by Fritz Galt
“What about that letter?” Earl said. “I read it myself. Sure, the professor made a claim for some big find, but beyond that, it seemed to be little more than vague metaphors. How could it have meaning for anyone other than the professor’s daughter?”
“Oh, it says much more than that,” Sullivan said. “Her father is under government pressure and he had to sneak out the letter. It’s full of cryptic innuendo about a government coup in China.”
Earl sat back and studied Sullivan in a new light. So that was all it was, just a simple case of political intrigue. And he thought Brad might have done something wrong.
“Why don’t you have the State Department call for the old guy’s expulsion?”
“That sort of approach never works. The Chinese machinery is too intricate, and too many toes would get stepped on. We’re still working on getting the Tiananmen Square revolutionaries released from prison, and that happened in 1989.”
“So you’re using the sneaky approach. You’ll follow Brad and me, and we’ll lead you to the old guy.”
“That’s the idea.”
“That’s the craziest scheme I’ve ever heard. You want us to secretly render him out of the country on behalf of the CIA? Brad can’t speak Chinese, and I’m not exactly 007 material, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Actually, some of the best field work is done by those who are tenacious and highly motivated, not hot-shot Hollywood heroes. We’ve analyzed Brad enough to know that he doesn’t give up easily. And he’s enraptured enough with May to risk everything.”
“Gee, that’s very compassionate of the government. Why don’t you just shoot him in the head and save him the pain?”
“Nonsense. Brad isn’t without resources. We’ve given him help he doesn’t even know about. After all, you’re there to help him, aren’t you?”
“Does this mean I can get reimbursed for my travel expenses?”
Sullivan chuckled. “Sorry. Cutbacks. We’ve got the Middle East to subjugate.”
Earl was still trying to get his head around the fact that the CIA had found him qualified to help save China from a coup. Their recruiters were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. “So tell me this: Are you supposed to be hanging around my neck the whole while, or can I have a little breathing space? Suppose I call you once we find him.”
Sullivan shook his head. “This is too important. I’ll have to tag along with you.” He hung his head sheepishly. “Especially now, as it seems our guy lost Brad on the streets of Beijing. It’s up to you to take me to him.”
It was time to strike a bargain, get something in return. “Okay. I’m your man. But just one thing.”
“What’s that?” the CIA man asked.
“I want an alias, a handle, a false identity.”
“You mean like ‘Igor Sullivan?’”
“What?” Earl couldn’t resist poking fun at the improbable name. “Well now, isn’t this a shocker. You mean ‘Sullivan’ isn’t your real name?” he said with a note of sarcasm. “Who would have thunk it?”
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t. My real name is West. Bradley West. Senior, that is. At your service.”
Chapter 19
Brad’s first day of teaching English as a Second Language served as a template for his subsequent endeavors in the classroom. He could see the humdrum routine of an English teacher’s life continuing on indefinitely, with no endpoint or goal in sight.
The desks and whiteboard were the same, the sounds from the open window never changed, the smell of peeled paint on caked plaster became part of his being, the subject took no new direction, and he would only grow older. He needed to bring a fresh perspective to the staleness.
Through dumb luck, he found a great way to shape his lesson plan. There was a primer on teaching English as a Second Language for the Chinese learner that he had happened upon in the toilet stall. Thinking quickly, he had absconded with it and made it his bible. Never mind that other teachers had been using it as their toilet paper.
Since the Beijing Olympics were looming in the not-so-distant future, he tried to focus on everyday phrases that a Chinese host might need to communicate with his English-speaking guest.
As a result, he no longer stood out as an awkward interloper. Within days, he had faded into the woodwork. He had blended into the society. His students called him laoshi, or teacher, uniformly. Even if Liang was looking for him, he would never find Brad West, that is Llewellyn Vandermeulen, now.
He sat at his desk and composed the day’s first lesson on the spot before his class when the word teacup resonated in his head. Odd. He reached for his oily bread stick, and suddenly the teacup sitting before him inexplicably shattered. Its pieces flew against the classroom door and clattered to the floor.
The students looked at him like a group of spectators would look round-eyed at Houdini himself.
And now for his next trick—
Window.
He squinted to look out the open window. Across the street, a gunman kneeled on the rooftop and peered through a sniper scope. He was taking more careful aim at Brad.
And now for the disappearing teacher act—
Down.
He fell to the floor behind his desk. The desktop splintered above him.
Presto. Instant hole in the desk.
He had to make it to the door. The students stared agog at him as he scrambled on hands and knees across the floor. He reached for the door handle and zing. It dropped off the door. He pushed the door open with a shoulder and scooted around the corner. There he sat gasping with his back flattened against the wall.
Be as the mountain.
Getting a little cryptic there, aren’t we, Xen?
Two bullets drilled holes in the wall behind him. The splinters landed on his shoulders. Obviously cheap construction.
Break like the wind.
Now that was a little contemporary for an ancient forest god.
You were thinking thus.
