John Clark marked the police minders as soon as he boarded the aircraft. Both were Han Chinese men in their forties, seated three rows behind him on either side of the aisle. They read magazines, looking up periodically with feigned disinterest. The one on the right had thinning hair and a long, horselike face. He was dressed like a businessman coming home from a conference, open-collared white shirt, rumpled suit, an overcoat he kept in his lap like a blanket. He talked on his phone a lot — or pretended to. The other was slightly doughy with a blue ball cap and puffy blue ski jacket over a corduroy sport coat that looked too tight to button. Clark noted Horse Face’s shoe that stuck half out in the aisle. It was well worn, sturdy, and didn’t quite match the business suit. The Uyghurs who’d boarded in front of Clark recognized the minders for what they were as well, and leaned slightly away when they shuffled past, as if the men were contagious.
Clark had the entire row to himself. The China Southern Airlines flight was only around half full, but most of the passengers were Uyghur men. None of them wanted to risk being seen chatting with a foreigner by the two police minders.
The steady hiss of air flowing across the fuselage of the shabby but serviceable Airbus changed to a burbling roar as the pilots deployed flaps and slowed the plane in preparation for landing. Clark’s ears popped, alerting him to the aircraft’s descent. He hated airports, and didn’t particularly enjoy being crammed into a flying metal tube. But he wasn’t apprehensive about flying itself. At best, he was ambivalent. For him, slipping the surly bonds of earth was simply a means to an end. Some found the idea of flying a romantic notion. Good for them. Clark understood, a little.
He felt that way about the sea.
The pilots kept the cabin on the chilly side, so most passengers wore their coats or at least a heavy wool sweater during the flight. Most of the Uyghur men wore black fur hats pulled low over their eyes, like the winter hat worn by Brezhnev in all the newsreels. Others wore ball caps, or snap-brims. A couple of the older ones wore large fur Kyrgyz hats, similar to a Russian
Clark watched the ground rise up to meet him out the window to his left. A dusty haze hung over the dull gray of the city and muted brown of the surrounding countryside. Patches of grimy snow clung to the shadows. The canal along the highway leading from the airport northeast of the town flowed full of chocolate-brown water. A convoy of three white-topped military troop carriers rolled down the highway east of the city. Pickups and larger trucks shared the roads with taxis and scooters.
Clark could already feel the grit of dust in his teeth and the chill on his neck just from looking out the window. It was no wonder everyone on the plane wore winter hats.
The plane bounced once, crabbing into a stiff crosswind before straightening up and settling onto Kashgar Airport’s only runway.
The police minders followed Clark off the plane and then jumped ahead when he was held up at Immigration and Customs. He was sure he’d see them again. No doubt about that.
The uniformed Han officer grunted as Clark slid his Canadian passport and visa, courtesy of Adam Yao’s friend in Beijing, across the counter. The officer perused it with the jaundiced eye of someone accustomed to being lied to on an hourly basis.
He asked Clark a couple perfunctory questions about the purpose of his trip. For his part, Clark tried very hard to hide the predatory edge in his eyes by acting bewildered. The three-thousand-mile trip from Ho Chi Minh City via Guangzhou and Urumqi had sapped him, and he was able to play weary traveler without acting. The officer barked something unintelligible, making the bewildered look easy to sustain.
It sounded as if he’d asked Clark if he had a jeep.
Clark shrugged and tapped his ear. It was better for the officer to think he was simply dealing with an old deaf guy rather than to be offended because Clark couldn’t understand his English.
“You have the GPS?” the officer pantomimed, using his index finger like a compass needle. “For navigation.”
“On my phone,” Clark said, honestly.
“Mobile phone!” The man snapped his fingers. “Give to me.”
Clark fished the phone out of his jacket pocket and passed it to the officer without argument.
“Extra battery?”
Clark dug out the spare charging block as well.
“Passcode!
“I…”
“Passcode or I do not give back,” the man said. He gazed up at Clark without lifting his head.
Clark gave him the code to unlock the screen.
The officer scrolled, perusing the various icons, then said, “Do not use in China.”
“The phone?”
