On the first floor, it was equally plain to Yang Quon. What came back to him now was his firstborn son, JuLong, the feel of his small body in his arms, the little noises he made, the first smile, sitting up, crawling, the first step in their small apartment, the first words he’d spoken . . . but their little Large Dragon was dead now, never to be seen again, crushed by the wheel of a passenger bus. An uncaring fate had ripped that child from his arms and cast him aside like a piece of blowing trash on the street—and now the State was going to slay his second child. And it would all happen upstairs, less than ten meters away, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. . . . It was a feeling not unknown to citizens of the People’s Republic, where rule from above was the rule, but opposed to it now was the most fundamental of human drives. The two forces battled within the mind of factory worker Yang Quon. His hands shook at his sides as his mind struggled with the dilemma. His eyes strained, staring at nothing closer than the room’s wall, but straining even so… something, there had to be something…
There was a pay telephone, and he did have the proper coins, and he did remember the number, and so Yang Quon lifted the receiver and dialed the number, unable to find the ability within himself to change fate, but hoping to find that ability in another.
“I’ll get it,” Reverend Yu said in English, rising and walking to where it was ringing.
“A remarkable guy, isn’t he?” Wise asked the two Catholics.
“A fine man,’ Cardinal DiMilo agreed. “A good shepherd for his flock, and that is all a man can hope to be.”
Monsignor’s Schepke’s head turned when he caught the tone of Yu’s voice. Something was wrong here, and by the sound, something serious. When the minister returned to the sitting room, his face told the tale.
“What is amiss?” Schepke asked in his perfect Mandarin. Perhaps this was not something for the American reporters.
“One of my congregation” Yu replied, as he reached for his jacket. “She is pregnant, in labor even now—but her pregnancy is unauthorized, and her husband fears the hospital will try to kill it. I must go to help.”
“Franz, was gibt’s hier?” DiMilo asked in German. The Jesuit then replied in Attic Greek to make damned sure the Americans wouldn’t get it.
“You’ve been told about this, Eminence,” Monsignor Schepke explained in the language of Aristotle. “The abortionists here commit what is virtually murder in any civilized country in the world, and the decision to do so, in this case, is purely political and ideological. Yu wishes to go and help the parents prevent this vile act.”
DiMilo needed less than a second. He stood, and turned his head. “Fa An?”
“Yes, Renato?”
“May we come with you and assist? Perhaps our diplomatic status will have practical value,” His Eminence said, in badly accented but comprehensible Mandarin.
It didn’t take long for Reverend Yu either: “Yes, a fine idea! Renato, I cannot allow this child to die!”
If the desire to procreate is the most fundamental known to mankind, then there are few more powerful calls to action for an adult than child-in-danger For this, men race into burning buildings and jump into rivers. For this now, three clergymen would go to a community hospital to challenge the power of the world’s most populous nation.
“What’s happening?” Wise asked, surprised by the sudden shifts in language and the way the three churchmen had leapt to their feet.
“A pastoral emergency. A member of Yu’s congregation is in the hospital. She needs him, and we will go with our friend to assist in his pastoral duties,” DiMilo said. The cameras were still running, but this was the sort of thing that got edited out. But what the hell, Wise thought.
“Is it far? Can we help? Want us to run you over?”
Yu thought it over and quickly decided that he couldn’t make his bike go as fast as the American news van. “That is very kind. Yes.”
“Well, let’s go, then.” Wise stood and motioned to the door. His crew broke down their gear in a matter of seconds and beat them all out the door.
Longfu Hospital turned out to be less than two miles away, facing a north-south street. It was, Wise thought, a place designed by a blind architect, so lacking in aesthetic as to be a definite government-owned building even in this country. The communists had probably killed off anyone with a sense of style back in 1950 or so, and no one had attempted to take his place. Like most reporters, the CNN team came in the front door in the manner of a police SWAT team. The cameraman’s tool was up on his shoulder, with the soundman beside him, Barry Wise and the producer trailing while they looked for good establishing shots. To call the lobby dreary was generous. A Mississippi state prison had a better atmosphere than this, to which was added the disinfectant smell that makes dogs cringe in the vet’s office and made kids hug your neck harder for fear of the coming needle.
