Chapter 2

Ganju Ghale sat on a barrel in the dark and watched the dockworkers unload his employer’s crates from the ship. The Gurkha was short, and built much like the barrel he sat on, with long arms and thick hands. The latter were engaged in a display of surprising dexterity, shuffling, cutting, and re-cutting a deck of cards, all without benefit of Ghale’s eyes, which never left the men unloading the crates.

The dockworkers were a mix of cultures and races—Chinese, Lascar, English and Tcho-Tcho....