Blindfold Game

JANUARY

FANG WAS SWEATING IN spite of the below-zero temperatures and the brisk onshore wind that dropped the chill factor into the minus double digits. It didn’t help that it was three o’clock on a January morning six thousand miles north of his usual area of operations.

The immense, untidy yard was a mass of rectangular containers imprinted with the names and logos of shipping firms from all over the world, Maersk Sealand, Cosco, Pan Ocean Shipping, Teco Ocean Shipping, even Czech Ocean Shipping and a host of other names of maritime freight firms too small or specialized to be immediately recognizable. The containers were lined up in rows forming aisles just wide enough for the tractors and lifts to maneuver between them.

The yard was brightly lit with halogen lamps mounted on fifty-foot poles, but the containers were stacked three high and cast deep, dark shadows, providing a wind tunnel effect to consolidate every passing breath of air into what felt to Fang like a gale-force draft. He shivered again, the nervous sweat congealing on his spine. The zip of his parka was already up as high as it would go, but he tugged at it anyway, and cursed involuntarily when the teeth caught at the flesh beneath his jaw.

Smith’s head whipped around. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. An unaccustomed flush flooded up into Fang’s cheekbones. He set his teeth and looked down to fiddle unnecessarily with the chest strap of his pack. Like the parka, it was the very best U.S. military surplus issue.

They were crouched next to a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire, just outside the reach of the lights, which were directed inward at the yard and the containers. Armed guards roamed the perimeter, but on a night like this they were spending more time in the guard shack down at the gate that faced the docks than they were on patrol. The shack was a hundred feet away, but every time the shack’s door opened Fang could hear a burst of Russian music and loud laughter. Sons of bitches were probably knocking back the vodka with a fine and free hand. All the better for this operation.

They had gathered together in a group for the first time that afternoon, Smith and Jones and their twenty men, Fang and his ten. The building was a small warehouse with a loft holding up a hoist. There was a small area in back of the hoist where their equipment and supplies had been stacked in wooden crates stenciled with the logo of the United Nations and the notation printed matter on the sides.

Another of Noortman’s little jokes. If he’d called for the crates to be anything other than books, foodstuffs, say, or hand tools, no bribe would have been big enough to keep the Russian customs officials from helping themselves to a bonus and discovering the true contents of the crates. The UN logo, even Fang was pushed grudgingly to admit, was a mark of genius. Not only were they books, an observer would conclude, they were most likely tracts on crop rotation or home health care or English as a second language. Also, books were heavy, which would account for the weight.

They had pried open the crates and dressed in silence, fatigues, cold-weather gear, heavy lined boots with nonskid soles, headsets with microphones keyed to the same frequency. And of course weapons, pistols and rifles, the latest in automatic weapons, with enough ammunition to start a war.

Smith divided them into two parties, one with him, the other with Jones, and as soon as it was dark led them in small groups by various back alleys to the fence next to which they were currently huddled, blending into the winter landscape with white smocks enveloping them from hood to knee. And freezing to death in spite of the cold-weather gear.

The door to the guard shack opened with a brief blast of Elvis Presley singing about a party in the county jail, and a stray breeze wafted the smell of sausage to the huddled men a moment later. One of Fang’s men stirred. Fang gave him a fierce look and the man subsided, but he was as unused to cold-weather work as his boss was. Fang only hoped they were all going to be able to walk when the time came.

Approaching footsteps crunched through the snow. Fang looked around and saw one of the guards approaching, a slight, slender man with a mismatched uniform carelessly buttoned, trailing a cloud of cigarette smoke. He moved his hand down the stock of his rifle and felt something touch his arm. It was Smith, who gave his head one small shake, warning Fang not to move.

The guard wandered down the fence. They caught the occasional snatch of song in slurred Russian.

The guard paused ten feet from where on the other side of the fence the last man in line crouched, and unzipped his fly. The urine steamed and hissed as it hit the snow. He shook, tucked himself back inside his pants, and zipped them up again. He lit another cigarette and blew out a luxurious cloud. He spoke a few words in Russian in a low voice.

Next to Fang, Smith replied.

“Da,” said the guard, the only word in the entire conversation Fang understood, and strolled up to the corner of the fence, singing again as he went. It took a moment before Fang recognized the song as “Yesterday.”

Smith signaled the man closest to the corner, who produced a pair of snips and went to work. Moments later he folded back a large section of the chain-link, stepped through to the other side, and held it as the rest of them moved silently through the hole and into the yard.

