Shadow of the Dragon Read online

  Zulfira put a finger to her lips and gave a stern shake of her head, unwilling to broach that subject, even now that the men were gone.

  “Why did she leave me?” Hala said, sniffing back the tears.

  “She did not share her reasons with me,” Zulfira said. “She simply went away—and she is never coming back.”

  “Never?”

  “I have told you all I know.”

  Zulfira breathed deeply, regaining her composure, then began clearing the table.

  Hala picked up her own bowl and the serving spoon for the rice pudding, studiously avoiding the utensils the men had used. “They are coming back tomorrow night . . .” She didn’t know whether to cry or scream. “What will we do?”

  Zulfira stopped halfway between the table and the sink, turning to face Hala, brandishing a fork to drive home her point. “You will become very, very small,” she said. “Invisible, like a mouse. And I . . . I will do whatever I must to keep you safe. Now,” she said, turning again toward the kitchen counter. She swayed for a moment, then grabbed at the table to steady herself.

  Hala went to help her. “Are you all right?”

  Zulfira gave a hollow cough, then heaved, like she might vomit. “I am fine,” she whispered. “Go to bed.”

  Hala reached to comfort her, the way her mother had done for her. “I can see to the dish—”

  “Go to bed!” Zulfira snapped. “I mean it. And do not speak of your mother again. The stupid woman will get us both killed . . . or worse.”

  15

  Medina Tohti was trained as an engineer, not a killer, but single-minded patience made her exceptional at both.

  In China, it was not enough to want to be somewhere. One had to show a need to be in a particular place at a particular time. What’s more, that need had to agree with the government’s assessment. Vacations to National Forest Parks were a necessity, important to demonstrate to the rest of the world—and most especially the West—that China was a worthy tourist destination, and its citizens were happy and content in their heavenly land.

  Fortunately for Medina Tohti, the government believed Ma Jianyu, the man behind the wheel, needed to be driving the dirty white Ministry of Culture and Tourism van toward Urumqi at this moment.

  Dusty headlights worked overtime to cut the inky darkness of the road ahead. Wild double-humped Bactrian camels, or the odd feral goat, sometimes wandered out into the road, causing Ma to swerve violently. A goat would damage the van and raise unwanted questions from the Bingtuan state security forces, but the van would have struck a camel in the legs, sending the big animal through the windshield. Even if Ma Jianyu and the two Uyghur passengers survived, they would have a difficult time explaining the secret compartment and weapons in the back of the van. So Medina and the young Uyghur man named Perhat gazed ahead into the hypnotic blackness as if their life depended on it.

  Ma, whom they called Mamut, spoke as he drove, teaching, but more like a religious leader than a college professor. Medina and Perhat listened intently, eyes forward, watching for camels and other signs of danger.

  They all saw it at once, the flashing lights of a Bingtuan police checkpoint about the time the faint glow of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Area, hove into view on the horizon.

  Ma whistled sharply, warning his two passengers. He needn’t have. Medina and Perhat were already sliding the boxes in the back of the van to one side, so they could lie down in the hollow area beneath the false floor, what they called “the can.”

  The government did not recognize Medina’s need to be anywhere. She was a fugitive in a part of the world where the Chinese Communist Party surveilled all its citizens. Throughout most of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing’s Social Credit System used a network of software crawlers, voice exemplars, security cameras, and facial-recognition programs to document the most mundane behaviors of daily life, from social media content, to shopping preferences, to how quickly one paid their bills, all in order to assign a numerical score. Much like a credit score in the West, something in the seven hundreds allowed a Chinese citizen to rent a car, book a hotel, or travel on a train, generally without leaving a deposit. The Social Credit System’s avowed goal was to allow honest Chinese citizens to travel freely around the world, but to keep dishonest people “from taking a single step” without being noticed.

