Hong Kong

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sergeant Loo Ping was told to search the Bank of the Orient tower, which stood on the north side of the square. He picked four men and went to the front door, which was locked. With his face against the glass, shielding his eyes with both hands, he could see that the bank lobby was empty.

He fired his rifle into the door lock. After three shots he pushed experimentally on the door. It gave, but a piece of the deadbolt still held it. He had two of the men put their shoulders against the door and push. The glass cracked, the broken lock gave way, and the door opened.

Sergeant Loo led his men inside. Of course the major hadn’t told him what to look for. “Search the building,” was all the major said, as if the object of the search was self-evident.

“People,” Loo Ping told his squad now. “Look for people. If we find anyone, we will take him outside to the command vehicle for interrogation.”

The soldiers moved off. One went to the basement, the others went to the elevators and pushed the button. Nothing.

Loo Ping led them to the staircase and they started up.

“What if we find money?” the youngest soldier asked, which amused the others.

“You think they leave money lying around?”

“This is a bank, isn’t it? Perhaps there is money. They must keep it somewhere.”

Loo Ping was a rice farmer’s son himself and had never had a bank account. Of course there was money in a bank, even a failed one. Perhaps the major really wanted the soldiers to search for money.

“Money would be locked away in safes,” one of the soldiers remarked now, which made sense to Loo Ping. The bankers certainly wouldn’t leave money lying around.

The second floor was a huge open room, carpeted, full of desks, with a computer on each of them. The lights were off, so the only illumination came through the windows on the sides of the grand room. The soldiers stood at the door, marveling. Imagine what the room must be like when the lights were on and people were seated at every desk, counting money!

This morning there were no people, so after a bit the soldiers let the door close — amazing how the door silently closed by itself — and climbed another flight of stairs.

The third floor was like the second, a vast office full of desks and computers and wonderful white machines that did God knows what, and…

Something was standing in the center of the room, near the window overlooking the square.

It looked like a big man.

Loo led the way, the other three behind. All had their rifles in their hands so that anyone could see they were men with authority who must be obeyed.

The man at the window was huge! He turned to watch the soldiers walk between the rows of desks toward him. He had dark skin and was completely naked.

Loo Ping’s steps slowed.

It wasn’t a man.

No.

A machine? Nearly seven feet tall, the neck consisted of three flexible stalks. The head was narrow at the chin and top, widest at the eyes, with a stalk or flexible tube coming out the top. The legs reminded Loo Ping of the hind legs of a dog; he thought the feet looked like those of a chicken, with three prominent toes. And that tail! Something from a movie?

No!

A robot! That is what it must be!

One of the men whispered to Loo, tugged at his sleeve. “It has a weapon,” the man said.

“Hey!” Loo Ping called, still walking forward, but slower.

He halted ten feet from the thing and looked it over. The letter C was visible high on its shoulders. Its hands were claws, and they held a launch tube for a wire-guided antitank missile. Another launch tube lay on the floor.

Now Loo realized the head was lowered a few degrees, so the eyes — they were really some kind of lenses — were looking right at him. One of them had a circular lens turret in front of it, and now the turret rotated, stopped with a click, then rotated again.

Nervous, Loo took a few steps sideways.

The head followed.

For the first time Loo Ping noticed that a multibarreled weapon of some kind was mounted on the right side of the robot’s torso. Now the barrels began spinning, emitting a high-pitched whine, barely audible in this quiet room.

Loo Ping tightened the grip on his rifle, glanced at his three troops. They were still there, although they looked like they were going to run.

“Hey!” Loo Ping said again, facing the robot and moving the barrel of his rifle a little, so it pointed more at the robot. He searched for the safety with his right thumb.

“The gun is pointed right at you,” the closest soldier whispered to Loo Ping. He was right. The spinning barrels of the weapon were pointed at Loo Ping’s chest. He took another step to the right. The barrels followed.

