He had joked so much about Wu Tai Kwong, the phantom political criminal, that Wu had concluded Lee could be an ally. So one morning one of Wu’s lieutenants was waiting when Lee finished his morning show.
At first Lee didn’t believe the man knew Wu Tai Kwong, as he said he did, but the man’s serious demeanor and his anti-Communist sentiments assuaged his doubts. The man returned to the station for private conversations week after week for months. Lee finally realized that the man wasn’t a government agent and that he indeed knew Wu Tai Kwong.
Eventually the man enlisted Lee to become a spokesman of the revolution. Two weeks ago he was told about the upcoming battle of Hong Kong, presented with a cell phone, and told about the message that he would receive on the designated day.
Jimmy Lee had not told a soul this fantastic secret, which was a remarkable testament to the supreme effort he was making to control himself. He had thought deeply about it for two weeks, brooded upon it, had nightmares about it. The reality was that the revolutionaries wanted him to commit treason… when the telephone rang.
Treason! If the revolution failed, Jimmy Lee’s life would be forfeit. The government would hunt him down and execute him publicly.
This morning Lee was almost incoherent on the air. He played songs but babbled nonsense when he had to speak. He had never been able to resist food, was almost a hundred pounds overweight, yet this morning he was unable to eat. Sweating profusely, nauseated, able to talk only in monosyllables, he was questioned by his producer… and he told everything.
The producer refused to believe Lee. He was unaware that this was the last radio station on the air in Hong Kong. He knew nothing about the disasters in the stock market, the airport, the subways… none of that had been published by the government, which like all Communist governments was loath to admit or discuss problems.
Lee talked on. He produced the cell phone. He told about meeting a friend of Wu Tai Kwong’s, told about how the army would be confronted today, about the explanations he was to make over the radio… and then he produced the cassette.
The producer put the cassette into a player and listened to a minute or two of it while Jimmy Lee hyperventilated.
The male voice on the cassette was as calm and confident as a human can be, calling for people to rally behind the freedom fighters, obey the revolutionary leaders, and kill PLA soldiers who refused to surrender.
The producer turned off the cassette player and sat chewing his fingernails while he considered what he should do. The first thing, he decided, was to let the New China News Agency censor listen to this tape. The man worked for the government, knew how things worked. He would know what to do about the tape.
Lin Pe was not thinking of resolve, although she had as much as the governor and then some. She was thinking of the strange ways human lives are twisted by chance, or fate, call it what you will.
She dressed in her newest clothes, brushed her hair, made herself look as nice as she could. In her purse she put her notebook — so she could write down any fortunes that crossed her mind in the course of the day — two rice cakes, and a bottle of water. She ensured the house key was already in the purse, then went to find her daughter, who was giving the maids their daily instructions. The television was on — General Tang was telling people to stay home.
When Sue Lin finished with the maids, she told her mother, “Rip wanted us both to stay home today. He said the streets will be dangerous, there may be shooting.” Her mother would respect Rip’s opinion, Sue Lin knew, more than she would her daughter’s, for her mother had not lost her lifetime habit of deference to men.
“I think the rebellion will begin today,” the old lady said calmly. “Today is the beginning of the end for the Communists.”
“Richard Buckingham is paying the money today, Mother. Wu Tai Kwong will probably be home this evening.”
Lin Pe merely nodded. Then she went out the door and along the street toward the tram, which would take her down the mountain to the Central District.
The matter was quite simple, really. Her son thought this struggle was worth his life. That being the case, it was worth hers, too.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At the Victoria ferry landing, people were streaming off the overloaded ferries from Kowloon and patronizing a small army of food vendors, who were selling fish and shark and rice cakes as fast as they could fry it. Not many children, considering. Here and there Jake Grafton saw people reading sheets of The Truth, sometimes three and four people huddled together looking at the same piece of paper. The people looked somber, grim, though perhaps it was just his imagination.
Not many people were interested in going to Kowloon, so there was no line. Jake went right aboard the ferry Star of the East.
As the boat approached Kowloon he could see the sea of humanity waiting to board the ferries to Victoria. With the subways out of service, this crowd was to be expected. The terminal was packed, with a large group of people outside on the street, waiting to get inside.
As soon as the boat tied up, Jake was off and walking at a brisk pace. Outside the terminal the crowd swallowed him. He thought about getting something to eat in McDonald’s, which was about fifty yards away, but it too was packed full, with people waiting to get into the place.
For the first time since he had arrived in Hong Kong the sheer mass of China threatened to overwhelm him. People everywhere, densely packed, all talking, breathing, shouting, pushing…
He made his way along Nathan Road and turned into the street that led by his hotel. Fewer people here, thank God.
The manager was in the lobby trying to calm a crowd of tourists from Germany. The common language was a heavily accented pidgin English.
So sorry, the manager explained, but the airlines had canceled all flights; daily bus tours of Hong Kong were canceled; trains to Canton, Shanghai, and Beijing were not running; telephone calls to Europe were not going through; credit cards could not be accepted for payment of bills; money-changing services at front desk temporarily suspended. So sorry. All problems temporary. Not to worry, all fixed soon. So sorry.
Behind Jake he heard an elderly British male voice say with more than a trace of satisfaction, “Bloody place is falling apart. Knew it would! Wasn’t like this in the old days, I can tell you.”
In the corner an American college student was trying to comfort his girlfriend. In the snippet he heard, Jake gathered that the girl was worried that her parents would be worried.
Jake waited until the manager made his escape from the unhappy Germans, then waylaid him. He told him his name, reminded him of the trashed room, wanted to know where his luggage was.
The manager signaled for a bellhop, then spoke to the uniformed man in Chinese.
Jake was escorted to the elevator and taken to the top floor of the building. They had laid out his and Callie’s luggage in a three-room suite, the best in the house, probably. The sitting room and bedroom both had balconies.
The crowd was so dense it intimidated Lin Pe, and she had lived in dense Chinese cities much of her life. There was an intensity, an anticipation, that seemed to energize the people.
She fought against the flow of people and managed to get aboard a ferry to Kowloon, as it turned out the last one, because the authorities demanded that the Star line stop carrying demonstrators to Victoria and forced the crews off the boats.