On Fire

Chapter 1

Dai Gu sits on a metal bench, his back up against the steel wall of the transport, wondering if there is any way out of his current predicament. He is being taken to the prison in Dongguan, near Guangzhou on the mainland and away from the jail in the territory of Hong Kong. This is because of the length of his sentence, which is for far too long to remain in the more local facility. It is also to get him out of Hong Kong, where Triad figures tend to have too much influence in the local jails. He is a minor Triad member but Chung Yao, his dragonhead, rules one of the largest of the Hong Kong Triads, and his influence is everywhere in the territories.

Yao’s virtual army has found a way to tap into the local security network and intercept emails from within the courts, communicating to what facility Dai Gu is to be sent. More importantly, the emails indicate when he is to be transported. That and a little research on the firm contracted to carry out such tasks for the government, has yielded everything that is important to know about exactly where the transport can be expected to be at every moment on its planned journey. This Yao knows how to exploit.

He has enlisted Zhao Yiwei, who now stands near the edge of a bridge north of Shenzhen, to take the next step. The bridge crosses the Mawei Reservoir not far from the Pearl River delta. Zhao has several men stationed along the road to report when they see the transport. He also has been tracking the vehicle itself on a small monitor. They were able to virtually tag and follow the vehicle from its initial departure about 2 hours ago in Hong Kong.

Gu is shackled to the floor, restricting his movement. He chats aimlessly with two other prisoners, similarly shackled, and with the sole guard who has been stationed in the back of the transport with the prisoners. The guard can communicate with the driver and his shotgun companion at any time by simply hitting his lapel mike, or in the alternative that it somehow fails, by pulling a tethered hard wired phone off the wall near his seat. But there is little need to consider either as the trip has gone without incident and the conversation is agreeable. For the prisoners, this is as much excitement as they have seen in months and they are, for the most part, jovial, excited in anticipation of reaching their destination. They discuss the additional privileges they will soon enjoy at the prison and how much better their lives will be. Why shouldn’t they be excited?

It is hot, mid-summer, and the middle of the day with the sub-tropical sun full up, and Zhao can feel the sweat dripping down the back of his neck. His men signal the approach of the transport, which is moving at highway speed amid generally light traffic. It arrives at the bridge and is still a hundred yards or so away when Zhao activates a latent strip, springing hollow spikes up and into the vehicle’s passing tires.

The vehicle travels another couple hundred feet, slowing while its tires lose some of their compression, and the traffic around in every direction comes quickly to a halt. But the vehicle has some kind of additional tire protection, the tires do not fully deflate, and it keeps moving toward them. It has skidded sideways when Zhao looks directly at another man who is with him and standing nearby. The other man holds a rocket propelled grenade launcher, and he fires. The transport launches skyward on a ball of flame and descends onto its side. Zhao, with two of his men to his back, rapidly closes the distance to the back door. He pulls on it and it refuses to budge, so he places a charge on the handle. He steps back quickly, yanking on a man who has approached too close, and they both drop low onto the pavement as the rear door blows. While it flies open, it somehow remains on its hinges.

Zhao looks into the smoky interior. He can barely make out that there are three still figures on the lower side near him, and one figure hanging awkwardly from what is now the top side of the vehicle. He shouts Gu’s name and there follows a low moan. Zhao stifles a guffaw. That Gu may have somehow remained alive while the others did not is a circumstance very much in keeping with Gu’s reputation for indestructibility. Now if he can only get him out of the vehicle somehow, he can deliver him to Chung Yao and be done with this business. One of Zhao’s men steps up with a bolt cutter in his hand, and Zhao motions for him to rescue the hanging, slightly swaying figure. Dai Gu may have just expended one more of his nine lives, but all indications are that he will yet live to fight another day.

Chapter 2

Li Hua Wang lives in a small apartment building on the Provincial Road Northeast of the City of Beijing, China, beyond the International Airport and the 6th Ring Road, but not far from the Shunyi Olympic Rowing Park, where he occasionally rows. He has a young wife and little daughter, but it is the afternoon and they are at a local park. The apartment is cramped and only a one bedroom unit, but for Li Hua it is spacious. He grew up in the countryside in rural poverty and climbed out of that poverty with the help of a university education. And it was during university that he met his wife, who was following a similar course of study. Today they have more than either ever dreamed of as children. Despite his and his wife’s success, he hasn’t seen his parents in over 3 three years and his wife hasn’t seen hers in over five. There is the cost of travel of course, but mostly it is the time that it takes to travel that is the problem, for it is time that neither one of them has.

