BLACK in the Box (2 page)

The gunman frowned and studied him. “Where are you from? I’ve never seen you before.”

“Ramallah. I came to do construction work, but the job fell through. If you need any masonry, any kind at all, for cheap, I can do it.”

“This isn’t the place to look for work.”

“Please, my brother. Just a few coins. I can’t go on like this much longer,” Abreeq pressed, his eyes hungry. “Or if you have something to eat. Anything.”

The second gunman sneered. “I should put him out of his misery,” he growled, his finger easing onto his weapon’s trigger. “He’ll probably try to rob someone.”

Abreeq’s eyes widened. “No, I swear. I’m a workman, not a thief.”

The shorter militiaman shook his head. “Why waste the bullet? He’s not our enemy.” The man reached into his pocket, withdrew a dull coin, and tossed it into the dust at Abreeq’s feet. “This isn’t an area you should be lingering. You’ve been warned. Even the rats know better than to scrounge around here.”

“Thank you. Thank you, my brother,” Abreeq said, slowly lowering his hands. The shorter gunman was turning away when the younger man called out to him.

“Look at his shoes. He’s no laborer.”

“These? I found these in town…” Abreeq said, and stooped to pick up the coin. The younger shooter’s eyes narrowed at the obvious lie as Abreeq’s other hand slid beneath a slit in his robe; and then Abreeq was rolling on the ground, his weapon spitting rounds. Three slammed the first gunman back as the shorter one raised his rifle, and then several bullets sheared half that shooter’s face off.

The truck engine groaned as it rolled toward Abreeq, but he didn’t pause, emptying his gun through the windshield at the approaching threat. The Hilux coasted toward a wall and slammed into it as Abreeq ejected his spent magazine and slapped another into place, eyes searching for more militia.

A head poked over the bed, and he strafed the thin sheet metal on the side of the truck. A scream wailed from the rear, and then the street fell silent. Abreeq stood slowly and neared the vehicle, his gun at the ready, and only lowered it when he saw two dead men sprawled in the bed. The driver and passenger were barely recognizable in the cab, the interior painted with blood.

His gaze swept the street. He was alone.

The shooting would draw no attention – the region had been chaotic ever since the Americans had overthrown Saddam. Nocturnal gun battles were a regular occurrence as different factions settled scores, fought for control of neighborhoods, and tried to protect themselves. The section he was in was uninhabited, so the likelihood of another patrol coming across this one anytime soon was remote.

Still, Abreeq wasn’t taking any chances. The boots that had given him away to the militiamen thumped against the cracked pavement as he ran toward the alley, his breath coming in rasps as he pushed himself. He wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible – this was only a reconnaissance run, to confirm what he’d need to return with at a later date.

There
.

He stopped running as he drew closer to the remains of a mosque. He squinted in the gloom and spied a gap in the rubble that had been the front façade. As he made his way toward it, his heart jackhammered in his chest. Two long years of painstaking research had come to fruition, and the mosque was exactly where he’d been told it would be during one of the impromptu field interrogations he’d conducted in his unofficial quest.

Abreeq paused at the threshold of the decimated entrance and peered inside, instinctively raising the ugly snout of his weapon as he studied the ruined interior. He saw what he was looking for on one intact wall and took a cautious step into the rubble, his pulse thudding in his ears.

The snap of the tripwire was the last thing he heard, and then he was flying through the air, the IED blast knocking the breath from his lungs a nanosecond before vaporizing him. When the smoldering remains of his torso thudded against the ground, there was nobody around to appreciate the irony of his having made it unscathed through countless deadly encounters only to die mere footsteps from his objective.

Ten minutes later, a mangy dog nosed at Abreeq’s remains and then drew back into the shadows and continued on its way, even in its emaciated condition uninterested in feasting on the dead American.

