“Is anything broken?” Karen pushed herself gingerly into a sitting position beside Nelson, being as careful as she could not to disturb Nguyen.
“My collarbone is toast,” he said through clenched teeth. “Won’t be much use to you in a fight.”
“We’ll see ab-”
Karen’s answer was cut short by the creak of the metal door. A Tajik guard with close-cropped gray hair stuck his head in and gave the cell a quick once-over. A moment later, three boys-none of them looked over twelve-brought in trays of dates, nuts, and rice along with three red cans of Coca-Cola. They were not the sort of cans with Arabic script that U.S. personnel called Abu Dhabi Cokes-these were American pop cans with English writing.
Karen felt Nelson’s body go tense. They both realized the leader of the boys was Kenny, the same child who’d approached the front gate at Camp Bullwhip. The same one who’d so cavalierly thanked them for the chocolate while shrugging of the fact that they would soon lose their heads.
“Hey,” Kenny grunted, a sullen preteen even in the wilds of… wherever they were. “You guys look like crap.” He motioned for the other two boys, both younger and a few inches shorter, to place their trays of food on the ground and back away. For a child, he seemed to have a lot of experience dealing with prisoners.
“Go ahead.” He waved at the piles of apricots and clumped rice. “You should eat when they give you food. One of you will need all your strength by the end of the day.”
Specialist Nguyen rose up on one elbow beside Karen. “Hey,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “How did you get here?”
Kenny smirked, glancing back at his two companions. “I told you,” he said. “I’m from Milwaukee.”
One of the boys, a freckle-faced kid of eight or so, bobbed his head and shoulders quickly, giggling.
Karen fought the urge to jump up and pound the little kid’s face against the rock wall. “Listen, you guys, I don’t know where they took you from. But we’re Americans too. Kenny, just before we were attacked you said you were from Wisconsin. I’m from Boston. We’re all on the same side here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kenny snorted. “After what the Americans did, we’ll never be on the same side.”
“What do you mean, the Americans?” Nguyen gasped, his voice wobbling like he might cry. “Why are you guys doin’ this? We didn’t do nothing to you but give you chocolate. Have they brainwashed you or something?”
Nelson held up a hand, shushing him. “Let’s just eat something and see where that leads.”
“I’ll tell you where it will lead,” Kenny said. “It’ll lead to getting your infidel heads sawed off… but what do I know? You guys eat up.”
The freckled kid’s head moved like a bobbing dog statuette and he broke into a maniacal giggle.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Kashgar, China 0530 hours China Standard Time
“You cannot win. Do you understand?” A cloud of vapor enveloped Gabrielle Deuben’s face in the pink-orange chill of early morning.
“I know,” Quinn said.
Garcia rubbed her eyes and gave a long, feline yawn. “I’ve seen you fight,” Garcia said. “I think you can take this guy. He’s big, but he’s fat.”
Deuben shook her head. “That’s not the point. If he wins, Umar loses even more face.”
Garcia’s eyes followed a potbellied Uyghur who looked more like a draft horse than a man. She’d been disappointed but not surprised last night when Quinn had slept on the floor, letting her have the bed. Even on the hard floor he appeared to have slept better than her. “And what if he kills you?” she asked.
“I won’t let that happen.” Quinn sat with his back to the wall. The eight-foot-high clay block enclosure was normally used to house livestock during the Sunday market. It was five-thirty in the morning and the camels would be arriving in a half an hour.
The fight would be long over by then.
“But remember,” Doctor Deuben whispered. Her eyes, too, followed the Uyghur as she spoke. “You can’t throw the match. That would be the worst of all for Umar’s reputation.”
“Don’t win and try not to lose.” Quinn nodded as if taking a mental note. “That should be easy enough.”
Garcia wanted to scream.
Umar leaned against the same clay wall and did a press-up twenty feet away, stretching calf muscles the size of grapefruit. He wore a pair of dirty canvas pants and scuffed leather boots. A morning chill pinked the hairy skin of his bare back.
Garcia shook her head. The man’s neck looked as big around as Quinn’s waist. She’d spent no small amount of time wondering what Quinn might look like with his shirt off. Now her stomach was too tied up in knots to enjoy it.
“Shall we begin?” Umar’s ancient gray-bearded assistant wheezed around his smoldering cigarette. Two lines of at least a dozen men each squatted stoically along the outer edge of the oblong arena.
Quinn turned to Garcia and smiled. “You think anyone’s betting on me?”
Ronnie watched Umar flex his thick chest, bouncing his pecs as he ground a huge fist into an open palm. Quinn peeled off his white T-shirt to reveal at least a dozen puckered white scars on the tight copper flesh across his lower back. She wondered if maybe he’d been shot. His body was fluid and moved easily, seeming as much tendon and bone as muscle. He looked like a well-built ant about to fight a hippo.
Shivering at the sight of him, Ronnie gave Quinn a soft jab in the shoulder.
“Sorry, mango, my money’s on Umar.”
Quinn stood, stretching his neck back and forth to either side, hearing the cracks. But for the odor of animal dung and the sound of braying donkeys over the walls, he was taken back to his boxing days at the Air Force Academy. There was something about a pending fight that changed the very nature of the air and made it sweeter to breathe.
Umar the Uyghur had a jowly, egg-shaped face with short-cropped hair that reminded Quinn of Thibodaux’s marine high-and-tight. A roll of fat around the man’s belly said he didn’t get much cardio exercise, but the rippling muscles in his arms and shoulders said there was a good chance he won his fights without even raising his heart rate.
Umar lumbered to the center of the camel pen, slapping his great chest with hands the size of dinner plates. He swayed like a mountain gorilla. Each scuffing step of his heavy boots kicked up a pink cloud of dust in the long rays of morning light.
He turned to Quinn, tilting his big head into the beginnings of a nod. Quinn returned the gesture, hands hanging relaxed at his sides. There would be no referee and no one to explain the rules. There were none.
Umar slapped his chest again, leaving a pink handprint on the undulating flesh. He flicked his fingers, beckoning Quinn out. His twinkling eyes all but disappeared behind a cheeky grin.
“I don’t like this,” Ronnie said through clenched teeth. “Here we are at the edge of the world and all the local police are passed out drunk. What if he decides he has to kill you to save face?”
Quinn gave her a wink. “I’m pretty skilled in the not-dying category.”
He took a half step forward-and the giant Uyghur charged like a raging bull elephant.
Quinn stepped deftly to the side to avoid the oncoming freight train. A thick cloud of dust engulfed the Uyghur as he slid to a stop.
In general, fights with no rules lasted under a minute. Umar was over six and a half feet tall. Quinn knew one solid punch from this man and the fight would be over much quicker than that.
The Uyghur spun, dragging his left leg in an almost imperceptible gimp. His left shoulder sagged as he moved. Just a hair, but Quinn noticed. Big people tended to have big injuries. Sheer mass compounded any sprain,
