Beyond All Limits

1

Graham ‘Ace’ Anderson wasn’t a happy man.

As CIA Chief of Station Beijing, he had leant his support to the infiltration of the unknown covert ops team, organizing for one of his own agents — the truck driver Yuan Ziyang — to deliver the personnel into Beijing.

And now he was being told that the team leader had directed Yuan to some random junkyard outside of the city limits and told him to go take a hike. And just like that, the team had disappeared.

Where they were, or what they were up to, was anybody’s guess.

The thing that made Anderson so annoyed about the whole affair was his own lack of knowledge. He could count the things he did know on the fingers of one hand — an American covert ops team was infiltrating into Beijing; one of the agents would be assuming an identity that Anderson’s team had set up, in order to meet with General Wu; the other members of the team would be tackling another, unknown, target; and an exfiltration plan had been set up by his station for as many as thirty people.

He hadn’t been told, but it was obvious what was going on; the team would try and rescue the surviving members of the Politburo, while the single agent would attempt to find out what he could about Wu’s future plans. Anderson had considered the fact that the man might try and assassinate the general, but such a move would be suicidal; and as far as Anderson knew, it wasn’t the policy of the US government to endorse suicidal missions. Dangerous missions certainly, missions where the operators could be killed, absolutely; but out-and-out suicidal? Not really.

He appreciated the fact that he couldn’t be told everything even at the same time that he was angered by it. Compartmentalization was the cornerstone of secrecy, after all; and he understood why the team might want to do its own thing.

But where did that leave him and his own agency? Anything that the covert unit did would reflect on him in some way, and he was unsure of what the ramifications would be. The Chinese intelligence services knew who he was, it was no secret. He had been watched like a hawk since the first second he’d set foot in China, which was why he left much of the boot work to his subordinate agents. For this one, he’d made the necessary arrangements through a series of cut-outs; primarily so that things could get done without the government knowing about it, but secondarily so that things would be harder to trace if things went wrong.

But he was under no illusions — if General Wu realized that an American unit had been operating in Beijing, then he would be called in for immediate questioning, and his diplomatic status be damned. Wu obviously held little respect for international law — you only had to look at the situation with the USS Ford to see that. Anderson dreaded to think what would happen in the subterranean dungeons underneath the Zhongnonhai.

Of course, if it came to that, Anderson would attempt to make his own way out of the city; and if he was caught, then it would be the classic cyanide capsule, a version of which he had carried with him for the past thirty-seven years. And he certainly didn’t want that.

As a result, despite his misgivings about things, he wanted the team to succeed.

But how could he assist them if he didn’t even know where they were?

His secure telephone rang, and he snatched it off the desk, pressed it to his ear.

‘Talk to me,’ he said, then listened as one of his local agents reported. Dietrich Hoffmeyer was on his way up to his room in the Grand Hyatt Beijing.

Anderson exhaled slowly.

Okay; at least now he knew where one of the team members was. Hoffmeyer was the identity that the CIA had set up for the operator who would be working alone, and who was supposed to be meeting with General Wu that afternoon.

If the man showed up; it was still unknown at the moment if he would even be in Beijing at all.

Anderson shook his head slowly; there were so many things that could go wrong.

He looked at the clock on his wall. Just before eight o’clock in the morning.

He started to go through his own escape plans in his mind, wondering quite seriously if it was too early to start drinking.

Cole dropped his leather bag onto the opulent king-size bed in his Club Suite, wandering over to the huge window with its view of Chang An Avenue below.

As he turned back to the room, he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty; here he was in the lap of luxury, while his team mates were stuck down in the stinking sewers for the next few hours.

But as Dietrich Hoffmeyer, lead negotiator for TransNat Drilling, it was expected of him to stay in the finest accommodations. The company itself was real, a German-Dutch combine which was making a name for itself in offshore oil exploration and drilling operations. He was here to see General Wu ostensibly in order to offer to undercut the current company which Wu had agreed to use in the waters of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. His psychological profile hinted that the man was led by greed to a large extent, and Cole aimed to capitalize on this.

The real Hoffmeyer had been in the city for weeks, trapped in the paradise of the Beijing Grand Hyatt due to Wu’s directive that nobody be allowed to leave until things were ‘returned to normal’.

The meeting between General Wu and Dietrich Hoffmeyer had been made by the CIA entirely without Hoffmeyer’s knowledge. The ruse had been Cole’s suggestion; the oil business in the Senkakus was hardly public knowledge yet, and Wu would want to keep any negotiations to himself, for fear of his monetary greed coming to light just at the time he was trying to win over the Chinese people. They had to believe it was a patriotic, political act, and not one which benefitted him financially. But Wu was highly driven by wealth, and the offer of cheaper exploitation costs would certainly appeal to him.

During Cole’s planning, he had discovered the identities of foreigners working — and now trapped — in Beijing, and had quickly spotted Hoffmeyer and his company as being of interest. And so Cole had instructed the CIA to arrange a meeting between Wu and the sales negotiator. It didn’t matter where it was; any meeting would get Cole close enough to administer the death strikes.

It had been Wu’s idea to meet at the Dragon Boat festival, clearly wanting to get things moving quickly, and the CIA had agreed. There were both benefits and pitfalls to the location, but overall Cole had been pleased with it, and had planned the mission around the timings given.

But Cole had realized that things might not work out, and had a contingency plan of sorts; if the meeting was cancelled, he would still attend the Dragon Boat festival at Beihai Park. He had learned that Wu wanted to get out among his people, and Cole would try and get close to him as part of the crowd. And if that failed, then he would remain in Beijing and look for another chance.

The rescue of the Politburo members would go ahead anyway, to at least give the country some chance of reestablishing itself once Wu was finally gone.

To help the operation along, last night the real Hoffmeyer had been invited to a meeting at which the situation had been explained to him by the CIA. He had willingly agreed to go into their custody, allowing Cole to slip right into his identity; a good move by Hoffmeyer, as if he’d refused, he would have been kidnapped anyway.

Earlier that morning, Cole had maneuvered his way through the subterranean sewers until he’d reached a point where they linked up with the Beijing subway rail network. Within the sewer, a waterproof bag had been placed by the CIA with a washing kit, dry clothes, and a full set of identity papers for Dietrich Hoffmeyer, alongside a rudimentary but effective disguise.

He’d cleaned himself as best he could, then slipped into the clothes, identity and persona of Dietrich Hoffmeyer before leaving the sewers through an access hatch that led to the Beijing subway.

He had left his combat gear behind in the sewers, not willing to take the risk of getting stopped with it on the streets of Beijing, but had kept his personal secure communications gear so that he could continue to stay in contact with his team.

His weapons and equipment would still be there if he ever needed them — placed back inside the waterproof bag and hidden underneath the filthy water.

Cole stripped off the clothes he’d used to travel from the subway to his hotel, his body still dirty from the garbage truck and the sewers, and put them to one side.

A shower was the first thing he needed if he was going to make his meeting with General Wu later that day; well-paid international sales executives weren’t known for their lack of attention to personal hygiene, and he had to look the part.

And as Cole strode into the marble-shrouded, walk-in shower, turning the powerful, beautifully warm water onto his naked, aching body, he knew all too well to appreciate the glorious feeling while it lasted.

Things were only going to get worse from here.

‘I bet the commander’s enjoying a hot shower right now,’ Davis griped, stretching out his huge body on the equipment pack which he’d placed between him and the wet concrete of the sewer tunnel. ‘Yeah, or maybe a bubble bath with a glass of champagne.’

‘Maybe,’ Navarone agreed. ‘I know I would be.’

‘You’re damn straight,’ Davis said. ‘I’d be sending out for room service and a Thai massage.’

‘You’d probably get charged twice as much as a normal human being,’ Barrington said, looking at his massive frame.

‘Hey, I’m worth every cent, believe me,’ Davis replied with a grin.

Navarone smiled too, glad that everyone was relaxed. The truth was that they didn’t know where Mark Cole was headed; there was mention of a hotel, but that was all. They didn’t even know which one, and they had no idea what identity he was operating under, or what his plan was.

That was the way it had to be; if they were caught, they couldn’t tell the enemy what they didn’t even know.

But if Cole was in a hotel, then good for him; there would be a good reason, and the fact was that Cole’s own mission was even more dangerous than theirs. He had no weapons, and was going right into the very heart of the military regime, in the middle of the security iron circle. Navarone had no idea how he was going to do it. But if anyone could accomplish this incredible task, it would be Cole. Even before they’d met, Navarone had heard rumors of an elite government assassin known as the ‘Asset’, a man whose reputation and status were legendary. Navarone had now seen the man work first-hand, and could confirm that the rumors were no myth. He fully expected to see Cole at the extraction RV that night, mission completed.

Their own situation was not as pleasant as it could have been, Navarone admitted, but it was far from the worst possibilities. It might be stinking and dirty down there in the sewers, but at least they were alone and unmolested. Grayson and Collins were busy drilling into the sewer tunnel ceiling above them, using specialist tools which — although far from silent — would at least remain undetectable to anyone above. Despite the area being at the thinnest part between the tunnel and the palace complex above, there was still two meters of stone and rock separating them.

The team had moved from its laying up point where they’d separated from Cole, following their blueprints of the Beijing sewer network, with assistance from their GPS systems, until they’d reached their insertion point directly underneath the Forbidden City. With several hours to go, they had all the preparation time they needed.

Navarone sipped hot chocolate from his metal mug and looked at his MRE options; as well as rest, food was always welcome when there was a lull in the action. He had the usual butterflies in his stomach, the knot that pulled away at his gut, and although he wasn’t hungry, he knew he had to eat. Food equaled energy, and he was going to need some for the hours ahead.

