Dark Watch

He left their house above the bicycle shop armed with directions to a bar in a warehouse district and went in search of the snakehead who had sent Xang and his extended family on a journey to their deaths. The streets were quiet. It was late, and with the military encamped in the town square, the locals had prudently decided to remain indoors.

The bar was located on Long March Street, a potholed strip of crumbling asphalt that ran parallel to a tributary of the Min River. There were few lights, and the air was heavy with the smell of decay and rust. Most of the buildings along the river side of the street were corrugated metal, and all seemed to lean against their neighbor. It made Eddie think that if the lynchpost was removed, several blocks of warehouses would tumble like dominoes. Thorny weeds grew from grease-blackened soil in the few areas not paved over.

The other side of the street was crowded with three-story apartment blocks. Every time Eddie passed the alley separating two buildings, he got a whiff of the communal dung heap. From the numerous garbage piles came the sound of cats and rats competing for food. He heard the occasional wail of a child from one of the darkened apartments.

Nearly to the end of the street, garish light spilled from a storefront, and as he approached he heard muted music coming from within. This had to be the place. His pace slowed as he approached. He was planning on retracing the steps that Xang had taken, a route that had ended in tragedy. Once under the control of the snakehead, Eddie would have few options but to go along with the tide of humanity seeking to escape China. As the light grew brighter and the pop music louder, Eddie’s breath became short, and he felt sweat trickle down from under his arm.

He knew his fears, had faced them over a distinguished career in the CIA and during his time with the Corporation, but knew that each time he forced himself to overcome them it had a corrosive effect on his psyche. It took something from him, weakened him. Like the cumulative effect of concussions, there was always the risk that the next one would be fatal.

Eddie clenched his fists and forced himself to stride those last few yards to the bar. There was no bouncer, so he threw open the door and stepped in. The music blared from a pair of speakers mounted behind the bar. The fog of cigarette smoke was as dense as a tear gas attack and just as irritating to his eyes. The wood-planked floor was slick with spilled beer and was moldy in spots. The patrons were mostly young toughs in black leather and overly made-up girls in miniskirts and belly-revealing tops. Despite the infectious beat of the music, the bar’s atmosphere seemed charged with something ugly.

Eddie spotted the problem as his eyes swept the men seated at the bar along the room’s back wall. Three of them wore uniforms. The army had come into the local oasis of Western decadence, and no one seemed willing to do anything about it. Yan Luo, if he was here, wouldn’t invite trouble for his smuggling operation by confronting a trio of drunk soldiers in town for one night. And if the snakehead wasn’t going to evict the soldiers, no one else would, either. The men would remain until they’d had their fill.

No one paid Eddie much attention as he moved to an open seat at the far end of the bar. He ordered a beer, making sure the bartender saw the wad of money he carried. He had the situation figured out and a plan formulated by the time he’d downed half the bottle.

If the soldiers didn’t leave before closing time, Eddie was in trouble. Once the soldier he’d killed turned up missing the next day and the army began to tear the town apart, Yan Luo would fade into the background. He’d close down his smuggling ring until after the body was found and an appropriate number of arrests had been made. It might be weeks before he felt safe enough to resume trafficking people out of the area. Eddie needed to be in the smuggling conduit tonight if he hoped to discover if there was a connection between the snakeheads and the pirates preying on shipping in the Sea of Japan. His solution was simple. He had to get the three armed soldiers out of the bar before closing, which by the sour look on the bartender’s face wouldn’t be too much longer.