by Marc Cameron
The old man nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his sparse beard. “I think the land is owned by the ones who have the most soldiers . . .”
“I suppose,” Clark said.
The light ahead of them turned red and the taxi rolled to a squeaky stop right beside a commuter bus. Clark tipped his head toward a sign beside the entry doors. “What does that say?”
The cabbie eyed him hard in the mirror until they started rolling again. Finally, he said, “Explosives and bearded men are forbidden on public buses.”
“You have a beard.”
“No beards,” the cabbie said. “Unless you are old like me . . .”
“And me,” Clark said.
“Ha,” the cabbie said, smiling beneath sad eyes. He shook his finger in the mirror again. “No beard for you, young man. You are young and fit, not bent and old like me.”
“I wish, my friend,” Clark said. He leaned forward in the seat. The streets had suddenly grown crowded with pedestrians. Smoke from myriad wood grills and ovens rose in the cold air and swirled among colorful lights strung back and forth across the side alleys off the main road. “Change of plans, uncle,” Clark said. “Drop me off up here at Jiefang Night Market. I’d like to walk a bit. My hotel is not far.”
The old cabbie’s face filled the rearview mirror as he looked at Clark like he’d gone crazy. “You know the way? It is dark and the wind is cold.”
“I’m fine,” Clark said. “I have read about your Night Market. It looks interesting.”
“And your bag?”
Clark patted the duffel. “It’s small.”
“Okay,” the cabbie said, still unconvinced. “You are the boss. But there will be checkpoints. You are tourist so perhaps they will not stop you all the time, but your bag will be searched if they do.”
“No worries. I have nothing to hide.”
The cabbie pulled to the curb a half block away from the lights of the Night Market, before a set of yellow metal barricades in front of a checkpoint. Camouflaged police and black-clad SWAT officers checked Uyghur pedestrians’ identity cards. A speaker blared a recording of a woman’s voice in Uyghur. Clark leaned across the seat to grab his bag.
“What is she saying?” Clark asked as he handed over a stack of bills.
“‘Report terrorism or separatism immediately. Speaking to others on the Internet about separatism is forbidden . . . Speaking on the Internet about terrorism is forbidden . . .’” The old cabbie gave Clark a mischievous wink as he took the money. “‘And no beards . . .’”
Clark shouldered his bag and approached the nearest policeman, pointing at the lights of the street market ahead and pantomiming eating. Unwilling to bother with a tourist who probably didn’t speak Mandarin, the officer waved him through before turning his attention to the line of docile Uyghur men and women behind the yellow barriers. A group of Han Chinese tourists in fashionable coats and faux-fur mittens and hats were waved through with no more than a cursory we’re-on-the-same-team nod from the officers at the checkpoint.
Clark bought a hot samsa at the first stand he came to. The Central Asian meat pie was similar to an Argentine empanada, this one plucked straight out of the tandoori-style oven. Filled with chopped carrot, garlic, onion, and fatty pieces of lamb, it warmed him as he made his way through the market, working east, where he hoped to avoid most of the cameras long enough to check out the house where Hala Tohti was supposed to be staying with her aunt.
A slender man with thick, pink lips like a carp shouldered his way past, cursing at Clark in Mandarin as he went by. He was going in the same direction, obviously in a big hurry to get somewhere.
* * *
—
Hala lay under a quilt in front of the oil stove, fully clothed, chewing on the sodden collar of her shirt. She covered her ears with both hands, trying to block out the noises coming from her aunt’s room. Soon it was quiet, but she did not move until the fat baboon Suo yelled for her to get him some tea.
Ren flung open the door before she’d made it to the kitchen. Cold air swirled in around him, and Hala imagined he was a devil, come to curse their house. Then Suo came out with nothing but his sagging undershorts and she did not have to imagine devils any longer.
Zulfira followed him out of the bedroom. Her hair mussed, she clutched the throat of her simple cotton robe with one hand. The other hand she kept in her pocket.
Zulfira stopped cold when Ren shut the door behind him.