“Ooooo…” he began, but he never completed the sound.

The robot’s weapon fired, and Loo Ping felt the impact of the bullet as it hit him dead center in the heart. His blood pressure dropped to zero, and he was dead seconds after he hit the floor.

The robot swung its weapon and fired one bullet at the nearest soldier, then the next, and the next. Four individual aimed shots in less than a second.

The four empty cartridges ejected from the minigun’s breech rattled like hail against the window glass, then fell to the carpeted office floor while the barrels of the minigun freewheeled to a stop.

The soldier Loo Ping had sent to search the basement walked through the door just as the minigun fired. As the reports echoed through the room, he dove back through the door and scrambled down the staircase.

“Someone is escaping,” Kerry Kent said. She was watching the monitor intently, listening to Charlie York’s audio in her headset.

“Let him go,” Cole said. “He’s no threat.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Four uneducated kids dead in a heartbeat. His mouth was watering badly, like he was going to puke.

Charlie York turned back to the window. The turret on his right camera clicked to another lens, bringing the video of the plaza below into focus on Kent’s monitor.

She checked with the other units. All okay, all ready.

Jimmy Lee, the King of Cool, was still babbling incoherently about Wu Tai Kwong and treason and not wanting to be executed. Lee’s producer and the government censor stood wringing their hands.

Governor Sun hadn’t called and in truth the producer doubted if he would. Still, Jimmy Lee was a celebrity of sorts, so he might.

The censor tried to place a call to Beijing but the operator said the lines were down. “This is a government emergency,” the censor shouted, then wished he hadn’t. The possibility that Jimmy Lee had gone off his nut and was babbling nonsense crossed his mind for the first time. He wondered just how hard he should press to get though to someone important.

He didn’t have to worry. The operator told him that government business or not, the telephone lines out of Hong Kong were still out of order.

“Call army headquarters,” the producer suggested.

“Why don’t we just broadcast the news?” the censor replied. “Everyone will hear. What better way is there to warn the authorities of the plot?”

“What if Jimmy is crazy? Huh? Have you considered that? Maybe he’s on drugs. The fool has used them before, remember?”

“All the telephone lines out of Hong Kong are down,” the censor retorted. “The banks are closed, the subway isn’t running, the airport is closed … Jimmy says the rebels are attacking the computers. There is going to be an attack on the troops in the Bank of the Orient square. That sounds like truth to me.”

“Okay, okay,” the producer said. He eyed Jimmy, tried to decide if he was up to talking coherently. No.

He went into the studio and sat on the stool in front of Jimmy’s mike. As he waited for the current song to end, he thought about what he was going to say. Tell it straight, he decided. Don’t try to jazz it up like Jimmy would. Just act like a man with all his marbles.

Don’t panic, people, but this is a rumor that may have some truth to it. Authorities, take action. You heard it first, folks, right here on the Jimmy Lee show.

The song came to an end. The producer flipped the switch to make his microphone hot and began speaking.

The people in the mobile museum trailer parked three blocks from the Bank of the Orient had a radio tuned to the Jimmy Lee show and a television showing the only station left on the air. Popular music had been coming from the radio and a Chinese soap opera from the television.

Someone called Kerry Kent’s attention to the voice that came over the radio. A male voice, talking about the revolution that was just beginning, a revolution to overthrow the People’s Republic. Troops were going to be attacked this morning in the Central District by armed rebels, who were trying to cause a major riot, a riot that was supposed to engulf City Hall and lead to the arrest of the authorities there.

“That isn’t Jimmy Lee’s voice,” the man told Kerry ominously.

She looked at her watch. This wasn’t supposed to be happening now.

“Have the people who are to guard the radio and television stations reached there yet?” These people could not be armed until the weapons came through the Cross-Harbor Tunnel.

“They are on their way. They haven’t called in.”

“What is going on at the radio station?”

No one could answer that.

