“One hour. If I not back, you go with them. To Yantai—”
“Yantai?” Wells was struck again by how little he knew about this country.
“Port. Five hundred kilometers from here. Shandong Province.”
Now Wells understood, or thought he did. Shandong Province — the name literally meant “east of the mountains”—extended into the Yellow Sea toward the Korean peninsula. They were going to make a run for South Korea.
“They take you to boat.”
“To Korea?”
“Yes. Korea.” Cao’s lips twisted in what could have been a smile. “Make sure not North Korea.” Cao reached into his bag and handed Wells a little revolver, a.22 snub.
Wells checked the cylinder. It was loaded all right. It was too small and inaccurate to be useful at more than thirty feet. Still, better than nothing.
Two men emerged from the Dumping Home and trotted to the jeep.
“Rest,” Cao said.
“Good luck, Cao. Vaya con Dios.” Wells extended a hand and Cao shook it awkwardly. Cao reached across Wells and opened his door. The men helped lift him out, staggering under his weight. Wells could hardly feel the ground under his feet, as if his legs were encased in ski boots that ran from ankle to hip. The men guided him to the door, as Cao put the jeep in reverse and rolled out of the alley.
INSIDE, WELLS FOUND HIMSELF in a busy kitchen. Two women and two teenage boys were making dumplings, their hands flickering over the balls of dough, shaping and smoothing each one before moving to the next. Wells understood now. The Dumping Home was a dumpling restaurant.
The men started to let Wells go, but as they did his legs buckled. One of the women squawked and the men grabbed him and guided him to a storeroom off the kitchen. They sat him down and left. Wells tried to rest, but if he closed his eyes for too long the dizziness took him. He focused on the room around him, looking from shelf to shelf, examining the baskets of vegetables and spices, the glass jars of green tea.
A couple of minutes later, he wasn’t sure how long, the women came in, carrying a pot of bubbling water, a soup bowl, and a big shopping bag. Wells watched mutely as they extracted the tools for minor surgery from the bag: two quart-sized brown plastic bottles, a water bottle, scissors, a knife, a tube of something that looked like antibacterial cream, a roll of surgical tape, and a half-dozen clean white cloths. One of the women, tall and thin, her hair streaked with gray, put a soft hand on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, the other woman, the shorter and stockier of the two, lifted the bowl of soup to Wells’s mouth. He sipped, a few drops at a time. Chicken stock, with a few mushy carrots. Liquid kindness. His stomach clenched, but he held it down. He drank as much as he could, maybe a half-cup, and then shook his head. She nodded and set the bowl aside. Now the gray-haired woman was cutting off his shirt, careful not to touch the flayed skin underneath. When she was done, she gasped, one quick breath. Wells looked down and wished he hadn’t. His chest and abs were skinned raw, and blood was oozing from the wounds. No wonder he couldn’t close his eyes without getting the spins. He had to make sure he stayed hydrated. If he wasn’t careful, the blood loss would put him into shock.
The gray-haired woman dipped a cloth into the pot of boiling water. Then she unscrewed the plastic bottles and poured their contents over the cloth. She held the cloth to his face, giving him a whiff of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Wells understood. She wanted him to know what she was about to do. He nodded. She pressed the cloth to his chest.
After the beating he’d endured, the burn of alcohol and peroxide was barely a pinprick. Wells nodded. The woman seemed to understand. She pulled away the cloth and poured the rubbing alcohol directly onto his chest. She wiped him down with a fresh cloth, then rubbed the antibacterial ointment across his chest. She said something to the other woman. They leaned him forward and slowly they wrapped a long white bandage around his torso, compressing it tightly. Apparently the gray-haired woman had decided Wells had a high pain tolerance.
When they were done, his chest and abs were bound in white. Despite the pressure of the cloth against his broken ribs, Wells felt stronger than he had just a few minutes before. He reached for the soup and slowly sipped it until the bowl was empty.
“Good as new,” he said.
FOR THE FIRST TIME since the beatings started, Wells could think clearly enough to see his next move. He reached into his pockets. There it was. His new phone, bought five days before and registered to Jim Wilson of Palo Alto. Still in his pants. He’d debated carrying it today before deciding that there was no reason an American businessman wouldn’t have a phone with him. Now he was glad he had. Extremely.
He removed the slim Motorola from his pocket, turned it on, saw he had full service. Thank God for technology. Wells wondered whether the Chinese had put a bug in the phone, before deciding they probably hadn’t. They’d had no reason to imagine that he would escape.
Anyway, he had to reach Exley now, before the Chinese cut off all communication to the United States. He’d be as quick as he could. Wells called her cell phone, not the 415 number but her real one, the one she always carried. Three rings. And then—
“Hello. Hello?” Washington was twelve hours behind, Wells remembered. She must have been asleep, or wishing she were.
“Jennifer.”
“Yes. John.” She’d blown his cover, but he didn’t much care. In his name, he heard all her questions: Where are you? Are you okay?
“Remember where Ted Beck went down, Jenny?” In the Yellow Sea, southwest of Incheon.
“Sure.”
“I need a pickup. In that vicinity. Or west. As far west as possible.” Even if the Chinese were monitoring this call, Wells didn’t think they would understand what he meant.
“When?”
Five hundred kilometers to Yantai, then a boat ride. “Eight to twenty-four hours. Any longer, I’m in trouble.”
“Can you help us find you?” Exley was wondering if he had a transponder or any other equipment to aid the search.
“No. But Red Team”—the standard American military description of the enemy—“will be looking. Hard.”
“Figured.”
“One more thing. Whatever they’re planning, make them wait. No counterattacks. I know why it happened, all of it. And we can stop it.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“I love you, Jenny.”
“Love you too, John.” Exley sighed. Even from 6,000 miles away, Wells knew her tone, sad and pride ful at once. “Try not to die.”
Wells hung up and turned off the phone. Now it was up to Exley to find a way to make the White House and the Pentagon back off for a day or two, long enough for him and Cao to get out.
The clock on the wall of the storeroom said 4:45. Cao didn’t have long. The guards at the interrogation center would soon defy his orders and break into the room where Wells had been held. Then he and Cao would be the most wanted men in China. Before that happened, he and Cao had better be on their way to Yantai. Though Wells still didn’t know how Cao planned to get them there.
Wells flexed his legs and tried to stand. Nope. He sat down heavily and the jolt set his ribs on fire. His gray-haired nurse shook a finger at him and clucked in Chinese. Wells could guess her meaning: Rest. Then the two women left him, turning off the lights and shutting the door. In the warm darkness the tang of potatoes and onions surrounded him.
He closed his eyes. His head drooped. But before he slept, he made sure the.22 was curled in his hand, its hammer cocked. If Li’s men came through the door, he planned to take as many of them with him as he could.