by Marc Cameron
“Of course,” Clark said, releasing a pent-up sigh. He relaxed a hair—but still followed Samedi out to make sure he didn’t call anyone while he backed his truck into the warehouse.
The loading went quickly, with the Uyghur directing more than doing. It would be a relatively short ride, so the vacant cavern they’d left in the middle of the stack was just large enough for both Clark and Hala to sit down. Samedi used sharp wood dowels to pin the interior bolts of cloth in place. He’d done this before.
Finished, Clark used the rear bumper to climb out of the truck and turned to find the muzzle of a black Makarov pistol pointed directly at his chest.
Samedi grabbed Hala’s coat by the shoulder, but she yanked away and ran to Clark.
Clark raised both hands. “It’s okay,” he said, trying to calm the girl. He cocked his head at Samedi. “Is there a problem I don’t know about?”
“There is no problem.” Samedi shrugged, keeping his Makarov level, his bony finger curled around the trigger.
With ballistics falling between a .380 ACP and a nine-millimeter Luger, the little 9x18 Makarov was plenty capable of ruining Clark’s day. They were five feet apart, not quite close enough to make a move without risking Hala.
Samedi thrust the muzzle forward, driving home his point. “You pay one hundred thousand American dollars and I drive you out. Simple. No problem.”
Clark kept his right hand up but pulled Hala closer to him with his left. His hand remained there, resting behind her hood.
“We can discuss this like businessmen.”
“There will be no discussing,” Samedi said. “One hundred thousand dollars.”
“Then we do have a problem,” Clark said. “Because I can’t get you that kind of money until we are out of China.”
“That is your problem,” Samedi said. “Not mine.”
Hala’s shoulders began to shake. White-hot fury swelled in Clark’s gut. He took a deep breath, tamping down the anger.
It would come in handy later.
“You frighten the girl,” he said, flicking his raised hand, getting Samedi accustomed to movement. “Look, I’m not lying to you. I do not have that kind of money with me.”
The pistol dipped an inch, but steadied quickly. “How much you have?”
Clark groaned. He had yet to decide if it was better or worse that this guy was such a moron. “About five hundred dollars.” He lowered his right hand as if to reach into his coat.
Samedi barked. “Do not move! I know you have gun in pocket. I will shoot the girl. I swear it!”
Clark’s hand went back up. “Okay,” he said. “It’s okay. Do you want the five hundred or not?”
Samedi’s bushy brow was no longer able to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He squinted, attempting to wipe it away with his free hand. The pistol never wavered off Clark.
The Uyghur chewed on the idea for a long moment, and then gestured at Hala with his chin. His top lip curled into a derisive sneer. “The girl should bring a good price elsewhere. I will take your money and turn you in to the Bingtuan.” He snapped bony fingers, ordering Hala to him, keeping Clark at bay with the Makarov. “Come, child. I won’t hurt you.”
Clark held the back of Hala’s coat, keeping her beside him. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re not going to do that.”
Hala spit out her shirt collar and spoke up. “I have money,” she offered. Breathless. Hopeful. She dug into her coat pocket.
Samedi laughed. “I can have your money no matter what. Now come.”
“You may as well shoot me now,” Clark said, drawing Samedi’s attention off Hala as she withdrew the Snake Slayer pistol from the coat pocket. Her hand swung behind her back with the derringer. She tried to cock it, but Clark gave her neck a gentle pat.
Completely unaware, Samedi brandished his Makarov, feeling in control enough that he shuffled a half-step forward. “You would bring more money alive,” he said. “But I will shoot you. I promise.”
Hala began to sob. “I am scared, John.” The tears were real, and her shoulders shook so violently that Clark feared she might drop the derringer.
Samedi took another half-step, beckoning impatiently with snapping fingers.
Right hand still raised, Clark crouched as if to comfort the girl. His left slid down her back to take the little derringer. He studied Samedi, gauging the distance—a scant four feet.
