Escape on the Silk Road

Mike Connor, finishing his year of teaching English in China, doesn't think the Tiananmen Square massacre 800 miles away in Peking has much to do with him. Then he is asked to help one of the student dissidents escape, Li Mei, a determined patriot. And not only to escape, but also to help locate Tariq, the leader of the student democracy movement, and an ethnic Kazakh from western China.Tariq terrifies China's leadership: charismatic and smart, he could potentially lead his home province, the population of which despises Chinese rule, to form a breakaway republic in Central Asia.The story follows Mike Connor and Li Mei across the deserts of Western China as they journey in a motorcyle to try to locate Tariq while evading the Chinese security forces. Caught in the turmoil is Jake MacKenzie, CIA station chief in Peking, who must make tough decisions in the field.