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

Samedi’s throat convulsed when he tried to speak. It seemed to take forever to get the words out.

“You are very nervous about something, Mr. Samedi,” the major said. “What do you have in the truck?”

Clark tapped Hala’s arm when the truck slowed, reminding her to turn off the flashlight. He cupped a hand to the side of his head, straining to hear, but got nothing but the sound of Hala chewing on her collar. The stop seemed to last forever this time. He checked the glowing hands on his watch. Three minutes.

Voices now. Someone shouting.

Then they were moving again, slowly, barely rolling—then another stop.

This one was shorter, less than a minute before they were on their way.

Hala flicked the light on. “What was that?”

Clark took a deep breath, patting her arm again.

“I’m not certain,” he said, as the truck slowed again and made a right-hand turn before coming to a stop. The back doors creaked open. Boots thudded on the metal floor as someone climbed into the back. A sharp tap accompanied shuffling footsteps. A cane. Clark reached for Hala and the light, turning it on, as Little Ox pulled away a roll of carpet and peered down into the hollow compartment.

“Welcome to Kyrgyzstan,” he said in slurpy English.

Hala looked up, wide-eyed, and then collapsed against Clark’s leg, exhausted from the stress.

She spat out her collar. Her eyes welled with tears. “We are no longer in Xinjiang?”

“We are no longer in China,” Clark said. He stood and shook Little Ox’s hand. “No trouble at the border?”

“I told you,” the old man said. “I pay big baksheesh. They love me here. No trouble at all. If the Bingtuan stop Samedi’s truck, they will find nothing but carpets. Come. I take you to a place you can sleep until your friends arrive.”

Clark took out his phone, grateful that service had reached even small border towns like Irkeshtam.

Hala was breathing deeply now, as if trying to steady herself. “We are safe?”

Clark punched in the number and looked down at Hala while he waited for it to connect. “We are safe,” he said.

Thirty miles from the Chinese border, Warrant Officer Avery looked over his shoulder toward the back of his Black Hawk. “Mr. Grant,” he said. “I am to let you know you’re supposed to call ‘that number,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“Copy,” Grant said. He plugged a satellite phone into his headset and attached a cable that led to an external antenna affixed outside the Black Hawk’s window—effectively blocking Captain Brock and the other members of ODA-0312. He spoke for only a few seconds, gave a curt nod, and ended the call, a broad smile almost invisible under his bushy beard.

He reconnected his headset to the intercom.

“Back to the barn, boys,” he said.

Captain Brock leaned forward against his harness and shook his head. “I thought this was a rescue mission?”

“It was,” Grant said.

Brock glared at the spook. “What were we, decoys?”

“That,” Grant said. “And a backup plan.”

“Who’d we help rescue?” Sergeant Peplow asked.

“Honestly,” Grant said, “I’m not a hundred percent sure. An operative and a very high-value asset. That’s all I know. The counterintel folks at Langley crawled so far up my ass they could see my tonsils. You would not believe the grilling I got before they deemed me trustworthy enough to be tasked with this. This mole has us all seeing shadows. Hard to trust anyone.”

“Roger that,” Brock said. Spooks not trusting spooks … imagine that.

Grant leaned his head back against his seat, closing his eyes. “We did God’s work tonight. Sometimes that means the blade cuts. Sometimes it just gets waved around. Either way, it needs to be sharp.”

Ren Shuren thought seriously about shooting Samedi on principle. Carpets. Nothing but carpets. Ren had been certain this was the escape route. They had stopped the only five vehicles between Kashgar and Tashkurgan capable of smuggling people. Samedi’s truck was the last.

He walked toward the lake, then wheeled, barking at his lieutenant. “A hidden compartment, perhaps? Under the belly of the truck.”

The lieutenant shook his head. “I am sorry, Major. We have already inspected there.”

“I do not understand … They must have gotten past us. Perhaps they are further down the road, already past Tashkurgan. Contact the border guard at once and warn them.”

The lieutenant made the call on his satellite phone. A pained look crossed his face when he ended the call.

“The American aircraft are now moving west. They appear to be returning to their base.”

“What?” Ren punched his open palm with his fist. “How could they have picked the fugitives up so quickly? They must have crossed into China. We should make Beijing aware of this—”

“Major,” the lieutenant said. “It appears the aircraft never touched down. They flew to within approximately forty kilometers from the border, and then simply turned and went back the way they had come.”

Ren’s mouth fell open. “It makes no sense … Unless … You are certain that Canadian … what was his name? Bart Stevens … you are certain he boarded the plane to Urumqi?”

“Yes, Major,” the lieutenant said. “I watched him myself. Urumqi, where he was to have caught a connecting flight to Beijing.”

“Call the airline and make sure.”

The lieutenant did, the pained look returning to his face. “Mr. Stevens changed his ticket when he arrived in Urumqi and caught a flight to Bishkek that same hour.”

“Kyrgyzstan … I …” He gazed across the lake, suddenly cold to his core.

The lieutenant leaned closer so as not to be heard by anyone but Ren. “Sir,” he said. “What do you wish to do with the driver?”

“Release him.” Ren flicked his wrist to the south, feeling sick to his stomach.

He had no idea how, but the Canadian must have been involved in helping his brother’s killer escape. He doubted the man was even Canadian. Worst of all, Ren now had to explain to Admiral Zheng how he’d let a ten-year-old Uyghur girl slip through his grasp.

54

Chavez tied his gray pony to the base of a scrubby fir tree. The snow had picked up and he stood for a moment, patting the animal on the shoulder, sharing its warmth. There was no wind, and every thump of a hoof seemed to reverberate through the forest.

Yao expertly looped his horse’s lead rope around a branch of a nearby tree and tied it into what he called a bank robber’s knot—one yank and it would pull free.

The growing darkness helped to hide their approach, but it also made it difficult for them to see as they crouched low, moving quickly through the underbrush. Now that they were away from the prying eyes of security cameras, Chavez took a PVS-14 night-vision monocular from his pocket. Lightweight, the roughly four-inch tube could be mounted to a helmet, on a long gun, or, as in Chavez’s case, handheld. It would certainly raise suspicion if Chinese authorities found it on his person, but they’d be too busy with the little semiauto pistol and suppressor to worry about it. The night-vision device made the low light of evening come alive, but, as it stood, it did not magnify the target.

Fifty meters away, through stands of tall green pines and ragged fir trees, the Han man disappeared inside a cabin of rough-hewn logs. Chavez guessed it to be about twenty by twenty feet, with a small porch out front and a stone chimney on the side. A path off the rutted mud driveway led to a plank-board outhouse, hidden in the trees.

The woman turned the two horses out in a split-rail paddock next to the house, checked their water, and then fed them each a large flake of hay from a stack outside the fence. She stood beside a little bay while it ate, petting it on the shoulder as if she were talking to it. Chavez watched for a moment, cold from the wet ground seeping through the belly of his coat. At length, he shook his head and rolled half onto his side, passing the PVS-14 to Yao.