Li Hua is a journalist in a society generally antithetical to the very concept of journalism. At least to what the West would call unfettered journalism. He writes for sundry publications, many of them on the web and of limited popularity. Nevertheless, his contributions are carefully monitored by a government that has the power to single out anyone at any time for statements that cross the line into territory not favored by the political and media elites that hold sway over such matters. As a result, Li Hua has learned to be very circumspect in his public work, careful not to offend. And this has suited his purposes well, granting him easy access to other journalists and Chinese citizens across the spectrum of society, a wholly limitless resource.

Really, it is a gushing fountain of subterranean information. With a tightly controlled public sphere, there is so much more beneath the surface, and much of it is under enormous pressure to reach that surface in any way that it can. There are the tens of thousands of strikes across the country occurring every year, as workers strive to better their working conditions. Often enough, these strikes are not much more than protests against local corporate corruption and the perverse incentives of a system that rewards grievous levels of mendacity at the expense of virtually everything else. But the corruption goes far beyond the boundaries of business to invade almost every aspect of political and social life. From government policies such as one child that deliberately favor the urban and the rich, to those which punish the violators of the same policy with confiscatory fines and forced abortion. From the hundreds of gulags of politically prosecuted dissidents to the ranks of the tens of thousands of the disappeared and their families lies the truth. Li Hua has documented hundreds of such cases from every region of the country. But it is the use of internal government documents estimating the real depth and breadth of civil breakdown, human rights abuses, and outright lawlessness that demonstrate the effects of an unprecedented challenge to existing authority.

From the days of the Tang Dynasty in the six hundreds rose the nine ranks system, establishing a civil service which eventually came to be recognized for its basis in the merit of the individual and the ability to pass entrance examinations for various positions. It was a form of Imperial examination, with its first pin immediately under the Emperor himself, down to its lowest pin or rank at the level of local judge. Influenced by Confucianism, the bureaucrat was also, by necessity, a scholar. As such, he was a humanist and believed in the perfectibility of man. Later he was to be called Mandarin, from the Portuguese. However, the system of examination ended in 1905, eventually to be followed by Communism.

Those days are forever gone. Maintaining an orderly society, always a pre-eminent concern of the national government, has transmogrified into perpetuating a police state with tentacles in every aspect of daily life. Li Hua has done his best to detail the chaos unleashed, the trail of human devastation that it has left in its wake, the anguish of the families of the disappeared, and the stifling half-lives that so many are reduced to. He has done his best to reveal the structure of comprehensive surveillance under which everyone lives, or tries to. To show how a society can be controlled by limiting access to information from the outside and exploiting control of the principal media, especially that most important of all media, television. How China has dozens of reporters in jail, more than any other country. How the Central Propaganda Department, headquartered prominently on the Avenue of Eternal Peace in Beijing, controlled all the country’s media with its directives. He has attempted to demonstrate how many of the country’s large corporations have been permitted to operate with virtual slave labor. It has been a monumental task, requiring many years, and it has exhausted him, and his wife. He has been under increasing pressure to finish his work, and he believes there are some who may have come to suspect his effort among the thousands that lie within the web of his contacts. It is best to be done as soon as possible.

He loads a memory stick, deleting, scouring every vestige from his drive, and believes he is not far from his goal.

Chapter 3

Zak opens his eyes, heavy with sleep, slowly. He can barely make out the room around him in the sallow light of the early morning dawn. For an instant, he has to adjust his thinking from the distinct memories of last night’s dreams, still present in his head, to things around him and to where exactly he might be. The dreams momentarily pour over him, sending him an image of a girlfriend he knew years ago.

Zak blinks, a conscious effort to dismiss the image, and recognizes his apartment, remembering that it is in Northwest suburban Beijing, just beyond the Fourth Ring Road. From where he lays he can see a skiff of snow on the windowsill. The snow is new and the first of its kind this year. The window is cracked open because the government building is routinely overheated, and the first light of day is just beginning to shine through. At night the room is almost stifling, but by dawn it takes on a chill.

He is tangled in the sheets, but he is also tangled up with Kim, who has pulled the covering and sheet close to herself, backed herself up against him, and thrown her leg backward over his, almost to make sure that he is still there. On the other hand, it could be just to grab whatever measure of warmth she can, which is probably more likely. She would be unlikely to say she needed him to keep warm. In fact, she would be unlikely to say she needed him for anything at all.

