The Challenge of the Legion

by Oscar Luis Rigiroli

  Finally and after a frugal dinner the father spoke to Lian and getting up followed by the two young people left his family yurt approaching a much smaller one to about fifty steps away. He addressed the boys again and Lian answered with ill-concealed enthusiasm and then translated.

  "My father offers us this hut while we are in the village. It belonged to a relative who moved to Tibet.”

  "So he approves that we sleep together?"

  "He realistically accept as a fact that we do it habitually.”

  Ivo effusively thanked Fang for his hospitality and the man withdrew. The first thing to do was to heat the environment for which there was firewood on the side of the salamander. Lighting the fire was a task that demanded Ivo almost half an hour for lack of practice. Finally and very tiredly the young couple sat on the bed and Lian said.

  "I still have wounds on my body, so I need you to undress me, but do it slowly."

  "But I want to squeeze you against me."

  The woman smiled enigmatically.

  "Don´t you dare, remember the men in the helicopter.”

  "I have accepted all your directives up to now." The man replied in a joke. "But I am not willing to tolerate threats.”

  "Then I'll have to endure being squeezed, but I'll do it under protest."

  Chapter 17

  That night they slept embraced among other reasons to protect them of the cold that the salamander could hardly dissipate.

  Ivo woke up in the middle of the morning and placed hot water in the still-lit fire to prepare breakfast and then awaken Lian. The young man was constantly invaded by feelings of tenderness for his mate and the ardent night before had helped to increase them. He peered into the small window and looked out. The whole field was white so overnight must have been a heavy snowstorm. At that moment no flakes were falling but when he saw other yurts visible from the window, he guessed that it would be difficult for him to open the door of the small house, and once he had done it, he would have to shovel snow to clear the entrance.

  As the water was already boiling, Ivo decided to wake the girl. He lifted the lower part of the blanket and took one of Lian's small feet in his hands, caressed and kissed it. She rolled lazily on the bed without opening her eyes. He took the other foot and repeated the action. As she did not move he began to tickle him until the woman sat on the bed with a laugh laughing.

  "You were pretending to sleep."

  "No, you woke me up with your kisses.”

  “But then you kept your eyes closed.”

  "Of course, for you to continue to do so.”

  “Liar.”

  Lian got up and circled the man's head with his arms and kissed him on the mouth, then his body was traversed by a quiver produced by the cold, so she ran to take his clothes scattered on the floor during the hectic night .

  While they were having breakfast Ivo finally released the question that was gnawing inwardly.

  "Are you going back to your previous life, to Beijing and your military rank?"

  ...

  "I've been thinking about all this. It makes me want to send everything to hell and stay here, where I belong, with you if you want.”

  -But...?”

  "But that would make me a deserter, or worse, a terrorist who has killed several soldiers who were looking for her...perhaps with the complicity of a foreign agent."

  "Would that be me?"

  "I cannot know what conclusions they will draw in the army if I do not appear. They may still come to bother my parents ... see if they're sheltering a killer.”

  “So?”

  "I must cleanse my name ...and yours."

  "But how will you know if you can trust your superiors?"

  "I have absolute confidence in my boss, a colonel of the People's Army.”

  "Has she been your lover?"

  “No! Don´t you always think with your dirty Italian mind.”

  "But how do you plan to return from this village? You may be looked for by potentially hostile soldiers on the road.”

  "I will disguise myself as a villager, and I will travel in the family carriage full of animal skins, dried meat, vegetables and other things to a market about fifty kilometers away.”

  "More or less the same way we got here, in a dirty wagon."

  "A little cleaner, at least I hope so."

  “I will go with you.”

  -Ivo, you know that's not possible. There is no way you can go through disguised as a Mongolian peasant. Not with your six feet two, your physique, your red hair and the color of your eyes.”

  "Could I not pass by a villager from Liqian?"

  "Not remotely!" These villagers are just Chinese with light hair.”

  "Then I'll wait for you here."

  "Someone would see you in the long run, and the soldiers or police would come to investigate. You and my family would be at risk.”

  "What can I do then?"

  "I'll talk to my father, they can take you in the other family car."

  "Take me? Where?”

  "Around here is one of the innumerable secondary roads of the Silk Road. What you have to do is reach a station on the very extensive freight rail network linking Chongqin in China with Duisburg in Germany. I have heard that the total journey takes thirteen days to arrive. The stretch from Sinkiang to Kazakhstan has a passenger service, and in the rest you can accommodate in the cargo service. There are many people traveling this way, it is one of the methods used by Asians to emigrate to Europe. Do you still have your passport?”

  “Yes. Also my credit cards.”

  "Do you have cash?"

  “Some.”

  “There are many areas where credit cards are not honored and only accept currency. I'll ask my family to give you what you need.”

  "I cannot accept taking your money."

  "Do not draw conclusions about my family from what you see in this village. My father is a ... important merchant. It has properties on other sites.”

  “Merchant? And what does he trade?”

  "You do not want to know.”

