Running on Empty (17 page)

‘
Tuo shou,
she repeated to herself, ‘
Beast of burden’.

Let them make their remarks, it didn’t matter to her. What did matter was the fact that she was plucked from that desolate wasteland she called home. It was difficult to survive there, let alone escape from, what was probably one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. Her father, a poor rural farmer, scratched at the soil to earn the equivalent of about $200 a year. Yet here she was, able to earn that amount in a month. And there was more to come she knew, much, much more.

At the end of the day, she headed back to her tiny studio apartment. After a simple meal of boiled chicken and rice, she sat for a while, as she always did, and studied the pages of all the catalogues she had amassed in her short time in Shanghai. She tried to imagine herself draped in one of the expensive dresses that were featured, as she sat at the bar, or by the pool, chatting confidently to the male model as he poured her out another drink. As tiredness began to take over she carefully put the catalogues away in a neat pile, and undressed. Ignoring the bed that stood to one side of the room, she unrolled her mat, placing it on the hard wooden floor, pulled a blanket over her shoulders, and drifted off.

As Shan Ou arrived into work the next morning, her boss beckoned her into his office.

‘It is time’ he said simply, and Shan Ou nodded.

He handed her an envelope, containing a return air ticket, Shanghai to Hetian.

‘There is a taxi waiting for you downstairs’ he added.

She headed down the stairs, and into the waiting taxi.

Second Lieutenant Charlie Caprito entered a breeze block tin roofed building on a side street in Khandud, the most easterly town in Afghanistan. His arrival is expected, and he’s immediately led to the rear of the building, passing through a makeshift laboratory, and into a sparse dimly lit windowless room, illuminated by a single naked bulb which hung on wires from the ceiling. There, on the table, laid out in two neat rows, were twenty, one kilogram, film-wrapped packs of pure heroin. He took out a testing kit, pierced one pack at random with a sharp bladed knife, and proceeded to check its purity. Satisfied with the quality, he gestured for the pack to be resealed, and the entire contents to be loaded into the hand-made, leather suitcase which stood beside the table.

He removed two thick manila envelopes from his inside pockets, and handed them over. Twenty kilos of top grade heroin at five thousand per kilo, coming to one hundred thousand dollars, are neatly packed into the suitcase. When the two thousand fifty dollar notes were counted, with a handful at random being selected for authenticity, handshakes were silently exchanged, and he left the building.

Shan Ou exited the terminal building of Hetian airport, heading for the car park. She pulled up the hood of her parka, to protect herself from the biting wind which came down from the snow-covered mountains. Removing the keys from her pocket, she unlocked the silver Toyota Landcruiser, and climbed in. She had no need to consult a map, for she was familiar with the two hundred and fifty mile journey that would take her to the border with Afghanistan. That is why she was chosen, she surmised, local knowledge. She drove the Karakoram highway, until it gradually decreased to no more than a dirt track, winding its way through the mountains, the old silk route of many generations ago.

The two guards in the tumble down shack which served as a border post dropped their cards as they heard a vehicle approach in the distance. They buttoned their tunics, and fixed their caps. Anyone approaching their checkpoint was a welcome distraction from the incessant boredom of this remote outpost. Their faces cracked into broad smiles as they recognised the approaching vehicle. Shan Ou is waved through with great delight, for they knew what to expect on her return.

Lieutenant Caprito boarded the Chinook helicopter, which took off immediately. It headed up the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip of Afghanistan land which juts eastwards between Tajikistan and Pakistan, following the Panj river to the Chinese border. It landed in a small clearing, next to the old silk road, about two miles from China. Caprito stepped out of the helicopter, and Shan Ou out of the Toyota.

He handed her the case, along with three envelopes. The thickest one, she folded in two and placed in her inside zipped parka pocket. It contained one thousand dollars, equivalent to five month’s pay. No words were exchanged as she returned to the Landcruiser. At the border post, she handed both of the guard’s one envelope. As she drove away, they tore them open. They each contained four crisp fifty dollar notes. One month’s pay, two hundred dollars, just for smiling at a pretty girl.

The rain swept against the window of the A700 Airbus, as the plane circled, waiting for its allotted landing slot. Tom peered through the murky dawn light, trying to make out features below, the landscape enveloped in a steel grey mist.

He plane finally landed, and the passengers began to disembark. As he hurried across the windswept tarmac, trying to shield himself as best he could from the sideways driving rain, Tom could just make out the sign overhead. ‘Welcome to Shannon International Airport’ it read, ‘Gateway to Europe’.

Inside the terminal building, Tom became tense as he approached immigration control. He began to doubt the lack of skill used in the creation of his false passport. He needn’t have bothered. A bored looking Garda sergeant barely shifted his gaze from whatever fascination he seemed to have studying his thumbs, to give a slight nod to Tom as he strode by, holding his passport image side out, as all the other passengers seemed to be doing.

A piece of cake, thought Tom.

He then proceeded to the baggage reclaim area, to collect his suitcase of…..of what exactly?

It suddenly dawned on Tom that he hadn’t a clue of what the suitcase actually contained. There could be a Magnum forty five wrapped up in five kilos of cocaine. He collected the drug and firearms laden suitcase from the carousel, and headed for customs clearance. As he walked as casually as possible though the ‘Nothing to Declare’ section, a customs officer beckoned him over.

‘Excuse me sir, would you mind placing your suitcase on the table’ he ordered.

‘Yes, no problem, officer, answered Tom.

‘Would you mind opening this padlock sir?’