“We agreed,” she said. “Hala is not to be touched.”
“We did agree,” Suo said, fat chin to soap-white chest. “That is the truth. But it is also true that I made an agreement with my assistant—and that agreement was made before yours.”
Hala glanced at the door, but Ren grabbed her by the arm.
Zulfira set her jaw. “No . . .” she whispered. “You . . . cannot do this . . .”
Fat Suo breathed deeply, as if taking in her smell, and gave her a smug smile. “I have decided that I am hungry after all.”
Zulfira’s voice rose in pitch and timbre. “This is my home. I will not allow—”
Suo struck her hard across the face with the back of his hand. “My dear, you will allow—”
Her hand came out of her pocket with an ornate Uyghur blade that Hala recognized as one of her uncle’s. Zulfira struck like a scorpion, hitting hard and fast, pounding over and over at the spot where Suo’s neck attached to his shoulder. The knife was more decorative than practical, with an eagle pommel and rosewood grips inlaid with jade and mother-of-pearl—but Zulfira’s husband believed that all knives, even those meant for decoration, should be kept sharp enough to shave the hairs on one’s arm. The blade was no longer than five inches, but the wicked upturned point did an incredible amount of damage as Zulfira drove it home again and again. A great arc of blood spouted across the room at the first blow, deflecting off her hand and spattering her face and chest each time she struck.
Suo slapped a hand to his neck, eyes wide, collapsing to his knees. Blood poured between fat fingers and ran down his arm in a red curtain to the floor. He opened his mouth to speak, but managed no more than a horrible croak.
Ren relaxed his grip in shock, allowing Hala to pull away and run to her aunt. She floundered midway, slipping and almost falling in the growing pool of blood. Suo’s hand that had been holding his neck fell to his side, noodlelike. His eyes fluttered and he pitched forward, smashing his face against the linoleum floor with a horrific thud.
Zulfira brandished the Uyghur knife at Ren. Her attack had been so furious she’d not noticed that she’d cut her own hand each time she’d plunged the knife into Suo’s fat neck. At some point in the process the blade had snapped at the tang, leaving her with nothing but the handle in her blood-drenched hand. She dropped it and grabbed Hala, yanking her out of the way just in time.
Dumbfounded, Ren cried out in rage. His eyes shifted to the cleaver on the table, and he snatched it up. Zulfira blocked his exit, screaming for Hala to go in the bedroom and lock the door.
Ren brandished the gleaming cleaver. His voice was high and pinched. His chest heaved. “I promise you this,” he hissed. “I will not be so easy to kill.”
And he was right.
22
At once terrified and enraged at the sudden murder of his boss, Ren rushed forward, slashing wildly, intent on slicing Zulfira in half. She picked up a wooden bowl and pushed it out in front with both hands like a shield, but Ren had her on size and reach. One of his swings connected, opening a sickening smile of meat along the length of her forearm. The Uyghur knife she’d used so well to kill Mr. Suo clattered to the floor. Ren cackled maniacally, pressing forward slowly. Zulfira was now unarmed, bleeding profusely.
Without thinking, Hala grabbed one of the wooden chairs near the table and ran as fast as she could, pushing it ahead of her across the slick linoleum floor toward Ren lik
e a battering ram.
Ren wheeled too late, catching the heavy wooden seat directly below his kneecaps.
A ragged scream boiled out of his throat. “You filthy Uyghur bitch! Do you think to win against a full-grown man? I will cut you into litt—”
Hala’s trick with the chair afforded Zulfira the opportunity to scoop up a paring knife and throw herself against Ren before he could react with the cleaver. Throwing her head back in a terrifying scream, she leaped onto his back and buried the little knife again and again in his neck and shoulder.
Unlike his boss, Ren expected the attack. He ducked his head to his shoulder, twisting and turning, making it virtually impossible for Zulfira to get the right angle. Though the blade did some damage and drew a copious amount of blood, none of the wounds were arterial or anywhere close to fatal.
