The Challenge of the Legion

by Oscar Luis Rigiroli

  "What did you do with the phone you had with you? I would like to have an expert to determine if it was interfered.”

  "It survived the blast of the car but I decided to smash it by stepping on it to keep us from being tracked through it from that moment on.”

  “Yes Yes. Well thought. Well, we'll look for another way to detect it.”

  Lian had already told him everything she had to say and that been meticulously practiced in advance knowing that Chang, a true intelligence man, would be especially interested in the details.

  Finally the boss asked the address of the hotel where he was staying in Lanzhou.

  “Listen out. I'll send there my lieutenant immediately, a man of my greatest confidence. Do you remember them?”

  "Captain Chou?"

  “Yes. I want you not to leave your hotel until he arrives and I would prefer that you were under protection until then.”

  "Don´t worry Colonel. I am under the best protection a girl can have”.

  “The foreigner? Is he still with you?”

  "No, I mean the protection of my father and my uncle.”

  The answer pleased Chang, who had a daughter whom he loved like the apple of his eye. He continued.

  "And what happened to the Italian?" Then he added in amusement. "What have you done with him?"

  "He's somewhere along the Silk Road."

  “Alone?”

  “No. Guided by my brother Bo.”

  "And ..., Lian. Have you become romantically involved with him? The women who have seen him tell me he is very good looking.”

  The woman had not seen the question coming and opted for silence.

  "Well," Chang continued. "I'll take your silence as a yes."

  "But Colonel, I would never have thought you were interested in romantic affairs."

  Chang laughed.

  “In our profession, romantic affairs result in concrete advantages or dangers for our service. If the stranger is in love with you as I suppose he is, he may be functional to our ends.”

  Lian understood the thinking of his superior and hated seen her own feelings instrumentalized in that way but she knew the rules of the game.

  Although his eyesight was on Bo rubbing his hands on the bonfire to keep his body warm, Ivo's mind wandered wondering if the woman he loved would have managed to get around his pursuers and join his bosses. He involuntarily sighed.

  "You think of her, do not you?" Bo asked.

  Ivo nodded. Then, to avoid further questions, he sat up and approached the edge of the precipice where the small plain in which they had set camp ended. The snowflakes fell fast on the ground and the ox had to lick the cold crust of the earth to reach the underlying grass. In front of his eyes opened the gigantic bulk of that section of the Pamir range where they had arrived. The last rays of the sun were slowly hidden behind the peaks, but he could still see the imposing spectacle that nature offered him. Asia had given him everything, reflected the young man, unforgettable landscapes, danger, adventures ... and love.

  Chapter 19

  Lian's only outing in Lanzhou was to a gynecologist and insisted on doing it alone.

  On her return to the hotel her father and her uncle were waiting anxiously.

  "Nothing happened, I just walked about ten blocks," Said the girl laughing. "I needed to leave this room for while.”

  At that moment they heard knocks on the door of the room. Instinctively Fang took the hilt of his dagger and his brother a small revolver.

  “Who is it?” Asked the father.

  "In the lobby of the hotel is Captain Chou." Reported a voice was that they recognized as the waitress's.

  Lian descended excitedly and upon meeting him in the lobby gave a hug to his bewildered comrade.

  After an emotional farewell to his father and Uncle Zhou Lian began her return to her base in Beijing from where she had left months before. The haphazard circumstances of her long journey had made her a very different woman from the one who had then left ... in more ways than one.

  He was in the deepest sleep so that it took him long to get out of it even though Bo was shaking his arm with energy. Ivo woke up startled and sat in the sleeping bag like a spring. In front of him he saw the boy's familiar face, but this time it was transfigured and in his gesture showed fear. He rose from the floor and peered through the fabric door of the tent. There he saw them. They were seven men of clear Mongolian features, dressed in broad layers of untanned sheep skin, their breasts crossed by belts full of bullets and cartridges. Most of them carried scimitars in their belts, and some had their swords in their hands while others carried old-fashioned firearms and one of them held a spear much taller than him. They all wore long mustaches and beards on the chin that gave them a wild look; their slanted eyes were just oblique stripes on their round faces. They were standing a dozen steps from the tents and watching them in silence.

  Bo approached them shyly and tried to communicate through a series of isolated words in a language that Ivo could not discern and with great gestures. The men stared blankly at him until one of them, possibly the chief, approached the boy and, taking him by the shoulder, slashed him violently as he roared in a terrifying tone. Bo nodded and as he got the man to release him went back with Ivo. His face looked terrified but even so the Italian admired the value of the boy.

  “They are Mongolian bandits.” Reported a little unnecessarily Bo. “They must come from very north, their aspects are not familiar and I hardly understand what they say. Anyway, I know their reputation. They will strip everything you carry and cut your throat at anything they interpret as resistance. We cannot fight them so we can only pray.”

