China Hand, page 19
“What’s the schedule?” he asked.
I dug that out, too. “It says China Southern has flights on Wednesday—in three days.” Then I checked the ferry schedule from Dalian and groaned. “If we land Wednesday, we’d have to wait until Friday for the next ferry.”
Will shook his head. “Is there anywhere we could fly and still make it to Dalian for the Tuesday ferry? What about Shenyang?” An industrial city north of Dalian, notorious for being the most polluted urban area on the planet.
I scanned the schedule. “There’s a flight every Monday at noon. So tomorrow.”
“Sounds like the answer.”
I hoped Will was right, though I had a bad feeling about Shenyang, and it wasn’t just the thought of inhaling the most polluted air of any city on Earth. It was the lack of other Westerners. Shenyang didn’t attract tourists; it repelled them. Amid a toxic anti-American climate, we’d stand out when we most needed to blend in. But I didn’t have a better idea.
We’d made it out of Beijing, but I feared those troop transport trucks were merely a preview of what was to come.
CHAPTER 33
The Taichung Mountains were shrouded by low-lying clouds as Wu drove swiftly into Shijiazhuang early that morning.
“Reminds me of the Smoky Mountains back home,” Will said.
His comment made me imagine hiking the Appalachian Trail with Lily, surrounded by nothing but forest. Then Wu hit a pothole, plunging me back into the reality of a cramped microvan and waking up the two women.
“Where are we now?” Mrs. Jiang asked.
“Shijiazhuang,” Wu announced as he pulled up to the city’s central bus station. A state-owned travel agency was right next door, the military base less than a mile away.
I slipped off Tom’s army surplus coat and the fake glasses. Up close they wouldn’t fool the authorities or even security-conscious citizens. My black hair might suffice if anyone were looking for a blond foreigner. I combed it into a side part and put on my own jacket. Will nodded his approval of my transformation.
“Where’d you get the jacket?” he asked.
“It’s on a ‘need to know’ basis,” I joked.
“Ha ha,” Will said straight-faced.
“You taught me well.”
Lily turned and looked at me. I smiled. She didn’t, which I attributed to her fatigue and stress, not the exchange I’d just had with Will, who was now tipping Wu generously. We thanked him for driving us and said goodbye as we climbed out.
“Give me your passports and I’ll go get the plane tickets,” Will said. “There’s a noodle restaurant right over there.” He pointed to it. “Go make yourselves inconspicuous.”
Easier said than done. No other Westerners were visible at the busy station.
Lily and I handed over our fake passports. Mrs. Jiang hesitated.
“Don’t worry about it,” Will told her. “I have yours.”
She nodded. Maybe it wasn’t the first time she’d traveled on a forged document.
“And order me some beef noodles,” Will added as he walked off.
The Jiangs and I walked into the restaurant. I glanced around, relieved at the absence of televisions or radios. Lily’s eyes landed on a public computer in the corner.
“Grab it,” I said. If our names and faces were now plastered across the internet, it was better we see it before the other patrons.
Mrs. Jiang and I took the table next to the computer. I asked a waitress if we could get online.
“Dangran keyi,” she shot back. Of course you can. “Fifteen RMB per hour.”
“Perfect,” I replied. “We’ll use it.” I asked what the Jiangs would like, then ordered four bowls of beef noodles.
The waitress grunted her approval and turned back toward the kitchen.
Mrs. Jiang and I crowded close to Lily, who was clicking onto The Washington Post website. As the page rendered, she bit her lip, easing up when there was no mention of us. She scrolled down to an article titled “American Consulate in Wuhan Attacked with Molotov Cocktails.”
This surge in anti-Americanism was exactly what Lily’s father had said the New Leftists wanted. The next headline, though, read like a counterpoint: “Chinese Vice-President Hu Warns Against Extreme Acts.” His comments were directed at the protestors and demonstrated that establishment figures in Beijing were urging a more pragmatic approach to the US.
Still, no reference to us.
Thank God.
