Cameron, Marc - Tom Clancy's Shadow of the Dragon

Beg shook his head emphatically, lips pursed, a child refusing to eat his oatmeal. He took two slow, deep breaths before saying, “Wuming?” His hand trembled as he took a sip of tea. “ Wuming means nameless. Nobody.”

“Anonymous?” Murphy offered. If this man was reading A Raisin in the Sun and George Orwell, he had a decent vocabulary.

“Yes,” Beg said. “Anonymous. Maybe other groups do things and Wuming gets the blame.”

“Or the credit,” Murphy said. “The Chinese believe they are behind several killings.” She put her hand to her chest now, over her heart. “This boy I spoke of, he believes his father is Wuming. I hope they are real. Someone needs to fight the Chinese oppression.”

Beg leaned back in his chair, eyeing her carefully. “Do you know of Baihua Qifang? ”

Murphy thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t recognize it.”

“The Hundred Flowers Campaign,” Beg said. “Decades ago, Mao allowed open criticism of the Communist government. ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred differing thoughts contend.’ A Chinese poem.” Beg turned up his nose. “Far inferior to Uyghur verse.”

He was certainly finding his vocabulary now.

“I have heard of the Hundred Flowers Campaign,” Murphy said. “It did not go well.”

“It did not,” Beg said. “Some say it started with good intentions, but I think Mao told everyone to speak the truth of how they disagreed with him so he could kill them or put them in prison later.”

“Fair assessment,” Murphy said. “But what does that have to do with us?”

“You come to my house, telling me you are happy with crimes committed against Han Chinese military and police. You think this will make me agree with you and get me in trouble.”

“I told you,” Murphy said. “I represent no specific country, but I am obviously not Chinese.”

Beg gave a derisive laugh. “You Americans believe only people who look Chinese help Beijing. China has lots of money. Americans who look like you help China, Africans help China, even some greedy Uyghur work for China against other Uyghur. I told you, I am not a part of any organization you are asking about and I have no children.” He stood. “There are Uyghur families in many free countries who I imagine would happily raise these children. I think you should go and use your time to contact them.”

“I will,” Murphy said, getting to her feet. The fire in Urkesh Beg’s eyes made her grateful for the weight of the little Glock in her waistband. “But I would still like to try and place the children with family if possible. You said you know people who might know. This little boy who says his father is Wuming is so—”

“Wuming is no one. Little children’s stories, yes, but that is all. Wuming is just story.”

Murphy bit her bottom lip, making her chin quiver. She could not only turn her wiggle off and on, but the waterworks as well. “Honestly,” she said, sniffing for effect. “Hundred Flowers Campaign be damned. Think whatever you want. Whoever is doing these things, Wuming or whatever they are called … Who could blame them? There are evil people out there, taking children from parents, husbands from wives … I worry about the children, but you’re probably right. It would be better to place them with unrelated Uyghur families. Chinese authorities are relentless. They will eventually find and imprison everyone who even thinks a separatist thought, even the Wuming.”

“I will tell you this much,” Beg said, growing animated. “If Wuming was real, no stupid Han Chinese soldier would be able to find them. Wuming is shapeless. No … how do you say it? Formless. Wuming can never be caught. They would never preach. Never say a bad word against China. Never talk aloud of a free East Turkestan. He shook his head again, snorting, almost a chuckle. “Wuming is no one, but could be anyone. So many borders, they will never be found. They don’t speak of what they must do, they do what they must. If anyone looks, they will only disappear into wilderness like fox or melt back into the fabric of regular folk.”

“I understand,” Murphy said. “Do you have a mobile?”

Beg looked around his modest apartment and gave a wan smile. “A phone is expensive,” he said. “And I have no one to call.”

“I’ll check back tomorrow or the next day,” she said.

“As you wish,” Beg said. “But I doubt I can help.”

She said her good-byes and left a card with a hello-phone callback number—the voicemail gave an extension, not a business name. Pondering what a colossal dead end this had proven to be, she rounded the brick wall on the way back to her car and nearly jumped out of her skin when Joey Shoop stepped from behind the creepy witch’s cottage.

“Nice haircut,” he said.

“Hey,” she said, trying to remain nonchalant.

“Hey, my ass,” Shoop said and sneered. “I about smacked into a meat truck trying to find you. What’s with trying to lose me back there?”

“I wasn’t trying to lose you, nimrod.” She wagged her head. “I was running this little thing we do in intelligence work called a surveillance-detection route. Maybe you’ve heard of them.”

Shoop just stood there, glaring at her. “Rask was right to wonder about you. You got something going on, don’t you?”

“You’re an idiot, Joey. You want to hear him yell at me, I’m going back to the office to type up a report now.” She gave him a disdainful shrug. “I guess you’re welcome to follow me if you think you can keep up.”

27

Adam Yao was running out of options. Two days of interviews and meetings hadn’t got him any closer to finding Medina Tohti. Leigh Murphy had come up dry as well.

The Usenovs were his last shot.

Adam Yao arrived unannounced, but that did not matter. Kambar Usenov answered the door, heard Yao say he was a journalist from Taiwan who had a few questions, and waved him inside out of the chill. Russian was the lingua franca of Kazakhstan, but the Usenovs were Oralman—literally “returnees” who had come back to their ethnic roots after living for generations in another country. Kambar and Aisulu Usenov had fled Xinjiang, so their first language was Mandarin—making Yao’s job much easier. His Russian was halting at best, but he spoke Chinese like a native—which at first appeared to put Usenov on edge, until Yao showed him the Taiwanese journalist credentials. Usenov, a bear of a man with a slight limp, gripped Yao’s hand firmly with both of his. He peered into Yao’s eyes for just long enough to make Yao think he might have to pull away.

At length, Usenov gave a satisfied grunt and let go, welcoming Yao into his home as if he was a long-lost relative. Mrs. Usenov set a third plate at the low table situated on the colorful Asian rug in the middle of the Usenovs’ main room. She was a quiet Kazakh woman with flour on her dress and a light blue scarf tied above a handsome oval face. She wore little makeup, but a thin black pencil line connected her dark eyebrows. Yao had seen it many times before on women in Central Asia.

Mrs. Usenov shuffled back and forth from the kitchen, bringing tray after tray of noodles, boiled meat, and fried bread, as if they’d been expecting company.

Kambar put Yao where he normally sat, at the head of the table—a place of honor for the guest. He waved a wind-chapped hand over the top of the feast his wife was busy bringing in.

“We went to a cousin’s wedding,” he said in Mandarin. “My cousin’s wife, she makes the best beshbarmak I have ever tasted.” He smiled, high cheekbones squinting his eyes. “Except for my wife, Aisulu, of course. She is a most excellent cook.”

CIA case officers received language and culture training before heading off to any long-term posting, but most colloquialism and nuance could be learned only firsthand. After ten minutes at the Usenovs’ table, stuffing himself with beshbarmak —literally “five fingers,” because that’s the way the mixture of noodles, boiled horse, and onion was eaten—Yao realized no instructor had ever covered the dangers of too much hospitality.