China Dolls

by Rob Wood

  57

  NO SURPRISES

  Raj met Lily’s flight back from her studios in Hong Kong at the Urumqi airport, ten miles northwest of the city. This was the hub for China Southern Airlines and easily handled more than nine and a half million passengers a year. Still, that traffic made it only the 18th busiest airport in China.

  “Our man wants to make delivery east of Yecheng.” Raj reported.

  “What! In the Taklamakan Desert?” Lily was incredulous.

  “In one of the caves there,” Raj continued. “Our choice.”

  “But why?”

  They halted the conversation while Lily shooed away an eager group of porters, anxious to settle on their baggage like egrets on beef cattle.

  “I think he’s avoiding customs and military surveillance at the Khunjerab Pass,” said Raj. “This location is less than a hundred miles away.”

  Lily shook her head. “We have always managed the Khunjerab, even if we had to pay bribes to do it.”

  “We’ve never had a shipment this large, right?” returned Raj. “X thinks discovery is a risk. And this time it’s personal. He’s making the delivery—and receiving the payment himself.”

  Lily offered a cold smile. “So at least that part of our plan worked. We smoked him out into the open. Tell him we’ll be waiting in. . . how many caves are there?”

  “Not many.”

  “Find one that can hold a couple of Land Rovers—undetected. Get us some dig permits. We’ll take the drugs out as archaeologists looking for more stuff like the Sangzhu rock paintings. They’re near there.”

  “I have no idea what those are.”

  Lily ignored him. “If this is the way it’s going to be, I want our people in that cave well before the handoff.”

  “Will do.”

  “I’ll have specific instructions for them,” she continued. “I still wonder why this is the drop-off point he prefers. If he’s aggregating the drug cache in the Golden Crescent—and avoiding the Khunjerab Pass—he can’t go up and over the Pamir Mountains in time. If his intent is to avoid highway checkpoints, he’ll be on foot or packing it in on mules or yaks. This is some of the worst terrain on earth.” Again she said, “There’s no time!”

  “No drugs, no payout. It’s really his problem,” said Raj. “He’s got two weeks. Let’s hope he makes good use of the time, however he does it.”

  Lily Zhang was not reassured. “I don’t like mysteries. I don’t like surprises,” she said.

  “Speaking of ‘mysteries,’ how are we going to pay for this?” asked Raj. “After being robbed by this guy the last time, we don’t have anything like an adequate stash of cash.”

  “Every one of the Zhang companies has contributed. We’ve effectively put all our current assets into this thing. Call it ‘off the book financing,’” said Lily.

  “Doesn’t that mean, if there’s a cash call on any one of our businesses, we go under?”

  “Only if we screw this up. We can’t afford to lose.”

  Because of her distaste for surprises, four days later, Lily Zhang was piloting Land Rover II through the streets of Yecheng to the foothills and desert beyond. Land Rover I was already in place at the cave.

  Sometimes you can mark your progress from one eco zone to another with the change in flora. Here you marked the passage by the change in habitation, a kind of brick and mortar ecology. The poured concrete and glass of impoverished downtown Yecheng, around the bus station, gave way to a belt of narrow streets squeezed between tenements built of sun-dried mud mixed with straw. The ochre of dried mud perfectly matched the weathered shutters, camel colored dirt in the street, and the pale bones of the hills in the distance. And then, after a while, there were no permanent homes at all, just scattered clusters of tents made of felt and cardboard, caught between the foothills and the desert lapping at the doorstep.

  “You’re following along on the map, right?” Lily asked Raj. “That cave probably doesn’t have a neon sign out front.”

  “We’re doing just fine,” replied her companion. “Just get us out of the city. Our people are in the cave. They’ve teched up, and we can find them easily enough.”

  Raj lifted his eyes from the electronic map in his palm computer and glanced around. “How do people even live here?” he asked.

  “How do people live anywhere?” Lily responded. “They’re clever. They’re stubborn. They’ve been living here a long, long time. This area supplied soldiers to China’s armies as far back as the Han Dynasty.”