“It will be all right,” Clark said, calm, but loud enough that Samedi heard it. “You must do exactly as I say. I won’t let him hurt you. I promise.”
Hala nodded.
Samedi snapped his fingers.
Clark cocked the pistol.
“Run!” Clark said.
Samedi’s head snapped up, shocked. His eyes shifted to Hala, only for a moment, but it was long enough for Clark to spring forward, past the other man’s gun, while he brought up the Snake Slayer. Clark fired instantly.
The blast took Samedi in the teeth, the force of the point-blank explosion and over a hundred tiny lead pellets tearing away his lower jaw. The Makarov slipped from his hand and he teetered there, blinking, before crumpling to the dust.
Clark scooped up the Makarov, quickly press-checking the chamber and making certain it was not cocked before dropping it into his coat pocket opposite the Norinco. He was certain the Snake Slayer worked, so he kept it in hand as he herded Hala away from Samedi’s body.
Clark squatted in front of her with a low groan. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, her little chest wracked with sobs. “What now?”
Clark released a long breath. “Honestly,” he said. “I have no idea. But you did good there. You saved our lives.”
She buried her small face against his chest and began to cry in earnest. Clark patted the back of her head, his mind going a hundred miles an hour. “We’ll figure something out,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as her. “How about you sit in the truck while I take care of something really quick?”
She leaned away, looking up at him with doe eyes. “You have to hide him?”
He nodded.
“Can I play with the baby chickens?”
* * *
—
Clark dragged Samedi’s body to the corner, dumping it in the shadows behind a metal desk. It was the best he could do in an otherwise empty warehouse. He knelt beside the body, checking for an extra magazine for the Makarov. Finding none, he opened the man’s wallet. The ID card was in Chinese, with the Uyghur name spelled out in phonetic characters with Arabic beneath. Clark’s Arabic was rusty, but if he read the script correctly, this man’s name was Yunus Samedi, not Timur Samedi, whom Clark was supposed to meet.
Clark left the wallet on top of the body, open, to lead authorities to think Samedi had been killed in a robbery. He could hear Hala jabbering at the chickens, and stooped so he could look under the belly of the truck.
Halfway down, he froze.
Hala was kneeling in the dirt on the other side of the truck, at ease, smiling, completely unaware that less than ten feet behind her, a man stood, watching.
47
Derringer in hand, Clark used the truck as cover and padded quickly to the doorway, where he risked a quick peek outside, suspecting the man with Hala might have friends.
He appeared to be alone.
The stolen Toyota was around back, out of view from the road, and the only other vehicle in the lot was a hulking Czech ten-wheeler called a Praga that looked like an old M35 Deuce and a Half with a botched nose job. It couldn’t have been there long, but the windshield was covered with a fine layer of yellow dust—as everything was eventually in this part of the world.
Clark had only gotten a view of the newcomer’s legs, and he was surprised when he stepped around Samedi’s box van to find not a soldier or policeman, but a bent old man, leaning on a polished stick. Probably no more
than five and a half feet tall in his youth, age had now stolen a good chunk of that. He stood passively, hands folded on top of the stick, a half-smile on his weathered face. His features were Han Chinese rather than Turkic. A sun-bleached ball cap that had once matched his red down coat took the place of a fur hat or more traditional Uyghur doppa. Clean blue jeans suggested he had enough money to get out of the dust when he wished. Clark couldn’t help but picture him in with a group of other old men, John Deere and Caterpillar hats tipped back on graying heads, reminiscing about the good old days over eggs and coffee.
Clark moved the derringer to his coat pocket, out of sight, and stepped around the corner.
The old man looked up, still leaning on his cane, not at all surprised.
“Ni chi le ma?” the man asked. A polite greeting, it literally meant, “Have you eaten?” Age and his uneven teeth added a slurpy rasp to his Chinese.
Hala spun in the dirt, scrambling to her feet, and ran to Clark at the truck. Clark gathered her to him with his free hand and returned the greeting.