He finally decided on the meatloaf — conservative and safe — and turned on his tiny propane cooker. MREs were often heated on operations by the ‘flameless ration heater’, but Navarone preferred the boil-in-the-bag method whenever he could get away with it. And in a deserted sewer, he reckoned he could get away with a flame or too. The psychological effect of an open fire — however small — was also something that Navarone believed should never be overlooked.

Two more bags sailed over to him, and Navarone caught them reactively — Davis’s and Barrington’s own MRE packets.

‘Put those on too, will you?’ Davis asked. ‘I’ll get hungry watching you stuff your face.’

Navarone nodded, smiling to himself. With lesser operators he would have to remind them to rest, to eat, to open their bowels while they had the chance. But not with these people; they were the best of the best, and if Navarone had any misgivings about their chances of success, it wasn’t in any way due to the guys he was working with.

Their five-person team had to work their way inside the Forbidden City — preferably undetected, despite the presence of a two-hundred man security force — and then rescue nearly two dozen people; people, Navarone reminded himself, who might not necessarily want to be rescued. But Cole had told him that he could use his discretion with those people, and that was exactly what Navarone intended to do. He was good at discretion.

But even if they could physically rescue the all-important politicians from their prison within the Forbidden City, they then had to extract them from the Forbidden City itself; and then from Beijing; and then from China.

They had a plan, of course, and Navarone knew it was a good one; but he also knew that the odds really were against them on this one.

‘Finished,’ Grayson called down, and Navarone watched as Barrington stood, approaching the collapsible ladders with a bag of specially mixed slurry and a pump.

‘Keep that MRE warm for me, will you?’ she asked Navarone, who nodded as she started filling the drill holes with the slurry mixture.

Navarone checked his watch — 1012 hours. That was good; it meant that the mixture would have at least four hours to set.

He turned back to his cooking, reminding himself as he watched the flames of his burner flickering on the ancient stone walls of the sewer tunnel, that the ramifications of failure were too great to consider it even as an option.

They would succeed; it was what Force One did.

They succeeded in situations where all others would fail.

Banishing all thought of failure from his mind, he decided that this was the image he would pursue, and no other.

And as he pulled the MRE bag out of the boiling water, in his mind failure was gone altogether; success was the only option.

2

Captain Liu Yingchau was back at work, helping to protect the Zhongnonhai compound. It was simple guard work and not something that needed a special forces officer, but Liu had happened to be near Beijing at the time of the coup and had been pulled in to help. Wu had wanted the best to protect him and the compound, and a spare ‘Hunting Leopard’ was too good to let go.

It was Wu’s own desire for full protection that led Liu to his commander’s office door that morning, rapping his knuckles on the thin wood.

‘Come in,’ barked Lieutenant Colonel Chen Chanming. A motorized infantry officer from the Beijing Military Region’s 65th Group Army, he was — despite having no special forces background — Liu’s commanding officer at the Zhongnonhai due purely to his rank.

Liu marched in and saluted smartly. ‘Captain Liu Yingchau, sir,’ he announced.

Chen shook his head. ‘Is this about General Wu again?’ he asked with irritation. Liu had already called the colonel the night before, demanding — as much as he could demand anything of a superior officer — why he hadn’t been told of Wu’s visit to Taiwan. He’d been told in no uncertain terms that he didn’t need to know, and should keep his nose out of the general’s business.

‘Yes sir,’ Liu confirmed. ‘If I am to have a role in protecting him, I need to know where he is.’

‘Captain,’ Chen said sternly, ‘I would personally like to see you court-martialed for calling me at home to ask me about army business — restricted army business, I might well add. You want me to reveal information over the telephone? I thought you knew better than that. But then again,’ he said, peering over his spectacles at Liu with barely restrained disgust, ‘I should know to expect that of you special officers, shouldn’t I? Loose cannons, always thinking you’re better than the rest of the army. Well, do you know what? You’re not special at all. I am special, because I am in command here. I know where the general is, and when he will be back, because I am authorized to know. And you are not.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing,’ Chen said, cutting Liu off. ‘I understand that you feel entitled to such information, but I assure you that you are not. How can you protect the general, you ask? I’ll tell you — you don’t. You help protect the Zhongnonhai compound. The general’s security is looked after entirely independently, and you have nothing to do with it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Liu responded, struggling to hide his contempt for the man in front of him. He knew Chen’s record, knew that he had never seen a day of real combat in his life; but he’d impressed the right people and greased the right palms, and now here he was, a blown-up lieutenant colonel making things hard for the real soldiers. Chen was also typical of senior officers within the ‘regular’ army, who intensely distrusted the men of the special operations command, often seeing them as a threat rather than the useful force-multiplier that they were.

Chen held his gaze, looked down at some paperwork on his desk, then looked back at Liu. ‘The general returns at oh-nine-hundred hours today,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But I am not telling you because you demanded that I do so — I am telling you this because his presence at the Dragon Boat festival this afternoon will mean extending the security perimeter of the Zhongnonhai past the White Dagoba on Jade Island to the other side of Beihai Park. We need to clear the roads on the northern perimeter and check possible sniper positions. The general will be out in the open, and you need to make sure your people secure the entirety of the compound. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Liu understood perfectly. He was being ordered to secure an area with almost no time left in which to do so; an area which — if Wu’s schedule had been confirmed earlier — should have already been cordoned off and checked. Essentially, Chen was making sure that if anything should go wrong, it would be Captain Liu Yingchau that would be blamed for it — probably his punishment for rousing the colonel on the telephone the night before.

But despite his misgivings — he would now be held responsible if the American operation to kill the general was successful — he nevertheless saluted and marched from the office with a smile on his face.

He had discovered what he needed; Wu was on his way back, and would be at the festival as promised.

He would let the American unit’s team leader know immediately.

‘How are preparations coming?’ General Wu asked from the secure satellite telephone onboard the private jet which was carrying him back towards Beijing.

‘Good,’ came the voice of Admiral Meng Linxian. ‘With the Americans unable to fly over our expanded territorial waters with their drones and surveillance aircraft, they are forced to rely on their satellites — and we know where they are, and how to avoid them.’

Wu was immensely pleased — he had managed to shut down the surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities of his enemies almost entirely, making them blind to the East and South China Seas. The Americans didn’t dare send any aircraft over China’s waters for fear that the USS Ford would be destroyed in retaliation; and other nations knew that their aircraft would almost certainly be shot down if they tried it — the improvements in anti-aircraft capabilities his country had made in the last decade would almost guarantee it.

He congratulated himself again on his crippling of the Ford and his handling of the situation since then. It was perfect; simply perfect.

‘Our carrier?’ Wu asked next.

‘En route with the battle group,’ Meng announced, ‘and as far as we can tell, entirely undetected.’

‘It will only be a matter of time before they realize that it has left the Taiwanese coast,’ Wu said thoughtfully, stroking one end of his large mustache. ‘And then they will ask themselves where it is headed.’

‘Yes,’ the admiral agreed, ‘but by that time, it will be too late. The battle group will be in position, and — with the situation how it is — who will dare try and stop us?’

Wu smiled again, pleased with the admiral’s confidence. And the man was right, too — who would dare stop them?

Wu had killed the Chinese president, instigated a military coup and taken over control of the country, crippled an American aircraft carrier, retaken the Diaoyu Islands and invaded Taiwan — and so far the international community had hardly batted an eyelid.

Yes, Admiral Meng was quite right — nobody was going to stop him this time, either.

Cole was eating breakfast at the Grand Café buffet, following the routine explained to the CIA by Hoffmeyer the night before and included with an information packet that had been left for Cole with the dry clothes and ID in the sewer.

It was important that he continued to act as the real Hoffmeyer would — eat the same foods, drink the same beverages, go to breakfast at the same time — because as a foreigner it was possible that he was under surveillance. In fact, due to his meeting with Wu later that day, that possibility was almost a certainty.

As he ate his cereal and melon and took a sip of his creamed coffee, he casually surveilled the café and the surrounding area.

Sure enough, a man in his early twenties over in a corner booth who had been nursing a single coffee for far too long was looking furtively over at him from time to time, and an older man in the foyer beyond was almost staring at him in between unconvincing glances at his newspaper.

The presence of the men — at this stage Cole couldn’t spot any more, but assumed they would swap over with colleagues once Cole left the café — didn’t disturb him in the slightest. Indeed, their presence almost reassured him — it was merely business as usual.

His secure cell phone beeped, and Cole looked casually at it, hiding his pleasure at the message. Despite the encrypted software, Liu had sent the message in code anyway, but Cole understood it quickly enough — General Wu was on his way to Beijing.

Cole was glad — the meeting that had been set up gave him his best chance at eliminating the man safely and without detection.

He had called a number given in the information pack earlier that morning, the contact number of the assistant who had helped arrange the meeting. He’d said that he’d seen Wu on the news in Taiwan and had wanted to confirm that their meeting was still going ahead.

The voice on the other end of the line had said gruffly that it was none of his business, and that the meeting would be going ahead; if General Wu wasn’t there, then somebody else would meet Hoffmeyer in his place.

Cole had wanted to argue, to demand that he would only deal with General Wu, but didn’t want to arouse suspicions too much and had in the end acquiesced gracefully.

The security around Wu’s movements was incredible, but Cole could easily see why. Leaving Beijing — and the security of the Zhongnonhai — had been a risk. If the US had discovered when he was travelling, they might have been able to pinpoint his aircraft which could then have been taken out by a missile, an aircraft, or a predator drone.

But it seemed that Wu was a man who liked taking risks, especially if it involved ‘winning over the people’, which must have been the reason for his visit to Taiwan in the first place. To show himself as unafraid, to create the image of a battlefield commander.

Norma Valente’s report for the Paradigm Group on General Wu had indicated that this was indeed how he saw himself — the Genghis Khan of the 21st century.

His presence in Beihai Park that coming afternoon was also a calculated risk; outside of the security of the Zhongnonhai he was exposed, vulnerable. But in Wu’s mind, presenting himself to his people as a victorious, returning general fresh from the frontlines of Taiwan — his ‘gift’ to the Chinese mainland — was worth it.

