On Fire by Thomas Anderson
From Tsinghua University, Zak and Kim have to change lines twice to reach Muxidi Station. As a result they are late when they arrive at the bridge that crosses the Yougdinghe channel and its twin access roads.
Muxidi is famous, well known to be an important point of entry into central Beijing. It becomes Chang’an Avenue, which leads directly to Tiananmen Square. As such it accommodates four lanes of traffic going in both directions, creating a wide expanse several hundred feet across.
Muxidi is the path that the People’s Liberation Army needed to reach Tiananmen, it is where the iconic “tank man” stood in lonely defiance of a line of tanks, and it is where the democratic opposition made a last stand on a warm Saturday night in 1989 to prevent the People’s Liberation Army from reaching the square. The opposition blocked the bridge with two school buses, which they then set on fire. Using Molotov cocktails they attacked a tank, beat its crew, and set it too on fire. The fight continued with rocks and stones being used by citizens to fight against sticks and tear gas being used by the military.
But it was not long until sticks and tear gas gave way to live fire from AK-47’s. As protestors were shot down, they were picked up by others with three wheeled pedicabs and pushed to the local hospital. By midnight an armored personnel carrier swept through the tangle of buses followed quickly by dozens of troop trucks which continued unimpeded the rest of way to Tiananmen.1 Dozens died at Muxidi, thousands at the Square. The Chinese Red Cross stated the death toll at 2600 but the government forced it to withdraw the number. During the period of protest leading to Tiananmen as many as 100 million people protested bureaucratic corruption and profiteering, seeking democratic reforms, in 400 Chinese cities.
Zak and Kim emerge from the station, walking up a flight of stairs together. There is a lot of noisy traffic on the arterial at this time of day. They head the short distance to the bridge, and as they approach they see Lee standing at the center of it, holding his suit coat over his shoulder. Kim stops there while Zak goes on. Kim is appreciating her good view in both directions when she thinks to grab her e-pad.
It is mid-afternoon and the sun is getting hot. Zak is alone, walking the rest of the way to Lee. The heat is getting to him and Zak starts to perspire. He wants to get this over with. He wants to tell the MSS man that after this he’d better go to hell and never return. He wants to tell him that he has no intention of cooperating any further and doesn’t want to be dragged into any investigation. As far as Zak is concerned, he doesn’t care who Christopher Gray is.
Zak is a hundred feet away from Hui Lee, and Lee has turned toward Zak to watch him approach, when Zak’s phone suddenly rings. He pulls it from his pocket while staring at Lee intently.
“It’s me,” says Kim excitedly. “It’s not him! I found a picture of the real Hui Lee from his home town and it’s not him.”
She transmits an image which pops up on Zak’s screen and it is of an older man with a buzz cut and glasses, utterly different from the sleek, younger man standing midway on the bridge.
“You’re sure of this?”
“Yeah, he’s a Rotarian.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“You will be if you don’t seriously book it,” Kim replies.
There persists a brief period of time when everybody and everything abruptly stops moving. Zak locks eyes onto the man standing at the center of the bridge and in that instant time stands still. When it starts back up the world is moving in slow motion. The killer on the bridge is reaching for his gun and Zak is stepping off the curb directly into streaming traffic.
Zak makes it two lanes before having to stop for a passing car. The traffic is enough to provide him a screen as long as Lee doesn’t want to shoot a motorist too.
Lee however is undeterred. He knows that his best chance of getting Zak will be while he is still close. Lee fires a round that misses his still moving target. Instead, it strikes the hood of a car, shattering the windshield onto the panicked driver. The driver reacts by hitting his breaks too quickly and getting rear ended.
In the meantime, Zak stays low and rolls to his right to get behind the next vehicle. He runs, hesitates for another vehicle, and then runs again, across several lanes of moving traffic, before making the center of the bridge
By now, the gunshot and the breaking vehicle have caused a chain reaction of screeching, breaking vehicles all around Zak. Heads whipsaw and shocked faces stare at the gun wielding perpetrator on the sidewalk.
Zak finally makes it across the road, heart pounding, but not stopping as he heads back toward Kim.
Lee has a problem. His quarry is rapidly getting away. Dozens of ordinary Beijing citizens are staring. Soon they will be on their phones calling the police, taking his photo, and sending it to the police. His only way out is to flee. He can drop the jacket and gain a few seconds to reach his car and driver at the West end of the bridge, but the authorities will no doubt find a stray hair or two on the jacket, enough to match him to Dai Gu. Under the circumstances, that would generate a lot of heat, so Gu keeps the coat in one hand, the gun in the other, as he runs hell bent for leather back to his car.
