Wall of Night

by Grant Blackwood

  Tanner slithered out the door, doing his best to stay behind the tire. He felt the glare of the truck’s headlights on his face. He let himself slide down the embankment and into the taller grass at the bottom.

  “My truck has stalled,” Tun-San called in Mandarin. “Sorry.”

  “Stay there. Make no sudden movements,” the amplified voice ordered.

  In the glare of the headlights Tanner saw a pair of shadows moving toward Tun-San’s truck. Working by feel, he opened his pack and pulled out the revolver. He opened the cylinder: four rounds. It wouldn’t be enough against soldiers armed with AK-47s, he knew, but he’d already made up his mind: At the first sign they were going to take Tun-San, he would intervene.

  Shoot the first two, grab one of their AKs, then pray you get the drop on the others …

  The soldiers walked up, one on each side of the truck, and began questioning Tun-San. He played the lost farmer well, showing the perfect mix of fear and respect. After searching the truck, they accepted a crate of eggs, then helped him get the truck turned around and started again.

  With a wave out the door, Tun-San chugged back down the road and disappeared.

  Tanner lay perfectly still for ninety minutes, listening to the soldiers talking and laughing.

  There were four of them. Though he was only able to catch snippets of their conversation, the primary topic of discussion seemed to involve him—“the American agent”—and what they would do to him if they caught him. Though Briggs knew it was nothing more than soldierly bravado, it set his heart pounding nonetheless. He was well and truly alone.

  Every half hour he heard the squelch of a radio and a brief exchange: “Post four, all clear …”

  Tanner listened closely, committing the words to memory.

  A light rain began to fall, pattering the grass around him. In the distance he heard the rumble of thunder. Up the road, the soldiers hurried for the truck’s bed; three got in the back while one remained outside. He sat on the front bumper and smoked, rain poncho hiked over his head.

  Tanner began creeping forward.

  The cover of rain sped his progress, but it still took him forty minutes to cover the one hundred yards to the truck. As he drew even with it, he heard the squelch of the radio: “Post four …”

  The soldier on the bumper raised his radio. “Post four, all clear.”

  “Very well.”

  Moving inches at a time, Tanner began dragging himself up the slope until his outstretched fingers felt dirt The soldier was five feet away now, with his arms resting on his knees and the AK leaning against the bumper.

  Nice and easy, Briggs. Don’t rush it …

  If the soldier sounded the alarm, he’d have a firefight on his hands.

  Tanner stood up, stepped forward, and knelt beside the soldier. “Ni hao,” he whispered.

  The soldier snapped his head around. Tanner stuck the barrel of the revolver in his face. The man’s eyes bulged. “No sound. One noise and you’re dead. Dong?” Understand?

  The soldier nodded. “Dong.”

  Tanner gestured for him to lower himself to the ground, which he did. Tanner pointed at his hood: off. With trembling hands, the soldier complied. “Hand me your rifle,” Tanner whispered.

  As the soldier turned to reach for it, Briggs reversed the revolver in his hand and smacked the butt behind the soldier’s ear. Tanner caught him as he fell, then laid him flat and took his radio.

  From the truck: “Okay out there?”

  “Hao, hao,” Tanner replied. Yeah, yeah. Disgruntled solder in the rain.

  Briggs picked up the AK and crouched down to wait. Nothing moved. After five minutes he heard snoring coming from the truck.

  The radio squelched: “Post four, report.”

  He paused to rehearse his lines, then keyed the radio: “Post four, all clear.”

  “Very well.”

  Tanner quickly disarmed the remaining three soldiers—Flying Dragon paratroopers, he saw—then had them climb out and march to the front of the truck. Seeing their comrade laying in the dirt, the team leader, a sergeant, knelt beside him. He glared up at Tanner.

  Briggs shook his head. “He’s alive. Ni xing shem ma?”

  “My name is Hjiu,” he replied in English. “I know who you are.”

  “Good for you,” Tanner said. “Open my pack, Sergeant. Inside you’ll find some duct tape.”

  Carrying their still-unconscious comrade between them, Tanner marched them into a field beside the road, where he had them lie down on their sides next to one another. He ordered Hjiu to bind the other’s hands, feet, and mouths and then, satisfied with the job, did the same to Hjiu. Finally he taped them together, back to back, wrists to feet, until they were all immobilized.

  Once done, he knelt down beside Sergeant Hjiu. “Sorry about the rain.”

  Hjiu mouthed something behind the tape; Tanner peeled it away. “Yes?”

  “You will kill us now?”

  “What for?”

  “They told us you would.”

  Briggs shrugged. “They lied.”

  Back at the truck, Tanner gathered the AKs together, removed the magazines, then tossed the rifles into the back. He climbed into the cab, started the engine, then did a Y-turn on the road and headed north.

  Ten miles to go.

  66

  Laogi 179

  Tanner decided that if there were any silver lining to the nightmare he’d gone through over the past three days, it was that his perspective had undergone a metamorphosis. He now realized that conscious effort aside, he hadn’t been able to completely silence the cold voice of pessimism in his head, and that part of him had expected to get caught long before now.

