He had never been a very good liar, so it was going to take some thinking out before he made the call, and he hurt very much and he was very tired.

And yet, and yet, he knew a tiny spark of triumph growing deep inside him.

He had told them, yes, told them enough for them to stop hurting him.

But not everything.

The fibers of the carpet pressing into his cheek, he smiled.

JANUARY

FANG WAS SWEATING IN spite of the below-zero temperatures and the brisk onshore wind that dropped the chill factor into the minus double digits. It didn’t help that it was three o’clock on a January morning six thousand miles north of his usual area of operations.

The immense, untidy yard was a mass of rectangular containers imprinted with the names and logos of shipping firms from all over the world, Maersk Sealand, Cosco, Pan Ocean Shipping, Teco Ocean Shipping, even Czech Ocean Shipping and a host of other names of maritime freight firms too small or specialized to be immediately recognizable. The containers were lined up in rows forming aisles just wide enough for the tractors and lifts to maneuver between them.

The yard was brightly lit with halogen lamps mounted on fifty-foot poles, but the containers were stacked three high and cast deep, dark shadows, providing a wind tunnel effect to consolidate every passing breath of air into what felt to Fang like a gale-force draft. He shivered again, the nervous sweat congealing on his spine. The zip of his parka was already up as high as it would go, but he tugged at it anyway, and cursed involuntarily when the teeth caught at the flesh beneath his jaw.

Smith’s head whipped around. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. An unaccustomed flush flooded up into Fang’s cheekbones. He set his teeth and looked down to fiddle unnecessarily with the chest strap of his pack. Like the parka, it was the very best U.S. military surplus issue.

They were crouched next to a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire, just outside the reach of the lights, which were directed inward at the yard and the containers. Armed guards roamed the perimeter, but on a night like this they were spending more time in the guard shack down at the gate that faced the docks than they were on patrol. The shack was a hundred feet away, but every time the shack’s door opened Fang could hear a burst of Russian music and loud laughter. Sons of bitches were probably knocking back the vodka with a fine and free hand. All the better for this operation.

They had gathered together in a group for the first time that afternoon, Smith and Jones and their twenty men, Fang and his ten. The building was a small warehouse with a loft holding up a hoist. There was a small area in back of the hoist where their equipment and supplies had been stacked in wooden crates stenciled with the logo of the United Nations and the notation printed matter on the sides.

Another of Noortman’s little jokes. If he’d called for the crates to be anything other than books, foodstuffs, say, or hand tools, no bribe would have been big enough to keep the Russian customs officials from helping themselves to a bonus and discovering the true contents of the crates. The UN logo, even Fang was pushed grudgingly to admit, was a mark of genius. Not only were they books, an observer would conclude, they were most likely tracts on crop rotation or home health care or English as a second language. Also, books were heavy, which would account for the weight.

They had pried open the crates and dressed in silence, fatigues, cold-weather gear, heavy lined boots with nonskid soles, headsets with microphones keyed to the same frequency. And of course weapons, pistols and rifles, the latest in automatic weapons, with enough ammunition to start a war.

Smith divided them into two parties, one with him, the other with Jones, and as soon as it was dark led them in small groups by various back alleys to the fence next to which they were currently huddled, blending into the winter landscape with white smocks enveloping them from hood to knee. And freezing to death in spite of the cold-weather gear.

The door to the guard shack opened with a brief blast of Elvis Presley singing about a party in the county jail, and a stray breeze wafted the smell of sausage to the huddled men a moment later. One of Fang’s men stirred. Fang gave him a fierce look and the man subsided, but he was as unused to cold-weather work as his boss was. Fang only hoped they were all going to be able to walk when the time came.

Approaching footsteps crunched through the snow. Fang looked around and saw one of the guards approaching, a slight, slender man with a mismatched uniform carelessly buttoned, trailing a cloud of cigarette smoke. He moved his hand down the stock of his rifle and felt something touch his arm. It was Smith, who gave his head one small shake, warning Fang not to move.

The guard wandered down the fence. They caught the occasional snatch of song in slurred Russian.

The guard paused ten feet from where on the other side of the fence the last man in line crouched, and unzipped his fly. The urine steamed and hissed as it hit the snow. He shook, tucked himself back inside his pants, and zipped them up again. He lit another cigarette and blew out a luxurious cloud. He spoke a few words in Russian in a low voice.

Next to Fang, Smith replied.

“Da,” said the guard, the only word in the entire conversation Fang understood, and strolled up to the corner of the fence, singing again as he went. It took a moment before Fang recognized the song as “Yesterday.”

Smith signaled the man closest to the corner, who produced a pair of snips and went to work. Moments later he folded back a large section of the chain-link, stepped through to the other side, and held it as the rest of them moved silently through the hole and into the yard.

The guard watched, still singing, although he had moved on to “In My Room,” giving a not bad impression of Brian Wilson. He seemed to go for mournful in his songs, but then he was Russian.

Once they were all inside the fence, Smith’s man bent it back into place and fixed it there with unobtrusive bits of wire. The guard nodded at Smith and jerked his head.

He led them into the labyrinth of stacked containers, keeping to where the darkest shadows were cast, and after they turned the first two corners Fang was hopelessly lost. The yard was deserted, the late shift having knocked off at midnight, but the waterfront of a port city was never completely silent, no matter what season it was, and the wind carried the sounds of forklifts and hydraulic hoists and the subdued rumble of ship’s engines, drowning out their footsteps in the snow, even if anyone had been around to hear them. It was almost too easy.

The guard led them to two containers toward the front of the yard, in the row closest to the large gate that fronted on the road that ran the length of the city’s coastline. He stopped and turned to face Smith. He motioned, telling Smith without words to back up and take his men with him.

Smith looked at him without expression and did as the guard requested. The guard produced a ring of keys from a pocket and opened both the padlocks on both container doors. He did something else with a tool Fang couldn’t make out in the shadowy light and the customs seals were also open.

The guard stepped rapidly back from the second door, still singing, this time a new song. Something about “son of a sailor,” he thought, but his teeth had begun to chatter and he couldn’t make out the words over the noise.

Another guard stepped from a row of containers, just out of reach for rushing, his rifle cradled in what looked to Fang like a competent grip. Fang, teeth still chattering, waited for the rest of the squad to materialize from the shadows and for him and his men to be arrested and escorted to prison, which would probably be warmer than standing around this yard.