“This is nothing like the descriptions in those reports in the file. I wonder if they were talking about another location.”
“If I were you,” the captain had a pair of small binoculars to his eyes and was scanning the horizon, “I wouldn’t mention that file anymore. Forget you saw it.”
“What file?”
“That’s more like it.”
“Still, it’s peaceful. I don’t know what it is about the countryside in the fall, but it has a lulling effect on everything. If there was anything to worry about earlier in the year, you’ve forgotten what it was by October. You know, this area was separatist a long time ago. It pulled away from one of the old kingdoms and wouldn’t come back. Maybe that’s why we’re up here, to see if that sort of thing has stayed in the gene pool. Stubbornness is a dominant gene, I think. You only need one.”
The captain put the binoculars in his pocket. “Stop musing, Inspector. It’s going to get one of us killed.”
“Not likely,” I said. I turned my attention to a line of lindens that defined the route of a narrow road as it followed the banks of a stream flowing west, into the sunset. At dusk, the air in this part of Chagang took on a purity that made the light a river of memories. All the more reason I was surprised when the captain grunted and crumpled to the ground.
Nothing happened for what seemed a long time. Then a lanky man wearing a sharkskin suit and huge running shoes stood up from behind a row of bushes, brushed off his trousers, and walked slowly toward me. Even in the fading light, I could see he was very much a Chinese policeman. There was no mistaking the haircut or the way he moved. Somebody had once been shocked to find Chinese where he didn’t expect them to be in Korea, not far from here. I knew how that felt.
The captain was on his back, completely still, with a pretty big hole in his head. That seemed strange, because the man walking toward me wasn’t carrying a weapon, not where I could see one, anyway. Nobody else was in sight, but I presented a good target, so I picked out a place to fall down in a hurry if the bushes started moving.
“We know who you are, Inspector,” the man said when he was close enough to be heard without shouting.
“I take it that’s a good thing.” I nodded at the captain’s body. “If you’d waited for a moment, I would have introduced you to my colleague.”
“Him we know. He’s responsible for the deaths of two of my men. He was supposedly working for me, only I knew he wasn’t. I warned him a few times. It didn’t take. So, he’s gone.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that. And you, Inspector, I understand you are about to do funny things in funny places. Funny things happen to people in such cases.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know? I’m talking about your trip to Macau. You aren’t welcome there. I can’t guarantee your well-being if you go.”
“Who the hell are you to be telling me where I can go and where I can’t go?”
“Just someone trying to pass along a little friendly advice.”
“Friendly advice? Since when is a hole in the head friendly advice?”
“When it isn’t your head.”
I don’t react well when people standing next to me are shot. “Maybe on your own soil you can hand out advice. But this land, here, on this side of that river, isn’t yours, or perhaps you need to check a modern map. The weather may come from your side. The wind may blow from that direction most of the time. But that’s about all. The sun doesn’t rise there, the sky doesn’t start there, and I don’t have to put up with your threats while you’re standing in my country.” It was a long speech, maybe a little provocative under the circumstances. I looked down at the captain. The hole in his head wasn’t getting any smaller.
The Chinese policeman gave me a slow, ancient, imperial smile. “Keep it up, Inspector.” He started to walk back to the bushes where he’d first appeared, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “The captain didn’t listen to me,” he shouted. “Think about it.” He disappeared from view, but I wasn’t inclined to find out where he went.