  The woman made a pout and said in a pitiful tone.

  “Poor Ivo! The trouble you got because of me. Look where I led you with my machinations.”

  "I do not complain about that, Lian. What I cannot stand is the idea of getting away from you. "The young man clasped his woman in his arms as she burst into tears. They stood that way for a long time until they heard knocks on the door. Lian asked something in Chinese and they answered from outside.

  “ It's Bo, my brother. I'll open it and talk to my father”.

  The yurt of the clan chief was crowded. In addition to the nuclear family, formed by Zhou Fang, his wife, Lian's two brothers, Lian and Ivo, three brothers of the clan head had come together with him to form a sort of council of elders of the village which was actually made up of people who were mostly related to the Zhou.

  Lian had exposed the situation in which they were with her boyfriend, and explained that it was the product of her own actions and intrigues, and formally requested the help of the family to solve it.

  The discussion was prolonged and Fang's brothers seemed at first reluctant to engage in activities that were dangerous and could bring them conflict with the authorities, risking their businesses that were always on the edge of the illegal.

  The criterion of Fang and the familiar solidarity finally imposed and the session was raised leaving Ivo wondering what had been decided.

  "I'll tell you about our hut," warned Lian.

  Once they were in the comfort of the yurt assigned to them, Lian set out to explain to her boyfriend the decisions taken in the family council which they had participated, albeit passively. The young woman looked uneasy.

  "My brother Bo will take you to one of the railway stations on the Silk Route. You will be going in a cart that is his property. It will be a long journey and not free from danger. But I do not think anyone is looking for you with bad intentions. Then you must travel through several Central
Asian countries that as you know can also be turbulent. As long as you stay within the train system you should not have problems, nor need visas. You tell me you keep your passport.”

  "All my papers, and they are all valid. And what will you do?”

  "My problem is different. Someone has been tracking me since we left Beijing, possibly through the GPS of my cell phone, and they have already attacked us twice. I'm sorry to have exposed you to such a great danger.”

  "And you know for certain what is the reason for this persecution?"

  Lian hesitated a moment and then went on.

  "It is certainly relative to the human trafficking investigation from Mongolia that my division in the military is carrying out.”

  "But you told me they took advantage of that traffic to insert spies or informants in the countries they're targeting."

  "Yes, but for this, people must have freedom of movement and not be dominated by traffickers. These criminals are savage and keep their victims as hostages. They deprive them of their documents and break all human bonds between relatives and friends.”

  "Yes, I know the subject in general. There are organizations that bring thousands of Africans run out of extreme poverty or war and take them to southern Italy. Many of these unfortunates perish in the Mediterranean Sea every year. People are just merchandise for them.”

  Both paused, then Lian continued her narration.

  "My father will take me hidden in his cart to a property that my uncle has about fifty miles from here. From there we will continue in the car of this uncle to Lanzhou, where you and I have already been. From there I will be able to communicate safely with Colonel Chang.”

  "Is that your boss's name?"

  “Yes.”

  Ivo looked puzzled.

  "But what do you think it was that put you on the radar of your pursuers?"

  "Probably they've been monitoring me more closely since we arrived at Lanzhou, within their sphere of influence. There while you were at the hotel I met one of my contacts, who was probably already in their sight. I also made several phone calls, some of which you detected. As I said it's possible they had my cell phone intercepted.”

  "And you have no idea who they are?"

  “ Some of the local bosses are known, but we want to reach the big fish, much higher up the criminal food ladder.”

  "How high?"...

  “We do not know exactly, but this huge network could not exist without political complicity, as well as in the police and for what we can now deduce, even in the army.”

  Both youngsters made another reflexive pause. Then Ivo asked.

  "When will we travel?"

  Lian's voice cracked.

  “You in two days. I will depart another couple of days later.”

  Ivo took the girl in his arms. They said no more. Both knew that they entered a stage that offered many risks and imposed a separation that would probably be definitive. A beautiful part of their lives that they had known and loved could be coming to an end.

  Chapter 18

  The man had already prepared his few remaining possessions. Bo had told him that the cart was ready to go, including supplies for two weeks' travel, individual tents and sleeping bag. Their canteens should be replenished with water on the way but there would be no shortage of pure liquid. Ivo was looking for excuses to delay the instant he did not want to face, his separation of Lian. Finally the girl appeared in the yurt door but still hesitated leaving the hut. Her face was emaciated and it was clear she had been crying.

  Resigned Ivo approached her and together they entered the hut. The embrace was tight, prolonged and silent. All the memories of the short stay together ran through their minds and the young man did not dare to break the silence.

  "Now go away." The woman's tone was hopeless, but it was obvious that she had already made up her mind not to prolong the farewell that would only add to the grief.

  The man took his coat, left the hut without looking back and climbed onto the cart wagon beside Bo. From the corner of his eye he saw that Lian had come out of the doorway but looked in another direction to avoid breaking.

