The Firemaker (The China Thrillers 1)

by Peter May

  He and Margaret had talked for nearly two hours before she had finally succumbed to utter exhaustion, leaving him to come to terms with the things she had told him. Fear, anger, self-pity, more anger had surged through him in wave after wave, before leaving him, eventually, washed out and despairing. She had convinced him that their only option was to reach the sanctuary of the American Embassy. From there they could tell their story to the world. It was the only way to put an end to it, the only way to stop Grogan Industries and Pang Xiaosheng and all those they had corrupted in their pursuit of silence.

  It seemed a hollow victory, somehow, to Li. That he should have to hide away from his fellow countrymen, skulk in the protection of a foreign power, in order to reveal the truth. It made him feel like a traitor. But he could see no other way. He was discredited and disgraced, on the run from his own police, and from a professional killer intent on killing the woman he loved.

  The thought stopped him dead. The woman he loved? He struck a match and looked at Margaret as she lay sleeping beside him. She seemed utterly at peace. How could he love her? How could he love a woman he had only known for five days, a woman of another race, another culture? The match burned down to his fingers and he let it fall to the floor. But the image of her face remained imprinted on his retina. He reached out to touch her and saw his own hand in his mind’s eye, fingers running lightly over her full lips. He had never been in love before, so he was not sure how it felt, or was supposed to feel. He only knew that he had never felt like this about anyone in his life. He lay down beside her, tucking his knees in behind hers, drawing her back into his chest, gently so as not to wake her, wrapping himself around her like a protective shell. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in the smell of her. He had no idea what it was he felt for her, but love seemed as good a name for it as any. And for the first time in many long hours he felt released from torment. He would happily have died there and then, holding her in his arms. But sleep intervened. Death would have been too easy.

  *

  Margaret woke with a start and pushed herself quickly up on one elbow. There was a fine dust suspended in stripes of pale yellow light lying brokenly across the room. Li stood by the window, squinting through the gaps between the boards nailed across it. The blue smoke of his cigarette drifted lazily upwards, turning pale grey in the sunlight that fell through the slats. She felt strangely rested. Bizarrely, it was the best sleep she had had since her arrival in China.

  He turned on hearing her stir. She had no idea, he knew, that he had spent the night, or what was left of it, curled around her. He thought how beautiful she looked, sleepy and blurred, not fully awake. She was all he had left now. He must not fail her as he had failed his uncle. He must keep her safe at all costs.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, concerned by the look on his face.

  ‘Yongli and Lotus are here,’ he said, and he picked his way through the outer room at the sound of a soft knocking and opened the door to let them in.

  Margaret sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes as Lotus came through from the other room. She was hefting a large suitcase which she dropped flat on the floor, raising a cloud of dust. ‘I bring you clothes, and things for you to wash,’ she said. She flipped open the lid and brought out a deep metal bowl and a plastic five-litre container. She laid them on the bed beside Margaret and filled the bowl with water from the container, then handed her a plastic toilet bag with soap and a face-cloth, a half-empty tube of toothpaste and a brush. ‘You clean up. Then you dress.’ She pulled out a pale blue cotton dress with lapels at a V-neck and a belt at the waist, like Margaret had seen many Chinese girls wearing in the street. ‘I think this fit. Is too big for me.’

  Margaret smiled. It was just as well. Lotus was diminutive. She made Margaret feel like a giant beside her.

  Lotus waved a pair of panties at her and grinned. ‘These, too. They clean.’ She crossed the room and drew the ragged remains of a curtain across the door. ‘Men stay outside. I give you help.’

  Margaret stripped off her bloodstained clothes. It took several bowlfuls of water to clean the dried, sticky, rust-coloured blood from her hands and arms and neck. Then she sluiced her face with clean water and dried herself off with a small, rough towel. Lotus watched her with admiration. ‘You have ver’ lovely breast,’ she said. ‘I have no breast,’ she added sadly, cupping what she had and trying to lift them. ‘Need wear Wonderbra for cleavage.’

  Margaret smiled. ‘You are very beautiful just as you are, Lotus,’ she told her.

  Lotus lowered her eyes self-consciously and blushed with pleasure. ‘Xie Xie,’ she said.

  ‘Bukeqi,’ Margaret responded.

  Lotus looked at her and smiled in wide-eyed amazement. ‘You speak ver’ good Chinese.’

  The blue dress fitted Margaret almost perfectly, the belt drawing it in neatly around the waist, the hemline dropping two or three inches below the knee. Lotus had a selection of sandals in the suitcase. ‘I borrow from my cousin and her mother,’ she said. ‘Different size. Hope one fit.’

  A pair of cream slingback sandals fitted snugly on her feet, the leather worn and soft and comfortable. There was a matching cream leather purse on a long shoulder strap. Lotus had filled it with make-up and a little spray of eau de Cologne. ‘Beautiful lady must look beautiful always,’ she said. Margaret laid it on the bed beside her discarded clothes and saw McCord’s revolver nestling there among the folds. On impulse she slipped it into the purse and turned back to Lotus. She held her hand and squeezed it gratefully.

  ‘Thank you, Lotus. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.’

