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Page 7.
 He found Xuē anxiously waiting for him. She had been hiding, all alone on a small patio overlooking the street. During the day time, office workers came here to drink tea, chat, and smoke cigarettes. Everyone else had just run down the street to watch the army and police trucks. Local Baidu police cars and fire engines stood by to the rear, in case they were needed. More shock troops arrived in black police vans with small, twirling blue lights and hoarse Martin's horn sirens.
Instinctively, Jack and Xuē hugged. No more need to pretend. No more office etiquette. It was the relief of being safe, after all this noise and violence. She ran to his arms, and he embraced her—their first intimate touch. They'd spent almost no time together privately so far, aside from lurid texting and colorful phone chats. She was the ideal woman: brilliant, beautiful, and sincere. They'd stayed in different hotels in Baidu, and only met in fairly public venues over recent weeks, but a considerable spark of interest had grown between them. When he'd glimpsed her earlier this evening, Xuē had looked especially lovely before the reception. He liked to imagine she had dolled up to please him.
"They are rounding up all the goons and employees across the street," Xuē said.
"I just shot and killed Big Yang Jun."
"No—really?" She was not a spy or news woman, but a translator and greeter—a very pretty young woman with a sharp mind. She looked ravishing in her stylish maroon and copper colored cheongsam—a long, tight-fitting dress with a round collar, slit sides, and subdued flower patterns. "Like dead as a doornail?"
"Yes," Jack said.
"Wow, that's frigid' cool, man."
"Right," Jack said as he handed her the wine, glasses, and provisions. The provisions were in the form of a little wicker basket with apples, cheese, crackers, and little individually wrapped chocolates—finest Belgian Côte d'Or, and Viennese Sachertorte. As he fumbled for his car keys, he leaned close and sniffed her warm aura. "You smell divine."
"It's Coco Chanel, one of my favorites."
"Mine also, as I now realize." They entered a gloomy, silent parking garage lit by wan pink fluoros. He nuzzled her bare neck. She put her arm through his, and squeezed close to him.
He handed her the wine bottle as she trotted beside him.
"Are you going to drink and drive?" she asked, swinging the bottle in one hand and the basket on its looping handle in her other.
"You just want me arrested so you can have this cheese basket all to yourself. No, we'll save the wine for later, but we'll eat on the road to Beijing."
He found his car, a gray Porsche. The car was a little perk from Claire Lightfield of Sigma 2020. It was directly returnable to a rental agency at the airport in Beijing. "The last thing I want is to be stopped by the expressway police for any reason. You're not busy the next few days, are you?"
"I have the weekend off. Back to the grind on Monday." She meant classes, until her next assignment for some government agency, as she worked her way through school.
"Good. Let's find a good hotel near the airport, take a bubble bath, and check out this red Cabernet "
"Great stuff, that wine. Genuine Chinese. Comes from Helan-Wuhan in western Inner Mongolia, in the valleys along the Yellow River."
Jack shifted and drove happily, feeling the powerful car all around him, and the woman at his side.
Across acres of tree tops, Jack spied the busy G6 Jingzang Expressway running 3,700 km (2,300 miles) between Beijing in the east; and Lhasa, Tibet in the far west. The highway itself was invisible to Jack, but the G6's heavy traffic formed a spaghetti-stream of white, yellow, and red lights that cut through forests, neighborhoods, and fields. Its light rose like fog into the sky, straight as a horizon-to-horizon fluorescent tube.
Within minutes, Jack found an entrance ramp to the G6. They were instantly immersed in a river of traffic along eight lines, bright as daylight.
A bit later he thought of a detail. "When we get to the hotel, you won't mind if we sign in under your name, do you?"
"Why, Jack? Modesty?"
"No, the Dragon Lady promised to find me and kill me for popping her meal ticket."
Xuē got herself settled. She put the wine between her knees, patted her dress in place, and unwrapped a canapés box from the basket. "I have a better idea. I use my older brother's credit card on special occasions. He's loaded—owns a motorcycle factory in Shanghai—and he doesn't mind."
"If his name is not Jack Gray or Sechen Xuē, we're both in luck."
