"No!" Kangmei cried. "You are wrong, Father. Stratton was a friend of my uncle, that it all. He mourns David Wang as a friend mourns, deeply and sincerely. This I know. I've done nothing shameful-"
"That is enough," Wang Bin said coldly.
"No!" Kangmei was on her feet, shouting and crying at once. "How can you treat a daughter like this? The thugs who beat me, attacked me in my bed-they should be in jail, not me. Yet I am dragged from my room, tied up, gagged, and thrown in a dirty cell with dangerous criminals. Why, Father?"
Wang Bin laughed shortly and stubbed out his cigarette. "Your pitiful cellmates hardly qualify as dangerous criminals. They are petty thieves, my daughter, that's all. They're being punished for pilfering from the archaeological sites-nothing valuable: trinkets, really. But it is important to set an example for the others. Stealing cannot be tolerated at such historic places. However, these people are not truly dangerous, so stop the tears."
Kangmei asked, "Must I go back to the cell?"
Wang Bin circled the small desk and slipped an arm around his daughter's trembling shoulders. "No," he said. "We're going on a trip."
Kangmei pulled away and faced her father. "Where?"
"South," he replied, "to a small village. Kangmei, there is something you must do for me-and for yourself. To erase what has happened is impossible. But it is still possible for you to repent, to have a future, and perhaps even a good position in China. You must do as I say."
"And if I refuse?"
Wang Bin raised his hands in a gesture of feigned indifference. "Then I will not hesitate to put you on the first train to Tibet, where you can grub potatoes for the next five years."
Torn Stratton awoke to the hum of flies circling his head. His cheek pressed against an earthen floor, and the cool smell of clay filled his nostrils.
As he righted himself, the bleak room spun briefly. His arms and legs were free.
His thigh throbbed, and by the dismal condition of the bandage, Stratton knew that his captors had not changed the dressing.
His cell was spartan: a single wooden chair, straight-backed, handmade, with a crude hemp seat; a solitary bare light bulb, fixed in the rafters; a large ceramic bowl, crusted with stale rice and scum, buzzing with insects; and a single window, at eye level, crisscrossed in a loose pattern with barbed wire.
Tom Stratton was alone. He paced the dimensions of the room at eight feet by twelve. The heavy door was made of intransigent timber. Stratton knew it would never yield to his shoulder.
Peering through the window, which measured about a foot square, Stratton expected to see a military compound with marching squads of People's Liberation Army soldiers, or at least some uniformed police. Instead he saw a newly paved road and a large parking lot half-filled with trucks and bicycles; beyond that, a banana grove carpeted an entire hillside. A lorry painted dark PLA green trundled down the two-lane road and stopped in the parking lot no more than fifty yards from Stratton's cell. He watched a quiet but affable procession of Chinese jump down and form an orderly group. The men wore sturdy gray or brown slacks, starched shirts open at the neck, while the pigtailed women wore loose-fitting pants and white cotton blouses. Their clothing was too fancy for work. Stratton assumed that the visitors were local tourists.
The truck rattled off, and the Chinese marched dutifully toward the building in which Stratton was being held. They crossed only a few feet from his cell, talking in pleasant tones, until they finally passed out of Stratton's sight.
He decided that his dungeon definitely was not part of a regular Chinese jail.
Stratton moved to the corner of the room that garnered the most light from the small window. There he peeled off the soiled bandage and examined the bullet hole in his right thigh. The dime-sized wound was black and scabbed, but the vermilion halo around it announced that infection had set in. Stratton's only piece of clothing, a short-sleeved sports shirt, was rancid from the long train ride, and of no use as a sponge. Reluctantly, he rewrapped his injured leg with the same dirty gauze, and sat down to wait for his keepers.
They arrived without pleasantries, an hour before dusk; three men, lean, unremarkable, impassive at first. They wore no uniforms, which surprised Stratton. One of them, who carried a rifle with a bayonet, motioned Stratton out of the cell.
He was led to a small courtyard whose boundaries were marked by tangled hedges.
Red bougainvillea plants radiantly climbed the walls of the otherwise drab buildings that formed the complex. The place reminded Stratton of a monastery.
The men stopped in the middle of the courtyard. Stratton faced them. He was naked from the waist down, and filthy. His mustache was flecked with clay, and it smelled.
"Could I have a pair of trousers?" Stratton asked.
His escorts glanced at each other. They spoke no English. The one with the rifle suddenly raised it to his shoulder and aimed at Stratton's dangling genitals.
"Pah! Pah!" he barked, pretending to pull the trigger. "Pah! Pah! Pah!"
His comrades sniggered. The rifleman lowered the gun and his face grew stoic once again.
Stratton lifted his arms from his sides. "You missed," he said, pointing. "See?"
Self-consciously, the escorts averted their eyes. From across the plaza came the sound of many voices. Stratton realized that the workers at the compound had been summoned to witness a public humiliation-his own.
As the Chinese filed through the courtyard, they bunched into a confused knot at the side of the half-naked American, standing at attention in the day's final shadows. A few jeered. Others laughed and pointed. Then, some of the women became upset and began to leave. The men also soon wearied of the spectacle.
Stratton was too exhausted to be embarrassed, but the three guards wore satisfied smiles.
After the workers had gone, the men took Stratton outside the compound to an alley. One of them twisted the handle on a water faucet, and a stream of cold water shot out. The man with the bayonet pointed at the swelling puddle.
Stratton obligingly stripped out of his shirt and removed the bandage from his thigh. He squatted beneath the faucet and closed his eyes. The frigid water was invigorating, but his injured leg stiffened in protest. While his feet and his buttocks rested in the murky puddle, Stratton was careful to keep the wound clean. He pressed his scalp to the mouth of the faucet, and let the hard water rinse the grime from his hair.
"Gow!" commanded one of the watchers. Enough.
Stratton stood up and smoothed his hair back. Then he slipped into his shirt.
One of the escorts held out the rag that had served as his bandage.
"But it's too dirty," Stratton objected.
The man with the gun stared back blankly. Stratton wrapped the fetid gauze around his upper leg and tied it with a small knot.
With a sharp shove to the small of his back, Stratton was directed to his cell.
One of the jailers followed him inside just long enough to ladle two scoops of rice into the food dish, and to replace a rusty tin can full of water on the earthen floor.
The door closed heavily, and night swallowed Stratton's room with a humid gulp.
Outside, in the tropical orchards, birds whistled. The hills were dotted sparsely with yellow lights from distant communes.
Stratton waved the flies off the bowl of rice, and put a cold lumpy handful in his mouth.
He decided that the march to the water faucet had been a good sign. Certainly the bath had not been meant for his benefit, so it could mean only one thing.