Chapter 19
A combination of incredible luck and some skills had gotten Bill to a point near the Vietnam-Chinese border—still alive, and still kicking. He studied the checkpoint, wondering if it wouldn’t be best to just simply try to find another crossing. He had made it this far due to the theft of an American tourist’s wallet. No doubt the man had reported it stolen, but few Chinese agencies would even care about some American who lost his credit cards. Identity theft wasn’t quite the deal it was in the US.
To most Chinese, one American looked much like another. Bill had cut and dyed his hair to match that of the man on the driver’s license he had stolen. To anyone that took a close look it would be obvious that the men were different, but most had only given a cursory glance and then waved him on. He dared not risk an international flight, but he did book a small plane that had flown him from Beijing to Kunming. From there, he had taken a train to Honghe in the province of Yunnan near the border. Now he had to just get across somehow.
Pretending to be an American tourist helped and few in Honghe had actually ever seen an American up close. Children followed him around, pointing and giggling. He made a point of wandering around aimlessly, looking at buildings, going into shops, and doing whatever else a tourist would do. So far, other than curiosity, he had been ignored. The local police never even gave him a second glance.
Eventually he had found a friendly native that spoke passing English and had prevailed upon the young woman, and her even younger brother to act as tour guides to the area. Now they sat about two hundred yards from the border checkpoint. A river marked the boundary between the two nations and only a few bridges spanned it. Looking at the murky water, Gardner decided that swimming it would not be a good idea. He had no clue as to how dangerous the current might be.
The crossing they stood near was the closest one and even this one had taken a good four hours to reach by car. Bill stood at the edge of the road, looking down the bank to the slow moving waters. He held a camera in one hand which he would occasionally make a fuss over, taking pictures of the area and of his companions—just like any good tourist would do.
“See it?” the young woman, Ye Shiwen, asked, pointing across the river. “Vietnam just there.”
Bill nodded. “I see it. Wow, this is really neat. I’ve never been to Vietnam before,” he lied. “Do you think we could visit?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh no! My brother and me no have passport. We no go.”
Bill expected as much, but he looked profoundly disappointed. “Are you sure there is no way for me to visit?”
“You have passport?”
“Yes.”
She grinned. “You pay money. Show passport. You visit.”
“Can you help me?”
“Right on!” she exclaimed gleefully. Gardner idly wondered what American movie she had watched to pick up that phrase.
Her little brother, a teenager around fifteen, grinned and echoed, “Right on!”
“Right on!” Bill added. It seemed appropriate somehow.
Ye’s small red car—Bill suspected she had borrowed it from her parents—moved towards the checkpoint.
“You’ll have to translate for me,” he said. “I don’t speak Chinese too well.”
“No problem!” she said, grinning. Her teenage brother echoed the grin, although he didn’t understand a word of English as far as the lawyer could tell.
“What about transportation on the other side? How will I get around?”
“Cars…how do you say…for sale, but not for sale?”
“For rent?”
“Yes. That is it! For rent. On other side.”
Leaving the car, they walked along the bank of the river until they reached the checkpoint. Two bored looking guards idled in a booth like structure that allowed them to operate the gate arm that blocked the bridge. They glance up to see the trio approaching. The older one’s eyes narrowed when he saw the American, while the younger one had eyes only for the girl walking at Bill’s side.
Ye smiled at the soldiers and said something in Chinese, pointing to Bill, then herself, and then back to Bill. The younger soldier nodded, smiling, but the other one just stared at the American, a frown tugging at his lips. He said something to Ye, who looked at Bill. “He want see passport.”
Bill had intentionally run the document under some water several days back and rubbed some dirt over the picture, obscuring it. It had a passing resemblance to him, and he hoped it would be enough to allow him through. He figured he could take both guards out, but the commotion wouldn’t go unnoticed from the Vietnam side, and he doubted that they would grant political asylum to an American.
The guard took the passport and began examining it. He said something else to Ye. “He ask why you want to go across.”
“I’ve never been to Vietnam. I just want to spend a day or two there.” Bill pulled out a wad of cash he had kept for just this moment. “Tell him I can pay the bridge fee.”
The man’s eyes lit up at the sight of the money. He spoke rapidly to Ye, naming a ‘bridge fee’ to get across. It took a large portion of his money, but the bribe worked. The guard waved him through.