He involuntarily hears music in his head. Kim reminds him of songs by Cake and Jet, Short Skirt Long Jacket and Are You Gonna Be My Girl. In a lot of ways that count she has become exactly that, the music that always plays in the back of his head. It accompanies him wherever he goes, whatever he does, it’s ever present and never very far away. He has come to accept that it is the background upon which he has chosen to draw the events of his life.

The two of them met on the Stanford Dish trail, which lies just above the campus in the characteristically steep Northern California hills. Stanford lies in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County adjacent to Palo Alto, where the Dish and its trail are popular landmarks. The old lattice dish is still used to track and recalibrate ailing satellites. For the biker and runner the hills can be daunting, but they provide excellent views all the way to San Francisco.

It was two autumns ago and late in the afternoon when they literally ran into each other. The sun was low in the sky and behind the big dish, creating a dazzling sundown streaked with every color of orange. Long shadows were casting across the hills and ancient oaks, and there was a chill in the air. Kim was sitting in the well-manicured grass beneath a particularly gnarly set of old oaks along the side of the trail. She was massaging a foot when he caught sight of her.

He slowed.

You OK?

Sure. She looked up, squinting at the sun behind him.

He stopped, stooping over, his hands on his knees.

Oh yeah? What’s up with your foot? he asked, beginning to notice her looks. She had set her long auburn hair into a ponytail that she could poke through the back of her baseball cap and she had pulled the cap low over her eyes. She had obviously been running for a while. She had the sheen of at least a couple miles.

Not sure. It hurts though. She continued to rub the outer edge of her right foot.

Take your sock off.

She squinted up at him again. She judged that he must be fairly good looking. She was having trouble making him out against the sun.

You’re not some kind of weird foot twist are you? she queried, flashing a provocative smile.

If I were it would already be too late for you to do anything about it. I’m Zak Miller.

Kimberly.

Let me take a look.

He was still gulping air as he leaned onto one knee to look at her bare foot. He watched her face as he ran his hand along the outside, stopping at her smallest toe. It was a nice face and it was singularly bemused. He pressed the side of the toe. She winced. There was a small, hardened tissue mass there.

Bone spur, he pronounced with authority.

She thought his hands were cooling and felt good and she didn’t object to his take charge style. She reached down to her toe. It was some kind of crazy callous.

That sounds bad.

He pursed his lips.

Not as bad as all that. I can remove it if you want.

Won’t it bleed and everything?

Naw, it shouldn’t. But I’ll need a sharp knife.

He smiled disarmingly.

What? No knife? You’re obviously no boy scout.

He had never really considered this question, whether he was a boy scout or not.

Oh, sure I am, he replied.

They finished the trail together and back at her residence he carefully removed the bone spur from her foot. While he was doing this she watched him with considerable interest. Then she placed her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him toward her. He turned and what had been intended to be a kiss on the cheek turned out to be more. And so it began for them.

It did not erase the image of the girlfriend from his dream, the girl from six years ago, from Boston Latin and three thousand miles away. And he had tried, really tried to rid himself of anything that could remind him of her, of any picture, any email, or even any memory. Perhaps that was why the thought of her had taken up residence in his dreams. It was a form of retaliation, retaliation for trying to forget her when he knew he couldn’t.

Now they share an apartment on the eighth floor of a twelve story building, grad student housing at Tsinghua University in downtown Beijing. He disentangles himself from Kim and hits the head. When he returns Kim is out of bed and the TV is turned on.

Well, Jim, it appears that the attack on the northern Pakistani airbase at Kamra came in the middle of the night. Several dozen Islamic militants armed with rocket propelled grenades and mortars wreaked considerable damage on both conventional aircraft and drones stationed at the well-fortified base.

Jim Lenard, the News World morning anchor, looking fabulously well put together for such an early hour, injects characteristic pep into his manner of presentation. Cheery brightness literally jumps from the screen with caffeine infused incisiveness.

Were any of the insurgents killed or captured?

Jessica doesn’t miss a beat to consider the question or have to actually think of an answer. They have gone over this already off camera, so the question is really only a cue for the response.

They got away and left no one behind. It’s remarkable really. But the base is largely for drones operating high above the Hindu Kush. They seek to identify the activities of extremist elements throughout the mountainous region, which has become an anti-government hide out with very few roads or means of access.

