The men gathered around him as he pulled a folded paper from his pocket.

“We’ll be dropping the load at Dock 27,” Xao said. “I’ll take the lead truck, so follow me, as we’ll be entering through an auxiliary gate. We’re expected to arrive at eight o’clock, so let’s not have any delays.”

“Where will we stop for fuel?” asked a man with a threadbare wool cap.

“The usual truck stop in Changping.” Xao looked about for other questions, then nodded toward the trucks. “Okay, let’s get moving.”

Xao, Jiang, and three other men drifted to the large trucks, and the remaining men piled into the pickup. Jiang’s truck was at the end of the line. He climbed in and started the engine, which kicked to life with a cloud of black smoke. Adjusting the heater, he waited for the other trucks to exit the lot ahead of him. When the truck next to him pulled ahead, he shifted into gear and lurched forward, catching sight of a dark blur in the side-view mirror.

The trucks drove through an open gate attended by a burly bald man who carried a Russian Makarov pistol under his coat. When Jiang got to the gate, he mashed on the truck’s brakes. “Check the back!” he said, reaching out the window and slapping the side door to catch the guard’s attention.

The guard nodded and stepped to the rear of the truck. As he peered over the tailgate, he was greeted by Zhou’s boot slamming into his jaw. The blow sent him sprawling, yet he yanked out the Makarov even as he fell. He raised the pistol and aimed it toward the truck, but Zhou was already on him. The agent kicked the pistol aside, then dove forward and thrust his elbow into the guard’s jaw. The bone-on-bone collision emitted a muted crack, and the guard fell limp.

Zhou popped to his feet and spun around. Jiang was already there, lunging at him with a knife he carried on his belt. Zhou saw the glint as the blade thrust toward his chest. He tried twisting away, but the tip caught his sleeve, and he felt it slice across his right bicep.

He ignored the cut and hurled a left cross into Jiang’s temple. Jiang let out a curse, realizing he was battling the man who had crushed his head the night before.

Zhou gave him no time to contemplate that. The Makarov was too far away to retrieve, so he did the unexpected and pressed the attack. He followed his punch with a roundhouse kick that struck Jiang in the thigh. It was designed less to punish than to incite a response, and it succeeded. Jiang pulled back the knife and recklessly thrust toward his opponent’s stomach.

Zhou was ready. He threw his left hand on Jiang’s wrist, easily shoving the parry aside. Using Jiang’s momentum, he pulled and twisted the knife-wielding wrist, propelling Jiang forward. Zhou continued the spinning motion, driving his opposite shoulder against Jiang’s arm with his full weight.

Jiang’s arm felt like it was being yanked from its socket, and he stumbled forward in agony. The knife dropped free, and he fell to the ground. In the blink of an eye, the knife was in Zhou’s hand, driving toward Jiang’s head. Zhou wanted to kill the man, and could have done so easily, but he resisted the impulse. Jiang would suffer more by rotting in a jail cell. He reversed the blade, striking Jiang below the ear with the butt of the knife. Jiang’s world turned black as the blow to his carotid artery cut the flow of blood to his brain. Zhou stood over him, catching his breath. A phone call to the People’s Armed Police would ensure the bully an unpleasant welcome when he awoke. But first Zhou had to catch the caravan.

The trucks had disappeared down the street. Zhou found the Makarov and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he flipped Jiang on his stomach and stripped off his jacket. With the man’s knife, he sliced off a strip of Jiang’s shirt for a bandage. Zhou’s right arm was wet and sticky, but the bleeding had already stopped. He’d have to mend himself on the fly.

Zhou jumped into the truck and gunned the motor, spraying the two prone men with a blanket of dust as he rumbled out of the lot toward Bayan Obo’s main highway. The mine was north of town, so he turned that direction and mashed the accelerator.

Cutting through traffic and passing wildly, he raised a symphony of honking horns and angry shouts. The traffic lessened as he neared the city’s northern limits, and the road began climbing through dry scrub hills. Cresting a ridge, he spotted the caravan a mile ahead, and he soon closed ranks with the last truck.

With Zhou tailing the crowded pickup, the line of cargo trucks drove past the main entrance to the Bayan Obo Mine, then turned onto a rutted dirt road two miles beyond that. Circling back to the south, they crossed a downed section of fence and entered the mine site. A pair of massive open pits appeared ahead. The trucks skirted them and approached the main operational area. The pickup veered away, leading the cargo trucks to a fire-damaged warehouse that looked abandoned. They pulled to a stop in back of the building, where a massive mound of crushed ore was piled high.

The theft operation was simple. On certain night shifts, every third dump truck transporting crushed ore to the extraction plant would get lost along the way and dump its load behind the old warehouse. All it took was a few large bribes to select drivers and administrators, who adjusted the mine’s production records, and the ore was there for the taking. Every few days, the truck convoy would haul it away to market.

The men from the pickup opened a back door to the warehouse, where a portable conveyor was stored. They rolled it to the mound of ore and connected a portable generator. Zhou watched as the lead cargo truck backed up until the end of the conveyor poked over the truck bed. The work crew began shoveling the ore onto the belt, which carried it into the truck. It took less than fifteen minutes to fill the bed, then the next vehicle backed in.

Zhou wiped his arm and rewrapped the makeshift bandage around the knife wound. Feeling light-headed from the loss of blood, he replenished himself with some rice balls he found in a paper sack on the seat. He swapped jackets with the one he’d taken from Jiang and raised the collar. Breathing heavily onto his side window, he fogged up the glass so the others couldn’t see him while he waited his turn.

When the fourth truck pulled clear, Xao waved him over and guided him to the conveyor. Zhou kept his hands high on the steering wheel to obscure his face as Xao walked in front of the hood and waved him backward.

The ore spilled into the truck bed with the roar of an avalanche. The minutes trickled by as Zhou held his breath, fearful someone would try to speak with him. Finally, the rumbling ceased, and the conveyor fell silent. Zhou looked in the side-view mirror and saw the crew drag the conveyor back to the warehouse. Xao rapped his knuckles on the fender, then continued to his own vehicle. The convoy leader climbed into the first truck, stuck his arm out the window, and pointed ahead. The rest of the trucks started their engines and followed Xao.

The heavily loaded trucks moved slowly down the rough road until they reached the main highway, then they rolled south through the dusty town that was built by the mining operation. Leaving behind that small bastion of civilization, they drove across the same barren steppes of Inner Mongolia that Genghis Khan had conquered eight centuries earlier. Zhou figured they would off-load their cargo at the nearest railroad depot. When they reached the populous city of Baotou several hours later and turned east, he knew otherwise.

The convoy rolled onto the busy Jingzhang Expressway, which ran to Beijing. Outside of the capital city, they paused at a truck stop in the suburb of Changping as dusk was settling. A light wind had picked up, blowing swirls of sand from the Gobi Desert. Zhou wrapped his face with a scarf he found in Jiang’s coat pocket and stretched his legs away from the others while the trucks were refueled.