  ‘Oh, it nothing,’ Lotus said. ‘You my friend.’ And they embraced for several moments, breaking apart only at the sound of raised voices from outside. Li and Yongli were arguing about something. A moment later, Li brushed the curtain aside and stalked in, Yongli at his shoulder.

  ‘Ma Yongli doesn’t want to take us to the embassy,’ Li said. The colour had risen on his cheeks.

  Margaret looked at Yongli, taken aback. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is too dangerous,’ Yongli said. ‘Where is the first place they will expect you to go? The American Embassy. They will be everywhere, waiting for you.’

  Margaret glanced anxiously at Li. ‘He’s probably right.’

  Li nodded reluctantly. Margaret looked back at Yongli. ‘But we’ve got to try, Ma Yongli. We can’t just stay here for ever. If it’s not possible to get to the embassy then we will think of something else.’

  Lotus turned to Yongli. ‘Hey, lover, it’s no big deal,’ she said. ‘Li Yan and Margaret can stay in the car. We will walk past the embassy to see if there are police around. No one will notice us if we go after nine. There are always crowds queuing for visas.’

  Li looked at Yongli, who hesitated for only a moment before reluctantly nodding his acquiescence. He could refuse Lotus nothing.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘We’ll stay in the car,’ Li said. ‘They’ll check out the street.’

  *

  The drive to the Ritan legation area was tense. Li and Margaret sat low in the back of the Honda, wearing straw hats pulled down to shade their faces. Li wore a light jacket over his shirt to hide his shoulder holster and Old Yifu’s revolver. Lotus sat in the front with Yongli, talking constantly, trying to calm him. Yongli was agitated and nervous, and drove badly, almost colliding with a bus in full view of a traffic policeman on Jianguomennei Avenue. ‘Calm down, lover,’ Lotus told him, and put a reassuring hand on his arm. He took a deep breath and tried to relax and managed a half-smile.

  Already the heat was stifling, the sun beating in through the windscreen as they drove east. Margaret’s hand sought Li’s on the back seat and held it tightly. But they said nothing. They crossed the flyover at Dongdanbei Street, past the CITIC building, sitting impatiently at every set of lights, Yongli drumming his fingers on the wheel. There was a high police presence on the main boulevards, pale blue-and-
white squad cars cruising frequently by, officers in green, sharp-eyed and watchful. But people in the streets were blissfully unaware, going about their everyday lives, happy in ignorance of the RXV virus that lay dormant within them, or the desperate attempts of a young policeman and an American pathologist to make them aware of it.

  Margaret stole a glance at Li. ‘Did you tell Yongli?’ she whispered.

  He shook his head. ‘I did not know how.’

  It is a dreadful thing to have to tell someone they are going to die. Margaret felt guilty now at the relief she had felt the previous night after she had unburdened herself to Li.

  They passed the Friendship Store, and at the junction with Dongdoqiao Road, Yongli turned left, cutting across the flow of traffic and making a U-turn into the westbound cycle lane, where he drew into a parking place. His face was glistening with perspiration as he turned. ‘You wait here. We’ll approach the embassy from Silk Street and let you know how it looks.’

  Li shook his head. ‘No. We will be too conspicuous just sitting here in the back of the car.’ He leaned across Margaret to look out of the window. ‘We’ll wait for you in there.’ He pointed to a Deli France French-style coffee shop.

  Li and Margaret watched for a moment as Lotus and Yongli pushed their way up the bustling length of the Silk Street market, jostling with pushy traders and eastern European tourists in search of big-buck bargains to ship back to Russia by rail. It was a narrow street crowded with stalls up either side. Colourful silk garments embroidered with gold Chinese dragons hung from stands and partitions; great rolls of material were sold by the bundle or the length. Traders smoked and shouted and spat and threw old tea leaves from jars on to the sidewalk. Corrugated plastic overhead shaded them from the sun. It was an ideal approach to the American Embassy, crowded and noisy. At the top end, where the lane emerged into a broader, tree-lined street, would be the tail of the queue that stretched daily up to the embassy’s visa department. Li took Margaret’s hand and they went into the Deli France café and ordered two cappuccinos. They waited in silence.

  It was, perhaps, only twenty minutes before Yongli and Lotus returned. It just seemed longer. They slid into seats beside Li and Margaret and Yongli shook his head. ‘The place is crawling with cops, Li Yan. You wouldn’t get within a hundred yards of the place.’

  Lotus said, ‘He’s right. They are everywhere, watching for you.’

  Margaret didn’t need a translation to know what was being said. Although it was what she had expected in her heart of hearts, she was still disappointed. She felt a dread sense of despair creeping over her. ‘What are we going to do?’

  In English, Yongli said, ‘I have been thinking. The nearest international border is Mongolia. There is a train to Datong, and it is not so far from there. It is very remote, and the border is thousands of kilometres long. They cannot guard the whole length of it.’

  II

  Yongli was gone four hours buying their tickets. When he got back, he was pale and solemn. ‘Cops everywhere,’ he said to Li. ‘And they got your face pasted up all over the station.’ He shrugged hopelessly. It was what they’d expected. There didn’t seem anything more to say.