  One of the bandits approached Ivo and began to palpate his body and clothing to determine if he was carrying weapons or valuables. He jerked the watch off his wrist and handed it to another outlaw, continuing his search until he finally seemed satisfied. Ivo clenched his teeth to overcome fear and indignation, but there was no question that there was nothing he could do. The bandit repeated the action with Bo from whom he who could not get anything of interest. Meanwhile two other men entered the tents to search for items within them.

  The brigands retreated in silence, approaching some mounts that had hitherto been overlooked leaving the victims with the remnant property of the looting. The Mongols had taken with them the weapons that Ivo had taken from the dead snipers, some clothes and sleeping bags and cooking utensils that the travelers carried and the little money that the Italian carried on him. Some of the food was also confiscated while other part was discarded, perhaps because they did not recognize them. They miraculously discarded the passport, other documents, and the credit cards of which they were surely unaware of the use and scattered them on the ground. The tents did not seem to be of interest to them and obviously the cart and the ox either because they did not adapt to their rapid mode of travel.

  Ivo and Bo looked stunned and disconsolate. They would have to continue their journey in very precarious conditions of safety and comfort.

  "Let's be thankful they did not kill us," Reflected the boy philosophically. "I know cases of caravans that were slaughtered mercilessly by these men.”

  Resignedly the two travelers collected the few remaining belongings and loaded them onto the cart. Bo asked suddenly.

  "You'll need money to buy the ticket when we get to the train station. How will you travel?”

  Ivo smiled sadly and proceeded to remove his left boot; from inside he pulled a thin envelope and when he opened a wad of bills appeared.

  "Luckily they did not take our shoes off."

  In these precarious conditions they had no choice but to go ahead and pray that nothing else would happen to them because they were on the verge of their resources. The adventure that the two young men had begun with so much enthusiasm now seemed uncertain and plagued with uncertainty.

  A couple of weeks had elapsed since Lian's arrival in Beijing, and a small team of Colonel Chang's most trusted collaborators were gathe
ring evidence on the activities of human traffickers behind whose tracks Lian had left months before. The girl was meeting with her boss in his office.

  “Finally the little material that I could find during my trip is not being useful” Said the woman in a sad voice. "The aggressions we suffered curtailed our research task.”

  "All the contrary!" Chang said emphatically. "The attacks themselves have given us solid clues to follow. The intelligence of the findings in the sniper bodies and helicopter track will allow us to move faster than any field evidence you may have encountered. No doubt your attackers did not count on the possibility of you and the foreigner repelling the attack and staying alive. Now we are following the chain of command of these men and discarding hypotheses.”

  At that moment a noncommissioned officer knocked on the office door, and at Chang's order entered the office.

  "There has been a bloody confrontation with a party of evildoers in the area of interest." The military informed. "They are transmitting information and photos, if you wish you can come and see them in the situation room.”

  The officer in charge of the screens and communications was a young boy with glasses, no doubt a military engineer. He immediately gave the coordinates of the episode and reported.

  "One of our ground patrols was ambushed by a group of Mongols. The group of bandits was finally decimated with the support of a helicopter. Our men suffered three casualties and six wounded, and the bandits left five dead in the field and at least two others managed to escape on horseback, one of them wounded.”

  "So there are no prisoners?"

  "Unfortunately not, Colonel....

  "Maybe we will never know what they were doing there, in the middle of the area that interests us. Ask the officer in charge in the field to show us with the camera the fallen enemies and what they were carrying.”

  The camera paced the battlefield, showing the corpses of the fallen.

  "I want to see their faces," Chang said. "Turn them around and film them.”

  "They are Mongol brigands, no doubt." The Colonel went on to visualize the fallen. "They are professional looters. I think they hardly have anything to do with human trafficking. Now show us the elements seized by the troopers.”

  The camera traveled around various objects, some of them unrecognizable. The weapons had been placed in a row so that he could see their characteristics and the cameraman paused for a moment before each of them.

  Lian had been a bit distracted, but in a moment her gaze fell on one of the automatic weapons.

  "Wait!" She ordered the young man in glasses. "Let´s go back to the previous rifle ... tell him to enlarge the image." Her tone was tense. "Can we see the seized stuff?”

  Again the camera ran through various objects and again Lian gasped.

  “Stop there! ... I want to see a close up of that green jacket ... What does that label say?”

  The young man in glasses repeated the question and they all saw the face of one of the soldiers under the lens of the camcorder approaching his eyes to the embroidered label. The man then looked at the camera and uttered laboriously.

  "Le Alpi Outdoors ... Milano."

  Then he went to another small hand-sewn label with a handwritten legend.

  "I. Bianchi."

  Lian gasped and sat on one of the chairs with a livid face.

  "What is it, dear?" Chang asked, taking her hand in alarm. Then he ordered one of his subordinates. “Soon. Bring her a glass of water.”

  Lian opened her mouth and whispered in a barely audible voice.

  "It's Ivo's jacket."