  In retrospect, all of it seemed surreal: his hurried flight from Beijing; his battle with the PSB man at the swamp; his torturous overnight run to Xinqiu; his leap from the train north of Changchun and subsequent race to the river; and finally his collapse near Tun-San’s farm.

  And yet, the voice was still nagging him: Yes, he’d beaten not only the odds but also his pursuers; and yes, he was just miles from his destination. But what had he actually accomplished? He’d managed to reach the most heavily guarded prison camp in all of China. Now what?

  After leaving the soldiers under the tree, he drove northwest through the rain to the outskirts of Beiyinhe, where he turned east and followed the road as it wound along a series of ravines—marking several on his map as he went—until he was west of the camp.

  Without fail, every half hour the radio crackled to life and each time he gave his “all clear” report and got a “very well” in reply. Though he knew sooner or later the next guard rotation would arrive to discover their comrades, and his ploy would be over, he was determined to squeeze from it every hour and every mile he could.

  At last the road led him down into a wooded valley. Bordered by a cliff on one side and a fast-flowing river on the other, the shoulders narrowed until the trees were scraping the doors.

  He drove until he found a still part of the river wide enough and deep enough for his needs, then turned the wheel and eased the truck forward until the tires teetered at the edge of the road. He shut off the engine, shifted into neutral, and set the parking brake. Once he’d cleared the cab of his belongings, he reached in and released the brake.

  Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, the truck rolled down the embankment and into the water. He watched as it sunk hood-first beneath the surface and disappeared from sight.

  Another mystery for Xiang to solve. If Tanner were lucky, once they failed to find the truck in the immediate area, they would expand the search, wasting more time and resources. Better yet, Xiang might begin to question whether he had remained in the area at all.

  For what felt like the hundredth time, he hefted the pack over his shoulder and started jogging.

  Four miles from the camp he came to a switchback in the road. From habit he stopped short,
dropped onto his belly, and peeked around the bend. A hundred yards away an army truck straddled the road. Like the first one, this roadblock was also manned by four soldiers. Here, however, all four stood outside, ponchos drawn over their heads and rifles held at the ready.

  He backed around the bend, wriggled across the road, and down the embankment to the river’s edge, where he carefully cut free half a dozen branches. With them spread across his body, he slipped into the water, gasping as the coldness enveloped him, and pushed himself off the bank.

  Within seconds the current caught him and began drawing him downstream.

  Three miles beyond the roadblock the river forked. On impulse, he crawled out and onto the island between them. He was only a mile from the camp, and his subconscious was talking to him.

  This was too easy. Knowing the camp was his ultimate destination, surely Xiang would have taken better measures than roadblocks. Did the Guoanbu director imagine he would bump into one of them and surrender? There had to be more: Roving patrols, hidden observation posts—something.

  He checked his watch: one a.m. Dawn was five hours away. If Hsiao had managed to make the necessary changes, his duty shift began at six a.m. Tanner needed to be in position before that.

  The rain continued to fall, churning the river’s surface and dripping off the leaves. The air had grown noticeably cooler, and he could see faint tendrils of vapor escaping his mouth with each breath.

  He looked downriver, scanning the banks and trees. They were out there. But where?

  After scouting nearby to make sure he wasn’t sitting on top of an OP—observation post—he opened his pack and pulled out the woolen blanket he’d taken from the truck’s cab. It was old, threadbare in some spots, and standard-issue olive drab—it was perfect. He spent ten minutes dirtying it with mud, dirt, and ground leaves, then took his knife and went to work.

  He cut away a rough oval big enough to cover his mouth and nose; it would not only break up his features, but the wool would also filter the moisture from his breath, reducing any telltale exhalation. He then slit the edges of the blanket at random intervals to also break up its form.

  What he’d just made was a homemade ghillie cape like the kind used by snipers. Worn as a coat or a cape, a well-designed ghillie is all but indistinguishable from its surroundings. Particularly at night, the human is drawn to shine, movement, and shape. Though not perfect, if he used the ghillie correctly it would render him just another piece of the landscape.

  Once satisfied with his work, he draped the blanket over his shoulders, tucked its edges under his pack straps, and slipped back into the water.

  In the end, patience saved him.

  He spent the next four hours picking his way along the forest floor and the river’s banks, at times covering only a few feet at a time before stopping to watch and listen.

  Less than a half mile from his starting point, he came across the first OP. Manned by two paratroopers laying perfectly still inside a clump of ferns, it was so well concealed that Briggs had crawled to within thirty feet of it before spotting a faint glint of moonlight on blued metal. Gun barrel.

  Inch by inch, he eased himself back down the slope until he was out of sight, then turned and started crawling again, circling wide around the OP before returning to his course along the river.

  Three more times he encountered similar posts and three more times he repeated the painstaking process of bypassing each until finally, at five-thirty, he saw a glimmer of yellow light through the trees to his right. After another fifty yards of crawling, he came to the edge of a tree line.

  And suddenly, twenty feet in front of him, it was there.

  As Hsiao had described it, Laogi 179 was nestled at the narrowest end of a wooded valley about a quarter mile across. The camp itself was a rectangle with twelve-foot high razor fencing and guard towers at each corner. The main gate lay on the south side and provided access to the only road leading to and from the camp.

