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

The street was dark and cold and quiet when Murphy stepped out of the Illyrian Saloon. A young couple came out of the bar behind her, giggling and cooing at each other and making her feel more alone than she already did. Vlora was a good drinking bud, but not someone Murphy would have hung out with had they not been in the same office and shared a mutual hatred of Rask.

A scooter putted by, heading east toward the stadium. A dog barked somewhere down the street. She was thinking about how you didn’t hear many dogs in the city during the day, when the unmistakable sound of a boot scraped the pavement behind her. Continuing down the sidewalk, she shot a nonchalant glance over her shoulder. An Asian man in a skintight leather jacket, going the same direction she was. He was short, maybe not even as tall as Murphy, but looked broad in the shoulders, a weightlifter, maybe. His short stature and sudden appearance made her think of a Pukwudgie—the creepy little swamp goblins her dad used to tell her about to keep her from venturing away too far in the dark.

She’d been too tipsy to notice him. Amateur. Not that the guy was a threat, but Murphy shouldn’t have let anyone get that close without noticing him. Then she remembered the Asian man in the hat who had been loitering on the corner. A coincidence? Not likely. Adam had just sent her to have a heart-to-heart with a Uyghur separatist who might have information on the whereabouts of the Wuming.

Murphy quickened her pace, suddenly grateful for the weight of the little Glock 43 resting under her jacket in the small of her back. Normally, she would have continued west, to the T, before turning left on Sami Frasheri. Her apartment was two long blocks down, with a view of the Tirana Grand Park. If Pukwudgie was a state actor, the last thing she wanted to do was let him know where she lived. Protocol said she should have gone straight back to the bar where Vlora was, but this was probably nothing.

Murphy looked behind her again. He was still there, smoking a cigarette now, making no effort to hide, but was slowly closing the distance between them. She cut left down Janos Hunyadi, behind University of Tirana. It was a wider street and didn’t lead directly to where she lived.

She fished her phone out of her pocket and voice-dialed Vlora. It rang three times and then went to voicemail.

Shit!

Behind her, she heard footfalls on the pavement as Pukwudgie made the turn as well.

She thought of dialing 112—Albania’s 911 equivalent—but if something was about to go down, it would all be over before the police could get here. She stuffed the phone back into her jacket, wanting to keep her hands free.

Twenty, maybe just fifteen, steps back, Pukwudgie coughed. Loud, fake, the way you cough when you want someone to know the toilet stall is occupied. She didn’t even have time to check before a second man, also Asian, stepped around the corner at the intersection ahead and started walking toward her. This one was taller, with glasses and a puffy gray ski jacket. There was a street to her left, an alley, really, flanked by a scabby vacant lot and a run-down four-story apartment building. There were no streetlights, but she figured she could use that to her advantage. Tirana was her turf. Pukwudgie and his friend were trying to pinch her on her streets, the very route where she ran virtually every morning. She could cut down the alley, and then squirt out the end by the market, and then hang a left and run straight back north to the Illyrian, where Vlora was probably still making time with the drummer.

She made the turn, skirting a parked sedan, picking up her pace, running through the darkness.

She felt the man in the hat before she saw him, her gut registering some clue nanoseconds before the conscious part of her brain picked up on it. He stepped out of a little alcove to her right, midway down the block, less than ten yards away. She slowed, trying to make sense of the situation. Her hand flew to the gun at the same instant the man lit a cigarette. His motions were slow, methodical. The match lit his face under the low brim of the fedora. Then he held the flame sideways, so it illuminated the alcove beside him—and the lifeless body of Joey Shoop.

Murphy’s breath caught like a stone in her throat. She stutter-stepped, slowing her draw of the pistol when she should have sped up. These men had known she would take an alternate route if pressed when she left the bar. They had driven her to this exact spot.

Something heavy impacted her right knee at the same moment her hand touched the Glock. White lights of pain exploded through her body. Instinctively, her left leg propelled her away from the impact. She hopped sideways, trying to regain her balance as she brought the weapon up toward the man who’d hit her. He hit her again, with a metal bar—probably a collapsible baton, but it was too dark to see for sure. The second blow caught her across the top of the arm, impacting her radial nerves. The gun flew from her hand. At the same moment, a powerful hand struck her hard between the shoulder blades. Her right knee destroyed, her arm still aching from the blow, she threw her left hand out front to arrest her fall. Her wrist snapped on impact.

She choked out a scream, her senses flooded with nausea from the pain. Scrambling onto her back, she chambered her good leg, ready to kick any son of a bitch who came near her again. She screamed again, ragged, torn, her voice already hoarse from the bar.

The tall man in the hat stood there looking down at her, almost bored, while the other two approached from her head and her feet. It was impossible to fight them both at once, injured like she was. She felt someone move and turned in time to see the syringe the moment before Pukwudgie jabbed her in the neck.

She felt herself detaching, floating away. This was bad.

The pain in her knee and wrist faded away … No, that wasn’t right. It was still there. She just didn’t care. The men stood back, waiting for the drug to take effect. The syringe was huge. Whatever they’d given her, it had been a big dose.

Then she saw the spiders. Hairy. Black eyes. Obsidian fangs, dripping with venom. Dozens of them pouring out cracks in the ground. She tried to run, but floundered, falling again—into the path of the spiders.

A light came on in one of the apartments above. Someone shouted in Albanian—muffled, distorted. In her stupor, Murphy couldn’t make it out.

“It’s okay!” the man in the hat yelled in English. “My friend has had too much rakia!”

A dark panel van screeched down the alley and they shoved her inside facedown on the metal floor, leaving poor Joey where he lay.

Her face pressed against the cold floor, she tasted blood, smelled puke and urine. So dizzy … Her lungs were heavy.

This was where they’d killed Joey …

She came to slowly at first, willing her eyes to open, then jerking, jolted by the cold chill of the van’s metal floor against her bare skin. She was naked, hog-tied, hands and ankles zip-tied behind and then tied together. Arched backward by the bonds, it put excruciating pressure on her injured knee and shattered wrist.

Whatever they’d given her, Murphy metabolized it quickly. Probably a ketamine dart—straight into her muscle. That would explain why she hadn’t dropped immediately. Her memory of the attack was fraught with gaping holes. She remembered the spiders, though. She’d never forget those. Yeah, it was ketamine, all right.

The van was moving, bouncing over a rough road. That told her nothing. Many of the streets around Tirana were in a constant state of repair. The men spoke among themselves in hushed Mandarin, ignoring her for the time being.

Murphy shut her eyes, struggling not to let her breathing get away from her. She needed to calm her thoughts, no easy task naked and bound in the back of a van with three dudes.