Chapter 16
"Jesus, John, what a thing to ask a girl driving through downtown Los Angeles traffic."
They were in the condo security elevator, Lee Ma and Liu Shen still looking rather pale and shaken from their close call.
"My apologies." John said mildly.
"I've got to have some time to think, John, It isn't everyday I get a proposal. I'll get back to you on that, okay? "
John smiled, mindful that she had at least not turned him down flat and had now brought up the subject of an answer with no prompting. He had immediately regretted his impetuous question, he knew that Meg required careful handling, and yet had still blurted out the proposal willy-nilly in the worst possible manner at the worst possible time. Perhaps his tiredness had affected his good judgment.
They had nearly been rear-ended when Meg slammed on the brakes in response to his declaration. As it was they were the target of some loud honking, rude gesturing and no little amount of threatening posturing that had John placing his hand on the gun in his pocket.
Fortunately, nothing had come of it, and with a mild curse, Meg had composed herself and got the car moving again without further incident.
It was then, however, that John had picked up on the tail he had sensed but not been able to detect all this long day. Given Meg's sudden stop in the middle of traffic, anyone following them would have had to take emergency action as well. John had noted a similar near miss a few cars back. It had almost been worth the near catastrophe to finally see his "shadow".
The elevator doors opened, and Meg marched into the loft ahead of everyone else, still seeming somewhat discomposed. She threw her parcels on one end of the couch and moved to the black lacquered dinner table where her laptop computer sat. John ushered his sister and mother into the loft, murmuring soothing words in Cantonese to both of them, apologizing for his rude behavior
Lui Shen turned to smile at him replying to him in their mother tongue, "I am proud of you for asking her, Jian. Now you must not pressure her. Let your forthcoming separation work its magic. You will have the answer you crave when you return to her."
John smiled at her indulgently, nodding his head. "If I survive the parting. It will be difficult to leave her behind." More so, he thought, because he feared for her safety while he was gone. If only she would agree to come along. But she seemed adamantly opposed to the idea.
Her bullheadedness was part of her charm...
"Ma and I should begin packing, brother." Liu Shen said, hoisting her parcels between them.
John nodded and watched as sister and mother passed Meg--busily engaged at her laptop computer-- on their way upstairs. He sat down on the couch, tired to the core of his soul, his eyes lingering on the woman he hoped would yet consent to be his wife.
If he was fortunate, those who hunted him would follow him to Seattle and leave Meg alone. He still wished he could convince her to stay in the loft, where her safety could be assured. Although she had beefed up her own security measures at her apartment, they were still not adequate to withstand another armed assault.
John mused at the central mystery of his predicament. He had been followed since his arrival from China, but no attempts had been made on his life, no direct threat had presented itself. Why?
He rose from the couch. The loft had a phone line dedicated to computer use, as well as the usual land line, while Meg was distracted with her laptop computer, he could still make a couple of calls.
The first number he dialed was that of the concierge, with a request for two items he
had been wanting to pick up himself, but had not had the opportunity. That oversight taken care of, he then called Lau Ruong-Jie.
The monk's cheerful voice responded in English on the other end of the phone connection. John identified himself, then switched to Cantonese.
"Any word from the brothers?" John asked, glancing in Meg's direction as he spoke.
"Vague rumors only, Jian. Something about a relation to Wei. Big in Hong Kong triads, now looking to salvage what he can of Wei's money and enterprises. He likes to call himself 'The Dragon' Still trying to connect a name to him."
"He is likely behind the pursuit in China and the surveillance here?" John mused over the information, trying to come to grips with a threat that had been invisible and now was manifesting itself. He was weary of these phantoms of his old life.
"Yes. Word is that he is on his way to the States. To Los Angeles. Soon." Ruong offered quietly.
"Ruong-Jie, I need your help." John stated, pausing.
"I have pledged my assistance, old comrade, whatever you need, you have only to ask."
The reassurance was strong, resolute.
"I take my family to my mother's brother in Seattle, day after tomorrow. They will be safe and protected there, it is where they will live permanently."
"What about Meg? the monk asked.
John was grateful that his friend had mentioned her name so that he did not draw her attention to the conversation by speaking it himself.
"She chooses to stay behind. For now. I would send her to you, but I fear she would not go. She will not even stay in my loft. She insists on returning to her apartment. I need your help, to protect her, watch over her. If this relation of Wei's is like himself, she could become a target of their attention. We have been observed together, time and again. It could not be helped, but it is regrettable."
"I will watch over her while you are gone. How long will you be away? Ruong-Jie asked.