Virgil Cole was watching now. Kerry Kent called Hu Chiang, who was still circling over the Central District in a helicopter. The feed from the chopper’s television camera was displayed on a monitor in the trailer.

“You’re over the bank square?” Kerry asked.

“Yes. I’m ready when you are.”

Kerry turned to Cole. “The television and radio station guards are not yet in position, but a premature announcement is coming over the radio.”

“Anything on television?”

“No.”

“Are we ready?”

“We are waiting for the television and radio guards. When the hammer falls, we have to deny the government use of the media and keep it for ourselves.”

“Is the army listening to Jimmy Lee?”

Kerry Kent stared at the monitors, which showed her what each of the Sergeant York units was seeing. Then she checked the computer-generated composite. “If they are, they haven’t taken alarm yet,” she said.

“Call the people on the way to the TV and radio stations. Get an estimated time of arrival. All they have to do is get there before the PLA does.”

Kerry Kent nodded at one of the computer technicians, who picked up a WB phone and began dialing.

“Two hours,” the radio operator told Moon Hok. That was how long the colonel at the barracks in the New Territories estimated it would take for the troops Moon requested to be loaded on trucks and transported to the Bank of the Orient square. Neither the barracks colonel nor Moon Hok yet knew that the Cross-Harbor Tunnel no longer belonged to the army, nor were they factoring in the gridlock conditions that prevailed in the streets of southern Kowloon. Still, Moon Hok knew the estimate was optimistic.

From where he stood he could hear the crowd chanting an antigovernment slogan, something about no more stealing.

Once again, Moon Hok thought bitterly, Tang and the governor had placed the army in an impossible situation. The crowd was definitely hostile and growing with each passing minute. In the streets leading to the square the people were packed to standing-room-only density.

Should they be allowed to remain where they were, or should he push them back and expand his perimeter?

While he was mulling his options, the radio traffic continued about the helicopter in which General Tang had been riding. It had crashed, according to an army officer who said he had witnessed the disaster from a vehicle a half-mile away. The helicopter had fallen near the Kowloon entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel. Another officer chimed in, claiming he saw the missile that downed the chopper.

“It was shot down,” he said on the radio net.

Shot down!

If the hostile population was now shooting at PLA helicopters, the entire situation had changed. This bank square was militarily indefensible. Perhaps he should load the troops in the trucks and get them out of here. Of course, that move would have political repercussions.

He decided to dump the whole mess in the governor’s lap. He directed the radio operator to get Governor Sun on the radio.

But time had run out. Some of the civilians in the crowd outside the military perimeter were listening to the only radio station in Hong Kong that was on the air. These people were being entertained by Jimmy Lee’s producer, who was describing the horrible, treasonous uprising that was about to take place in the Bank of the Orient square.

At first the people who were listening laughed. Then they stood looking at each other, wondering if this diatribe were true.

To a crowd that was already rowdy, the radio voice seemed to be describing the perfect way to vent their anger at the myriad of frustrations and injustices that were their lot in life.

The shouts became loud, angry, and the people began pushing forward toward the soldiers in the square.

Virgil Cole saw the crowd surge on the monitors. He pushed a button on his control panel so that the audio from the York units was in his headset. Now he could hear the angry chants.

“If the soldiers feel threatened, they’ll fire tear gas or bullets, and the crowd will panic,” he said to Kent, who was mesmerized by the unfolding spectacle. “Let’s do it now.”

The soldier who had witnessed Loo Ping’s death at the hands of Charlie York stood now in front of General Moon, pointing at the Bank of the Orient building. He explained about the robot.

“A monster ten feet tall shot my sergeant and the other three men in my squad. Up there, on the third floor.”

The general listened to this drivel, then walked away. The junior officers could handle the man. Monsters!

The man kept pointing at the third floor.

When he heard glass breaking, Moon Hok involuntarily glanced in the direction the soldier was pointing. He saw glass showering down… from a third-floor window.