"The credit card says 777 Motocross. That's his lucky corporate name." She grinned at him. "I could swear you planned that too, you snarky western devil." She shoved a little pumpernickel square into his mouth, loaded with crabby cream cheese, and topped with shark sushi. "Do we look like 777 Motocross?"
"Yummy," Jack said, taking an offered finger food. "Lucky family name. The Chinese will understand." He consulted the dashboard map computer. "If we take turns driving while the other dozes, we'll make Beijing in around five or six hours." According to his research online, it would be all freeway, speed limit 120 klicks an hour (72 mph) on cruise control, with no stops or tolls.
“So we made the world safe for dysprosium,” Xuē said at one point as overhead lights flashed rapidly across her lovely features while she sat sideways facing Jack as the Porsche chewed up freeway miles. She began matter of factly to strip, pulling her beautiful cheongsam over her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to embarrass you.” Wearing only a modest pink bra and scant panties that revealed a lithe young citron body, she rummaged in a satchel. “I’m just changing into something comfy.” She pulled worth a little blue jean skirt, a yellow T-shirt with a big banana embroidered on it, dripping with melted chocolate, along with the legend Hot Fudge, and warm, heavy cream-colored crew socks. “So now you know my big secret.”
“What, that you have dysprosium hidden in your little boodle? Or that you are a size C girl cup?”
“No, silly, that I have an innie. I’ll bet you do too.”
“We’ll compare later.”
“Hit the road, Jack. Keep an eye peeled, or we crap out in a flaming explosion.”
He grinned wryly. “You pack more drama than an action movie.”
As she swiftly slid into her street clothes, she said: “We can feel good about ourselves, thinking about rare earths. We just saved the whole earth, rare or well-done.”
“Good job, you and me. I can’t wait to celebrate.”
“We just moved the Dune clock back a few tricks.”
“You mean the Doomsday clock a few ticks?”
She mock-bristled. “Allow me to be creative, okay? Keep your collar buttoned down and drive on Route 66.”
“Dysprosium is one of those elements we just liberated, yes?” Jack asked.
“Right. That’s a funny story. Yang was particularly trying to corner the world market in dysprosium, Atomic Number 66.”
“Ah—you know more than you let on, little science student from Xanshi.”
“I worked for Dragon Bitch, right?”
“So you are a secret agent, not just a translator?”
“I’m just a college student with a summer job. I had to sit in on those meetings where they talk about saving the world. I didn’t actually get to save the world myself, until I met you.”
“That’s my job.”
“Right, big boy. So you saved the dysprosium. Which is important stuff. So the irony is that this element got its name by a Parisian man who discovered it in 1886. In Greek, it means 'hard to get'. I figure maybe that old French dude was chasing some hard-to-get chick around at the time. His wurst was a lonely one.”
Jack nodded pleasantly. “You’re not going to be like that chick, are you? She must have been dismantling his heart one beat at a time.”
“Not at all, Jack.” Xuē put her harm around his shoulder and kissed him behind the ear. “I’m going to chase you around the hotel room when we reach Beijing. When I catch you, I’m going to lick your yo-yo.”
“That’s a relief,” Jack said. He sighed and sat back. “Now I can enjoy the drive without being so anxious.”
“You were anxious?” she said incredulously. “You gave me the same look you gave those chocolates and that wine. A hungry look, but the look of a man who knows where the bun is for his wurst.”
He patted her thigh, all kidding aside. “I was worried about you, Chiquita. I’m just glad you are safe.”
“Me too, for both of us.” She curled up against him, with her head in his lap. She murmured in surprise: “That’s a nice bump you have there. I’m gonna get some shut-eye. Don’t wake me until we see the eyes of their whites.”
“You’re being creative again, huh?”
“Get used to me.”
Jack said: “I see that you can be quite a handful.”
“I come in handy at times.”
“Are we at the hotel yet?”
“I can’t wait either.” She cupped her hand over him. “You really are the Wurst, Herr Kutt.” She sighed happily as she rested her cheek against his throb.
Jack enjoyed the warmth of her touch. “We won’t need to stop for coffee. My heart is beating fast enough already.”
She murmured happily, half asleep, and gave her palm a twitch that made Jack blink.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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