by Fritz Galt
She shook her head and began to wiggle in a squatting position.
“A genie?”
She got down on all fours and wagged her bottom in the air, hissing at him.
“A hooker?”
She frowned. She wasn’t getting it across.
“Never mind,” he said. “He killed a whatever. Go on.”
“According to legend, he turned down two women’s hands in marriage.”
Marriage. She knew that word in English.
She went on. “So they jumped off a hill.”
“Leapt off a cliff?”
She frowned and continued. “So later, he became sad. So he jumped off the hill. The next year, they rose as butterflies from the spring.”
“Right here?”
“Nearby. There are famous poems about the Butterfly Spring. In the 1960s, we made a movie about it. And every year we celebrate the Butterfly Spring. You never heard?”
It was a good story.
“It is very famous,” she said. “How can you say you know China if you don’t know about the Butterfly Spring?”
Good question.
Suddenly the silence between them meant more than an awkward moment. Where were the policemen?
“We’ve got to keep moving,” he said.
They were at the end of the alley. It was only a matter of time before the cops found a way around the lye. “Let’s climb over the wall.”
“You cannot do that,” she said, as if it were an unwritten law.
“Watch me.”
He climbed on top of an empty incense burner between the two temples. Then he put one foot on the head of a python statue and grabbed the first dragon sitting on the end of the curved roof.
“Follow me.”
He hauled himself up onto the peak of the roof. From there, he saw similar roofs and courtyards.
He dropped into the neighboring courtyard. The compound adjoined a different alley and would be harder for the police to find.
He caught May as she dropped off the roof. He let her slide down his chest. She had the slim form of a cat burglar. Maybe she had missed her calling.
The private courtyard was empty. Bright sunlight slanted into a living room and various bedrooms. Clothes lay drying on the backs of wicker chairs. He poked his head into several rooms. It gave a glimpse of how extended families lived. But the last room caught him by surprise.
In the reflected light, a high-tech embroidery machine gleamed against the far wall. Ten feet long, it must have been difficult to install. In fact, the only way the owner could have gotten it in there was by tearing down a wall.
May crouched inside the room and dug into her shoulder bag. She pulled out the identity cards. Holding them up to the light, she studied the two faces.
Brad examined Ming Wen’s card. It showed the face of the woman whose name he had adopted.
“Does this really look like me?” he asked.
She laughed. “Yes. You have the head of a rat.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“You are welcome. That means you are shrewd,” she complimented him.
“Okay. I’ll accept that. But what’re you going to do with a man’s identity card?”
She held her long tresses up and exposed the elegant back of her neck. “I am looking like him.”
“Even if you cut your hair, your figure would give you away.”
She straightened her back, tucked her rear in and squared her shoulders. “I need a belt around my dogs,” she decided.
“Around your what?”
She pointed to her breasts.
“Ah, your puppies.”
She hauled him to his feet and began unbuckling his belt. She pulled it off and left his pants sagging around his hips. She reached under her shirt and fiddled with the belt for a minute.
“Need any help?”
She gave him a reproving look.
Then she grabbed a pair of scissors off the embroidery machine. With one fist around a wad of hair, she prepared to snip it off.
He reached up quickly and took the scissors away.
“Hold everything. Cutting your hair? Wearing a man’s disguise?” He set the scissors down. “I’m having a Mulan moment here.”
“What is a Mulan?”
He stared at her. Had she never heard of the most famous woman in Chinese history? Had she never watched the one movie that singularly defined China for the rest of the world?
“Let me get this straight. You don’t know about Mulan, who changed the course of your country’s history?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know him.”
He buried his face in his hands. What they didn’t teach in schools these days. Mulan was a real person. Wasn’t she?
Then he heard a silky snip. He looked up too late. A shower of two-foot-long hair rained down on the floor, leaving May’s neck and entire back exposed. She snipped in front and created bangs.
He winced. “Are you out of your mind?”
She half-turned to him with a smile. It was a perfect Audrey Hepburn smile. And he knew instantly that she had made the right decision. He caught his breath. She was a goddess with a pageboy look.
She might look different and even act different. But was she the same person he had asked to marry him? He liked the new look, but he had to shrug off the feeling that he was getting involved with a whole new woman.
“Hello, cutie,” came her low voice.
“So you’re that man now?” He grabbed the identity card from her. When he looked at her again, her legs were spread apart and her hands were on her hips. She wore a scowl and a had slim figure that could easily be mistaken for a man’s.
“One thing,” Brad said. “If you’re going to be a man, wear men’s clothes.”
At that moment, a voice crackled over a police radio on the other side of the wall. The cops had made it to the shrines.
Brad threw the pile of cut hair behind the machine and took May by the hand. In the next room, he found several sets of clothes that were spread out to dry. One dumpy item was a men’s tan suit coat. Dark trousers lay beside it.
“Try them on,” he said.
She stepped into the outfit and transformed into someone he didn’t know. It took a moment to take in her new appearance, lest he lose her in a crowd. She stepped into shoes and the metamorphosis was complete. She was the young man on her ID card.
“Now for you,” she said.
