Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

gotten nowhere. How did you do
it?”
    ”It’s probably why they sent me,” said Mrs. Pollifax modestly. ”The
Chinese do have a deep respect for their elders, after all, and I tend to look
quite harmless.”
    He grinned. ”That’s for sure—you fooled me. And now—” He
hesitated, staring down at page thirty-eight. ”It’s incredible but I think
we’re in business at last. I can even get down to some serious planning now. Amazing.”
    She smiled at him. ”Good—but did you by any chance search my
suitcase last night?”
    He looked at her blankly. ”Search your—why should I want to search your
suitcase?”
    ”Oh,” she said with a sinking heart. ”It wasn’t you, then?”
    ”No of course not.” Peter looked shocked. ”Are you sure?”
    ”Oh yes. Somebody did. Was yours?”
    He shook his head. ”No, I take the usual precautions. I’d have known
right away.” His brows drew together into a frown. ”I don’t get it, who would
do such a thing, and why? And why you?”
    ”It was done very professionally,” she told him, ”and it wouldn’t have
been noticeable at all if I didn’t have my own way of packing, too. The lock
wasn’t picked, and everything was left in order—but not the right order.” His
scowl had turned into such a look of alarm that she added softly, ”Don’t look
so jarred, it was probably some sort of random security check.” She didn’t
think at all that it was a security check, but she saw no point in worrying
Peter just now when he had his plans to make. ”In any case,” she told him
cheerfully, ”I think we should put it aside for the moment, there being other
things to think about, don’t you agree? Which leads me to a question I’ve been
waiting for some time to ask you. With enormous curiosity.”
    She had succeeded in distracting him; he smiled. ”Be my guest and ask,
but I’ll bet I know what it is.”
    She smiled back at him. ”I’m sure you do: the one detail no one’s
mentioned, and which didn’t seep through to me until too late to ask. You’re
going to be escorting our friend Mr. Wang—X—out of the country, aren’t you.”
She didn’t even bother to make it a question.
    He nodded.
    ”Then as a bona fide member of a bona fide guided tour, allowed to visit
China as a tourist, how are you ever going to manage to vanish from the tour and
gain freedom for your very risky undercover work? I can’t believe that you’ll
just bolt. You wouldn’t have a chance, would you?”
    He shook his head. ”Not a chance in a million. No, there’ll be an
accident.”
    ”Accident,” she repeated, watching his face intently. ”What kind?”
    ”That’s up to me,” he told her. ”I’ve a few ideas boiling around in my
head but it depends on a lot of factors like terrain and circumstances and
timing. I’ll be killed,” he added casually.
    ”Killed,” she repeated, and waited.
    ”In such a way there’ll be no trace of a body,” he explained, adding
soberly, ”and it’s growing on me fast that your help is going to be very much
needed.”
    ”I see,” she said musingly. ”Yes, it would have to be that, of course.
The only way to vanish into China.”
    ”Yes—become a non-person. Without the Sepos in hot pursuit. A dead
person.”
    She shivered. ”Not easy.”
    ”No.”
    ”And from the vitamins and dried food I’m carrying I deduce you’ll be
heading for the mountains?”
    He nodded. ”There’s been the feeble hope that another route might open
up, but I don’t think it will.”
    ”Very high mountains,” she said quietly. ”And cold ones. Surely
not through Tibet?”
    ”No, we can head around the Taklamakan desert toward Khotan and a pass
over the Karakaroms.”
    ”The very thought chills me,” she admitted. ”Literally as well as
figuratively.”
    He nodded. ”That’s where I’ll need your help, too; you can help me find
warm clothing and carry some of it in your suitcase when mine’s full.”
    ”Like what?” she asked, and reached for paper and pencil, glad to move
her thoughts toward the practical.
    He frowned as he concentrated. ”What I did smuggle in is small stuff.
I’ve got thermal underwear, two heavy ski masks rolled up, fake papers, and a
heavy sweater. The windbreaker jacket I brought has a second one zipped inside
it. I’ve knives, flashlights and batteries, a good compass hidden in my camera,
topographical maps, complete medicine kit right down to snake serum, and two
collapsible canvas bags for