Shadow of the Dragon

51

Chavez groaned, staring into the trees behind the hotel. “Are you seeing this?”

The young woman they believed to be Medina Tohti led her Han Chinese friend to two saddled horses she’d apparently left tied to the top of a corral. A half-dozen trail horses from the hotel concession munched hay off the muddy ground inside the fence, ignoring the two saddled animals outside. All of them were Mongolian ponies, short and stocky, still woolly from a long winter.

Medina climbed aboard a small bay, the man on a slightly larger sorrel the color of a new penny. He spoke nonstop as he brought his horse up to walk beside the woman’s, illustrating various points by waving his hands or shaking his index finger.

Medina listened dutifully, fur parka ruff tilted to one side, taking in every word as they clomped down the muddy trail to disappear into the dusky forest.

Chavez breathed out hard, blowing a cloud of vapor, sounding like one of the horses. “I was never a cavalry soldier.”

Yao started for the corral the moment the two riders were out of sight. “Didn’t you ever go to summer camp?”

“I grew up in East L.A., mano,” Chavez said. “Our summer camp was trying not to get jumped walking to the corner stop-and-rob.”

“These are trail-ride horses,” Yao said. “We’ll probably have trouble getting them to go.”

All the animals looked to have been fed and watered and turned out. The wranglers, too, had gone home for the night. The saddles were all locked up in a wooden shed, but that didn’t matter. They didn’t have time for that anyway.

“Mounted operations…” Chavez muttered, picking what he hoped was the gentlest of the beasts — a cow-hocked gray with winter fuzz around the muzzle that made it look like a bearded old man.

Yao found a lead rope and attached it to the halter of a stout little mouse-colored horse, forming makeshift reins. Facing the animal’s ribs, he put both hands on its back and then pressed himself up, throwing a leg over.

“Damn it!” Chavez said, trying to follow suit, but resorting to using the rails to climb aboard, even with the short horse.

“There’s a technique to it,” Yao said, leading the way out of the gate.

“No kidding,” Chavez said, wishing for some mode of transportation that had wheels instead of hooves. He spun the little gray in two complete circles before finally getting it pointed in the same direction as Yao.

Five jostling minutes later, Yao raised his arm to a square and made a fist, cavalrylike. He listened for a moment, shoulders hunched against the cold.

Chavez brought his gray up next to the other horse, pulling back on the lead rope. He needn’t have. The gray didn’t intend to leave its buddy for one minute.

“What is it?” Chavez said. Snow drifted down through the evergreens, melting as soon as it hit the mud and moss — a spring snow. The tracks were easy to follow, and fresh enough that water was only now seeping back into them. “You think they’re running a surveillance-detection run on horseback?”

Yao slouched easily on his horse, legs dangling, scanning, patting the animal periodically on the side of its broad neck to keep it calm. “Nah, they’re just riding home. We need to give them a minute, though. Our horses want to catch them, so we’re getting too close.” He gestured forward with the tail of his makeshift reins, causing the horse to flick an ear. “Smell that?”

Chavez sniffed the cold air, catching a hint of woodsmoke and the slightly sweet barnyard stench of more animals.

“A cabin,” he said. “Gotta admit, you’re shattering my cowboy stereotypes.”

Yao kept his focus through the trees. “Don’t know a thing about cattle,” he whispered, sounding an awful lot like an Asian Gary Cooper. “We should move in a little closer with the horses and then go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Sounds good,” Chavez said. “Nothing yet from Lisanne. I’d like to make contact with Medina as soon as we hear what’s going on in town.”

“Yep,” Yao said, still sniffing the air. “I’ll make a call to my contact and confirm our boat.” He gave his horse another pat on the neck. “I’d hoped to hear back from Clark by now about the daughter. We’re gonna need something to keep Medina Tohti from shooting us in the face when we go to the door.”

John Clark felt the truck slow beneath him, brakes squealing. He and Hala swayed forward, bracing themselves as it came to a stop. Another checkpoint, the second in less than an hour. Anywhere else and Clark would have thought the authorities were conducting a full-blown manhunt, but here in Xinjiang, security stops were so common, one was often within sight of the next.

It was completely dark in the hollow cavern they’d built beneath the piled carpets and stacked bolts of cotton cloth. Clark had given Hala a small flashlight that she used while they were underway, but he had her turn it off each time they stopped. He could hear her tentative breathing now that the truck was stopped again, and wondered what it must be like for her, a small child, trusting her life to the hands of a stranger — an old man, no less, someone she’d met only twenty-four hours earlier.

The truck’s rear doors squeaked open. Muffled voices outside. Clark put his arm around Hala’s shoulders, and they both held their breath. More voices — a long discussion — then the doors slammed shut. Hala began to shake as the truck moved on. She flicked on the light, blinking at the sudden brightness. A child again now that they were underway, she moved the beam back and forth, playing with the shadows it made on the uneven stacks of cloth and carpet tassels in their cozy little cave. Clark leaned on the carpets along the outer wall, careful not to dislodge the stack, and watched her smile.

