Free Typhoon by Charles Cumming Page B

on.”
    Another lengthy delay. Miles had another look in the mirror.
    “Mr. Coolidge?”
    “Yup.”
    “From the audio it sounds like just Joe and one other guy.”
    “British or Chinese?”
    “Chinese. But they’re speaking English. You know anything about this?”
    “No,” Miles said. “But I know somebody who will.”
     
     
10
ABLIMIT CELIL
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The Uighur, Ablimit Celil, drove the maintenance truck though the gates of the People’s Liberation Army barracks at Turpan at approximately 6:15 a.m. A soldier, not much older than nineteen or twenty, stepped out of his hutch and waved the truck to a stop.
    “What is your business?”
    “To clean,” Celil replied. He did not make eye contact with the soldier. The uniform was the embodiment of Han oppression and control and Celil always tried to maintain his dignity when confronted by it. “Please direct me to the kitchens.”
    Asleep on the seats beside him were two other Uighur men, both well-known faces around the barracks. The young soldier shone a torch into their eyes.
    “Wake up!”
    The order was a shrill, authoritarian bark. The men stirred, shielding their faces from the light. It was a cold morning in eastern Xinjiang and the open window of the truck had quickly robbed the cabin of heat and comfort. The soldier appeared to recognize both men before returning his gaze to Celil.
    “Who are you?” he said. He shone the torch into Celil’s face, then down into his lap.
    “He’s the new cleaner,” one of the men replied. Celil had been pestering them for months to find him a job. “It’s all been cleared with your superiors.”
    “ Shen fen zheng !”
    Another barked command, this time a request for identification. There was distrust and mutual suspicion in almost every encounter between the PLA and members of the local Uighur population who worked on the barracks. Celil reached into the back pocket of his trousers and produced the fake ID prepared for him in the back streets of Hami. There followed the obligatory ten-minute delay while the soldier returned to his hutch to record the details of the s hen fen zheng in a logbook. He then walked back to the truck, returned the papers to Celil and instructed one of his comrades, who operated the security barrier separating the barracks from the main road, to allow the vehicle to pass. A minute later, Celil had parked the truck beneath the first-floor window of the catering block.
    For the rest of the day, the three men went about their business. They cleaned toilets, urinals, ovens. They polished floors, windows, pictures. The soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army ignored them as they went about their business.
    Celil, a more devout Muslim than the two men with whom he had travelled to work, was prevented from praying during the day. There was, of course, no mosque at the barracks, nor any area set aside for the salaah . For half an hour at lunch the three men were allowed to return to their truck, where they ate bread and sheep’s cheese, washed down with tea kindly provided by a Han woman who prepared soup in the kitchens.
    At approximately 1:30 p.m., when his Uighur colleagues had returned to work in the dormitory building on the western edge of the barracks, Celil opened the rear doors of the truck and stepped inside. He picked up a large cardboard box and carried it into the kitchens. Bottles of sprays and cream cleaners protruded from the top; old rags, stained and torn, had been wedged between them. Nobody paid any attention as he walked into the hall which separated the kitchens from the main dining area and walked downstairs towards the basement. The floors still smelled of cleaning fluid; he had washed them just an hour earlier.
    Celil knew that there was a store cupboard located on the landing between the basement and the ground floor. It contained overalls, brooms and various cleaning products. He unlocked the door, placed the cardboard box at the back of the cupboard