Cole sighed, leaning back in his seat and sipping his coffee as he thought about the general. Was the man capable of launching nuclear missiles?

He already had no doubt in his mind that Wu would destroy the Ford as threatened, if pushed too far, and Cole wondered about what would happen if he was unsuccessful in this afternoon’s operation.

If Wu lived, and Navarone’s operation was successful, how would Wu react? Would he blame America? Would he kill over four thousand US servicemen and women in revenge?

And if he did, what would President Abrams do? A full-scale invasion was something that would be a truly horrific prospect — for both sides.

Nuclear reprisal would be another option, but Cole didn’t believe that Abrams would be the one to launch first.

No, Cole decided, she would order the troops to go in; there would be a full naval bombardment, Japan would be used as a base to launch bombing raids, and then — when the Chinese coast had been sufficiently softened — the ground troops would invade.

It would be tough — the Chinese military was vast — but it was achievable. The only question would be how many young men and women the US government would be prepared to lose.

And the other question, of course, was — if Wu thought he was going to lose a conventional war — if he would retreat to the Taihang Mountains and instigate global annihilation.

The thought itself was almost too much to consider, and Cole turned his mind off to such second-guessing.

The general would be in Beihai Park as promised, Cole would meet with him, shake his hand, touch a couple more pressure points and then leave the area.

And an hour later, General Wu — Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China — would be dead.

3

Vice President Clark Mason was drunk. He’d shared the Montrachet with Lansing — although he wasn’t sure she could tell the difference between that and the cheap stuff — and had followed it up with a few too many glasses of bourbon.

He was lying naked on his marriage bed now, silk sheets strewn across the floor, his arm wrapped round the slim, sweat-slicked body of Lansing. He was spent and exhausted from their marathon session together, but he could feel her touching him again, encouraging him to go again; and what was more — despite his drowsiness — he felt himself respond to her ministrations.

‘You know,’ he said with a slight slur, ‘you never did show me that surprise you were telling me about.’

And it was true — after dinner and drinks, they had wanted each other too much and had started making love on the couch, and then the rug by the fire, before taking it upstairs to the bedroom; he had forgotten all about Lansing’s earlier teasing.

‘Mmmm,’ Lansing moaned as Mason nuzzled her ear, ‘you’re right.’ She pulled her head away, patting him gently on the chest. ‘Wait there.’

She pulled herself out of the bed and Mason watched her dark, perfectly curved body as she left the room, hearing her feet as they retreated back downstairs.

Mason wasn’t sure how long she was gone, but felt himself drifting off to sleep, waking when she returned.

‘What do you think?’ she asked him coquettishly, displaying her newly-clothed figure for him to admire.

Mason felt his pulse racing. ‘I think you look… different,’ he said.

‘Different?’ Lansing asked, pretending offense.

‘No, no — different in a good way,’ Mason said quickly. ‘I love it.’

Lansing smiled, and held up a bag that she had brought upstairs with her. Removing a set of clothes from inside, she placed the bag on the dressing table and threw the bundle over to him.

‘What’s this?’ Mason asked.

‘You’re going to love that even more,’ she said with a seductive smile. ‘It’s your costume.’ She slipped onto the bed, sliding her hand up Mason’s naked thigh. ‘Now go and put it on,’ she purred.

Mason looked from Lansing, to the clothes, then back again. So she wanted some role play, did she? He smiled; this girl was even better than he’d thought.

He opened the bundle of clothes, desperate to see what the costume was. He was surprised at what he found. ‘Really?’ he said with a raised eyebrow.

‘Oh yeah,’ Lansing said. ‘It’s always been one of my favorite fantasies.’

Mason pulled himself out of bed, kissed her cheek, and strode to the bathroom to get changed, still not believing his luck to have met a woman like Sarah Lansing.

And there was a very good chance, he decided, that after this night was finished, the fantasy was going to be one of his favorites too.

As Cole relaxed back in his room — Hoffmeyer rarely left, except for meals — he felt his mind veering upsettingly off-course.

Aoki Michiko — my daughter.

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about her, but found he couldn’t help himself. He had been through the upcoming mission in his mind so many times now that it was almost as if he’d been there and carried out the operation already. He knew everything about it — the area, the layout, the amounts of people who were supposed to be there, where they would be standing, what the security arrangements were like, the names of the dragon boat teams and their crews; he had even envisioned the smell of the street foods, the feel of the warm air on his skin.

All that was left was the job itself.

But now his mind was being pulled away from the mission, and he couldn’t get the image of his daughter out of his mind.

His daughter — the last time he’d thought about a daughter, it had been his little Amy, killed when she was only four. He still had nightmares about her being shot in the back of the head, her blood and brains flying out to cover his own face.

He’d failed; he had taken his revenge, for her and for Sarah and Ben, but he had failed them all.

But he no longer brooded over this failure; it was in the past, and there was nothing he could do about it anymore.

And yet he was still troubled, being here in Beijing when his own daughter was by herself, sent back to Japan by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He had decided to go ahead with the mission, leave her to fend for herself.

It was all too similar to what he had done to his last family, put the interests of the country, of the world, ahead of them. He might have saved the president and prevented a second Cold War, but he had lost the three people he loved the most in the world.

Was he making the same mistake twice?

But he knew he had to be realistic about things. He knew nothing about the girl, couldn’t even be sure that she was his. And she was returning home, wasn’t she? Surely she would be safe there. She might have to answer some questions from the Japanese authorities, but they were hardly going to kill her.

And the situation in China was real — it was happening right now, a nightmare scenario that could spell disaster for thousands or even millions of people. Cole knew what was at stake, and knew that he had a chance of stopping it.

On the other hand, Michiko would be quite safe in Japan; and what was he going to do about it anyway? He might not be able to find her there even if he looked; and if he found her, would she want to talk to him? Or would she still want to kill him?

The question of why she wanted to kill him still haunted him. What did she think he had done? She obviously blamed him for something, but what was it?

Cole shuddered as he considered the possibility that — whatever it was — she might be right. He had certainly done some horrific things in his life, any of which might have affected Michiko in some way without his ever realizing it.

But he knew he wasn’t being entirely honest with himself; if Michiko hated him enough to try and kill him, there were only a few things that he’d done that would have affected her. And as far as he knew, they all related to her mother, Aoki Asami.

He lay on the huge bed, willing himself not to think about it, knowing the memories would drag him down, make him doubt himself, jeopardize the mission. And yet he couldn’t help it, and in his mind’s eye the luxurious, brightly-lit hotel room gradually darkened, growing old and shabby until it had become a dingy little room at the Khao Sing Apartments in downtown Bangkok, eighteen years ago; a room he’d tried hard to forget; a room of nightmares.

4

Mark Kowalski had been in Bangkok with six friends from his SEAL Team Two platoon, on R&R after a six month tour of Iraq back in 2003. He had a girlfriend back home, but that was only semi-serious; neither one of them had made any sort of commitment, and so Kowalski was going to do what SEALs did best — after fighting at least — and party like his life depended on it.

It had been a long six months, and he needed the release. They all did; it had been pretty much non-stop for the entire tour, one nerve-wracking recon mission after another, several of which had turned into vicious firefights. They had won each engagement decisively, but they had all lost friends on the way; their trip to Bangkok was therefore part R&R, part memorial. It was how they dealt with loss and pain.

The first couple of days had been spent in the pursuit of all of Bangkok’s hedonistic charms, and Kowalski and his friends were finally beginning to relax. Then one night — perhaps a Saturday, Cole couldn’t now remember — the men had become separated.

They had been drinking all afternoon, and some of them wanted to visit the red light district in Patpong. Kowalski had wanted to carry on drinking, and so while four of the team had headed off across town, he and a young SEAL called Taylor Henman had stayed in the bars around Khao San Road.

Eventually, Kowalski and Henman had also become separated, and Kowalski had found himself wandering the streets of Bangkok alone and more than a little drunk. It went against all advice for military personnel on R&R, but they weren’t thinking about rules and safety; they were SEALs, and they’d just been to war. What did they have to worry about in Bangkok?

Kowalski had been leaning against a dirty brick wall in an alleyway outside a rundown bar, trying to stop his head from spinning, when he’d heard it — the low, whimpering moans of a woman.

He had become instantly alert, his feet automatically taking him further down the alley towards the source of the sound.

Despite the alcohol he’d consumed, his mind became clearer and clearer with each passing second, his body sharper and more responsive as the moans turned to cries and then muffled screams.

Kowalski turned one corner, then another, running now towards the sounds, and then he made one last turn and there she was — a young women lying in a pool of blood on the floor, three Thai men stood around her with bloodied knuckles. One had a knife.

The woman was silent now, and still; far too still.

Kowalski launched himself down the alleyway, on the men before they’d even had a chance to turn round and see him.

He took the one with the knife first, tackling him full-force from behind and driving him into his friends, knocking them sprawling to the ground. The man dropped his knife and as he went to grab it Kowalski stamped down hard on his hand, breaking the bones; then as the others were getting back to their feet, he grabbed the first thug by the hair and rammed his head straight into the alley wall, bricks cracking from the impact, dust billowing out into the hot night air.

Kowalski wasted no time; he was trained to act quickly and decisively, and never to give the enemy an inch. Keep moving forward; always push forward.

He lashed out with his right leg in a powerful upwards arc, his boot catching the second man underneath the jaw as he was still rising. The head snapped back and Kowalski knew the man was out before he’d even hit the sidewalk.

He turned just as the third man put his hands around Kowalski’s neck in a Muay Thai clinch position; but Kowalski knew the position and knew what would be coming next — heavy blows with the knees, a trademark of that fighting art.

Anticipating it, Kowalski caught his hand under the incoming knee and — holding onto one of the man’s clinching arms with his other hand — picked him clear off the floor, turning the lighter man in the air and bringing him down savagely onto his bent knee, braced against the ground.