“Me?” It was true. He was not a woman. Nor did he intend to wear women’s clothing.
She smiled and reached for a mirror on the wall behind him. “Look at yourself.”
He took the mirror. His face was streaked with navy blue dye. Most of his hair had already turned dark.
He felt his hair with the tips of his fingers. It was still wet. He rubbed his fingers and the color spread to whatever he touched. Peering in the mirror, he worked with his hair until every last lock was darker than the evening sky. In the end, it looked black with a stylish blue sheen. He looked nothing like the picture, but he didn’t look anything like himself, either.
Interesting.
Boots scraped against the opposite side of the wall.
“Here.” May grabbed an embroidered black apron. “Put this on.”
“Not on your life.”
He put it on.
She led him out the gate and down the street. It was a cobblestone thoroughfare lined with shops. She took him toward the town center and to the shade of a banyan tree. Before them was a stage where traveling musicians might perform.
Now it was an open-air market in full swing. Farmers and retailers stood behind tables and pushcarts displaying their wares.
With one eye on their tail, Brad and May stepped into the throng. The place was a buffet for the senses. Women in feather headgear sold fruit and vegetables by the piece. Vendors sold eels and tea, brick cheese, hot peppers, sprouts, and eggs. There were mounds of noodles, sunflower seeds, white and brown sugar, and rice. Bakers sold cookies, candy, and sweet and salty pizzas.
Then there were tables with modern conveniences such as pottery, clocks, pots, peelers, lighters, and flashlights. Artisans displayed marble goods, a specialty of the region.
He thought of copping a new wardrobe from the selection of dresses, hats, socks, earmuffs and gloves. But the vendors were eyeing him suspiciously.
They ducked down a side street. There, a housewife moving to Yunnan could buy anything she needed to set up house: brooms, baskets, yarn, incense, beer, jello and detergent.
As Ming Wen, he feigned interest in the domestic items and vendors left him alone to peruse their products. He could wander through the coal, cigarettes and cell phones unmolested. He was able to pick up items, duck behind tables, and otherwise blend in as a Chinese woman. He felt nearly invisible. He delighted in the textures and smells of China in a whole new way.
They rounded a fertilizer shop and the spell was broken. They were face-to-face with the intercity bus depot.
“Tickets?” May said.
It was time to plan their next move.
A map of the region was posted on the wall. He approached it and zoomed in on where they were. They had been skirting the fringe of the mountains. They should work their way further into the vibrant heart of the region.
A bus was just pulling through the dirt lot. A sign in its front window read, “Shangri-la.”
“That’s us,” he said.
Within seconds, May had two tickets in hand and they chased after it.
The driver was following a slow-moving cart. May rapped on the window. He swung the door open and they climbed in.
Brad found seats in the back, but didn’t look out the rear window lest the police spotted him. Only after the bus took off in a cloud of burning oil and yellow dust did he look outside.
The cops and village were gone. All he could see were the fertile plain and the large blue lake disappearing behind them.
Chapter 52
The lunch line at the CIA cafeteria had closed, so Igor Sullivan and Linda went down the hall to the deli for sandwiches.
While they waited for their order, Sullivan overheard snatches of conversation among those in line. Not having read the newspapers for a day, he could make little sense of the chatter.
“My guess is London will call snap elections,” a man was saying.
“It must not be a business trip,” came a voice from elsewhere.
“The terrorists won’t know where to find him now,” went another conversation.
“A presidential pardon mid term? Maybe I should try white-collar crime. And where does he go…to the Alps.”
The conversations seemed disconnected and certainly unrelated to where his mind was.
“Let’s eat outside,” he said. “I’m getting distracted.”
It was a pleasant afternoon, even hot for June. He loosened his tie and sat on a thick patch of grass under a shady oak tree.
It felt like he had just spent an entire morning in the college library cramming for a final. And the coed he was ogling was going to get a better grade no matter how hard he tried. “To be honest, you wear me out.”
“You showed some awesome stamina last night,” she said.
“Sit down. I was talking about this morning.”
She tucked her skirt between her knees and sat opposite him.
They couldn’t talk about work, although WWII history hardly seemed top secret any longer. Professional training prevented Sullivan from even mentioning the topic they were studying.
“Let’s hit Georgetown tonight,” he suggested. “I know a fabulous old-fashioned French bistro.”
She smiled sweetly. “My friend works there.”
“Oh.” That stopped the conversation cold. Running into former lovers was always a hazard in a company town like Washington. “Does that mean we can’t…”
Linda laughed. “Of course we can. She won’t mind. In fact, she’s accused me of not having much of a social life.” She took a bite out of her sandwich.
“You do seem dedicated to your job.”
She finished the bite. “Why would you say that? I don’t put in longer hours than anyone else.”
“Linda, in the span of two hours this morning you out-researched me, out-analyzed me, and outwitted me in every way.”
“That’s because I’m a researcher. That’s what I do.”
He didn’t buy the explanation. “That’s what they hired me for. Why aren’t you a case officer?”
She reached over and wiped a crumb off his chin. “Honey, don’t flatter yourself.”
Wait, he was trying to compliment her.
