Into Xinjiang

By Ben Colbridge

When a seemingly innocent photograph in the streets of Beijing ignites a nationwide manhunt, a desperate flight for freedom begins and young British traveller Daniel Weaver finds himself running for his life. Using his wits, misdirection and a change of identity, Dan flees through the deserts of northern China in his pursuit of freedom. Mid-flight he crosses paths with an American tour guide named Lisa, who promises to help Dan escape, but her motivations remain unclear while a billion people search for the young backpacker. Is anyone who they say they are?

Caught in the middle of a political scandal Dan is way out of his depths in a country where he doesn’t speak the language and must evade the army, police, media and everyone in between. Little does he know the real reasons for his terrifying predicament, but his fate was sealed within twenty-four hours of landing. Dan must escape from China unseen or face a lifetime of incarceration for a crime he had no part in.

All he knows is that he must run.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803138015

Ben Colbridge

Ben Colbridge has spent his entire career working in travel and has visited China on many occasions. He has been to all corners of the country, but this story is inspired by one journey in particular through the deserts and mountains of northern China. Based on real events.

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Copyright © 2023 Ben Colbridge

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 978 1803138 015

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For Aliya & Seiya

Contents

Introduction

1 The Photo

2 The Train To Xi’an

3 Turning West

4 Into The Desert

5 Lisa

6 Exposed

7 The Other Backpacker

8 Crossing The Taklamakan

9 The Counterfeiters’ Work

10 The High Pass

11 Understanding

12 The Kyrgyz Capital

13 The Second Envelope

Map of China and surrounding countries

Introduction

With a population of 1.4 billion people, China is the world’s most populous country. It covers an area of over 9.6 million square kilometres and borders fourteen countries, from Mongolia in the north to Tajikistan in the west and Vietnam in the south.

China is a beautiful country steeped in history, culture and natural beauty. For the traveller, it offers adventure and intrigue and can be altogether captivating for those who get under its skin.

But, for all its beauty, the country is tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party – an authoritarian leadership that restricts access to information, the freedom of assembly, the freedom to have children and freedom of religion. Internal security is enforced by the People’s Armed Police – a paramilitary organisation reporting into the Central Military Commission. With an estimated 1.5 million members, the People’s Armed Police can be seen implementing the rule of law on the streets of China, identifiable in their olive-green fatigues.

1

The Photo

April 2003

From the moment Daniel Weaver stepped off the overnight plane from London, alone, into the thick grey air of Beijing, China felt edgy. Thousands upon thousands of dishevelled travellers swarmed across the brilliant white floors of the arrivals lounge, their clothes a drab palette of navy-blues and browns. Members of the People’s Armed Police stood watch, their dark olive-green uniforms impeccably pressed, guns primed and ready should they be required. A cacophony of noise and loudspeaker announcements conspired to deliver a dizzying experience.

But Dan, as he was known to the friends he’d left behind at university, was glad to finally be here after the events of the last few weeks. It was his turn now. Time to strike out alone, see the world, feel it all for himself. Dazed from the lack of sleep but excited by what lay ahead, he walked quickly through the airport hallways, overtaking many of his fellow passengers as he went.

At that very moment, on the other side of the city in a small apartment close to the fourth ring road, an eighteen-year-old woman was getting ready to go out. Today she would go by the name of Margaret, but tomorrow, she decided, working her way through the alphabet again, she would call herself Nancy. She tore the page from her notebook containing the instructions she had just written down. To be on the safe side, she also tore out the two pages from under it, as she always did in these situations. Folding the pieces of paper and putting them safely inside the zipped pocket of her red jacket, she left her apartment. Avoiding the CCTV in the lift, the young woman took the seven flights of stairs to the ground floor and headed towards the metro that would carry her into the centre of Beijing. Thirty minutes later she emerged among the hustle and bustle of Tiananmen Square and without a moment of hesitation was on her way to the Forbidden City.

At the airport, Dan was in the queue for passport control. He didn’t know it then, as he waited in line, that he was about to enter the most terrifying two weeks of his life. He had no idea that in just twenty-four hours’ time he would be the most wanted man in China or just how far from Beijing he would have to run. He had no idea of the fear and turmoil that were waiting for him, nor the frantic game of wits that was about to play out as he fought to survive. He had no idea of the people he was about to encounter: those who were to help him in his flight and those who would seek to stop him. And he had no idea that Nancy was to become the first of those.

But, then, neither did she.

