Dark Watch

12

EDDIE had always believed in the old adage that people made their own luck. That didn’t mean he discounted the blind chance of someone winning a lottery or being involved in a freak accident. What he meant was that proper planning, attitude, and sharp wits were more than enough to overcome problems. You didn’t need to be lucky to be successful. You just needed to work hard.

After the first two hours of lying in an irrigation ditch, he still maintained his beliefs. He hadn’t had time to properly plan the mission, so it wasn’t bad luck that brought him to this predicament. It was lack of preparation on his part. But now that he was into his fifth hour, and his shivering sent waves across the stream’s surface, he cursed the gods for his bad luck.

His arrival in China had gone off without a hitch. Customs barely glanced at his papers and made only a desultory search of his bags. That hadn’t come as much of a surprise, since he was traveling as a diplomat returning home from a year at the Australian embassy and was therefore afforded special courtesy. The papers he’d planned to use while traveling in China were those of an unemployed office worker. He’d spent his first day in Shanghai just wandering the streets. He hadn’t been in China for so long he needed to reacclimate himself. He had to change his posture and walk — his was too brazen — and he needed to get used to the language again.

He’d learned Mandarin and English simultaneously from his parents living in New York’s Chinatown, so he had no accent but rather a bland inflection that would sound foreign to a Chinese. He tuned into the conversations around him, relearning the accent he’d used when he’d been here with the CIA.

He couldn’t believe the transformation in the years since he’d last been to China’s largest city. The skyline was among the tallest in the world, with buildings and construction cranes crowding ever higher, and the pace of life was among the most frenetic. Everyone walking the sidewalks carried on excited conversations over ubiquitous cell phones. When night fell, the Shanghai streets were washed in enough neon to rival the Las Vegas Strip.

He vanished into society in incremental steps. After checking out of his hotel, he left his two suitcases behind a Dumpster that had just been emptied and wouldn’t likely be moved for a few days, not that there was anything in the bags to incriminate him. The diplomatic papers had already been flushed in the hotel. Next, he bought off-the-rack clothes from a midpriced department store. The clerk thought nothing of a customer wearing an expensive Western suit buying clothes that didn’t seem up to his standard. Wearing his new purchases, Eddie ditched his suit and bused out of the thriving downtown until finding an area of factories and drab apartment blocks. By this time, he’d gotten food stains on his shirt and had scuffed his shoes using a brick from a construction site.

He got a few looks from the poorer workers in their ill-fitting clothes, but for the most part no one paid him much attention. He wasn’t one of them, but he didn’t look like he was that much above them, either. Again, the clerk at the clothing store where he bought two pairs of baggy pants, a couple of shirts, and a thin gray windbreaker assumed Eddie was a down-on-his-luck salaryman forced into the labor ranks. He bought shoes and a rucksack from another store and a few toiletry items from a third without raising an eyebrow.

By the time he arrived at the overland bus terminal for his trip to Fujian Province, on his third day without a proper shower, he was an anonymous worker returning to his village after failing to make it in the big city. The slow transformation not only ensured no one would remember him, it helped Eddie become the role. As he sat on a cold bench at the terminal, his eyes had the haunted look of failure and his body slouched under the weight of defeat. An old woman who’d struck up a conversation told him it was best he return to his family. The cities weren’t for everybody, she’d said and told him she’d seen too many young people turn to drugs as an escape. Fortunately, her cataracts prevented her from seeing that Eddie wasn’t as young as she assumed.

The trip had been uneventful, crowded onto a bus that belched great clouds of leaded gasoline fumes and stank of humanity. His trouble had started when he reached Lantan, the town where Xang and his family had begun a trip that ended with them murdered in a shipping container. Eddie had no way of knowing, again because he hadn’t had time to prepare, that he’d arrived during regional elections. The army had set up a checkpoint in the town square, and everyone was required to pass through on their way to the polls.

Eddie had seen such elections before and knew that the townspeople had a choice among one candidate for each office up for election. Oftentimes the ballot was already checked, and the voter had to simply place it in the ballot box under the watchful eye of armed soldiers. This was China’s version of a democratic concession to its people. Some high officials had come out from the provincial capital of Xiamen to watch the polling, and the military had even brought a tank, a massive Type 98 if Eddie’s quick glimpse had been enough for an ID. He assumed it was a public relations ploy by the PLA, the People’s Liberation Army, as well as a subtle reminder of where the ultimate power in China lay.

