Rock Paper Tiger

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I DON’T HAVE enough cash for a plane ticket, and I don’t want to risk using an ATM or a credit card. There’s an express train leaving tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to wait that long. Now that I’ve decided, I want to get back. To go home.

So that’s how I end up on a slow train from Chengdu to Beijing. A thirty-two-hour ride, leaving Chengdu tonight.

This way, I’ll arrive in Beijing early Wednesday evening, ahead of Suit #2’s Friday deadline.

I’ll call him and tell him I’m back. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to tell him after that. A piece of the truth, I guess. That I tried. That I couldn’t find out what they wanted to know. That I’m not going to cause anybody any trouble. What else can I say? I’ll just have to bluff it out.

Maybe it will help that I’m willing to face him. Maybe it won’t.

I have a soft sleeper, at least, which will make the next thirty-two hours or so a little more comfortable.

Even better, as the train pulls out of Chengdu, I have the compartment to myself.

Okay, I think. Okay. I’m going to my doom; I might as well enjoy the ride.

After the conductor comes and checks my ticket, I go down to the dining car and buy myself two large bottles of Blue Sword Premium Beer. Then I retreat to my quiet compartment, sit on the slightly dingy white seat covers on the bottom bunk, sip my beer, and stare out the window into the dark. There’s something comforting about the noise and the rhythm of the train, the wheels on the tracks, the occasional deep hoot of the horn. When I get bored with that, I climb up to the upper bunk. I finish my beer, feeling the exhaustion seeping into me like rainwater staining discarded paper.

I pull the quilt over myself and fall asleep, rocked by the rhythm of the rails.

I’m dreaming about something; I’m not sure what, but there’s clouds everywhere, and I’m still on the train, like it’s open to the sky, when I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder, hear a soft voice in my ear:

“Ellie. Ellie. You should wake up now.”

So I do.

A hand covers my mouth. Gently. And when I open my eyes, I see John’s face, John’s eyes, staring at me.

“Please don’t be upset,” John says quietly. “I hope you can not make a fuss. I’ll take my hand away if you promise to be calm.”

I nod in agreement.

John takes his hand away.

And I open up my mouth and scream “Help!”

John slaps his hand over my mouth again. He’s straddling me, so I can’t kick him; I try clawing at his face, but he does something, presses his fingers into a spot at the base of my neck, and it’s so painful that I’m practically paralyzed, and all the while, John is saying “Ellie, Ellie, stop. I don’t want to hurt you. Stop. Be calm. Just listen.”

I stop. I stare at his face. His lip is bleeding, and there are red marks raked across his cheek.

John slowly lifts his hand.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m listening.”

“You need to get off the train,” he says. “People are coming for you.”

I almost laugh. “And you’re, like, what? Here on a friendly visit?”

“I am your friend,” he insists. “We will stop in a few minutes at this town. We can get off there.”

“Who’s after me?” I demand. “I mean, how do you know-?”

“I hear a guy ask about who is in this compartment. This guy, he is a bad-looking guy,” John says, sounding very sincere. “He and some other guys, they are in the soft sleeper car next to this one. Maybe they are State Security, but undercover. Maybe somebody has paid them.”

I shake my head, like that’s somehow going to clear it. But I’m pretty sure that this is one significant ration of bullshit.

“Okay, John,” I say. “You’ve been, like, stalking me. You drugged me. You show up in my train compartment in the middle of the night. Why am I gonna believe anything you say?”

“Because I’m Cinderfox.”