The Brad West Files Read online

  Earl watched him with incredulity as Brad sawed into the tough meat with a serrated steak knife and set to work on both trays of food.

  “What are you looking at?” Brad asked. “I haven’t eaten since before our rock climb.”

  “I was hoping for some of that myself,” Earl said lamely, and watched the food disappear.

  Brad came up for air and sat back to take a swig of coffee.

  “So, what’s your plan of attack?” Earl asked.

  “Beats me. What would you do?” Brad said broadly, taking in the cafeteria. “My thesis is still in the idea stage, I’ve just been kicked out of graduate school, I’ve got no money, no wheels and hardly a place to live.”

  They sat in silence as students moved away with their trays.

  “Looks like the old man’s finally got me where he wants me,” he concluded.

  “You’re not the first.” Earl said. “Remember Pete and Natasha? How long did they last?”

  Brad let the question go unanswered. That couple was just another two notches in his step dad’s long career of destroying lives. He stared into his coffee while Earl pulled out his lesson plan for the day. Brad folded his arms across his chest and began to doze.

  What seemed like a mere minute later, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He jolted upright at the sensation and looked at his buddy. Earl pointed to a person hovering over him.

  It was his date’s roommate, sporting a black leather jacket, black miniskirt and long black stockings.

  “Sweet Jolly Knockers,” Brad sputtered. “How in the…”

  “So you remember me,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you were a student.”

  She leaned over him and deftly removed the steak knife from his lunch tray. “I’m not. Our friend asked me to come here. She wants you to meet her at the municipal airport at three this afternoon.”

  “Why? Is she leaving?” he asked, alarmed. He might never see the girl again.

  “Easy lover boy. Let’s just say some people live life a little more on the knife’s edge than others.” She rubbed the sharp side of the steak knife up his cheek so quickly yet smoothly that he had no time to react. “She just wants to meet you there. Passenger terminal. Don’t be late.” With that she drew away.

  “I won’t.” He felt the raw patch on his cheek. She blew him a kiss, did an about-face, and made a swishing sound with her silk stockings as she walked away.

  “But wait,” Brad called after her. “Do you gals have any names?”

  “It’s Jade,” she said over her shoulder while turning a corner.

  “Hot damn,” Earl said. “Jade. How apropos. Exotic and mysterious this one be,” he said in his best Yoda impersonation.

  “Was she telling us her name or the other girl’s?”

  “You think too much,” Earl said. “Besides, what’s in a name? ‘That which we call a keester by any other name would still roll around like a couple of hard-boiled eggs wrapped in hot leather.’ Shakespeare,” he said proudly. “I think this little beauty backs her way up the chart to number one, tail-wise.”

  “Will ya shut up?” Brad tried to clear his head. “You’re the Chinese scholar. What gives with these women? Is this part of some bizarre mating ritual? Or are they just messing with my head?”

  “I study ancient Oriental culture, not modern Chinese sex goddesses.”

  “Yeah, but at least you’ve been to China. You must have some insight into their women.”

  “Oh, I have some insights alright. I think ‘inscrutable’ pretty well defines them. And ‘cold,’ at least as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. I thought I was talking to an international connoisseur of women there for a minute.”

  “I’m not even a connoisseur of American women,” Earl said. “But these women are inscrutable in a whole different way. They’re completely unpredictable.”

  “They are Chinese living abroad,” Brad said. “You can’t expect someone to act the same way abroad as at home. I know I sure wouldn’t.”

  “Well then, we can only hope that they are an exception to the rule, as I find them extremely kinky.”

  With that, Earl pulled one of Brad’s mostly-empty trays toward him.

  Chapter 7

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Dr. Yu Zhanguo had no idea what time of day it was. Nor what day it was. He had even lost track of the year.

  A droplet of water hung suspended half a meter over his right wrist. It stretched under its weight, separated from the tube and fell through the air.

  Drip.

  It reverberated in his ears like the giant drum in the drum tower just beyond his jail cell.