And what has been the government’s response, Jessica?

Jessica glances downward as if to check something.

First of all, the government says they are terrorists, but they call themselves freedom fighters and The Resistance. The Pakistani Air Force is indicating that no one was killed but there have been some injuries. Islamabad is saying the militants who took part in this heinous attack are being tracked and will not get away.

Jim appears to harden his expression, simultaneously dropping his vocal range slightly.

Sounds like the attack could prove to be a suicide mission of some sort.

Jessica looks thoughtful.

Exactly, Jim.

Zak turns away, looking around.

Have you seen my pants? he kind of shouts.

Kim comes to the bedroom door while in the process of brushing her teeth. She is dressed in a sweater and jeans, has a loose braid in her hair and a hand stuck in her back pocket. He has no idea how she got put together so fast.

She looks him over.

Front room, Romeo. Hey, let’s shake a leg, shall we?

Chapter 4

There is piped in music sounding from somewhere. It has a soothing quality to it, a low background kind of pop. Not muzak. More like one of the remote participants has it running at their location. It doesn’t really bother him so he isn’t going to say anything about it, even though he’s trying to make a presentation to some thirty people.

Zak looks around the room, a small lecture hall at Tsinghua University. It’s an AV room and has monitors strewn everywhere about. Those in the front he controls for his presentation today. Beyond the room, through its two-story glass walls, lies a spectacular view of the City of Beijing.

As many of you are probably aware, there still are about 10 million bicycles around and about in Beijing today. Not much different from 20 years ago, when twenty percent of Beijing residents were still riding. But twenty years before that almost eighty percent of the city’s residents were still using bicycles to get back and forth to work. The population of the City was half what it is today and car ownership was still in its infancy in China. Those days are long gone, and today we are barely hanging on to single digits for daily travel to work numbers in the City.

There’s a signal on one of the monitors to Zak’s left, followed by a bit of throat clearing. Zak lights up.

Yes?

But doesn’t China still have the largest number of bike riders on the planet?

It’s Bogdan. Or rather Bog. Bog is on one of the remotes from Stanford and is obviously having a good time feeding Zak softballs. Other monitors stationed around the room have other remote attendees and some of these are Zak’s grad student friends from back home.

Absolutely! China still retains the largest share of the world’s bicyclists. That is not going to change anytime soon. The problem is not the number of options for getting to work. It’s that so many of those options are being stretched to their limit. Everyone here can attest to the unbelievable crowding on the subways and the dangerous pushing and shoving that has become standard during rush hours. A bike sharing program is vital in any world class city, as every transportation expert will tell you. So we’ve been looking at that.

He’s leaning against the back of the lectern with his arms folded across his chest, looking out across a dozen or so rows of gradually elevated rows of seating. It is a clear but chilly day out and the Beijing morning sun is streaming in harshly. The monitors to the right side of the room are a bit hard to read with all that light hitting them. There are maybe twenty-five students in attendance. Most of these are engineering students, both grad and undergrad, but a number are from other disciplines. Many are in his seminar class. Zak is a Stanford transportation engineering and economic development student sent to China as part of a group of US graduate students in the Sino-US Young Professionals in Science and Engineering Exchange Program. Tsinghua is known as China’s MIT, and Zak has been conducting his study in Beijing for over 2 months.

Excuse me, Mr., uh, Mr. Zak?

And we have a question in the back? Zak smiles and takes a look at his list. He is not really seeing anyone on the list that fits. This could be some kind of mystery person as far as he can tell.

You do not recognize me, Mr. Zak?

He is nonplussed. Who in the world could this be, with the phony accent and large sunglasses, some woman with her hair up in a crazy fashion. Zak is momentarily confused and keeps looking at his list for some help.

You see, she says, taking off the glasses and dropping the phony accent, How could you possibly not recognize me, your best friend in the world?

Zak has an easy laugh that comes quickly.

I apologize. Class, this is Miss Sofia Salas, lately of Palo Alto. Did we forget to sign up Sofie dear?

Oh, please forgive me, Mr. Zak! I have been soooo busy, you know? She starts trying to smooth down her out of control hair.

Perhaps Miss Sofie has an actual question to ask our presenter? asks Kim, who is sitting in the right front of the room with a wry grin spread broadly across her face. She is tilted back in her seat to see Sofie’s monitor.

Is that Miss Scott? Why, how are you?

I’m golden, Sofie. Thanks so much for dropping by!