"As little time as possible. A week, hopefully less. I have promised my mother and sister to get them settled in a new home as quickly as possible. Our relatives are already scouting possible condominiums and apartments. My uncle can then watch over and protect them, while I come back to Los Angeles to deal with this threat. Head on."
"I will be at your disposal for however long you need me. I will clear my schedule immediately. Don't worry, Jian. I will protect her."
John sighed, "I cannot help but worry, Ruong. If only I could convince her to come with me. Or to stay in this secure building. She is strong willed."
Ruong gave a small chuckle, "In that respect, you are well matched, my friend. Give me your airline information."
John did so from memory.
Meg hunched over her computer, half-listening to John speak Cantonese to the monk Ruong -Jie.
She might not understand his mother tongue, but she could pick out the familiar name, none the less.
As John spoke to his friend, Meg was putting the finishing touches on her e-mail to Zedkov detailing her plan. It was a simple one, she would use herself as bait to draw John's pursuers. Zedkov would undoubtedly object, but in the end, she was his best hope of preventing the Wei legacy from being born anew, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of its ruin. He'd probably get a promotion for nipping a new gang threat in the bud, and she would have John, alive and finally safe.
Meg had had to edit and reedit her message to Zeedo several times. Even now, she made changes, detecting errors she had made.
John had proposed to her. Asked her to be his wife.
The shock of it all was still reverberating inside her brain, creating the distraction that caused the many errors in her message, and her current state of surprised numbness.
Meg should have expected that the question might come, but nothing had really prepared her for the reality of it. She'd found herself paralyzed, unable to think--let alone drive the car. She was embarrassed that her first reaction had been to stomp down on the brakes of the car, nearly getting them all killed.
She'd been rendered speechless as well, not uttering a word until she'd made her comment to John in the elevator on the way up to the loft. John was probably wondering why she'd done nothing but stall him for the answer he wanted her to give.
Her immediate reaction had been to scream "Yes!" at the top of her lungs. But she had not.
The old doubts and fears kept her mute, the new threat facing them casting such a dark shadow that it was all she could do to live in the moment and craft her plan to deal with it. If there was to be a future, she could not think about it yet. Could not allow herself to crave it too much.
So much could still happen. She didn't dare to dream.
Finally, Meg was satisfied with her message to Zedkov and with the touch of a key, sent it off.
John had hung up the phone by the time she powered down the laptop and closed its case.
She turned in her chair to watch him as he walked toward her, his face solemn, worried.
He sat down in the chair next to her, took her hand in both of his.
"I will ask one more time, Meg. Will you please stay here, in this loft, while I am gone to Seattle?"
Meg noted the tired worry in his eyes and ached to soothe the turmoil she saw there. But she did not want to lie to him any more than she already had, and those were sins of omission, not commission.
"I can't John. I wouldn't feel right. I need to keep myself preoccupied while you are gone--I'd go crazy here alone." Meg said softly.
"You must promise me to be careful. To stay in your apartment as much as possible until I get back. Not to accept any document assignments while I am gone. I have arranged to cover your rent with your landlord."
Meg opened her mouth as though to protest, wondering when he had arranged that, but John waved her to silence.
"Promise me, Meg." John repeated.
Meg hesitated, then decided she would not be lying if she agreed. She was always careful where her own life was concerned after all.
"I promise you, Li Jian-Hui, that I will be careful, as long as you promise to hurry back."
John's expression was filled with tenderness. He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it, abashing her once again.
"I promise." John said quietly.
After a moment of silence between them John spoke again. "We know each other, without knowing each other. I would like to know more about you Meg, and to share my past with you, so that there are no mysteries, no surprises." John said looking at her carefully.
Meg nodded.
John began.
She'd known some of it, of course. From those frenetic days back in early February. But the picture that emerged as John spoke, slowly, methodically, precisely, sometimes searching for words, opened a whole new world of understanding to Meg, and made it easier for her to reveal more of herself than she ever had to any living human being.
Interrupted only by the arrival of a package from the concierge John and Meg talked for hours. The bond that already existed between them grew and deepened in the sharing.
John spoke of his years as a soldier in the Red Chinese Army. The things he had been forced to do when first inducted into the military as a youth during the Cultural Revolution. His increasing torment and shame as one of those he was forced to help in the "reeducation" of was his own father. Where he had skimmed over the information before, he spoke in detail now, sharing emotions, dreams, promises, disappointments, torments, torture. Meg saw how Wei's sinister offer might have seemed a godsend and the lesser of two evils.