The guard watched, still singing, although he had moved on to “In My Room,” giving a not bad impression of Brian Wilson. He seemed to go for mournful in his songs, but then he was Russian.

Once they were all inside the fence, Smith’s man bent it back into place and fixed it there with unobtrusive bits of wire. The guard nodded at Smith and jerked his head.

He led them into the labyrinth of stacked containers, keeping to where the darkest shadows were cast, and after they turned the first two corners Fang was hopelessly lost. The yard was deserted, the late shift having knocked off at midnight, but the waterfront of a port city was never completely silent, no matter what season it was, and the wind carried the sounds of forklifts and hydraulic hoists and the subdued rumble of ship’s engines, drowning out their footsteps in the snow, even if anyone had been around to hear them. It was almost too easy.

The guard led them to two containers toward the front of the yard, in the row closest to the large gate that fronted on the road that ran the length of the city’s coastline. He stopped and turned to face Smith. He motioned, telling Smith without words to back up and take his men with him.

Smith looked at him without expression and did as the guard requested. The guard produced a ring of keys from a pocket and opened both the padlocks on both container doors. He did something else with a tool Fang couldn’t make out in the shadowy light and the customs seals were also open.

The guard stepped rapidly back from the second door, still singing, this time a new song. Something about “son of a sailor,” he thought, but his teeth had begun to chatter and he couldn’t make out the words over the noise.

Another guard stepped from a row of containers, just out of reach for rushing, his rifle cradled in what looked to Fang like a competent grip. Fang, teeth still chattering, waited for the rest of the squad to materialize from the shadows and for him and his men to be arrested and escorted to prison, which would probably be warmer than standing around this yard.

The first guard stopped singing and said something to Smith. He snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground between them.

Smith looked at the first guard for a long moment.

The first guard snapped his fingers and pointed at the ground again. The second guard didn’t move.

Smith reached inside his smock and brought out a fat envelope. He tossed it on the ground. The guard motioned for him to back up even farther, and Smith did so. The guard stooped to pick up the envelope and opened it, thumbing through the contents.

He looked up and nodded at Smith. The last of Fang’s men, who had remained behind when they came through the fence, materialized out of the gloom behind the second guard. Steel flashed, dark fluid spewed across the snow, the guard fell heavily. Almost before he hit the ground Fang’s man had recovered and pocketed the payoff.

Before the first guard could give the alarm, Fang was there, his knife sliding easily and expertly through the guard’s uniform and his ribs, up and straight into the heart, stopping it in midbeat. The guard sucked in a great breath of air, shocked eyes staring into Fang’s. He looked down at the knife, at Fang’s hand on the hilt, as if he couldn’t believe it, and then he, too, fell, the knife sliding free, the blade stained a dark purple in the lights of the yard.

Smith took a quick step forward and shoved Fang back. “What do you think you are doing?”

“No witnesses,” Fang said without expression.

Jones shoved forward and he and Smith exchanged angry words in whispered Korean. It was obviously about Fang’s action, and it was equally obvious that it was uncomplimentary.

“Enough.” Fang nodded at one of his men. The Koreans watched as the bodies were arranged to look as if they had been fighting, as the guards’ sidearms were fired into both their wounds, covering up the knife marks. The gunshots were masked by the roaring and clanking of heavy equipment operating nonstop all around them. In a town this size there wouldn’t be a medical examiner or probably even an effective police force. The local cops would believe what was easiest for them to believe.

Smith, coldly furious, said, “If you are quite finished here, please explain to me who now is going to close and lock the doors behind us and reapply the seals?”

Fang nodded at the man who had taken out the first guard. “He is.”

“And how, then, will he join us?”

“He won’t. He stays behind. He stays behind,” Fang repeated when Smith burst into another flood of Korean. He started toward the nearest container and after a tense moment Smith followed with ten of his men and five of Fang’s. Jones and the rest went into the second container.

The door thudded shut behind them and Fang could hear the seals and padlocks clicking back into place. The dark descended like a suffocating blanket. Instantly Fang wanted to be back outside freezing his balls off. More nervous sweat rolled down his spine. He didn’t like the dark, and he didn’t like small enclosed spaces. He didn’t like any of this at all, and the prospect of being stuck here for any length of time was not appealing. He wondered if he could advance the timetable and resolved to take up the topic with Smith at the earliest opportunity.

He wondered if Smith would listen to anything he had to say. He couldn’t understand Smith’s anger at the killing of the Russians. Anybody would think Smith wanted to get caught.

