Free Forbidden City by William Bell Page B

an ambulance took him away, too. I said goodbye to him and he flashed me a victory sign.
    Back at the hotel that night I thought a lot about what Hong and Lan are doing. I can’t decide whether they’re being really brave or really dumb. What I am sure of is that it’s dangerous. I guess that’s why I admire them so much.
    Once the premier had gone, things started to happen fast. Two of the mega-powerful boys, Li Peng, who is the premier, and Zhao Zi-yang, thechairman of the Communist Party, visited some of the hunger-strikers who had been taken to hospital. That was shown on TV also. Li Peng, with his round, smiling face and dark-rimmed glasses, was shown going from bed to bed, shaking hands with the students and talking to them. He looked about as sincere as a used-car salesman.
    On Friday morning before dawn the phone rang. I heard Lao Xu answer it and start yelling into the receiver. Then he shouted, “Wake up! There is a rumour that Zhao Zi-yang is going to Tian An Men Square to talk to the students!”
    We were all up and dressed in moments. “Let’s go!” Eddie said.
    I grabbed my backpack. No one seemed to notice that I went right along with them.
    The tall light standards in the square and the lights from the monuments make it easy to see where you’re going, although you need extra lights for TV pictures. It took us at least half an hour to push through the throng to the Monument to the People’s Heroes, which is where Eddie figured the action would be. Buses were parked in the square now, commandeered by the students for shelter when it rained. It was cold out, and a lot of people had coats on.
    Nothing was happening at the monument. Eddie said to Dad, “Let’s split up and call on the two-way if we see anything.”
    “Okay,” Dad answered. “I’ll go down towardsQian Men.” That’s the Front Gate.
    “I’ll cover the mausoleum,” Eddie said. “Lao Xu, let’s go.”
    “Alex, you can come with me,” Dad said.
    “Why don’t I stay here? That way we can cover three areas at once.”
    “I don’t know, Alex. I don’t want you to get lost.”
    What a lame thing to say, I thought. Eddie must have agreed. “Are you kidding, Ted? Your kid knows this city better than most of the residents!”
    Dad agreed, reluctantly, and the three of them waded into the crowd. I went up to the base of the monument among a hundred or so students and tried to get a look around. The first tier of the tall building still had a lot of wreaths on it. Nothing unusual seemed to be happening — other than probably half a million people, tents, parked buses, voices yelling over loud-hailers, TV lights sparking up for a few minutes then fading again.
    I fished my camcorder out of my pack. It would be worthwhile to try taping anything that happened. Then I checked my radio to make sure it was on channel one and that it was on receive mode. I put it in my breast pocket.
    I stood around for a while, fighting off the chill, before I noticed something going on over at the Great Hall of the People. A blaze of lights had come on, like a cluster of white torches. Something was up. The lights began to move towards me so I decided to stay put.
    I took out my radio and keyed it. “Dad, Eddie, this is Alex. Can you see the lights? In the northwest quadrant, moving towards me. Over.”
    “Alex, Dad here. I can’t see them. I’m on the south side of Qian Men. The smell of Kentucky chicken is driving me nuts. Over.”
    “And I can’t see
anything,”
was Eddie’s response.
    “I’ll check it out and let you know. Over and out.”
    I put the radio in my pocket again. The lights were moving towards me quickly. They were TV lights. Somebody important was coming.
    Right near the monument was a bus, and when Zhao Zi-yang got to the bus he stopped. He was at the centre of a tight circle of students wearing the white headbands that said
Democracy Now!
in Chinese. He reached up and started shaking hands with students in the bus.