  Soon Bo's enthusiasm became evident with the prospect of the adventure that they had begun. In English in which he obviously had little practice but that became more fluid as the time went by the boy confided to Ivo that this was his first trip in which he officiated as conductor and guide. He had made numerous trips accompanying his father and his uncles, but the responsibility of the trip weighed and excited him at the same time. Little by little the Italian got reanimated and exited from his silence, dragged by the impetus of his companion. Soon he realized that it was a good opportunity to find out details about the life of Lian and her family that until then remained in the dark. Actually the brother had only memories about the girl of the times when he was but a boy since she had left for Beijing when he was six years old. Ivo was subtly leading the conversation to the subject of the family travels and their purpose. As he had supposed they were intended to transport various generally forbidden goods towards the secondary trails of the Silk Road, but with relief he learned that the goods did not consist of drugs or precursors of the same as the leaves of ephedra from which ephedrine is obtained, a classical component of certain legal medicines but whose production and use had literally exploded in the world as a precursor of synthetic narcotics. It seems that Zhou Fang, Lian and Bo´ father, despite being a smuggler by profession and family tradition, had certain very firm principles and adhered to them on every occasion. Some members of the village who had transgressed them had been expelled from it, including a cousin of Fang.

  The goods transported on such trips by Fang and his relatives were usually jade and porcelain objects and some of China's valuable crafts, cultural objects that the Chinese government wished to preserve as part of the country's cultural heritage.

  As the cart advanced they were abandoning the valleys and penetrating into secret and narrow mountain trails that could however be transited by the insecure wagon. At first Ivo wondered if Bo actually knew the labyrinth of solitary roads that opened in all directions and was distressed weighing what would happen if in one of the cornice paths lined with precipices they met a cart traveling in the opposite direction, but progressively his confidence in the vehicle and its driver was growing.

  Lian began to make her preparations to leave her home town, led by his father to the house of the relative who would eventually take them to Lanzhou. Zhou Fang had loaded several guns in the cart just in case they met any setbacks along the way, where brigands of various ethnic backgrounds often stalked, and even had a dagger in his belt that on previous occasions had drawn him from dangerous situations. The old man had his favorite daughter under his personal protection and would make sure nothing happened to her. In spite of the sadness occasioned by the perhaps definitive departure of his beloved, Lian felt an intimate joy to be once again in company and under the protection of her progenitor, for whom she felt a great love and infinite confidence.

  She left her father and uncle in the hotel lobby and agreed with them to meet for lunch at 1:00 pm in a place where they had already eaten with Ivo when they were together in Lanzhou. Also the hotel was the same where they had been staying which brought sweet but painful memories to Lian, but there really were not many accommodation options.

  Instead of taking a taxi the woman left the hotel and walked on foot through the streets of the city, because she wanted to make sure she was not followed. Lian carried a map of Lanzhou in her left hand so as not to get lost in the numerous changes of course she made to mislead potential followers. Once she had reassured herself that she could walk safely and that presumably her unknown enemies had not detected her arrival into the city the woman walked resolutely to the address where she knew she could find the only contact in the city she could be sure of, as that person was a direct relative of her boss, Colonel Chang.

  The woman received her politely; they had already met when Lian had been with Ivo in th
e city, and the girl suspected that Miss Chang as besides being his boss's relative was also an informant of the officer settled in the city.

  The woman showed a legitimate alarm when Lian narrated the extremely violent episodes that had occurred to her since their previous encounter, including the ambush in the gorge and the attack with a helicopter and the girl had the feeling that her hostess was wondering if the presence of Lian at her home would present a danger to her. Nevertheless they agreed that Miss Chang would communicate with the safe line that she had with her cousin and would combine a direct telephone conversation between Lian and the colonel from her house by five in the afternoon of that day. The woman would tell her relative that the girl was alive and what had happened to her.

  That afternoon, Lian could finally talk to his boss and mentor, and as she started to do so, she could not avoid an initial sob produced by all the accumulated tensions.

  “Oh yes! Lieutenant Zhou. Wait a minute."

  Chang's familiar voice sounded very close. Lian waited for a minute in line and then his caller returned to the phone.

  "Sorry Lian, I had to close the office door. Tell me girl! How are you? I have been though a time of great anxiety not hearing from you until my cousin told me about your misfortunes.”

  The young woman knew that her boss's relief was genuine. He had been her support and mentor ever since she was a cadet at the officer school. Chang had made a great investment of his time and expectations in her and was promoting Lian for higher tasks in the area of military intelligence.

  "Tell me more details of what my relative anticipated me." The colonel's voice sounded anxious.

  Lian made a detailed description of everything that had happened since she had met Ivo Bianchi, that Italian historian whom she accompanied during the scheduled trip to Liqian, including the true warlike later events. Chang had warned her that he would record the conversation and listened attentively and quietly, interspersing questions every so often, aimed at determining who could have seen them at every point where they had been; the colonel did so for the implicit purpose of obtaining clues as to the origin of the information that in the end had endangered the life of the young woman and her companion.