  In Xinjiang, the frontier province in far-western China, the system was made even simpler—and more onerous. Instead of a numerical score, there were three classifications. Ethnic Han Chinese and a chosen few Uyghur and Hui peoples who had jumped into the government wagon were deemed Trustworthy. Uyghurs despised these minority turncoats, and often referred to them as watermelons—Muslim green on the outside but Communist Chinese red on the inside. Uyghur, Hui, Kazakhs, and other minorities were generally classified with a score of Average. Anyone in the Average category who had broken one of Beijing’s rules, or had a close relative who had broken one of the rules, was given the social classification of Untrustworthy, and, more often than not, carted off to be reeducated at one of the internment camps that dotted western China. The offenses were many: worshiping outside a mosque, teaching a child Uyghur history, burying a newborn’s umbilical cord, or simply having WhatsApp or Twitter or a long list of other evil applications installed on one’s mobile phone.

  Medina Tohti tried to stretch out as best she could in the cramped compartment. Pistol in hand, she slowed her breath as the van rolled toward the Bingtuan roadblock. If the XPCC militia soldiers decided to search the van, there was no doubt they would find the hiding spot. All three had agreed they would not be taken alive, vowing to take as many of these militia soldiers with them as they could before they were gunned down. Hopefully it would not come to that. Medina had cried too many tears and cursed too many curses to feel anything close to terror as the van came to a squealing stop. She’d hoped to see her daughter again one day, but had given up on even that. It was a liberating thing being numb to the idea of death—or life, for that matter.

  Outside, voices barked orders in Mandarin. The van rolled forward a few feet. Medina heard the metallic whine as Ma rolled his window down. He chatted easily with the policemen, exchanging quick stories about the isolation of government work in Xinjiang, but how he was the kind of guy who liked isolation. He asked the men if they had water and offered to give them some, since he would be in the city soon.

  Medina wished he wouldn’t wax so friendly at these stops. It took forever, and every second risked discovery.

  The smell of cloves from Perhat’s mouthwash drifted over with the sounds of his breathing. He was a good man. In his mid-twenties, two or three years Medina’s junior, with the pronounced nose of his Turkic ancestors and a heavy brow overhanging dark eyes. Medina knew Perhat had a bit of a crush on her. They’d spent at least two of the last six hours lying alongside each other in the cramped hiding spot with gravel pinging off the thin metal between their backsides and the pavement. The highway was rough, often sending Perhat bouncing into Medina or her bouncing into Perhat. Their proximity made him self-conscious, and he’d asked Mamut to purchase the mouthwash when he’d stopped to buy petrol just before they turned east on the 312 for the final leg of their journey.

  They rode in silence for ten minutes after the checkpoint, before another whistle from Mamut let them know it was safe to emerge.

  The skyscrapers and glowing minarets of Urumqi materialized from the blackness just before midnight, with a frigid wind from the Heavenly Mountains buffeting the van and chasing away what little warmth the previous spring day might have left behind. There were police checkpoints in Urumqi as well. Bingtuan forces were on constant guard against ESS—events deemed to endanger State Security. The police were so busy keeping an eye on the Uyghur population in their city of three and a half million people that, more often than not, officers manning the checkpoints simply waved Han drivers through w
ith an abrupt nod.

  Mamut took a ring road around the downtown, taking side streets to bypass the Uyghur market bazaar.

  Mamut nodded to the north, across the street from a tall hospital, as he worked his way between a river of honking scooters and green Volkswagen taxis.

  “My mother used to bring me here as a boy,” he said, his voice hushed, as if they were passing a holy place. “See those shoddy new concrete apartment buildings, the bright lights of the state-owned convenience stores?”

  Medina and Perhat stayed in the back of the van in case they needed to duck out of sight for a surprise checkpoint.

  “Less than five years ago,” Mamut continued, “this place used to be a wonderful labyrinth of backstreets and alleys containing Uyghur cafés and shops—a place where my mother’s people could shop and talk about the old times. Now the only Uyghur shops and cafés are for Han tourists.”

  “We’re getting close,” Perhat said, craning his neck so he could look out the windshield and better orient himself with the folded map on his knee. Mamut had a mobile phone, because he would be expected to have one for officers to check if asked. Neither Medina nor Perhat bothered. Mobile phones were far too easy to track, and there was no one for either of them to call anyway.