There was a snap and a dull moan, and then Kowalski dropped the man and smashed his head into the sidewalk just to make sure.

All three of the attackers were now out of commission — perhaps permanently, although Kowalski didn’t think so. They were tough; they’d pull through.

After his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kowalski considered simply killing them; after all, the world would undoubtedly be better off without them.

But he was not a murderer, and death could be kept for the battlefield. Perhaps their experiences tonight might make them rethink their way of life and choose a less dangerous path.

Kowalski certainly hoped so.

He stooped to the body next to him, the young woman lying in a pool of her own blood. He checked her body from top to bottom, discovered a small knife entry wound between two of her ribs, took off his shirt and tied it round her to help stem the flow of blood. All her other injuries were superficial, though unpleasant — her obviously pretty face had been mauled by the men’s fists. Two teeth were missing, and he was sure she had a cracked cheekbone, maybe jaw too.

He wondered whether he should leave her there and go and find help, but thought better of it; who knew if the three young thugs would have friends nearby.

And so he did the only thing he could think of and picked her up in his arms, carrying her out of the dirty alleyway.

It was when they were nearing the end that her eyes opened, taking Kowalski entirely by surprise; they were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, at once full of life but at the same time lonely and desolate, revealing depths of soul Kowalski couldn’t begin to understand.

Those eyes looked into his with an intensity he was unable to comprehend, a searching look, a look of trust, wonder and gratitude.

And then she spoke, even though it was just two short words and must have hurt so badly.

‘Thank… you,’ she managed, and then she was unconscious again in his arms.

And Mark Kowalski, despite himself, knew that he had just fallen in love.

The days that followed were strange ones for the young SEAL. He’d taken the girl to the nearest medical unit to have her looked at, and they had sent her straight to Bumrungrad International Hospital.

Cole had covered the young woman’s medical bills, and stayed by her bedside. The doctors had wanted to get the authorities involved, but she had been adamant that she didn’t want to let anyone know what had happened.

It turned out that the woman was from Japan, and the name she gave the doctors — and Kowalski — was Aoki Asami, despite her passport saying her name was Yamaguchi Asami. She was reluctant to discuss what she was doing in Bangkok except that she was ‘trying to get away from things’. Kowalski guessed that those ‘things’ might be related to the man who’d given her the married name of Yamaguchi; she was probably fleeing an abusive husband. But it was mere conjecture — even as the days continued and he managed to get in touch with his SEAL team mates to tell them to enjoy themselves without him, she refused to open up about her personal situation.

But Kowalski didn’t care; there was so many other things to talk about, things from a life Kowalski hardly knew existed. As Asami rested in her hospital bed, Kowalski held her hand and listened to her speak about her country, and many other countries besides — their language, their culture, their traditions, their music, their national character. The woman’s knowledge seemed boundless, especially contrasted to Kowalski’s own.

He had travelled the world, sure. But most of it was spent in combat in the worst hellholes of that world; and time not spent in combat was spent either in training or in partying. Culture was not something that had been on his agenda.

It was something that had been mentioned to him at Officer Candidate School at Pensacola two summers before, and something he had paid lip service to in order to pass out as an Ensign. But the truth was, he had typically divided people into two groups over the years — friends and enemies — and had given no more thought to further cultural niceties.

But Asami started to open his eyes to the beauty all around him, and he was at once amazed by what he was experiencing, and at the same time profoundly embarrassed by his own previous narrow-mindedness.

When Asami was released from hospital, the pair continued to spend time together, travelling round the teeming city of Bangkok to experience some of the things they had been discussing.

To Kowalski, every mouthful of food tasted delicious, the sound of the Thai language all around him like a beautiful song; even the polluted air seemed to smell fresh and sweet. It was as if a veil had been taken from him, and he was seeing the world for the first time, a man rediscovering his senses after years of deprivation.

They had been standing in the warm rain by the Chao Phraya River, Kowalski filled with wonder at the sight of traditional riverboats travelling against a backdrop of gaudy neon lighting, when he had first kissed her.

He might have had a girlfriend back home, and she might have been on the run from an abusive husband, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world; and Asami had responded in kind, two lovers kissing in the rain.

They made love soon after, and once again, Kowalski had his eyes opened as she taught him to slow down, to appreciate every touch and caress.

His two week break came and went, his SEAL buddies had flown back to the United States, and still Kowalski remained in Bangkok. He had another couple of weeks left before he had to report for duty, and he was determined to spend every moment he could with Asami.

What would happen then, he didn’t know. He was half-planning on inviting her back to the United States with him when the unthinkable happened.

They were asleep in bed in the room they had rented in the Khao Sing Apartments, Kowalski’s arm round her shoulders, her head on his chest, when the door splintered to pieces, wood showering the room.

Kowalski hardly had time to open his eyes before the room was filled with men, three of them hauling Asami, naked, out of the bed, ripping her from him and throwing her on the floor.

Kowalski, also naked, was half-way out of bed when he was struck on the back of the head by something hard and heavy. He saw stars instantly and collapsed to one knee, head spinning.

He vaguely saw movement in front of him, men coming towards him with stilettoes and meat cleavers. In his peripheral vision, he saw Asami being dragged from the room by her hair.

The sight was enough to propel Kowalski into action, and he leapt forward, encasing the arm of the man with stiletto in his hands, twisting the blade sideways into the man next to him, cutting savagely across.

The first man’s grip loosened as the second man dropped to the ground, and Kowalski ripped the dagger from him and plunged it through his neck, blood from the arterial spray covering his face and naked body as he pulled the knife back out.

He never stopped moving, a blur of action in the dark room as he checked a blow from a meat cleaver with his forearm, contacting the attacker’s wrist below the blade. His stiletto went through the man’s heart an instant later, buried so deep that Kowalski couldn’t pull it back out.

Another cleaver arced in at him and he angled his body away at the last moment, the edge of the blade slicing across his ribs, his own blood spurting across the room. But he ignored the pain, bending to collect the dead man’s meat cleaver and hacking away at his attacker’s shins with the brutal weapon.

The man cried out in a feral mix of surprise and pain, and Kowalski jumped to his feet and buried the cleaver through the man’s collarbone, powering diagonally down through the body halfway to the lungs.

The fractured, gruesomely bloody body dropped heavily to the floor and Kowalski realized there was nobody else near him; the others had gone, taking Asami with them.

He picked up another cleaver from the floor and raced from the room, naked and bloodied.

Someone was waiting for him outside, and Kowalski barely managed to duck in time as the club almost took his head off; he cut sideways as he ducked, slicing the cleaver cleanly through his attacker’s abdomen, loops of grey intestine spilling out across the hallway floor.

Up ahead he saw three men dragging Asami with them, turning the corner towards the stairs, and he gave chase, legs pumping as he sprinted down the hallway.

He caught them at the stairwell, hacking down through the first man’s head with the cleaver, fracturing it wide open. He pivoted swiftly to the other side, burying the cleaver through the next man’s face, shattering bones and teeth as it passed through.

The last man was faster, slicing his own dagger across Kowalski’s chest, narrowly missing his throat; and then the dagger was arcing back towards him again and Kowalski managed to get his foot up, kicking the man away.

The thug staggered down two of the steps then regained his balance, pulling Asami down with him, arm round her neck, dagger to her throat.

He screamed at Kowalski in Thai, indecipherable and furious, and Kowalski could see blood begin to leak from Asami’s pale skin as the dagger pressed deeper.

Kowalski regarded the man carefully as he watched him retreating down the stairs with Asami. He raised his hands slowly above his head in pacification, cleaver held loosely as he calculated vectors, angles and timings.

And then — when the man turned slightly at the bend in the stairwell — Kowalski’s right arm came down in a blindingly quick action, the cleaver flying through the air, tumbling over itself in tight arcs once… twice… and then embedding itself in the side of the man’s skull with a huge geyser of blood, which covered the dark walls of the stairwell like black paint.

The man dropped dead to the floor before he’d had a chance to move the dagger even a quarter of an inch, and Asami was racing back up the stairs into his arms.

Kowalski could hear the heavy footsteps of men racing through the downstairs foyer for the stairs — backup for the gang. In the distance, he could hear sirens approaching, the police no doubt called by the building’s residents, some of whom were watching through the cracks in their doors.

Kowalski pulled Asami back down the corridor. They were going to have to get out of there fast — but they wouldn’t get far without clothes or passports.

They reached their room, a horror house coasted with thick blood and eviscerated human tissue, and Kowalski was surprised how calm Asami remained in the face of such gruesome terror, almost as if she was used to it.

Together, they pulled on their clothes as fast as they could and Kowalski turned to the window, breaking it open with an elbow and hurling their bags into the street below. He climbed out onto the window ledge, all too aware of the footsteps racing down the hallway towards them, and gripped hold of the metal drainpipe at the side, sliding three stories down to the rain-soaked street below.

He called for Asami, who was waiting on the ledge, and he saw hands reaching through the window for her as she grabbed hold of the drainpipe, half sliding and half falling down the side of the building.

Kowalski was waiting for her at the bottom, and she fell into his arms, saving her from the impact with the concrete sidewalk.

Kowalski looked up, saw men shouting down to the street below, some of them fighting to get out onto the window ledge first.

Kowalski had no idea what was going on. Why did they want Asami so badly? Was it revenge, just because Kowalski had beaten those first three thugs who had been attacking her? Or was there something else going on?

The streets were coming alive, crowds moving towards the apartment complex, curious onlookers mixed with armed policemen blasting on whistles.

Everything was confusion, the crowd was absorbing Kowalski and Asami, hiding them even as the police tried to separate everyone; but was the crowd friendly? Or was it filled with more gang members, after their blood?

