Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (22 page)

Now
, she thought as he slowed—
now
is the time to jump. To fall off.

It was at this moment of resolution that she discovered her right foot was entangled in a stirrup. She shook her foot impatiently but it refused to be freed; she dared not look down at her foot, it felt irrevocably captured, and then the moment of possibility had passed, they arrived at
the top of the ridge and Mrs. Pollifax caught a fleeting glimpse of what lay ahead and abandoned all hope.

What lay ahead was
down
 … down through forest to miles and miles of flat desert intercepted only by one deep slice cut out of the earth—a small canyon, too broad to cross—and inside of her she screamed. Screamed for Cyrus, for Peter, for some magical hope that was beyond her. She saw her life pass in front of her, prepared herself to relinquish it, and in one giddy moment foresaw their end. Down the ridge they plunged at breakneck speed, Mrs. Pollifax thrown forward again, fighting to keep from sliding in and under the horse’s neck, her foot still entangled. They reached the bottom of the mountain and the horse’s hoofs struck the hard flat surface of the desert. Lifting her eyes Mrs. Pollifax looked ahead and saw now that the deep cut in the earth contained a boiling racing mountain stream and that the horse was going to leap that canyon and that he was not going to make it. Nor would she.

And all because she had mounted a horse to have her picture taken …

In one last desperate frenzy Mrs. Pollifax applied herself to disentanglement. Hanging on recklessly by one hand to the horse’s mane she slid her other hand down to the tangled stirrup, tugged, shifted, wrenched, and miraculously felt her foot slip free. Lifting her leg over the horse’s back she sat side-saddle for a fleeting second and then she kicked herself off and away from the horse, flew high into the air and went down.

She struck the ground hard, instinctively breaking the fall with her left hand, and lay there stunned, feeling the blessedness of the earth beneath her. After a moment she lifted her head, found her neck intact, rolled over on the ground and stared at her left hand lying inert on the pebbles beside her.
Odd
, she thought, wondering vaguely why she could neither lift it nor feel it as an appendage.
She was still staring at it when Peter rode up to her, flung himself from his horse and ran to her side.

“My God, are you hurt?” he cried. “Believe me, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Wasn’t supposed to be like this … what an extordinary thing for him to say
, she thought.

“Mrs. Pollifax, are you
all right
?”

“It’s my left hand,” she told him. “It just lies there. Otherwise,” she added with a return of spirit, “I’m basically fine. Perhaps a little in shock, perhaps a little dazed. Yes, definitely a little dazed.” She placed her right hand underneath her left one and lifted it. Cradling it and supporting it, she sat up. “But what,” she demanded, “happened to that damn runaway horse?”

Peter said, “Can you stand up?”

“Of course I can stand up, just give me a minute.”

“But I
can’t
give you a minute,” he cried despairingly. “I can’t, damn it—this is where I disappear, don’t you see? Oh damn it, Mrs. Pollifax—Emily—I’m sorry, believe me I’m sorry. I stuck a burr under that horse’s saddle so that he’d run away with you, poor devil. Except I was so sure I’d catch him long before the top of the mountain. I thought—oh hell, we don’t have
time
. I never expected this, can you ever forgive me? Is your wrist broken?”

“Probably,” she said calmly. “Where are the others?”

“I told them I could handle it—bring you back okay—but heaven only knows how much time we have before they—”

“Yes,” she said, and told herself that she could put all this together and recover later; she could even understand the sense of what he’d done. “Help me up,” she said, giving him her good hand. “I thought it was going to be the waterfall. What happened to that horse?”

He groaned as he helped her to her feet. “I feel like a murderer, he crashed down into the river. It’s got horrible
currents, it’s the same one I had to cross to reach X’s camp. I haven’t looked but I saw the horse go down.
Heard
him, too, it was ghastly.”

She nodded. “And now you disappear too?”

“Yes, supposedly drowned in this river and swept away while trying to rescue you but of course I was really going to backtrack into the mountain to the cave.”

She nodded. “Then it’s a very good thing the horse met with such an accident, I really have nothing personal against him but it will fill out the picture. Yes, definitely it supports your being drowned and swept away.”

Peter looked at her in astonishment. “You’re right, I hadn’t thought of that; am I in shock too, I wonder? But I can’t leave you like this. Does your hand hurt? It’s swelling already.”