  “Is that the date of the Sangzhu rock paintings?”

  “No, they’re much earlier—during the Bronze period, when these people were mostly Buddhist. Islam—the religion of the Uighurs—arrived about the Western year 1000.”

  “So, if they’re not connected to the Uighurs, how is it that you know about these paintings? Does everybody know about them—like everybody knows about Angkor Wat?”

  “I know about them because they’re still here. They are one of the few things a pirate named Aurel Stein didn’t buy up or steal. His was an early example of Euro-pillage.”

  “Who was Aurel Stein?” asked Raj.

  “A so-called archaeologist or turn of the century thief—you choose the descriptor. He took priceless paintings and manuscripts from this area and sold them to the British Museum and other European art centers. Look around you, just imagine how much a dollar or a pound would buy here, even in this day and age. Of course, people sold to him! It took a long time coming, but there’s a kind of justice in today’s Chinese money men buying up so much of Greece—the so-called pinnacle of Western civilization now on economic life-support.”

  “I thought you were anti-Chinese.”

  “I’m pro-Uighur and anti-Beijing. And I’m anti-anything that smells to me of oppression. In the arts, in religion … even in drug dealing. It’s one thing to have that poison find a home in the Han’s gold-plated condominiums in Beijing and Shanghai. But the people here can’t afford to lose even one family member to drugs. Cannot afford it, do you understand? And for faithful Muslims, it’s worse. The Koran describes these things as the hateful tools of Satan. Drugs damage our wellbeing, corrupt our faith, weaken our movement.”

  Raj closed his eyes and shook his head, as if dislodging some old memory. “You sound like one of those fire-breathing missionaries from my youth—only they were Christian.”

  “I’m thoroughly Uighur. Uighurs respect strength—including strength of conviction. I’ve convinced some men to do my bidding because I am attractive. I convince Uighurs because I am strong.”

  “But we are making money by running drugs. Isn’t that wrong? Isn’t that anti-Muslim? Anti-Uighur?”

  “Funding nationalism among Uighurs requires money. Keeping drugs off the streets of Urumqi means ensuring that nothing falls off the trucks as we serve richer markets elsewhere. It’s comparative advantage. We move drugs. Others supply money. Both are good at what they do. I think I’ve said all this before.”

  “And I’ve said: It’s a house of cards, Lily. You can’t last forever running this risk.”

  “Nothing lasts forever.”

  The two Land Rovers were parked in the cave, one behind the other, facing out. This was essentially a sandstone bowl, worn by the wash of ancient subterranean water and the scouring action of the desert wind. The opening was broad—roughly 35 feet across by 10 feet high. It looked out on a nearly empty desert—flat and empty—although there was a small mound out there, some 200 yards away.

  A string of lights, powered by a portable generator and hung on poles, cast the cave in a chiaroscuro of bright and dark. Most of the floor was pillowed with sand that was roughed into little peaks and gullies by the footsteps of Lily’s men. In contrast, a smooth area at the very back of the cave had been cordoned off and topped with a string grid, as regular as graph paper, with little yellow flags at the intersection of every string corner.

  At the east corner, a cubic yard of this sand had been removed down to
a depth of six inches. A blanket was placed at the lip of this depression, with brushes, trowels and a sieve spread out as neatly as instruments in a surgery. Along the wall there was a line of short-handled spades, standing like soldiers at attention.

  “Did you finish the digging?” Lily asked one of the men.

  Everything was done as you requested it,” he said. “We are ready.”

  Raj came up beside her. “Is that the oasis?” he asked, pointing to the mound in the desert. It looked like a large ant-hill surmounted by a winch. “We have seen activity there lately. Two or three men at a time.”

  “No, we don’t call that an oasis,” said Lily. “That’s only a well. There are many in the desert, each claimed by a family or clan.”

  “So, there is a subterranean water source … an aquifer running under the desert?”