Once through immigration, Dan was free at last. When his long-term girlfriend had been caught in bed with one of her lecturers a little over a month ago, Dan’s world had shattered and he dropped out of university just weeks away from graduation. Using the last few hundred pounds of his student loan, he’d bought a ticket to Beijing, keen to forget everything and eager for a new start. He stood there now, face crumpled with the imprints of the overnight flight and his nose blocked from the long-haul airlessness of economy class. Yet his spine tingled with anticipation for the adventure that lay ahead: the places he would go, the things he would see, the people he would meet.

Collecting his backpack from carousel number six, Dan made his way through the crowds of people towards the exit, optimistically scanning the name cards being held aloft by the waiting drivers and chauffeurs as he went. That was obviously pointless because at that very moment nobody in China had ever heard of this young backpacker from England. That would all soon change, of course.

At just over six feet tall and with shoulder-length brown hair tied in a ponytail, Dan stood out among the crowds. He couldn’t help but notice the curious stares of young children looking up at him as he picked his way through the throngs of people filling the arrivals area.

Outside, the air was damp with a distinct metallic taste. The sun was a faintly glowing disc in a sky largely obscured by a thick, cloudy haze. Dan found the bus that would take him to towards the city centre, bought a ticket from the driver and climbed on board. Weary from his journey, he collapsed into two empty seats on the left-hand side about halfway down the quietly idling vehicle. With his head pressed against the gently vibrating window, he allowed his mind to wander.

He was here to explore China – a country he’d always wanted to visit, fascinated by its thousands of years of history, by its culture and by its architecture. He’d heard that in places China was impossibly beautiful – small villages of colourful minority communities clinging to verdant valley sides, rugged snow-capped mountains towering over rushing rivers and rice terraces snaking their way through steep-sided gorges. From Beijing, his plan was to head to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors, Guilin to set eyes upon the famous karst landscape of the Li River and then to make his way over to Yunnan province in search of traditional, minority cultures and the mountains of the eastern Himalayas before ending with a few days in bustling Hong Kong. His ticket home was booked from there in eighteen days’ time, but the promise of adventure lay between now and then. The hair on the back of his neck tingled with excitement as he thought about the places he was about to travel to. He couldn’t wait.

The bus picked its way through the traffic on the busy outskirts of the city. Industrial parks and the dried-out grasses of the interstitial wastelands began to yield to endless urban sprawl. Vast developments of carbon-copy apartment blocks, each home to thousands of people, stretched as far as one could see into the smog. Factory chimneys belched clouds of smoke and steam into the thick atmosphere and horns blared all around as frustrated drivers vented their annoyances. A motorbike carrying three people picked its way between two lanes of traffic, steadily weaving through the gauntlet of protruding wing mirrors. Beside Dan’s bus a battered old truck piled precariously high with scrap metal lurched slowly forward spewing clouds of black diesel fumes on to the windows of the cars beside it. Another motorbike picked its way through the traffic, its rider inhaling the exhaust of a thousand idling cars as he went.

The twenty-five-kilometre journey took just under an hour. As the bus approached the city centre, the chaotic suburbs gave way to attractive streets lined with trees that were just coming into leaf. Those that weren’t, were dead. In the distance the skyline was filled with bright, modern buildings – office blocks, apartments, hotels and restaurants – but here in the suburbs old buildings of grey brick construction lined either side of the road. The cars tussled with an increasing number of bicycles, while overhead a puzzle of telegraph wires and electricity cables obscured the view of the hazy blue spring sky. Dan struggled to take it all in as the bus made its way towards downtown Beijing.

The small hotel he had chosen was in the city’s traditional hutongs – a labyrinth of single-storey buildings connected by a warren of narrow alleyways. This was the traditional heart of Beijing – once a thriving, pulsating muscle of life. Now these streets clung on to life itself – a relic of a time so backwards in the eyes of Beijing’s eager town planners as to be almost embarrassing. This was prime real estate in the centre of one of the world’s fastest growing cities. Imagine the tower blocks one could construct.

Confident he was in approximately the right area, Dan got off the bus to find himself standing outside a school. It was mid-afternoon and before long a stream of students in smart grey uniforms began to file out past him. As the line of students dwindled, a young man of around seventeen, with a pockmarked face, thin-framed glasses, shaggy black hair and a light blue raincoat stopped in front of him.

Are you lost? he asked in almost perfect English.

Truthfully, Dan was lost and quickly became self-conscious that it was so obvious.