And then Kowalski felt Asami being pulled away from him, and when he turned to her, he saw it was girls from the local bar, trying to pull her to safety; and Asami nodded that she would go with them, Kowalski understanding that they would be harder to identify if they split up, yet unwilling to let her go; something deep down, a gut feeling he could never place, told him that if he let her go, he would never see her again.

‘Meet me by the river tomorrow,’ he whispered to her, knowing she would understand the place he meant, the verge where they had first kissed in the neon-lit rain.

She nodded, her eyes locked with his, and then she let her hand go loose, allowing the girls to pull her away to hide her; and then Kowalski was alone in the crowd, letting it pull him away in the opposite direction, his heart empty.

He had gone to the river the next day, waited there from dawn til dusk, all the while aware that the police would be looking for him, the gang too.

He continued to wait, looking for her from the shadows, but she never showed; knowing he was due to report for duty in just a few more days, he started to look for her through the city, starting with the bar she’d been pulled into on that first night.

But every way he turned he was met with stony silence, unable to gain any clue to her location; but then he went back to the bar for a final check, and a young girl came to him, passing him a note.

I am safe, it said simply. But I am afraid we can never see each other again. It is too dangerous, and I love you too much to do that to you.

I am sorry.

You will be in my heart forever —

Asami

Kowalski’s heart sank like a stone when he read the message, all of his half-envisioned dreams about their future together shattered irreparably.

But she was safe, and that was really all that mattered.

He just hoped it was true.

But for Kowalski, he knew it was time to return home; he’d outstayed his welcome here, and knew his luck couldn’t last any longer. The ‘unknown westerner’ would be found soon enough if he stayed, either by the remaining gang members or by the Bangkok police — and he didn’t know which would be worse.

And so Mark Kowalski accepted the situation for what it was and booked himself on the first flight home for the United States, unsure how he was going to continue with his life as it was.

It turned out that things returned to normal quite quickly for him back in the States — the discipline of military life gave structure that was comforting and even pleasurable, in a vaguely masochistic sort of way.

Later that year he was promoted to Lieutenant, due in no small part to his performances in Iraq, and then — his recent experiences making him even more driven and single-minded than he was before — he passed the arduous selection for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, otherwise known as SEAL Team Six — his dream ticket.

He’d also moved in with his girlfriend Claire, the relationship — in the absence of his true love, Asami — somehow becoming more and more serious without him even realizing.

And then, when he got his papers to relocate to Dam Neck, Virginia — the home of Team Six — he had asked Claire to marry him, if for no better reason than being hounded into it.

It was destined not to last, and it didn’t — the couple was married in 2004, and divorced three years later after he had been recruited into the mysterious and clandestine Systems Research Group. He was operational too often, or else on training, to make a marriage work, and his heart wasn’t really in it.

But he could never quite rid himself of the nightmares of that dark, dingy, blood-spattered room. It was one thing to kill a man at long — or even close — range with a rifle or a pistol, as Kowalski had done many times in battle; but it was another thing entirely to do so with bladed weapons.

To be so close to your opponent, to feel their coppery, hot blood on your bare skin, their very life-force draining away over you as they breathed their last, was something he had never before experienced in quite the same way.

He’d seen bad wounds before — gut shots, rounds that had traveled through one man’s abdomen and intestine before coming out of his leg, IEDs that had blown limbs off — but the sights in that apartment block were singularly gruesome, and stayed with him for a long time afterwards. Skulls split wide open, internal organs eviscerated everywhere, the stench of blood and sweat and death; and all by his own hand.

He had become reconciled to killing long ago, but something about the savage deaths of those men in that Bangkok apartment served to change him in some indefinable way. If he had been inured to violence and brutality beforehand, now he had become even more so, and — despite the nightmares and the troubling images that continued to plague him for months to come — the incident in the end made him stronger, and more prepared to face the demons that would continue to come at him throughout his life.

And one more thing had also happened — except for the occasional nightmare of that bloody room, he had finally, mercifully, and entirely forgotten about the woman he had loved there.

Mark Cole stirred on his bed in the Beijing Grand Hyatt, having fallen into a nightmarish sleep, reliving his past life in vivid, Technicolor detail.

And then, all of a sudden, he sat bolt upright, sweat dripping down his face and neck despite the air conditioning.

Aoki Asami.

He couldn’t believe how long it had been since he had truly thought of her, remembered her; even when he’d been in Bangkok the year before, his memories had barely been stirred.

But having remembered at long last, seen her eyes again in those long-repressed memories, he was no longer in any doubt.

Aoki Michiko was Asami’s daughter.

She was his daughter, created by an intense love cut short all too soon.

But why did she hate him?

He had no idea what she had been told about him when she was growing up; perhaps Asami had told her that he was a monster, a villain, a psychopath? Or maybe Asami had gone back to her husband, given birth, and then Michiko had been abused by the man? Or Asami had been punished for her infidelity? Perhaps even killed? Would Michiko not then blame everything on Cole?

He felt the sweat start to pour again, wiped his face with his hand.

It was useless to try and second-guess anything; the things that could have happened to Asami and her daughter since she disappeared in Bangkok were infinite.

But one thing Cole had decided — when all this was over, he was going to take some leave and track Michiko down, just as she’d tracked him.

Only then would he learn the answers to his questions.

His heart rate increased automatically as he back-tracked his thoughts.

When all this was over?

He’d never intended to go to sleep, and he suddenly realized that he had no idea how long he’d been out of it.

As he raised his wrist to check his watch, he hoped beyond hope that it wasn’t all over already, hoped he hadn’t missed his appointment with Wu, his only clear shot at getting the man.

He looked at the time and his body relaxed slightly, his heart reducing its heavy beating in his chest.

It was okay; there was still time.

Cole knew his body had awoken him not because of the nightmarish images, but because it was such a finely honed machine that it knew he had a job to do. A sixth sense kept him constantly aware, always on the alert. It never let him down.

He shook his head in wonder; it would be literally impossible for him to sleep through an operation.

As he rose out of bed and strolled across the marble floor to the huge double wardrobes, his mind flashed again on those hacked, dead bodies lying in their thick pools of congealing blood, and asked himself — not for the first time — exactly what sort of man he was.

But he knew the answer already.

He was the sort of man who always got the job done.

5

Everyone was geared up now, the fire was out, equipment was stowed. Force One was ready.

Navarone checked his watch — 1403 hours. Just twenty-seven minutes until Cole’s meeting with Wu, and he’d received nothing from his boss, or from Liu, to suggest it wasn’t going to go ahead as planned.

The Forbidden City above them was surrounded by a moat, six meters deep by fifty-two meters wide. A wall provided further protection, ten meters high and nearly three and a half kilometers long. To prevent tunneling, the paving was fifteen layers thick.

But the wall — and the moat — only went so far underground.

The original, isolated sewer network underneath the city was deemed insufficient by the communist government, who dictated that it should connect to the more modern system of Beijing, beyond the walls. They therefore authorized tunneling under those walls, providing access from the outside into the Forbidden City.

Navarone could understand why — it was the Zhongnonhai that was now the seat of government, not the Forbidden City; the old walled palace compound was now just a tourist attraction — albeit one that had been closed to the public since Wu’s coup. It was now simply a prison.

The compound held not just the Politburo, but any number of government and political groups which had not immediately acquiesced to Wu’s demands to assume control.

But they were not Force One’s concern; it was the Politburo it was concerned with, or — at the very least — those members of the Politburo steering committee that would provide a nucleus for a replacement government after the military regime had been deposed.

Julie Barrington was waiting in an elevated position on top of the ladders near their point of entry into the city — underneath the vast courtyard complex of the Hall of Imperial Supremacy.

The intelligence Force One had received from Liu Yingchau explained that — although the Politburo was moved regularly — they were always held within one of the self-contained palace compounds. This way the outer walls could be guarded, and the courtyards gave the prisoners some space to walk and get some fresh air, while still being physically contained.

Liu had let them know that the Politburo was currently being held within the northeast sector of the Forbidden City, known as the Outer Eastern Palace. This area — surrounded by lofty, red perimeter walls — was further split into three sections.

There were western and eastern compounds, and then there was the central compound where the Hall of Imperial Supremacy was located; and it was within those walls that the Politburo was currently being held.

There was no direct access from the sewers into this compound, which complicated matters somewhat; but if there wasn’t already a way in, Force One was just going to have to make one.

Barrington was perched near the curved, rough stone ceiling of the sewer tunnel, at the point where the holes had been drilled and filled four hours earlier. At this particular section, there was only two meters of earth and stone between the sewer and the interior of the hall.

Barrington was now monitoring the location of the people above through a combination of X-Ray and thermal sensors, along with specialist radar, and a Wi-Fi device that relied on radio waves and other portions of the electromagnetic system, and operated in a similar fashion to radar and sonar but with enhanced imagery capabilities. Two meters was thick, but the combination of the different instruments meant that she was able to create an overall picture that would be quite accurate.

The rest of the team was taking notes of the location of the people above, figuring out movement patterns, establishing who was who, and running through their actions on contact, time and time again.

When they got the word, they would be ready.

Duanwujie, Cole had discovered, was the correct term for what the rest of the world knew as the Dragon Boat Festival. In China, it was known as Duanwujie — the Double Fifth Festival — due to its falling on the fifth day of the fifth traditional lunar month.

He had also learnt that three major things happened during the celebrations — sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, known as zongzi, was eaten in large quantities; xionghuang wine — made with realgar, an arsenic sulfide — was drunk to excess; and the famous dragon boats would race against each other in any waterway long enough to hold them.

Established over two thousand years ago, the festival commemorated the death of the beloved Chu Kingdom poet and statesman Qu Yuan, who committed suicide by throwing himself into a river after Chu had been invaded and overrun by the forces of the Chin State on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

Local people threw lumps of rice in the river to make sure the fish did not eat his body — the origin of zongzi — while at the same time other locals took their boats out in order to retrieve the dead poet, which resulted in the subsequent tradition of dragon boat racing. And at the same time they were doing that, an old doctor poured realgar wine into the river in order to kill the river monsters and protect Qu Yuan’s spirit, which was why the same wine was still imbibed today.

