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"No," Chang said after a moment. "Have them come here. Follow our path--and make sure they don't leave any footprints."
Wu hurried off to get them.
In the van William found a booklet of maps of the area and studied them carefully. He nodded, as if memorizing directions.
Resisting his desire to interrogate his son about hot-wiring the ignition, Chang asked him, "Do you know where to go?"
"I can figure it out." The boy looked up. "Do you want me to drive?" Then he added bluntly, "You're not very good at it." Like most urban Chinese, Sam Chang's main means of transportation was a bicycle.
Chang blinked at these words of his son's--spoken once again in a tone that approached insolence. Then Wu appeared with the rest of the immigrants and Chang ran forward to help his wife and father into the van, calling back to his son, "Yes, you drive."
Chapter Seven
He'd killed two of the piglets on the beach--the injured man and a woman.
But there'd been about a dozen people in the raft. Where were the rest?
A horn blared. The Ghost whirled around. It was Jerry Tang, drawing his attention. He held up the police scanner, his gestures frantic. "The police will be here any minute! We have to go!"
The Ghost turned away and scanned the beach once more, the road. Where had they gotten to? Maybe they'd--
With a squeal of tires Tang's four-by-four pulled into the road, accelerating fast.
"No! Stop!"
Seized by fury, the Ghost aimed his pistol and fired once. The slug hit the rear door but the vehicle continued, not slowing, to an intersection and then skidded through the turn and disappeared. The Ghost stood frozen, the pistol at his side, staring through the mist at the road where his means of escape had just vanished. He was eighty miles from his safehouses in Manhattan, his assistant was missing and probably dead, he had no money and no cell phone. Dozens of policemen and troopers were on their way. And Tang had just abandoned him. He could--
He tensed. Not far away a white van suddenly appeared out of a field on the other side of a church and turned onto the road. It was the piglets! The Ghost lifted his pistol again but the vehicle disappeared into the fog. Lowering the gun, the Ghost took several deep breaths. After a moment he grew serene. He was plagued by troubles at the moment, yes, but he'd experienced much adversity in his life, far worse than this.
You are part of the old.
You will reform your ways.
You will die for your old beliefs . . . .
A reversal, he'd come to learn, was merely a temporary unbalance and even the most horrific events in his life had ultimately been harmonized by good fortune. His abiding philosophy was found in one word: naixin. This translated as "patience" in Chinese but meant something more in the Ghost's mind. The English equivalent would be "All in good time." He had survived these forty-some years because he'd outlasted trouble and danger and sorrow.
For the moment the piglets had gotten away. Their deaths would have to wait. Now there was nothing to do but escape from the police and the INS.
He put his old pistol into his pocket and trudged through the rain and wind along the beach toward the lights of the small town. The closest building was a restaurant, in front of which was a car with its engine running.
So, some good fortune already!
And then, glancing out to sea, he saw something that actually made him laugh. Yet more good luck: not far offshore he saw another piglet, a man struggling to stay afloat. At least he could kill one more of them before he escaped to the city.
The Ghost pulled his gun from his pocket and started back toward the shoreline.
*
The wind was wearing him down.
Making his way toward the small town, Sonny Li slogged through the sand. He was a slight man and in the hard, dangerous world in which he made his way he relied on bluff and surprise and wits (weapons too, of course), not on physical strength. He was now at his limits, exhausted from this morning's ordeal.
The wind . . . Twice it actually knocked him to his knees.
No more, he thought. Despite the risk of being seen, struggling through the soft sand was simply too much for him and he stumbled back onto the rain-swept asphalt road and continued toward the lights of the small village. He pushed forward as best he could, afraid that the snakehead would leave before Li found him.
But a moment later he received the reassurance that the man was still here: several more gunshots.