  Lotus was boiling up a pot of rice on a single gas ring that screwed into a small gas canister. She had four bowls, but to her surprise, and hurt, Li and Margaret both refused any. Instead, they hungrily devoured some of the fruit that Yongli had bought for their journey. Margaret, in turn, watched in despairing silence as Lotus and Yongli scooped rice from their bowls to their mouths with wooden chopsticks. She glanced at Li, who could not even bring himself to look. There was no point in telling them not to eat it. The damage was done. To Li and Margaret as well. But Margaret could only think of the cholera toxin genes, the cauliflower mosaic and the RXV virus particles, and God knew what else, in the genetic make-up of the small white grains. It made her feel physically sick.

  They ate in a tense silence, each with their own private thoughts, and afterwards Yongli took a map he had bought and spread it out on the cot bed. He dropped the train tickets on top. ‘Three tickets,’ he said. ‘The train leaves Beijing just after midnight, gets into Datong at seven fifteen tomorrow morning.’ He tracked the route of the train with his finger and jabbed at the dot on the map that represented the city of Datong on the border of Shanxi province and Inner Mongolia. ‘You’ll have to hide up during the day while I get us some transport. We’ll leave as soon as it’s dark and drive across Inner Mongolia overnight. We should reach the Mongolian border before sunrise. I’ll drop you there, return the vehicle, and then come back to Beijing. No one will know where you’ve gone.’

  Margaret looked at the map with a deep sense of foreboding. Even assuming they managed to cross the border undetected, they would have a long and difficult journey across mountainous territory to Ulaanbaatar. They had no passports, very little money, and if they succeeded in reaching their destination they would then have to try to gatecrash one of the Western embassies. It was a desperate venture. ‘We’ll never make it to Ulaanbaatar on foot,’ she said.

  Li said, ‘I’d thought we would catch a train.’

  ‘Of course,’ Margaret said. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ And Li thought her tone carried a little more of the Margaret he had come to know and love. ‘And if we get stopped, without passports?’

  Li shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll be arrested. Do you have a better idea?’

  She didn’t. She glanced at Yongli. ‘At least let us do this ourselves, Ma Yongli. There’s no need for you to take the risk. We can get to the border on our own.’

  Yongli shook his head. ‘No you can’t. The pictures of Li Yan are posted everywhere. And his face is being broadcast on every television station. It would be almost impossible for him to hire a car without being recognised. Even in Datong. Also, the police will be looking for two people, not three. So it will be safer for you.’ He turned and smiled at Lotus. ‘Lotus will telephone the hotel and tell them I am sick. I will be back in two days. They will hardly know I have been gone.’ He grinned, he, too, a little more like his old self. ‘Easy.’

  *

  The remainder of the day crawled by, hot and airless in the confined space of the abandoned house. Outside, the sky turned pewtery, the air tinted a strange purple hue, temperature and humidity rising as a hot wind sprang up from the east, rattling the boards at the window. There was a storm brewing, and the atmosphere, already tense, grew oppressive.

  Margaret slept off and on in fitful bursts, curled up on the cot bed. One time she woke up to see Lotus and Yongli squatting together in the far corner of the room, whispering to each other. Li stood by the window, keeping eternal, edgy vigilance through the slats of wood. Another time she drifted briefly into consciousness and saw that Lotus had gone. Yongli sat, back against the wall, smoking a cigarette, his eyes closed. Li was still at the window.

  She dreamed of her childhood, long summer holidays spent at the home of her grandparents in New England. Home-made lemonade with crushed ice, drunk in the shade of leafy chestnut trees by the lake. She saw herself swinging on her grandfather’s arm, the old man strong and brown, his silver whiskers contrasting with his tanned, leathery face. Her brother fishing off the end of the old wooden landing stage. And then he was gone, the sound of his voice calling for help and the frantic splashing in the water. It seemed such a long way away, and no one was paying any attention. She was running around her parents and her grandparents, screaming at them. Jake was in trouble. Jake was drowning. But they were more interested in the contents of a large wicker picnic hamper set out on the lawn. Except for Grandfather, who was sleeping in the deckchair. She shook his arm, the same one she had been swinging on. But he did not stir. She shook and shouted and shrieked, until his head tipped towards her, his old straw hat running away down the slope on its brim. His eyes were open, but there was no life there. A small trickle of blood ran from one nostril.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. And suddenly it wa
s raining, big heavy drops that stung the skin, and a group of men in black oilskins were pulling Jake from the water. His eyes, too, were open, a trail of green slime oozing from his nostril, where blood had run from her grandfather’s. His mouth was open, and a large fish with popping eyes was struggling to escape from it.

  Margaret awoke with a start, heart pounding, the sound of rain battering on the broken-tiled roof of the derelict house. It was dark outside. The erratic flame of a candle ducked and dived and threw light randomly among the shadows of the room. Li had abandoned his sentinel position by the window and was sitting on the end of the cot bed. Yongli still sat against the wall, smoking. Lotus was squatting on the floor packing food and clothes into a leather holdall. She looked up as Margaret swung her legs to the floor. ‘You okay?’ she asked, concerned.