  He closed his eyes and sought release in the past.

  The colors, smells and clatter of daily life in his hometown echoed through time. Neighborhoods resounded with men shouting and slapping down Chinese chess pieces. Scavengers called out for cardboard, paper and broken electronics to recycle. Frying bread sizzled and steam billowed from breakfast soups. Pomelo, tangerines, snow pears, peaches and loquat were on full display.

  Drip.

  He was yanked back to the present. There was no town of Fengjie any longer.

  Filtered through the dust of a giant demolition project, the city on the northern bank of the Yangtze River was vanishing from the face of the earth. Like an anthill being carried away one tiny pebble at a time, the ancient city was disappearing brick by miserable brick and being swept away in the cloud of dust.

  Dr. Yu had seen it all through a crack in his boarded-up shop. Each building on his block had been marked with the single Chinese character chai, identifying it for demolition.

  The dam was nearly complete two hundred kilometers downstream, and the Yangtze was already swelling into a giant lake. Most locals, many of them his friends and relatives, had long since picked up their lives and headed for higher ground.

  Yet Dr. Yu had remained. With his own eyes he had watched sledgehammers demolish the cottages of Tang Dynasty poets and the elegant Watching the Waves gate.

  But even closer to his heart, the rising waters were burying China’s primeval past. The Yangtze had nurtured early species of mankind. And he had evidence from numerous dig sites along the river’s edge to prove it.

  Drip.

  That’s why he had to survive. To save the past.

  His future son-in-law would never grasp the value of the past. Liang Jiaxi was busy launching a new era for China. Dr. Yu’s daughter, May Hua, was as much a proponent of growth and prosperity. She had even applied to the Chinese astronaut program.

  He shook his head. Could he ever bless their marriage?

  He opened his eyes. The dim light came from a single light bulb in another room of the jail. The only sound came from the roar of water drops falling methodically against his exposed veins, out of phase with his heartbeat.

  Fengjie had been deafening as well. An army of retired men with wiry legs and strong shoulders were taking down and hauling away the buildings on his block. His building, a frail wood and cement structure that protected the site of his anthropological discovery, was next.

  The blue-clad men counted down for a final tug on ropes, and a crashing boom followed. The neighbor’s house collapsed on cue, rocked the ground upon impact and pulverized into dust.

  Would Liang spare his shop and the treasure beneath?

  Dr. Yu’s research assistants had looked up at him. In the rays of a single light bulb that hung over their pit, uncertainty had registered in their eyes.

  “Should we continue?” one had asked.

  “Do not stop, my comrades. Keep digging, and four kuai an hour shall be yours,” he had said in gentle Mandarin, doubling the college students’ salaries on the spot.

  Their work at chiseling and brushing through layers of crumbling rock was arduous and slow.

  Yu stared down at his hand. Every inch of skin was soaked from the ancient method of water torture. It was hard to imagine that he had once held mankind’s
greatest treasure, the fossilized remains of a human skull blackened by fire and several million years old. The skull didn’t just represent his ancestor or the ancestor of China, but perhaps the ancestor of all mankind.

  He closed his eyes. The shop wasn’t his only dig site. He had found promising areas up and down the river, but now the skull belonged to another man.

  A soldier walked in the jail cell and shoved a piece of paper and pens his way.

  “Confess,” he said. His voice was angrier than before. No, not angrier. It sounded more urgent.

  That gave Yu hope.

  Professor Richter, who held the skull now, must be waiting for his confession. And so would Liang. Neither of them had time on their side.

  Drip. Drip.

  Yu had to make time his friend.

  Liang and Richter had approached his shop with a squeal of brakes. Their limousines had been shiny and black, out of place in the devastated town. Water lapped at their tires.

  The handsome young Liang with his Olympic gymnast’s physique was wearing his commander’s uniform. And Richter was the foreigner with shoe-polish brown hair and a stature that overwhelmed even Liang. A red bowtie and nicely tailored suit flattered the man’s robust, if overweight, form. The full cheeks, the predatory eyes and the unnaturally low hairline were just like his photo in professional journals.