The cleaver fell from Ren’s grasp at the same moment Hala’s feet squirted out from under her in the blood. She landed almost on top of the cleaver, grabbing it up as she rolled and bringing it down on top of Ren’s dress shoe, burying the sharp blade across his arch. It would have cut the front of his foot off, had Hala been stronger and her footing more secure.
Ren yowled, flailing for the cleaver, but missing it as his other foot shot sideways, like a goat trying to walk across a frozen pond. He hit the ground with a crack, groaning, rolling in blood. Zulfira fell, too, slashing, opening his cheek with her blade as she sought out his throat. The knife found a home in his shoulder. Ren roared, swatting her away. She landed on her butt, sliding backward, mopping blood on the floor.
Hala rolled away, crouching now, cleaver in hand. Ren wallowed to his feet, looking like he’d been dipped in blood. He drew the paring knife from his shoulder, dragging his injured foot as he hobbled toward a panting Zulfira. Hala slashed at his legs with the cleaver. Ren turned, coglike, catching himself with his good foot to stay upright at every shuffling step. He shook the knife at Hala. Blood and spittle spewed through clenched teeth.
“Whore! Mosquito. I will open your—”
On her feet again, Zulfira smashed a wooden bowl over the man’s head.
Stunned but far from out, Ren shoved her sideways, staggering backward from the blow.
Zulfira barely regained her footing. Blood covered her face and arms. “Run!” she wailed at Hala. “Go!”
Hala scrambled sideways, wheezing, unable to draw a breath. She tried to stand, but her muscles were made of stone. Her aunt’s sobbing cries, the wicked man’s screams, rattled inside her head, muffled and disjointed. Her back hit the wall. She was cornered.
Howling like a madman, Ren lunged for her—but Zulfira threw herself between them, grabbing the hand that held the knife and drawing it into her own belly, driving forward to topple Ren.
“Go!” Zulfira’s voice was a shattered scream as she fell on top of the startled man. “Leave, Hala! Leave now!”
Ren pushed the dying woman away, then lay there on his back, chest heaving, his shirt gleaming like red satin in the lamplight. He swallowed, head lolling, to look at Zulfira, who clutched her stomach, wracked with pain.
Ren started to rise. “B . . . b . . . bitch!” A cruel laugh escaped his swollen lips. “No one will even know you are gone . . .”
* * *
—
Outside Zulfira Azizi’s home, the man’s derisive laugh cost him his life.
Clark had watched from the shadows across the street when he’d first arrived. He noted the location of security cameras—on the eaves, light poles, and perched on the top of street signs. A Han Chinese sentry stood beside a white Toyota Cressida—the only car on a street filled with scooters. Clark had pulled guard duty for a big shot before, and knew what it looked like. This guy wore a long wool coat over civilian clothing, but Clark was reasonably certain he was a policeman, likely a driver of whoever was inside Zulfira Azizi’s home. A flame flared behind the sentry’s cupped hand, momentarily illuminating his face as he lit a cigarette. He returned the lighter to his pants pocket, opening his coat just enough for Clark to catch the outline of a pistol on his belt. The sentry tapped it before he let the coat fall, and then leaned back against the hood of the car, stretching, taking a long drag on the fresh cigarette. As if struck with a sudden idea, he glanced up at the cameras, then lifted the coat again and tucked it behind his holster. His hand hovered above the weapon and then squared off in the darkness. He pantomimed a quick-draw like a gunfighter in the Old West. He let the coat fall, took three steps, then looked up before repeating the pantomime gunfight.
Clark stifled a chuckle. This asshole knew exactly where the cameras were, and saved his gunfighting theatrics for the moments he was in the black.
Movement in the windows drew Clark’s attention away from the buffoon. Lights flickered inside. Shadows shifted oddly, back and forth behind floral curtains near the front door. The sentry’s head snapped up at some sound coming from inside. Distance and a moaning wind made it difficult for Clark to pick up the sound at first.
Then a sudden lull in the wind brought the blood-chilling wail of a woman in despair.
Clark came up on his toes at the pitiful sound, preparing to move.
Next to the sedan, the sentry shook his head—and laughed.