Although Lantan had a population of less than ten thousand, Eddie knew he’d attract attention. He didn’t speak the local dialect all that well and didn’t have a plausible reason for being in the isolated town if questioned by a curious soldier. Which was why he’d spent the past five hours under a bridge in an irrigation ditch just outside the town limits. He didn’t plan on leaving his hiding place until the officials and military rolled on to the next target of their intimidation.

But once again the luck Eddie tried to make for himself had left him.

He’d been lost in his own world of cold and pain and didn’t hear the voices until they were almost directly overhead.

“Just a little farther,” a male voice cajoled. “I saw a spot when we entered town.”

“No, I want to go back.” It was a woman’s voice, but young — maybe a teenager. She sounded frightened.

“No, it will be okay,” the male said. He had a cosmopolitan accent. Beijing or its environs. The girl sounded local.

“Please. My parents will wonder where I am. I have chores.”

“I said come on.” The man had lost all pretense of civility. His voice was sharp, tinged with a manic, desperate edge.

They were on the bridge spanning the ditch, just a few feet over Eddie’s head. A patter of dirt rained from the joints of the heavy wood decking. Their footfalls had become uneven. He could picture the couple in his mind. The girl was holding back, trying to slow them, as the man drew on her arm to the point of having to drag her.

Eddie gently pushed himself from the bank and sidled silently across the eight-foot ditch, listening as the man drew the girl across the structure. “It will be fun,” he said. “You’ll like me.”

There was a dense copse of trees just beyond the village along the dirt road, a secluded spot that Eddie knew would soon become the scene of a rape. As the man and his victim gained the road, Eddie pulled himself up the embankment, exposing himself had there been a sharp-eyed observer in the nearby town. He shouldn’t have even moved from his original spot. What was about to happen wasn’t his concern, but he was about to make it so.

The man was a soldier, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, his uniform clean compared to the dirty peasant clothes the girl wore. He had her by the arm, lifting her so her feet barely touched the ground in a frog march to the nearest trees, already in shadow as the sun set beyond a range of mountains to the west. She wore a skirt and simple blouse, long hair in a thick tail dangling between her narrow shoulders.

Eddie waited until they’d vanished into the woods. He peered back to the town. Electric lights were coming on in a few of the buildings, while outlying houses remained dark, their owners hoarding the candles they relied on for illumination. No one was looking in his direction, and the soldiers in the square appeared like they were making preparations to load the tank onto its special twenty-wheeled hauler.

He rose from the ditch and crossed the road, water streaming from his clothes. His feet were bare because he knew the cheap cloth and stitching would have dissolved after such a prolonged immersion. He merged into the forest, letting his sense of hearing guide him deeper into the woods. The girl was protesting, her voice pitched high before becoming suddenly muffled. The soldier must have a hand over her mouth, he thought, his feet silent amid the sparse ground cover.

He stopped at the base of a large pine. A flash of white had caught his attention. The girl’s blouse. It lay on the forest floor. Eddie chanced a look around the thick trunk. The soldier had set his rifle on the ground next to where he’d pinned the girl. His upper body covered hers, but he could tell she was naked from the waist up. With one hand over her mouth, the soldier used the other to pry the girl’s skirts up to her hips. Her legs were thin and coltish, and they scissored in the air as they tried to throw off her attacker.

The soldier removed his hand from her mouth, but before she could cry out, he punched her across the jaw. Her head snapped to the side, and her body went still. Eddie had just moments, but there was no cover between him, the soldier, and his weapon.

He slid around the tree anyway, moving slowly at first. The human eye detects light and movement better at the periphery than straight ahead. He’d covered three of the ten paces to where the rape was about to take place when the soldier sensed Eddie’s presence. Eddie burst into a run, his toes digging deep into the loamy soil like a sprinter’s cleats.

Reacting fast, for he was already charged with adrenaline, the soldier twisted to grab up his rifle. He had the weapon by the grip, his fingers finding the safety in a well-practiced move. The assault rifle came up as he swung the barrel to his target. Even if he missed, the shot would be heard in the town and draw the attention of his comrades. The soldier must have known this because his finger tightened on the trigger before Eddie was in his sights.