Okay, the coast was clear. He jumped to his feet and sprinted down the hallway toward the stairwell. A single light bulb barely illuminated four flights of stairs, five floors in all. Halfway down, he heard men rushing up from below.
He reversed direction and climbed past his class’s floor. At the top, he closed the door behind him and bolted it tight. Teachers stridently called out lessons from every room on both sides of the hall.
He entered the first classroom on the courtyard side. The class turned and stared at him.
“Be polite, students,” the Irish schoolmarm of a teacher reminded them.
“Hello, sir. May we help you?”
“No, thank you.” He made for the courtyard window. “Just passing through.”
“Have a pleasant day,” the teacher replied, nonplused.
He stood on the windowsill and glanced around the exterior wall. There were no handholds leading down to the courtyard.
“Let’s conjugate ‘jump,’” the teacher instructed.
“I jump, you jump, he jumps,” the class recited in unison.
Brad had to hide from view. He reversed direction and lowered both feet down over the window ledge. The dusty stone windowsill was cracked and ravaged by time. Hanging by his fingers, he listened to the classroom above him.
“We jump, you jump, they all jump.”
A door was thrown open above him, and an assailant stormed into the room.
“Hello, sir. May we help you?”
Then Brad heard a scraping noise below. It was crawling up the brick wall, almost upon him. He looked down. The elderly security guard was wedging a ladder up beneath him.
He found the first rung with the toe of one sneaker, then the other sneaker. He gradually shifted his full weight from his hands to his feet. Hugging the wall, he stepped down another rung. Then he grabbed the ladder and quickly descended to the courtyard. He looked at the man whose friendly grin caused his face to wrinkle. “Thank you. Much obliged.”
“You are wery wercome.”
>
It was a triumph. His tenure at the school had been a success. But now he had to move on. So he headed off through the labyrinth of walkways that eventually led to the campus’ lone exit.
On the previous day, he had noticed that Beijing was laid out in a consistent fashion. All streets were lined by walls. Behind these walls were compounds. Each compound had a single gate with a guard on duty. In addition to demonstrating a bunker mentality, it made the street committees’ job of keeping tabs on everybody much easier.
It was that bottleneck at the entrance to his school that concerned him now. Liang’s hit men might be waiting for him to leave.
He paused beside one derelict building and watched the exit for an opportunity to flee. It would seem that no sooner had he gotten into the groove as a professor of English, than he had to leave.
A tour bus had just pulled up to the intersection. Its gleaming white sides and streamlined design called out to him. The bus was like an oasis of familiarity in an otherwise alien city.
He had noticed an umbrella stand by the administrator’s desk. Perhaps in his next incarnation he could become a tour guide. He rushed into the office and grabbed a yellow parasol along with a clipboard.
He opened the umbrella to shield his face from view. Then he stepped through the front gate of the school and waved the clipboard at the bus. Timing his arrival with the streetlight, he reached the bus door just as the traffic began to move. Nobody had gunned him down yet.
The door opened for him and he stepped onboard. A collection of Western faces turned to him with interest.
“Hello folks,” he said. “I’ll be your tour guide today.”
He felt the bus moving under him and steadied himself as they roared down the street. To his relief, no cars were taking off after them.
He looked at the rapt, elderly group on the bus. The made-up faces and dapper dress was no doubt meant to make a good impression on the Chinese. But after several days in the People’s Republic with its overall conformity, these people looked like a gaudy circus troupe.
“Who do we have on the bus today?” he asked.
Several of them cupped their ears to show they couldn’t hear.
He found a microphone lying on the seat across from the driver. He snatched it up and switched it on. “Where are you all from?” His voice boomed throughout the bus.
“San Antonio,” a man called out.
“Pittsburgh,” a woman said.
He was hit by a barrage of familiar sounding names.
“Well, I’m Brad from Tucson. And where are we going today?”
“The Great Wall of China!”
The Great Wall. Perfect. It was even a day ending in “Y.”
In his role as tour guide, he could draw upon his previous visit to the wall. There, waiting in vain for Earl, he had skimmed through several books on the history of the wall.
“I’m sure you all have been looking forward to seeing the Great Wall. It is indeed the biggest of the ancient wonders and stretches across China. Did you know that it is one of the few man-made structures that can be seen by the naked eye from outer space?”
“That sounds sacrilegious,” somebody muttered.
“Can anyone tell me why the wall was built?”
The group looked stumped.
“Has anyone seen Mulan?” he asked.
There was a chorus of yeses.
“So, does that give you a hint?”
“To keep the immigrants out?” a sweet Southern man said.
“I can see you all know your walls,” he replied in kind. He gave a friendly wave and turned to take his seat.
“Tell us more,” a woman demanded.
“More! More!”
These tourists were like piranhas, hungry for more information. Or were they just bored and wanted to hear the sound of his voice? Meanwhile, the bus driver leaned over the wheel like a madman and weaved between cars and accelerated at every opportunity. Brad checked the side view mirrors. No cops chasing after them.
“Tell us more!” his audience cried.
Brad closed his eyes to concentrate and then began.
