China Dolls

by Rob Wood

  “Where is everybody?”

  “There aren’t many of us on site now,” said Lily. “Those that are here are eating an evening meal and enjoying some rice wine in the trailer to your right. My idea. It’s an imitation of your U.S. film companies who celebrate progress all too often and all too early.”

  Lily Zhang threw open the door to the cave.

  “Inside,” she said.

  And inside, in the twilight admitted by the paper screen at the opening, they saw a long, arched room. There were stools in front. Two rows of cupboards ran back on either side toward the end, where a broad platform was raised above the cave floor. This Cochrane recognized as the kang: combination bed, desk, and seating area in old Chinese homes.

  Lily Zhang curled her legs under her on the kang. “Pardon my attire, I’m still in costume,” she said.

  “In costume for what, exactly?” asked Purdy

  “For One Hundred Steps. That’s the movie we’re working on. It’s the story of a peasant girl—Mae Jung. Her Manchu overlord thinks she’s pretty and claims her as his concubine. Any other girl would have submitted. Not Mae Jung. She and her true love, Lo Pei, flee south to Guangxi province and take up living at the top of one of the beautiful and remote karst peaks. Here . . .” She gestured around the room.

  “Lo Pei cut 100 steps into the top of the karst so that Mae Jung could get around easier. I believe you have some personal experience with those 100 steps—although you must understand that we just cut them, they’re not original.

  “The Manchu overlord, his pride hurt, sent a detachment of soldiers to bring her back. They surrounded the karst peak. Mae Jung and Pei are pretty self-sufficient in their home here at the top of the peak. So naturally the soldiers ascend the 100 steps to get her back. Mae Jung and her lover work in shifts, day and night, defending the top of the steps. Many soldiers die. None can take the peak.

  “At last the Manchus decide to regroup at the base and maroon the lovers at the top of the karst, where they expect they will starve to death if they don’t submit. And they would have, too—starved to death, that is—if they hadn’t been rescued by the rebels led by Hong Xiuquian in the Taiping Rebellion. The rebellion started in nearby Guilin and swept northeast to Hangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai.

  “What was this rebellion?” asked Purdy.

  “The Taiping Rebellion,” put in Cochrane, “was a major effort to unseat the Manchus and eliminate the caste system of old China, return property to the peasants, end foot-binding, and encourage advancement by merit and not by social standing. They even cut their pig-tails because they were seen as evidence of Manchu domination.”

  “That’s right,” said Lily Zhang. “This rebellion ultimately failed. But Sun Yat-sen and Mao Tse Tung both drew inspiration from the rebellion. Mao completed the overthrow of Manchu power begun by Sun Yat-sen. He implemented the policies of equality. He eliminated the foot-binding, the prejudice, the ignorance. And, of course, he redistributed Manchu property to peasants.”

  “One Hundred Steps sounds like a pretty marketable movie concept in today’s China,” said Cochrane.

  “Absolutely,” said Lily Zhang. “And because the Taiping rebels believed in advancement by merit, Mae Jung moves up through the ranks due to her courage and resourcefulness. She eventually becomes a general—the general you see before you. The ‘one hundred steps’ is a metaphor. It not only refers to the steps cut from the rock; it also refers to the changes in Mae Jung from peasant to general.”

  “You’re carrying a spear and bow. When exactly was the Taiping Rebellion?” asked Purdy.

  “Roughly contemporaneous with your own Civil War. It was just as great an event—socially, politically, and militarily. Twenty million people died. But I bet you’ve never heard of it.”

  “No,” admitted Purdy sheepishly;

  “It’s just a footnote in our telling of history,” said Cochrane.

  “Exactly,” said Lily. “There is some basis, you see, for the popular conception that round-eyes are arrogant and provincial. But, then, you have very little history. We have 5,000 years. As far as the spear—it’s really a pudao; still used in martial arts. It could cut the legs off a horse in a cavalry charge. And the Tatar bow. . .” She patted the shiny brown and black bow bent like an ‘S’ at her side. “A reflex bow like this one could put a 25-gram arrow tip—a big tip—through a pine board.”