Kim is beaming and he knows he’s been set up.

How’s Gilly?

She is asking after Sofie’s boyfriend, Guillermo Flores, an ex-military student at Stanford.

He’s great.

Ladies! Perhaps another time.

Another time? Really? I don’t know. What other time could that be? Gather ye roses while ye may.

Sofie might be taking this all a bit far, thought Zak.

Actually I do have a question Mr. Zak, said Sofie, now twirling the oversized glasses in her fingers. Where can I rent a bike in Beijing?

Zak gives Kim a look, signifying that he knows she has prepped Sofie with this.

That is indeed an excellent question, Sofie. Thank-you so very much.

He turns to the large screen directly behind him and touches the remote screen in his hand. Immediately a large map of the city is projected.

There are about 80,000 bicycles available for rent from 476 authorized outlets. The map shows the locations of these various outlets. Most are concentrated downtown and at major recreational centers around the city. Those downtown are mainly used by tourists.

He explains how he has analyzed the total trip reductions per zone based on typical usage numbers provided by the various outlets, and the impact that this has had in reducing congestion in places around the City of Beijing. He compares results with other major cities and projects the congestion reducing effects of applying similar programs elsewhere, with special attention to U.S. cities. The results are clearly highly applicable to virtually every kind of urban area. The presentation goes pretty well he thinks. The senior staff that attend seem pleased. He receives cordial applause and further questions from students coming up to him afterward. By the time he returns to his office with Kim there are numerous calls and emails waiting for him.

One is from Rashida Bakkal, an Egyptian student. He pulls it up and punches the number, and in an instant Rashida is on, laughing.

Kim! Nice one, getting Sofie to do that. They got you. And right in the middle of your lecture too! Outstanding work! Outstanding! Could not have done any better myself. On second thought, maybe I could?

She shakes her head and her wavy black hair does a number, her smile measured in megawatts. Zak likes her for her ready for anything spirit.

You were a little surprised? Kim asks, putting her arm around him.

She’s a goof. So are you.

He closes the distance and gives her a quick kiss.

I was surprised. I’m like who is this weird chick and what is she doing here? says Rashida.

Ok guys. I’m giving you the room. Gotta get to work, Rashida says as she flashes the interior of the bar around her. It is massive, high tech and elaborate: glass, chrome, and leather.

See you, Rash, Kim returns.

Oops! There’s my boss! And then she says, in a barely audible voice whispered very close to her phone, What a jerk!

The screen darkens.

It’s Rashida’s planet, we’re only visitors. And who else have we got? Kim asks.

Well, I believe it is Mr. Kamat! Shall we rock his world?

Arjun comes up, or rather his shock of thick black hair does, followed by his smiling face.

Artie! How’s it hangin’ man?

Artie has black glasses and he pushes them up.

Kim! This is a treat! How are you doing?

Good, Artie, good. How ‘bout you?

Missing you sweetheart, says Art despondently.

Awwwhh.

Artie brightens.

How about this guy? Who knew he was so brilliant?

While they continue to chat with Artie, Zak pulls up on email from Asobi Shimada, another friend of theirs who sat in on the lecture from back at Stanford. Asobi tells him that she enjoyed the lecture, but who was that crazy lady?

Chapter 5

Zak is staring across the silent lily pond, concentrating on memorizing some classwork, and as he does so a fish snaps out of the water and makes a noisy splash. It is just after dawn in the Jinchun Gardens of the University. He has ridden his bike down campus just to get here at the break of day, and now he is sitting in the Han Pavilion, a large pagoda like structure that sits triumphantly over the center of the former Imperial Garden of the Qing Dynasty, the old Summer Palace. The Garden is covered in a thin veneer of white from last night’s early snow event, but it is rapidly disappearing under the fast warming of the sun.

The restored Pavilion can easily seat dozens of people, but this dawn he is alone and practicing a one thousand yard stare as he prepares for an exam. His mind is clear and empty of everything, the perfect condition for cramming. The Gardens are breathtakingly beautiful, tended as they have been for many hundreds of years, and it is the most peacefully tranquil place on the very hurried campus. He has come here before at exam time and rarely encounters anyone this early, maybe a runner or two, a young romantic couple having just spent the night together, or a nature lover trying to take pictures.

