Shadow of the Dragon

46

Timur Samedi was an hour early — and Clark didn’t like it.

Showing up unexpectedly allowed one to get the lay of the land, take the high ground, spot bad actors who weren’t supposed to be there. But arriving early and making contact early were two different things. You stood off and watched until the appointed time, not an hour early. There were too many unknowns. Early meant either this guy didn’t know what he was doing or something had happened to rush the timetable.

Neither was good.

A constant wind rattled and shook the metal warehouse, muffling the sound of the truck until it was almost on top of them. Clark heard the rumbling engine, the pop of gravel as tires rolled to a stop out front, to the left of the yawning double doors — where trucks came to load their cargo. The old warehouse was empty but for a stack of bolted cotton cloth as high as Clark’s shoulders. Covered with canvas tarps, the bolts were presumably waiting for Samedi to pick up when he came for his passengers — Clark and Hala.

Clark waited in the shadows. The girl squatted a few feet away, weight on her heels, elbows on her knees, the way children all over Asia learn to squat when they are still toddlers and carry it with them to adulthood. She smiled quietly at a speckled hen and five peeping chicks that scratched at the dirt in front of her, inside the barn and out of the wind. After all they’d seen together, it was easy to forget she was only a ten-year-old child.

Clark gave a low whistle, waving Hala over at the sound of a slamming vehicle door. She heard it, too, and scampered over to stand behind his leg.

A Uyghur man appeared at the door, backlit by the dazzling yellow landscape.

Hala tensed and stuffed a hand in the pocket of her blue coat, no doubt touching the Snake Slayer. Good instincts, Clark thought. He patted her on the shoulder to let her know everything was fine — though he was far from sure himself.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “We are expecting him.”

She began to chew on her collar again, leaning against Clark’s knee.

They’d already discussed how to use the Bond Arms derringer. Unloaded, she’d demonstrated she could cock the hammer with the meat of her thumb and rearrange her grip and press the trigger. She wasn’t going to be doing any quick-drawing, but that was fine. In her case, the little derringer was more of a get-off-me gun. The whole thing exhausted Clark to his core. He believed in starting children early, but if he’d given a ten-year-old kid a pocket pistol in Virginia, society would have sentenced him to five days in the electric chair.

He wanted to calm Hala, but he kept his own hands in his coat pockets, his right curled around the butt of the Norinco pistol.

The Uyghur remained in the doorway unaware, or at least unsure, that they were there. He scanned the interior of the warehouse — apparently unconcerned that he’d made himself a target in the fatal funnel. This didn’t make him harmless, just ignorant. Clark knew from experience that there were plenty of idiot bad guys out there.

The Uyghur craned his neck but made no move to come inside.

“Helloooo?”

Clark motioned for Hala to stay back, and then took a deep breath, stepping out of the shadows. His hand remained in his pocket and on the pistol while he gave the initial passphrase. His words echoed in the hollow confines of the empty warehouse.

“It is dangerous to travel the roof of the world.”

The Uyghur’s head snapped toward the sound, seeing Clark for the first time. He shuffled from side to side, clenching and unclenching his fists, nodding excitedly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. There are many devils there.”

The word many wasn’t in the passphrase, but the man was obviously nervous, so Clark cut him some slack.

“And angels,” Clark said.

“And angels, too,” the man said, confirming.

Clark made his way across the warehouse. “Samedi?” He shook the man’s hand, wanting to get a read on him.

“Yes,” the man said. His grip was firm, but he withdrew his hand quickly. “Yes, yes. I am Samedi. I get you out…”

It was almost a question.

Samedi was about Clark’s height, thin, with gaunt cheeks and dark BB eyes that darted constantly from point to point. He wore fingerless rag-wool gloves and a ratty karakul hat of curly black wool that looked as though it had been dragged behind a truck. Oddly, he had no overcoat against the bracing wind. His dark sport coat hung open. Beads of sweat dotted sunburned skin over bushy caterpillar brows.

The Uyghur grinned, showing several gaps where there should have been teeth. “You are ready?” The BB eyes bounced around the shadows. The muscles in his face, unencumbered by fat, tensed and twitched beneath patchy black stubble. “Where is the girl? She is ready to go?”

Clark ignored the questions, but asked one of his own.

“Tell me our route.”

Clark watched carefully as Samedi explained how he planned to stack the bolts of cloth so that a hollow space remained inside, and then drive them to “the border”—though he did not explain which one. It would be “easy,” “no problems,” “for sure.”

Samedi’s nonchalance about crossing the border — the most dangerous portion of the trip — while he continued to sweat his ass off just talking in the cold barn set Clark’s teeth on edge.

Customarily, Clark held to the rule of threes — one hiccup could be an anomaly, even two, but three hiccups, no matter how small, and he’d shut down most ops for a fresh start. Samedi’s arrival ahead of schedule, the almost-correct passphrase, the sweating — all of it could be explained away, but…

Hala walked out of the shadows, chewing her shirt.

“Come, come, child,” Samedi said, brightening. “Time to go.” He turned to Clark, less twitchy now, but still sweating. “Will you help me load?”

“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.