Two Peasants and a President (30 page)

The sound of another approaching car could be heard nearby, wending its way between the sheds and warehouses.  A minute later a pair of hea
d
lights appeared.  It was
Jun’s
taxi.  By the time Jun noticed the
‘Harbor P
o
lice’
emblem on the side of the other vehicle, it was too late; he couldn’t just turn around and drive away.  He parke
d as nonchalantly as possible
, eyes flickering nervously around trying to locat
e the occupant of the police vehicle
.  In the shadow of a nearby shed, the glow of a cigarette brightened as the o
f
ficer took a fresh drag.  He was watching Jun. 

Jun got out and opened
Ping’s
door, whispering to her to act natural. 
He took her hand, walking the frail lady
across the gravel
toward the boat, pretending not to notice the police officer.  The gangplank had slats nailed crosswise at intervals to improve footing, but it
was still difficult
so Jun took her waist as well as her hand.  As they neared the deck, a tiny wrinkled woman older than Ping appeared in
a doorway
.  Zhou’s grandmother greeted Ping exuberantly, as though they had been waiting months to reunite.  In fact, they had never laid eyes on each other before.

Ping immediately picked up on the ruse and started chattering amiably.  As the pair disappeared through the door
into the
crew area
, they were cac
k
ling like old hens.  Jun hollered ‘good fishing’ as he walked down the gan
g
plank and back to his cab.  In the shadow of the shed, the glow brightened once more.  Jun turned his cab around and headed back out the way he had come.  There were now happy sounds emanating from the fishing boat as Zhou and his family continued the contrived reunion.  The harbor patrol o
f
ficer stubbed his cigarette on the ground and walked bac
k toward his vehicle. 
Those hiding in the Dawn Flower could hear its motor start and the gravel crunch
beneath its wheels
as it turned and left the parking area.

The crew scarcely waited
until it
was gone
before casting off.  From below, the engine rumbled
to life and began slowly tugg
ing
the boat backward into the harbor. 
With its
bow now pointing toward the sea,
Zhou
turned t
o
ward the Americans,
a conspiratorial smile
on his face.  Looking at Holly
, he
said something
in Chinese
,
which his brother translated. 

“There’
s someone downstairs to see you.”
 

Holly
stared at him, a puzzled look on her face.  She
couldn’t imagine who he
was
referring to, but she got up
off the floor of the wheel
house
and started carefully down the steep, narrow stairway.  When she reached the
crew area,
her heart jumped.  There in the corner was the little cleaning lady.  She practically leapt across the space, throwing her arms around Ping, hu
g
ging her with all her m
ight.  There were tears in
t
heir eyes as they stood back looking
at each other for a very long time. 

Soon th
e old craft was
chugging slowly toward the sea.  It would take al
most an hour to reach
, so large is this harbor, but they were thankful just to be moving away from
the city
.

******

By 6:30 am, more than two dozen Ministry of State Security officials and city bureaucrats had been informed of the ‘breakout’ but still had only a smattering
of details. 
A tall American m
ale had penetrated the hospital
.
There were probably several thousand tall Americans in Tianjin on any given
day, if not more.  It was a bit like saying a short American woman had visited the mall.  The Chinese bureaucracy had yet to tie captain Davis to anything.  As he suspected, his different name and place of residence had rendered him invisible thus far. 

Holly and Ray’s real names had been stripped by the conspirators and replaced with fake ones to facilitate what was being done.  Only three people in Hong Kong actually knew what their real names were, and they weren’t exactly lining up to inform the authorities.  In fact, the cruise company owner, who had already used some of his ill-gotten gains to buy a private boat, was at this moment motoring toward Viet Nam where his brother owned a
restaurant
. 

The nurse on the seventh floor had provided a description of Holly to State Security, but that had led to questions as to why a guard had been st
a
tioned outside the American’s room.  The answers to her inquisitors’ que
s
tions were
slowly burying her.  The guard himself knew little other than what he was being paid.  Even that level of complicity was soon to earn him a
n
hour under the scalpel
.   A similar fate awaited the guard who opened and closed Holly and Ray’s locked rooms. 

The authorities now had good descriptions of Ray and Holly and a barely passable one of the captain, who had been in and out of the hospital rather quickly, but Tianjin is the sixth largest city in China and they couldn’t exactly televise artist renderings.  ‘Two Americans resembling _____ wanted for _____ .’  So the most wanted fugitives in China had yet to even be named. 

Officers with descriptions were sent to train stations, but some early trains had already left, so other officers down the line would have to board and search them.  Same for the airports and bus stations; but if they had already boarded a plane, they were by now long gone, a thought no one wanted to contemplate.  Road blocks would be set up, but that would take more time; there are dozens of roads in and out of Tianjin.  What if they had boarded one of the departing planes? What if they had fled first to Beijing, only a half-hour away?  It was a nightmare.