“The Great Wall of China was built in 1205 ad by the emperor of China. The emperor at the time was Rong Wei, a great warrior who worried about Mongol hordes invading from the steppes of Russia. He commissioned his son Me Tu Yong to build a great wall that would stretch from the sea in the east to the deserts in the west. In its entirety, it would span twelve hundred miles and reach forty feet high. As the Mongols rode tiny ponies, this was considered to be plenty high indeed. “
He paused. They were still with him.
“The twelve-hundred-mile detour around the wall was considered to be a grueling deterrent to the various Mongol rulers, or Khans, who were very impatient, always looking for shortcuts, and hated to ask for directions.”
He paused for laughter. None was forthcoming.
“Originally built of bamboo, the first wall suffered a great tragedy when hordes of panda bears came marauding from the southern jungles and consumed some nine hundred miles of structure before being forced to retreat by an early winter.”
Again, no response.
“The second wall was built of solid stone quarried from west of Shanghai and ferried by boat all the way to the north of the country. Progress was slow, until they figured out they could use more than one boat.”
He glanced up. They had happy smiles on their faces.
“As you will notice, engraved on each stone in the wall is a tiny seal of the emperor in the shape of a two-headed dragon breathing fire from its nostrils. This was to instill fear in the invader’s hearts and to make sure no pirated building materials were used.”
He paused for a reaction. He saw only sympathetic nods.
“Many men died building the wall, and records from that period indicate that two thousand died each day for twelve years erecting the wall, before they enacted stricter OSHA compliance standards. Therefore the wall is named ‘Great,’ not for its size and length, but for the prodigious mortality the wall inflicted on these builders. It was often said at the time, ‘If only we could hire the Mongol hordes themselves to build the wall, there would be none left to invade us.’”
He looked up. Were they still awake?
“Now, the word ‘Wall’ is a misnomer as well. The original Chinese word ‘kung’ has been incorrectly translated. In Chinese, kung means ‘snake’ because the structure resembles a snake, its long, winding body draped over the Yellow Hills of northern China. So in effect, the original Chinese name means ‘Flaccid Snake’ which is how they felt about the wall. It may have been a limp serpent, but it was screwing the hell out of the Chinese people.”
What else did he remember from the guidebooks? That was about all he knew.
He sneaked another peek at the passengers. From the bemused expressions on their faces, they seemed happy enough.
“Now, has anyone ever heard of Peking Man?”
“No, but I really enjoyed the Peking Duck,” a man said with a Texan twang.
Brad laughed at the good-natured heckle. Then he continued undeterred on the subject of Peking Man, which he found infinitely more familiar.
They continued at breakneck speed across the countryside. They passed farmers who had yoked their wives to plows. They saw terraced orchards, waterfowl in quiet streams, and caged pigs being driven off to market.
An hour later, Brad found he was losing track of his train of thought. Teaching an anthropology class was demanding work, but keeping up the patter for hours gave him a whole new respect for tour guides. How much longer did he have to go on?
He set the microphone down.
To his chagrin, there was no angry reaction from the group. He looked back, and they were either all fast asleep or gently yielding to jetlag.
You have a way with the old ones.
At least someone was listening.
You will be kind with children as well, once you yourself grow up, of course.
�
��You again,” Brad whispered under his breath. “I guess I should thank you for the heads-up back at school.”
To serve is divine.
How powerful was this voice in his left ear anyway? At the moment, most of Brad’s money was under his mattress. “Do you think you could serve me up some cash? I don’t even have my phony residence card. Just what in Sam Hill am I supposed to do?”
To think, to wait, to be one with your humble spirit guide.
“Gee, thanks. I’ll try to remember that while looking for a dumpster to sleep in tonight.”
He noticed the bus driver watching him as he spoke to no one in particular.
Why did he have to speak out loud for an imaginary voice to hear him? He decided to try thinking what he wanted to say rather than blurting it out.
Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing. Can you read me, planet Xen-hat? Come in.
Say, you are learning something after all.
Oh yeah. He was making all sorts of progress. Pretty soon he would be wandering the streets with a tin foil hat and a piece of old rope for a belt, trying to warn random strangers about aliens.
A very high calling indeed. But we are not expecting you to rise to such greatness in this incarnation.
“Oh, come on,” one of the old ladies egged Brad on. “Join us on the wall.”
He stepped out of the bus. “I’ve been here a million times,” he lied, and looked around the parking lot for police or hit squads.
The bus driver ran ahead to the ticket booth while the passengers spilled out around him, effectively shielding him from view. The hillside swarmed with tour buses and colorfully clad crowds of visitors.
“Lookie, lookie here,” hawkers called out. They lined the route up the hill selling everything from rip-off products to quilts and vases and “I Climbed the Great Wall” T-shirts.
The bus passengers prodded him up the slope. He had to stay with them or risk exposure to a potential gunman.
A massive, reconstructed section of the Great Wall towered above them in all its magnificence. If he had to meet his Maker, he had sure picked a dramatic spot.
