33
JIANG XIANTO, THE TRUCK DRIVER, CREPT OUT OF his apartment complex at half past seven the next morning. A bandage was plastered across his forehead, and he walked with rigid strides to try to minimize the spasms that shot through his skull with each step. Had he been less preoccupied, he might have seen his assailant from the Red Boar, seated in a Chinese-built Toyota parked across the street, reading a People’s Daily.
Zhou smiled to himself as he watched Jiang hobble down the street. He had felt no joy in flooring Yao the night before, but he felt no empathy toward Jiang. He had recognized Jiang’s type instantly, a hotheaded loser who tormented weaker men to make himself feel better.
The black market truck driver walked down the street to a crowded bus stop. True to form, Jiang bullied his way to the front of the line, then took one of the few remaining seats when the bus arrived. Zhou started his car and pulled into traffic, keeping the bus a few car lengths ahead.
By the time the bus stopped in front of a dilapidated apartment building at the southern edge of town, most of the passengers had departed. Zhou wheeled his car around a corner, parked behind a street vendor, and watched Jiang step off the bus. Pulling a brimmed hat low over his eyes, Zhou locked his car and followed on foot.
Jiang walked a little way down a side street, then turned into a trash-strewn alley. A morning breeze chilled the air, and Jiang zipped up his jacket as he reached a large fenced lot topped with rusty barbed wire. He stepped through a slit in the fence and walked past stacks of empty pallets that towered over the dusty lot. At the rear of the property, beneath a corrugated tin awning, stood five large canvas-covered trucks and a battered pickup. Several rough-looking men stood around the trucks, drinking hot tea from paper cups.
Jiang,” one of the men said, “did your wife brush your hair with a wok this morning?”
I’ll brush yours with a tire iron,” Jiang said. “Where’s Xao?”
A tall man wearing a black peacoat stepped from between two of the trucks. “Jiang, there you are. Late again, I see. Keep this up and you’ll be back digging ditches.” He turned to the other men. “Okay, everyone, we’re ready to move.”
The men gathered around him as he pulled a folded paper from his pocket.
We’ll be dropping the load at Dock 27,” Xao said. “I’ll take the lead truck, so follow me, as we’ll be entering through an auxiliary gate. We’re expected to arrive at eight o’clock, so let’s not have any delays.”
Where will we stop for fuel?” asked a man with a threadbare wool cap.
The usual truck stop in Changping.” Xao looked about for other questions, then nodded toward the trucks. “Okay, let’s get moving.”
Xao, Jiang, and three other men drifted to the large trucks, and the remaining men piled into the pickup. Jiang’s truck was at the end of the line. He climbed in and started the engine, which kicked to life with a cloud of black smoke. Adjusting the heater, he waited for the other trucks to exit the lot ahead of him. When the truck next to him pulled ahead, he shifted into gear and lurched forward, catching sight of a dark blur in the side-view mirror.
The trucks drove through an open gate attended by a burly bald man who carried a Russian Makarov pistol under his coat. When Jiang got to the gate, he mashed on the truck’s brakes. “Check the back!” he said, reaching out the window and slapping the side door to catch the guard’s attention.
The guard nodded and stepped to the rear of the truck. As he peered over the tailgate, he was greeted by Zhou’s boot slamming into his jaw. The blow sent him sprawling, yet he yanked out the Makarov even as he fell. He raised the pistol and aimed it toward the truck, but Zhou was already on him. The agent kicked the pistol aside, then dove forward and thrust his elbow into the guard’s jaw. The bone-on-bone collision emitted a muted crack, and the guard fell limp.
Zhou popped to his feet and spun around. Jiang was already there, lunging at him with a knife he carried on his belt. Zhou saw the glint as the blade thrust toward his chest. He tried twisting away, but the tip caught his sleeve, and he felt it slice across his right bicep.
He ignored the cut and hurled a left cross into Jiang’s temple. Jiang let out a curse, realizing he was battling the man who had crushed his head the night before.
Zhou gave him no time to contemplate that. The Makarov was too far away to retrieve, so he did the unexpected and pressed the attack. He followed his punch with a roundhouse kick that struck Jiang in the thigh. It was designed less to punish than to incite a response, and it succeeded. Jiang pulled back the knife and recklessly thrust toward his opponent’s stomach.
Zhou was ready. He threw his left hand on Jiang’s wrist, easily shoving the parry aside. Using Jiang’s momentum, he pulled and twisted the knife-wielding wrist, propelling Jiang forward. Zhou continued the spinning motion, driving his opposite shoulder against Jiang’s arm with his full weight.
Jiang’s arm felt like it was being yanked from its socket, and he stumbled forward in agony. The knife dropped free, and he fell to the ground. In the blink of an eye, the knife was in Zhou’s hand, driving toward Jiang’s head. Zhou wanted to kill the man, and could have done so easily, but he resisted the impulse. Jiang would suffer more by rotting in a jail cell. He reversed the blade, striking Jiang below the ear with the butt of the knife. Jiang’s world turned black as the blow to his carotid artery cut the flow of blood to his brain. Zhou stood over him, catching his breath. A phone call to the People’s Armed Police would ensure the bully an unpleasant welcome when he awoke. But first Zhou had to catch the caravan.
The trucks had disappeared down the street. Zhou found the Makarov and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he flipped Jiang on his stomach and stripped off his jacket. With the man’s knife, he sliced off a strip of Jiang’s shirt for a bandage. Zhou’s right arm was wet and sticky, but the bleeding had already stopped. He’d have to mend himself on the fly.
