Svetlana's hands were tightly wound with duct tape behind her back to a metal post in the truck. The cloth sack was gone replaced by a well-secured blindfold. Her mouth wasn't covered so at least she could breathe. How long was I out for? Svetlana wondered. Who are these people and where are they taking me?

"Hey!" Svetlana yelled in perfect Mandarin. All she heard was the sounds of the wheels running over the dirt road.

"What do you assholes want!" She yelled in Russian.

"Untie me so I can kick all of your asses," she finally said in English.

"You can even keep me blindfolded so it's a fair fight" Still nothing but road noise.

"You'll never see daylight again," a young woman said in Mandarin.

"Who are you?" replied Svetlana. "Can you see me?"

"No," she replied with a shaky voice.

"Who are you?" Svetlana asked again.

"I'm a captive just like you and soon I'll be a sex slave just like you. That's what these guys do. My cousin was taken from her village. We never saw her again, but everyone knew where she was."

"I'll get us out of this," Svetlana said confidently.

"I don't think so. These people run everything around here from cocaine to women. They have lots of guns but more importantly, they are very well connected."

"Are they some sort of gang?" Svetlana asked.

"They're worse than a gang. At least gangs are illegal. These people aren't just above the law; they are the law. They are the local politicians, military police, judges, store owners. They are everyone."

"Why, how?"

"They hate all foreigners from Americans to Russians and Mongolians. They believe that China needs to be pure so anyone who they feel isn't purely Chinese gets taken by them and used for whatever they want. And when they've run out of foreigners to please their sick desires they go after the local women like me."

"Are you purely Chinese?" Svetlana asked.

"Yes, but my family are nobody so we don't matter."

"The whole thing sounds like a nightmare."

"You can't even begin to imagine. When they are truly desperate they'll order a truckload of Uyghur women, but they are used mostly to produce drugs."

"How do you know so much?"

"It's like I told you before, everybody knows. This isn't a secret."

"Then why don't you leave?"

"And go where? We are hundreds of kilometres from the nearest village. We are poor, we have nothing."

Svetlana's heart broke hearing her speak. It reminded her of the stories her grandparents told her about Stalin's Soviet Union. Fighting the system was useless. The only victories came from surviving.

"Your Mandarin accent is good but you're obviously from Russia. How'd you end up here?" the Chinese girl asked.

"Doing work for my boss." Svetlana wondered why nobody warned her about these gangs. She would been far more careful. All she was told to worry about was Sergei and possibly the odd Chinese policeman.

"Doing work here? Your boss must be into drugs or something. That's the only reason why Russians ever come to this wasteland."

"Nothing like that." Svetlana was glad to have someone to talk with, not just as a way to pass the time but to learn about what she had unintentionally gotten herself into. The more information she could get, the more she could prepare for what was coming. "We'll get out of this. You need to have hope."

"This place has a way of taking all hope out of you. It's what it does. You'll see." Her tone was of utter defeat.

"They haven't met me yet," Svetlana said with confidence. "There's always hope."

"They captured you, didn't they? Face it, you can't help us. Nobody can help us." she started to cry.

"What's your name?"

"Jing."

"Jing, that's a pretty name. They may have captured me but that's only because I wasn't prepared. It may not look like it, but I'm prepared now."

"What's your name?" Jing asked.

"You can call me Xi-wang."

"Ha ha," Jing chuckled. "Where did you learn to speak Mandarin so well?"

"On-the-job training," she replied. Svetlana thought about telling Jing her real name. It's not as if it could put her in any more danger than she was already in. However, Xi-wang meant hope in Mandarin. It seemed to be a much more appropriate name right now.

Svetlana didn't have very long nails,  rather she had very sharp nails. Her index finger's nail on each hand had been replaced with stainless steel tips that were as sharp as razor blades. She carefully manicured them weekly and had them painted with red nail polish so that nobody could tell her index fingernails apart from the others. It was her secret weapon for close-range fighting. She never dreamt she would one day use them to cut through duct tape while being held hostage.

Svetlana freed her arms but kept them behind her back against the pole. She had no idea if there was anybody else in the back of the truck. Even so, Svetlana knew that what was coming was her type of fight; horrible people and no rules.

The truck came to a stop. She heard the back door lift up. "Hopefully we'll see each other again Xi-wang," Jing told her as she was yanked off the truck.

"Count on it!" Svetlana replied.

An armed Chinese man wearing a 1950s Mao-era uniform looked at Svetlana. "Xi-wang...very funny, he said in Mandarin. I can't wait to have my turn with you. Russian women!"

The sound of his voice disgusted Svetlana. In the time it took him to threaten her, she'd already thought of six ways she could kill him instantly.

"There are two more men behind me aiming guns at your head. It would be a shame to kill such a pretty woman like yourself. Doesn't matter though, dead or alive you'll be just as tasty." The fake army man reached around Svetlana to cut her duct tape to take her off the truck.

"Don't die and have fun," Svetlana reminded herself.

* * * * *

"Stop right there!" Peter heard a man tell him from behind.

Peter didn't listen as he kickstarted the motor. A bullet blew out his back tire. Peter was upset that he hadn't grabbed his gun out of the bag first. Damn, I've been out of the field for too long. I'm forgetting all of my training, Peter thought to himself in disgust.

"I don't want to hurt you," the man told Peter. "Just give me the ruby and you can go on your way."

Peter got off the bike and turned around to face the man. He was a young Russian, in his early twenties, holding a gun about eight feet from him.

"I didn't kill him," Peter told the young man. Peter knew he could find a way out of this but he had no intention to kill anyone, let alone a fellow Russian whose life was just beginning. A jewel wasn't worth it. Screw his boss, he thought to himself.

"I know you didn't kill Sergei because I did! I also killed the guard and switched the glasses. Sergei always drinks from the glass on the right. You were never in any danger. I was also the one flying the helicopter, so you see, I saved your life twice, and for payment I expect you to hand over the stone."

"So Sergei did intend to kill me."

"Of course. I don't think he's ever done one honest deal in his life."

"How did you know?"

"I guess my intel was better than yours," he replied.

"Who is the ruby going to?"

"I may be young but I'm not stupid. But good on you for asking the question. However, I was told to not allow anything to happen to you if it was at all possible."

So someone else knew I coming here. That's disturbing. So much for secrecy. Again his boss did like to talk a lot, especially over a couple of bottles of vodka. So in reality he shouldn't even be so surprised.

"Okay, thanks for the chat but it's time for me to leave. Now toss me the ruby."

Peter reluctantly threw it to him.