Moon was about to tell one of the staff officers to have the soldier lead him to the monster in the bank when the nearest tank exploded. The explosion burned the general and tossed him through the air. He landed in a heap on the pavement, too stunned to move.

The York robot called Charlie dropped the empty launch tube for the wire-guided antitank missile and picked up another. While it was bringing the weapon into firing position, the second tank exploded. Dog York, in the building on the south side of the square, had fired that round.

Charlie aimed this missile at the command vehicle, then squeezed the trigger.

The missile pulverized the van, showering the men lying on the pavement with sheet metal and radio parts.

Having fired both the antitank missiles Charlie York had carried into the Bank of the Orient, Kerry Kent decided to have Dog York fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the machine gun nest on the far right side of the square. The York control screen was a Windows-based system — point and click — so in seconds she had a rocket screaming across the square. It struck the ammo feed on the side of the tripod-mounted heavy machine gun and destroyed it.

Seconds later Dog destroyed another machine gun on the far side of the square.

The tanks and two machine guns were out of action. Thirty seconds had passed, and every PLA soldier in the square was flat on his face or huddled behind a concrete planter wall.

The sounds of the explosions echoed through the urban canyons and were heard by more than a hundred thousand people standing and sitting in the streets. The energy level in the crowd soared as people craned their necks, trying to see in the direction of the square.

When the truck screeched to a halt outside the Victoria Peak television station, Wei Luk was standing in the doorway. With a huge sigh of relief, he watched a dozen university students with assault rifles pile out of the back of the truck and pass down a machine gun. They set up the machine gun where it had an excellent field of fire along the main street leading to the station, then took up positions around the building.

Wei Luk went back inside. The receptionist stared at him in wide-eyed amazement when he pulled a pistol from his pocket and directed her to unlock the door. Dazed, she pushed the button.

Wei Luk and his colleagues walked down the hallway toward the main studio, where they saw Peter Po and gave him the high sign.

Less than two minutes later the station had the feed from the camera in Hu Chiang’s helicopter on the air. Peter Po began a voice-over, explaining to the television audience that the first battle of the revolution had begun.

In the museum trailer three blocks from the Bank of the Orient square, a cheer went up when the television began playing the aerial feed.

Virgil Cole turned to the shortwave radio that sat on a bench behind him. In less than a minute he began receiving reports from revolutionaries in television stations all across China that had picked up the Hong Kong signal from the satellite and were rebroadcasting it the length and breadth of the nation. With the program on the air, the revolutionaries would then abandon the stations, forcing all the personnel out and locking the doors of the buildings. When the authorities reacted, as they eventually would, they would have to break into the buildings to stop the broadcasts. And there would be no one there to arrest.

By then the damage would be done. The news would be out, the credibility of the government severely damaged.

Virgil Cole leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief. Finally, he thought, we have crossed the threshold. There can be no turning back.

Alvin and Bob York were in a locked room in the basement of the building that stood on the west side of the square. The door was locked to discourage any soldiers who might be ordered to search the building. Now Alvin broke the lock with a twist of the door handle. Both units climbed the stairs toward the street level. The staircase was narrow with a low ceiling, with barely enough room for the robots when they tucked in their appendages and curled their backs.

Kerry Kent checked the video feed as the two units climbed the stairs to ensure all was well, then used the mouse to activate Easy and Fred.

Behind her Virgil Cole helped himself to another cup of coffee. He had spent five years of his life overseeing the design of the York units and had a huge financial stake in the company that manufactured them, so he should have been nervous about the Yorks’ first operational trial. He wasn’t. He had used up all his juice fretting the success of the nationwide television broadcast, which he thought more critical than the performance of the York units to the eventual success of the revolution.

He sipped the coffee and glanced at the monitors and wondered if he should have absolutely refused Wu Tai Kwong’s demand to confront the PLA in front of an audience. He had confidence in the York units, but crowd psychology was a huge unknown — a stampede could kill thousands.