Understanding such a tradition might not have added anything to Cole’s tactical decision-making, but — perhaps due to the influence of Asami, he now considered — he always tried to learn all he could about the cultures and customs of the countries he operated in, especially if he was going to end up right in the middle of such a cultural celebration.

And now was exactly such a time, Cole reflected as he entered Beihai Park through the teeming South Gate Entrance. Everywhere he looked, people in colorful clothes were parading happily through the gate into the park, security only partially visible. It was clear that Wu didn’t want the whole thing to be a military operation just because he would be there today; he wanted ‘his’ people to go on as normal, celebrate the festival as they always did, and engage with them on equal ground, show them that he was one of them, that everything he did was for the Chinese nation. It made sense, and Cole admired the man’s psychological acumen.

Cole could tell from the attitude of the people around him that they were not at all unhappy to be under Wu’s rule. Despite a crippled US aircraft carrier off their coastline, and their nation’s military being involved in two recent invasions — or perhaps because of it, Cole realized — the mood was buoyant. And it was only partially caused by the quantities of xionghuang wine that had already been consumed.

The people who streamed through the gate with Cole were of all ages, from babies to the elderly and infirm. Families entered with picnics, teenagers with friends and open bottles, couples holding hands; all with smiles and laughter.

It was a far cry indeed from the last time Cole had been in Beijing, confronted with the cold, grey granite face of communism — both in its architecture and its people. He wondered how far the change could be attributed to the leadership of General Wu and his promises of a new and more powerful Chinese empire.

There weren’t many foreigners in the crowd, Cole had noticed instantly, and as he passed through the South Gate he was stopped immediately by a pair of armed guards. From their uniforms, Cole could see they were members of the elite Macau Guard Unit, brought in by Wu to help protect the area alongside the Hong Kong Special Operations Unit. Despite the security presence being subtle, Cole could see they were still taking no chances.

‘Identification?’ one of the soldiers asked in good English. His manner was polite and professional, and Cole noted that they were not aiming their weapons at him — yet.

He reached into his pocket and handed over his passport — or at least, Dietrich Hoffmeyer’s CIA-altered passport.

The man looked at it and nodded. ‘You have an appointment, yes?’ he asked, and Cole realized that it wasn’t just that all foreigners were being stopped; he’d been stopped because he’d already been identified.

‘Yes,’ Cole responded. ‘I hope I’m on time.’

‘Your timing is fine,’ said the man, before clicking on his radio and firing off a burst of staccato, sing-song Cantonese; totally different to the Mandarin spoken by the majority of mainland Chinese, and further proof of Wu’s desire to bring in outsiders to protect him. He received an unintelligible reply, and looked back up at Cole. ‘Please wait here,’ he said. ‘You will be escorted to your meeting shortly.’

‘Thank you,’ Cole said with a smile. He was impressed that they had called for an escort; less professional soldiers may well have abandoned their posts and escorted him themselves, or at least split up their two-man team. But not these guys; the first man’s eyes remained on Cole while his opposite number scanned the crowds around him.

He didn’t have to wait long. Soon enough, two more men approached, and Cole saw that they belonged to the Hong Kong SOU, the unit most closely responsible for Wu’s safety.

These two men were also polite, and as the first pair melted away back into the crowd, Cole’s new escorts performed a thorough and professional body search for weapons or anything which might be considered inappropriate — a recording device, for instance. They first of all cast the metal-detecting wand over him, and then went hands-on. Of course they found nothing, as there was nothing to find; Cole was going to kill Wu with his bare hands.

‘Okay,’ said one of the men, again with good English, ‘follow me please.’

He led off, the crowd separating for him immediately as they saw his assault rifle, creating a clear path for them. Cole noted how the second man slotted in behind him, so that he was trapped between the two of them.

They walked northwest on the path that followed the five-meter-high walls of the Round City, until they came to the colorful stone archway that marked the entrance to Yong An Bridge, a beautiful, multiple-arch construction built in the thirteenth century.

Another pair of soldiers nodded to Cole’s escorts as they passed through the archway onto the bridge, and Cole continued to take in his surroundings as he went, eyes scanning and recording the images. He took note of where the guards were, pleased to see that the latest report from Liu was perfectly correct: where all the different buildings were, where different kinds of people were grouped within the crowds — families, couples, teenagers, business people — all in case he had to make an emergency tactical withdrawal.

He wasn’t overly worried — he had an appointment with Wu after all, he had no weapons, and his method of execution was so effective mainly because it was undetectable. Like he had in his countless mental rehearsals, he fully expected to get the job done and then simply be escorted back out of the park, with nobody any the wiser. And even when the general collapsed an hour later, his heart given out completely, nobody would ever suspect that it had been something to do with the foreign businessman he had met earlier.

They passed underneath the next colorful archway, signaling their arrival onto the Jade Flower Islet, the thirty-six meter tall White Dagoba dominating the scene, perched on top of the islet’s central hill.

Cole had learnt from Liu that while most of the islet was open to the public, the northern section where White Dagoba Hill descended back down to the lakeside was closed off and reserved for Wu De and the other generals and aides from his military government.

But as they marched across the path leading east around the base of the hill, Cole noted that security was tighter over the whole island than it had been on the mainland side; picnickers and revelers were being much more closely monitored here, by a much larger guard force. Cole took in each and every detail — faces, weapons, positions, movements — as he followed the lead soldier towards the northern shoreline.

The eastern side was much quieter than the west, Cole observed, but that was only to be expected — the dragon boat races would occur towards the northern and western sides of the lake, so people on the east side of White Dagoba Hill would see nothing. But from his brief glance westwards from the memorial archway, he could see that the entire western side of the island was already too saturated with people to contain any more. New arrivals were therefore being ushered eastwards, where a myriad of stalls selling the ubiquitous zongzi rice and xionghuang wine had been set up to assuage the disappointment of missing the races. As a result, they were doing a thriving business with the latecomers, who sat, chatted, ate and drank all around the small, wooded island.

The general and his entourage, Cole knew, were located in the Long Corridor, stretched out across the northern shore. Based on the corridor in Jiangtian Temple in Zhenjiang, Jiansu Province, the Long Corridor was an exquisite architectural marvel. Three hundred meters long, the corridor building was open to the lakeside at the front and enclosed by latticed windows at the rear, and was painted in red and decorated with the most beautiful multicolored embellishments across its entire length. It had two levels, and according to Liu, Wu would be on the second floor, centrally located in an upper pavilion that would provide perfect views of Beihai Lake and the dragon boat races. And — perhaps more importantly from a public relations perspective — it would also give the crowds a perfect view of the general, who would no doubt be resplendent in full uniform and battle honors.

It wasn’t long before the path they were on met the eastern end of the Long Corridor, and Cole could immediately see that security was taken a lot more seriously here. The entrance to the corridor had a six-man team guarding it, with sentries and look-outs positioned through the tree-clad hills surrounding the area.

The soldier who had asked for Cole’s passport handed it over to the commander of the guard team, explaining who Cole was in another burst of Cantonese. The man looked at the passport of Dietrich Hoffmeyer, looked at Cole, and nodded once. Immediately, two men moved in to search him again — as if he would have had a chance to obtain a weapon somewhere between the South Gate and here, ensconced between two armed soldiers. But Cole admired their professionalism — the fact was that he could have if he’d needed to, and it was good practice of the guards to check.

Deemed clean once again, Cole entered the Long Corridor with his two escorts, passing by the guards, the footsteps of his leather-soled shoes click-clacking across the ancient stone floor. They rounded a corner, the corridor descending downwards towards the northern shore, the steps worn smooth by the passage of millions of pairs of feet over hundreds of years.

But before they got as far as the shoreline, they reached a pair of guards who — at a signal from the man in front of Cole — opened a recessed door hidden within the latticework of the left-hand wall.

The man behind Cole ushered him through after the first soldier, and he found himself in a hidden stairwell which led to the second level. They emerged onto the upper corridor, another recessed door held open for them by another pair of guards.

They carried on walking, rounding another bend which led finally to the main length of the corridor, facing the northern side of the lake. As Cole marched down the open corridor, he looked out across the lake, seeing the thousands of people on the far side. Boats were already in the lake, the teams warming up for the big event. He could hear the cheering all the way across the lake.

He felt his heart rate start to rise as he subconsciously assimilated the fact that he was almost there, the time for his skills to once again be tested almost upon him. He didn’t reflect consciously on what was at stake — the lives of four thousand sailors and aircrew, the fate of China, of Taiwan, of who knew where else — but his heart understood entirely, and tried to speed up of its own accord, his hormonal system at the same time doing its best to dump its load of adrenalin into his system to supercharge his upcoming efforts.

But — again without conscious thought, his body so well-trained, so experienced after decades of operational engagements — it also knew that the entire organism needed to remain calm, and so at the same time it began to regulate his breathing, bringing his heart rate down, the effects of the adrenalin less and less obvious.

As Cole walked along the upper corridor towards his meeting with Wu De, he hardly recognized that this was happening; he was confident to let his body take care of itself, and let his mind concentrate on what really mattered — troop dispositions, escape routes, weather patterns.

He gazed out across the lake, looking up at the heavy, swollen skies above. The heat was stifling, humid and uncomfortable, especially in his business suit, and Cole knew that it wouldn’t be long before the heavens opened all over Beijing. A storm had been forecast for the morning, but had failed to materialize; now Cole could tell from the air itself that it was coming with a vengeance.

The corridor angled upwards slightly, and once again Cole was click-clacking up a set of old, worn stone stairs, towards a brightly colored doorway guarded by another six-man team. And beyond that, his final goal, his objective.

His target.

General Wu.