Eddie launched himself, one arm arcing out wide to catch the barrel of the AK-47, the other knifing in with fingers extended into the soldier’s windpipe. But he was too late; the soldier had applied the last bit of pressure to discharge the banana magazine. The gun didn’t go off. Eddie’s momentum ripped the soldier off the girl with such force her body rolled twice along the ground. Eddie ignored her as she cried out suddenly. The soldier lay atop Eddie when they stopped. Moving fast before the man could recover his senses, Eddie pressed the soldier’s dead weight from his chest, used one arm to steady the man, and fired two swift strikes into the soldier’s larynx. They lacked power, but hitting the same spot as his initial attack more than made up for it. The soldier’s throat was crushed. He made a series of strangled gasps, then went limp.

Seng pushed the corpse aside without giving the would-be rapist a second thought. The girl lay curled on her side, clutching at her hand and moaning aloud. Eddie recovered her shirt and draped it over her. She clutched it around her frame as he gently turned her over. The punch hadn’t dislocated her jaw, though she’d carry the bruise for a while. Her eyes were wide with fear and pain. He gently uncurled her hand. Her index finger was bent almost ninety degrees, and he understood why the AK hadn’t gone off. She’d feigned her stupor rather than give her attacker the satisfaction of raping a conscious victim and at the last moment jammed her finger behind the rifle’s trigger, preventing the bolt from releasing. She’d saved Eddie’s life while saving herself from a crime most women believed was worse than death. Her finger had gotten broken when Eddie’s charge had torn the weapon away.

“You are very brave,” he said soothingly.

“Who are you?” She sobbed through the pain and humiliation.

“I am no one. You haven’t seen me, and this didn’t happen. You broke your finger when you tripped walking back from the fields. Do you understand?” Her eyes darted to the figure of the dead soldier. He knew what she was silently asking. “I will take care of him. You don’t need to worry. No one will know. Now go back to your family and never speak of this day again.”

She turned her back to slip into her blouse. Enough buttons remained on the thin fabric to cover herself. She got to her feet, fighting the tears that welled at the corner of her eyes. It was pride, shame, agony. It was a face of China.

“Wait,” Eddie called before she vanished from the forest clearing. “Do you know a family named Xang? Several of them rode the snake not long ago.”

At the mention of illegal immigration she stepped back protectively, ready to bolt. But she held firm, wanting to return something to the man who saved her. “Yes, they live in town. They own a store that sells and repairs bicycles. The family live above. Do you have news of them?”

From the way she spoke he could tell she knew the family well. Perhaps she was the sweetheart Xang had written about. “Yes,” he said, sickened by what he was going to tell her. “They reached Japan, and they are all working. Now go!”

Startled by his last command, the girl vanished amid the trees. Eddie had perhaps done something far worse than the soldier just now. He’d given the girl hope.

He rifled the soldier’s pockets for his identification and then pulled the dog tags from around his neck, settling the warm metal against his own chest. Using the sling from the AK-47 and the soldier’s belt, he fashioned a rope and within ten minutes had the body wedged into the crotch of a twin oak tree twenty feet off the ground. Search parties looking for a deserter would take days to find the body, most likely drawn to it by the smell.

He used a branch to erase all tracks and traces of what had happened and made his way back to his hiding place under the bridge. The girl was probably back in town, most likely with her mother at the local healer’s house having her finger set. Her problems were over. Eddie’s had just begun.

The military presence in Lantan wouldn’t leave until all the soldiers were accounted for. It looked as though they planned on staying the night, and it was doubtful the dead rapist would be missed till morning. His buddies would cover for him, assuming he’d found someone, either a professional or the proverbial farmer’s daughter, whose legend of beauty and promiscuity were as popular in China as they were in America.

The trouble would start at the morning’s roll call. When he didn’t show up they’d search the town, then the surrounding farmland in ever widening circles. Eddie could no more abandon the mission than he could have left the girl, so that gave him until dawn to contact the snakeheads. And he no longer planned to interrogate them to learn what happened to Xang and the others. He now needed them to get him out of China.

He fingered the dog tags, knowing he had the perfect cover.