  “So why did the rebellion fail?”

  “Interesting point.” Her eyes narrowed as she shot a steely glance at them. “It failed because the British and Americans weighed in on the side of the Manchus. The rebels, fighting with bows, spears, swords—maybe some primitive grenades and firearms—couldn’t stand up against Western . . . what is the word?”

  “Technology,” said Cochrane looking meaningfully at Purdy.

  “Yes. Technology. Which brings me to today’s subject.”

  “Today has a subject?” asked Purdy. “So far, things are a bit random.”

  “You believe,” continued Lily, undistracted, “that you have the corpse of the man who stole the nuclear material from the Daiichi power plant. That is probably true. You believe he was Japanese. That is definitely not true. He was North Korean.”

  “You know,” said Purdy impatiently, “we’re here because we have some questions to put to you.”

  “Of course. Your overseers in Washington wonder how serious Lily Zhang is about Xinjiang independence or about encouraging an enlightened view among China’s movers and shakers when, in the future, our country becomes the world’s largest, most powerful economy. They wonder how influential she may be, and if she would be inclined to trade influence for American financial support. Lastly, they wonder about her connection to the Daiichi nuclear theft.”

  “You intuit quite a bit,” said Cochrane.

  “Bullshit . . . to use an American expression,” returned Zhang. “You were bugged. The thing is I know the answer to your questions. They don’t interest me. What you and I need to focus on is that corpse.”

  “The body was covered with what I believe to be yakuza tattoos. Hard to get if you’re not Japanese,” said Cochrane. “And you know the Japanese hate the North Koreans.”

  “And why is that?” asked Zhang archly.

  “Aside from centuries of animosity, it’s because Kim Jon Il, North Korea’s ‘exalted leader,’ openly admitted kidnapping a hundred or more Japanese citizens over the years. He returned maybe half a dozen who corroborated the kidnappings and the number of victims left behind in North Korea—where Kim Jong Ill said he was ‘studying’ Japanese language and customs. The asshole.”

  “And perhaps also training a cadre of spies to infiltrate Japan,” said Lily. “They would be taking menial jobs where they will not be noticed. Menial jobs, maybe even criminal jobs.”

  “Wait a minute,” sputtered Purdy. “This is getting really weird. We thought you warned us about a threat of stolen nuclear material from a Japanese reactor.”

  “I did. I wanted you to find the ‘hot rocks’ as you call them. You failed to do so. I initially believed the threat was directed against China, although I told you otherwise. I feared that someone in Japan was again perpetrating a Nankin-style atrocity on China. Alternatively, they might have been dealing with the Taiwanese, the Indians, or some other enemy of my country. However, no one in North Korea, absolutely no one, would target their great benefactor China.”

  “How is it that you suddenly know the man is North Korean?” put in Purdy.

  “Technology: Fingerprints, DNA analysis of skin cells. His bio indicators were among a contrived collection of data in my home, taken by Army security for analysis. Once we flushed out his file, we did some additional checking of retinal scans—photographs of the corpse against what was in the file. The man was a North Korean. Moreover, he was affiliated, via the Red Army Faction, with the Reconnaissance Bureau and what you call Bureau 39. Therefore, he was affiliated with North Korea’s top government officers.”

  �
��Bureau 39—that’s the directorate that oversees North Korean black-market activities—about $1 billion a year in revenue,” said Cochrane. “Some people use Goldman Sachs to manage their money. The family of Kim Jong Il uses Bureau 39. If the thief was North Korean—or a North Korean pawn—that puts things in a different light. But the threat is the same.”

  “No” said Lily firmly. “Number 1—China is not a target. In fact, the threat isn’t even local. Number 2—The North Koreans are interested in making money—dramatically improving on that $1 billion Ms. Cochrane cites. They would not hesitate to peddle the nuclear material to any buyer—including terrorist groups. Care to name a few in Europe and the Mid-East? Bottom line: Redouble your efforts. You must find this nuclear material. We’re not talking about just the South China Sea. It might be anywhere. This is a favor I’m doing you. If you want to take information to Washington, this is it.”