6

The telephone rang and Ellen Abrams stirred in her bed, arm searching the empty space next to her reflexively, as it always did. When — as always — it found nothing, her eyes opened sleepily, and she reached over for the phone.

‘Yes?’ she answered, checking the time as she did so — 2.30am. She wondered what had happened, realizing it must be of great importance to disturb her so early; calls were routinely screened before they came through to her.

‘Good morning ma’am, sorry to disturb you.’ The voice at the other end of the line belonged to her National Security Adviser, John Eckhart. So he was awake too, making the importance of the call even clearer.

‘That’s okay, John,’ Abrams said, sitting up in bed, hand smoothing the sheets — a subconscious, calming measure that served to settle her nerves as she waited to hear the news. ‘Go ahead. What is it?’

‘I wouldn’t normally bother you with this, but you said to let you know if there was any further movement of Chinese forces, and — well… ’

‘Go on,’ Abrams urged.

‘An hour ago our intelligence sources on Taiwan advised us that the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning was missing. The information was passed through CIA channels, and James contacted me himself with this, let me decide whether to call you or not.’

Abrams understood; nobody liked to be the person to wake the president. But James Dorrell, Director of Central Intelligence, had seen fit to pass it on the line up to Eckhart, so there must be some confirmation of the news.

‘Missing?’ Abrams asked. ‘What do they mean by that?’

‘It means that embedded Taiwanese intelligence — those who haven’t been rounded up yet, agents who are still in touch with our CIA guys there, who have access to military information, radar, sonar, at least for now — cannot locate the Liaoning; it’s no longer off the coast of Taiwan. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near Taiwan.’

‘What about our own surveillance?’

‘We don’t have any,’ Eckhart said. ‘We can’t do flyovers of the area because of the Ford, and we’ve got nothing on the satellites. I called Bud Shaw at NSA already, he thinks they know our satellite schedules and are hiding during those times when we photograph the area, so he’s contacted the NRO and asked them to re-task the satellites.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘Hard to say, but I’d like to think positive and say we’ll have some usable data in time for the NSC meeting.’

Abrams’ head sagged. What the hell was Wu doing now?

‘Do we have any idea where it’s headed?’ she asked.

‘We don’t even know for sure which direction it’s gone in,’ Eckhart said sadly. ‘Northwest to South Korea or Japan, south to the Philippines, southwest to Vietnam, we just don’t know. That whole area’s blocked off to us. It might just be going back to China for a refit.’

Damn that Wu, Abrams thought bitterly. If only he hadn’t damaged the USS Ford so completely, they might have a chance of locating the Liaoning.

‘Surface radar?’ she asked next, knowing that Eckhart would have already checked but needing to ask anyway.

‘Nothing so far,’ Eckhart said. ‘We’ve asked for feeds from all of our allies in the area, but remember that most systems can only see as far as the horizon, say fifty-five kilometers. Some have increased range, but we’re looking at nearly five million square miles of water between the East and South China Seas. Despite the size of the Liaoning, it’s like hunting for a needle in the proverbial haystack.’

A sudden thought occurred to Abrams. ‘Has the Ford picked up anything on its radar?’

‘No, we already asked Captain Meadows, but they’ve got nothing except the ships that’ve been guarding them all along.’

Abrams’ shoulders sagged again. It had been a good idea; in the middle of the ocean, the carrier might have had some chance of seeing something.

‘The Chinese navy know the location and the extent of all the radar systems in the area,’ Eckhart said, ‘including the one on the Ford. It wouldn’t be a big problem — wherever it is the Liaoning is headed — to plot a course that would evade them all. Without direct aircraft or satellite surveillance, we’ve got nothing.’

Abrams straightened. The situation was — potentially — bad, but it was what it was, and as leader of the free world, she was going to have to deal with it. The fact was that — as China’s sole aircraft carrier and a pivotal platform for any invasion — the disappearance of the Liaoning boded ill for at least one more country in that region.

It just remained to be seen which country it was.

‘Okay,’ she said to Eckhart, bringing the conversation to a close. ‘Thank you for getting in touch, it was the right thing to do. See you at the NSC meeting at eight.’

She put the phone down and immediately dialed another number. ‘Pete,’ she said to General Olsen when he picked up, ‘how are our plans for a counter-attack coming?’

‘The missing aircraft carrier?’ Olsen asked, voice remarkably free from the sounds of tiredness despite the hour.

‘You got it,’ Abrams confirmed. ‘We might have to make a move, depended where it’s headed. Make sure your people are ready to go.’

‘Yes ma’am,’ Olsen said with military confidence.

Abrams looked again at her clock — 2.42am.

She wondered how Cole and the others were getting on, and prayed for their success like she’d never prayed before.

Cole was waiting inside the pavilion, a grandiose room filled with colorful panels and silks, furnished like a Ming-era palace suite; vases and urns were placed everywhere, the tables, chairs and loungers all in bright, gilded wood.

Through the lattice doors, he could see Wu positioned among his generals on the balcony outside, seated on a gilded throne imported to Beihai Park for the occasion.

He was surrounded on all sides by armed guards, members of the Hong Kong SOU. Cole counted eight of them, two to each wall.

He had been allowed to sit while he waited, and did so, his iron will still controlling his breathing, which in turn controlled the often debilitating effects of adrenalin.

He had been waiting at least ten minutes when he saw the big general move, raising his massive bulk from the throne, waving to his people across the lake to roars of appreciation that Cole could hear all the way across from the mainland.

Wu turned to the lattice doors, another man — even bigger, if that was possible — accompanying him closely as a military aide snapped off a salute and opened the doors for them.

Cole got to his feet as Wu strolled into the pavilion, the second man right next to him, and as Cole saw the huge, scarred, savage face, he realized this must be Zhou Shihuang, Wu’s private bodyguard, the one Liu had informed him about. Liu had warned him to be careful of the man, and Cole would take the advice. Everything about Zhou made Cole want to be careful.

‘Mr. Hoffmeyer,’ General Wu said in perfectly accented English, performing a slight bow as he spoke, a wide smile underneath his oiled mustache.

Without offering to shake hands, Wu gestured for Cole to sit back down.

Cole hid his disappointment, bowed in return, and did as he was asked, watching closely as Wu sat down opposite him, his weight making the gilded chair groan underneath him. Zhou moved off to the side, but not by much; he was placed close enough to defend Wu if he should need to.

Cole’s disappoint stemmed from the lack of handshake; it was to be the opening move in the triple strike that would leave Wu dead without him even knowing it. But the opportunity for that was gone, and Cole quickly started to calculate options.

He would monitor the position of Wu’s body throughout the meeting, taking any chance he could to touch the man in the correct locations, his mastery of body language masking his intentions by making the movements seem as natural as possible.

If he didn’t manage during the meeting, he would be sure to offer his hand first, as soon as the meeting ended; surely Wu would not ignore it?

But if he did, there was another option; he could attack the Chinese leader conventionally, crush his windpipe by striking the throat with the edge of his hand, or else by grasping the head, wrenching and breaking the neck. There were many options, and Cole was capable of doing them all.

The only drawback to that strategy, of course, was that Cole would almost certainly be killed instantly as a result.

But Wu would be dead, and the mission would be accomplished.

Cole was prepared to go that route if he had no other options, but his mind started firing on all cylinders, determined to find some other way.

‘So Mr. Hoffmeyer,’ Wu said, after accepting a cup of green tea from an assistant, ‘first let me apologize for your being kept here in Beijing. But things are fraught, as you can well understand, and for safety reasons I have had to put this curfew into place.’

‘I understand completely,’ Cole said, knowing the real reason for Wu’s policy — to ensure a large foreign population in the city in order to avoid the possibility of reprisal attacks by other counties.

Wu smiled. ‘Coffee?’ he asked. Cole nodded, and almost immediately a cup was brought over, cream and sugar exactly as Hoffmeyer took it. The message was clear; he had been under surveillance.

Cole took a sip and smiled back. ‘Perfect,’ he said.

‘Good,’ Wu said, still smiling. ‘It might even be that your unexpectedly extended stay in our great city has actually worked out well, eh? With no other foreign companies coming in, you’re in quite a good position, aren’t you?’

‘Every cloud has a silver lining,’ Cole agreed.

‘Ah, yes,’ Wu said thoughtfully. ‘I like this expression. Now, let’s get down to business. The races will start soon, and I must be there to watch them, yes?’ He looked around the gilded room, as if to check for people listening in. Seemingly satisfied, he leaned closer to Cole and whispered to him conspiratorially. ‘So, I understand you have a proposal which might be of interest to me?’

Cole nodded, also leaning further forward. ‘Yes indeed,’ he said, and went on to outline the fictional deal being offered by TransNat Drilling, a proposal that would undercut Wu’s chosen partner by over twenty percent.

Wu listened thoughtfully, asking questions when he needed confirmation of the details. Cole found him to be articulate and intelligent and — somewhat surprisingly given his reputation — even rather charming.

Cole came to the end of his brief, and Wu rested his corpulent frame back in his chair, an assistant appearing to take his empty teacup. He steepled his fingers over his large belly, looking across at Cole thoughtfully.

‘It is a tempting offer,’ Wu said finally, ‘but I am afraid that our existing partners in the Diaoyu Islands have received my promises, and they are already involved in exploration as we speak. Their time would have to be compensated, and this would eat up a large share of the savings you are offering. And they are already en route to Taiwan to deal with the deposits there.’

Cole nodded. ‘I understand. But if you are unwilling to change companies, why did you agree to see me? The offer was never going to be better than the one we made.’

A wide smile covered Wu’s face, possibly the first genuine smile Cole had seen the man give. ‘That is a good question, Mr. Hoffmeyer,’ he said. ‘A very good question.’

Wu leaned forwards, once again in conspiratorial mood. ‘Let me tell you why you are here, Mr. Hoffmeyer. Perhaps I have an offer for you, if you can come back to me with terms like the ones you have offered for the Diaoyus.’