  “Not at all. And it’s not a well in that sense,” said Lily. “It’s called a ‘karez.’ We Uighurs dig a containment, a water head, on higher ground up in the mountains where the snowmelt collects. It’s engineering that’s thousands of years old. A long underground tunnel is then dug to conduct this water down for the use of the families below. A whole series of wells are dug every twenty miles or so along the path of the tunnel. The wells are fed entirely by gravity. Having the channels underground greatly reduces water loss from evaporation. What starts in the mountains gets here in a matter of hours.”

  Raj paused, then looked carefully at Lily. “For instance . . . from the mountains above the Khunjerab?”

  “Of course the mountains above Khunjerab,” she said. “What other mountains . . .” She stopped. “So that’s how he’s getting the drugs here. Essentially flushing them down the karez!”

  “I bet the activity we have seen at the well is associated with a net stretched over the bottom to receive the shipment,” said Raj. “I assume there’s no risk of the package being snagged or bottled up as it passes down the channel?”

  “No. The channel is big, big enough to accommodate a man. Which gives me an idea. There should be a companion well about 10 kilometers away, further up the Karez.”

  58

  PLEASE DON’T DO THIS!

  Lily’s idea produced a flurry of non-stop workdays for Raj, working out of procurement command central at their Urumqi offices. He didn’t mind hard work. However, there were other things on his mind.

  Normally Raj was perfectly at home in Zhang Labs. The tidy intellectual resources of data and technology, the physical realities of stainless steel, cold AC and harsh light; all this had always been a comfort to him. Now, however, as he looked at the woman he admired above all others, he felt that something was very wrong.

  Raj reached out and held her hands in his. It was the closest they had ever come to an intimate gesture. He looked into her eyes, eyes that had flashed across movie screens and boardroom tables, and he said, “Don’t do this, Lily. I ask you again. Please, don’t do this thing.”

  “My mind is made up.”

  “The drugs aren’t that important.”

  “The drugs are only part of it. It’s a matter of safety and success,” she said. “Your safety, for one…and the success of this… what should I call it? ‘Duel with the drug thug.’ He’s got me bottling up you and my Uighurs in a cave with no safe exit. That’s unacceptable. If I pull this off, we have an insurance policy.”

  “The risk is too great. The chance that something will go wrong is. . .”

  “Is not knowable,” Lily said simply.

  “Lily, if something goes wrong, there are no injuries …only fatalities. More people have died in confined entries than have died scaling Everest.”

  “I pay you for two things, Raj. One: Anticipate the problems. Two: Solve the problems. All you have to do is keep me safe for a distance of less than 10 kilometers along the karez—from one well to the other. Now how are you going to do that?”

  Raj sighed. In his heart of hearts, he had known she could not be easily dissuaded. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll start ticking off some of the problems. One: The water running down the mountain from the snow melt will be between 45 and 55 degrees. That’s damn cold, especially when you consider your body loses heat 25 percent faster in water. You’ll have full wet suits made of a breathable, insulated fabric. They’re tight as a second skin, but always comfortable, no matter whether it’s hot or cold. The head, elbows and knees are reinforced with a titanium mesh—light but strong—in case you go bumping into the karez ceiling and floor.

  “You’ll use wraparound goggles and modified fins. They’re stubby, more like webbed toes than fins…but there will be no room for a conventional fin kick anyway. Hopefully, they’ll be redundant, since each of you will be using a battery-operated submersible tow. This bit . . . ” He flipped a switch on what looked like a football with turbine blades. “. . . will pull you through the water. There are three speeds. It’s neutrally buoyant, and it comes with a tether. It will always be with you.”

  “Time is critical,” said Lily. “We can’t afford to arrive after the druggees have gone.”

  “You should reach the target area within two and a half hours. When you reach your destination, each team member can access a personal cache at the small of the back. We’ve packed a snub-nose, 9 mm. automatic weapon. It’s like a Glock with a drum mag.”

  Lily nodded.