For his part, Barry Wise was unnaturally alert. He called it his Marine training, though he’d never seen combat operations. But one January night in Baghdad, he’d started looking out the windows forty minutes before the first bombs had fallen from the Stealth fighters, and kept looking until what U.S. Air Force planners had called the AT&T Building took the first spectacular hit. He took the producer’s arm and told him to keep his head up. The other ex-Marine nodded agreement. For him it was the suddenly grim looks on the faces of the three clergymen, who’d been so genial until the phone had rung. For that old Italian guy to look this way—it had to be something, they both were sure, and whatever it was, it wouldn’t be pleasant, and that often made for a good news story, and they were only seconds from their satellite uplink. Like hunters hearing the first rustle of leaves in the forest, the four CNN men looked alertly for the game and the shot.
“Reverend Yu!” Yang Quon called, walking—almost running—to where they were.
“Eminence, this is my parishioner, Mr. Yang.”
“Buon giorno,” DiMilo said in polite greeting. He looked over to see the newsies taking their pictures and keeping out of the way, more politely than he’d expected them to do. While Yu spoke with Yang, he walked over to Barry Wise to explain the situation.
“You are right to observe that relations between the Catholics and the Baptists are not always as friendly as they ought to be, but on this issue we stand as one. Upstairs, the officials of this government wish to kill a human baby. Yu wants to save that child. Franz and I will try to help.”
“This could get messy, sir,” Wise warned. “The security personnel in this country can play rough. I’ve seen it before.”
DiMilo was not an imposing man in physical terms. He was short and a good thirty pounds overweight, the American figured. His hair was thinning. His ‘skin was sagging with age. He probably went out of breath going up two flights of stairs. But for all that, the Cardinal summoned what manhood he had and transformed himself before the American’s eyes. The genial smile and gentle disposition evaporated like steam in cold air. Now he looked more like a general on a battlefield.
“The life of an innocent child is at risk, Signore Wise,” was all DiMilo said, and it was all he had to say. The Cardinal walked back to his Chinese colleague.
“Get that?” Wise asked his cameraman, Pete Nichols.
“Fuckin’ A, Barry!” the guy said behind his eyepiece.
Yang pointed. Yu headed that way. DiMilo and Schepke followed. At the reception desk, the head clerk lifted a phone and made a call. The CNN crew followed the others into the stairwell and headed up to the second floor.
If anything, the obstetrics and gynecology floor was even more drab than the first. They heard the shouts, cries, and moans of women in labor, because in China, the public-health system did not waste drugs on women giving birth. Wise caught up to see that Yang guy, the father of the baby, standing still in the corridor, trying to identify the cries of his own wife from all the others. Evidently, he failed. Then he walked to the nurse’s desk.
Wise didn’t need to understand Chinese to get what the exchange was all about. Yang was supported by Reverend Yu and demanded to know where his wife was. The head nurse asked what the hell they were doing here, and told them all that they had to leave at once! Yang, his back straight with dignity and fear, refused and repeated his question. Again the head nurse told him to get lost. Then Yang seriously broke the rules by reaching across the high countertop and grabbing the nurse. You could see it in her eyes. It shocked her at a very fundamental level that anyone could defy her state-issued authority so blatantly. She tried to back away, but his grip was too strong, and for the first time she saw that his eyes were no longer a display of fear. Now they showed pure killing rage, because for Yang human instincts had cast aside all the societal conditioning he’d absorbed in his thirty-six years. His wife and child were in danger, and for them, right here and right now, he’d face a fire-breathing dragon barehanded and be damned to the consequences! The nurse took the easy way out and pointed to the left. Yang headed that way, Yu and the other two clergy with him, and the CNN crew trailing. The nurse felt her neck and coughed to get her breath back, still too surprised to be fearful, trying to understand how and why her orders had been disregarded.