Standing, she gave a shaky laugh. “Of course you can leave me like this. Yes my wrist hurts, but mostly it feels numb, as if a spring has broken inside—a very interesting feeling, actually, but never mind that. For heaven’s sake, Peter, where’s your professionalism?
Go!
”

Behind them a pleasant and very familiar voice said, “Nobody’s going anywhere, at least not without me.”

They wheeled to see Joe Forbes standing several paces behind them, still smiling, still looking affable except that in his hand he held a small snub-nosed efficient pistol. Far behind him at the foot of the hillside she saw a horse tethered to a tree and guessed it was his. Neither had heard him approach over the pebbles and gravel of the desert floor.

“So you’re the one
,” she said, nodding.

“The one what?” demanded Peter. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Forbes, pointing a gun at us, have you lost your mind?”

“Don’t,” Mrs. Pollifax told him. “We’ve been working for the Russians without knowing it, Peter. I’ve suspected
this ever since Sheng told us we were followed into the desert. It’s been a trap, Peter.”

“Trap!” he cried. “You mean Carstairs—”

“Carstairs doesn’t know. The Russians simply leaked the information and sat back to watch us do all the dirty work, and now I believe you’re meeting your first KGB man, Peter. Take a long look.”

Peter stared at Forbes in horror. “KGB!
You
?”

“Held in abeyance,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “A ‘sleeper,’ I believe they’re called. Wonderful credentials, very American, too. Waiting for you to locate and free Wang, after which he was supposed to snatch the prize from you at the last minute and run with it to Moscow. The Russians never planned any attempt to free Wang, we were to do the job for them.”

Forbes said dryly, “Only one thing wrong with that, Mrs. Pollifax—not Forbes
was
to snatch—
is
to snatch the prize. Right now.” He made circular motions with his gun, directing her to move to one side. “It’s Peter I have business with—get away from him.”

“No,” said Mrs. Pollifax, feeling all her senses giddily heightened by pain. “No I’m not going to move. Not one inch, thank you. You can’t possible expect Peter to tell you where Wang is.”

Forbes smiled a lethal smile. “No, but he’s going to
show
me where he is. I speak Chinese better than I let on, and I know the Sepos are searching these mountains for a prisoner who’s missing from a labor reform camp somewhere nearby. Somehow you got him out and hid him, and I want him.” He waved his gun menacingly again. “We’re running out of time and—”

“Yes that
is
a problem for you,” said Mrs. Pollifax cheerfully. “The lack of time. How are you going to handle
that?
”

He gave her a pleasant glance that held touches of a
sneer in it. “Shut up,” he said, and turned to address Peter. “Either both of you go with me now, taking me to Wang Shen—both of you—or I’ll kill your friend Mrs. Pollifax here and now. In front of you, so that you can watch her die.”

It was important that Peter not believe this. “How absurd,” she told Forbes hotly. “You’d kill us both after we take you to Wang anyway, I’m sure that Peter can’t possibly fall for
that
.” She gasped. “Oh damn—Peter—sorry—I think I’m going to faint.” She stumbled backward toward a small mound of stones and sat down, putting her head between her knees.

Peter started to move toward her but Forbes stopped him. “You’ve already lost
her
,” he said contemptuously. “What a ridiculous accomplice they gave you, an old woman who faints at the drop of a hat. A boy and an old woman … typical American ineptness.”

“To hell with you and your assumptions,” Peter said angrily. “She broke her wrist, damn you, and—”

From her seat on the rocks Mrs. Pollifax cautiously lifted her head. She had only pretended to feel faint; actually she had never felt so keyed-up, or so alive, but it had seemed a convenient way to put distance between the three of them and now she saw that Peter and Forbes were confronting each other so intensely that she was forgotten. Her good right hand found and curled around a smooth stone under her foot. As Forbes opened his mouth to retort to Peter she lifted her arm and hurled the stone at Forbes.

It hit him on the shoulder, doing him no harm, but it threw him off balance. He fell back and before a startled Peter could move—before Forbes could even regain his balance—Mrs. Pollifax was on her feet and in motion, dealing Forbes a quick karate shin-strike and then a slash to his temple. Forbes collapsed to the earth without a sound, his arms outstretched, his eyes open and vacant.

