People's Republic

  They’d chosen to exit as two police officers stood in the lobby. Ingrid put one hand on the gun in her handbag and Ning’s heart quickened, but they passed unrecognised into the electrically cooled seats of a chauffeur-driven Lexus.

  There was a storm as they drove out of Dalian. Ning watched the street light reflected in raindrops pelting the windows. Half an hour later they were in darkness, doing a hundred and fifty KPH on a steeply banked highway. The luxurious car handled speed well, but Ning worried that it might attract the attention of the police.

  A convoy of green military trucks passed by and moments later the driver turned off the highway on to an unlit gravel road. After a few kilometres a plane swept overhead, seconds from landing. Ning and Ingrid ducked instinctively as its wingtip lights turned the surrounding scrubland red.

  Minutes later they reached a barrier manned by two guards in People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) uniform. After a respectful wave and a wait for an electronic gate, they were blasting over smooth tarmac with yellow runway markings sweeping beneath the car.

  At the end of the runway stood the turbo prop cargo plane that had swept overhead minutes earlier. It was being unloaded by a crew of more than a dozen men. Some were civilian and some wore PLAAF uniforms, but they all had faces covered by balaclavas or scarves.

  The men dashed over wet tarmac, between the plane’s rear cargo door and a huge truck, carrying sacks marked with the Chinese symbol for rice flour. Ning saw no reason to smuggle rice flour into a military airbase and guessed it was drugs.

  Their driver spoke briefly with a titchy PLAAF officer who was running the show, then told Ning and Ingrid to get out.

  From close up the plane felt like a wild beast, with its pulsing propellers making Ning’s hair and trousers vibrate. The plane was painted dark grey, with PLAAF markings, but all the safety warnings around the fuel hoses and cargo doors were in Russian, and the two pilots up in the cockpit weren’t Chinese. It was in horrible condition, with crudely repaired bullet holes across the fuselage and tyres worn down to their steel reinforcement bands.

  The little boss shook his head as Ingrid offered four of the sealed twenty-five-thousand-dollar packets.

  ‘Half for me,’ he shouted as he took two packets. ‘Give the rest to the pilot.’

  The propeller noise was painful as Ning straddled a refuelling hose, then climbed steps next to the wing and stepped inside the fuselage. She saw six flip-out plastic seats and the backs of two pilots through the cockpit door.

  Down towards the tail was a stamped aluminium floor, fitted with rails for cargo containers. The last few sacks were being unloaded as another truck backed in. Its cargo had been pre-loaded on to pallets and the team of workers dragged the first of them towards the rear cargo ramp as Ingrid leaned into the cockpit.

  Ning was a step behind and didn’t like what she saw. The cockpit smelled of fuel and cigar smoke. Every dial looked ancient. Some were cracked and more than a few were held in with sticky tape. The pilots’ seats had disintegrated and had sofa cushions tied over them. Behind them were mounds of broken components, unfolded charts, fruit peelings, mouldy sandwiches, newspapers and empty vodka bottles.

  ‘I’m Dimitra,’ the pilot said, taking Ning by surprise as she offered her hand. ‘Do you speak English, or Russian?’

  ‘Good English, no Russian,’ Ning said.

  Dimitra looked to be in her early forties. She wore a greasy brown flight suit, but while the gloomy cockpit lights were unflattering Ning suspected she’d been beautiful when she was younger. Maks the co-pilot was pudgy and red faced. He wore a gold-buttoned pilot’s blazer and the nylon shirt beneath was layered with food stains and cigarette burns.

  ‘Thank you,’ Dimitra said, as she took the fifty-thousand-dollar brick from Ingrid. ‘When the plane takes off we shut the cockpit door. There’s no heat where you sit in the cargo area, but you’ll find blankets.’

  ‘Where are we flying to?’ Ning asked.

  ‘Near Bishkek, in Kyrgyzstan,’ Dimitra said. ‘It will take around seven hours.’

  ‘Then we’ll fly straight on to Europe?’ Ingrid asked.

  Dimitra shrugged. ‘My instructions are to get you to Kyrgyzstan. Beyond that I know nothing.’

