Marc Cameron
Brute Force
Dedication
For Al,
whose stories are some
of my earliest memories
Epigraph
Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.
Prologue
The cloying odor of too much makeup and not enough soap rose from the two ragged prostitutes outside the fence, assaulting the first peach-blossom breezes of spring. Two rows of chain link, the inner one alive with high-voltage current, did nothing to stop the smell from drifting into the guard shack just inside the fortified gate. A plywood sign hung from the wrought-iron arch across the narrow road, reading MUDAN ENGINEERING in large block letters with the Mudan logo, a blood-red peony blossom, painted ornately on either side.
Liang, the younger of the two guards working the shack, had heard the whispered brags from the soldiers stationed inside the warehouse, out of sight of the general public. The soldiers were young — Liang’s age — and enjoyed boasting about the importance and secrecy of their mission. Mudan’s official stance was that they manufactured crescent wrenches of beryllium alloy. But soldiers didn’t guard wrenches, no matter what they were made of. Soldiers guarded weapons.
Young Liang knew little about tools and nothing of women, least of all prostitutes who worked for no more than food and smelled like overripe lychee fruit. A head taller than his partner, Liang was bony and gaunt with thick, round glasses and a shaggy head that seemed much too large for his spindly body. The green guard uniform made him look like a praying mantis with a pistol.
A bright pool of light from the halogen bulbs atop the electrified fence chased the night back to the peach orchards across the narrow two-lane road. Fluttering moths circled in the glow above the women like flies drawn to their stench. It seemed that the prostitutes had materialized out of the darkness — a fact that only added to the uneasiness in Liang’s gut.
Inside the shack, Po, the older guard, raised a wild eyebrow when he heard the girls’ plaintive cries. Breathing deeply, he stood when he saw the girls, slicking back what was left of his thinning black hair and giving a gold-toothed grin. The prostitutes, noting his interest, pressed their faces against the outer fence, pushing painted lips through the links like feeding carp. Po was thirty years Liang’s senior. To hear him talk, he had a depth of experience with prostitutes.
“Let us in,” the girls keened, sounding like hatchlings demanding to be fed. “The night has a chill to it. We could keep you warm.”
“This has to be a test,” Liang whispered, his youthful voice tightly wound. His eyes flicked back and forth behind thick glasses, adding to his buglike appearance as he searched for any sign of the People’s Liberation Army colonel who he was certain had come to conduct a surprise inspection.
“It is no test,” Po chided. The proximity of willing women turned his voice into a hoarse whisper. He rifled through his paper lunch sack, looking for something to trade the women. He held up two boiled eggs and a glass jar of noodle soup, his eyelids drooping, heavy with lust. “This should be enough,” he said. “I know that one there with the ragged cloak.
“She is talented, that one. She has a scar in the shape of a lotus blossom on her buttock. You can take her if you want to take a look at it.”
“She’s old enough to be my mother.” Liang felt like he might throw up. “I do not care to see such a thing.”
“Suit yourself.” Po shrugged, pressing the button to open the gate. “You take the other one then. It makes no difference to me.” He elbowed his young protégé in the ribs and gave him a wink. “They said they are cold. Maybe we can just trade the eggs and keep the soup.” The older guard sauntered through the gap and began to talk terms.
A series of hollow woofs punctuated the squeak of gears and clanking chain as the electrified gate rumbled open. Liang watched in dismay as the two prostitutes pitched headlong against the outer fence, faces slack as they slid to the ground in lifeless heaps. He sprang for the red button that would close the gate as a barrage of suppressed gunfire cut down Po. A half breath later and the young guard felt the slap of bullets as they tore into his belly.
Liang was surprised that he felt no pain. He swayed in place, hand not quite on the red button, before slumping to the concrete floor. A dozen men, all dressed in black from head to toe, ran from the darkness of the peach orchard and filed in through the gate. Meticulous in their movements, two peeled off to form a rear guard beside the shack. Another reached in for the ring of keys on the wall inside the door. This one looked down at a gasping Liang with detached eyes. He had the face of a professional, someone who was accustomed to killing prostitutes and gate guards. Shot in the spine, Liang was no longer a threat — not worth the bullet it would take to put him out of his misery.
The young guard watched helplessly as the dark men moved to the main door of the warehouse. They formed two lines, weapons ready, while one of them used the stolen keys to turn the lock on the door. Absent a warning call from the gate guards, the soldiers inside would have no idea what was about to happen. Liang heard more muffled shots as the attackers flowed into the warehouse like an unstoppable force, methodically killing the soldiers inside.
He was suddenly thirstier than he’d ever been in his life. His vision narrowed with each labored breath, like someone drawing a set of curtains. Soon, he could no longer see the warehouse, or the dark men when they trotted past him on their way out of the compound. He could not see what they carried with them. It didn’t matter. Liang had heard the stories. There was only one thing of worth in the warehouse.
These men had come for the Black Dragon.
The Uyghur stood with his back to the rough, unpainted stone. Youthful eyes locked on a shadow as it crept up the chipped concrete, fifteen feet across the crowded cell. Beads of sweat ran down his face, cutting trails through the grit and grime of captivity. Fifty-six other men squatted and slumped at his feet in a sea of hacking coughs and desperate groans on the filthy stone floor, all of them crammed into the fifteen-by-thirty-foot cell. The place was meant to house no more than a dozen prisoners, so the space along the wall was prime real estate, worth fighting for. The Uyghur did not have to watch his back when he stood at the wall — which made it a tiny bit easier to stay alive.
His name was Yaqub Feng, after his mother’s brother who had died as a martyr fighting the Chinese devils for a free East Turkestan. His brother, Ehmet, stood to his right along the same wall. At twenty-four, he was three years Yaqub’s junior. Shorter by six inches and more finely boned, Ehmet had the physical aspects of their father, a Hui Chinese Muslim. Though Yaqub had inherited their uncle’s name, Ehmet possessed a double share of the warrior’s fierceness as well as his indifference toward death.
Their cousin Mamoud, who’d been held with them by the American infidels at Guantanamo Bay, had died just hours after arriving in Pakistan. Cuba had been hot, but temperatures in the Punjab were unbearable, loitering over a hundred degrees, often throughout the night, cooking the minds and bodies of the men inside the prison degree by agonizing degree.