The waitress arrived with our food and set it down on the table. She glanced at the screen, but Lily had already clicked to the Post’s arts and entertainment section.
Will rejoined us as we turned to the Chinese news sites. The top story in the Global Times reported “President Clinton’s Dishonest and Insincere Apologies.” The People’s Daily declared “China Not Afraid of War.”
We ate and scanned more articles in silence. Lily was about to close the browser when Will leaned forward and pointed at a developing story in the People’s Daily: “Senior Chinese General Jiang Guangkai Missing from Talks.”
Oh, shit.
Will reached past Lily and clicked on the link. A short paragraph stated only that “American sources” expressed surprise that General Jiang, who was known to be in Washington, failed to appear at high-level talks scheduled with the US State Department, and that “relevant organs” in China were investigating. Still no reference to us, but I was certain the disappearance of his wife and daughter would soon go public.
I could feel the noose closing around our necks.
So, evidently, could Will and Lily, who closed the browser. We immediately stood and glanced around. Of the dozen other patrons, only one bothered to look up. The rest continued slurping their noodles and reading their papers.
Mrs. Jiang remained seated, staring at the now empty screen. How many surges of raw panic had she been forced to suppress in her life? Enough, it appeared, to inure her to even our desperate situation.
“Sit,” she said quietly in Mandarin. “What kind of person leaves a half-eaten bowl of noodles behind?”
A guilty one, I thought, embarrassed at my lack of composure.
We silently finished our noodles. Will distributed our passports and tickets. “Beautiful day for a plane ride,” he said, reclaiming his calm demeanor with a smile.
We headed for the door and our path back across the plaza.
“What do you think of that story about General Jiang?” I whispered to Will as we moved ahead of the two women.
“It’s an intentional leak. A cover for the fact we just granted him political asylum. So, we’ve got the prize. But now we’ve got to get these two the hell out of here to keep them from turning into trade bait.”
“At least we haven’t made headlines yet. I was about to run a search.”
“I would have stopped you,” Will said. “With tens of thousands of Chinese bureaucrats monitoring internet traffic, checking for suspicious keywords, that could have been a serious mistake.”
I nodded, chastened, before worrying aloud about our colleagues at the IAU. “You think they’re getting interrogated already?”
“Maybe some rather enhanced interrogation,” Will replied.
I was stunned by how casually Will dismissed the ordeal the other faculty members might be enduring, which only reinforced my own determination to avoid a similar fate.
“We should get to the airport,” Will said, looking at his watch. “Our flight leaves in ninety minutes.”
He hailed a cab and grabbed the front seat. I squeezed into the back with Lily and her mother. The cabbie’s radio blared news of demonstrations and denunciations, along with sounds of furious chanting and shouting. The streets were clearly coming back to life all around China.
“Please shut that off,” Will asked the driver in Mandarin.
The cabbie looked askance at him. Will handed him a hundred yuan then personally reached over and turned it off just as the broadcaster said, “At the IAU this morning, a report that—”
“The airport,” Will said without reacting to what we’d heard and the mystery of what we’d missed. “We’re tired,” he explained to the driver. “They want to relax,” he glanced over his shoulder at the three of us. We dutifully closed our eyes. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
That much was true. Our escape was beginning to feel endless, even though it had barely begun.
CHAPTER 34
Cameras stared down at us from the roof of the crowded terminal at the Shijiazhuang airport as the four of us waited in the chilly air for the tinted automatic door to open. My eyes darted side to side in search of any security officers sent to capture us—only to step in and find myself face to face with an armed guard standing next to an X-ray machine.
“Huzhao!” he barked. Passport.
I held up the phony document emblazoned with Canada’s official coat of arms, hoping like hell the CIA counterfeiters knew what they were doing. The guard took it but continued staring at me. I could sense Will, Lily, and Mrs. Jiang stiffening behind me.
Security at transportation hubs had already been tightened in response to terrorist attacks and hijack attempts by Uyghurs, but I knew he wouldn’t mistake me—a light-skinned Westerner—for one of them. As the guard looked back and forth between my face and the passport, I worried I’d overlooked a revealing smudge of dye along my hairline.
