35
ASLEEP—
Then awake—
And Wells had the.22 up before he knew where he was. The storeroom. Cao stood in the doorway. He raised his hands as Wells lowered the revolver.
“You okay, Time Square Wells?”
“Perfect.” Wells coughed. His bandage was still white, at least on the outside.
Cao tossed Wells a blue zip-up sweatsuit, and Wells tugged it on. His shoulder was loose in its socket, maybe permanently damaged from the torture. He took a long drink of lukewarm water to soothe his parched throat.
“Ready?”
Wells tucked the gun in his waistband and struggled up. He took a few steps and sagged. Cao’s men helped him out of the restaurant. A dirty white panel truck waited, its engine running. Wooden crates and furniture were stacked high inside the twenty-five-foot-long cargo compartment.
“You need piss?” Cao waved a fist in front of his crotch. “Go now.”
“I’m okay.”
“Then we go.” Cao stepped into the truck and offered a hand to Wells. At the forward end of the cargo compartment, behind a big wooden bookcase, was a space maybe three feet wide. Just big enough for two men to sit, if they didn’t mind a little incidental contact. A blanket covered the compartment’s wooden floor, along with provisions: water bottles, a flashlight, blankets. A handful of airholes ensured they wouldn’t suffocate.
Wells and Cao settled themselves, close enough for Wells to smell the green tea on Cao’s breath. As Cao’s men rearranged boxes and furniture to hide the space, Cao reached into his jacket and handed Wells a manila envelope.
Wells opened it. Three pages of Banco Delta Asia bank records, showing transfers to UBS accounts in Zurich and Monte Carlo, $20 million a month. A fourth page covered with Chinese characters and topped with an official-looking letterhead. Wells wondered if these four pieces of paper could really stop a war.
Cao pointed to the fourth page. “This from Army.”
“Authorizing the transfers?”
“Authorizing, yes. Says money for special operation.” Cao pointed to a raised emblem near the bottom. “Li’s stamp.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Wells didn’t plan to ask how Cao had gotten the papers. Presumably he’d just made his final trip inside Zhongnanhai. If Wells hadn’t just seen Cao shoot three of his own soldiers, he might have wondered whether this was all some superelaborate sting operation designed to prove Wells was a spy. But the Chinese had no need for an operation that elaborate. The torture had been working well enough on its own. Cao was a genuine defector.
Wells tried to give Cao back the papers, but Cao shook his head.
One of Cao’s men shouted something. The back panel came down and they were locked in the dark. Wells hardly minded. After the cave, this truck was easy. At least they were above ground.
The truck grumbled into gear and reversed down the alley. A few seconds later horns honked, and they were in Beijing’s traffic.
“Now we run.” In the dark Cao laughed humor lessly.
“Yeah, tramps like us,” Wells said. He liked Cao very much. Probably because the man had saved his life. “What about roadblocks?”
“Roadblock?”
Wells couldn’t figure out how to explain. “Are they looking for us?”
“Very soon.” Cao lit his watch—6:10. “Maybe twenty minutes. New officer come, open door. See bodies.”
Wells thought he understood. There would be a shift change at the interrogation center where Wells had been held. The new commander would insist on seeing the torture room. And once he discovered the bodies, the hunt would be on.
“But isn’t Li Ping wondering where you are?”
“When we leave, I say to Li, let me take care of spy. He trust me. Anyway, he busy. Special meeting with Standing Committee.”
“Must be hard fighting two wars at once.” Wells closed his eyes and tried to settle himself in the darkness. But he had too many questions. “Cao, who are these people helping us?”
Cao said nothing for a minute. Then, finally: “Don’t know.”
Don’t know? Wells waited.
“I tell my pastor last night. About you. He send me these people from his church. They help when Christians get in trouble, need hiding.”
A Christian underground railroad, Wells thought. “Do they know who we are, the risk they’re taking?”
“Yes.”
“But you trust them?”
Again Cao laughed, low and hard. “You have other idea?”
MINUTES LATER THE TRUCK TURNED, accelerated. “Third Ring Road now,” Cao said.
“We’re making good time.”
“Many people stay home now. Scared what America will do.”
And without warning—
The truck scissored down into a pothole. Wells’s broken ribs jumped under the bandage, stabbing from the inside out. The pain in his lungs and stomach was enormous and didn’t fade. Wells bit his lip to keep from screaming.
Thump!Thump!More potholes. Wells braced himself against the side of the truck, feeling his ribs rattle like pencils in a coffee cup. If he wasn’t bleeding internally already, he would be soon.
To distract himself, he thought of Exley, and their little apartment on Thirteenth Street, NW In the utility closet in the front hall, Wells had hung the letters the president had sent them after they’d stopped the attack on New York. “You haveearned the respect and gratitudeof an entire nation…”et cetera, et cetera. No one had ever understood him like Exley, Wells thought. He never had to tell her why the flowery words embarrassed him. Yes, he was proud of what they had done. But he hated being called a hero, especially by men who had never shed blood. Let the president save his soupy words and send his own children off to a battle zone for even one day.
Wells wondered if he could claim to understand Exley nearly as well as she understood him. She rarely talked to him about marriage or having kids. Did she think that having more children would be selfish when she hardly saw the two she already had? Or was it that she couldn’t imagine a future with him? Maybe she decided that as much as they loved each other, they weren’t going to get over the finish line.
When he got home, he would ask her to marry him.
If it wasn’t too late.
THUMP! The truck bounced again, the hardest jolt yet. Wells couldn’t help himself. He screamed. The blackness around him merged with the void in his head and down he went.
LATER — HE HAD NO IDEA how long it was — his eyes opened. His stomach was throbbing and uncomfortably tight. He was bleeding internally now, he was sure. He raised the water bottle to his lips and sipped, trying to force the liquid down.
The truck had stopped, its engine silent. Wells heard voices and footsteps on gravel. The compartment was totally dark, no light coming through the airholes. Night had fallen. How long had he been out?
The footsteps crunched to the back of the truck and—
The back panel opened. Cao gripped Wells’s leg, a warning to stay silent.
A flashlight shined in, making slow loops around the compartment.
A man’s harsh voice, shouting questions.
The replies, soft and deferential.
Then the truck’s springs creaked as someone stepped onto the back bumper.
Wells pulled his snubnose pistol from his waistband, silently dropped the safety.
The light shined around, closer now.
But not finding their compartment.
And the truck came up on its springs as the man stepped down.
The back panel closed. The doors to the truck’s cab opened, slammed shut. The engine groaned and they were off, slowly at first, then more quickly.