn around. The others can't see me and we wouldn't want to alarm them. And careful with that gun—somebody could get hurt, you know. Keep it in your lap."
"You're the boss."
"You couldn't have expected to get away with that little switch routine at the nightclub last night. It was apparent as soon as Lao's oldest son went to the water closet and discovered the ash can had been tampered with."
"I thought it was clever."
"You would," the voice said. "You have a choice. Either you will tell me where Wu Han has hidden the remains of his family so that Lao Che can restore his contract, or I will kill you first and Wu Han second."
"You'd kill me even if I told you," Indy said.
"Perhaps, but I would do it quickly instead of spilling your intestines onto the deck of this flatcar. There are no surgeons on this train, Dr. Jones, and you would bleed to death despite the best efforts of your friends to patch you up."
"And why wouldn't you kill Wu Han if I told you?"
"His services are too valuable to Lao Che," the voice said. "He wants him back. To waste a good employee in such a profitless manner would show poor business sense. But your pathetic expedition is another matter. It would delight the boss to see it end before it even begins."
"Who the hell are you?" Indy asked.
"A professional."
"Like your buddy? Or was he just having a bad day?"
"He was careless. I am not."
Granger was at the door of the passenger car, a 7.5mm bolt-action rifle in his hand. Indy waved and smiled, and motioned for him to go back. Granger looked confused, and stepped over onto the first flatcar.