His three "tasks" for Wei had not been offered to him all at once. The first task bought the life and future escape of his mother and had been undertaken almost twenty years before. The second, coming some fifteen years later, had bought his own permanent passage--the Canadian citizenship papers that Meg herself had removed from his safe. The last task had been meant to buy the freedom of his sister. That was the job he had failed at, finally rebelling that the killing of a child was the price to be paid, the one that had become due and payable six months ago.
In between the contracted tasks, John had been forced to do others, buying the right by each string of favors done, to bring sooner the next freedom passage. Not all had been contract hits, far more plentiful were the duties of an underground triad foot soldier, some for Wei's operations in China, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, some in the United States.
At first he'd been paid a living stipend, that kept him and by extension, his family in food and clothing and shelter, and provided for not much else. As he had proved his value and trustworthiness, Wei, with insidious cunning, had used increases in payment to draw their agreement out. He had steadily increased the money paid to John and at the same time multiplying the number of duties required to buy the next "freedom pass". It was easy to see how John had seen no alternatives. How he had been caught in the web for so long, to understand how close to killing his soul he'd been brought.
If she had known she had loved him before, the truth he told her now increased the depth and breadth of that love one hundred fold. Meg listened in rapt attention, her eyes frequently filling unashamedly with the tears she hated under normal circumstances to shed, tears of empathy and shared pain.
For her part, her own sorry childhood, teenage and adult life seemed to pale in comparison, but she shared, in kind, the horrors of her youth. Her father's alcoholism. Her mother's utter dependency on her husband and abuse by him. The beatings she herself had endured during her father's drunken rages. Her history of being a runaway, then a young teenager caught in an inefficient and sometimes corrupt foster system. Her struggles to escape the specter of physical, mental and imminent sexual abuse that system sometimes exposed its wards to. It all came tumbling out.
The empathy, understanding and love that she saw reflected in John's eyes had removed the shame that she'd felt deep down, consciously unacknowledged for her entire life. Never again would anyone hear the detail, the secrets, the fears and torments--but in telling John she found a way to release some of the demons that had always hounded her.
She knew for the first time in this beautifully alive thing that was her relationship with John Lee, what it was to trust and have that trust returned. Utterly, absolutely, irrevocably.
They were bound together forever, she realized, by shared pain and love. If she'd known it before, the truth resonated in every nook, cranny and corner of her being. John was hers. She was his. It would never be any other way.
Now all they both had to do was survive to enjoy it.
end of chapter 16
"Jesus, John, what a thing to ask a girl driving through downtown Los Angeles traffic."
They were in the condo security elevator, Lee Ma and Liu Shen still looking rather pale and shaken from their close call.
"My apologies." John said mildly.
"I've got to have some time to think, John, It isn't everyday I get a proposal. I'll get back to you on that, okay? "
John smiled, mindful that she had at least not turned him down flat and had now brought up the subject of an answer with no prompting. He had immediately regretted his impetuous question, he knew that Meg required careful handling, and yet had still blurted out the proposal willy-nilly in the worst possible manner at the worst possible time. Perhaps his tiredness had affected his good judgment.
They had nearly been rear-ended when Meg slammed on the brakes in response to his declaration. As it was they were the target of some loud honking, rude gesturing and no little amount of threatening posturing that had John placing his hand on the gun in his pocket.
Fortunately, nothing had come of it, and with a mild curse, Meg had composed herself and got the car moving again without further incident.
It was then, however, that John had picked up on the tail he had sensed but not been able to detect all this long day. Given Meg's sudden stop in the middle of traffic, anyone following them would have had to take emergency action as well. John had noted a similar near miss a few cars back. It had almost been worth the near catastrophe to finally see his "shadow".
The elevator doors opened, and Meg marched into the loft ahead of everyone else, still seeming somewhat discomposed. She threw her parcels on one end of the couch and moved to the black lacquered dinner table where her laptop computer sat. John ushered his sister and mother into the loft, murmuring soothing words in Cantonese to both of them, apologizing for his rude behavior
Lui Shen turned to smile at him replying to him in their mother tongue, "I am proud of you for asking her, Jian. Now you must not pressure her. Let your forthcoming separation work its magic. You will have the answer you crave when you return to her."
John smiled at her indulgently, nodding his head. "If I survive the parting. It will be difficult to leave her behind." More so, he thought, because he feared for her safety while he was gone. If only she would agree to come along. But she seemed adamantly opposed to the idea.
Her bullheadedness was part of her charm...
"Ma and I should begin packing, brother." Liu Shen said, hoisting her parcels between them.
John nodded and watched as sister and mother passed Meg--busily engaged at her laptop computer-- on their way upstairs. He sat down on the couch, tired to the core of his soul, his eyes lingering on the woman he hoped would yet consent to be his wife.