  “Two blocks.”

  Mamut brought the van to a stop in a small car park behind a large blue trash dumpster. A casual observer would think someone from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was visiting a friend in the adjacent apartment building. Surveillance cameras lined the crossbeams of every light post like roosting pigeons, downloading massive amounts of data to Bingtuan security servers. Medina and Perhat wore traditional Uyghur costumes in bright colors. Heavy makeup changed the apparent angles of Medina’s nose, cheekbones, and chin. Perhat kept a tebetei pulled low over his brow. The traditional Kyrgyz fur hat was flashy enough that it said he was not trying to slip under the radar, but covered enough of his face to allow him to do just that. Mamut wore a black ball cap, pulled low, but walked with the confidence of a Han man with nothing to hide, just far enough ahead of the other two that it was impossible to tell they were together.

  Half a block from where they’d parked the van, Mamut held up a hand, pausing to allow a knot of intoxicated men to move past them. Medina’s fingers closed around the butt of the suppressed pistol in her pocket. It felt cold and incredibly heavy as the men stumbled by. One in three people in western China worked for the Bingtuan security forces in one way or another. Drawing their ire could spell disaster, even when they were drunk and off-duty—perhaps especially then.

  Mamut began to preach again as they walked, causing Perhat to glance at Medina and give her an ever-so-slight eye roll under the shadow of his fox-fur hat in the glow of the streetlight.

  “At the sixtieth anniversary of the Bingtuan, a Party official spoke of the dangers to Xinjiang and said, ‘We must be ready to tightly clench our fists to combat the Three Evils—terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism.’ In no place are their fists clenched tighter than here in Urumqi, where this Bingtuan captain who calls himself Kenny Lo would take it upon himself to imprison a young father who did nothing but dare to teach his child to recite Uyghur folktales—and then pester that man’s wife while he was in prison until she felt compelled to take her own life. What these Bingtuan monsters do not realize is that a clenched fist is a slow fist. We will move with open hands, slapping and stabbing with lightning speed, causing far more damage than the dull and impotent blows of a tight fist.”

  Mamut led the way down a dark alley, between two apartment buildings. Barracks for Te Jing—literally special police, the black-uniformed Bingtuan force equivalent to what the West called SWAT—were less than a block away.

  A bitter wind kicked up a dusty whirlwind at the end of the alley, rattling the plastic bags overflowing from a long dumpster. Muffled snarls came from the shadows, a dog, guarding some prized piece of trash. The little group moved past quickly, showing they were no threat. As they passed the dumpster, the area behind the apartment buildings opened into a tree-covered courtyard. Spring hadn’t had time to green the lawns, but small amber lights on concrete posts formed to resemble ancient stone lanterns lit gravel walkways, bamboo gardens, and a brook that babbled over hauled-in rocks, courtesy of the pump that recirculated the captive water. It was all very bucolic at first glance, but the slightest bit of scrutiny revealed it was fake.

  Medina nodded toward the glowing window through a copse of wrist-thick bamboo across a painted footbridge at the center of the courtyard. Clay tile and dragon carvings on the building’s wooden beams made Medina feel as if she’d stepped back into a more ancient China, but the colored lights of a television flashing inside against the paper blinds brought her back to the mission at hand. Medina slid a hand in her pocket again, reassured by the weight of the pistol.

  A gaudy slurry of blaring music and studio gunfire spilled from under the wood-framed door.

  Special Police Captain Lo Han, who had given himself the Westernized name of Kenny—was said to be an avid fan of video games and action movies—Westerns, gangster flicks, space operas, it did not matter. The bloodier the action, the better.

  In that respect, Kenny Lo was about to get his wish.

  * * *

  —

  Medina Tohti grieved for her family every minute of the day. Her husband was dead. She would never see her daughter again. Loneliness and despair pressed so hard at the back of her throat that she could hardly breathe. Food ceased to have any taste.