  Lily rose with a peremptory toss of her head. “Be outside and starting down the steps at 5 a.m. My people will not be yet awake.”

  And with that, she left.

  After the old wood door closed on them, both Cochrane and Purdy were aware of an eerie quiet in the cave.

  “Well, that was a pretty big data dump!” said Purdy. “What do you make of that?”

  “Well, I’m not confidant enough to take all of this to Washington. She’s either a very complicated lady—or she’s crazy. Frankly, I’m not sure which.”

  “You know, Cochrane, there was a time when you suggested Lily Zhang might be the perp here . . . or, at least, the woman pulling the strings.”

  “Well that looks less and less likely, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe. Actually, there’s still very little we know for sure. Let’s break this down. One good thing: maybe we know now where the phony Chinese doc took the finger he nipped from our corpse.”

  “Yeah. Lily wanted the prints crosschecked.”

  “But you know,” said Purdy, “the U.S. is implementing bio-identification procedures in Afghanistan. The stuff she says she did—fingerprints, DNA, retinal scans—that’s all possible, of course. But before it can become meaningful, you need a huge data bank to check your inputs against.”

  “The FBI has a fingerprint bank.”

  “We’re talking a huge investment in money and time—tons more information on many more levels than the FBI or Interpol has. Does she have access to that kind of resource?”

  “Bear in mind, this is China we’re talking about. I say it’s quite possible,” said Cochrane.

  “I say it’s unlikely. And she said she bugged us,” said Purdy. “I say that’s impossible—or even if possible, is irrelevant.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A bug transmitting information has a limited range. You can’t pick up a signal from a ship that’s miles offshore.”

  “And yet she knew generally why we had sought her out, knew we wanted to ask questions on behalf of Washington.”

  “She guessed at that,” said Purdy. “It’s logical. You could have done the same thing. You yourself suggested it was intuition.”

  “She knew the phrase ‘hot rocks,’” Cochrane said. “That’s not exactly a Chinese idiom. And before that, we wondered how the Chinese knew we had located and brought aboard a radioactive corpse. Sounds to me like we were bugged.”

  “Bugs are range-limited,” said Purdy stubbornly.

  “Could someone have tipped her off?”

  “A spy? I don’t even want to go there.”

  Cochrane looked at him, thinking to herself that his loyalty to the Navy was sometimes a handicap.

  “Besides,” said Purdy, “if there is a spy, the problem is the same—how are communications handled between the Vinson and the mainland. Carrier pigeon? I don’t think so.”

  “Her theory about North Korean involvement interests me,” mused Cochrane. “True, the tattoos were yakuza. That doesn’t have to mean the man was Japanese. He could have been some sort of mole, a plant by North Korea. And this operation doesn’t sound like a yakuza job. Bureau 39 fencing stolen nuclear material—frankly, I like the sound of that.”

  “But it doesn’t get us any closer to finding the stuff, the hot rocks. She acts like we’re not trying hard enough.” Purdy bristled at the suggestion of less than full Navy commitment.

  “Well, we’ve obviously got to broaden the search, bring in other assets, go at it from another perspective—something!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” groused Purdy. “Let’s get some shut-eye. Like she says, we should be rolling out of here when it’s just light enough to see our way down those 100 steps.”

  15

  SCRIPT CHANGE

  They were curled up together in the dark on the kang, sleeping deeply. The whup-whup-whup of helicopter blades woke them, growing louder and louder. Purdy rolled off the kang, wide awake, and glanced at his watch: 3:15 a.m. No good explanation for an arrival at this hour. And he was ass-deep in a cave, a hole in the ground—the least defensible position he could think of.

  “Not friendlies, Cochrane!” he shouted. “Grab the packs. Let’s get out of here.”

  They burst through the door and rolled right, seeking out the darkest shadows. The incoming chopper suddenly sprouted shafts of light on its underside as hand-held torches swept the ground. In the glow of those many lights they could see three cables dropping from the big-bellied aircraft and shadowy figures with rifles sliding down.

  “Stay where you are!” shouted a voice in Chinese. “Nobody move.”

