“Yangkok. Whoever last used this machine typed the word Yangkok.”
Chapter 28
A quick glance at Michael’s wrist-top GPS revealed Yangkok to be a remote village about fifteen miles into the mountains. There was little detail of the area on the LCD map underscoring the fact that Yangkok was known more for its complete lack of interest to the outside world than anything else. It was of interest now however, that much was certain. First things first. Both Michael and Kate agreed that the encoding machine was too valuable to leave on the rooftop. Fortunately, it fit nicely in Michael’s daypack. After reassembling the capsule and returning it to its hiding place, the next order of business was to contact Ted. Kate was indifferent to the idea, but at Michael’s insistence they stopped by the Yangshuo Hotel to find him. Ted, however, was nowhere to be found. Agreeing to put Ted aside for the moment, they concentrated on getting to Yangkok.
A survey of the local buses confirmed that there was no road connecting Yangshuo with the isolated village. That meant they’d have to walk, or potentially take a bicycle, but both those options would be slow. Still, if the paths they had traveled the day before were any indication of terrain, there wasn’t much room for anything else. Michael looked up and down the block where West Street met the main road. The teashops and auto repair shanties alongside the highway were just coming to life and Michael noticed something he’d missed a moment earlier — a row of men lined up further down the hill.
What caught Michael’s interest wasn’t the men per se, but what they held in their hands. Helmets. Michael quickened his pace down the grade to see that each of the men was seated on a mid-sized motorcycle, a yellow placard embossed with a number sticking up from their front fenders. The placards gave it away. These men were motorcycle cabbies awaiting their fares. And as with any cabbie, all that was left was the negotiation.
Michael’s proposal was simple. Instead of a ride about town, he wanted to rent one of their motorcycles for the day. If Michael was to be honest, he had to admit that the idea was crazy. Go to Manhattan and try to rent a yellow cab for the day. But Michael knew they needed the extra flexibility that their own transportation would provide. So, with Kate’s help translating, he tried his luck. As it was, after the predictable laughter followed by stunned silence, there was a motorcycle cabbie who looked like he might just need the money enough to be convinced. It was in this way that after a circuitous driving test, followed by several hundred yuan notes and a thousand assurances that they would be back before sunset, Michael and Kate found themselves the proud lessees of a beat up 250cc motorcycle.
The morning had progressed and leaving Yangshuo turned out to be busier than Michael anticipated. They were forced to share the road with diesel belching trucks and tractors, but once they turned onto a secondary road a few miles from town, things quieted down dramatically. While Michael was busy demonstrating his safe driving skills to the cabbies, Kate had been able to augment the meager detail on the GPS map with halfway decent directions to Yangkok. After a few miles of gravel road they would find a walking trail which would take them to a still narrower path along the base of the mountains. Ultimately they would follow this winding path for nine or ten miles, finally crossing a bridge over a stream which would lead them directly to the village.
So far the directions had been accurate. The karsts sprouted out of the earth like magic mushrooms growing closer and closer together until the rough road petered out entirely and was replaced by the narrow walking path. Michael felt Kate grasp him tightly as he twisted the throttle in an effort to keep them upright on the rough rolling trail. He liked having her there, feeling her closeness. And he wanted to trust her. But he just didn’t. There were still too many unanswered questions.
Continuing on, they soon found themselves in a meadow, the trail an ocher line stretching like a ribbon across the green grass. A small river was now visible in the distance, winding between the karsts where the meadow turned to water-filled rice paddies. Michael marveled at the place as he piloted the bike forward, careful to avoid dropping it on the path, which was soon reduced to a low berm between paddies, green rice shoots poking their heads out of the flooded fields.
Water buffalo lolled in muddy ponds and footprints dotted the berm, but there wasn’t a human being in sight. After some time, Michael slowed the bike to a standstill, shutting down the engine in an effort to get his bearings. A gentle breeze could be heard rustling the trees growing up from the rocky soil of the karsts, a rooster crowing somewhere in the distance.
“There,” Kate said, pointing to the other side of the far off river, where a wisp of smoke curled its way off the valley floor and up the side of a bent mountain. “Look familiar?”
Michael nodded. “I think we found our crooked karst.”
* * *
A mile away the all-seeing eye of the MSS watched with detached scrutiny. The tracking device was working as specified, but truth be known, for the moment Huang was more interested in the landscape. He remembered fields like this from his time as a boy in rural Guangdong Province. Huang was still in the prime of his life, but he recognized that by and large, those times had passed. Nowadays he was more likely to rest his eyes on the never ending array of newly constructed skyscrapers than to happen upon an empty field. Regardless, it didn’t much matter. Huang had a job to do and he was getting close. The American was near his goal and he was near the American. Even without the assistance of their spies in the American camp, Huang believed his mission would soon be complete.
“Captain Huang,” a junior agent interrupted.
“Yes?”
“The target is moving.”
Huang snapped back to attention, focusing his gaze on the moving icon on the LCD screen. He reminded himself that now was not the moment to let his mind wander. There would be time for those reminiscences later. Now was the time for hunting.
* * *
As promised, after crossing the stream on a narrow crumbling foot bridge, they reached their destination. A studied look at Kate’s iPhone confirmed that the crooked karst matched the engraving on the side of the capsule. This time, there was no disputing the angles. But why here? What made this place special? The village was quiet, almost eerily so, a ribbon of dirt running right through the center of it, stone huts on either side of the path. Michael and Kate continued to tool along slowly on the motorcycle until they passed a boy guiding a lone goat off the path and into a pen. Michael brought the motorcycle to a stop in the middle of the path where Kate got off to address the boy. The boy replied with a single syllable and a smile.
“What did you say?”
“I asked him if this was Yangkok.”
“And?”
“He asked me where else it would be.”
Michael kicked the bike onto its stand and they walked past several more vacant doorways, Michael finally poking his head inside one of the huts that seemed to promise more life than the others. There was what looked like a raw cotton mattress in the corner with some hay and a clay cooking oven in which the embers were still smoldering. The floor was unfinished stone and mud like the walls. As Michael’s eyes adjusted to the dim light he was able to make out a short-haired pig sleeping in the corner. There was a blackened wok, and a set of chipped, recently washed plates. Not exactly a manse, but it would keep the rain out.