As he watched he remembered Wu’s words: “Revolutions are made by people — the Yorks are just things. The people of China must see that others are willing to fight. We can give them something to fight for, but they must find the courage in their own hearts.”

As the four York units that had been in hiding came running from the buildings, Charlie and Dog leaped through the broken glass of their respective third-floor windows. They used their hands and feet to cushion the shock of their landing on the concrete street, then they began running toward the center of the square.

Now all six Yorks were transmitting video and audio to the central computer in the museum trailer; in seconds the computer had transformed the six data streams into a three-dimensional picture of the square, the trucks, the decorative planters, trees, light poles, smoldering hulks of tanks… and the armed men who were rising from the pavement with their weapons in hand, staring wild-eyed at the huge, running robots, which attacked the crews of the two remaining machine guns.

Inevitably a few of the soldiers snapped their rifles to their shoulders to shoot, and instantly the system directed a York to engage. An onboard CPU slewed the minigun onto the target and triggered a round. Just one round per target, because unlike humans, the Yorks didn’t miss.

The ring-laser gyros inside each York fed data to a separate maneuvering computer that kept it upright and balanced, the onboard sensors gathered data that was processed internally by the weapons-control computer and passed to the mainframe via UWB, and threats were identified and engaged in the order set by the controller before the battle began. In addition, the weapons-control computer passed information to the maneuvering computer so that it could move the unit to minimize the danger posed by low-priority threats, or threats the York had not yet had time to engage.

The computers and sensors operated seamlessly. Each unit engaged targets that threatened it and ran, leaped, swerved, and bounded to throw off the aim of opponents it had yet to engage.

The result was mass confusion. Officers shouted and pointed, gesturing wildly at the Yorks, which were leaping from truck to truck, running across the square, leaping up on the sides of the buildings and executing turns in midair while their miniguns hammered out aimed shots.

Soldiers who raised their rifles to aim at the sprinting Yorks were shot down, those who did nothing were not harmed.

One soldier threw down his rifle and stood erect in the center of the square with his hands in the air. One of the junior officers drew a pistol and pointed it at the erect soldier. He was immediately shot by two Yorks.

Other soldiers threw down their rifles, first a few, then many.

The firing slowed to an occasional shot, then stopped altogether.

The running Yorks slowed to a walk, then came to rest. Each one stood with its head turning, its sensors scanning, and the barrels of its minigun spinning, ready to fire. They were ominous, fearsome.

A cheer went up from the watching civilians, who ran into the square.

Burned and groggy from the concussion of the tank that had exploded nearby, General Moon Hok managed to get to his feet. He stood swaying, looking uncomprehendingly at his soldiers with their hands up. Then he took his first good look at the closest York, Alvin, whose sensors were scrutinizing him in return. The minigun followed his every move, but the shot didn’t come.

The helicopter carrying Hu Chiang settled into the center of the bank square and Hu stepped out. The cameraman, his camera still going, piled out the back and focused his camera on Hu, who looked around, then walked over to General Moon Hok and demanded that he surrender his command to the revolutionary forces of China.

The civilians were running into the square now, many of them armed with weapons liberated from the Kowloon police barracks. They were taking weapons from soldiers and passing them to unarmed civilians. A few of the newly armed revolutionaries aimed their weapons skyward and pulled the trigger, just to see if they would shoot.

The Yorks nearly shot these people. Cole suspected what was coming and warned Kerry Kent, who safetied the Yorks’ firing circuits just in time.

Moon Hok was in no mood to do or say anything to the people who had killed his soldiers and humiliated him, and Hu Chiang wisely decided that Moon’s silence was good enough. He ordered one of the armed revolutionaries who had appeared nearby to jail Moon and his officers.

