Wall of Night

55

Behind him, a shout in English: “Stop! Stop there!”

Seconds later Tanner heard the double crack of gunfire and felt something tug at his sleeve.

Son-of-a-bitch. He put his head down and kept running.

In seconds he reached the tree line. Darkness enveloped him. The air cooled. He spotted a game trail and followed it. Behind him came the crunch of footfalls and more calls of “Stop!”

He glanced over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of the PSB man twisting and ducking through the trees as he straggled to catch up. The trail led deeper into the forest. Soon the ground began to slope downward.

He started down the embankment, lost his footing on the pine needles, and started skidding. His hip slammed into a tree trunk. He gasped, rolled away, scrambled to his knees and kept going.

The path widened suddenly. The trail forked, north and south, both following the edge of a swamp. Half-dead sycamore trees lined the bank, their exposed roots jutting from the mud.

At a sprint, Tanner reached the edge of the bank, dropped hard onto his butt, and slid feet-first into the water. He resurfaced, snatched a breath, then ducked under and scrabbled back to the bank. As he’d hoped, the water had undercut the mud, leaving behind nooks among the tree roots. He wriggled himself into the darkened interior and went still.

He heard the pound of footsteps on the trail above. They paused at the fork for several seconds, then resumed, heading north.

Atta boy, keep running—

The footsteps stopped.

Following my prints, Tanner thought. He closed his eyes, straining to listen.

There was ten seconds of silence, then the footsteps came again, moving slowly toward the bank. Above his head, a twig snapped.

Ever so slowly, Tanner shrugged off his backpack and wedged it between the roots. He took a breath, ducked under, then peeked out.

And found himself staring at the toe of a shoe.

With one hand shading his eyes, the PSB man scanned the water. In his left hand was a revolver.

The PSB man looked down. They locked eyes.

“Aiyahhh!”

The man raised his gun hand, bringing it level with Tanner’s head. Briggs launched himself from the water, locked his hands around the man’s ankles and pulled. The man dropped to his butt. Tanner flipped him onto his belly, then dropped his weight, levering him into the water. The gun slipped from the man’s hand and plunged into the murk.

Sputtering, the man thrashed to the surface. Tanner ducked under, hands groping. His fingers touched metal. He grabbed the gun, missed, tried again. His palm closed over the gun’s checkered grip. He pushed off the bottom and broke the surface, gun leveled in what he hoped was the right direction.

The man was standing five feet away, shaking his head clear of water. He glared at Tanner. Briggs gestured toward the bank. The man didn’t move. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a slender object. With a click, the switchblade popped open.

“Don’t,” Tanner warned. “Bu shi.” No.

Knife held before him, the man started toward him.

“Bu shi!” Tanner said again. “Stop.”

The man muttered something in Chinese, then in English: “Surrender!” and kept coming.

“Goddammit, don’t!” Briggs shouted.

The man lunged forward. Tanner pulled the trigger — and got a dull click.

Empty cylinder.

The man was falling toward him, knife arcing downward.

Tanner ducked left but lost his balance and slipped under the surface. The man plodded through the water, stabbing and slashing at Tanner’s legs. Briggs felt a sting in his left calf, rolled away, then stuck his arm out of the water and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Again.

The gun boomed.

A quarter-size hole appeared in the man’s chest. He stumbled backward, blinked his eyes a few times, then fell backward into the water, dead.

He searched the body, but found only a few yuan notes and a PSB ID card; he pocketed both. Then he steered the corpse under the shelf and wedged it into the root system.

Dragging his pack behind him, he crawled up onto the bank, stripped off his clothes, and sat down to examine the cut on his calf. It was deep, about three inches long, and in need of stitches. He unzipped the pack, pulled out the med-kit and set to work closing the wound with tape sutures.

The ground around him was a muddy mess of overlapping footprints and scuff marks that no amount of camouflage would cover. When Xiang’s team got here, they’d read the signs clearly.

Maybe there was a way to use that.

He needed to put as much distance between himself and this spot as quickly as possible. The question was, how far and how long could he ran? When Xiang and his searchers got here, they would ask the same question; their answer would decide how far out they cast their initial net.

Briggs ripped the dressing off his wound, retrieved a small squeeze bottle of saline solution from the med-kit, and emptied it. Teeth gritted against the pain, he squeezed the cut until the blood began flowing again, then held the mouth of the bottle beneath it. When he had about three ounces, he screwed the top on, then redressed the cut.

He stood up and put his weight on the leg: a little pain, but not bad.

From the pack he pulled out a set of camouflage BDUs — pants, shirt, field jacket — and got dressed. He slipped on a dry pair of wool socks, followed by a one-piece Gore-Tex thermal underwear suit, then pulled on his boots, then covered his face and hands with black grease paint.

Next, using strips of black duct tape, he secured the bottle upside down to his right calf. He stomped his foot. Blood onto the ground. Good enough.

He checked his map, took a few compass readings, then cinched the pack onto his shoulders and starting jogging.

Darkness was falling when Xiang’s helicopter landed in the field beside the tree line.

He and Eng were met by a soldier in camouflage dress with a lieutenant’s insignia on one collar and a black dragon pin on the other. As Xiang approached, the lieutenant snapped to attention and saluted.

“Sir! Lieutenant Shen, Company B, Flying Dragons. General Shiun sends his regards.”

“How many man do you have?”

“Sixty. Half are here, the other half are on their way.”

“Show me what you have.”

Shen led them into the trees and down the trail to the swamp. “We found the body stuffed under a shelf in the bank,” Shen explained. “He was shot once. His gun and ID card are missing. According to the PSB commander in Chaoyang, the man’s name was Peng. He’d been on the job only a year.”

“How is that relevant?” Xiang asked.

“I just … I thought you’d like to know, sir. He was one of ours.”

“Let his family mourn him.” Xiang shined his flashlight around. “There was a struggle here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was he killed here or in the water?”

“In the water, I believe. There’s blood on the ground, but not enough.”

“Then it’s Tanner’s blood. He’s hurt.”

Shen nodded. “Yes, sir. Come this way;”

They walked down the trail. Shen pointed to the ground. “He came this way. Take a look at the right print … See it? Compare the heel depth to the left one.”

Xiang squatted down. “It’s deeper.”

“He’s favoring his right leg — limping badly. See the blood splotches beside the heel?”

“Yes.”

“He’s seeping blood from a wound on his right leg. Whatever it is, it’s bad. I sent a tracker to scout his trail; the blood keeps going.”

Good, Xiang thought. At least the late Officer Peng marked him for us. “How far could a man in that condition get?”

“What kind of man?”

“Your caliber, perhaps better.”

Shen cocked his head. “He’s been running for four hours, tired and in pain, losing blood … Plus, he’d probably stay in trees, which would slow him down … I’d say twelve miles at most. If you can get me some dogs and handlers, I’ll have him for you by dawn.”

“Get started,” Xiang ordered. “You’ll have dogs within the hour.”