Chapter 2

Five months ago, Los Angeles, California

Daojiong Chang emerged from the customs area of Los Angeles International Airport into the arrival terminal, blinking groggily. The long flight from China had been too rough for him to get any sleep. He glanced around, all of his possessions in the single suitcase he carried, and spotted another Chinese man wearing a multicolored leather racing jacket – his contact in this new country. Daojiong made his way to where the man stood and set his bag down beside his feet.

The man looked him over and offered a nod. Daojiong had been coached and so didn’t make any gestures.

The man grunted and eyed the bag. “Is that it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Follow me to the parking area.”

Daojiong did as instructed, and when they were both in the man’s car, Daojiong slid sunglasses on as the driver paid the attendant and merged into traffic.

“I have all your papers. How’s your English?” the man asked in that language, switching from Cantonese.

“Okay. Been practice.”

The driver gave him a sour look. “Been practicing, not practice. From now on we will only speak in English. These people place a big value on assimilation. Fitting in. You’ll hear that a lot.”

“Where we go?”

The driver shook his head. “Where
are
we
going
, not where we go. Jesus.” He paused and changed lanes, edging into the middle one as he rolled east toward the 405 freeway. “I’m to show you your new home. There are a bunch of you there. Tomorrow will be your first day of work. I got you a job – vouched for you. To anyone that asks, you’re my cousin. We’ve created new papers, an employment history, the works.”

“That good.”

“Your name is now Tom. You’ve been in the U.S. for a year and a half. You don’t talk much, keep to yourself.”

Daojiong nodded. He’d been briefed by his masters in China. “Tom. Okay. Good name. What it mean?”

“Doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like back home – names here don’t.”

The car swung left and powered onto the freeway, the late morning traffic bearable after a rush hour that was an exercise in madness. Cars growling along in either direction would sit gridlocked for hours, starting at six a.m. and stretching to ten, the commute one of the worst in the world. The driver cut into the car-pool lane, which was nearly empty – in Southern California, most cars contained only a single passenger, usually on their cell phone earpiece for the entire trip.

“Nice car,” Daojiong said, to make conversation.

The driver smiled for the first time. “Thanks. I like it.”

“Fast, yes?”

“Very.” He paused. “Play your cards right and you’ll have one in no time.”

“That would be nice.”

The trip south took forty minutes. Soon after exiting the freeway they entered a run-down residential area, and the driver stopped in front of a single-story ranch house that looked like it hadn’t been painted since the sixties. “We’re here.”

Daojiong nodded. His surroundings were unimportant to him. He was in the U.S. to do his masters’ bidding, and to blend in as well as possible while doing it. The Chinese triads had long been operating in the United States, but lately had been making a major push into select states, solidifying their territories. They partnered in Southern California with the Vietnamese street gangs, who were even more vicious than the Chinese. Daojiong was an enforcer for one of the largest triads in Beijing. His role would be to act as muscle, supporting the gang’s drug and human trafficking rings – there was a large market in the U.S. for comely young Chinese females from the poor provinces, as well as for the heroin and meth produced in the Golden Triangle.

The triads also preyed on local Chinese-owned businesses, demanding protection money from a network of specialty shops, markets, and restaurants whose proprietors knew too well the cost of disobeying. In the Chinese community, the payment was viewed as an expected cost of doing business, just as in the other immigrant neighborhoods with predominantly Hispanic or Asian populations. The triads also engaged in lucrative loan-sharking to those looking for expansion capital, and were part owners in many legitimate enterprises they used to launder their criminally originated gains into clean money, which they then used to purchase real estate – always viewed as a safe long-term investment by a culture that was accustomed to sitting on residential investments for decades.

The driver slid from the car and led Daojiong to the house. Daojiong noted the dying lawn and poorly landscaped grounds without comment. After a knock on the front door, another Chinese man opened it and stared impassively at Daojiong. The driver made the introductions and the man stepped aside, allowing them to enter.

The driver moved with easy familiarity to one of the four bedrooms. He swung the door open, and three men looked up at them from where they were crouched on the floor, smoking and playing the Chinese card game Jiăn Hóng Diăn.