  Ning jumped as a loud rattling sound erupted behind them. She looked down the fuselage and saw one of the huge cargo pallets rolling through the body of the plane. The cargo was bound to the palette by plastic film, and comprised colourfully-printed boxes marked with the brand names of popular medicines.

  As Ning and Ingrid kicked off their shoes and stood in the small seating area changing into their ski suits, eight more pallets were loaded. Two were guns and ammunition, one was mounded with fake football shirts, vacuum packed to save space. The remainder were too far back to see what was inside, but it was clear they’d be sharing the sky with weapons and counterfeits worth tens of millions of yuan.

  Maks closed the cockpit door after a final conference with the little PLAAF-uniformed boss, then the gaping mouth beneath the plane’s tail clanged shut, plunging Ning and Ingrid into echoing blackness, apart from a flickering exit sign above the door.

  It would be cold once they were airborne, but it was a warm night on the ground and Ning was slick with sweat as Ingrid slid a gloved hand around her back.

  ‘Doing OK?’ Ingrid asked.

  Ning nodded. ‘Just about.’

  The engines blasted up to full power and the wings flexed as the beast began to roll. The cargo clanked and squealed as they picked up speed, and something broke free down at the back. The noise was unreal and Ning clutched Ingrid tightly while keeping her other hand on her seatbelt buckle, partly to make sure she’d put it on, and partly so she was ready to tear it off if they crashed and burned.

  There was a bump and a little kick inside Ning’s stomach as gravity pushed her down into the hard plastic seat. They were off the ground and rising fast, as the dilapidated Russian plane swallowed its wheels.

  16. LADA

  After seven hours rattling inside the beast, Ning was relieved to step on Kyrgyz soil. It was dawn. The airstrip sat in a valley and the mountains on all sides made her glad she’d had no window to watch their landing.

  In Dandong nothing stayed the same long enough to look old, but this place wore decay on every surface. Years of winter frost had left huge cracks in the runway, a burned-out fuel tanker stood by airplane hulks with missing wings or engines. The buildings in the distance were made from drab concrete panels, roofed with asbestos.

  In China the cargo crew was a dozen strong and moved at a jog. Here there were four grizzled men with hands in pockets who looked about, daring each other to make the first move.

  ‘I’m not sure where to go,’ Ning explained in English. ‘You speak English? Russian?’

  The men blanked her, but eventually Dimitra came out of the cockpit. ‘Someone from the Kremlin will know what to do with you. We’ll walk.’

  Ning’s shoulders strained with the luggage, until Ingrid stopped and stuffed everything into the big roller bag, which was empty because they were still wearing the ski suits. It was over a kilometre. The last stretch was up a stepped path towards a six-storey building.

  ‘The locals name this place the Kremlin because most of the pilots that live here are Russian,’ Dimitra explained, as she shoved a heavy-sprung aluminium door.

  They entered a reception area, decked in avocado and beige. A staircase went up on one side, while the other was a lounge area with shabby leatherette chairs and blinking fruit machines. The smell of cigarettes and spilled beer was enlivened by something more pungent from the gents’ toilets.

  ‘Aren’t we expected?’ Ingrid asked.

  Dimitra shrugged, as her co-pilot Maks came through the door behind them. ‘Whoever comes will look for you here,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been in the air for too long. I must go to my room and sleep.’

  As the pilots headed upstairs, Ingrid led Ning into the lounge. A man with a gun on his
belt laid spark out against a fruit machine. In a far corner beyond the shuttered bar dead-eyed men sat playing poker. They were a mixture of Russians and native Kyrgyz, who could be distinguished by straight black hair and a more Asian appearance.

  ‘What a shit hole,’ Ingrid said quietly. ‘Reminds us of me dad’s working men’s club when I was a nipper.’

  Ning didn’t know what a working men’s club was and was too tired to care. The plane had been too noisy for sleep and she’d now been awake for over twenty hours.

  Ingrid found a quiet corner away from the poker players and fruit machines and arranged armchairs so they could put their feet up. Ning unzipped her ski suit and sat with her head resting on Ingrid’s heavily quilted arm. The strange surroundings made her uneasy, but she could barely keep her eyes open and was soon fast asleep.