The old man dipped his head, bowing slightly, both hands still resting on the cane, and began to speak. Clark’s Chinese was passable, but he tapped Hala’s shoulder, asking her to translate so he got it all.
“He knows I am the Tohti girl,” she said. “The police are looking for me . . . They say I was kidnapped by a European or American man . . . They offer a reward . . . Seven thousand yuan.”
A little over a thousand bucks. Not exactly America’s Most Wanted, Clark thought, but it was more than half the yearly income of some of the farmers in Xinjiang.
“Okay,” Clark said, his hand gripping the pistol in his coat pocket. “Ask him what he plans to do.”
The old man hunched over his cane and listened. When Hala finished, he launched into a lengthy dissertation, one hand remaining on the stick, the other waving around the warehouse to illustrate his story.
Hala whispered the translation as he spoke.
“He says we are none of his business . . . He does not need the Bingtuan reward money. His name is Wang Niu, but everyone calls him Xiao Niu—”
The man smiled broadly, looking directly at Clark.
“He says to tell you Xiao Niu means little ox.”
Clark dipped his head, introducing himself as John.
Little Ox waved a hand at the hen and then peered into the darkness at the back of the warehouse.
Hala listened for a moment, then answered back before translating. “He says there is a dry well behind this building. We should hide the dead man in there so his cousin does not see him.”
“His cousin?”
Little Ox nodded as if he understood. Hala translated his answer.
“Timur Samedi and Yunus Samedi both drive this truck,” she said. “Timur is a pretty good man. Yunus is not so good man . . . Yunus always thinks there is more to . . . I do not know the word . . . get more money for a business deal.”
“Negotiation,” Clark said.
Hala nodded enthusiastically.
“I see there is another truck out front,” Clark said. “Is he a driver, too?”
Little Ox squinted, listening intently to the question, and then turned to Clark and said something that made Hala laugh. “He says he came here to visit his chickens.”
The old man kept talking.
“He says we should not worry,” Hala said. “He was once Bingtuan, when he was young and foolish, but not now. He . . . He has many Uyghur friends. He believes Timur Samedi will help us, but not if he finds out we killed his cousin.”
Hala spoke directly to the old man for a moment, and then turned to Clark. “I asked him how we can know Timur is good when Yunus was also Uyghur, also Muslim, and he tried to rob us.”
Little Ox leaned against his stick and gave a sad chuckle before he began to speak in accented English. “Yunus Samedi was watermelon—green on outside—good Muslim, but red on inside—like Communist Chinese. Muslim, Christian, it does not matter. Religion only teach people what is right, child. Maybe they do it, maybe not . . .”
The old man looked at Clark with narrowed eyes. “We must hurry and hide the body. Timur Samedi will take you to cross at Wakhjir Pass. Long drive down Karakoram Highway, then you walk in Afghanistan. Very high. Very hard. Many checkpoints on highway, but not so much after you start to walk—”
Clark drew Hala closer, surprised the old man knew their route. “Who told you this?”
The old man smiled, showing his teeth, or what was left of them. He took a cell phone out of his coat and waved it around the interior of the warehouse. “These my chickens. Samedi work for me. I truck carpet and cloth for woman you speak to at the market. She call and let me know you need help. My trucks go across borders all the time, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan . . . all over. Bingtuan and border guards know all my drivers, even Uyghurs hardly ever searched.”
Clark rubbed his face, frowning. “‘Hardly ever’ doesn’t sound good,” he said. “And it seems like the entire world knows we’re trying to get out of Kashgar.”
Hala translated and the old man shrugged.
“Only peoples who can help you know,” he said in English. “Like I say, police know my trucks. We pay them good baksheesh to . . . how do you say, oil the gears, wave us through checkpoint. Probably nobody suspect you get out that way.”
Hardly ever. Probably. Not odds on which Clark would have normally based a plan. He considered his options—which were damned few—then asked, “You say your trucks get waved through checkpoints? That gets us down the Karakoram Highway, through Tashkurgan, but the Wakhjir isn’t a border crossing, it’s a rural pass, likely guarded by foot patrols.”