But for some reason, this morning is different. He hears the tramp of many feet and from around the bend of the pathway flies a group of young runners, all dressed similarly, huffing and puffing. The group descends upon him, interrupting his train of thought. Soon there are other runners, some apparently lagging the team ahead, a few just on their own. Following them are bicyclists, pedestrians, leaf peepers, and couples. They pierce the silence with laughter and conversation.

They stare at Zak as they walk by. He notices that somebody is photographing the Pavilion and he is being included. He can’t hide his annoyance and glares at the photographer as he thinks of packing it in.

A man cries out at the other end of the pavilion, and in the immediate silence that follows, Zak turns to see someone else racing away. There is a figure lying supine across the Pavilion’s entrance. Even the group of runners slows to a halt. Zak reacts without thought and runs quickly over to the man, who is clearly injured. He wears street clothes and the bottom of his shirt is stained in blood, blood which he appears to be fast losing. The man supports himself with one arm.

Sir, you are hurt? Zak asks, dropping to a knee.

The fellow looks at Zak with a grimace spread wide across his face, in the kind of pain that cannot be expressed.

What is your name?

Li Hua Wang, the stricken man can barely speak.

You’re going to be ok.

By this time a crowd has begun to assemble around the scene. Zak turns to the first person holding a cell.

Call emergency, right away.

The woman with the cell nods and begins to dial.

He is thinking that the hospital is just West of the Gardens, close. He is pulling the torn shirt away from the man’s abdomen, which is obscured by so much blood. It is not a simple stab wound, but rather a deep incision all the way across the abdomen. Zak pulls his own t-shirt over his head to place pressure on the wound, but Li Hua stops him with a raised hand.

He falls back, his head coming to rest on the path. Wang pulls Zach closer, his eyes starting to lose focus.

Please help me, Christopher Gray, he says breathlessly, grabbing his hand.

Zak, taken aback by being called a name which means nothing to him, feels a small object being pressed into his hand in such a way that it cannot be noticed by the others.

You must get this to UNK.

He closes his eyes. Pain and lack of oxygen overtake him.

Only UNK. UNK. Only UNK.

Li Hua loses consciousness.

Zak is holding the now soaked t-shirt as a compress and signals a man nearby to take over. He makes his way through the crowd to the corner of the Pavilion and turns away from them to find out what Li Hua has given him, a tiny flash drive. The danger of carrying someone else’s presumably stolen data around, especially in China, spooks him. And then there is the matter of being called Christopher Gray. Why would this man, whom he has never met, call him by someone else’s name? That was just weird. And who, for that matter, is this UNK?

Zak looks up from the drive in his palm, only to see a westerner further down the pathway giving him the once over and then quickly look away. Zak is certain that the man’s interest is much more than casual. Heat rises up the back of Zak’s neck and flushes his face. If he doesn’t get out of here really soon they’re going to be joined by the authorities, who will no doubt detain him, question him, find out about the passing of a mnemonic device by the dead man, assume he is in on something, arrest him for possession of stolen data, and basically end his life as he knows it. Under the circumstances, Zak figures sticking around is something he should not feel overly obliged to do.

So with another glance at the mystery man, he wonders is the guy looking his way again or not, Zak, mindful not to run or draw attention to himself, skirts around the crowd and back through the Pavilion to his bicycle, which, fortunately, is, despite all the chaos, still there. He sets out like a light, down the opposite side pathway, as fast as the bike will carry him.

Zak hits a tiny ornamental pedestrian bridge of a traditional Chinese design going so fast that he literally blows back the few pedestrians who are there, forcing them to retreat to the sides. The bridge rises in a short, high curve over the water and this curve actually launches him and his bike a short ways into the air. Coming down hard he nearly blows a tire and the bike wobbles. He fights to regain control and turns down the path, dodging people along the way.

The thumb drive is burning a hole in his pocket and a plan is formulating in the back of his head at the same time. He has to ditch the drive as soon as possible. But where? Anywhere where it will not be disturbed and he can come back and find it later on. Anywhere that a needle can be lost in a haystack of possibilities.

But another thought has crossed Zak’s mind and he zig zags the bicycle through the paths, going right, then left, trying to avoid hitting anyone. He comes up on the center meadow of the campus, a Quad, much like any campus in the United States, and heads North along the West edge. Sidewalks ring and criss cross the plain of open grass, grass still wet with the morning dew. Young students clutching bags and books mill about on the way to their first class of the day, mostly in ones and twos.

What if someone is already following him? He looks behind for pursuers as he approaches the Jeffersonian style Auditorium Building at the North end of