“Besides, when it comes to danger, I’m a total wimp.”
Danger. Like getting carpal tunnel syndrome from all his web browsing. Danger was what Brad faced. Posted to Washington, Sullivan couldn’t claim to face any of it.
But as long as she admired him for it… Maybe he could even justify her admiration that evening, say making a risky left turn in Georgetown.
“What is it?” she said, as if unable to read his thoughts.
“Nothing. Let’s get back to work.”
Back in his office, he closed the door behind them and began to refocus on the past.
Clearly, world leaders in the early 1940s all had Shangri-la on their minds. If they weren’t setting up bureaus to investigate it, they were launching expeditions or funding researchers to live there. The grand plan behind Germany’s push was to take Central Asia. Stalin had designs on China. And FDR had sent General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell to carve a road through the jungles of Burma to get there.
Old Adolf, Josef and Franklin were being naughty boys as their war machines ground away at each other.
What made the enterprise so vivid was the fact that Shangri-la, or whatever it was called, did exist in some form. His next thought made his blood run cold. Whatever happened to those guys? Surely they weren’t successful. Hadn’t each died in some unexpected or unexplained way?
He stared at Linda. “What I want to know is this: did Hitler, Stalin and FDR ultimately get there?”
“I must admit, I did look into that yesterday. I don’t know if they reached Shangri-la, but if you want me to build a case for them surviving their ‘deaths,’ I can.”
He nodded.
“Where should we begin?” she said.
He always wanted to investigate Adolf’s dramatic suicide in Berlin. “What do you know about Hitler?”
“Plenty,” she said. “And nothing at all.”
He sat back. “Explain.”
She fingered a book as if she needed to open its cover, but plunged in from memory. “According to several accounts, during the last days of the war on the afternoon of April 30, 1945, Hitler poisoned his newlywed bride Eva Braun in a private room of their bunker under the Chancellery’s grounds. Then he shot himself to death.”
“Says who?”
She waved him off and continued. “As per his will, SS guards allegedly cremated their bodies and buried the remains.”
“Allegedly?”
“The bodies were never unearthed and positively identified.”
That left ample room for speculation. “And there was no forensic evidence?”
“After the Russians took control of the bunker, they announced that Hitler’s body had not been found. That set off a widespread search all over Germany and Austria to find him. Only later, after SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence agency, conducted two separate investigations, including interviews with Hitler’s staff, did they cobble together a narrative for Hitler’s last days. Russia still claims to have a fragment of his skull with a bullet hole through it, but historians dispute that it is Hitler’s.”
“So you’re saying that there’s no conclusive forensic evidence that he died.”
“It is possible that he escaped.”
“But Berlin was surrounded by Russian tanks. How could he have made it out?”
“Others were able to escape. The next day, the one-armed leader of the Hitler Youth named Artur Axm
ann along with Hitler’s personal secretary Martin Bormann and his personal doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, if I have his name right, made it out of the bunker on foot, then across Berlin via subway. Axmann was later discovered living in Germany under an alias, and the other two were never found. They either never made it out of Berlin or ended up someplace else, say South America.”
“So there were escape routes.” He remembered back to his days in Berlin. Hell, there were even tunnels under the Berlin Wall.
Linda went on. “But there was a suicide at Hitler’s bunker. The next day, Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife and six small children all took cyanide capsules in the bunker and died.”
“Fanatics,” he said.
“Or a smoke screen?”
He had heard many crackpot theories about Hitler having survived the war, and God knows there was enough fiction based on the assumption. In fact, it was the cornerstone of the neo-Nazi movement. “Do you buy into all the speculation?”
“Whose word do we have that he died?” she asked. “The KGB, which buried their evidence in a file labeled ‘Operation Myth’? The words of a few German soldiers and a staff who remained loyal to the end? I wouldn’t trust either.”
He had to concede the point. Who knew why Stalin’s KGB did what they did? In any event, whatever they did was never made clear to the public.
Linda continued. “Finally, Hitler, the consummate planner, could hardly be unaware that the end was in sight. One could even show that he intended to cover his tracks through defeat by opening up a second front mid-war and taking on Stalin. In fact, he had drawn up elaborate plans to destroy what remained of German industry, communications and transport.”
“He was a fanatic. A cultist.”
“Perhaps. Or was it an elaborate mass suicide? He knew the subject well. All three of Adolf’s girlfriends attempted suicide at some point in their lives.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“And his favorite opera was Richard Wagner’s Rienzi. He saw it in Vienna as a youth, then over forty times during the course of his life.”
“I never saw it.”
“That’s a good thing. The opera takes two days to perform.” She flipped through a slim volume, a kind of CliffsNotes to the opera’s libretto. “It tells the life story of Cola di Rienzi, a figure in Italy’s medieval past, a man of the people. He sets out to outwit and then defeat the nobles and their followers, which he does, giving power to the people. He treats the nobles well, but is forced to crush their rebellion. Eventually popular opinion changes, and even the Church turns against him. In the end, the people burn the capital, where he and the last of his diehard believers are holed up. Don’t tell me Hitler didn’t know this was coming. He had followed this blueprint for his entire career.”