Yes, he replied cautiously. I’m trying to find this place. Dan pointed to a small advert in one corner of his tourist map of the city.

It’s near. I take you, said the student, who began to introduce himself as they walked.

My name is Zhang, but please call me Michael. I study engineering at college. Where are you from?

I’m from England, Dan replied.

Wow, fantastic! One day, I want to go to Europe and maybe live in Berlin or London, responded Michael. I like your hair! he continued. In China, men don’t have long hair!

A few moments later they left the main road and entered the hutong of Banchang Lane – a narrow street with high grey walls broken up by ornate gateways behind which stood the courtyards of private homes. Thin, underfed dogs, dusty from a life on the street, sat nonchalantly watching hutong life go on around them.

Around a hundred metres from the main road the two young men came to the broad red door of the hotel above which two small round red lanterns swung gently in the afternoon breeze.

OK, here you are. Have a nice stay in Beijing. See you.

With that, the young man left Dan gazing up at the ornate doorway and by the time he turned back to thank him the student was already some distance away.

Thank you! Dan called after him. He glanced over his shoulder, smiled, waved, then disappeared down another alleyway to the right. Dan pushed open the door to the small Lu Yuan hotel. Inside, a young woman in her early twenties with long straight black hair and a red full-length silk dress smiled and greeted him from behind the reception desk as he gently closed the door.

Hello, she said. Please come in. Do you have reservation?

Dan walked up to the desk, relieved to find himself in the right place. He heaved his backpack off his tired shoulders and laid it on the polished tile floor at his feet.

No, he replied. But I would like to stay for four nights. Do you have space? I would like a room just for me, please.

Yes, we have standard room for four night. Is three hundred seventy Chinese yuan for one night. Is OK?

Perfect, Dan replied. That’s fantastic.

He found his room at the end of a long corridor. It was almost perfectly square, with brilliant white walls, a large dark wooden bed with immaculate white sheets in the centre and an ornate, antique-style side table under the window. On the table sat a leather-bound folder of information including escape routes and useful phone numbers. Next to the table was a dark wooden chair onto which he dropped his bag. He turned, sat on the edge of the bed and fell backwards onto the clean white sheets, exhausted.

Several miles away, the young woman in the red coat hurried out of the Forbidden City and into the backstreets of Beijing. Her work for the day was almost done, save for one last, important task. She twisted and turned her way through the warren of alleyways until she arrived at an old wooden doorway, identifiable by the peeling red paint. Checking that she wasn’t being followed, she pulled a small wooden thimble from her pocket and threw it quickly over the high grey wall. It bounced twice on the flagstone floor beyond with a shrill, hollow, whistle-like sound, and came to a rest. A moment later the door creaked open and with one last quick glance down the street the young woman stepped over the threshold.

A man of around thirty greeted her with a nod, gave her back the thimble and showed her into the small house. She found herself in a dark, cramped, multifunctional room that simultaneously served as kitchen, living room and workshop. A pillow and blanket on the Ottoman-style bed suggested it was also where the man slept. Along one wall a workbench sat strewn with tools lit by an improvised Anglepoise-style lamp. A thin wisp of smoke rose from a hot soldering iron while the room smelled unmistakably of melted plastic. The young woman stood quietly in the doorway as the man eased past her to his workbench. The two said nothing for risk of being overheard. As the man sat down, he opened a drawer in the bench and produced a small round disc no more than two inches across and an inch thick. It was wrapped tightly in black heat-shrink plastic. His eyes sparkled with pride as he gave it proudly to the woman. She smiled in return as she admired his handiwork, turning the device over and over in her hand like a large coin. With a nod, she clutched the disc firmly and turned to let herself out into the street again. Closing the old wooden door quietly behind her, she disappeared back into the maze of alleyways once more.

It was early April and, although the air was still cool, Dan’s T-shirt clung to his body, sticky with sweat, but he had been too distracted by the chaos that had greeted his arrival into China to notice. His sinuses were blocked from the overnight flight and his hands and feet felt filthy.

After a warm and much-needed shower, Dan headed out into the hutongs in search of an evening meal. It had begun to drizzle and with the sun beginning to set, the sky was a pale grey. Turning into an adjacent hutong, he passed two old men playing cards under a large, fading Coca-Cola parasol, their faces tanned and wrinkled. They shelled sunflower seeds with their teeth and spat the husks onto the road as they played. A large brown rat ran along the ankle of the hutong wall behind them, collected a mouthful of the discarded husks and disappeared into a drain in the kerb.