  *

  Ning woke with a jolt. Her eyes shot open, seeing the back of a car seat and a Christmas-tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the hand grip over the door. She’d been laid flat across a back seat. The road was rough and stones pelted the inside of a wheel arch close to her ear.

  Her head hurt and her vision was blurry, but she saw the gun on the driver’s belt. It was the man she’d seen slumped by the fruit machine in the Kremlin lounge. Her arms were trapped awkwardly behind her back and her fingers felt numb. When she moved her arm, metal bands dug into her wrists.

  The clank of the handcuff chain turned Ning’s unease to fear. She raised her head and saw that she was in her socks. Her ski suit was gone and her legs were bound together with orange climbing rope, tied so tight that it dug into her flesh.

  A youngish male said something in Russian. He looked back over his shoulder at Ning. He seemed about sixteen, thuggish, with spots and a squashed-up face. His neck had a crude one-colour tattoo of a Cyrillic word.

  ‘Where’s Ingrid?’ was all Ning could think to say, but the muscles in her face weren’t moving properly and her words came out slurred. It was like the feeling you get after a dental anaesthetic, but over her whole mouth rather than just one side. She wondered if she’d been knocked out, or drugged.

  The older man in the driver’s seat spoke perfect English, with a Kyrgyz accent.

  ‘Welcome back, baby,’ he purred. ‘Maybe you’ll think twice before hitting Kuban again, eh?’

  He’d only glanced away from the road for an instant, but it was long enough for Ning to see a crust of dried blood around his nostrils.

  ‘You’re Kuban?’ Ning asked. ‘I hit you?’

  She racked her brain, but the last thing she remembered was resting on Ingrid’s arm in the Kremlin lounge.

  ‘You did,’ the youth said, smiling a little. ‘Ker-blammo, right on the snout.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, boy,’ Kuban roared, raising his hand from the gear stick, threatening to strike the teenager across the face.

  Ning’s mind grew more focused as they drove on. After a while stones stopped clanking the underside of the car and she saw that they’d moved into a built-up area. They were surrounded by buildings, two or three storeys high. Most were dilapidated and made from the same prefabricated concrete sections as the buildings around the landing strip.

  They stopped in a puddled courtyard. The teenager opened the door, giving Ning a view. There were cigarette butts and Styrofoam cups all over the gravel and spewing metal bins at the far side.

  Another car had parked up ahead. It was a little Russian-built Lada and she watched a hulking man ordering Ingrid out of the back. She had cuffs behind her back, but her legs weren’t bound.

  Meantime, Kuban had spotted a frail middle-aged woman crouched amidst the rubbish bags. He shouted in Russian and steamed towards her. The woman wailed as Kuban dragged her out of the rustling black bags. He pulled her through the huge puddle by her hair, then thumped her head against the car, centimetres from where Ning lay.

  The woman’s desperate groan was sickening. Kuban banged the woman’s head again, then threw her to the ground and took a step back before booting her in the stomach. She sobbed and wailed as Kuban shouted to some guys who’d come running out the back of the building, ordering them to get the woman out of his sight.

  ‘Steals my rubbish, breaks the bags open, leaves a big mess,’ Kuban told Ning, as he reached into the car and eyeballed her. His teeth were black and his breath had the exact smell of shit.

  Ning was helpless as Kuban wound her hair around his hand and used it to yank her out of the car.

  ‘You like that?’ he said, laughing.

  Kuban let go and, with her hands cuffed behind her back, Ning had no way to save herself. She crashed down, banging her chin against the gravel. She feared Kuban would take a kick at her like he’d done with the bin lady, but instead he roared at the teenager in Russian.

  The boy wore a Barcelona football shirt, filthy jeans and a pair of Adidas with his pinky toe poking through a split in the leather. Ning was no lightweight, but he scooped her off the floor with one hand and threw her up over his shoulder.

  Her hair dangled down the teenager’s back as he walked her through a metal-plate door and up bare concrete steps. They crossed a polished dance floor, with big loudspeaker stacks against the walls, and ended up in a lightly furnished space, with mirrors and a rail along one wall, like it had been built for ballet training.

  Kuban faced Ingrid with a MacBook Pro on the desk between them. Her handcuffs had been removed by her two burly escorts, who now stood with their backs to the mirrors. The teenager asked what to do with Ning.