  “There is no daylight. Each of the team will have wrist-mounted flashlights.” Raj held one up, as if he were auctioning it off at Christie’s. “Turns the night to day. The water is clear. You’ll see nearly as well as you would topside. Nevertheless, I’m asking that you plant pitons in the walls as you move forward and string a guide rope through the hole here.” He held the piton between thumb and forefinger. Again, Lily felt as if she were at Christie’s, examining a rare gem. “These are made by Stubai in Austria. They are the best there is.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” she sputtered. “we’re going in one direction, down a tube. We can hardly get lost!”

  “Please do this. You were the one who brought up the issue of ‘insurance.’ And this device, no bigger than a coffee cup, is part of the insurance package. It’s a portable pneumatic head operated with a gas cartridge. It fits over the top of the piton and drives like a jackhammer. It means no lost time. It should easily wedge the piton in a crack, crevice, or even bare rock.”

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  “Nothing. I assure you. As you reminded me—that’s my job.”

  “So, how do we breathe down there? Have you got us scuba gear?”

  “No. Conventional scuba is too bulky. What we have for you is a compressed and modified version of the Russian IDA71 naval rebreather. It is a plain backpack harness with no buoyancy aid. The front of the harness has a rough rubber apron to protect the torso. The casing is titanium, with welded seams. We reduced the size and streamlined the casing to reduce drag. True, that means a penalty in breathing time, but we hope you’ll be up and out of there relatively quickly.”

  “How does it work?” Lily asked. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “It holds one oxygen canister and two absorbent canisters filled with potassium superoxide, which gives off oxygen as it absorbs carbon dioxide. So you are essentially generating your own air.”

  Lily arched an eyebrow. “Impressive!”

  “There are some drawbacks to this design, however. You should be aware of them. One: since there is no discharge of exhaled carbon dioxide and no bubble trail, you will not know if a team member is dead or alive unless there is well-defined body movement. For this reason, memorize and practice diver’s code—sign language that is immediately understandable. Communicate! Early and often.

  “Two: potassium superoxide extends your dive time, but it produces a hot, explosive reaction when it comes into contact with water. It can kill you.”

  Lily stared at him. “Explodes?” she repeatedly quietly. “You don’t say! In water? And did Stubai make this, too?”

  “No
,” said Raj. “This is Russian tech.”

  “If you’re trying to scare me, Raj. It’s not going to work.”

  “Well, Lily, in my judgment that’s not the worst part. The technology is not really primary. It’s the people that count.”

  “Of course. I agree. My Uighurs…”

  “Not a lot of Uighurs have experience with diving gear and diving. We’re talking Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hainan Island. That’s where you find diving experience.”

  “Might as well recruit from the communist party central committee,” Lily said drily.

  “You understand the problem. And, of course, we did not have a lot of time.”

  “I’ve made up my mind to do this . . . but I would rather not do it alone.”

  “Of course not. We have a team. Let’s go meet them.” Raj led the way to a conference room off one of the lab corridors.

  The conference room was lit by fluorescent lights behind a big ceiling grid made of mahogany laths. The wallpaper was beige grass cloth. It said, “calm your mind.” In the far corner was a collection of plastic fig trees and palms. This, too, was a metaphor. Nothing live would grow here.

  Three men were grouped together, one sitting and two standing, as if for a formal portrait. Ordinarily, there might be whispers of innocuous small talk. These men, however, were silent as stones.

  Lily scanned them, left to right. The first had the shaved pate of a young monk. However, instead of wearing the pallor of a skinny-necked religious esthete, this man was bronzed and muscular, with dark flashing eyes that reminded her of Raj. He wore military fatigues, just a blank canvas of beige without bars, patches or insignia of any kind.

  The second man seemed much older, thin—almost gaunt. He had a wisp of a beard that trailed down from his chin. His clothes said, “Chinese minority.” He wore an elaborately embroidered vest, even more beautiful now that its color had faded to quiet shades of red and purple. Although he was the picture of composure, a cigarette was cocked behind one ear, ready as soon as he was free of this laboratory examination.