what we got. The military says no instinctively. In this case, it may have been less than categorical. The fellow on the scene is interesting, that much I can say with confidence.”
“Now what? Do we go or don’t we? Without seeing the place I’m not prepared to proceed.”
“Proceed? With what?” He started to reply, but I stopped him. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. That’s your business, and you can have it. Give me a day to think over what comes next. It will take me some time to fill up again, anyway.”
“With gasoline?”
“No, rice. This will cost you.”
2
The next morning, Pak was writing furiously. He always wrote furiously. Before they stopped making requisition forms, he put in a request every month for a chalkboard. “I want to beat the hell out of something when I write answers to these idiots,” he would say. “Chalk is good. A chalkboard is perfect. You can pound on it for hours, and then when you’re done, you erase the whole damned thing.”
He stopped and crumpled the piece of paper that had borne the brunt of his pen. Then he cursed, smoothed it out, and started writing furiously again. He didn’t look up when I knocked on his open door. “Get packed,” he said simply. He read over what he had written. “Damned craziness.” He put the crumpled paper in a file folder with a black band around it. “Well.” He finally raised his head. “Are you packed?”
“For what?” I hadn’t gone back to the office that night after seeing Jenö It was late, I was cold and tired, and the tale of my conversation with the general could wait until morning. Nothing, I figured, would happen in the meantime.
Pak pointed at the folder. “For this.” Apparently, I had been wrong. Apparently, a gear somewhere had become unstuck overnight.
I looked at the folder. There obviously wasn’t much in it. It must have been only a small gear. “I don’t know what it says.”
“Of course you don’t. It’s a secret, very closely held in the Ministry. I am even instructed to keep it from you. Can you believe that?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You are ordered to New York effective immediately.”
“What?” My mouth doesn’t generally drop open, but for this it did.
“You have an aisle seat on Saturday’s plane to Beijing. There you wait for a visa, which may or may not be forthcoming from the Americans, and then onward as soon as possible to New York. ‘Onward as soon as possible.’ I sound like a dispatch cable.”
“I can’t do that.” I was thinking fast but not coming up with much. The last thing I wanted to do was to fly over the Pacific Ocean to New York.
“Give me one good reason you can’t.”
“I have to take our foreigner to that site he mentioned. Don’t you want to hear a report of what happened when I was up there? I’m not sure whether the note you signed made a dent, but at least they didn’t shoot me.” I was going to have to come up with something better, much better. The only problem was, I couldn’t think of anything.
“They can shoot you later, after you get back, if they want. Right now, we have no time to worry about the foreigner. You have seventy-two hours to tidy up your office, clear those piles of paper off your desk, and wheedle a decent pair of shoes from the supply clerk.”
“I don’t need shoes,” I said. “I need an explanation. When I land in a city behind enemy lines, I like to have some idea of what I’m doing, don’t you?” This sounded better; it even gave me momentary hope that I had found some firm ground on which to take a stand. Maybe Pak could turn it into something effective.
“No, you don’t get to know anything.” Pak had a better sense of footing than I did. If he didn’t even pause to make a show of considering the argument, it meant there wasn’t any firm ground on this one, only swamp for as far as the eye could see. “Obviously, they’ll have to tell you something sooner or later. But nothing officially now, not yet, anyway.”
“Nothing?” Paduk stones are given more notice of being put on the board than I was getting.
Pak shrugged. “You didn’t hear it from me, but it has to do with the dead woman, the one for whom you were supposed to sweep up a few facts and then dump the