65
THE PASSENGER’S EYES WERE BRIGHT with shock that someone stood behind the cab; he looked to be about forty, heavyset.
Time froze for three seconds. Then his shoulder made a sudden hard shrug, bringing up his arm.
I jerked my head back around the cab’s edge as he fired. The bullet made a bright spark against metal, ricocheted out into the rain.
The truck veered hard, shuddering into the other lane, then whipped back.
They were trying to throw me off. I gripped the rain-slick metal and saw Piet’s van race up to the driver’s side, a spray of water fountaining from the tires. A muffled shot, from the truck, aimed at Piet.
I took a risk that the driver wasn’t driving and firing at the same time—that it was the passenger shooting at Piet. All I had now was force, calculated and vicious. I went back around the corner and heard another crack of shot. I yanked on the door just as a hand from inside tried to pull it back.
I threw myself forward, the door’s handle in a death grip. Then my feet gave way on the wet metal of the doorstep, my legs shot out and my shoes dangled inches above the tarmac.
I dropped my gun. It clattered onto the metal, onto the road, and was crushed under the wheels.
The window, inches above my head, exploded. Shards blew out, stinging my scalp. The passenger, firing in panic. I wrenched my hand, shifted my weight, pulled my legs against the door for leverage, covered my head with my arm, all in one fluid move, like I was jumping onto a public-housing railing in London.
I threw myself through the window, head first, my back slamming against the edge of it. I wriggled, trying to get leverage, elbowing the passenger hard in the throat, knocking him into the driver.
I had five seconds to win this fight. The driver whipped a gun from his left hand to his right, toward me. He fired, and the bullet skittered a path along the very top of my scalp, hot and vicious. I seized the gun’s barrel and pushed down; he had to keep one hand on the wheel and he pulled the trigger in reaction. The next bullet hammered into the seat by the passenger’s leg. He screamed and, in panic, wriggled past me. I threw a kick at him and he slammed into the door and crumpled.
Now I barreled hard into the driver, shoving him into his door. Where the bullet had grazed me, the pain was like a burning match dragged along my skin.
He knocked me back, but my heels hit the windshield and I powered back into him. I threw hard, fast punches into his throat, eyes.
The truck veered wildly and he dropped the gun, but I felt the tires leave the asphalt and brush along an unpaved surface, grass, a skid beginning.
I levered my foot up, snaked an arm around his neck. “I’ll break it,” I said in Mandarin. “You listen to me. The man with me, he will kill you. I will not. All we want is the cargo. He will kill you if you do not cooperate. I will let you live. Do you understand me?” And I gave his neck the slightest wrench. He nodded.
I grabbed the gun and pressed its heat to the driver’s ribs. “Drive. Normally.”
The driver settled the truck, guided it back onto the highway. We earned a roaring honk from a Mercedes that powered past us, the driver shaking a fist, blind to the struggle inside the cab.
The van pulled alongside us, like a teenager sidling up to the dream girl at a dance. A bullet hole marred its roof. Piet leaned forward—with extreme caution. I waved.
“The man in the van will kill you,” I said again. “Do you speak English?”
“A little,” the driver said.
“Don’t let him know you understand. He’s crazy. I’m your only hope right now, you got me?”
The driver nodded. The passenger, unconscious, did not contribute to the discussion.
“Tell the guard in the trailer that we’re pulling over, and he’s to lay down his weapons, come out with hands up. You tell him any different, I shoot you in the knee.”
The driver obeyed, speaking into a walkie-talkie.
I gestured for Piet to drive behind us and, at my order, the driver took the next exit. I blinked away wetness on my face. We pulled four kilometers or so down the road. Now I saw empty stretches of land with a shawl of gray mist hovering above the ground. Cows grazed. Maybe a dairy close by. No sign of people, and the road was an old, narrow affair, rough around the edges. In the distance I saw a rough stone building; it looked like a storage facility.
I said in Chinese, “Remember, do what I say, no matter what I say to the man in the van. We will walk to the storage shed and then we’ll take the truck. You understand me?”
