The first guard stopped singing and said something to Smith. He snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground between them.

Smith looked at the first guard for a long moment.

The first guard snapped his fingers and pointed at the ground again. The second guard didn’t move.

Smith reached inside his smock and brought out a fat envelope. He tossed it on the ground. The guard motioned for him to back up even farther, and Smith did so. The guard stooped to pick up the envelope and opened it, thumbing through the contents.

He looked up and nodded at Smith. The last of Fang’s men, who had remained behind when they came through the fence, materialized out of the gloom behind the second guard. Steel flashed, dark fluid spewed across the snow, the guard fell heavily. Almost before he hit the ground Fang’s man had recovered and pocketed the payoff.

Before the first guard could give the alarm, Fang was there, his knife sliding easily and expertly through the guard’s uniform and his ribs, up and straight into the heart, stopping it in midbeat. The guard sucked in a great breath of air, shocked eyes staring into Fang’s. He looked down at the knife, at Fang’s hand on the hilt, as if he couldn’t believe it, and then he, too, fell, the knife sliding free, the blade stained a dark purple in the lights of the yard.

Smith took a quick step forward and shoved Fang back. “What do you think you are doing?”

“No witnesses,” Fang said without expression.

Jones shoved forward and he and Smith exchanged angry words in whispered Korean. It was obviously about Fang’s action, and it was equally obvious that it was uncomplimentary.

“Enough.” Fang nodded at one of his men. The Koreans watched as the bodies were arranged to look as if they had been fighting, as the guards’ sidearms were fired into both their wounds, covering up the knife marks. The gunshots were masked by the roaring and clanking of heavy equipment operating nonstop all around them. In a town this size there wouldn’t be a medical examiner or probably even an effective police force. The local cops would believe what was easiest for them to believe.

Smith, coldly furious, said, “If you are quite finished here, please explain to me who now is going to close and lock the doors behind us and reapply the seals?”

Fang nodded at the man who had taken out the first guard. “He is.”

“And how, then, will he join us?”

“He won’t. He stays behind. He stays behind,” Fang repeated when Smith burst into another flood of Korean. He started toward the nearest container and after a tense moment Smith followed with ten of his men and five of Fang’s. Jones and the rest went into the second container.

The door thudded shut behind them and Fang could hear the seals and padlocks clicking back into place. The dark descended like a suffocating blanket. Instantly Fang wanted to be back outside freezing his balls off. More nervous sweat rolled down his spine. He didn’t like the dark, and he didn’t like small enclosed spaces. He didn’t like any of this at all, and the prospect of being stuck here for any length of time was not appealing. He wondered if he could advance the timetable and resolved to take up the topic with Smith at the earliest opportunity.

He wondered if Smith would listen to anything he had to say. He couldn’t understand Smith’s anger at the killing of the Russians. Anybody would think Smith wanted to get caught.

There was a snick and a light appeared. Smith had a flashlight. They were sandwiched between the doors and the cargo, equipment of some kind swathed in plastic and padding, most of it strapped to pallets. Smith motioned them to follow him as he edged his way between the front pallets and the walls of the container. This was ten times worse than just standing around in the dark. Fang’s clothing and equipment caught on every protruding bolt, and several times he was afraid he was going to have to ask for help, but at last they were behind the first row of pallets.

Smith was already unhooking the second layer of strapping and was ripping into the crates stacked there. These crates were identified as being shipped to the Mattel Corporation. Fang examined the label more closely in the dim light cast by the flashlight and saw that the crates were supposed to be full of dolls. Instead they yielded hammocks and sleeping bags, chemical toilets, prepackaged foods, a two-burner camp stove, a set of cook pots, bowls and mugs and spoons, a satellite phone, a whole case of batteries for it, decks of cards, and a mah-jongg game.

The crates and boxes were disassembled and stuffed into the space between the cargo and the container. They attached hooks to the walls of the container and slung the hammocks. At Smith’s direction, one of the men unfolded the stove and boiled water for tea and noodles. Fang slurped both down with gratitude, feeling the heat spread into his hands and feet.

Something flapped over his head and he ducked instinctively and looked up. The container had a canvas roof.

He looked at Smith. In a low voice Smith said, “We must be very quiet until we are under way.”

Fang was more concerned about the loss of heat. He claimed one of the hammocks closest to the floor, unrolled a sleeping bag and climbed in without removing his boots. As he was pulling the bag to his chin he noticed a spray of blood extending from the back of his hand to the sleeve of his parka. The cold had already made it tacky to the touch, so he didn’t have to worry about smearing it all over.

They were made aware of the arrival of morning by the increase in noise outside. Smith gave an order and the men secured everything that wasn’t already tied down or tucked behind the cargo straps. A while later the container jolted as a tractor latched on, and the hammocks swung merrily as they moved out of the yard, down the shore road, and rumbled over the wood surface of what was probably a dock.

The sounds of chains jangling were heard, followed by an increase in the pull of gravity when they were hoisted into the air. Men bellowed and somewhere a crane clanked and groaned into action and the container began moving sideways. It stopped, swaying back and forth, and almost immediately began descending. They thudded into something and another voice bellowed. There were answering shouts from the other side of the container walls, and Fang and the rest of the men held themselves quiet and still. More shouting as the container was muscled into position. There was a loud clank as the hoist let go and a series of kachunks, when some kind of fastening kicked in. The voices and the sounds retreated, only to return not much later when the next container was loaded, and the next, and the next.

It continued for six hours. At one in the afternoon the ship shuddered into life, the engines starting with a rumbling roar. The deck vibrated, setting the hammocks to trembling. They got underway an hour later. Five minutes after that the first of Smith’s men threw up.

By six that evening they were in the North Pacific, with seas Fang estimated as well as he could from inside the container running at least fifteen feet. The ship was rolling and pitching and corkscrewing, and it sounded like the screw was out of the water as often as it was in it. The ship’s helmsman wasn’t doing much to compensate, either. Fang foresaw an overhaul in the ship’s engine room in the not too distant future.

By now all of Smith’s men were puking, some of them just hanging their heads over the sides of their hammocks and others taking turns kneeling in front of the portable toilet. The miasma of vomit and sour sweat mingled with the smell of diesel exhaust creeping into the container. It was enough to make even Fang nauseous. He pulled his sleeping bag over his nose and thought again of that plump wife in Shanghai, with a sturdy son he could raise to be a real seaman, with his own shipping line bankrolled by his father.