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“I—”

He shook his head to stop her fro “And don’t say someone will come to rescue you No one will rescue you The police, as you see, are already here”

“There are others,” she said

“Who? Your husband? I think not If anything, he hurts your chances”

Strangely, Hulan felt no fear She was the one with the gun, didn’t they see that?

At David’s insistence, the chopper pilot radioed a local airstrip, was patched through to the Panda Guesthouse, and was told that Inspector Liu had left on soh to Bashan’s Public Security Bureau and no one answered, David kneith horrible certainty where Hulan had gone He frantically ordered the pilot to alter his course David knehere he wanted to land, but when the pilot saw it he told the American he was out of his mind

“See that cliff?” the pilot yelled “With the e’ll be blown right into it! The rotors—”

But even as tenacious gusts buffeted the craft while it tried to e, David could see during the flashes of lightning that he’dabove the hillsides up ahead, was the geographical character for door—the Kuimen Gate—that Brian had used to e on the coded map from his journal Directly below them was the river Just parallel to the pilot’s ere two smaller peaks, each topped with rocks that David knew froon Platforh in the air, David could clearly see the curled ancient dragon after its death and the places that Brian had h there were no fields there now and probably hadn’t been for centuries The geography itself created cliff, and the for the entrance to the Wu house for of stone with a single large rock protruding beneath it—the character for below

Lightning streaked around them The chopper shook violently

“Bring it down!” David shouted “Now!”

The pilot fought the weather for control of his e of air hurled them back out over the river The pilot screaoes the other e’re dead!”

The weather had the upper hand The wind pushed the chopper toward the cliff The limestone face rushed toward the windshield Then, in one of those quirks of nature, the wind right against the cliff died just long enough for the pilot to land With the ruyi in hand, David jued on the door of the Wu house No one answered, but he knew that even with the riotous sounds of the storain as hard as he could

It opened, and David entered the one rooe of a kang next to a kerosene lahter-in-laho’d answered the door, backed away and stood against the stone wall, clutching her swaddled child protectively

Now that David was here he wasn’t sure how to proceed His impulse was to shake out of the woman what he needed to know, but her terrified countenance told hi down completely He took a breath, closed the door, and replaced the bar that protected the Wus from outsiders As he turned, he heard a distant h the room “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da…”

The oldvoice “Who is it?”