The plane skidded down the tarmac at Melbourne International Airport, marking an uneventful landing to everyone except the chubby middle-aged Chinese man. He removed his parcels from the overhead Xiao, glowering at the woman who wore a green tank top, an orange and yellow flowered skirt, sandals and an I Love Melbourne baseball cap. Decadence, he thought, Western decadence! The pudgy man, who had slept in his clothes for the past eight days, pulled his shirtsleeves free from the rancid sweat that caked his armpits, stuck his unread newspaper into the upper luggage bin and disembarked from the redeye special that had just arrived from Beijing. He had already stuffed his pockets with Kleenex, a pack of playing cards, two cans of Coke, several small bottles of shampoo, and a bar of soap, which he had procured when prowling the galley during the night. Then he slithered back and grabbed all the nuts, apples and crackers he could find as he shoved them into his bulbous shoulder bag. At least I'll be able to get clean and have enough food until I lay my hands on that lying son of a bitch.

He waited until next to last to exit the plane and then walked rapidly, nearing the reception area, looking for a sign with his name on it; he knew his local contact would be smart enough to do that . . . at least he hoped he would.

The sign said SUNG LI and was in just the place where he was most prone to look-at the young driver's cock level.

Sung Li handed the man his claim check and said only one word, "Avalon."

It was as if the men had known each other all their lives-as if Ramphal, the slender Indian chauffeur, and Sung Li, the Chinese policeman, had known each other in a previous life, knowing which was the master and which was the slave.

When Raphael returned, he carried Sung Li's bags and led him to the car. "The Avalon is on Pitt Street, sir, are you familiar with the pitfalls of Pitt Street?" Raphael wanted to start a light conversation, but Sung Li ignored him. I don't have time to banter with a fool. I came here for Jiang-either he'll cooperate with me or he'll pay the price. And if this fool of a driver thinks I'm interested in his pitiful jokes, I'll slice off his nuts and then get the boy. "Take me to the Avalon, it's on Pitt, on the corner of Elizabeth. That's where the party spotted Wu Jiang, fool, that's where you're ordered to take me."

Other than the harsh deep beating sound of Ramphal's heart, the remainder of the twenty-minute cab ride took place in abysmal silence.

Sung Li didn't bother to check in. He began prowling the instant he heard Ramphal's taxi squeal away and five minutes' worth of prowling led him directly to Jiang's hideout. Jiang was never a bright boy, but I never expected him to be this stupid; he's left a trail like a speared carp, bloody in the water. Perhaps his months of freedom hardened him: perhaps his sense of liberty turned him into a fool. Sung Li smiled at the thought of controlling Jiang from head to toe as the drool slithered down his face.

Sung Li had begun his search in Canton and then flown to Beijing and pleaded with the officials, telling them how important the boy was to the future of China. Pretending to tell the truth is always the easiest way out of a bad situation. Fools love to hear the truth. Telling them Jiang would win eternal fame for China, that he would be our shining star, was too easy; the leaders had to believe me-they wanted to believe me. Besides, Jiang had already won the first two races and he'd have won the third if he hadn't had that cramp. I made the boy sound like the greatest living athlete in the world (and perhaps he is) but as long as I'm on his case, his ass is mine.

Jiang turned the corner and walked into an alley, inattentive, even though his inner senses warned him that something ominous was going to happen.

Jiang stopped. He had reached a dead-end. There was nothing in front of him but a brick wall and several ripe buckets of garbage. Jiang turned and banged into flesh before he had a chance to look up. It was Sung Li, Sung Li had followed him and just as Jiang's realized his peril, he felt a gun poking him in the stomach.

"Xiao's dead, boy; you have no one now, no one, except me, and I'm taking you back to China . . . unless you want me to put a bullet through your stomach and leave you here, bleeding like a dog.

"But Xiao isn't dead-he's alive-he's home in our apartment. Let me go. I'll prove it to you."

Sung Li thought Jiang was demented. Everyone in Shuoxian had seen the Great Wall collapse; everyone knew Feng Xiao was dead. Jiang must have lost his senses, but he'll come with me. I want to see the look of terror in his eyes when I put him on the table; I want to hear his nuts rolling inside my desk drawer. I will never let him go again.

