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“Could be he’s late. I’ll see what we can do about getting us to the hotel.”
“I’ll get a taxi.” Damon hurried off.
“I’m finding rickshaws,” I announced. “They’re cheaper and a whole lot more fun.” I stomped off in the other direction, my trusty Althea, her dreads secured by a rubber band, next to me.
“I hope the luggage and equipment fit into those rickety pedicabs,” Damon said as he returned loud enough for me to hear. “Betcha anything Phoenix will make that luggage fit.”
I decided to let it go.
A weathered-looking man of indeterminate age stepped in front of me. “Madam Sutherland?” he queried in a singsongy voice with foreign intonations.
“I am. And you are?”
“Your driver. Your manager, Xiong Jing, asked me to meet you. I’m sorry I was detained. Is that all of your luggage?”
My manager? I waved a hand indicating the group and their bags. “Yes, thank you for coming to get us.”
Everyone had been instructed to travel light. We were restricted to clothing and personal effects, enough to fit in either backpacks or duffels. The bulky items we’d been forced to check were the equipment we would need to work.
The driver signaled to a group of lounging porters. The men swooped down like vultures, piling the bags and equipment on their heads and backs. They gestured for us to follow them.
Outside, a minibus was haphazardly parked at the curb, hemming in a line of beat-up taxis. A child who looked to be no older than twelve guarded the vehicle. Coins exchanged hands before our escort motioned to us to climb in.
I was short of breath and my chest felt tight. I blamed the long, exhausting flights and the twelve-thousand-foot altitude for this unexpected weariness. After the bags and equipment were crammed into the back hatch we pulled out.
A nerve-racking journey followed. The bus swerved this way and that, narrowly missing pedestrians, bicyclists and pedicabs. We bounced down rutted streets and with every jostle the cardboard airline meal I’d ingested threatened to be expelled. I pretended to take it all in stride but what I really needed was a Tums, something to settle my chest and stomach that were in danger of imploding.
Ten minutes passed then the driver pulled over abruptly.
“Where are we?”
“Please just make it the hotel,” Althea mumbled, opening up two droopy eyes. She looked about as gray as I probably did.
I couldn’t quite make out where we were. It was dark outside. Where we’d stopped sure didn’t look like the Himalaya Hotel to me. Squinting, I spotted a barricade. It must be some kind of a security checkpoint of sorts.
A uniformed man, police or public security, I think they were called, approached. He waved his arms and demanded something of the driver in Tibetan.
The driver sprang from the vehicle. His stance quickly became subservient as he spoke to the man before motioning for us to get out.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked.
When the driver didn’t answer, I climbed from the bus and followed him.
A number of uniformed men converged on my driver, jabbering and pointing to the back of the van where the luggage was piled. They began motioning to unload the bags and equipment. The men went through our personal items, tossing clothing on the ground and waving electronic gadgets in the air.
“I’m falling asleep on my feet,” Althea complained. “Let them take what they want.”
“Are those real guns?” I asked, shock receding.
I’d read about the Public Security Bureau, Tibet’s answer to the police, and figured these rather unpleasant men were them. I’d been told they wore green uniforms but favored plainclothes and dark glasses when undercover. Their goal was to blend in with the crowd, and so they would often hide behind newspapers. The PSB’s responsibilities encompassed staying on the alert for civil unrest, checking for expired visas and monitoring crime and traffic.
A bald, beefy officer, who looked to be the leader, unzipped Damon’s duffel and began strewing clothes about. I chuckled gleefully as two pairs of jeans and a handful of T-shirts went flying. When sweatshirts hit the dirty pavement, followed by socks and a pitiful few pairs of underwear, I heard Damon groan. Beefy, the larger man, waved something that got the attention of the other officers.
Things got pretty serious quickly and my good humor ended. Heart in my mouth, I watched security converge.
“Dammit, Damon,” I gritted out through clenched teeth. “Tell me you weren’t stupid enough to smuggle in booze or drugs?”
“Just a dime bag of pot for medicinal purposes,” he quipped. An amused grin lit up his pretty boy features. The man didn’t seem to sweat. I, however, was sweating plenty.
The driver continued jabbering away in his language to the Tibetan officers. He beckoned Damon over.
