At the mention of illegal immigration she stepped back protectively, ready to bolt. But she held firm, wanting to return something to the man who saved her. “Yes, they live in town. They own a store that sells and repairs bicycles. The family live above. Do you have news of them?”

From the way she spoke he could tell she knew the family well. Perhaps she was the sweetheart Xang had written about. “Yes,” he said, sickened by what he was going to tell her. “They reached Japan, and they are all working. Now go!”

Startled by his last command, the girl vanished amid the trees. Eddie had perhaps done something far worse than the soldier just now. He’d given the girl hope.

He rifled the soldier’s pockets for his identification and then pulled the dog tags from around his neck, settling the warm metal against his own chest. Using the sling from the AK-47 and the soldier’s belt, he fashioned a rope and within ten minutes had the body wedged into the crotch of a twin oak tree twenty feet off the ground. Search parties looking for a deserter would take days to find the body, most likely drawn to it by the smell.

He used a branch to erase all tracks and traces of what had happened and made his way back to his hiding place under the bridge. The girl was probably back in town, most likely with her mother at the local healer’s house having her finger set. Her problems were over. Eddie’s had just begun.

The military presence in Lantan wouldn’t leave until all the soldiers were accounted for. It looked as though they planned on staying the night, and it was doubtful the dead rapist would be missed till morning. His buddies would cover for him, assuming he’d found someone, either a professional or the proverbial farmer’s daughter, whose legend of beauty and promiscuity were as popular in China as they were in America.

The trouble would start at the morning’s roll call. When he didn’t show up they’d search the town, then the surrounding farmland in ever widening circles. Eddie could no more abandon the mission than he could have left the girl, so that gave him until dawn to contact the snakeheads. And he no longer planned to interrogate them to learn what happened to Xang and the others. He now needed them to get him out of China.

He fingered the dog tags, knowing he had the perfect cover.

Chapter 13

13

ANTON Savich was relieved he had only one more flight to take to finally reach his destination. It had taken days to arrive at Elyzovo Airport outside Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, the regional capital of the Kamchatka Peninsula on Russia’s far east coast.