"It is not what it seems," Wang Bin said finally. "I will explain later… and apologize. Now we must go quickly. Here, put on these, there is a chill."
The deputy minister handed his brother a well-cut gray Mao suit with a mourner's band pinned to the sleeve of the jacket, and a pair of vigorously polished black shoes, one-half size too small.
"Please, hurry, David. We must go."
Befuddled, unspeaking, David Wang dressed and followed his younger brother into the night. Wang Bin walked briskly. He had but thirteen hours left.
"What do you mean you can't drive?"
"I was never permitted to learn… it was not my job," Kangmei stammered. "In this country, we have drivers-"
"Get in," Stratton said.
The truck was a bad Chinese imitation of a bad Russian flatbed, but it was the only vehicle in the museum's parking lot with keys in the ignition. Stratton's original plan had been to hide under some lumber in the truck and let Kangmei navigate the escape, but now he had no choice. Night was on his side, but not much else. Any half-blind idiot would see that the driver of this truck was not Chinese. Stratton turned the key and urged the transmission into first gear. The clutch yelped like a dog on fire.
"This is terrific," Stratton muttered as they trundled down the two-lane blacktop.
Kangmei gave him a puzzled stare. Stratton laughed and reached out for her hand.
"Never mind," he said. "Where to?"
"A very safe place," she answered, "but a long, long way, Thom-as. Eighty kilometers."
Stratton flicked the headlights on and tried to hunch down as low as he would go in the driver's seat. Kangmei found a dirty canvas cap under the seat, dusted it off and stuck it on Stratton's head.
"I'm worried about you," he said after a few minutes. "If we get stopped, I'm running. You tell them I kidnapped you and stole the truck. Tell them you never saw me before. I want you to promise."
"No," Kangmei said quietly. "I will not lie again. My father made me say those things at the struggle session. I am very sorry. He told me you were a spy."
"Did you believe him?"
"No." She looked at him pridefully. "It wouldn't matter if you were."
The sluggish truck picked up speed alarmingly on a long downhill stretch. A quarter-mile ahead, Stratton could make out a group of commune workers, trudging home down the middle of the road. He pressed on the horn and they parted slowly.
Their ox, however, was disinclined to yield the right of way. Stratton honked again and pumped the brakes slowly.
Incredibly, the barn-shouldered animal turned to face the noisy intruder.
"Oh, shit," Stratton said. As the truck bore down on the ox, Stratton leaned hard on the horn. At the last second, he cut the wheel and steered onto the shoulder, around the ox and its peasant entourage. In the rearview mirror, he saw several men shake their fists at the truck. Kangmei trembled next to him.
"Sorry," Stratton said sheepishly. "They acted like they own the road."
"They do," Kangmei said evenly.
The unlit road was newly paved in some sections, pocked and dangerous in others.
The hill countryside was lush with citrus stands, cane fields and banana groves.
Here and there the night was broken by a commune's lights or the pinprick headlights of a distant truck, but mostly Kangmei and Tom Stratton were alone.
Stratton recounted his confrontation with Wang Bin in the museum cell.
"But how could my uncle be alive?" Kangmei asked.
"Because your father is planning something, and he needs his brother-at least for a while," Stratton conjectured. "When he's done, I think Wang Bin will kill David. We don't have much time. Kangmei, it's important that we get out of China so I can contact the State Department. Hong Kong would be the best."
"An overnight train from where we are going," she said. "But you have no papers.
How will you leave China?"
"Can we go tomorrow?"
Kangmei did not answer right away.
"If I return to Peking, your father will have me arrested," Stratton said.
"There is nowhere I can go but out. There's nothing I can do here for David."
"The place I'm taking you is very safe, Thom-as."
"For me, maybe. Think of your uncle. If the U.S. Embassy only knew he was alive.
Kangmei, we could call them in the morning-"
She shook her head glumly. "Where we are going, there are no telephones."
"Do you believe what I'm telling you, that David is alive?"
Kangmei said, "I don't know. It is hard to accept." In the darkness, Stratton could not see the tension on her face, but he could sense it.
The boundaries of the mountain road became indistinct as it snaked through acres of tall pines. When the truck rattled past a plywood sign erected at the foot of a hill, Kangmei sat up and grabbed Stratton's elbow.
"Slow down, Thom-as. The sign says there is a police stop ahead. One half a kilometer."
Stratton quickly downshifted, pulled off the road and dimmed the lights. "We'll never slip through with me at the wheel," he said, turning to Kangmei. "How'd you like a driving lesson?"
Her eyes surveyed the simple dashboard instruments with trepidation. "I don't think so," she said.
"You've got to. Come here, sit closer and I'll show you." Stratton kept his foot on the clutch and ran through the gears one time. "Hell," he said, "my father drove one of these tanks for thirty years. How hard can it be?"
Kangmei practiced with the truck idling.
"That's good," Stratton encouraged. "Remember to watch the speedometer needle.
When it gets to here, shift into second. And here, third. When we get to the checkpoint, press the clutch pedal with your left foot, and put your right foot on the brake. You'll have to use most of your weight because the drums on this truck are nearly shot. The important thing is to slow down smoothly so we don't attract attention."
"There is no one else on the road at this time of night," Kangmei remarked. "The police certainly will ask questions."
"I'll be hiding in the back. There's a bundle of wood and some old vegetable crates back there-"
"Thom-as, I don't have my identification papers. They might arrest me."
Stratton got out of the cab. Kangmei moved into the driver's seat.
"Make up a story," Stratton said, scouting the foggy highway. In both directions it was quiet, deserted. "Tell them you're on the way to get medicine for the commune. The regular driver is sick."
Kangmei's hands explored the steering wheel. "What if they don't believe me?"
"How many policemen will there be?"
"One, perhaps two at the most. It is so late… "
Stratton was thinking. He removed the dusty driver's cap and placed it on Kangmei's head. Gently he tucked her silken pigtails underneath it. "There! You look like a teenaged boy."
She glanced down at her chest.
"Well, almost," Stratton said. He climbed into the flatbed and concealed himself in the rummage and lumber. "Okay," he called from the back. "Let's go."
The truck lunged forward, then coughed into a stall. Kangmei tried again with the same results. The third time the clutch engaged perfectly and the truck found the pavement. Stratton smiled to himself.
Kangmei drove slowly, eternally grateful that the stretch of road was straight so she could devote all concentration to mastering the transmission.
As the truck crested a small hill, Kangmei noticed a swatch of yellow light below. Half in panic, she mashed both feet on the clutch and let the truck coast. Gradually the details of the small police station became clear: a white booth, with a Chinese flag posted on the tin roof. Three bulbs hung from a slender wire; one lit the building and the other two a zebra-striped gate that blocked the road. Inside the booth stood a man in a blue-and-white uniform. He seemed not to notice how the truck stuttered downhill, Kangmei fighting for the brakes.