There was a snick and a light appeared. Smith had a flashlight. They were sandwiched between the doors and the cargo, equipment of some kind swathed in plastic and padding, most of it strapped to pallets. Smith motioned them to follow him as he edged his way between the front pallets and the walls of the container. This was ten times worse than just standing around in the dark. Fang’s clothing and equipment caught on every protruding bolt, and several times he was afraid he was going to have to ask for help, but at last they were behind the first row of pallets.

Smith was already unhooking the second layer of strapping and was ripping into the crates stacked there. These crates were identified as being shipped to the Mattel Corporation. Fang examined the label more closely in the dim light cast by the flashlight and saw that the crates were supposed to be full of dolls. Instead they yielded hammocks and sleeping bags, chemical toilets, prepackaged foods, a two-burner camp stove, a set of cook pots, bowls and mugs and spoons, a satellite phone, a whole case of batteries for it, decks of cards, and a mah-jongg game.

The crates and boxes were disassembled and stuffed into the space between the cargo and the container. They attached hooks to the walls of the container and slung the hammocks. At Smith’s direction, one of the men unfolded the stove and boiled water for tea and noodles. Fang slurped both down with gratitude, feeling the heat spread into his hands and feet.

Something flapped over his head and he ducked instinctively and looked up. The container had a canvas roof.

He looked at Smith. In a low voice Smith said, “We must be very quiet until we are under way.”

Fang was more concerned about the loss of heat. He claimed one of the hammocks closest to the floor, unrolled a sleeping bag and climbed in without removing his boots. As he was pulling the bag to his chin he noticed a spray of blood extending from the back of his hand to the sleeve of his parka. The cold had already made it tacky to the touch, so he didn’t have to worry about smearing it all over.

They were made aware of the arrival of morning by the increase in noise outside. Smith gave an order and the men secured everything that wasn’t already tied down or tucked behind the cargo straps. A while later the container jolted as a tractor latched on, and the hammocks swung merrily as they moved out of the yard, down the shore road, and rumbled over the wood surface of what was probably a dock.

The sounds of chains jangling were heard, followed by an increase in the pull of gravity when they were hoisted into the air. Men bellowed and somewhere a crane clanked and groaned into action and the container began moving sideways. It stopped, swaying back and forth, and almost immediately began descending. They thudded into something and another voice bellowed. There were answering shouts from the other side of the container walls, and Fang and the rest of the men held themselves quiet and still. More shouting as the container was muscled into position. There was a loud clank as the hoist let go and a series of kachunks, when some kind of fastening kicked in. The voices and the sounds retreated, only to return not much later when the next container was loaded, and the next, and the next.

It continued for six hours. At one in the afternoon the ship shuddered into life, the engines starting with a rumbling roar. The deck vibrated, setting the hammocks to trembling. They got underway an hour later. Five minutes after that the first of Smith’s men threw up.

By six that evening they were in the North Pacific, with seas Fang estimated as well as he could from inside the container running at least fifteen feet. The ship was rolling and pitching and corkscrewing, and it sounded like the screw was out of the water as often as it was in it. The ship’s helmsman wasn’t doing much to compensate, either. Fang foresaw an overhaul in the ship’s engine room in the not too distant future.

By now all of Smith’s men were puking, some of them just hanging their heads over the sides of their hammocks and others taking turns kneeling in front of the portable toilet. The miasma of vomit and sour sweat mingled with the smell of diesel exhaust creeping into the container. It was enough to make even Fang nauseous. He pulled his sleeping bag over his nose and thought again of that plump wife in Shanghai, with a sturdy son he could raise to be a real seaman, with his own shipping line bankrolled by his father.

This was going to be his last trip, he realized, and with the decision made, he felt almost lighthearted. One more trip, and home for good.

Fang curled more tightly ship’s helmsman wasn’t doing much to compensate, either. Fang foresaw an overhaul in the ship’s engine room in the not too distant future.

By now all of Smith’s men were puking, some of them just hanging their heads over the sides of their hammocks and others taking turns kneeling in front of the portable toilet. The miasma of vomit and sour sweat mingled with the smell of diesel exhaust creeping into the container. It was enough to make even Fang nauseous. He pulled his sleeping bag over his nose and thought again of that plump wife in Shanghai, with a sturdy son he could raise to be a real seaman, with his own shipping line bankrolled by his father.

This was going to be his last trip, he realized, and with the decision made, he felt almost lighthearted. One more trip, and home for good.

Fang curled more tightly into his sleeping bag and drifted off to the sleep of the righteous.