"Come with me quietly, boy."

Jiang felt more helpless than the day he pulled a muscle and hurt his foot and gotten the cramps (or whatever in the hell happened in Canton) when he failed to win the crucial third Gold Medal and he knew only his wits would save him now.

Jiang thought quickly. Sung doesn't believe me, he's given up on Xiao. He's looking for me! I'll have to go with him. I must protect Xiao.

Jiang tried to grin at the man with the broken teeth and fetid breath, "You win, Sung Li. Do you want my balls now, is that it, do you want my balls on a stick?"

Sung Li grabbed Jiang by his right forearm and walked him out of the alley away from the small apartment Jiang and Xiao shared on Pitt Street. Jiang looked around quickly, trying to find a frame of reference, searching for a way to end his nightmare. I must keep this lunatic away from Xiao. I must get his gun, but how? The men were merely a block away from the trolley. A group of elementary school children stood across the street, waiting to board. Two middle-aged women walked on the opposite side of the street heading toward a vendor selling fruit on the corner. A newspaper kiosk stood opposite the fruit stand, where an ancient Korean man sold girlie magazines to fifty-year-old men dressed in black suits. The streets were nearly deserted now and Jiang searched them furtively for help. He wanted to think outside the box, like he had done the last time he outsmarted Sung Li. We drive on the right, but Australians drive on the left- perhaps Sung Li doesn't know that.

Man and boy walked toward the trolley line as Sung Li dug his broken fingernails deep into Jiang's arms, forcing the boy into the street.

"Jiang thought quickly. At least we're out of the alley. I don't' think he'll try anything in public. There are too many children here. Sung Li loves children; he'll never do anything to hurt them.

And then, everything Jiang had dreaded happened in an instant. Xiao walked around the corner and Sung Li spotted him immediately, "What? The boy's alive? I thought you were lying, but how did he escape? I saw him die." Sung Li's mind raced more rapidly than the avalanche that had supposedly buried Xiao inside the cavern. I can get both boys now-I can have them both!

Xiao continued walking nonchalantly along the road; he had seen neither Jiang nor Sung Li and now, after years of running, he was able to focus on only one problem at a time I'm going to buy a watermelon-Jiang loves fresh melons.

Jiang looked down the street to his left and spotted the Maribyrnong trolley three blocks down the line; he knew it had just two more stops before reaching him. The children are waiting for the outbound train, but we're on the inside track. The children won't see me if - Jiang didn't want to continue. There must be another way. There has to be another way.

Sung Li tightened his grip on Jiang's forearm, drawing blood, sensing victory. He wasn't going to let his bait escape. I can use Jiang to capture Xiao. This is the best day in my life; I can have both boys and still have my revenge.

Jiang felt the pain in his arm as he struggled to finalize his plan. I can lean into the train when it pulls toward us. Sung Li isn't paying attention to the train. If I lean and twist my body, we'll both fall at the same time. Sung Li's twice as big but he doesn't have enough strength to fight me if he's falling. We'll die together, but Xiao will live.

The Boy Scouts playing down the street were wearing new uniforms, tight-assed khaki shorts, knee high socks, and shirts with Boy Scouts of Australia logos printed on the back. Sung Li ogled them from afar.

Halfway down the hill, two teenage boys were playing soccer, head-kicking the ball up and down the street as they raced toward the trolley. Jiang guessed they were on their way to school.

Jiang didn't want to traumatize the boys, but he saw no other way. The police will think it was an accident, an old man and a young man slipped onto the tracks and fell to their deaths. I can do that. I must do that for Xiao.

The trolley approached from Sung Li's right as he looked down the hill toward the fruit stand where Xiao was judging melons, lifting them in his left hand, thumping them with his right.

Now, Jiang thought, just one quick roll, one twist and Xiao will be free forever. Jiang's mind was racing now, thinking of Xiao, his life in China, and their lives together, I am Meng Jiangnu, tossing myself into the sea for the man I love.

