The space was bare. Except for a dirty mattress, there was no furniture. Bugs were crawling on the walls, the chamber pot reeked. Unshaved, unwashed and alone, Jack Riley had only a few benzedrine pills left to feed his addiction. Soon, he would be out and the trembling would start again. Perhaps for the first time, he felt desperate.
Outside, chaos reigned. Through the broken windows of his dingy room in the lawless no man's land just west of Shanghai's International Settlement, Riley could see the Kempeitai, the Imperial Japanese Army's dreaded military police, patrolling the streets with their Chinese counterparts. He could hear Japanese snipers taking down targets from the rooftops of neighboring buildings. Moving would be difficult; leaving the building, deadly.