One thing was certain: someone was helping the Americans.  The list was short.  The nightmare scenario was that their embassy had somehow learned what was going on.  If they had reached the embassy they were u
n
touchable; the Americans could use the threat of exposure to force Beijing to allow them to leave the country.  The embassy in Beijing is watched and video taped around the clock and
it was soon learned that
no vehicles h
ad entered since yesterday even
ing.  It was
also
not entirely inconceivable that the tall American was CIA.  If that were the case, their chance of success was
fairly high. 

The second possibility was that they were attempting to make their own way out of China.  This seemed the least likely.  Even assuming they could make it all the way to a border, they would surely be stopped by border guards. 

Finally, there were the dissidents.  The questioning of the guards at the hospital had revealed nothing to indicate they were involved in any dissident activities; they were being paid to keep the Americans in and cared little where the money was coming from.

But one interesting thread had been discovered and was still open.  The lady who cleaned their rooms was not in her apartment.  She had not returned home from work. 

51

It wasn’t exactly open ocean, but they had passed through Bohai Bay and were well into the Bohai Sea.  The area includes some of the most heavily congested sea lanes in the world where they hoped to be lost among the many tankers, freighters and other fishing boats. 

The ocean swells together with the stench of fish and diesel fuel were having a predictable effect on some of the passengers.  Holly, Ray, Dr. Min and the ambulance driver, all had their heads over the rail.  Ping and
Jian
, the police officer, were on the opposit
e side of the deck, sitting
as far as they could get from those who were losing it over the side.  On the bridge with Zhou, Captain Davis was looking over charts of the area.

According to the charts, they still had almost two hundred miles to open ocean and another three hundred plus to the coast of South Korea.  At eight to ten knots max, less than 10 miles an hour, it would be almost a full day before they were completely clear of the Chinese mainland and another day and a half to the South Korean coastline. 

Even if they succeeded in reaching South Korea, they couldn’t exactly expect open arms.  In December, a Chinese fishing boat captain had stabbed two South Korean Coast Guard officers, killing one.  Fish stocks were ser
i
ously depleted along China’s coast and Chinese fishermen had been forced to encroach on the protected waters of other nations.  Incidents were on the rise and China was stubbornly defending its fisheries industry, another example of its aggressive new stance. 

Zhou had been watching the captain as he looked at the charts.  Having learned something about his background from the doctor, he was finding the man who had commanded one of the most powerful warships in the world quite fascinating.  He only wished he had more English
so they could communicate
. 

Zhou had another problem.  If he continued across the Yellow Sea without any pretense of fishing, it was likely at some point to be noticed.  Attention was the last thing he needed, but fishing would slow them down dramatically.  He found himself wondering what was happening back in Tianjin. 
Had there been a bulletin on TV? Had the harbor policeman seen it?  Had the authorities discovered a connection to his friends, the other dissidents? 
If any of these things had happened, it would take minutes for a
military helicopter to reach them from land or a couple of hours by fast patrol craft.  He told himself there was little point in worrying, they were now committed to a course that would take them either to freedom or death. 

Holly was
f
eeling
w
ell enough to stand up straight
, more or less
.  T
here was nothing left to throw up.  She walked unsteadily through the door in the superstructure to see if she could find something to drink.  A crewman brought her some bottled water.  He smiled and she said thanks in English,
embarrassed at
knowing no Chinese.  She walked unsteadily out the door and over to the starboard side to where Ping and the policeman were and sat down beside them.  For an instant,
she struggled with rising panic at the
sight of the officer’s uniform
until she reminded herself that this officer had risked his life to save hers. 

She smiled weakly at Ping; it was all she could muster on a churning stomach.  She wanted terribly to get to know the woman who had saved her and Ray’s lives, but for now all they could do was look into each other’s eyes.   A little while later the doctor rose, apparently feeling better.  Holding her bottled water up, she pointed inside.  Soon he
had
emerged with his own and came to join them.  At last she had a translator.  But where to begin?

Holly decided simply to ask Ping to talk about her life.  At first the tiny lady seemed reluctant, or perhaps she too didn’t know where to begin.  But after thinking about it for several minutes she looked up at Holly.

“It was a village then,” she said.  “It had been there longer than anyone could remember.  Even my grandmother’s grandmother lived there.  The houses were small, none more than two rooms, some had only one.  The bricks for the houses and the tiles for the roofs were baked in a kiln that had been there longe
r than anyone could remember
.  Even the bricks for the narrow streets came from the ancient kiln.”

“During the time of my great-grandmother and before, China was weak and the foreigners forced us to grant them concessio
ns so that they might trade
.  Russians, British, Germans, French, Italians, Japanese, Americans and others came to trade.  Each country had its own area and they built their homes and churches there.  Goods from all over China were brought to the port and loaded on ships.  My great grandmother said that in those days beautiful tall ships filled the harbor as far as the eye could see.  Sometimes they had to remain at anchor for days before a pier was available.” 

“Around the docks, the trading companies and warehouses swarmed with workers loading and unloading thousands of crates bursting with goods and treasures from all over the world.  My grandfather worked in one of the great trading houses.  My grandmother said that he would come home with amazing tales of the things he had seen.  Sometimes he brought special treats,
delicacies that no one had ever tasted before.”