Check the Gauge

A strip of black electrical tape covered the van's check-engine light, but it could not hide the smell of scorched coolant.

Tan Boyan tapped his knuckles against the digital thermometer suction-cupped to the center vent. The liquid crystal display blinked, settling on 15.4 degrees Celsius. Six-tenths of a degree below the threshold. If the reading hit sixteen, the cargo bay would turn into a riot of waking scales and dry hissing.

"Patience, ladies and gentlemen," Boyan said into the rearview mirror. His voice carried over the rattling drone of the transmission. "Captain Tan has initiated our final ascent over Wumeng Pass. Refreshments will not be served due to moderate turbulence, but our arrival in the lowlands remains ahead of schedule."

Behind the cab's wire-mesh partition, twenty-four molded fiberglass terrariums sat strapped to the ribbed steel floor. None of the occupants stirred yet. Two dozen banded kraits, white-lipped pit vipers, and king cobras lay coiled in their moss shavings, dormant in the artificial chill. Each crate bore a tamper-evident customs seal Boyan had bought for fifty yuan from an off-duty warehouse clerk in Kunming.

The side mirror trembled on its bracket. A few lengths back, cutting through the mountain fog, a pair of square halogen headlights clung to his bumper.

The white-and-blue Santana cruiser had trailed him for forty-two kilometers. It had followed him through the hairpin turns past the limestone quarries, past the shuttered timber depots, and up the two-lane asphalt ribbon of Provincial Route 219. Boyan had tested the cruiser three times with subtle shifts in momentum. Each time he let his rear wheels drift toward the center stripe, the patrol car mirrored the drift with bureaucratic precision.

"A fan of our work," Boyan murmured, smoothing the collar of his faux-leather jacket. "An admirer of transit logistics."

He eased his right foot down. The accelerator cable creaked. Under the hood, the four-cylinder engine produced a sound like a coffee grinder processing river stones. The speedometer needle crept from fifty kilometers per hour to fifty-eight.

Behind him, the cruiser’s roof rack came alive.

Twin red and blue strobes flared against the dripping canopy of mountain pines. A sharp, two-tone electronic yelp cut through the fog, bouncing off the sheer granite cliff to Boyan’s left.

Boyan sighed, checking the digital readout again. 15.6 degrees.

"Now she wants an autograph," he muttered.

·  ·  ·

In the patrol car, Officer Meng Qiaoling took a sip from her stainless-steel travel mug and grimaced. The station instant coffee tasted of chlorinated tap water and scorched chicory.

She rested the mug in the center console's rusted cup ring, picked up her citation clipboard, and checked the dash-mounted radar unit. The digital numbers glowed green: fifty-nine in a posted thirty-five zone. Worse than the speed was the physical posture of the vehicle ahead. The silver Hafei microvan sat low on its rear leaf springs, listing three degrees to the port side, and its exhaust pipe trailed a faint, sweet-smelling haze of vaporized antifreeze.

She reached for the dashboard switch and tapped the siren horn once more.

The van did not pull onto the gravel shoulder. Instead, its rear brake lights flickered twice and died as the driver accelerated into the next climb.

Qiaoling set the clipboard on the passenger seat beside her carbon-copy citation book. A moving violation, an uninspected commercial carrier, defective brake lights, and failure to yield to emergency signals. At minimum, the paperwork would consume two hours of her evening shift.

"Pull over, you idiot," she said to the rain-streaked windshield. "I want to go home by six."

She clicked her transmission into third gear and matched the van's climb.

·  ·  ·

Boyan gripped the thin plastic steering wheel with both hands, his knuckles whitening as the road pitched upward at a ten percent grade. The display on the auxiliary thermometer ticked to 15.7 degrees. Cold air still hissed from the floor vents, but the flow had thinned to an asthmatic wheeze.

"Attention, esteemed passengers," Boyan announced, his voice tightening. "We are experiencing a temporary enforcement inquiry. Do not unfasten your seatbelts."

Ahead, the yellow warning sign showed an arrow bent into a sharp hairpin hook over an exclamation point: Nine Dragon Bend. Reduce Speed to 20.

Beyond the dented guardrail lay six hundred meters of empty air, mist, and the jagged treetops of the valley floor. The road narrowed between the rock wall and the precipice, its asphalt broken by logging ruts and greasy puddles of shale runoff.

The Santana’s high beams filled Boyan’s cabin with harsh white glare. The cruiser was fifty meters back now, nosing out to the left as if preparing to pull alongside him on the straightaway before the curve.

If Qiaoling boxed him in, the engine would idle. If the engine idled, the compressor would stop turning. Within four minutes, twenty-four deadly vipers would warm to room temperature, discover the ventilation grates, and test the latches.

Boyan did not touch the brakes.

Instead, he dipped his clutch pedal, shoved the gear selector down into second, and snapped the throttle open with his heel to match engine speed. The transmission screamed in protest, but the drop in gear sent a surge of torque through the front wheels.

Ten meters before the apex of the switchback, Boyan swung the wheel hard to the right toward the cliff face, then snapped it back to the left into the curve.

It was a textbook Scandinavian flick, executed in a rusty delivery van loaded with two hundred kilograms of live venom.

The microvan’s tall, square body pitched violently. The rear tires broke traction on the slick gravel, swinging wide in a controlled, graceful drift. The right rear corner skimmed within six inches of the rusted metal guardrail, showering crushed limestone into the abyss. Boyan caught the slide with a rapid half-turn of counter-steer, his thumbs tucked outside the rim as the tires bit into the fresh asphalt on the exit of the turn.

The van surged out of the bend with clean forward momentum. In the trembling side mirror, the patrol cruiser was forced to brake hard, its tires chattering over the washboard ruts as it negotiated the curve at half his speed.

Three hundred meters of open mountain road opened between them.

"And that," Boyan said aloud, exhaling through his teeth, "is why Captain Tan does not pay for regional rail."

He glanced at the auxiliary thermometer.

The display read 15.9 degrees.

A sudden, sharp metallic bang rang out from beneath the front hood, loud as a pistol shot.

The van bucked. The heater vents gave a sickening hiss, and a massive plume of blinding white steam erupted from the radiator grille, washing over the windshield in an instant wall of fog.

The smell of boiling glycol flooded the cab. Boyan slammed the wiper switch, but the rubber blades merely smeared the boiling moisture into a milky paste. Through the whiteout, the dashboard temperature gauge spiked straight into the red.