If he was fortunate, those who hunted him would follow him to Seattle and leave Meg alone. He still wished he could convince her to stay in the loft, where her safety could be assured. Although she had beefed up her own security measures at her apartment, they were still not adequate to withstand another armed assault.
John mused at the central mystery of his predicament. He had been followed since his arrival from China, but no attempts had been made on his life, no direct threat had presented itself. Why?
He rose from the couch. The loft had a phone line dedicated to computer use, as well as the usual land line, while Meg was distracted with her laptop computer, he could still make a couple of calls.
The first number he dialed was that of the concierge, with a request for two items he
had been wanting to pick up himself, but had not had the opportunity. That oversight taken care of, he then called Lau Ruong-Jie.
The monk's cheerful voice responded in English on the other end of the phone connection. John identified himself, then switched to Cantonese.
"Any word from the brothers?" John asked, glancing in Meg's direction as he spoke.
"Vague rumors only, Jian. Something about a relation to Wei. Big in Hong Kong triads, now looking to salvage what he can of Wei's money and enterprises. He likes to call himself 'The Dragon' Still trying to connect a name to him."
"He is likely behind the pursuit in China and the surveillance here?" John mused over the information, trying to come to grips with a threat that had been invisible and now was manifesting itself. He was weary of these phantoms of his old life.
"Yes. Word is that he is on his way to the States. To Los Angeles. Soon." Ruong offered quietly.
"Ruong-Jie, I need your help." John stated, pausing.
"I have pledged my assistance, old comrade, whatever you need, you have only to ask."
The reassurance was strong, resolute.
"I take my family to my mother's brother in Seattle, day after tomorrow. They will be safe and protected there, it is where they will live permanently."
"What about Meg? the monk asked.
John was grateful that his friend had mentioned her name so that he did not draw her attention to the conversation by speaking it himself.
"She chooses to stay behind. For now. I would send her to you, but I fear she would not go. She will not even stay in my loft. She insists on returning to her apartment. I need your help, to protect her, watch over her. If this relation of Wei's is like himself, she could become a target of their attention. We have been observed together, time and again. It could not be helped, but it is regrettable."
"I will watch over her while you are gone. How long will you be away? Ruong-Jie asked.
"As little time as possible. A week, hopefully less. I have promised my mother and sister to get them settled in a new home as quickly as possible. Our relatives are already scouting possible condominiums and apartments. My uncle can then watch over and protect them, while I come back to Los Angeles to deal with this threat. Head on."
"I will be at your disposal for however long you need me. I will clear my schedule immediately. Don't worry, Jian. I will protect her."
John sighed, "I cannot help but worry, Ruong. If only I could convince her to come with me. Or to stay in this secure building. She is strong willed."
Ruong gave a small chuckle, "In that respect, you are well matched, my friend. Give me your airline information."
John did so from memory.
Meg hunched over her computer, half-listening to John speak Cantonese to the monk Ruong -Jie.
She might not understand his mother tongue, but she could pick out the familiar name, none the less.
As John spoke to his friend, Meg was putting the finishing touches on her e-mail to Zedkov detailing her plan. It was a simple one, she would use herself as bait to draw John's pursuers. Zedkov would undoubtedly object, but in the end, she was his best hope of preventing the Wei legacy from being born anew, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of its ruin. He'd probably get a promotion for nipping a new gang threat in the bud, and she would have John, alive and finally safe.
Meg had had to edit and reedit her message to Zeedo several times. Even now, she made changes, detecting errors she had made.
John had proposed to her. Asked her to be his wife.
The shock of it all was still reverberating inside her brain, creating the distraction that caused the many errors in her message, and her current state of surprised numbness.
Meg should have expected that the question might come, but nothing had really prepared her for the reality of it. She'd found herself paralyzed, unable to think--let alone drive the car. She was embarrassed that her first reaction had been to stomp down on the brakes of the car, nearly getting them all killed.
She'd been rendered speechless as well, not uttering a word until she'd made her comment to John in the elevator on the way up to the loft. John was probably wondering why she'd done nothing but stall him for the answer he wanted her to give.
Her immediate reaction had been to scream "Yes!" at the top of her lungs. But she had not.
The old doubts and fears kept her mute, the new threat facing them casting such a dark shadow that it was all she could do to live in the moment and craft her plan to deal with it. If there was to be a future, she could not think about it yet. Could not allow herself to crave it too much.
So much could still happen. She didn't dare to dream.
Finally, Meg was satisfied with her message to Zedkov and with the touch of a key, sent it off.
John had hung up the phone by the time she powered down the laptop and closed its case.