Chapter 10
Muxidi is famous, well known to be an important point of entry into central Beijing. It becomes Chang’an Avenue, which leads directly to Tiananmen Square. As such it accommodates four lanes of traffic going in both directions, creating a wide expanse several hundred feet across.
Muxidi is the path that the People’s Liberation Army needed to reach Tiananmen, it is where the iconic “tank man” stood in lonely defiance of a line of tanks, and it is where the democratic opposition made a last stand on a warm Saturday night in 1989 to prevent the People’s Liberation Army from reaching the square. The opposition blocked the bridge with two school buses, which they then set on fire. Using Molotov cocktails they attacked a tank, beat its crew, and set it too on fire. The fight continued with rocks and stones being used by citizens to fight against sticks and tear gas being used by the military.
But it was not long until sticks and tear gas gave way to live fire from AK-47’s. As protestors were shot down, they were picked up by others with three wheeled pedicabs and pushed to the local hospital. By midnight an armored personnel carrier swept through the tangle of buses followed quickly by dozens of troop trucks which continued unimpeded the rest of way to Tiananmen.1 Dozens died at Muxidi, thousands at the Square. The Chinese Red Cross stated the death toll at 2600 but the government forced it to withdraw the number. During the period of protest leading to Tiananmen as many as 100 million people protested bureaucratic corruption and profiteering, seeking democratic reforms, in 400 Chinese cities.
Zak and Kim emerge from the station, walking up a flight of stairs together. There is a lot of noisy traffic on the arterial at this time of day. They head the short distance to the bridge, and as they approach they see Lee standing at the center of it, holding his suit coat over his shoulder. Kim stops there while Zak goes on. Kim is appreciating her good view in both directions when she thinks to grab her e-pad.
It is mid-afternoon and the sun is getting hot. Zak is alone, walking the rest of the way to Lee. The heat is getting to him and Zak starts to perspire. He wants to get this over with. He wants to tell the MSS man that after this he’d better go to hell and never return. He wants to tell him that he has no intention of cooperating any further and doesn’t want to be dragged into any investigation. As far as Zak is concerned, he doesn’t care who Christopher Gray is.
Zak is a hundred feet away from Hui Lee, and Lee has turned toward Zak to watch him approach, when Zak’s phone suddenly rings. He pulls it from his pocket while staring at Lee intently.
“It’s me,” says Kim excitedly. “It’s not him! I found a picture of the real Hui Lee from his home town and it’s not him.”
She transmits an image which pops up on Zak’s screen and it is of an older man with a buzz cut and glasses, utterly different from the sleek, younger man standing midway on the bridge.
“You’re sure of this?”
“Yeah, he’s a Rotarian.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“You will be if you don’t seriously book it,” Kim replies.
There persists a brief period of time when everybody and everything abruptly stops moving. Zak locks eyes onto the man standing at the center of the bridge and in that instant time stands still. When it starts back up the world is moving in slow motion. The killer on the bridge is reaching for his gun and Zak is stepping off the curb directly into streaming traffic.
Zak makes it two lanes before having to stop for a passing car. The traffic is enough to provide him a screen as long as Lee doesn’t want to shoot a motorist too.
Lee however is undeterred. He knows that his best chance of getting Zak will be while he is still close. Lee fires a round that misses his still moving target. Instead, it strikes the hood of a car, shattering the windshield onto the panicked driver. The driver reacts by hitting his breaks too quickly and getting rear ended.
In the meantime, Zak stays low and rolls to his right to get behind the next vehicle. He runs, hesitates for another vehicle, and then runs again, across several lanes of moving traffic, before making the center of the bridge
By now, the gunshot and the breaking vehicle have caused a chain reaction of screeching, breaking vehicles all around Zak. Heads whipsaw and shocked faces stare at the gun wielding perpetrator on the sidewalk.
Zak finally makes it across the road, heart pounding, but not stopping as he heads back toward Kim.
Lee has a problem. His quarry is rapidly getting away. Dozens of ordinary Beijing citizens are staring. Soon they will be on their phones calling the police, taking his photo, and sending it to the police. His only way out is to flee. He can drop the jacket and gain a few seconds to reach his car and driver at the West end of the bridge, but the authorities will no doubt find a stray hair or two on the jacket, enough to match him to Dai Gu. Under the circumstances, that would generate a lot of heat, so Gu keeps the coat in one hand, the gun in the other, as he runs hell bent for leather back to his car.
Chapter 10