On the short flight from Tokyo to Beijing, Chaim thought more about the one-word message that he had received while listening with Sheree and Bobbi.
He was not one to worry easily, but it brought back to him something that a Friend had said to him in Sydney. He was worried about where Chaim's involvement with Bible prophecy was leading and he had shared his concern.
"You know me, Rod," Chaim had said. "If I felt something was wrong, I'd be the first to admit it. It's not like I'm going to be convinced by the same things I oppose."
"But it doesn't happen all at once," Rod had warned. "I had a friend years ago... wonderful chap. Had a deep love for the underprivileged. But he got mixed up with some Pentecostals. Now he's hard as nails. Says the poor are poor because they have poverty demons."
Am I becoming like that? Chaim asked himself. He certainly didn't feel like he was becoming hard. But what was the word "hate" all about? Sheree thought it was a warning. What he hadn't said was that he thought it was more of a command, like something he should be doing! Either way, it didn't sound good.
Meanwhile, at Beijing Capital International Airport, a drama was unfolding.
When Carl and Ming arrived to pick up Chaim, Ming caught a glimpse of someone pulling up in a car whom she was convinced was her father, Sam Chon Lee. Ming was dressed as a peasant, with a coolie hat, sandals, and simple grey robe, a disguise she often used when out in the open, since her family also lived in Beijing. Carl was wearing a tracksuit and the same backpack he had worn when he left Sydney.
Because of a security scare, no one was being all owed inside except passengers with tickets. A huge crowd had gathered outside the airport, waiting for arrivals.
"Quick, in the line!" Carl said to Ming, as he pushed her toward the queue entering the airport. He fished around in a side pocket of the backpack and pulled out the ticket wallets that they had used when coming from Sydney, waved them at the guard on the door, and stepped inside just before Ming's father lunged toward them from the crowd. He shouted something in an effort to get assistance, but it was too late. Ming and Carl were on the escalator to the upper level, and as they peered back over their shoulders, they could see that the guards had not been convinced that they should act.
It was half an hour before Chaim arrived. During that time they discussed plans and contacted other believers by mobile. When Chaim had cleared Customs, Carl and Ming were able to catch his attention from the departures side of a glass wall, and to signal for him to come over to their side to link up with them. Because Chaim had a valid ticket, he had no trouble getting past the guards and into the departures lounge, where they pulled him aside and Ming shared about her predicament.
"Sam won't get violent in front of the crowds," she assured them. "Not after he failed with those guards. If we can get to a taxi, maybe we can get away."
A few minutes later, Sam Chon spotted the distinctive grey peasant robe fleeing the airport in company with a short, fat foreigner. They jumped into a taxi and pulled away. But Sam had a car of his own waiting, with two other men inside. They headed off in pursuit.
At the tollgate to the Airport Expressway, Chaim could see Ming's father just three or four cars behind his cab. On the expressway, they urged the driver to hurry, but Sam stayed with them for the 20km run into the city. Chaim texted a local contact. "Is the parcel safe?" the text asked.
"The parcel has been picked up and is on its way," came the reply.
Chaim turned to Carl, who peered out from under Ming's robe and peasant hat. "Step one accomplished," he said, "But the next step could be harder."
They now needed to shake their pursuers.
Carl paid the driver in advance and explained where they wanted to get out. The cab turned south on Third Ring Road, and then right onto the road to the Dirt Markets, so named for the unpaved surface where more than a thousand stalls sold everything from crafts and Chairman Mao souvenirs to cheap clothes and fake antiques. At this time on a Saturday it would be totally packed.
The cab hesitated in the traffic; both doors burst open; and the two men dashed into the crowd. Carl led the way, but he kept an eye over his shoulder to be sure Chaim was keeping up. The older man huffed and puffed through the opening that Carl was clearing through the throngs. "I'll never be able to outrun them", thought Chaim. But as they turned one corner, Carl pulled him behind a rack of clothes and out of sight. He signalled the stall keeper to say nothing, and the two men just crouched there, struggling to control their breathing as their pursuers ran past.
"Thanks, Lung Chee," Carl said to the stall owner, an obvious friend, and they rejoined the crowd to retrace their steps back to where they had left the cab.
There, in a sea of bicycles, were two men on motorcycles waiting for them to each jump on the back of one before the cycles raced north, toward the Forbidden City.
As the motorcycles pulled away from the curb, the two passengers did not see three men emerge from the shopping crowd. The trio chasing them had also returned to where they had started, after losing sight of Chaim and Carl.
*
The bikes made good time through the crowded streets, passing Beijing Station, Tiananmen Square, and then out onto the northern highway to Datong.
Once clear of the city, they opened the throttle and sped along for hours, going under the Great Wall and then on to Datong.