Almost twenty minutes later and attracted by the mouth-watering cooking aromas lingering in the close confines of the narrow street, Dan came upon a small restaurant. The drizzle had stopped and the restaurant was busy as he sat down at a table in one corner.

A few moments later a man appeared, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth as he spoke to Dan in Mandarin. Dan shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, pointing to the menu. The man laughed, took it out of Dan’s hand and said, OK. Leaving Dan to people-watch, the man disappeared into the kitchen.

Before long the man reappeared, carrying a tray of food that he set down on the table: a bowl of steaming hot white rice, a dish of what Dan took to be strips of pork on toasted peanuts and a plate of long, wilted green leaves. He placed a cold beer in front of Dan and, indicating that this was a good combination, smiled and gestured for him to eat. Dan was ravenous and soon finished, washing it down with several large swigs of the local beer. Full and replenished, Dan slumped back in his chair, revelling in the success of his first meal out in China. He vowed he would come back here before he left Beijing. He didn’t know it then, of course, but that chance would never come. This time tomorrow he would be running for his life.

As far down the hutongs as Dan could see, small lanterns provided the only light – a faint but sufficient glow in the evening light. In the shade of the narrow streets, several trees were just starting to come into leaf, and Dan could see that in a few weeks’ time the alleyways would take on a beautiful avenue-like feel. On either side, ornate eves hung down from the grey-tiled roofs.

He unlocked the door to his room and slumped on to the plump sheets of the bed. Tomorrow he would explore Beijing.

He was asleep before he knew it.

The next morning he woke with a start to the clattering sound of tables being set in the courtyard outside his window. It was seven o’clock and he’d slept soundly all night. His whole body felt heavy as he lay there listening to the sounds of the hotel waking up. The sun was still below the rooftops but bright enough to illuminate his room through the curtainless window. He showered and left his room, yawning his way out to the courtyard. As he sat down, a young woman approached his table holding a dark ceramic teapot in both hands and poured a hot, pale-green liquid into a white porcelain cup on his table from which rose the invigorating smell of jasmine tea. His sinuses had cleared overnight and the aroma seeped deep into his jetlagged body. Inhaling the perfume, he closed his eyes and reminded himself of where he was. He smiled contentedly.

As he did so, across town, Nancy – as she was known today – had descended the seven flights of stairs and was walking towards the metro station. It was a route she knew well and had timed to perfection.

After breakfast Dan left the hotel and walked to a bicycle hire shop at the end of the hutong. Handing over sixteen yuan from the grubby notes that he received at last night’s restaurant, he took one of the bikes off the stand and pushed it to the edge of the road. In full flow of the morning traffic, a dizzying stampede of cars and heavy trucks churning sooty fumes onto the pavement surged past him. Primary school-aged children, women in their eighties and men in suits all swept by, three abreast. Spotting a gap in the traffic, Dan got on his bike and joined the chaos of Beijing’s rush hour roads.

Heading south, he wove his way through the column of bikes that stretched as far into the distance as he could see. There appeared to be few road rules; trucks turned left across his path, apparently oblivious to every bike and car they carved up in doing so. Bikes pulled out in front of him, causing him to swerve into the lanes of cars.

Meanwhile, bang on schedule, Nancy had arrived in Tiananmen Square and was making her way to the Forbidden City.

Just under half an hour after setting off, Dan arrived at the gates of the Temple of Heaven and, locking his bike to railings outside, made his way in. Inside, the grass was a monochromatic shade of brown as if it hadn’t seen water since it was planted. He watched three elderly Chinese men flying kites that danced in the hazy blue skies, adding a splash of colour to an otherwise largely colourless scene. The men were in their eighties, but they moved with the ease and agility of children, their deeply furrowed faces beaming with youthful delight.

The temple itself had been designed as a place to connect the mortal human world with the celestial one. It was an attempt to reach the heavens, to replicate the proximity to the gods that the Celestial Mountains over four thousand kilometres from here in the far-flung west of China offered. The same Celestial Mountains that were about to define the terrifying next few days of Dan’s time in China.

Nancy had had a busy morning striking up conversations with young backpackers visiting the Forbidden City as Dan returned to his bike and made his way back through the traffic towards Tiananmen Square. Parking his bike close to the billboard-size portrait of Chairman Mao, he stood watching the endless stream of couples and tour groups taking photos of each other in front of it. He didn’t know a lot