Promising to come back in a few days to meet Ye and her brother—another lie, but a necessary one—he walked across the bridge towards the Vietnamese side. He gave money to the guards that awaited him there and still more to the sour-faced owner of a rickety old car to rent it. Gardner suspected that he paid in rent more than the car was worth, but then the owner clearly didn’t expect to ever see his car again—a very astute man.
Two days later, he boarded a flight for the Philippines, and from there, home.
Only one thing caused him some alarm. A Chinese man had boarded the plane in Hanoi with Bill and the same man had gotten on the plane to San Francisco, via Hawaii. He was there again when Bill transferred planes to New York.
There could very well have been a logical explanation for the man to have taken the same route as Bill had. New York was a major hub of trade and commerce, many Chinese made the exact same trip. But it was the fact that he had followed Bill from Hanoi that bothered him so much.
When they got off the plane in New York, he intentionally waited around for the man to see where he would go. The Chinese man, dressed in a business suit and carrying only a briefcase, did not even look around. He went straight to a taxi and left in a cloud of fumes.
“Stop it, Bill!” he whispered to himself. “You are jumping at shadows.”
He turned to walk to the domestic parking lot where his girlfriend Karen would be waiting to give him a ride back to his apartment. Now that he was home safely, he was a bit bewildered as to what to do next. He dare not contact General Hynes…not yet, anyway. No doubt the man already knew that Bill had returned and a call would most likely come at some point in the future. He had been out of touch with his law firm for so long, he half wondered if they had rented out his old offices to someone else.
He sighed, trying to figure out his next steps. At least Karen seemed happy to see him. She squealed when she caught sight of him as he stepped out of the elevator. He had to drop his small tote bag to collect her in his arms lest she bowl him over. She hugged him tightly. “I’ve missed you so much, Bill.”
He reveled in the feel of her, the smell of her brown hair, nestled just under his chin, and the warm sensations of coming home. He pulled back to look her in the eyes. “I’m so sorry Karen. I wish I could give you more of an explanation of where I was or what I did. I hope you can trust me and believe me when I say it is best put behind us.” He grinned. “It is so good to see you!”
She allowed a frown to touch her lips. “I was really frightened, Bill. I had no idea where you were or what was going on.”
He sighed and pulled her close again. “I know. I wish I could have called or something, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”
“I wish I understood why,” she replied plaintively.
“Me too,” he whispered. “
Me too.”
They walked to her new Ford Edge, enjoying each other’s presence. “Are you back for good,” she asked, unlocking the car door.
“I better be,” he grumbled loudly. He needed to change the subject. “How’s the telecommunication business treating you?”
Karen made a face as she swung into the driver’s seat. Bill tossed his bag into the back seat and then joined her in the front. She rolled her eyes. “You remember Jerry? The idiot tried to make a pass at me the other day. I nearly had to kick him in the balls to get him to leave me alone.”
A surge of jealously caused Bill’s blood to boil, but he stomped it down. “Well, you are a most gorgeous girl I’ve ever met. He’d be a fool not to try. How did you get him to leave you alone?”
“I told him that my boyfriend was a trained assassin for the government.”
Bill went cold, his face settling into a mask. Karen noticed.
“I’m kidding, Bill! Don’t freak out on me. I just told him that I would slap a sexual harassment suit on his empty head if he didn’t back off. He did. Apparently he is more interested in keeping his job than in pursuing me.” She shook her head at the futility of it all, and Bill relaxed. Her comment had struck too close to home.
“Good for you,” he said glibly.
They talked about mundane things for the rest of the trip home. Karen only had a few hours off of work, so she dropped him off at his apartment and then dashed away. Bill watched her go, feeling slightly out of his depth. He ran a hand through his hair, idly realizing he needed a haircut.
He turned to go inside when a taxi drove by. Something about it caught his eye, and he swung back around to look. He couldn’t be certain, but the face in the passenger seat looked to be Asian. He frowned and watched it disappear down the road. Shaking his head at his own paranoia, he went up to his apartment.
He studied the door and from what he could tell, nothing had been disturbed. Opening it, he heard something being pushed across the floor.
Freezing, with his heart pounding in his chest, he waiting for something to explode.