  “They’ll be going house to house—or, rather, cave to cave—looking for us!” whispered Purdy.

  “Why, for God’s sake?” hissed Cochrane between her teeth. “Are the trespassing laws that strict here?”

  Six men were already on the ground, fanning out, their weapons held diagonally in front of them.

  “Those aren’t PLA regulars,” said Purdy. “It’s somebody else. And they’ll be on us in a minute if we don’t distract them. Got our camera?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give it to me. You move toward the generator in the courtyard. Get to the fuel barrel. As you go, drag your heel to make a trough in the ground. Take the bung out of the barrel. Tip it so the spill makes its way down the trough. Hurry back. Go. Go!”

  With the point of a ballpoint pen, Purdy pried off the plastic shield on the camera flash, crushed the bulb and felt for the contacts behind it. Cochrane was back inside of three minutes, panting.

  “If this goes. . .” said Purdy. He nodded his head toward a pile of bags, boxes, and film equipment at the end of the peak . . . “we run like hell over behind that junk.

  “I smell gasoline!” he smiled. “Good job, Cochrane.” He reached out patting the ground for a few feet until he could feel the damp on the ground coming toward him. “Lights, camera, action!”

  Purdy fired the flash and the spark instantly blew a wall of flame back toward the barrel. As they hurtled over coils of electrical cord, there was a satisfying “Whump! Whoosh!” a brilliant flash and the scream of men caught up in the explosion.

  They peered over their barricade of equipment. The pressure wave from the explosion blew Cochrane’s hair back. Flames leaped high enough to silhouette three men on the ground—injured—and five more, still standing, but confused as hell.

  Purdy kept one eye on the silhouettes, as he unzipped some of the packs and bags around him. “Here we go!” he said. With his foot, he pinned down what looked like a spring coil of aluminum foil, while he lashed it to another one and still another with a binding of doubled-over electrical tape.

  “What’s that?” asked Cochrane.

  “It’s a parachute.”

  “That’s not a parachute!” she gasped.

  “Well, you’re right. It’s more like an unstable air foil.”

  “Unstable?”

  “These are collapsible light reflectors,” he said, quickly stuffing coil after coil of silver fabric into his backpack. “They’re industrial
size diaphragms that fold small, then pop out to full size. You can bounce light onto a dark film subject—or bind a bunch of them to you and catch the updraft at the foot of a cliff like a parasail. That’s my theory, anyway.”

  He shouldered his backpack and cinched it around his waist. The rucksack mouth was open with the first coil partly out.

  “Stop! Stay where you are!” A shot kicked up gravel a yard from where they were huddled.

  “Purdy,” Cochrane stammered, “I wouldn’t jump with that thing if I were you!”

  A shadow fell back across them, and Lily Zhang said, “I wouldn’t either.”

  She spun her pudao in her hand and sank the blade deep into the ground. She took the end of a big coil of electric cable and looped it three times around the halberd shaft, turned and kicked a groove in the ground to brace her heel, and sank into a kneeling position with the halberd shaft against her shoulder and her bow clear in front of her with an arrow already nocked.

  “There’s more than 100 yards of coil there,” she said. “Start rappelling over the edge. Don’t hang—rappel!”

  “You can’t hold our weight,” gasped Cochrane.

  “Not if you just hang. And don’t ever tell me what I can’t do!” She loosed the arrow which tore through the midsection of an oncoming Chinese. “This is what I can’t do—I can’t be caught helping you. So, if I can’t kill them, and they get too close, I’m turning loose that cord. You’ll feel the change in tension for a second—then it’s gone.”

  Another rifle shot kicked up a burst of gravel that they felt more than saw. Lily calmly lined up the new target.

  “Let’s go. Stay close.” Purdy looped the chord around them in a makeshift harness, wrapped his arm around Cochrane’s waist and pushed off.

  They were swallowed up in darkness and a moment of weightless quiet. Cochrane’s stomach heaved. Then the chord caught on the edge and they started arcing toward the cliff face.

  “Bend your legs and kick off the wall!” Purdy snapped.

  “God-damned mansplainer! I know how to rappel!” She felt suddenly angry.