The driver nodded.
Piet crept up from where he’d parked the van, a gun at the ready. I pulled the driver out, keeping the gun on him.
I turned and heard a creak of metal. The back of the trailer opening, Piet jumping back. The driver called in Mandarin, “Do what I told you.”
“Don’t shoot!” the guard yelled. He came out, hands raised.
Crime is a kind of war. But while soldiers will die for their country, few people will die for lords like the Lings. Loyalty is a smoke that inches up from the ashes of greed in this world. A change in wind scatters it.
“How do I know you won’t kill me?” the driver said in Chinese.
“Because you’d already be dead if we wanted you dead,” I said.
Silence while he decided. He opted to trust the calm in my voice. The guard was maybe forty, tired looking, a little heavy. His mouth trembled as he blinked at the cows on the soft turf.
“Here,” Piet said, handing me his gun. “Kill them.”
“Not out here,” I said. “Shots will echo across an empty field, and I’m not dragging dead weight into the woods. I’ll take them to that shed. You check the cargo. If there are any GPID chips on there to trace the goods, tear them out. The Lings could be monitoring the shipment. I’ll take care of these guys.”
Piet looked at the Chinese and smiled. “God, they’re dumb. Standing here while we talk about killing ’em and they don’t have a clue.” But maybe the guard did. He looked like he was about to break into a panicked run.
“Calm down,” I said in Mandarin. “It’s okay. Come with me.” Then I told the driver to haul down his unconscious friend and carry him. He obeyed, putting the knocked-out passenger over his shoulder.
The guard said, in stuttering Mandarin, “This is my first run. I used to be a schoolteacher, my brother-in-law, he got me involved, I don’t know much about doing the runs…” He wore a Yankees baseball cap.
They walked ahead of me, and we went over the fence and toward the shed. I glanced back. Piet had vanished into the truck.
The shed was old and when I kicked the door the weathered lock shattered. I gestured them inside.
“Please,” the guard said. “Please don’t.” Terror ragged his voice.
“Sit down,” I said. They sat, the driver laying the unconscious cab guard down first.
“He has to think you three are dead. You understand? But I am not going to hurt you.”
They nodded. Their eyes stayed on the gun.
I took a step back. “You,” I said to the guard. “Toss me your hat.”
He pulled off the Yankees cap and threw it at me. I caught it and covered up my bloody hair with it. “Your wallets, your papers.”
They tossed them over to me, trembling, and I studied them. “Stand up now. Turn around.” Slowly they did, shivering, and I quickly hit each one of them, hard with the butt of the gun, and they collapsed. I punched both until they were out cold. I left the unconscious guy alone. Then I fired three shots into the rotting wall. Motes of wood and dust danced in the air before my face. I wiped the blood off my knuckles, in the dirt.
I walked back to the truck. Piet studied papers. The manifest on the truck indicated these were Turkish cigarettes, bound for London. Of course they weren’t. They’d been made in China, most likely in a factory half-hidden in the ground.
“Any tracking chips?” I asked.
“No,” Piet said. “Nice cap.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I want to see the Chinese,” he said.
“Well, then, go look,” I said. I would have to shoot him. He studied me.
A small blue farm truck suddenly appeared on the road, inched past us, the driver—an old woman—giving us a long, curious stare as she went by.
It rattled him. “Let’s just get going. Get you bandaged up, clean off the blood in the cabin. I’m driving the truck. You’re driving the van.”
And we drove away. I kept my eyes locked on the little shed in the rearview mirror. No one came out of it.
We arrowed into Belgium, past the empty buildings of the old border station, and the lights along the expressway, activated by the cloudy day, glowed white in France, yellow in Belgium.
I had no cell phone—Piet had insisted, still nervous that he might be betrayed again. No way to contact Mila. There was no built-in phone in the van but there was a GPS. I wouldn’t have the weapons; I wouldn’t be able to set a trap. I felt dizzy from the loss of blood from my scalp wound.
And I decided I wasn’t going in blind.
It was time to see if Mila had been telling me the truth.