He turned to my China visa and paused. “You need to go there,” he said sternly, thumb crooked over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off mine.
“Go where? Why?” My scalp steamed. I feared my brow would soon be streaked with black sweat.
The guard now turned and pointed to a kiosk forty feet away. “To pay the airport tax.” He shoved my passport back into my hand.
“Yes, sir,” I said, more pleased than ever before to be handing money over to a government.
I swung my backpack over my shoulder and walked with Will to pay up, the Jiangs about ten feet behind us. Be cool, I reminded myself as I casually wiped my brow—clear sweat, thank God.
I paid the ninety-yuan levy, then returned to the guard, who grunted his approval as I held up the receipt for him to see.
“Everything in the machine for inspection,” he ordered.
An inventory of my bag was running through my head as I threw it on the belt. The first thing he would find would be the Chinese Army surplus jacket.
I prepared myself for worst-case scenarios, the number of which seemed to multiply with every step of our escape. Should I say it’s a souvenir? I wished I’d tossed Tom’s jacket, as I had his phone.
My bag rolled out of the X-ray machine, and another guard picked it up. My stomach sank, but all he did was wrap it in red tape to show that it had been checked. Then he grabbed Lily’s bag and said he needed to look inside.
“Yes, I understand,” she replied in Mandarin. “Wei le anquan.” For security.
Mrs. Jiang followed, though not so volubly as her daughter.
Then the guard took one look at Will and grabbed his bag. I tried to take my cues from Lily and her mother, who affected the air of weary but bored travelers, but that was hard because I knew a wallet with our real documents was hidden under the false bottom of Will’s bag. Feeling tense, I glanced at him, but he was smiling sheepishly as the guard opened his pack.
“Sorry, man, but it’s a little stinky,” he said with a laugh.
“Ugh,” the guard groaned in disgust at some strategically placed dirty underwear. “Nimen qu ba,” he said. Just get going.
“An old trick,” Mrs. Jiang said moments later.
Will agreed. “But it worked.”
At the China Southern Airlines counter, a young woman took our tickets and asked if we were enjoying our visit to China.
“Oh, we’re having a great time.” I tried for hearty, but feared my words sounded no more genuine than my passport.
“I’m so happy to hear that.” She appeared to mean it. “Have a great flight,” she added as she waved us toward the gate. Apparently, she hadn’t received the memo that courtesy to Westerners had been suspended.
The four of us collapsed in the boarding area, carefully maintaining our distance to avoid drawing attention. We were too spent to say much, anyway. Loudspeakers soon filled the silence, blaring that China had officially protested the US bombing at the UN: “The Chinese government today demanded a formal apology and compensation from the United States for its flagrant violations of Chinese sovereignty and international law.”
A few passengers gave Will and me the evil eye. One in a dark-brimmed hat snarled “NATO!” A younger couple shook their heads. But no one appeared to notice Lily and her mother.
I turned away and looked out of the gate’s floor-to-ceiling window at our plane to Shenyang. It looked a little like a Boeing 727, but it had two engines mounted on the tail fin and one suspended on the vertical stabilizer.
“A Tupolev-154,” Will said. “Russian for ‘piece of shit.’”
“If the Public Security Bureau doesn’t kill us, China Southern will,” Mrs. Jiang deadpanned.
Will, Lily, and I all laughed.
We took our assigned seats, Lily and her mother next to each other, directly in front of Will and me. We were near the wings, reputedly the safest part of a jet. I had no idea if that held true for a “piece of shit.”
The plane was only about twenty percent full. I mentioned this to Will. He looked around and said, “Well, at least eighty percent will survive.”
We took off at a steep angle. Once in the air, my adrenaline ebbed; the most dangerous part of the flight was over—until the landing. I watched my companions nod off.