Cole looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry, General Wu,’ he said, ‘I think it must be the heat, I’m not used to it. I don’t understand what it is you’re asking.’

Wu looked around, as if sniffing the air. ‘Perhaps it is the pressure,’ he agreed. He listened intently for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, ‘just listen.’ He paused to let Cole do so. ‘The rains have started.’

The general was right, although Cole had already picked up on it; the sound of the rain pitter-pattering on the roof above them was light, but starting to get louder and louder. It wouldn’t be long before there was a fully-fledged storm.

‘A perfect day for the racing,’ Cole said, eliciting yet another smile from the general.

‘It is indeed,’ Wu agreed. ‘Perhaps even auspicious. It is said that the rains fell on Qu Yuan’s dead body as it lay in the river.’

They both listened to the rain for a time, the faint drumming above them vaguely meditative. Cole wondered if Wu was thinking about the power and wealth of China’s imperial past, imagining himself as the leader of a renaissance of those former, glorious times.

Eventually, Wu’s attention returned to the man sat opposite him; for despite his sense of destiny and self-aggrandizement, the general was — like many dictators — a businessman first and foremost.

‘But as for what I am saying, Mr. Hoffmeyer,’ Wu continued, ‘I am intimating that there might soon be another location whose resources can be exploited.’

Cole shifted in his seat, interested in this development not only as a negotiator for TransNat Drilling, but also as the head of Force One.

‘And what location is this?’ he asked with genuine interest, though tinged with equal parts trepidation and anxiety.

‘If I was to say Chunxiao and Longjing,’ Wu said with a raised eyebrow, ‘would that be sufficient to answer your question?’

It took Cole longer to make the connection than it would Hoffmeyer, but not enough to make a difference. After a quick mental rundown, Cole’s memory cross-referenced the vaguely remembered names and got an answer.

Chunxiao and Longjing were unexploited gas fields within the East China Sea; unexploited because they sat in waters which were part of an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan.

‘Japan?’ Cole asked breathlessly, not quite believing the implication. ‘Have they agreed to let you have the fields?’ he asked, not wanting to think about the alternative.

Wu laughed. It was a short laugh, vicious, like the bark of a dog; and for the first time, Cole was able to see behind the pleasant façade, recognize the man for who he really was.

‘They have not agreed to anything,’ Wu said. ‘But — very soon — their agreement will not be required.’

Cole shook his head in wonder, his fears confirmed. And suddenly it all made sense. The crippling of the USS Ford, the invasion of the Senkakus and of Taiwan. The whole of the East China Sea was unmonitored, and an entire Chinese battle group could be on Japan’s doorstep with nobody ever the wiser. And by the time anyone could respond, it would be too late.

Despite himself, Cole was impressed; the sheer speed with which Wu had deployed his plans was incredible. But then again, the military was the government in China now, and Wu had to ask permission from no one. And, Cole reminded himself, invasion plans for all of China’s neighbors had been around for years, practiced and rehearsed in endless war games. All that was required was the will to give the order, which Wu had now done.

‘You’re serious,’ Cole said finally.

‘Of course I am serious, Mr. Hoffmeyer,’ Wu replied. ‘We have been sleeping for a long time, but now the dragon is awake, and we will take what is ours by divine right.’

‘But the Americans?’ Cole asked. ‘Are you not worried that they will interfere?’

Wu laughed again, waving his hand in front of his face in a signal of disdain. ‘Americans?’ He shook his head with barely concealed disgust. ‘Do not talk to me of the Americans. We tested their commitment to Japan with the Diaoyus, and look what happened — a few strongly worded communiques from the State Department, nothing more. Again with Taiwan — nothing. And don’t forget that we still hold four thousand of their people hostage, not to mention the thousands more right here in Beijing. Now, you tell me what America has done to save the people aboard the USS Ford? Not one single thing. No rescue attempts, no counterattack. Nothing. Why will Japan be any different?’

Cole knew Wu was right, to a certain extent at least. For all he knew, the United States was doing nothing. But that was all about to change, with the death of General Wu himself. Cole understood his commitment now, the absolute necessity of killing the general. Despite the presence of the other military leaders, the coup was clearly a one-man show, the regime held together purely by the force of Wu’s personality. When he died, the regime would crumble, the invasion of Japan more than likely called off altogether.

Cole knew that if it came right down to it, he would kill the man by whatever means he had to in order to get the job done, even if it meant dying himself in the process. Invading Japan would mean countless deaths if allowed to go ahead, those of Japanese and Chinese citizens alike. And the United States would get involved, would come to Japan’s aid. It was one thing for China to take the Senkakus — just uninhabited hunks of rock — or to take Taiwan back under mainland control, as the US didn’t even recognize Taiwan’s Republic of China government anyway.

It was another thing altogether, however, for China to invade a full ally of the United States, and one whose people she had pledged to protect. Abrams would give the order to assist Japan against China, as she would have no real choice to do otherwise. And then Heaven only knew where it would all end.

With a man like Wu, the nuclear annihilation of Japan — perhaps even America — could never be ruled out. Wu’s love for ‘his’ people was well reported, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have a very different, distinctly lower, view of the sanctity of human life than Western leaders had. It was well within the man’s capacities to risk nuclear reprisals against his own nation if it meant achieving what he wanted; or even as an act of revenge.

With the thought of nuclear attack against Japan, Cole froze, his mind reeling as a horrific thought occurred to him.

Michiko.

She had been sent on an airplane to Tokyo — surely the number one target on Wu’s list.

Even without the threat of nuclear weapons, the city would be the primary target of a conventional invasion force.

He felt his heart start to beat faster and faster in his chest, hoped that Wu wouldn’t notice his efforts to control his breathing, to get a grip on his suddenly freewheeling emotions.

Centering himself, knowing that the best way to protect Michiko was to succeed in his mission to kill General Wu, Cole nodded his head in agreement with the man.

‘Perhaps you are right,’ Cole said. ‘The Americans are cowards at heart.’

Wu smiled, pleased at Hoffmeyer’s appraisal. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s good.’ He laughed again. ‘And if they do suddenly become brave, we have a few thousand nice little warheads which I am sure will make them think twice.’

The look in Wu’s eyes told Cole that his earlier assessment was right — Wu would use his nukes if he felt he needed to, with none of the usual morality-induced second-guessing that inhibited any non-sociopathic world leader.

An aide came up to Wu, whispering in his ear before retreating quietly. ‘Mr. Hoffmeyer,’ Wu said, and from his tone, Cole could tell that the meeting was coming to an end, ‘I am afraid duty calls. The races are due to begin any minute, and I must return to my place outside. But does my proposal interest you?’

Cole nodded quickly. ‘Oh yes, absolutely,’ he confirmed. ‘And I am sure that I can manage to work out a similar deal to the one we proposed for the Diaoyu Island deposits.’

‘Excellent,’ Wu said. ‘Our sources indicate there may even be more untapped potential off the coast of Japan, and whoever we deal with, I would like to pursue those sources too. Full exploration of the area.’

Cole nodded. ‘Of course. I will get to work on it.’

Wu pushed himself out of his chair, surprisingly light on his feet for such a big man, and Cole also stood, heart racing despite himself, understanding that the moment of truth was almost upon him.

‘You work out your figures,’ Wu said, ‘and contact my people to arrange a further meeting in… let’s say… three days’ time?’

‘I can do that,’ Cole said confidently, extending his hand across the space between them, offering it for General Wu to shake. ‘Thank you General Wu, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.’

There was a pause, and Cole was terrified that Wu would not take his offer of the Western custom.

But then Wu smiled and extended his own hand towards Cole.

Cole could feel the sensation of relief trying to flood his body, but didn’t let it; not yet, anyway.

Like a sniper observing the target through an optical scope, he had yet to make the fatal shot. And like the sniper, Cole calmed his breathing and his heart rate, and entered the zone — an area of flawless control where everything seemed so clear, so easy, so perfect.

Cole’s hand touched Wu’s, the general’s huge paw enveloping Cole’s completely. They shook firmly, Cole’s thumb depressing a tiny nerve inside the notch between the general’s own thumb and forefinger.

At the same time, Cole’s other hand came out naturally, clasping the general’s forearm in a gesture of Western friendliness, fingertips finding a second nerve cluster.

He knew he couldn’t put a hand towards the general’s neck or face — such a gesture would be far too intimate for such a meeting — but allowed his hand to leave the forearm and rise higher, just above the elbow.

The gesture was so smooth, so natural, that nobody would think anything of it, and his hand moved swiftly up, fingertips about to deliver the third strike, the coup de grâce which would interrupt the energy flow all down one side of Wu’s body causing a seizure and then a fatal cardiac arrest later that same afternoon.

But then — before his fingertips could do their work — Cole sensed movement to his side, felt the sudden, wrenching force of a hand ripping Cole’s own away from the general’s elbow.

Cole turned, half in shock, Wu’s own face registering surprise as the force of the pull separated them completely.

‘Sha shou!’ Zhou Shihuang screamed, gripping Cole’s arm with unbelievable strength. ‘Sha shou!’

The call reverberated around the room, and Cole could see weapons instantly being engaged around him. Cole knew why — his basic knowledge of Mandarin told him what the word being shouted around the room meant.

Killer. Murderer. Assassin.

What he didn’t know was how the huge bodyguard could possibly have realized what Cole was doing.

Unless Zhou Shihuang also knew the method, Cole realized with a cold fear in the pit of his stomach.

Cole had studied the marma adi death strikes of the Indian Kalaripayattu system, but the Chinese also had a version within their own traditional martial arts known as dim mak.

Had Liu said that Zhou was a renegade Shaolin monk?

Cole’s heart sagged as understanding hit him like a sledgehammer and — perhaps for the first time in his life — he knew he was going to die.