  Her only solace came from watching Mamut. He knew the high cost of freedom, and was all too willing to pay it.

  A true believer, Ma “Mamut” Jianyu was the son of a Han father and Uyghur mother. He’d been an officer in the People’s Liberation Army Second Artillery, learning hand-to-hand combat, field tactics, strategy, and, most important, the tactical methods of the Chinese military and police.

  Ma taught doctrine as much as he attacked targets, ensuring his flock of nameless fighters were focused on the same righteous cause. Their fight was not, he said, a religious one. Religion was decided by the heart, not the gun. No, their struggle was for independence from the Chinese boot. Every action they took had to be done under the notion that they were agents of the legitimate free state of East Turkestan. The other “Stans” in Central Asia had gained their independence after the Soviet Union dissolved. It stood to reason that the Uyghur Autonomous Region should be afforded the same treatment by China.

  It made no sense to ask the tyrant for independence. One simply had to act independently. Wuming—the Nameless—were soldiers, agents of their legitimate state, fighting a war.

  Mamut ran his operations with the righteous indignation of an Israeli hit squad, the brutality of a Russian active measures unit, and the sophisticated finesse of a Hollywood assassin. Like drug lords in Mexico and South America, he employed falcons—young people who acted as his spies. Being the most heavily militarized area of the world came with a price. Youth, even nationalistic Chinese youth, were uncomfortable with the oppressive surveillance tactics of the Bingtuan. Everyone had something to hide.

  A few questions to the right bureaucrat’s disgruntled daughter revealed that officers from the special police detachment down the block often commandeered the apartment complex’s community center, chasing off the resident teenagers who liked to smoke weed and play video games in the wee hours of the morning. Captain Lo and two of his friends had just returned from a three-day trip to Karamay with a truckload of Uyghur separatists who would be put to work in the oil fields as part of their reeducation curriculum. It made sense that these road-weary Bingtuan officers would come here to blow off a little steam.

  With his pistol in his left hand, Perhat checked the door with his right. It was unlocked, so he pushed it open a crack.

  The knob was on the left and Mamut stood on that side of the frame, ready to slip in the momen
t his Uyghur friend pushed it open on his signal. Medina stood behind Perhat, her pistol out of her pocket now, clutched in both hands, pointed at the ground between her boots. It was her job to protect their rear until they made entry, at which point she would be third in, behind Perhat.

  More shooting punctuated the loud music of a movie soundtrack.

  Perhat reached behind him and tapped Medina on the elbow, signifying they were about to make entry. The door yawned open a hair, allowing the small team a quick glance to orient themselves.

  Captain Lo and his two companions sat sideways, at a slight angle to the door. All wore their black battle-dress uniform pants. All were shirtless. The one in the center stretched out on a sofa with his feet toward the flat-screen television mounted on the far wall. He nursed a bottle of beer while the man to his left brandished a combat knife at the screen. All three men shouted their support to Wu Jing, the muscular actor in the skintight white T-shirt playing Leng Feng as he battled the heartless American mercenaries. “Blood for blood!” An action hero of the highest order, Wolf Warrior rescued the downtrodden and saved weak African nations from exploitation by a morally corrupt United States.

  “Blood for blood!” the policeman shouted again, banging the hilt of a combat knife against the couch. Ironically, the knife was an American design, likely manufactured in China.

  Medina did a quick check behind her to make sure they were clear, and then tapped Mamut on the thigh, signaling that she was ready.

  Had this been a Hollywood movie, the ominous music would have begun. There was no announcement, no witty repartee or challenge to the bad guy, before he met his fate.

  Only rehearsed, machinelike precision.

  Mamut took the lead through the doorway, shooting the farthest soldier in the back of the head. Suppressed pistols spat in quick succession as Perhat followed a meter behind, shooting the nearest man. Captain Lo caught a reflection in the television screen and half turned at the same instant both men put bullets into the back of his head. Medina followed up, twisting at the waist just as Mamut had shown her as she moved down the line, putting another bullet in the back of each head.