“Truth.” Little Ox nodded, pursing his lips in thought. “Much opium come over that pass. Smugglers, they pay big baksheesh to keep border guards away.” The old man gave an emphatic shake of his head. “Probably not many patrols.”
There was that word again. Probably.
Clark pressed the issue. “What are our chances of getting across the Wakhjir? Be honest.”
Hala translated again.
The old man leaned on his cane and thought about it. “Fifty-fifty,” he finally said. “Would be better if you had help on other side. Timur be here soon. We should hide the body.” He stuffed the cell into his vest pocket. It was an iPhone, resembling Clark’s.
“I may be able to improve our odds,” he said. “If you have a cell-phone charger in your truck.”
The old man leaned against his cane and gave a single nod. “I do.”
48
Got him,” Adara said, binoculars to her face. She was angled away from the tour boat, as if looking at the wooded valley beyond the parking lot.
Instead of binoculars, Yao used an SLR camera with a zoom lens. So as not to draw attention with them all looking at the same spot, he and Ryan concentrated on the lake and the handful of crewmen who remained aboard Eternal Peach. He panned sideways, bringing the parking lot into view.
Gray clouds had rolled over the mountains surrounding the lake, and a light snow began to fall with the dusk.
“I see him,” Chavez said. “Tall guy in the blue parka.”
“Yep,” Adara said. “That’s the one. No idea if he’s who we’re looking for, but he’s definitely zigzagging to stay in the black with the cameras.”
“Adam,” Chavez said. “Tell me you don’t think that guy is Han Chinese.”
“He’s not Uyghur,” Yao said after a moment. “You’re right. He is Han. Maybe mixed blood.”
Chavez took a deep breath, let his binoculars hang against his chest, thinking. “The Wuming are separatists,” he said. “I’d assumed anyone associated with them would be Uyghur.”
“That’s two of us,” Yao said. “But this makes a hell of a lot of sense. The authorities rarely even stop Han citizens at checkpoints. When they do, the s
crutiny is light. This could explain how they’ve stayed hidden.”
“He’s stopped to talk to another guy at the hotel,” Adara said. “Taking a smoke break . . .”
“Keep an eye on him,” Chavez said.
Yao swung the camera back toward Eternal Peach, pausing now and then to snap photos. The falling snow, tree-covered mountains rising straight up from the shores of the crystal blue lake and into the clouds—he had no shortage of subjects.
Adara gave a peaceful sigh. “Best surveillance ever . . .”
Yao’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
It was Foley. A call from the director of national intelligence would have been an anomaly a week ago, but she’d taken the idea of a mole personally. Where everyone else with a corner office in D.C. delegated to the nth degree, Mary Pat Foley rolled up her sleeves and went to work. It was easy to see why the President relied so heavily on her counsel.
“Can you talk?” she asked as soon as he picked up.
“Yes, ma’am,” Yao said, mouthing Foley’s name to Chavez so he’d know the call was important enough to take in the middle of a surveillance op. “Just taking in the sights. May have a line on one of those guys we wanted to talk to.”
The line was secure, but Yao spoke cryptically out of habit.
Foley did not.
“You’re in the black?” she asked. “No one is looking at your face right now?”
“No, ma’am . . .”
Deep breath on the line. “Adam, Leigh Murphy has been killed.” She waited a beat for him to digest the news, then said, “I read the ops report you sent in yesterday. We have to consider the strong possibility . . . no, probability, that Leigh’s death is related to what you’re doing.”
Yao rubbed a hand across his face, felt his pulse throb in his neck.
“A robbery?” he asked, already knowing it was not.
“I’m sorry, Adam,” Foley said. “Another case officer was murdered as well, Joey Shoop. Police found his body in the city, we think in the location where Leigh was abducted. A couple of teenagers stumbled on her in one of those abandoned Soviet artillery bunkers.”