John Clark took killing seriously—both tactically and morally. He’d ended the life of many people—some of them in unspeakably brutal ways that he’d never talk about, even to Ding or Sandy . . . especially not to Sandy. He told himself that they’d all been necessary—for the greater good—but that depended on one’s point of view. He slept well most nights, but felt reasonably certain that if there was such a thing as judgment day, he could, at the very least, expect a stern talking-to from the Big Man. People who killed others for a living rarely afforded themselves the luxury of fretting over the sin of it. More often, or at least for Clark, it hinged on adherence to a personal moral code.
Sometimes—far less often than one might expect—he’d had the luxury of thinking things through, planning, learning all there was to know about the person whose life he would extinguish. The vast majority of circumstances, though, dictated immediate action, like this sentry, standing between Clark and someone in danger—and laughing derisively at their pain.
Clark closed the distance quickly, crossing the street when the sentry turned to listen to more screams pouring from inside the house—padding up behind him in a spot with no camera coverage.
For as much as he pantomimed the gunfighting action, the sentry was woefully slow on the draw, allowing Clark to give him a quick hammer-fist to the side of the neck and then pluck the small revolver out of the man’s holster before he could react. Intent on moving toward the sound of the screams, and unwilling to leave an adversary behind him, Clark pressed the little revolver to the wide-eyed man’s belly and pulled the trigger.
He got nothing. Not even a click.
“Shit!” He resorted to using the handgun as a mini–battering ram, driving it barrel-first, again and again, into the man’s teeth, before slamming it into the side of his head.
Clark realized the gun was a replica about the time the man collapsed.
“Some gunslinger,” Clark spat, anchoring the man to the ground with a boot to the head. He dropped the worthless prop and wheeled toward the door—moving toward the sound of bitter screams.
* * *
—
Hala brought the cleaver down with all her might. Ren flailed, grabbing her hand and shoving the blade away as it came down. It hovered a hair above his heaving throat. Tendons knotted in his neck. Zulfira was there, too, helping Hala press the cleaver down, down, down.
Ren screamed, one hand wrapped around Hala’s where she held the cleaver, the other flailing with the little knife, slashing at Zulfira’s back as he struck blow after sickening blow. “Why? Won’t? You? Die?”
Hala could feel her aunt’s strength ebbing. A ghoulish smile crossed Re
n’s face. He felt it, too.
Hala’s stomach lurched and she had to fight the urge to vomit. She was too small to finish this, too weak.
A shadow crossed behind her. Her heart sank. More of Fat Suo’s men—
Then a dark boot came down next to her hand, stepping on the spine of the cleaver and driving the blade deep into Ren’s neck.
Hala looked up at the tall man who towered above her. He was white—an American, with thinning silver hair and hard eyes that flashed with cruelty. He softened when he met her gaze and put a hand over his heart.
A friend.
Hala rolled away, gasping. There was nothing she could do about it if he decided to kill her. She ignored him and dragged herself across the floor to her aunt, who lay shuddering in a pool of blood on the floor. The man dropped to his knees beside them. He worked furiously to stop Zulfira’s bleeding, but her wounds were too many and too deep.
Hala pressed her forehead against her aunt’s cheek, whimpering. “Why? Why did you do that?”
The grimace face fell away. Her lashes fluttered. “I told you,” she whispered. “We do what we must.”
“I’m sorry,” the gray-haired man said to Hala after her aunt breathed a final shuddering breath.
Hala looked up at him, wide-eyed, covered in blood and tears. She whispered, “Who are you?”
She’d grown up with a rudimentary grasp of English from working at the Jiefang market, talking to tourists with her father. Few Americans or Europeans even tried to speak Mandarin. Fewer still attempted more than a butchered greeting in Arabic. No tourist at the market had ever tried to talk to her in Uyghur. She was young and smart, with an ear for language. Her father had taught her early on that she could go far by learning English. Classes at the gymnastics school helped refine the basics she’d learned at the market.
“A friend,” the man said, hand to heart again. “Are you hurt?”