  The inner compound was made up of four long, wooden barracks, three for guards and support staff, and a fourth, which he guessed contained the prisoner’s cells. Set apart from the barracks at the opposite end of the camp were four barnlike storage buildings and a wooden water tower. Beside these was a concrete landing pad big enough for two helicopters and a small hangar.

  A Hind-D sat on the pad with its rotors tethered to the securing rings.

  Xiang was here. What did that say? Either he knew how valuable Soong was, or he was taking this hunt personally—or both. Did he simply want to be there when Tanner was caught, or was he here to make sure nothing went wrong?

  Another curiosity Tanner had been wrestling with was why Xiang hadn’t simply moved Soong. Perhaps Xiang’s pride and vanity were calling the shots. The Guoanbu director wasn’t going to let anyone dictate his decisions, let alone the man who’d beaten him before. Moving Soong would have been tantamount to admitting defeat.

  Good for him, Briggs thought. While Xiang was fighting his personal battle, Briggs was going to slip in, steal Soong, then slip out again.

  Now all he had to do was come up with a plan to make it happen.

  In the half hour before Hsiao’s shift started, Tanner lay in the undergrowth watching the camp come alive as the first trickle of dawn light seeped through the forest.

  He studied the guards, how and where they moved, their routes and checkpoints. They were very good, he immediately realized—thorough and observant. If he stayed around long enough he would eventually find a weakness in their security, but that would take time he didn’t have.

  The trick would be not only getting in, but reaching Soong and then escaping without raising the alarm. If even one shot were fired, he’d be finished. Well-trained as they were, the guards would undoubtedly respond smoothly and quickly to any emergency.

  At five minutes to six, a group of twelve or so guards emerged from one of the barracks and walked into the compound. One by one Tanner scanned faces through the binoculars until he spotted Hsiao. Several of the guards broke off and headed for a line of outhouses beside the storage buildings.

  Latrines, Briggs thought with a smile. Latrines and a water tower. No plumbing.

  The seed of an idea planted itself in his brain.

  At the beginning of each guard shift, Hsiao had explained back in Beijing, a “fence check” was performed by each shift’s two junior members, which in this case meant Hsiao.

  As advertised, Hsiao and another guard walked out the main gate, then separated and began slowly walking along the fence, inspecting it for gaps, weak points, and signs of tampering. As he drew even with Tanner’s position, Briggs whispered, “Ni hao.” Good morning.

  Hsiao stopped in his tracks, but kept his cool and didn’t turn around. He knelt beside the fence as though checking it “Ni hao,” he whispered back.

  “How are you?”

  “Awful.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “And you?”

  “The same. What did you find out about Bian?”

  “He was arrested; aside from that, I was unable to find out anything.”

  No, no, no … “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. Now, more than ever, we must free the general. We owe that to Bian, at least.”

  “No second thoughts?”

  “No, but I’ve decided I want to come with you.”

  Tanner smiled to himself. “I thought you might. I’m glad to have you. Is Xiang here?”

  “Yes, last night, with about two dozen paratroopers.”

  “I assume that’s his Hind on the pad; what about in the hangar?”

  “The camp’s Hoplite is kept in there.”

  Tanner knew the Hoplite; it was boxy and slow, but durable. “Did Xiang bring dogs?”

  “No, no dogs. Two things you should know: there’s a rumor that Soong’s daughter is here.”

  She’s here … my God. Lian is here. “He brought her here? Why?”

 
; “I don’t know.”

  The only advantage her presence might give Xiang was blackmail. Soong wouldn’t leave without her and Xiang knew it. By dangling her in front of Soong, perhaps Xiang was sending a message: I’ve got my hands on her throat, leave and she dies.

  The son-of-a-bitch … Tanner shook it off. Don’t let it throw you off. Get out of your head and focus on the job. “What else?” he asked.

  “They found a group of soldiers from one of the roadblocks. I assume that was you?”

  “Yes. Are they looking for the truck?”

  Hsiao nodded. “I was in the control center when word arrived about the roadblock. Xiang and the paratrooper lieutenant—Shen, I think—were arguing over what it meant. Xiang thinks you’re still in the area; Shen thinks you’re running. They haven’t decided what to do yet.”

  Confusion and uncertainty—good. Maybe he could get some more use out of that.

  “You better keep walking,” Briggs said. “Stop on the way back.”

  Twenty minutes later Hsiao again stopped beside tanner, this time pretending to fix something with his boot. “How are you going to do this, Briggs? I might be able to cut the fence—”

  “No. I might have an idea. Tell me everything you know about your sewage system.”

  “Huh? Our sewage system?”

  “That’s right.”

  Hsiao gave him the information. Tanner asked a few questions, then mentally dissected the plan for weaknesses, of which there were plenty, but he dismissed them and decided that, given a bit of luck and good timing, the plan could work.

  It was all about odds, he knew. As with anything, there were no absolutes. What were the odds a guard would follow the exact same route every time? Even with the odds heavily in your favor, the guard, being human, might change his mind at the last minute, or get different orders, or find his way blocked … The variables were endless.