Beside him, Zhang Zingzong said nothing, which pleased the Master of Sinanju. He did not enjoy Zhang's company, but he dared not let him out of his sight. The Chinese man had already tried to escape twice. Once by leaping from the junk in the Gulf of Mexico, and again in Cuba, from which they were able to obtain a direct flight to Beijing.
Chiun looked over to the Chinese. He had placed his knapsack on the seat divider between them and laid his head on it. He was already asleep.
Chiun sniffed in disgust at the foul cigarette smell on his breath, but at least it kept the man's face turned away from the ever-passing PLA soldiers who went up and down the aisles, examining the train passengers with hard unflinching eyes. Not even the tourists were spared their basilisk glares.
A frumpy European woman looked over the back of her seat and caught Chiun's eye. "Dui-bu-qi, waigong," she began, reading from a Chinese phrasebook. "What town are we passing?"
"Why ask me?" Chiun replied stiffly. "I am no Chinese tour guide. And I am not your grandfather."
The woman blinked. "You speak English?"
"Obviously," Chiun said, turning his face to the rock quarries outside the sooty windows.
The woman persisted.
"Isn't China amazing? There are so many people!"
"The same is said of rabbits," Chiun muttered.
Zhang Zingzong stirred. His shaggy head brushed the Master of Sinanju's kimono. With a look of distaste on his parchment countenance, Chiun pushed him away.
Zhang twisted about, his head ending up on the outside seat rest.
The Master of Sinanju was so relieved not to be subjected to the Chinese man's nicotine breath that he thought no more of it until a PLA soldier, swaggering down the aisle, stopped at their seats. He loomed over the unsuspecting Zhang.
The PLA soldier turned his butterball face this way and that, trying to discern Zhang's face clearly.
The Master of Sinanju pretended not to notice, but the reflection of the soldier in his window held his cold hazel eyes.
"You!" the soldier grunted at Chiun. "You know this man?"
"Bu," Chiun said flatly, and returned to his window.
The soldier looked at Zhang again, his face tightening in concentration. Then, removing a rubber truncheon from his belt, he smacked Zhang Zingzong over the head without preamble or warning.
"Dog's eyes!" he shouted in Mandarin. "I know your face!"
Zhang recoiled in his seat, his eyes blinking.
"I am only a worker," Zhang protested meekly.
"Show identification!"
Zhang hung his head. "I have none," he admitted. "It was stolen."
The truncheon went under Zhang's chin, forcing his face up to the light. "Liar!" the PLA soldier hissed.
Zhang said nothing. His hand groped for his knapsack, wedged between the seat divider and his side.
The Master of Sinanju surreptitiously stabbed the hand with a single sharp fingernail. Zhang winced and his hand withdrew.
The PLA soldier saw none of this. He took Zhang by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet.
"You will come with me, man without identity."
The commotion attracted a great deal of attention in the tourist-class car. There were a few muttered protests.
"How can they do that?" a middle-aged man said to his wife. "Just take a person away like that?"
"What I don't understand is, why doesn't he stand up for his rights?" the wife returned.
"Someone should do something," another person added.
Everyone agreed that the man's rights were being trampled upon and someone should do something.
But no one did. The train rolled on.
While the passengers' attention was on the poor figure of Zhang Zingzong, the Master of Sinanju took up the abandoned knapsack and placed it under his seat.
Then he floated out of his seat and up the aisle, after the PLA soldier.
Two cars forward, he came to the hard-seat section, crowded with Chinese passengers. The seats were narrower and without cushions. People sat on one another's laps and on luggage in the aisle, eating from cardboard food containers and drinking warm tea from plaid-design vacuum bottles.
They scrunched out of the way as the PLA soldier marched the silent and teary-eyed Zhang Zingzong toward the engine car.
The Master of Sinanju negotiated the aisle with silent deftness. Few saw him approach, for their eyes were on the unfortunate captive. Chiun breezed past them like a ghost in fiery raiment.
After he had passed, no one could help but notice him, however. For his costume was alien even to China.
Behind the engine was a car dominated by a curtained booth where a khaki-uniformed woman sat behind a microphone and tape-deck system, broadcasting a mix of native folk songs and foreign music to the hard-seat section of the train.
A knot of soldiers was loitering by the booth, laughing and joking with the woman.
Zhang Zingzong was ushered into the official car and slammed down on a rude wooden bench.
He sat there, head downcast, hands folded between his knees, submissive under the hard, accusing glare of his captors.
The other soldiers gathered around. Angrily they began hectoring Zhang Zingzong in high, truculent voices.
Then the Master of Sinanju appeared in the rattling car.
One soldier noticed him only because he turned away to light a cigarette. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the aged Korean.
Face placid, the Master of Sinanju beckoned to the soldier.
The soldier hesitated briefly. He pocketed his unlit cigarette and strode up to the Master of Sinanju.