“I’m minutes away,” he answered. “I can see you up ahead.”
Figuratively speaking. What he saw, in fact, was the shadow of the August 1st building, where Huang would be waiting for him in his office above the square. A massive, blockish central structure with two low, flat-roofed wings, its main section stood high above the monuments and administrative buildings around it.
“Wei,” Huang said, “I want you to listen carefully. It is very important.”
He sat up. “Go ahead.”
“You will be buried among the martyrs in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery,” Huang said. “The president will attend with a delegation of Party officials. There will be lavish wreaths of white flowers. You have been an honored servant of the people, and I promise your family will be treated with dignity and respect.”
Wei stared over the driver’s headrest. He was already turned halfway around in front, a gun in his left hand, his right hand on the steering wheel. There was a recoil compensator on the weapon’s barrel.
Wei lunged forward from his seat and automatically shot his hands out to wrest the gun from him. But it flashed before he could extend his arms.
A bullet leaped from the muzzle into his forehead and blew out the back of his skull. Blood, bone and soft globs of cranial tissue sprayed the rear window. The driver fired twice again out of thoroughness. This time Wei didn’t see the muzzle flashes. He sagged in the back seat, lifeless, his head a ruin.
The driver faced forward, lowered the gun onto the front console and continued along the empty street, once again with both hands on the wheel. As he neared the compound’s west gate, he heard an odd scratching noise in the back and glanced in the rearview mirror.
Wei’s fingers were groping at the seat leather. Opening and closing, opening and closing, though the brains were dribbling out of his skull. They still wanted to grab the gun, animated by firing neurons, trace signals from his brain’s last command.
The driver watched them claw at the leather upholstery and felt a momentary chill. He had heard of such things before. But he had never seen it with his own eyes.
He gave an uneasy shrug and drove on past the gate. The dead man clutched at the seat for another half a mile.
When he finally stopped, it was to the driver’s great relief.