The trolley was less than a hundred meters away and it wasn't slowing down because Jiang and Sung Li were in the middle of the block nowhere near the designated stop. All I have to do is wait a few more seconds. Timing is everything. It's just like swimming. Pacing and timing always win. Jiang suppressed a giggle, Perhaps I'll win one more medal after all.

The teen-aged Boy Scouts tore down the hill, chasing and kicking the loose soccer ball that the smaller boys had passed them, and although these boys were oblivious to Jiang, Sung Li locked his eyes on them, mentally examining their thighs, their legs, their tight little asses, wishing he could get inside their shorts. Cuter than any of my sons. Perhaps I'll stay in Melbourne after I dispose of these lying perverts; perhaps I'll adopt a few Australian boys-or marry a widow with sons of her own.

Jiang prepared to roll and shove Sung Li under the tram just as the loose ball flew down the street, temporarily averting Sung Li's attention and causing him to loosen his grip on Jiang as he stepped out of the way of the hurling sphere.

Within an instant, Sung Li slid under the trolley, forcing Jiang back onto the sidewalk, as the ball flew up and over the trolley car, as more children at the bottom of the hill giggled in amusement, unaware of the tragedy befalling Sung Li. The children saw nothing but a pudgy Chinese man ducking from a ball; they didn't see him slide under the train.

Far down the street three women watermelon shoppers noticed nothing either. Later they said they heard the trolley's brakes, but that was all. They didn't hear the screams or see the blood.

Jiang hit the sidewalk, rolling, rolling, rolling, out and away from the boys who raced down the street looking for their ball. Xiao looked up as he heard brakes screech against the tracks, but he still didn't make out the figures: he saw neither Jiang nor Sung Li.

Sung Li had slipped all the way under the tracks and as the train pulled out, his severed head rolled down the hill, as his mutilated body lay on the tracks. Sung Li's fat head rolled down the hill more and more rapidly toward the small boys on the corner, who thought the Boy Scouts had sent the ball back to them and with one quick kick, the littlest boy sent it on its way further down the hill, toward the women watermelon shoppers who stood opposite Feng Xiao.

As the head rolled by the women, one of them said, "These boys never stop, why do they have to make balls look like faces?"

But then the head slowed down as it settled at Xiao's feet and when he glanced he saw, not the face of Sung Li, but the face of the emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, the man who had built the Great Wall, the man who had been responsible for the deaths of Meng Jiangnu and Fan Xiliang.

Xiao showed no fear and no remorse now that he knew the cycle was complete, now that he realized he was The Great Wall-and the future power and strength of his country and of all Chinese, but most of all knowing that he and Jiang would live forever free.

The crowd slowly began to realize the tragedy around them. The women hurried home. The school children gathered to observe the gore. A twenty-year-old blond policeman led the panicky trolley car driver away. "I've never been involved in an accident before. What's to become of me? What's to become of my wife and children? I didn't cause this accident. I was just doing my job."

Jiang approached Xiao quietly, put his hand on his lover's back, and spoke softly. "We're free now, Xiao, we're free. Emperor Qin is dead."

"Emperor Qin?"

"I'll tell you about it when we get home . . . home where we belong."

EPILOGUE

PAEAN FOR HUMANITY

     The head
     Lying at the foot of the vegetable vendor's cart
     With its half-opened glazed eyes
     Glowered arrogantly, as Sung Li had,
     When he was alive.

     But now his cold hatred
     Combined with the silence of his tomb,
     Producing nothing more than the stench of rotting vegetables,
     An empty, decayed thing.

     Throughout his lifetime, Sung Li had been great,
     Tossing pebbles one by one into the Great River
     Marveling at his sense of greatness and destruction.

     Yet he totally destroyed those pebbles
     And the stream
     In which they lay.

     Damming up the river,
     Saving all the water for himself,
     He had killed the fishes.

     Chopping up the stones into tiny bits of sand and matter,
     He had perfected
     His greatness.

     Killing and wounding the animals
     Who came to drink,
     He had become even greater.

     Fighting other men,
     He
     Had won.

     But now his withered body lay
     Cold
     Stone cold

     And one lone weed
     Upon his grave does grow.

Finished at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, September 11, 2005

The end of the novel: The Last Free Soul

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