floor under their feet. He stared at them, speechless.
“Lao Chen, calm down,” said Little Xi. “Everything’s been arranged. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“He’s fine,” said Zhang Dou. “I used the best brand of chloroform; puppies and kittens get no side effects from it; the worst he might have is a headache for a couple of hours.”
“He won’t wake up for at least two hours,” chimed in Fang Caodi as he drove along. “No matter how loudly we speak, he won’t be able to hear a thing. I’ve tried this chloroform myself. It puts you out completely for over two hours and it’s perfectly reliable.”
“Have you all gone crazy?” shouted Lao Chen, glancing in terror at He Dongsheng.
“We won’t hurt him,” said Little Xi. “We just want to ask him some questions.”
“After that, we’ll set him free,” said Fang Caodi.
“You really are crazy!” said Lao Chen in dismay. “We’re fucked! Really fucked!”
“Shit!” said Fang Caodi suddenly. “Trouble up ahead!”
Lao Chen turned back to look through the windshield. Traffic police were conducting vehicle checks. “Now we’re really fucked!” he said, paralyzed in his seat.
“Everybody sit up straight…” said Fang Caodi. He looked like he was going to ram the roadblock.
Just then Lao Chen saw hurrying toward them that same fat traffic cop who had stopped He Dongsheng a couple of months before. He grabbed Fang Caodi’s arm and said, “Don’t try anything stupid. Slow down.”
As Lao Chen expected, the portly traffic cop prevented the other officers from stopping their car and just waved them through the checkpoint.
“Okay, now drive slowly,” Lao Chen instructed Fang Caodi, “and gradually increase your speed.”
As the SUV passed through the checkpoint, Lao Chen made eye contact with the fat cop and gave him an army salute.
He finally relaxed and the three others heaved a sigh of relief.
“That was close,” said Zhang Dou.
“A miracle,” said Fang Caodi.
Lao Chen signaled to Zhang Dou to move over a bit and then let his front seat recline at a 45-degree angle. He turned on his side and reached over to search in He Dongsheng’s pockets for the anti-surveillance device. He took it out and pressed the button; a few seconds later the three little green lights came on. “Good,” he said, “nobody is following us or listening in on us.” He handed Zhang Dou the antisurveillance device and told him to put it back in the left-inside pocket of He Dongsheng’s suit.
Lao Chen sat back exhausted, in a sad silence.
“Lao Chen,” said Little Xi, “you mustn’t blame us. Old Fang and I debated for a long time, and then decided that we had to question someone who has inside information. Otherwise, no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be able to figure out the truth about that lost month. There’s no way we can resign ourselves to not knowing what really happened.”
“We figured,” continued Fang Caodi, “that in China, where all information is controlled by the government, only a Party and national leader would have knowledge of the entire internal situation. But how could we meet a national leader? That was when we thought about this Professor He you told us about. Then we decided to find him and get him to explain things to us, but we figured he wouldn’t want to talk to us, so we had to take a few risks. Anyway, we believe that our national leaders have a responsibility to tell the common people the truth. Unless we scare them a bit, they will never talk.”
Lao Chen remained silent.
“Old Fang and I,” said Little Xi, “were afraid that you wouldn’t agree, so we didn’t include you in our plans. You can honestly say that you’re not a part of this grab. If you want to pull out now, we won’t try to stop you. We can let you out to take a taxi back, and it will be just like all this never happened. You won’t know anything about it.”
Lao Chen sighed loudly.
“Of course,” continued Fang Caodi, “we all hope that you’ll stay with us and hear Professor He’s explanations. We’ve already set everything up. We’re going to use remote video equipment in two separate rooms to tape our questions and his answers. He will never see our faces, and our voices will be electronically modified. He’ll never know who we are.”
“Just now in the parking lot,” explained Zhang Dou, “we all wore masks. We can be quite certain that before he was unconscious, Professor He didn’t see our faces.”
“How can you be so stupid?” Lao Chen finally spoke.
“You have a witness,” said Fang Caodi, “that you were not in on it! When we grabbed him, you were still inside with your friend Jian Lin. We’ve thought of everything.”
“That’s not the most important point,” said Lao Chen.
They didn’t understand what he meant.
“The most important point,” he continued, “is that very few people know about He Dongsheng coming to this monthly film screening; maybe only Jian Lin and I do, and the secretary-at most three people besides He Dongsheng know about it. I’m sure to be investigated; I can’t get out of it, and I’m sure to be the prime suspect. Even if they assume I wasn’t one of the actual planners, when they ask me who I’ve seen lately, I will naturally give them your names and you will be investigated. Now that you’ve let me know what you’re up to, even before they torture me, I’ll be so scared I’ll probably squeal. This time we’re totally fucked.”
The three of them suddenly understood. They went quiet for a long time.
“Lao Chen.” Little Xi finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry we got you into this. It was my idea to grab a national leader and ask him what has really been going on. I was so angry and now I’ve got everyone in trouble.”
“I can’t let you take the responsibility,” said Fang Caodi. “This was all my rotten idea and I owe you all an apology.”
“Let’s find a place to stop the car,” said Zhang Dou, “put Professor He in the driver’s seat, get out, and go home like nothing ever happened. Professor He will wake up alone in less than two hours from now.”
“Will he be able to remember what happened before he was unconscious?” asked Lao Chen.
“When I grabbed him,” said Zhang Dou, “and put the chloroform rag over his mouth, he only struggled for six or seven seconds before he passed out.”
“When he wakes up,” Lao Chen said dejectedly, “he’ll have a headache and he’ll remember those six or seven seconds. Then he’ll definitely phone his secretary and activate the whole security system; they’ll check all the CCTV street-monitoring tapes, and probably call that fat traffic cop for corroboration. Then they’ll start investigating me… the result being that I’ll be scared shitless and give you all up. This time we’re definitely fucked.”
They all went quiet again; they were probably each thinking about various possible ways out of this dilemma.
“We could kill him…” said Fang Caodi after a while, and everybody gasped, but Fang went on. “I could never kill someone to keep him quiet. I’ll do everything myself and take all the blame. You all get out of the car. I’ll drive down south, contact the government, and ask for a big ransom to divert attention from all of you. You can all get out of the car here, okay? Zhang Dou, leave the chloroform with me.”
“How can we do that?” asked Little Xi.
“It’s just my one rotten life,” said Fang Caodi, “so why not? What do you say, Lao Chen?”
“Old Fang,” said Lao Chen, “this may be disappointing for you to hear, but even if you make it down south and kill yourself before they catch you, it still won’t solve the problem that only a few people knew of He Dongsheng’s movements this evening. They’ll definitely investigate me, and I’m one hundred percent certain that I’m a coward and scared of pain. As soon as they start on me, I’ll confess everything. Even if you make your sacrifice, it won’t prevent this inevitable outcome. We’ll still be fucked.” Lao Chen turned to Zhang Dou. “What is your safest estimation of how long we have before he wakes up?”
“The earliest he could wake up would be in ninety minutes, but I could give him some more chloroform,” answered Zhang Dou with a glance at his cell phone.
“Now that things have gone this far,” said Lao Chen, “there’s no point hurrying. We still have some time, so let me see if I can think of something.”
While Lao Chen was mulling over various possible escape strategies, he remembered that in his detective novel
