Neal’s chest wasn’t there. Neal had dropped to the ground a half-second after bluffing with the trigger. All Simms hit was air, and then the water.
Neal watched the current carry Simms away.
Neal scurried back up the stairs, through the garden, and into the monastery. He went to his room and packed a few things into his bag. Then he went to Wu’s room and tapped on the door.
A groggy Wu came to the door, and Neal pushed him back inside the room.
“Are you drunk?” Wu asked.
“Where’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”
“What?”
“Where’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”
“On the silkworm?”
“No, it’s a mountain. In Chinese, what’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”
Wu came awake. “Oh! Mount Emei. ‘Emei’ means Silkwo-”
“How far is it?”
“Not far. Perhaps ten or twenty li.”
“I want to go there, right now.”
“Not possible at any time. Absolutely not.”
“I have to go there.”
“I cannot take you. I would get in big trouble.”
“Tell them I forced you.”
Wu chuckled. “How are you going to force me?”
Neal pulled the gun from his jacket and pointed it at Wu’s nose. Wu doesn’t know what a wimp I am with guns, he thought.
“You are crazy,” said Wu.
“This is a good thing for you to keep in mind. Now let’s go wake up the driver and go to Mount Emei.”
Wu flapped his hands in frustration. “Why do you want to do this?”
“Because I’m crazy. You have one minute to get dressed. Go.”
Wu got dressed and led Neal to the driver’s room. Neal greeted the driver with the pistol and held it on him while Wu explained the situation. The driver smiled calmly at Neal and shrugged.
“Emei?” he asked.
“Emei.”
The driver pulled his shoes on. Five minutes later they were in the car. Neal sat in the backseat and kept the pistol pressed to Wu’s head.
They were at the base of Mount Emei just as the sun came up.
19
The car climbed dirt switchbacks up the foothills of the mountain until the road ended on a broad knoll. A few thatch-roofed huts huddled on the edge of the treeless hill. The Sichuan basin stretched out below to the north. To the south and west, the heavily forested slopes of Mount Emei dominated the skyline, and to the far west the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayan foothills loomed like a promise and a threat.
The village had the tattered, dirty look of rural poverty. Acrid smoke poured from holes in the roofs of shacks. A scraggly garden plot fought for survival in a sea of wild grass. A few skinny sheep and goats bleated indignant protests at the arrival of the strange motorcar.
“This is as far as he can go,” Wu said as the driver pulled to a stop.
Neal could sense rather than see the eyes of the villagers observing the government car. No one came out to greet them. He pointed to a trodden dirt path that scarred the grass.
“Is that the only way up the mountain?”
Wu spoke to the driver.
“It’s the only way up,” Wu translated. “You go down on the other side.”
“What about airstrips? Helicopter pads?”
Another exchange.
“The only thing you can fly to that mountain is a dragon.”
“Good.”
Neal started to gather his bag together.
“The police will be right behind you, you know. You cannot escape.”
“I don’t need to escape. I just need a little time. If they have to walk, they won’t get there ahead of me.”
“I will come with you.”
Neal smiled at him. “I’m honored. But no thanks.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because your father went to jail for speaking English.”
“Do not joke.”
“I’m not.”
Neal got out of the car. The driver looked straight ahead, still smiling calmly. Wu looked as if he were about to cry.
“Good-bye, Xiao Wu,” Neal said.
“Good-bye, Neal Carey.”
“We will see each other again.”
“Fuck yes.”
“Fuck yes.”
Neal took the pistol from his jacket, pointed, and pulled the trigger. The right front tire hissed its death throes before expiring. Neal was pleased-he had never shot anything before. He executed the left rear tire in the same fashion.
“Sorry,” he said to the driver. “It’ll give me a little more of a start.”
The driver shrugged. He seemed to understand.
Neal walked backward along the trail and kept his eye on the car, just in case Xiao Wu and the driver were thinking about trying to catch him and wrestle him to the ground. The path took a dip out of sight about fifty yards away, so he turned around and headed for the mountain.
He felt exhilarated, almost carefree. It was strange, because he had nothing but cares. He had to catch Li Lan before Simms and Peng did-warn her that her organization had a mole and that she and Pendleton would never be safe. And he was now the proverbial man without a country-not America, not China. If he survived the next few days, which was a poor bet at best, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
But he felt the energizing simplicity of desperation. It felt great to be done with the myriad complexities of intrigue, with the subtle maneuvers, with the twisted emotions, with the damn thinking. The whole mess had come to a race up a mountain, and the fresh air and open spaces sang to him as he settled into a pace.
He realized he hadn’t been alone in three months, not for a single hour, and he certainly hadn’t been free. Now he looked up at the magnificent panorama of mountains and valleys, and he felt… clean. He hadn’t felt clean in a long, long time.
The climb began abruptly as the grassy plateau gave way to a narrow saddle and the dirt trail yielded to a more formal stone path. The saddle emptied into a thick grove of bamboo, beyond which was a stone bridge over a fast, narrow stream. On the other side of the bridge, Neal passed under a large open gate to the bottom of a steep knoll. The stone steps flanked the edge of a wall, behind which was an enormous temple. Neal paused at the first landing and felt the pins and needles in his legs. The trail ahead of him went straight uphill for as far as he could see. It was going to be a long day.
And he had to find an elephant.
No, not an elephant. The elephant. On a Chinese mountain.
Speaking of elephants on Chinese mountains, he thought… I’m probably pretty conspicuous now that daylight’s here.
He walked up the stairs until he came to an open arched gate, then stepped inside. He was standing at the edge of a large courtyard where a small battalion of monks were doing t‘ai chi. Other monks, who looked like young novices, scurried about with wooden buckets of water and bundles of firewood. Neal surmised that they were getting ready for the old after-t‘ai chi breakfast. Neal sidled along the edge of the courtyard beneath a tiled portico, then slipped through the first open door.
The sanctuary was full of statues, sticks of incense smoldering in their stone hands. Neal hit the staircase just inside the door and found himself in a hallway in front of a row of rooms. In the trusting, cloistered atmosphere of the monastery, the rooms were unlocked.
So much for trust, Neal thought, as he went inside the first room. A heavy shirt and a pair of peasant trousers hung on a wooden peg. Working clothes, Neal thought, as he held the shirt up against his chest. It was much too large, so he tried the next room. Still too large.
He hit the jackpot at the end of the hallway, where a larger room had eight kangs and eight sets of work clothes. Must be the novices’ dorm, he thought. He found a set of clothes that fit loosely, then stripped off his own Western clothes and changed into the Chinese workaday outfit. He kept his tennis shoes, though, figuring that a change of footwear didn’t make sense for a long climb up a mountain. Besides, if anyone got close enough to notice his shoes, they would also notice his round eyes.