‘What?’
Shit,
thought Tom.
How am I supposed to open it without a fucking key?

‘Yes officer, right away’ Tom answered, and began fumbling in his pockets for a key that wasn’t there. After a few minutes of embarrassed searching and head scratching, Tom turned to the customs man.

‘I’m very sorry officer, but I appear to have lost the keys. I feel like an idiot. I really must apologise. Could you maybe cut the lock off? Is that possible?’

‘Ah, sure go on. You don’t look like a terrorist, or one of them drug mule fellas. I think we’ll take a chance on ya. Go on through, it’s all right’.

‘Thank you very much officer. Hey, I’m really sorry

about this. I appreciate the gesture’.

‘That’s quite alright’ said the officer, ‘no harm done’.
Dumb fucking yanks
, he thought,
I hope he has a bolt cutters with him when he needs to change his jocks.

Tom walked, relieved, towards the main terminal Concourse.
Well, I made it to Ireland
, he thought,
land of a thousand welcomes. Christ, I could do with a drink, alcohol would be nice, but anything will do.
He spotted a coffee bar across the hall. That’ll do. He sat at the bar, and ordered a coffee. Then a thought occurred.

‘Do you accept dollars?’ he asked.

The woman behind the counter looked at him.

‘Does this look like a currency exchange?’ she asked wearily. ‘No, we don’t accept dollars, or roubles or yen, only good old honest to goodness Irish Euros. So, no Euros, no coffee’.

‘Is there a currency exchange in the terminal?’ asked Tom.

‘Yeah, right over there under that sign what says currency exchange’.

Tom thanked the sour bitch, sarcastically, for all her help.

Make that nine hundred and ninety nine welcomes.

The currency exchange didn’t open until nine, so he’d twenty minutes to kill. How much money did he actually have to exchange? He checked his pockets, thirty four dollars, and some change. Not a lot. He’d had less money in recent times, but that was when he had Sally by his side to guide him. Here, he was alone. She’d know exactly what to do, and how to go about doing it.

What the fuck was he doing here anyway?

His spirit began to sag again. He knew if Sally were here, she’d tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself, to get his ass in gear, and move on. He guessed that’s what he had to do. But it wasn’t easy. Tom noticed a Bus Eireann booth across the way. He thought Eireann meant Ireland in Gaelic, but wasn’t sure. He reckoned ‘Bus’ meant bus, so, over he strolled. The booth was manned by a scruffy looking individual, barely out of his teens. He looked like he’d been partying all night. His bloodshot eyes finally noticed Tom standing before him, and he grunted an acknowledgment.

‘Hi’ began Tom, ‘can you tell me how much a bus to Sligo is please?’

‘There’s no bus from here to Sligo’ he mumbled, sounding like one of the undead.

Tom was surprised.

‘Oh, so you can’t get from here to Sligo by bus?’.

‘I didn’t say that. You can get a bus to Galway, and then one from Galway to Sligo’.

‘And, can I book and pay for a bus from here to Galway, and book and pay for another bus from Galway to Sligo, booking both from this counter?’, asked Tom, getting agitated.

‘Yeah’

‘Well, how much does a ticket from here to Galway, added to a ticket from Galway to Sligo add up to, provided you can do the fucking math?’

Party boy looked up, surprised. ‘Thirty four Euro’.

‘Thanks for your fucking help’.

Make that nine hundred and ninety eight welcomes, thought Tom. He went into a bookshop, to kill the remaining minutes until the exchange opened. He studied a couple of maps, to try and get his bearings, and to get a greater understanding of distances for his intended journey. Nine o’clock arrived, and he approached the currency exchange counter. A middle aged man with glasses as thick as bottle ends, sat shuffling through papers in front of him. Tom coughed.

He peered over the top of the glasses briefly, then went back to his shuffling. Finally, he looked up to Tom.

‘Yes sir?’

‘I’d like to change dollars into Euro please’

‘Certainly sir, how many dollars?’

‘Thirty Four’ said Tom.

‘Thirty four? he repeated after Tom, surprised.

‘Well sir, with the commission deducted, that will get you the princely sum of twenty one Euro’, he said sarcastically. ‘The last of the big spenders’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Is there any particular denominations of currency sir would like the twenty one Euro paid out in?’ he continued, getting into his stride.

‘I’d like a twenty and a one’ answered Tom.

‘No, hang on. Make that twenty one Euro notes, or coins, or whatever the fuck your Mickey Mouse money comes in’.

Tom collected his twenty one euro coins.

‘Thanks, you’ve been a great help’ he added.

Nine hundred and ninety seven, and counting. Tom walked back over, and ordered a coffee from sourpuss, who handed it over as if she was handing over her favorite son to the executioner for hanging. He needed to sit down for a while, and take stock. He was in a foreign country, with virtually no money, and he had to travel a distance, and eat, and sleep somewhere presuming he didn’t make it to Sligo today, which seemed unlikely. His mind kept drifting back to Sally. What would she do in these circumstances? She’d tell him to look at what assets he had, for a start. His gaze drifted down to the suitcase, standing next to him on the floor. He’d been carrying it around absent mindedly, not giving it a thought since customs. Get the suitcase open, and see if there’s anything worth anything in there. But how? On the opposite side of the hall, two workmen were working from a ladder, maintaining the lighting. Tom finished his coffee. Waiting until the waitress was looking over, he put a Euro on the table, then slowly and deliberately slid it back over, and put it in his pocket, shaking his head and smiling. He approached the workers.