The officers held up two books. I squinted, hoping to get a look at the jackets. I came closer while the officers kept their flashlights trained on us. Both books were written by popular New York Times bestseller authors.
But it wasn’t the books the officers were after. It was the photographs used as bookmarks they shook out from between the pages. Damon must have forgotten them there. He’d used photos of the exiled Dalai Lama to mark pages. He’d probably forgotten them there. This was what the fuss was about.
“What’s the problem?” I asked the driver.
A crooked index finger worried the driver’s forehead. “It’s illegal to have pictures of the Dalai Lama,” he explained. “You all may be in big trouble and so am I.”
Damon thudded his palms against his head. “I’ll take full responsibility if you explain to the officers it was an oversight on my part,” he said. “Tell them we’re here on official government business.”
The driver sighed loudly. “I’m not sure that’s going to work. This isn’t the United States.”
Turning back to the officers, his palms clamped together as if he were praying, he apparently pleaded our cause. The more he spoke, the more questions were hurled at him.
I needed to do something. I couldn’t just stand there. I trotted over just as the lead officer snarled something at the driver.
“They won’t deal with a woman,” my driver yelped in loud English, gesticulating with one hand for me to stay out of it.
I handed him an envelope. “Explain to these gentlemen we’re not ordinary tourists. We’ve been commissioned by the government to work on an important historical finding.”
The envelope was snatched out of his hand by Beefy, and a flashlight produced. The surrounding officers peered at the paper and began talking at once.
“They don’t read English,” my driver explained. “They don’t understand.”
“Then please translate,” I pleaded. “Show them the official government stamp.” I pointed to the letter’s gold seal.
“I will do my best,” he said firmly, as if fearing I would make things worse. “Tibet is not exactly a woman’s world.”
“It doesn’t seem to be a man’s, either,” I muttered then turned away and fumbled through the pockets of my pants.
Behind me Damon muttered. I called on the Lord for patience. What I really wanted to do was throttle Damon.
My barb was apparently lost on the driver, who was out of his element. In a desperate attempt to move things along, I whipped out a copy of the newspaper article I’d been saving. I pointed to the picture of the future Buddha, patted my chest, and pointed to the letter again.
This served to elicit more excited conversation.
“Talk to me,” Damon said to our driver. “What’s happening?”
“They’re thinking of arresting both of you,” our driver explained. “You, for illegal possession of the Dalai Lama photographs, and her for obstructing justice.”
“This can’t be happening, Phe,” Damon snapped.
No point in getting into it with him, or telling him it was his fault. I needed to come up with a plan. I looked over at Althea and she looked scared stiff and silent.
I raced over to the area where the luggage was strewn. Two of the security police followed, guns trained on me. I riffled through my knapsack and dumped the remaining contents on the ground. Finding what I needed, I turned back to them.
These were men. I was a woman. In their minds I served no useful purpose, except one.
My voice became sweet and seductive as I spoke to our driver. “Tell them I have a very special present, something I brought all the way from America.”
I began passing around the cigars I held. The remaining one I stuck in my mouth.
“Got a light?” I asked Beefy, stroking his arm and making a motion with my fingers, indicating I needed a match.
Beefy smiled and produced matches. He stuck his cigar into his mouth while his eyes roamed over me. Then he lit his before mine. The other officers followed his lead and began lighting up.
Sucking on that smelly thing, I batted my eyelashes at Beefy, then tilted my head back and exhaled a perfect smoke ring. The officers tried to imitate me, but didn’t quite make it. I exhaled again, pouting my lips.
Nice lips, I’d often been told.
“Now,” I said to the driver. “Can you tell Handsome I think he’s hot? And if it’s okay with him I’d like to go. He can visit with me if he’d like.”
There was a gleam of admiration in the driver’s eye as he nodded and began speaking with Beefy, who kept his eyes on me the whole time. Finally he jerked a thumb in the direction of the minivan.
I signaled to the crew and raced toward the vehicle. There would be fat chance of that man ever seeing me again. Not if I could help it.
Damon cleared his throat as we climbed back into the bus. I ignored him. He should be thanking me for saving his miserable butt. He should be drawing my bath and kissing my toes.
