She found the baby by its warmth.
As if it had always been her own, as if she were collecting it from a cradle, she scooped up the bundle. The little creature was sour-smelling. So tiny. Holly Ann brushed her fingertips across the baby's belly: the umbilical cord was ragged and soft, as if freshly bitten. It was a girl, no more than a few days old. Holly Ann held the little body to her shoulder and listened. Her heart sank. Instantly she knew. The baby was ill. She was dying.
'Oh, darling,' she whispered.
Her heart was failing. Her lungs were filling. You could hear it. Not long now.
Holly Ann wrapped the infant in her sweater and knelt in the pile of putrid garbage, rocking her baby. Maybe this was how it was meant to be, a motherhood that lasted only a few minutes. Better than never at all, she thought. She stood and started back toward the hallway and Christmas lights.
A small noise stopped her. The sound had several parts, like a metal scorpion lifting its tail, poising to strike. Slowly Holly Ann turned.
At first the rifle and military uniform didn't register. She was a very tall and sturdy woman who had not smiled for many years. The woman's nose had been broken sideways long ago. Her hair must have been cut with a knife. She looked like someone who had been fighting – and losing – her entire life.
The woman hissed something at Holly Ann in a burst of Chinese. She made an angry
gesture, pointing at the bundle inside Holly Ann's sweater. There was no mistaking her demand. She wanted the infant returned to the sewage pile in that horrible room. Holly Ann recoiled, clutching the baby tighter. Slowly she raised the packet of disposable diapers. 'It's okay,' she assured the tall woman.
Like two different species, the women studied each other. Holly Ann wondered if this might be the infant's mother, and decided it couldn't possibly be.
Suddenly the Chinese woman scowled, and batted aside the diapers with her rifle barrel. She reached for the infant. Her peasant hand was thick and callused and manly.
In her entire life, Holly Ann had never made a fist in real anger, to say nothing of swinging one. Her first ever connected on the woman's thin mouth. It wasn't much of a punch, but it drew blood.
Holly Ann stepped back from her violence and wrapped both arms around the baby. The Chinese woman wiped the bead of blood from her mouth and thrust the rifle barrel out. Holly Ann was terrified. But for whatever reason, the woman relented with a whispered oath, and motioned with her rifle.
Holly Ann set off in the direction indicated. Surely Wade would appear at any minute. Money would change hands. They would leave this terrible place.
With the gun at her back, Holly Ann climbed over a pile of bricks and torn sandbags. They reached a set of stairs and started up. Something crunched underfoot like metal beetles. Holly Ann saw a deep layer of hundreds of bullet casings coated with wet verdigris.
They went higher, three stories, then five. Holding the child, Holly Ann managed to keep up the pace. She didn't have much choice. Suddenly the woman caught at Holly Ann's arm. They stopped. This time the rifle was aimed back down the stair shaft.
Far below, something was moving. It sounded like eels coiling in mud. The two women shared a look. For an instant they actually had something in common, their fear. Holly Ann softly armored the infant with her hand. After another minute the Chinese woman got them on the move again, faster this time.
They reached the top floor. The roof gaped open in violent patches, and Holly Ann caught snatches of stars. She smelled fresh air. They clambered over a small landslide of scorched wood and cinder blocks and approached a brightly lit doorway.
Bags of cement had been piled like sandbags as a barricade. The fronts had been slashed open and rainwater had soaked the spillage, turning it to hard knuckles of concrete. It was like climbing folds of lava.
Holly Ann struggled, one arm clutching the infant. Near the top, her head knocked against a cold cannon barrel pointing where they'd come from. Hands with broken fingernails reached down for her from the electric brilliance.
All the dramatics changed. It was like entering a besieged camp: soldiers everywhere, guns, blasted architecture, rain cutting naked through great wounds in the roof. To Holly Ann's enormous relief, Wade was there, sitting in a corner, holding his head.
Once the room might have been a small auditorium, or a cafeteria. Now the space was illuminated with Stalinist klieg lights and looked like Custer's Last Stand. Soldiers from the People's Liberation Army, mostly men in pea-green uniforms or black-striped camouflage, were all business among their weapons. They gave wide berth to Holly Ann. Several elites pointed at the baby inside her sweater.
In the distance, Mr Li was appealing to an officer who carried himself with the iron spine of a hero of the people. His crewcut was gray. He looked weary.
She went over to Wade. He was bleeding into both eyes from a laceration across the scalp line. 'Wade,' she said.
'Holly Ann?' he said. 'Thank God. Mr Li told them you were still below. They sent someone to find you.'
She avoided his bear hug. 'I have something to show you,' she announced quietly.
'It's very dangerous here,' Wade said. 'Something's going on. A revolution or something. I gave Li all our cash. I told him to pay anything, just get us out of here.'
'Wade,' she snapped. He wasn't listening to her.
A voice suddenly boomed in the back, where Mr Li stood. It was the officer. He was shouting at Holly Ann's rescuer, the tall woman. All around her, soldiers looked angry or ashamed for her. Obviously she had allowed some terrible breach. Holly Ann knew it had to do with this baby.
The officer unsnapped his leather holster and looked at her. He drew his pistol out.
'Good Lord,' Holly Ann murmured.
'What?' said Wade. He stood there like some bewildered monster. Useless.
It was her call. Holly Ann astonished herself. As the officer approached her, she started off to meet him halfway. They met in the center of the rubble-strewn room.
'Mr Li,' Holly Ann commanded.
Mr Li glared at her, but came forward.
'Tell this man I have selected my child,' she said. 'I have medicine in the car. I wish to go home now.'
Mr Li started to translate, but the officer abruptly chambered a round. Mr Li blinked rapidly. He was very pale. The officer said something to him.