  Richter had turned the rock specimen over in his hands. The top was rounded with thirty percent of the skull bone visible. Presumably, the bottom of the rock contained the rest of the fossil.

  “Have you dated this beauty?” Richter had asked.

  “No, but I knew her mother.” It was a professional joke, but Richter wasn’t laughing.

  “I mean ‘carbon-dated,’” Richter said.

  “My equipment has tallied surrounding surfaces between 2.3 and 2.4 million years of age.”

  He had paused to study the foreigner’s blank expression.

  “That predates both the Java Homo erectus,” Yu explained, “and Dmanisi boy as discovered in the Republic of Georgia.”

  “I’m well acquainted with the Early Lower Pleistocene period,” the foreigner remarked.

  That had been encouraging. Perhaps one like-minded scientist wouldn’t confiscate another’s evidence.

  Instead, Richter had turned and pocketed the rock.

  “I’ll take this.”

  Yu had turned to Liang for support. But there he met a wall.

  “He is stealing China’s greatest treasure.”

  Liang had nodded to his bodyguards and two strong arms grabbed him from behind and lifted him off the ground. Yu’ s kick only stirred up dust.

  Yu had called after Richter, his shriek stopping the professor in his tracks. “Most honorable sir. Certainly you appreciate the historical significance of the find. This discovery comes before all known Homo erectus anywhere in the world and prior to the modern humans. Just look at the delicate browridge and restrained occipital bun. This skullcap places the most direct predecessor to Homo sapiens right here in Asia.”

  “Correction. This puts mankind’s birthplace somewhere in America.” He began to lumber back to his car.

  “America? Your lands were under water for most of that period.”

  Richter looked back at him. “This skull comes from America and speaks to the enormous importance of our continent.”

  How absurd it had all sounded then. How much sense it made now. Especially after what happened next.

  Liang had held the car door open for Richter. “You’ve got what you came for, Professor. I’ll expect you to keep your end of the bargain.”

  “As we agreed,” Richter had said, and clasped Liang’s hand. Then he summoned Liang closer for a whispered word. “But I have one more request.”

  Yu had ceased straining against the powerful arms in order to hear better.

  “We are partners here,” Liang resisted. “We don’t need to ask for favors.”

  “I need money,” Richter said. “Lots of it to build up a war chest.”

  Liang grinned. “I know the expression. I like it.” He shook Richter’s hand. “Just like in our country, politics takes money.”

  It was pure blasphemy! Despite his uniform and lineage, Liang was no patriot.

  Then, apparently having totally forgotten about Dr. Yu, Liang told Richter, “In a few weeks, I will fly to America. In fact, I will be near your university and can deliver the money to you personally.”

  What treason! Liang was a total sellout.

  Professor Richter smiled gratefully and left in a swirl of yellow dust.

  Then Liang glanced at Yu. “I admire your loyalty to your country. You will, of course, agree with Professor Richter.”

  “…and support his absurd claim that the skull is from America?” The notion was preposterous. Even Professor Richter couldn’t build a house out of leaves. “All who have eyes will be able to see,” Yu warned.

  Liang held out a fistful of money. “You drive a hard bargain, old man.”

  By that point, the army of workers there to wreck his shop surged forward, eager to be part of the payoff.

  Dr. Yu studied the waxen expression on the young man’s face. He could finally see through to Liang’s core. The man didn’t respect science, principles or country. If all he understood were wealth and power, then surely he would never love May, his little lotus blossom, for who she was.

  He had hesitated before uttering the words that would forever break their relationship.

  “The wedding is off.”

  The young man sucked in his breath. Dead silence fell over the crowd. Rebuffing his daughter’s suitor was the ultimate insult.

  Liang turned to his bodyguards. “Seize the old fool. Take him to the local jail. And don’t release him until he demonstrates correct thinking.”