All this made excellent television. It got even better: From his hip pocket Hu removed a written speech that he and Wu Kai Kwong had drafted for Wu to give at this moment. Since Wu wasn’t here, Hu read the speech to the unseen audience behind the camera as the cheering crowd gathered around him.

“We hereby proclaim the goals of the revolution: China shall become a free and democratic nation with a written constitution guaranteeing the rule of law, with leaders regularly elected by popular vote, a nation free of graft and corruption, a nation that protects its citizens from criminals, a nation where everyone shall have an equal opportunity to earn a living, a nation with free speech and freedom of religion, a nation that can take its place as a proud member of the world’s family of nations …”

The last half of the battle in the square was broadcast all over Hong Kong and mainland China. In Canton and Shanghai, in Beijing and Hunan Province and in villages all over the nation, people who happened to be near a television saw the Yorks standing in the center of the bank square surrounded by PLA troops with their hands in the air. Then the cheering crowd flowed into the square as if a dam had burst.

In Hong Kong City Hall someone called Governor Sun to the television. He was not in time to see the Yorks in action, but he watched as Hu Chiang landed in the square in the television station’s helicopter and walked over to General Moon. He saw Hu accept General Moon’s sidearm and he saw the first of the deliriously happy civilians stream into the square, hugging Hu Chiang and the surrendered soldiers and each other and gazing in awe at the York units.

“Radio Beijing,” Governor Sun ordered peremptorily. “A revolution is underway in Hong Kong and we need more troops immediately to stabilize the situation.”

The aide went off to do as he was told, leaving Governor Sun rooted to the spot, still staring at the television.

Nothing happened instantly in China, Sun well knew. It would take days for the government to reinforce the division of troops that were already here. Perhaps several weeks.

For the first time, Sun admitted to himself that he had misjudged the situation here.

His next epiphany followed immediately: The rebels would probably execute him if they could catch him. Chinese revolutions had never been bloodless affairs. This one wouldn’t be either.

Jimmy Lee’s producer stopped talking into the radio microphone when he realized that someone was standing beside him with a pistol, a pistol that was pointed at his head. He stopped talking in mid-word.

The pistol jerked, ordering him out of the chair.

A young woman of eighteen or nineteen years, an inch over four feet tall, took his place and began speaking into the microphone. “The Chinese revolution,” she announced simply, “has begun. The island of Hong Kong has been liberated from Communist control.”

Lin Pe watched the celebration in the Bank of the Orient square on the small television the Shatin grocer kept above his soft drink cooler. She watched as the cameraman inspected a York unit at close range — the thing towered a foot over everyone there and its head never stopped scanning — and the smoking hulk of a tank.

Hu Chiang appeared on television, behind him the crowd milled around, every now and then someone fired a shot into the air… the scene was festive, gay. No one even bothered to guard the unarmed PLA soldiers, who wandered through the crowd aimlessly, without direction.

Wu should have been here to see this, Lin Pe thought. He worked for a dozen years to make this happen, this first step!

The long journey had finally begun. She didn’t know whether she should be happy or sad. She went back outside and sat down on the orange crate where she could see the gate of the army base and thought about everything.

She would tell Wu of this. In this life or the next.

In City Hall the governor and his staff were mesmerized by the televised spectacle, by the aerial shots of the crowd surging into the plaza, and by the simple, infectious joy that was apparent on every face.

They huddled around the television, which alternated between shots from the square taken with a handheld camera and aerial shots from the helicopter, which had taken off again. Through it all Peter Po gave the voice-over, as calm and collected as though revolutions were a weekly occurrence.

Hu Chiang’s speech broke the spell in City Hall. Never known for an even temper, Sun exploded as he listened. He cursed Tang and Moon and the other PLA officers as incompetent, defeatist traitors. A call was put forth to the navy base. Sun demanded that all the gunboats steam up the strait and use their guns on the rebels celebrating in the Bank of the Orient square. The commander had caught the tail end of the televised debacle, and he agreed. Without much enthusiasm, Sun noted darkly.

