"And what is happening?" she demanded.
"Very unfortunate," Deng said. "Mr. Stratton, the American tourist, purchased a rare poisonous snake from a street vendor. His plan was to smuggle it out of China to the United States. It was a king cobra, the most terrible snake in the world, Comrade. Zoos in America would pay handsomely for a specimen-and the one meiguoren wanted to smuggle was certainly large and healthy."
"Unfortunately," Liao broke in, "the American was careless. The snake bit him.
He fell forward, shattering his nose on the floor-see here." With a blue canvas shoe, Liao daubed at a blood smear on the wood.
"But the fall didn't matter," Deng said. "He probably was dead already. One drop of the king cobra's venom can kill a horse."
Kangmei stared at the empty sack in Deng's hand and began to whimper. She dressed with her back to the cadres.
"Come now, we will take you away," Deng said. "In the morning, we will notify the deputy minister. If you behave, my friend and I will leave the explanation of this up to you. It is not our place to tell the deputy minister that his daughter is a common whore."
"A traitorous whore!" Liao barked, pushing her toward the door.
"But Thom-as!" Kangmei cried.
"We will come back in a little while," Deng said, "to arrange things."
"Yes," Liao said with a satisfied smile. "The snake will require special attention."
Tom Stratton inched into a corner of the closet and balled up like some gangly, naked autistic child. He ached and he itched, but he dared not stretch or scratch. Every motion was a clue, and every tiny noise a magnet for the huge killing machine that shared his darkness.
He knew a little about cobras: that their vision was excellent, their sensory reflexes keen, all filtered through a magical flicking tongue that could find a rat or a lizard or a camouflaged toad in the blackest of Asian jungle nights.
Man was not prey; he was an enemy. The cobra, Stratton knew, would not attack unless cornered and threatened.
It was a small closet, but Stratton gladly surrendered most of it to the reptile. During the argument outside the door, it had moved back and forth, brushing silkily against his feet and legs. Occasionally, its shadow crossed the floor in such a way that it obliterated the crack of light beneath the door. In those moments of total darkness, Stratton would close his eyes, for he feared an unseen strike at his face, and strained to listen for the cobra's breathing. He could hear nothing. In and out, the tongue was reading him, measuring him, taking his temperature… all in silence.
It was a superb creature, a mystical creature.
When the door to the hotel room closed, and Kangmei and her captors were gone, the snake seemed to settle down in a corner of its own. In his mind's eye, Stratton could see its thick olive coils-and the hooded head, motionless and erect.
After an hour, Stratton decided that the snake was as relaxed as it was ever going to be. He edged on his buttocks across the dusty floor, inches at a time, pausing several moments between moves. From the corner where he imagined that the cobra slept there came no sound.
Stratton eased himself up to the door. His right hand spidered slowly across the wood until it found the knob. He twisted and pushed-but the door would not budge. Stratton tried again, this time with his shoulder as a buttress. The door held fast. The problem was breaking it down without arousing the cobra.
Stratton's knees cracked loudly as he struggled to his feet. The ankle ropes had been a cinch, even in the darkness. If he could just get out of the goddamn closet, he would be free.
He was careful not to move his legs; instead, he pivoted from the waist up, ramming the door with his upper body. Stratton could feel the hinges weaken. He rammed again, a bayonet-thrust without the sword. And once more with all of his hundred ninety pounds.
On Stratton's third try the snake struck. He heard the hiss and felt the passing breath. Stratton froze. The cobra struck again, biting air. Six inches to the left and the fangs would have pierced Stratton's groin.
The cobra was angry. The sweat, the heat of human exertion, the blood racing through Stratton's body as he pounded the door-all this had ignited the snake's primal reflex.
Instinctively, Stratton jumped to his left, crashing into a suit of clothes that hung from a dowel. The snake followed. Once, ssshhhhhh, in the air. Again, closer, a deadly sibilance two inches from Stratton's ear. And once more, higher and longer…
Stratton pressed his head against the wall; he held himself there to stay out of range. Now he heard a different sound. The cobra was struggling in front of him, thrashing wildly in the folds of clothing. Stratton knew instantly what had happened. Its fangs were hung in the fabric. The beast was stuck like a dart on cork.
He reached out and found the snake. He grabbed it like a rope, working upward, hand-over-hand toward the frantic lethal head. Stratton found the cobra's hood.
It seemed enormous, but it folded smoothly in his grip. Stratton kneaded his way to the head.
Both hands yanked the cobra down to the floor of the closet. Squeezing its neck with all of his strength, he threw his body on the writhing coils. The cobra took twelve and one-half minutes to die. Stratton knew. He counted every second.
"Thomas! I hear you in there." Alice Dempsey paced the hallway outside the hotel room. Her voice dripped with annoyance. "You missed breakfast again, and you're about to miss the bus." Alice despised disorder; Stratton embodied it. In her mind, she had already composed a stern letter to his dean. The trip was a farce as far as Stratton went. He had disappeared for days at a time. He had openly taunted his colleagues. He had insulted the Chinese and even fought with them, for God's sake. Stratton would live to regret his inexcusable behavior.
"Come on!"
Alice knocked again. This time the door swung open on its own. Two Chinese strangers stood there. One wore a Mao cap pulled down low over his eyes.
"Where's Mr. Stratton?" Alice demanded. She sensed trouble.
The man with the cap shrugged and said nothing.
"Do you understand English?"
The other man, younger than the first, shook his head no. Alice took a step inside. The bed had been slept in, but the room held no sign of Stratton. The drawers in the bureau had been drawn half open. The closet door was ajar-it too was empty-but something caught Alice's eye: a length of heavy rope hung from the outside doorknob. In one corner of the room appeared to be another length of rope, brownish green in color, and glossy, as if it were made of plastic.
Curious, Alice stepped forward for a closer look.
She let out a hoarse scream when she saw that the coil of rope was actually a large dead snake.
The man with the Mao cap pointed to the reptile and then tapped his chest proudly.
"You killed it?" Alice gasped.
The man nodded excitedly and pointed at his friend. Then he performed a brief pantomime, clubbing at the floor with an imaginary truncheon. Then he pointed at the cobra again and grinned.
Alice returned a nervous smile. "Well, you both are very brave. But where has Mr. Stratton gone? Have you seen him?"
The men's faces went blank.
"Weiguoren," Alice said, laboring over each syllable.
"Wei," answered the man in the Mao cap. It was as good as a shrug.
Alice bowed goodbye and left the room, grumbling. No one on the bus would believe this.
Stratton poured himself a large cup of hot tea and drank it quickly; the train would lurch to a start any second, and he didn't want the steaming cup to spill in his lap. That the soft-class compartment was unoccupied was his second stroke of luck this morning. The first had been talking his way onto the Peking-bound train. His papers showed that he was not routed back to Peking, and the clerk at the station had noticed the discrepancy at first glance. She had called for an interpreter, who had explained that Stratton could not leave Xian until the date prescribed on his papers. Stratton had responded with a hideously graphic story about food poisoning from some bad snails; he even interrupted the discussion and run to the restroom, pretending to be sick. It was a good performance, and both the clerk and the translator had solemnly agreed that he should return to Peking at once for rest and medical treatment.