It was well into the evening when the two motorcycles with their four passengers drove through the village of Datong, west of Beijing and then out toward Yuyang, where one of the country's most popular tourist attractions could be found. The giant sandstone carvings, made some fifteen centuries earlier by Buddhist monks, attracted thousands each day. But by night they were deserted.
Behind the carvings were caves, but the government had closed off those that were deemed too dangerous for tourists. Local children still played in them, however... with one exception.
The two motorcyclists, believers named Watchman and Fong, led Chaim and Carl to a statue some distance away from the others, that had a wide crack in the base. They squeezed into the crack, did something with a hidden lock, and pushed open what had previously been an ineffective barricade. Believers had modified this barrier to make it strong enough to keep curious children out.
On the far side of the opening the four men entered a huge chamber. One of them lighted a torch mounted on the cave's wall while the other assisted Chaim and Carl through the opening.
When they were safely inside, Watchman sent Fong back outside to hide the motorcycles, while Chaim and Carl marvelled at the set-up inside. There were pallets stacked with literature, and others piled high with boxes of food: tins mostly, but some grains as well.
"Night time, believers bring food and books on pack horses," explained Watchman. "We make ready for hard times."
Their host gave them blankets and ground sheets on which to camp; and he opened a few tins for a welcome meal.
They had started to worry about what was keeping Fong when he poked his head through the cave opening. They saw the frightened look on his face first, and then the arm around his neck. It was holding a sharp Chinese dagger.
Sam Chon Lee and his two assistants followed the man into the cave.
"You give me Ming, I not hurt you," said the older man.
"Ming isn't here," said Carl, who had removed the coolie hat, but was still wearing the grey robe.
"You tell me."
"I'm afraid we can't do that," said Chaim.
Sam continued to hold Fong while his thugs tied the others, hand and foot, with wire that they had brought with them. Fong was the last to be tied.
During this Chaim started to shake, and it got worse as the tying proceeded. The men with Sam Chon discussed Chaim's behaviour in Chinese, obviously revelling in the fear they had evidental y inspired in Chaim.
"P-p-please don't do this, Sam," Chaim begged, stuttering uncontrollably.
"P-p-please! Y-y-you will h-h-hurt yourself."
"I no hurt myself," said Sam. I hurt YOU!" and with an evil smile, he plunged the dagger into Carl's thigh. Carl screamed in agony.
"S-S-Sam, don't do it!" Chaim begged, with tears starting down his cheeks.
"You tell me, or you die!" Sam said, pul ing the dagger out and stabbing Carl's other thigh.
"No Sam. Y-y-you will die!" Chaim warned.
The others, who spoke no English must have understood, because they started to laugh at Chaim, while Sam brought the knife up to Carl's throat.
"N-n-no!" Chaim shouted, and as he did, all three men were thrown back away from their victims, as if from an explosion. They each burst spontaneously into flames. There were momentary shrieks of pain, but the cries ended abruptly as the searing heat quickly took their lives away. The bodies continued to burn, as though they had been soaked in fuel. The flames eventually consumed their clothes, their flesh, and even their bones.
In the meantime, the others were able to crawl close enough to each other to unfasten the wires and then move to the cave entrance to escape the smell of burning flesh and to get fresh air. There they treated Carl's wounds.
"Ming has been writing to her family by email," Carl explained, as they looked out at the night sky through the opening in the cave. "I don't know how they found us, but we knew they would be dangerous."
"How they die? What make them burn?" asked Watchman.
"I don't know. I honestly don't know," said Chaim, who was still in shock.
"But I knew it was coming... just before it happened."
"So you were crying for them! Is that it?" asked Carl.
Chaim could only nod his head. "How are we going to explain this to Ming?" he asked.
"I don't think she'll have as much trouble as you think. She saw it coming.
I don't mean them burning up like that. I mean she saw that they were not going to stop at anything to get her. So she's been turning loose of them in her heart.
"Learning to hate", she calls it."
"Hate?" asked Chaim.
"Not real hate, but just letting go. Giving up hope of ever changing them.
They were the ones who said she hated them, but Ming saw no point in disagreeing, since she wasn't going to give in and go their way."
"Here in China, many believers do like this," said Watchman.
"We suffer for our faith many years now. God is testing us."
"You think suffering comes from a loving God?" Chaim asked.
"Who you think kill those men?" Watchman asked, throwing his head back toward the interior of the cave. "God gives and God takes. He can do that."
It all seemed so cruel to Chaim, and he said as much.
"You have better God?" asked Watchman. "You have God who not let people die?"
Fong joined in. "We are happy people," he said, "because we have hope for new life... better life. Life here is pain," he said, looking down at Carl's bandages. "New life is better."