She turned in her chair to watch him as he walked toward her, his face solemn, worried.
He sat down in the chair next to her, took her hand in both of his.
"I will ask one more time, Meg. Will you please stay here, in this loft, while I am gone to Seattle?"
Meg noted the tired worry in his eyes and ached to soothe the turmoil she saw there. But she did not want to lie to him any more than she already had, and those were sins of omission, not commission.
"I can't John. I wouldn't feel right. I need to keep myself preoccupied while you are gone--I'd go crazy here alone." Meg said softly.
"You must promise me to be careful. To stay in your apartment as much as possible until I get back. Not to accept any document assignments while I am gone. I have arranged to cover your rent with your landlord."
Meg opened her mouth as though to protest, wondering when he had arranged that, but John waved her to silence.
"Promise me, Meg." John repeated.
Meg hesitated, then decided she would not be lying if she agreed. She was always careful where her own life was concerned after all.
"I promise you, Li Jian-Hui, that I will be careful, as long as you promise to hurry back."
John's expression was filled with tenderness. He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it, abashing her once again.
"I promise." John said quietly.
After a moment of silence between them John spoke again. "We know each other, without knowing each other. I would like to know more about you Meg, and to share my past with you, so that there are no mysteries, no surprises." John said looking at her carefully.
Meg nodded.
John began.
She'd known some of it, of course. From those frenetic days back in early February. But the picture that emerged as John spoke, slowly, methodically, precisely, sometimes searching for words, opened a whole new world of understanding to Meg, and made it easier for her to reveal more of herself than she ever had to any living human being.
Interrupted only by the arrival of a package from the concierge John and Meg talked for hours. The bond that already existed between them grew and deepened in the sharing.
John spoke of his years as a soldier in the Red Chinese Army. The things he had been forced to do when first inducted into the military as a youth during the Cultural Revolution. His increasing torment and shame as one of those he was forced to help in the "reeducation" of was his own father. Where he had skimmed over the information before, he spoke in detail now, sharing emotions, dreams, promises, disappointments, torments, torture. Meg saw how Wei's sinister offer might have seemed a godsend and the lesser of two evils.
His three "tasks" for Wei had not been offered to him all at once. The first task bought the life and future escape of his mother and had been undertaken almost twenty years before. The second, coming some fifteen years later, had bought his own permanent passage--the Canadian citizenship papers that Meg herself had removed from his safe. The last task had been meant to buy the freedom of his sister. That was the job he had failed at, finally rebelling that the killing of a child was the price to be paid, the one that had become due and payable six months ago.
In between the contracted tasks, John had been forced to do others, buying the right by each string of favors done, to bring sooner the next freedom passage. Not all had been contract hits, far more plentiful were the duties of an underground triad foot soldier, some for Wei's operations in China, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, some in the United States.
At first he'd been paid a living stipend, that kept him and by extension, his family in food and clothing and shelter, and provided for not much else. As he had proved his value and trustworthiness, Wei, with insidious cunning, had used increases in payment to draw their agreement out. He had steadily increased the money paid to John and at the same time multiplying the number of duties required to buy the next "freedom pass". It was easy to see how John had seen no alternatives. How he had been caught in the web for so long, to understand how close to killing his soul he'd been brought.
If she had known she had loved him before, the truth he told her now increased the depth and breadth of that love one hundred fold. Meg listened in rapt attention, her eyes frequently filling unashamedly with the tears she hated under normal circumstances to shed, tears of empathy and shared pain.
For her part, her own sorry childhood, teenage and adult life seemed to pale in comparison, but she shared, in kind, the horrors of her youth. Her father's alcoholism. Her mother's utter dependency on her husband and abuse by him. The beatings she herself had endured during her father's drunken rages. Her history of being a runaway, then a young teenager caught in an inefficient and sometimes corrupt foster system. Her struggles to escape the specter of physical, mental and imminent sexual abuse that system sometimes exposed its wards to. It all came tumbling out.
The empathy, understanding and love that she saw reflected in John's eyes had removed the shame that she'd felt deep down, consciously unacknowledged for her entire life. Never again would anyone hear the detail, the secrets, the fears and torments--but in telling John she found a way to release some of the demons that had always hounded her.
She knew for the first time in this beautifully alive thing that was her relationship with John Lee, what it was to trust and have that trust returned. Utterly, absolutely, irrevocably.
They were bound together forever, she realized, by shared pain and love. If she'd known it before, the truth resonated in every nook, cranny and corner of her being. John was hers. She was his. It would never be any other way.
Now all they both had to do was survive to enjoy it.
end of chapter 16