Satori

reality.”

“I saw the rocket launchers,” Nicholai said. “They looked quite real.”

“Props,” Yu answered, “for your little opera. The play is over, Mr. Hel.”

“And yet here you are in Yunnan,” Nicholai answered, “for weeks now, near the Vietnamese border. Perhaps that is mere coincidence, or perhaps you are overly solicitous of my recuperation, but more likely it’s because you intend to take the rocket launchers across the border into Vietnam.”

“Even if that were true,” Yu said, “it hardly concerns you.”

“Let me tell you why it does,” Nicholai said. “I have demonstrated skills that might be very useful. I’m fluent in French, have an established cover as an arms merchant, and I’m a kweilo, which would give me certain advantages in the French colonies. So much for my utility, here is my offer: I will deliver the weapons to the Viet Minh and retain the payment as my recompense for services rendered. Once the weapons have been safely delivered, you will provide me with a new identity and documentation. Then we are quit of each other.”

It seemed the perfect solution, Nicholai thought. The Americans, through the gift of the rocket launchers, would unintentionally honor their deal with him, and it would have the added effect of harming their interests.

“You think a lot of your value, Mr. Hel.”

“It is simply an objective evaluation.”

Yu stared at him. “If you reemerge anywhere in Indochina, the Americans will find you.”

“Just so.”

Yu agreed to consider his offer.

The Americans will find me, Nicholai thought when Yu left the room. No, we will find each other, and I will hold Haverford accountable for his treachery.

And then I will find Solange.

92

DIAMOND PORED over the Hel file.

Goddamnit, he thought. How could Hel have escaped the trap in the Beijing temple and that Chinese kung-fu son of a bitch who was supposed to have been so good? Yeah, so goddamn good that he let Hel put a bullet in his head and kill the rest of his men as well.

Two swings at Hel, he thought, two misses. First he dispatches the two would-be killers in Tokyo, then the massacre in Beijing.

Three strikes and you’re out, Diamond told himself.

The next try has to connect.

But you have to find Hel before you can kill him.

“Lure him,” Singleton had said.

Easy for the old fart to say, a little harder to do. Lure him with what? What bait can you set that would bring Hel in?

Diamond went back to studying the file that Singleton had forced Haverford to turn over. Start at the beginning, he told himself.

Start in Tokyo.

Find the bait that will bring that arrogant half-Jap bastard waltzing in.

93

NICHOLAI’S ROOM WAS pleasant.

Large, airy, made entirely of poles, it sat on stilts, the space below housing chickens and a pig. Nicholai learned that it sat on the edge of a remote Buddhist monastery in the hills of Wulian, high above the Lekang River, and that the nearby villagers were Puman people, an ethnic minority that spoke a Dai dialect but little Han Chinese. He could see the people through the window – the men wore black turbans, the women colorful headscarves with pieces of silver sewn into them.

It was all so different from drab Beijing.

As a further comfort, Yu had acquired all of Guibert’s clothing and personal effects and had them brought to Yunnan. Nicholai particularly appreciated the razor and small travel mirror, and one morning asked for a bowl of hot water so he could shave.

His image in the mirror was a bit of a shock. His skin was pale, his face drawn, the beard gave him the look of a prison camp survivor. Shaving made him look and feel better, but he realized that he would have to start eating regularly to regain his health.

“I want to get up,” he said.

The young monk who had brought the water looked nervous. “Xue Xin says not for five more days.”

“Is Xue Xin here at the moment?”

The young monk comically looked around the room. “No.”

“Then help me get up, please.”

“I will go ask -”

“If you go ask,” Nicholai said, “I will try to get up on my own while you are gone, and probably fall and die as a result. What would Xue Xin say to you then?”

“He would hit me with a stick.”

“So.”

The monk helped him out of the bed. Nicholai tentatively put some weight on the wounded leg. The pain was ferocious, and it started to buckle beneath him, but the monk steadied him and they walked across the room.

Then back again.

After three trips, Nicholai was exhausted and the monk helped him back into the bed.

The next morning he walked outside.

Painful and slow at first, his walk from the village to the monastery became part of a thrice-daily routine as he rebuilt his physical and mental stamina. Making his unsteady way along the narrow, stone-laid paths, he focused on details – unraveling individual birdsong from the cacophony of a score of species, identifying types of monkeys from their incessant chatter and warning screeches, distinguishing plants and vines from among thousands in the verdant forest.

The jungle was reclaiming the monastery.

Its vines cracked the old stones, swallowed columns and stiles, crept over flagstone pavilions like a patient, persistent tide of Go stones on a board. Yet statues of Buddha peeped through the vegetation, his eyes content with the knowledge that all things change and all physical matter inevitably decays.

The discipline of the walk was good for Nicholai’s mind, and every day the pain lessened and his strength returned until he could walk with strength and confidence. His spirit recovered as well, and soon he began to think about the future.

He almost tripped over the monk.

Xue Xin was on his hands and knees with a small blade, carefully trimming vines away from a stone path that led to a modest stupa. The monk wore a simple brown robe tied at the waist with a belt that had faded almost to white.

He looked up and asked, “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Xue Xin slowly got to his feet and bowed. Nicholai bowed deeply in return.

“You don’t bow like a Frenchman,” Xue Xin said.

“I was raised in China,” Nicholai answered. “Later in Japan.”

Xue Xin laughed. “That explains it. The Japanese, they like to bow.”