  Chapter 20

  At last the train emitted a whistle indicating that it would resume the march. Ivo climbed to the wagon where he had already left his minimum luggage completed with some items purchased in the village. He had arrived the day before the city of Dostyk, on the border between China and Kazakhstan after an 18-hour trip on a rickety bus from the point where Bo had left him. Lian's brother was on the point of crying during the farewell of his traveling and adventures companion for ten days and as was the custom in his clan, he departed without looking back.

  At the border post the Kazakh guards had looked at their European Union passport with obvious mistrust but finally let Ivo pass to take the train.

  To his surprise he had been able to access the Internet at an inn. A quick scrutiny of his arrived mail disappointed him. There were hundreds of messages arriving since his last connection in Lanzhou but none of them were sent by Lian. Going back a couple of months in his inbox he found he received several mails sent by Federica that he had not seen the previous time and now he could read while waiting the hour of departure of the train. The woman did not communicate great news and only made known her uneasiness for not hearing from him. There was no doubt that the woman was in love, even if she showed it soberly. The realization of this fact produced at the same time embarrassment and pride. Realizing for the first time since his departure from Venice that he was a prey to mixed feelings Ivo answered tenderly, giving some clues as to the alternatives of the trip but seeking not to alarm the woman with details of the dangers and mishaps.

  Now, sitting on the train and half-numbed by the cold, the young man began to review his thoughts, considering that despite the enormous distance still existing the railway would approach him to the Venetian patrician and take him away from Lian. Ivo had a long way to analyze his feelings and make decisions about how to get on with his life.

  It was already past midnight when the vehicles without external identifications entered the village located in the Autonomous Prefecture of Linxia Hui. As they did not know exactly the dimension of the interceptions in the communications they maintained a strict radio silence. As they entered the small town, the vehicles split heading some of them for the police precinct, some to the army barracks, and a bus with a command center to the offices of the civil authority, from which all activities would be centralized and monitored. Each of the units carried a tactical group armed to the teeth.

  Colonel Chang commanded the units heading for the barracks, where it was assumed that there would be more risk of resistance. Lian remained in the mobile command center and did not descend from it even as the men rattled the door of the Prefecture offices. When the time that they had synchronized for the tasks arrived the communications were restored and the girl stayed with the operator centralizing the news and orders.

  The force deployed by the intelligence area was strong enough to immediately neutralize any armed opposition.

  The patient and exhaustive task of intelligence had determined that the center of activities of the dangerous and widespread criminal organization engaged in mass illegal traffic and infiltrated in the police and armed forces had its command in that small, hidden village. The same investigations had determined that human trafficking was only one of the activities of the band whose ramifications reached Lanzhou and even Beijing, and that the main one was the large-scale smuggling of drugs into China and into the West. At one stroke they would destroy a very powerful network involving politicians, businessmen and members of the security forces. All this from a helicopter shot down by Lian with a lucky shot in the Kunlun Shan Mountains.

  The radio, until then mute, emitted some ugly sounds until Colonel Chang's voice was heard. A chill ran through Lian's body, her involvement despite her physical state of this episode of strong epic tones seized her with emotion.

  <>

  Sitting on the tiny covered terrace of her apartment in the old palazzo, the lady opened the laptop, propped it on the interior garden table, and turned it on. Before sitting in her comfortable armchair, she looked out at the canal running in front of her building. The second floor was ideal because it provided a good view of the water course while not allowing the arrival of odors and dampened the noises of motor boats. Federica loved Venice, considered it her real place in the world, where she had been born, where her ancestors had lived and prospered and where she developed her activiti
es. The woman finally sat down and opened the email. She immediately jumped in her chair. Within the score of routine messages related to her work in the Foundation and service bills stood out one sent by the user ibianchi. Eagerly she tried to open it, despairing at the unusual delay of the mail that seemed too long. As she read the message the heavy mists that covered her spirit for some months gradually lifted up. Not only was Ivo alive and apparently well but he had not forgotten her as her fear was, and he was on his way back to Venice although he warned that it would take him many days to arrive, given the conditions of the means of transportation he had to use and the numerous stopovers and transshipments that would have to be made.

  The woman avidly read the long text, seeking keys to unveil the state of the boy's feelings toward her. Federica was not only in love with a much younger man and much sought after by women, but that state had happened to her when she believed that she could no longer fall in love. The woman considered that life gave her one more chance to achieve happiness and her heart had suffered when she had to let the young man go on his adventure in the Far East. Not only had Federica allowed it but she had sponsored that trip at the Foundation, since she knew the president of the institution was planning to retire in a couple of years and she was determined to nominate Ivo as his replacement. To this end, the young man, not belonging to the Venetian patrician, but from a small-bourgeois family in Milan, had to carry out some outstanding action in historical matters and that expedition was an apt one. Of course, Federica had never discussed all her plans with the boy to avoid his disappointment if they could not be fulfilled, but she had a great deal of confidence in her ascendancy over all the other members of the Steering Committee to convince them of the merits of her project.