“My God,” gasped Peter, rushing to him and prising the gun from his slackened fingers. “My God, Mrs. Pollifax, only brown belt you said?”

“Yes,” she said, kneeling beside Forbes, and abruptly she stiffened. “What’s worse—oh dear—I believe he’s dead, Peter.”

“Worse?
”

She said unsteadily, “I’ve only once killed a man—in self-defense, in a cornfield in Albania. I hoped—
so
hoped—” Her voice trembled; she pulled herself together and looked around them. “You’ll have to do the rest, Peter, I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Do what?”

Think
, she told herself,
think
, be strong for a little longer. She said in a steady voice, “He made one mistake, Peter, he should have simply followed you when you disappeared, without declaring himself, and killed you when you led him to Wang. And now he’s dead and you’re not, thank heaven, but we have to think and act quickly.” She stood up, drawing new strength from being erect. “We have to change how things look—everything,” she told him. “They have to find Forbes’ body here, you see that, don’t you? The two of you disappearing is too much. There has to have been a fight between you both. A fight
here
.” She nodded. “It may even be better this way, Peter, but
you’ve
got to do it.”

“Do what?” he asked blankly. “Am I in shock? I can’t think!”

She nodded. “My horse ran away with me—they all saw that. The horse is dead in the canyon. I have a broken wrist. You rescued me. Forbes followed and there was a fight and he killed you.”

“But a fight about
what?
” he cried.

“Something—anything,” she said impatiently, “it doesn’t matter. What you have to do now is this.” She pulled the
long souvenir knife she’d bought in Urumchi out of her pocket and drew it from its sheath. “We need blood, Peter—lots of blood. Carry him to the edge of the water, and I think—yes, quickly, I’ll smooth away the tracks from your dragging him … He should have your Mao jacket clutched in one hand, or the bloodied sleeve of your jacket.
Something
of yours. And his face should dangle down, as if he struggled to reach you as you went over the side into the rapids. But there has to be blood.”

“God,” said Peter so devoutly that she felt it was said in religious awe.

Peter removed his Mao jacket.

“Tear it a little,” she told him as he dragged Forbes’ body toward the gap in the earth. “And—I’m sorry—but please knife him in the heart now, while he’ll still bleed. There
has
to be blood,” she repeated passionately, stubbornly.

He gave her one quick incredulous glance as he grasped the knife and leaned over the body. “Better not watch,” he said, and she was glad to turn away.

When she looked again there was a great deal of blood both on the ground and on the jacket. “Knifed him in the aorta, I think,” Peter said curtly, pressed the sleeve of the bloodied jacket into Forbes’ hand and then shrugged himself into the remainder of his jacket.

“Toss the knife into the river,” she told him. “It has your fingerprints on it.”

“What else?” asked Peter, deferring to her.

Mrs. Pollifax looked around, her adrenalin glands racing, her mind operating with a cunning she’d forgotten that she possessed. Forbes lay at the edge of the canyon, his head and one arm dangling over its side, the bloodied rag of a jacket clutched in the hand that lay at his side. Below him—quite horribly—lay the horse, sprawled across a rock just above the racing stream, and quite dead. “Fingerprints
where they should be,” she said with a nod, ticking off the details. “Your jacket but his blood. I think the picture’s complete—now
go
, Peter—go fast.”

Peter stared at her. “But—what will you tell them? Mrs. Pollifax, what will you tell them? Why did Forbes and I kill each other?”

“I’ll say … I don’t know what I’ll say,” she told him. “Leave it to me, Peter—just go. Hurry. Your job’s only just beginning.”

“But so is yours,” he pointed out. “And you’re stuck with—”

She said fiercely, “Peter, you’re an agent, sufficiently christened and bloodied now, with Wang and Sheng out there waiting for you. Don’t bleed for
me
, you’ve got work to do.”

“Yes,” he said, staring at her, “except—oh damn it, I want to say—to tell you—” He reached out his hand and gently touched her broken one.

“But you don’t have to say or tell me anything,” she told him, the tears rising to her eyes, and with her good hand she met his extended fingers and grasped them. She said shakily, “Oh Peter, I’m always saying good-bye to brave and courageous people.”