They still had a long way to go — and Hala wasn’t the only one putting trust in strangers.

Omar Alim’s wife called the People’s Armed Police office in Kashgar to report her husband missing after a fellow taxi driver had seen his cab abandoned by the old caravanserai a few kilometers south of the livestock market. A missing Uyghur near a Uyghur bazaar — certainly a Uyghur problem. The officers had taken almost six hours to go to the scene. Ren doubted the fools would have responded at all, but for the fact that he’d sent word to every station reminding them that two prominent members of the government had been murdered and the fugitives remained at large. Even the most insignificant events should be closely examined.

At least the responding officers had enough sense to follow footprints from the abandoned vehicle into the caravanserai. The blood and carnage inside were difficult to miss. Major Ren arrived a short time later, calling in a dog from an XPCC detachment on the other side of Kashgar. The dog, a German shepherd they’d recently gotten from Beijing, was more of an intimidation asset than it was a tracker, but it led them straight to Omar Alim’s body.

Ren and his lieutenant climbed into the shallow coulee behind the building where the body had been dumped.

“His throat has been slashed,” Ren’s man observed.

The major stared at the wound, and thought of his dead brother, murdered in much the same horrific manner. With little access to firearms, crimes of violence in and around Kashgar most often involved a knife or an ax. Still, three deaths, two with their throats cut, in the same twenty-four-hour period. A coincidence? This was clean, as much as such gruesome work could be.

As an officer with the Production and Construction Corps, Ren’s primary responsibilities lay with enforcement — keeping the resident Uyghur population in check, not solving their murders. Ordinarily, he would have had little interest in finding out who had killed Alim. That was a job for the local People’s Armed Police — who in all likelihood would have filed it away as a case involving no civilized individuals — a Uyghur-on-Uyghur incident.

Ren took a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his nose while he stooped for a closer look at the torn flesh and glistening gore on Alim’s neck. Green flies were already congregating on the wound, even with the chill, smelling the scent of death and decay. This was the work of someone desperate, someone on the run — someone who had killed before.

“The Canadian,” Ren said suddenly, giving his man a start. “You saw him board the aircraft?”

“Yes, Major,” the lieutenant said.

“To Beijing?”

“To Urumqi,” the lieutenant said. “Connecting to Beijing.”

“Of course,” Ren said. “And there were no other Canadians or Europeans on the flight?”

“Not that I observed.”

“The perpetrators will try to leave,” Ren said. “To flee across the border. Alert all border crossings to be extremely cautious, to double-check all vehicles, especially any with small girls. Send them a photograph of Hala Tohti. Alert check—”

“Major,” the lieutenant said, holding up his phone. “Border guards in Tashkurgan report an incursion by American military aircraft.”

Ren gasped. “Into China? That would be an act of war.”

The lieutenant read further. “No,” he said. “Not across the border, but approaching it at a high rate of speed, as if they intend to do so. Two remotely piloted aircraft believed to be MQ-9 Reapers passed near our joint Tajik base near the Afghan border eight minutes ago. Radar is also picking up two ghost readings moving west to east in the Wakhan Corridor. They show up only periodically, but estimating their speed and altitude, they are believed to be helicopters.”

“Remotely piloted aircraft…” Ren mused. “Moving toward the Wakhjir Pass?”

“It looks that way, Major.”

“I have read that the Americans have devised a rescue pod that can be attached to the hard points on these drones, the same place where missiles are usually affixed. Let us suppose that the person who killed my brother, Mr. Suo… and this man, is attempting to take Hala Tohti to America. The elevation of Wakhjir Pass is extremely high. It would not be easy to get across with a child. But if one was simply able to climb into one of these escape pods and then back to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan…”

“Forgive me, Major,” the lieutenant said. “But do you not believe this is a bit far-fetched?”

“The Americans love such plans,” Ren said. “They believe life is a movie and they are the stars. Contact the checkpoint in Tashkurgan at once. Have them stop everything that moves — trucks, taxis…” He jabbed the air with his finger. “I do not want so much as a donkey cart to get past without a thoroughly invasive search. And alert the border guards to increase patrols leading up toward the pass.”

“Of course, Major,” the lieutenant said. “It seems foolish for the Americans to place these pods where their weapons customarily go. Their aircraft will be completely defenseless.”

“Ah,” Ren said. “Do not forget the ‘ghost readings’—helicopters flying in and out of radar contact. They are surely there for defensive purposes. But we will be prepared for that as well… Speaking of helicopters, find me one immediately. I wish to be there when this killer is apprehended and Hala Tohti is retrieved.”