But knowing my ex, he would never acknowledge that I’d saved the day. Pride and machismo had always been his undoing.
“Thank you, Phe,” he said, surprising me. “That was quick thinking on your part.”
I almost swallowed my tongue but managed a nod in his direction. Him, thanking me, was unheard of. Maybe, he’d changed.
Nah, best not to go there. Damon had his own agenda.
And I had mine.
Chapter 3
“What do you mean there’s been a holdup on the project? Why didn’t anyone call me?” I asked Xiong Jing, our project manager, when I met with him in the lobby the next morning.
“These things happen, madam. You are to enjoy your stay at the hotel until you hear otherwise.”
I was ready to go to work. A delay would mean my bonus was in jeopardy, the one I’d foolishly agreed to split. Turning my brown-eyed gaze on Xiong Jing, I said, “I’m Phoenix, not madam. I’d appreciate it if you’d remember that.”
He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “As you wish.”
Xiong Jing, our project manager, was an Oxford-educated man in his late thirties. I’d disliked him on sight and I got the feeling the sentiment was mutual. There was something about the way he refused to look me in the eye.
His behavior hadn’t fazed Damon one bit. He’d shrugged, dismissing the man’s aloof body language as a cultural thing. But I thought there was more to it than that. I was certain Xiong Jing disliked females and black females at that.
So why hadn’t he told me there was a problem last evening when he’d called and arranged this meeting?
I studied the elaborate chandelier in the hotel lobby and prayed for patience—not one of my better virtues. That little problem had cost me an assignment or two.
I’d convinced my travel companions to sleep in, reminding them that this might be their one night in the lap of luxury. Future accommodations would be at the monastery in refurbished monks’ and nuns’ cells. Luxuries such as comfortable beds didn’t come with that territory.
“I can arrange tours of our beautiful city for you and your group, madam,” Xiong Jing offered, his eyes not quite meeting mine.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s happening?” I asked, trying my best to tamp down on my irritation. What I really wanted to do was reach over, grab the man’s chin, and force him to look at me.
“Security’s been increased around the monastery,” Xiong Jing answered through an almost-closed mouth. “Rumor has it there was a bomb threat.”
“I guess it would make some serious statement, blowing up the Deprung Monastery where the Maitreya is being housed.”
He didn’t seem that perturbed at the thought. “We live in an era of terrorism,” Xiong Jing said. “The discovery of Maitreya—considered ‘the future’—is bound to cause unrest. If you have political or social changes there are always disbelievers. Humans will sacrifice themselves for the cause.”
Was there a hidden meaning behind this? I didn’t have time to interpret double entendres, if that’s what it was. I’d reflect on Xiong Jing’s words later.
“So what do we do?” I asked. “Sit at this hotel and twiddle our thumbs until you contact us?”
“Madam, you can, or you can go on one of our tours and learn something about my country. That might be the smart thing to do until things calm down.”
I didn’t like his tone or the implication that I knew very little about his country. I also didn’t like it that he was perfectly accepting of the delay.
“Surely there’s someone else I can talk to,” I fumed. “Where is Liu Bangfu, the Minister of Religion and Culture? Will he not be meeting with us?”
“The minister is busy dealing with the police and such,” Xiong Jing responded smoothly. “I promised him I would take very good care of you. And I will.”
I took a step toward the smarmy project manager. A muscle in his jaw flickered. He stepped back, keeping an acceptable space between us. He probably wasn’t used to anyone getting in his face, especially a woman.
“Why don’t you take me to the police?” I asked, softening my tone a bit. “I’d like to hear what they’re doing about this bomb threat.”
“Madam, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Phe, are you badgering our project manager?” Damon’s amused voice came from behind me.
I turned to find him only feet away, so close I could smell the combination of body heat and musk, his characteristic scent. He’d been jogging. His silver-streaked curls were plastered to his head and sweat trickled down his solar plexus. In some ways, I’d once thought he was the best-looking man I knew. I still did.
Raising a corded arm, Damon took a swig from a foam cup he was carrying.
I shot him a disgusted look and turned my attention back to Xiong Jing.
“Don’t let her bully you,” Damon said, trying to be the peacemaker and buddying up to the man.