Zhou jumped into the truck and gunned the motor, spraying the two prone men with a blanket of dust as he rumbled out of the lot toward Bayan Obo’s main highway. The mine was north of town, so he turned that direction and mashed the accelerator.
Cutting through traffic and passing wildly, he raised a symphony of honking horns and angry shouts. The traffic lessened as he neared the city’s northern limits, and the road began climbing through dry scrub hills. Cresting a ridge, he spotted the caravan a mile ahead, and he soon closed ranks with the last truck.
With Zhou tailing the crowded pickup, the line of cargo trucks drove past the main entrance to the Bayan Obo Mine, then turned onto a rutted dirt road two miles beyond that. Circling back to the south, they crossed a downed section of fence and entered the mine site. A pair of massive open pits appeared ahead. The trucks skirted them and approached the main operational area. The pickup veered away, leading the cargo trucks to a fire-damaged warehouse that looked abandoned. They pulled to a stop in back of the building, where a massive mound of crushed ore was piled high.
The theft operation was simple. On certain night shifts, every third dump truck transporting crushed ore to the extraction plant would get lost along the way and dump its load behind the old warehouse. All it took was a few large bribes to select drivers and administrators, who adjusted the mine’s production records, and the ore was there for the taking. Every few days, the truck convoy would haul it away to market.
The men from the pickup opened a back door to the warehouse, where a portable conveyor was stored. They rolled it to the mound of ore and connected a portable generator. Zhou watched as the lead cargo truck backed up until the end of the conveyor poked over the truck bed. The work crew began shoveling the ore onto the belt, which carried it into the truck. It took less than fifteen minutes to fill the bed, then the next vehicle backed in.
Zhou wiped his arm and rewrapped the makeshift bandage around the knife wound. Feeling light-headed from the loss of blood, he replenished himself with some rice balls he found in a paper sack on the seat. He swapped jackets with the one he’d taken from Jiang and raised the collar. Breathing heavily onto his side window, he fogged up the glass so the others couldn’t see him while he waited his turn.
When the fourth truck pulled clear, Xao waved him over and guided him to the conveyor. Zhou kept his hands high on the steering wheel to obscure his face as Xao walked in front of the hood and waved him backward.
The ore spilled into the truck bed with the roar of an avalanche. The minutes trickled by as Zhou held his breath, fearful someone would try to speak with him. Finally, the rumbling ceased, and the conveyor fell silent. Zhou looked in the side-view mirror and saw the crew drag the conveyor back to the warehouse. Xao rapped his knuckles on the fender, then continued to his own vehicle. The convoy leader climbed into the first truck, stuck his arm out the window, and pointed ahead. The rest of the trucks started their engines and followed Xao.
The heavily loaded trucks moved slowly down the rough road until they reached the main highway, then they rolled south through the dusty town that was built by the mining operation. Leaving behind that small bastion of civilization, they drove across the same barren steppes of Inner Mongolia that Genghis Khan had conquered eight centuries earlier. Zhou figured they would off-load their cargo at the nearest railroad depot. When they reached the populous city of Baotou several hours later and turned east, he knew otherwise.
The convoy rolled onto the busy Jingzhang Expressway, which ran to Beijing. Outside of the capital city, they paused at a truck stop in the suburb of Changping as dusk was settling. A light wind had picked up, blowing swirls of sand from the Gobi Desert. Zhou wrapped his face with a scarf he found in Jiang’s coat pocket and stretched his legs away from the others while the trucks were refueled.
The trucks moved off slowly, fighting their way through the thickening city traffic. They looped around the west side of Beijing to avoid the worst of the congestion and continued southeast. It took the better part of two hours before they reached the port city of Tianjin. Xao led the trucks through a maze of streets to the center of the large commercial docks.
They reached an old dockside warehouse and pulled down a side alley. Two men appeared from the shadows and accepted a sack filled with yuan that Xao passed out the window. A gate opened at the end of the alley, and the trucks rumbled through, entering a cavernous warehouse that opened to a dock on the far side. The trucks drove through the building and stopped beside a moderate-sized freighter whose lights illuminated the pier.
A large conveyor system stretched from the dock to an open hold on the ship, and Xao backed his truck to the end of it. A work crew appeared with shovels and began emptying the truck’s load of ore. As Zhou watched from the end of the line, he realized he’d seen all he needed. He slipped out the passenger door and crept toward the back of the truck.
A deck officer from the freighter, who was standing on the dock checking the ship’s lines, glanced over at Zhou. Playing the part of a tired driver, Zhou stretched his arms and yawned as he stepped toward the officer.
Good evening,” he said with a slight bow. “A fine ship you have here.”
The Graz is old and tired, but she still plows through the sea like a hefty ox.”
Where are you headed?”
We do a cargo swap in Shanghai, then we’re off to Singapore.”
He looked at Zhou closely under the lights, noticing a damp streak of red on the sleeve of his jacket.
Are you okay?”
Zhou glanced at the blood and grinned.
It’s transmission fluid. I spilled it, adding some to the truck.”
Zhou saw Xao’s truck was finished unloading and the next truck in line was moving to take its place. He nodded at the officer and smiled. “Have a safe voyage,” he said, turning his back on the loading operations and walking away.
The officer looked at him oddly. “What about your truck?”
Zhou ignored the query, sauntering away from the dock until he vanished into the night.