I tried to sleep, too, but couldn’t. The drone of the engines kept me awake, along with the creaking of the fuselage, which shook like a trampoline in the frequent turbulence.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the number of close calls we’d already had—it wasn’t supposed to be this way. From Shenyang, we still needed to get to Dalian before we could shove off for Korea. I tried to remember the ferry schedule. But when I couldn’t, and was too lazy to dig it out, I finally closed my eyes and drifted off.
I was dreaming of a rugged coastline pounded by ceaseless waves when I was jolted awake by my chest slamming down into my knees, the seatbelt strangling my waist, and my head whipsawing back into the seat.
“Jesus Christ.” I was suddenly wide awake. “I thought we crashed.”
“Crashing’s a whole different feeling, brother,” Will said.
“You’ve crashed?”
“In one of these.” He glanced around. “Long story. Not now.”
Lily and her mom looked rattled, too. We rolled to the gate with frightening speed. My watch said it was 1:30 p.m., but the air outside was battleship gray. I wondered what the conversion rate was between breathing the Shenyang air and packs of Marlboro Reds. Even inside the plane, the air tasted bitter, metallic, sour.
“We made it,” I said to Lily.
“To Shenyang.” She had sleep lines from the sweater she’d used as a pillow.
We hurried through the bland airport. Even the usually bright red and white propaganda banners looked faded. Will and I kept our distance behind Lily and her mom. No one appeared to notice them, but several travelers murmured their hit parade of insults at Will and me: “NATO!” “Americans!” “Hegemony!”
“Fuck off!” Will replied under his breath. When we regathered near the terminal entrance, he spoke more audibly, “We need to find out when and where we can catch that train to Dalian.”
“I’ll go check.” Lily motioned toward a travel agency. She sounded refreshed by her nap.
Her mother took her arm. “Be careful. They may be looking for you.”
They absolutely are looking for her.
“I can’t wait to be on that goddamn ferry,” Will whispered to me.
Mrs. Jiang slumped against a wall but never complained. No doubt she’d known worse.
Lily hurried back to us. “There are trains every couple hours to Dalian from both Shenyang Station and Shenyang North. The trip takes about four hours. What time does the ferry leave tomorrow?”
“Hold on.” I dug out the schedule, hoping it was still up to date. “Eight in the morning.”
“And the last train out is at what time?” Will asked.
“About seven p.m., from Shenyang North.”
“Let’s take the last train out,” Will said. “I don’t like traveling during the day. People are too alert. We take that seven o’clock train tonight, find a place to crash in Dalian, and then have plenty of time to get that morning ferry. Let’s get rooms here and lie low for a few hours.”
We cabbed slowly into the city, past dreary farmland and a semi-urban wasteland before we hit the smoggy heart of Shenyang, where the upper floors of modern high-rises vanished into soot and exhaust. Otherwise, the city’s core consisted of Soviet-inspired concrete facades, much like the ones I’d seen in photos of other Chinese cities. Only a few landmarks dotted the downtown. Through pollution thick enough to carve, I spied a pink-and-blue-domed structure that housed God knows what, a large arena, and a soaring space needle that vaguely resembled Seattle’s, save one major difference: the top was engulfed in a toxic cloud.
From Lonely Planet, we picked out the Youzhen Dasha, the Postal Hotel right off the main square southwest of Shenyang North Station. It seemed big and anonymous enough to hide out in.
The cab dropped us off at 2:30. A weathered awning with “China Post” hung over the entrance of the concrete building. After what we’d been through, it looked better than the Taj Mahal.
Will told Lily that she and her mother should check in separately from us. “It’ll be safer that way.”
“But we arrived together,” Lily said.
“They might not have noticed us pulling up, and even if they did, we could have shared a cab from the airport to save money.”
Mother and daughter strode into the hotel with an air of confidence. We followed a good twenty feet behind them, pausing to roll our eyes at the eclectically appointed lobby, its wood carvings and antique replica vases no older than last week’s factory shipment. Our reflections appeared many times over in huge Vegas-style mirrors beaming under gaudy chandeliers. A spotless yellow Ferrari shared center stage with a life-size cardboard cutout of a Korean Air flight attendant.