  ‘Floor,’ Kuban said, before turning back to Ingrid.

  The teenager sat Ning down with her back to the mirrors. She had gravel stuck all over her jeans, her chin bled and her head stung from being dragged by the hair.

  Kuban opened the lid of the laptop and smiled at Ingrid. ‘You know what I want,’ he said. At the same moment, the teenager turned to leave the room. ‘You don’t leave,’ he shouted. ‘You stay and learn.’

  Ingrid tried throwing Kuban off with her thickest Scouse accent. ‘Dunno what you mean, chuck.’

  ‘Chuck?’ Kuban said.

  ‘You know, chuck,’ Ingrid said. ‘Like mate, pal, chummy. My old bud.’

  Kuban sighed. ‘Ingrid, we all know Chaoxiang didn’t marry you for looks or wit. He sheltered large sums of money under your name. An associate of your husband gave me details of seventeen bank accounts to which you have access, containing approximately eight million euros.

  ‘You will use this computer, the telephone or whatever method you require to access those accounts. You will transfer all of the money to accounts held by my boss.’

  ‘Who’s your boss?’ Ingrid asked.

  Kuban thumped on the desk and raised his voice. ‘You don’t get to ask questions. When the money is transferred, you and your stepdaughter will be taken to the Bishkek international airport and placed on a flight to the United Kingdom. You can return to your ghetto, and eat fish and chips and live in – what is it you English call them? – a council flat?’

  Ingrid’s only response was a scowl.

  ‘My terms are non-negotiable. The only question is how long and unpleasant you make the process of cooperating with us.’

  Ingrid tipped her chair back slightly and blew out a long shaky breath. ‘You must think I’m proper green to believe that,’ she said, before laughing and tapping an index finger against her temple. ‘I’m dead the minute you get what you want, and that’s why you’ll be getting sweet Fanny Adams.’

  Kuban smiled and raised one eyebrow. ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’

  17. PUSH

  Ryan watched from his bedroom as Gillian Kitsell blasted through the beach community’s security gates in a Ferrari 458. Ryan’s approach to Ethan had to look casual, though he’d been planning it all weekend. He’d even done role play with Amy, working out strategies to steer the conversation towards things they needed to know.

  It was a hundred metres across the beach to house five. Ryan peered in through the huge fro
nt windows. The layout was identical to house eight, where he’d been staying. The furniture looked top-notch, but there were clothes and dirty crockery everywhere, spoiling the effect.

  Ethan’s voice came from high up, by the rooftop pool. ‘You looking for me?’

  Ryan stepped back so that he could see. Ethan leaned over a railing, with his left arm in a cast.

  ‘Heard you got out of the hospital,’ Ryan explained. He didn’t want their meeting to take place outside, so he let the sentence hang.

  ‘I’ll meet you by the front door,’ Ethan said. ‘Mum says I’ve gotta thank you.’

  Ryan pondered Ethan’s words as he walked to the front door. Meet you by the front door sounded OK, but Mum says I’ve got to thank you didn’t exactly sound like Ethan was grateful, or keen to make friends.

  Guilt reared up when Ryan saw Ethan on the doorstep. His skinny legs were a mass of bruises and cuts, some of which had been stitched. The most impressive examples were bruises shaped like tyre tread across his thigh.

  ‘Car one, Ethan zero,’ Ethan said, breaking into a smile. ‘It’s good of you to come around. Doc said I might have ended up a drooling vegetable if you hadn’t got me breathing so quick.’

  ‘Just been down for a swim in the sea,’ Ryan said, as he tucked his hands under his armpits and faked a shiver. ‘Can’t believe how cold it’s getting.’

  ‘Wind off the ocean starts getting cold this time of year,’ Ethan said. ‘You wanna come inside for a second?’

  Ryan kept his expression to a slight smile and a nod, but on the inside he was whooping it up like he’d thrown the touchdown that won the Superbowl.

  ‘I think you should fire your maid,’ Ryan said, as he walked to the kitchen, stepping over coffee cups and newspapers. Ethan’s bruises left him creeping about like an old man.

  ‘Mum’s got a thing about security,’ Ethan explained. ‘Says maids steal and stuff, plus with her business and all …’