  One bodyguard looked at Dr. Yu dubiously. “What if he doesn’t change his mind?”

  “Then use yong shui kao da,” Liang said flatly. Water torture.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  The incessant drip of water onto his upturned wrist had deprived him of all sleep. The unbroken rhythm was driving him insane.

  He closed his eyes and remembered the horde of peasants creeping closer to his shop like vultures around a dying beast.

  He would have to watch his dream disappear from that jail cell. He would never be able to excavate China’s past and elevate her in the eyes of the world.

  But one more thing was certain. He would never talk.

  Chapter 8

  At 3:00 in the afternoon, Brad pulled into the entrance of the municipal airport on a child’s stingray bicycle with a black-and-white checkered banana seat and ape hanger handlebars that he had borrowed from his neighbor’s yard. His banged-up knee made sitting crunched up on the 20-inch frame a nightmare, so mostly he just stood on the pedals and coasted, occasionally pushing off with his good leg.

  It was painfully obvious that few people took that mode of transportation to the airport. He had to tie the bike to a chain link fence with old cable remnants he found lying in a gully.

  He smoothed down his hair and entered the terminal. He squinted in the subdued lighting and tried to spot his dream girl. She wasn’t there yet. Good, that meant she hadn’t passed him pedaling down the road. So he sat down and picked up the daily paper that lay on the seat beside him.

  There were no articles mentioning a high-speed demolition derby or the discovery of his wrecked truck. Even the barroom brawl escaped the paper’s police blotter section.

  Fifteen minutes later, his petite date appeared from the back of the terminal. Shoot, had she seen him on the road? She walked out of a back office he had seen pilots using, perhaps to check weather conditions and to file flight plans. She entered the lobby in a bomber jacket, blue jeans and sneakers.

  “Let us go,” she said.

  He put the paper down and smiled. He wasn’t sure if he should give her a kiss or not. She didn’t exactly look in the mood for one, so he just followed her like a
n obedient puppy.

  Was this the one named Jade? He couldn’t let the relationship go on much longer without asking, or he’d pass a point where it was too embarrassing to ask.

  They walked toward the gates and got patted down by a security officer, who checked her papers carefully. Then they were free to continue out the back door onto the tarmac.

  The afternoon sun blazed straight down, and the heat rising from the asphalt was enough to poach his toes if he stood still long enough. He couldn’t help but stare at Jade’s—or not-Jade’s—glorious posterior and silky black hair as she led him through an airplane tie-down area toward a helicopter pad.

  She stopped at the first chopper there.

  “What? You’re taking me for a ride?”

  She flipped the latch on her door and motioned for him to do the same on the other side. “Please to get in.”

  “No way,” he said. “I’ve seen how you drive. There’s no way I’m riding in one of these with you.”

  “I promise, no crazy road rage.” She lifted a dainty finger. “Up there is the only time I feel free.” And she pouted just ever so slightly.

  He studied the commercial helicopter. The name “Bell JetRanger III” was painted on the tail. It was a nice piece of design and workmanship, even to his untrained eye.

  Then he looked at her and those large kewpie-doll eyes. She was one fine piece of workmanship that he could appreciate as well.

  He relented and flipped the latch open. After all, any more transportation-related mishaps with the same girl were a statistical improbability. So, with a grunt, he slipped into the co-pilot’s seat as his raven-haired pilot jumped into hers.

  He was surprised by the compactness of the interior. He had never been in a helicopter before and just assumed that it would have the same metallic, user-unfriendliness of a tank. This did not. He felt like he had entered a Rolls Royce, with leather seats and a dashboard that resembled that of a car. Only there was no steering wheel, and the yoke stuck up before him like a kid’s play station joystick.

  She pulled on a shoulder harness and headset and helped him with his identical set of safety and communication gear. Within minutes, she had the engine warming up and the rotors beginning to rotate overhead. This completed, she calmly talked into her mouthpiece, radioing the control tower for permission to lift off.