“Gentlemen, this is your new roommate. Fresh off the boat. His name’s Tom.”

The men nodded, and Daojiong moved through the cigarette haze to the vacant top bunk bed and placed his bag on it. The driver reached into his jacket and extracted an overstuffed envelope, which he handed to Daojiong.

“Passport, immigration documents, work permit, social security card. Background on your new identity. It’s all there, along with fifty dollars.”

Daojiong nodded. His needs would be provided for by the triad. Money would come with time and jobs; it had always been that way. Daojiong had been with the group for half of his twenty-six years, and in spite of his slight, youthful appearance, had killed dozens of targets and beaten more than he could count. He didn’t mind the work – it paid far more than he could have ever made doing anything else, and if it hadn’t been him, someone else would have gladly taken his spot. It was the law of the jungle, and he had no qualms about snuffing out a life and then sleeping well. It was just what he did, like being a baker or a builder, only his vocation was enforcement.

He normally performed two or three contracts a month, most of them involving beatings or the threat of injury. The triads only killed as a last resort, which was a function of pragmatism rather than compassion: it was impossible to extract payment from a dead man. Competitive entities gave the triads a wide berth, because when they did decide to terminate someone, they did so brutally and efficiently.

Daojiong’s triad controlled everything from Seal Beach through South Central Los Angeles in the Chinese communities, which were flourishing due to their work ethic and their willingness to price competitively. His boss in Beijing had promised him that after a year of loyal work, he would be running his own cell, making incredible amounts of money doing little but posturing and reminding his victims of their obligations. So he could tolerate four to a tiny room filled with an unbreathable cloud of toxins for a while – it was certainly no worse than where he’d come from, where most wore bandanas or masks over their faces, the air so polluted that seeing blue sky was a rarity.

“I’ll come for you tomorrow at nine p.m.” the driver said, the distaste at the stink of body odor and smoke that hung in the room obvious on his face.

“What will I be doing for cover?” Daojiong asked.

The driver grinned. “Working the night shift. Don’t worry. A monkey could do it. But no stealing, no disruptive behavior. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

“I understand. See you tomorrow at nine.”

The driver retraced his steps through the house. The aroma of cooking followed him out the entryway, and he sniffed at his jacket and shook his head as he climbed into his car. It would be a week before the odor faded.

The car started with a throaty roar and he pulled away, leaving the street empty, just another blustery winter day in the bowels of Southern California, another miscreant joining a never-ending collection of predators that were drawn to the prosperous area like cockroaches to garbage.

Chapter 3

Yesterday, Long Beach, California

Alec Strong sighed as he pulled his eleven-year-old Hyundai sedan into the parking lot of the Home World big-box store and drove around the huge building to the rear employee and delivery area, eyeing the burned-out security lights with disgust. The owner of the Southern California franchise was too cheap to do much maintenance in the slow months, which was par for the course since Alec had been working there. Alec switched off his headlights and ignition and stepped from his car. The hot wind blowing from Riverside carried with it the smell of desert and exhaust.

He strode toward the staff entrance, a dull blue metal door adjacent to three loading docks, and sighed again as he stepped into the store. He hated his job in information technology for the retailer, but in the current environment he knew he was lucky to have anything better than flipping burgers. Still, after four months of mind-numbingly boring work, he dreaded the night shift. He’d pass from eleven p.m. to seven thirty the following morning troubleshooting flawed systems, fine-tuning the database, and generally trying to keep the operation functioning with the cyber-equivalent of bailing wire and spit.

The interior of the warehouse showroom always struck him as eerie when it was mostly empty, with the day shift gone and the night shift yet to arrive. The soles of his shoes echoed off the hard polished concrete as he passed a long rack of hanging carpets, hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes, some with abstract designs and others with the currently popular kitsch renditions of kittens and ponies. At the far end of the building he slowed, tilting his head, and then continued to the administrative area along one wall on the far side of the empty cash registers.