‘Kate! It’s me, don’t shoot!’ Curtis yelled, conscious that Kate would be firing at any movement. al-Falid made a move towards his pistol but Curtis kicked it out of the way.
‘This one’s for Bill Crawford, Mr Ferraro-al-Falid.’ al-Falid’s eyes widened in fear. Curtis felt no emotion as he fired once between them.
‘Kate! Up here and stay low!’ Curtis ordered as he turned towards the accommodation block, wondering where Dolinsky was hiding.
‘Cover me,’ he said to Kate when they reached the edge of the pine forest close to the building. With his back to the wall, Curtis eased his way along the covered walkway, kicking open each door in turn. As he entered the last room, he found Dolinsky’s body on the blood-soaked bed.
‘Shot twice through the back of the head. More of al-Falid’s handiwork, I suspect. No sign of the vials. I only hope they’re still here.’
It took just one shot to blast the flimsy lock off the administration building, but a search only revealed a rudimentary sales area for powdered bear bile products and a cafe with bear bile soup featuring prominently on the menu. A soup made from bear bile powder cost a mere US$2.50, but if the bile was fresh from the bear, the soup would set you back ten times that amount or 200 yuan. Kate and Curtis both knew price would be no obstacle to those who valued it for its supposed medicinal qualities.
‘And they want a leading place in the twenty-first century,’ Curtis muttered. ‘Fucking barbarians.’ As he turned back towards Kate, Curtis noticed blood seeping through her shirt.
‘You’ve been hit,’ he said, concern in his voice.
‘It’s just a graze,’ Kate replied, almost defensively.
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Curtis said, sitting Kate on a wooden bench and unbuttoning her shirt. Kate looked up at him and smiled. ‘Not now, darling,’ she whispered.
‘You’re right,’ Curtis said with a grin. ‘Although when we get out of this shitbox, there’s a first aid satchel in the car. The only place we haven’t searched is the bear compound.’
Kate felt sick, not so much from the stench of bear bile and excrement, but from the low howls of agony from the caged bears. She and Curtis had paused briefly at one cage where the beautiful creature was trapped in a mediaeval truss, bleeding from where metal had gouged the skin away. Like Maverick and the other Great Apes, there was a look of ‘Why?’ in the tortured bear’s eyes that neither she nor Curtis would ever forget.
‘They’re all here,’ Curtis said, after he’d counted the lethal vials, each with a plastic syringe attached, but neither he nor Kate felt like relaxing. Beijing was still 800 kilometres to the west.
They reached the first police Games checkpoint on the outskirts of Ji’nan, the provincial capital.
The young Chinese policeman waved Curtis to a stop, and was about to ask for his papers when an older policemen approached. A short exchange in Mandarin followed and the older man pointed to the diplomatic plates.
‘Very sorry,’ the younger policeman said with a smile, handing Curtis back his passport and waving him and Kate through. The next checkpoint was at the great Yellow River; again they were waved through.
The CIA jet was waiting for them when they arrived at Beijing’s Capitol Airport. Kate and Curtis boarded with a sense of relief, but only after they had both watched the embassy staff complete the paperwork for the diplomatic bag and they had supervised the loading into the hold.
CHAPTER 98
‘I know you people in the CIA have some crazy rule about not being decorated in public,’ President Davis Burton said with a warm smile towards Kate, Imran and Curtis, after they’d been shown into the Oval Office, ‘so I’ve reluctantly decided to do this here.’
‘To be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for outstanding devotion to duty and exceptional courage in the face of enemy fire. Dr Katherine Diane Braithwaite.’ It was the civilian equivalent of the military’s Congressional Medal of Honour.
Kate gasped as the Marine Corps aide stepped forward to the President with a velvet cushion holding one of America’s highest awards of honour.
‘Kate, if you’d like to step forward,’ President Burton said. He smiled broadly as he place the ribbon around Kate’s neck, a smile not entirely due to his ability to reward those who so richly deserved it. The Grand Old Party had overwhelmingly endorsed him as their candidate and if the most recent polls were anything to go by, the American public had as well. When it had become known that their President had entered into a dialogue with the Presidents of Syria and Iran and the other Arab nations, seeking the creation of a Palestinian State, as well as their assistance to stabilise Iraq, most Americans had supported the change in course.
‘Congratulations.’ The President shook Kate’s hand. ‘And I’ve had a word with the Chinese Ambassador,’ he said. ‘He’s promised me that the Chinese government will finally shut down these barbaric bear farms and I intend to insist on an international delegation being allowed in to see that they do.’
Kate felt like hugging him. She stepped back and watched the President present the Medal of Freedom to the two most important men in her life. To Professor Imran Sayed for exceptional and outstanding service to the world of medicine, often at great personal risk to his own safety, and to Curtis Brendan O’Connor for exceptional courage in the face of enemy fire and outstanding devotion to duty.
‘The country owes all three of you a great debt and my only regret is that it won’t be recognised more publicly, although these things have a way of getting out, and our policy is to neither confirm nor deny,’ the President said with a conspiratorial grin as he nodded to the Marine Corps aide to lead the way. ‘If you’d like to come with me, the First Lady and I would be honoured if you’d join us for dinner.’
‘I didn’t know your middle name was Brendan,’ Kate whispered, as she and Curtis followed the President and Imran out of the Oval Office towards the main house.
‘There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,’ Curtis replied mischievously. ‘Fancy a nightcap after dinner?’
Kate glanced at him, her green eyes just as mischievous. ‘That depends entirely on your definition of a nightcap, Curtis O’Connor.’
