«Easy does it, Ernie,» McCoy said softly.
«Sir, you are American?» Major Kee Lew See asked in English.
«What did you say?» McCoy replied nastily in Cantonese. «What do you want?»
«I asked if you are American,» Major Kee asked in Cantonese.
«And who are you to ask me what I am?» McCoy said.
«I am Major Kee Lew See, aide-de-camp to General Sun. Your papers, please, Major.»
The Chinese boy reached the table and laid the plates of beef on it.
«You don't mind if I have my supper first, do you, Major?» McCoy said, and shifted in his seat.
«Your papers, please, Major,» Kee repeated.
McCoy, with a look of patient resignation on his face, took out his fraudulent identification and handed it over.
As Major Kee very carefully examined it, McCoy, hoping he couldn't be observed, opened the top of his holster and put his hand on the butt of the 9mm Luger Parabellum automatic pistol it held.
«This is a very good forgery,» Major Kee said, handing the identification document back to McCoy. «Very few people would question it.»
«What are you talking about?» McCoy said, easing the Luger from the holster and putting his finger on the trigger.
The only thing I can do is stick the barrel in this guy's belly, march him out of here, put him in the back of the ambulance, get the hell away from here, and worry about what to do with him later.
«Killer,» Zimmerman said softly, and nodded toward the door.
Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMC, trailed by Captain Jerome Sampson, USA, was making his way across the crowded room to them.
McCoy let the Luger drop back into the molded holster.
«Who the hell are you, Major?» he asked in English.
«I told you, Captain McCoy. I am Major Kee Lew See, aide-de-camp to General Sun.»
Major General Chow Song-chek was feeling absolutely no pain when he started to climb up into the rear seat of his ancient Packard touring car. Then some thought stopped him, and he stepped off the running board.
God, now what
? Pickering thought.
General Chow's departure from the front door of the VIP villa had taken him almost as long as his departure from the dinner table.
«General Pickering, my friend, may I say something to you man-to-man?»
«Of course, General.»
«You tend to underestimate Chinese hospitality,» General Chow announced.
«General, I am overwhelmed by your hospitality,» Pickering said. «I have difficulty finding the words to express my gratitude.»
«Nevertheless, my friend, you did not fully understand that all you had to do was give me a small hint that all that you wished was not being furnished.»
What the hell is he talking about?
«That's probably true, sir, but there is, I assure you, nothing that I wish to have that has not already been so graciously provided.»
«Not now, of course, at this hour. We are all tired. It was otherwise, may I dare to say, a satisfactory welcome to Yümen and the Thirty-second Military District?»
«It exceeded anything I would have dared to hope for,» Pickering said.
«I am pleased that you are satisfied with our poor attempt to welcome such a distinguished visitor as yourself,» General Chow said. «And I assure you, my dear General, that tonight there will be nothing…« He winked at Pickering and struck his right shoulder in a gesture of masculine friendship. «… nothing at all, missing to entertain you.»
Pickering saw that Lieutenant Colonel Banning was having a very hard time keeping a straight face.
«That's very kind of you, General,» Pickering said.
General Chow—for the fifth time—shook Pickering's hand, came to attention and saluted, and finally climbed again into the backseat of the ancient Packard.
It drove away from the house in a cloud of blue exhaust smoke.
«What was that all about?»
«When he missed you before dinner, General,» Banning said, «General Sun told him that you had gone off to seek female companionship.»
«Good God!»
«And when you came back,» Banning went on, «General Chow asked Kee if you had found what you wanted and were satisfied with it. Kee assured him you had.»
«General Chow was a little embarrassed that he hadn't thought of female companionship for you himself,» General Sun said, smiling. «He apparently intends to make up for his oversight tonight.»
«Jesus Christ!»
«With all respect, sir,» Lieutenant Hart said. «I hope the General realizes that the reputation of the Marine Corps rests on the General's performance tonight.»
«Oh, for God's sake, George,» Pickering said, hoping he sounded properly indignant. He looked around the yard, spotted McCoy's ambulance—which did indeed have a «longitudinal scar» on the driver's door—and made a «come here» wave toward it.
McCoy and Zimmerman got out and walked to the door of the house. They saluted.
«General Sun, may I present Majors MeeKoy and Zimmerman of the 2035th Liaison Group?» Pickering said.
General Sun shook their hands and spoke to both of them in Chinese, asking each a question that required more than a monosyllabic reply.
He's checking their Chinese
, Pickering quickly decided. I
would
.
«Please come in the house, gentlemen,» General Sun said, switching to English. «We'll get something to drink—not that I need anything more—and then I hope you will tell me how I can be of assistance.»
McCoy was prepared for this. There hadn't been much time to talk in the Inn of the Fattened Goose. Pickering had understood the necessity of getting back to General Chow's party as quickly as possible. But there had been time to explain why he and General Sun were in Yümen, and to tell McCoy that he was going to have to brief Sun about how his Gobi Desert plans were going, as well as solicit his advice and help with the other Chinese.
It took McCoy about ten minutes to explain what he planned to do. He went on to report that there was «gossip» about a caravan of «foreigners» making their way across the Gobi, and produced a map from the billows pocket of his Chinese Army tunic to show General Sun where the «gossip» indicated the «foreigners» were.
«I figure it will take, sir,» McCoy said, «about five days for the supply convoy to reach this point»—he punched at the map with a pencil—«where they have scheduled a rendezvous with a camel patrol currently operating in the Gobi. To be on the safe side, I'm planning on seven. And from that point to here»—he indicated again with the pencil—«another five or six days. There's some variables we won't know about until we get out there.»
«What kind of variables?» Banning asked.
«I don't know how fast we can move, or how much time we're going to lose getting around arroyos and other obstacles. We're counting on ten hours of light a day. There may be more or less. It may snow. It probably will. There probably will be ice. All of that will slow us down. I don't want to use headlights, so I don't think we'll be able to move much at night, unless we have moonlight. There will be some moonlight, but we don't know how much cloud cover there will be, which means there might not be enough moonlight to drive.»