Next he called the Su-27 squadron at Lantau. He got the squadron commander on the phone and demanded that armed sorties be flown against the rebels in the square.

“Drop bombs, strafe, shoot rockets… kill the rebels! Stop the rot right here, before it spreads.”

The colonel made him repeat the order to ensure he understood. “We will use a cannon to kill mosquitoes, eh?”

“Will you obey or must I call Beijing and have you court-martialed?”

“Bombs in the square will do a lot of damage, Governor. I just want to ensure you understand that. Afterward will be too late to complain.”

“Kill the rebels.”

“Bombs don’t care whom they kill, Governor. Rebels, bankers, children, women, tourists, soldiers, policemen, whomever. That is what I am trying to explain.”

“Obey my order!”

Next he called the chief of the metropolitan police and demanded he muster his officers and engage the rebels in armed combat. The police chief wasn’t enthusiastic. Unlike the navy and air force commanders, he knew his men would be face-to-face with the robots he had seen on television.

“What are those things, Governor? What are their capabilities?”

“I do not know. Bullets will stop them, however.”

“The army didn’t seem to have much luck with bullets. What makes you think the police will do any better?”

“I have given the order,” Sun said icily.

“So you have. But I tell you now, my men are police, not soldiers. They are trained in traffic control, not armed combat. I make no promises.”

“Lead them yourself, coward!”

“If I am killed, whom will you blame for our defeat?”

Before Sun could give that disrespectful question the answer it deserved, he discovered that the chief of police had hung up.

Sun slammed down the phone. His chief aide was right there by the desk.

“Governor, you must report this matter to Beijing, but first, you must think of getting off this island.”

“What are you saying?”

“Sir, the rebels will come for you, walk in the front door. The three or four policemen on duty out front cannot hold off armed rioters. You must not be here. You must not let them make a spectacle of you.”

“You’re right,” Sun said, with more than a little gratitude in his voice. He telephoned the army base in the New Territories, asked for a helicopter to pick up him and his key aides on the roof of City Hall as soon as possible.

On the way to the roof, he stopped in the radio room. The operator called Beijing on the scrambled voice net.

Sun tried to quickly summarize the events of the morning. He told Beijing of his orders to the army and navy. “We need military reinforcements now,” he pleaded with the minister.

The minister made no promises. “You must resist with the forces you have at your disposal,” the minister said. “The rocket forces have had a horrible disaster, the trains cannot run until the computer systems get sorted out, the nation’s electrical grid is experiencing spot failures, the telephone system is sporadic at best. We cannot get troops to you for some days.”

“Air support? Could we have two more squadrons of MiGs or Sukhois?”

“The maintenance personnel, spare parts, and weapons all must be moved by road,” the minister in Beijing informed Sun. “The move will take several weeks. I will give the order, but until they arrive, you must hold out with what you have.”

Hold out with what we have.

Perhaps that is possible, Sun thought as he made his way up the stairs to the roof of City Hall. If we can hurt the rebels in the square, then keep the remnants of the rebel forces on this island, prevent them from crossing the strait, perhaps it can be done.

The chief of police was too old a dog to go running after every stick. He sat behind his desk at police headquarters watching the rebels celebrate on television.

After he read the flyer this morning, he ordered his policemen to stay away from the heart of the Central District. Apparently they had obeyed him, because he didn’t see a single police officer on any of the camera’s sweeps of the crowd.

A cop learns many things about the people he serves: who drinks to excess, who has a drug-addicted son or a pregnant teenage daughter, who takes bribes, who doesn’t… who is fucking whom. In a society in which everything is for sale, everything has a price. A cop quickly learns to survive or he is eaten by the sharks.

The chief was busy surviving right now.

He tried to ignore politics when he could. Sonny Wong told him a year ago that rebellion was brewing in Hong Kong. Of course Sonny wanted to profit from that fact — that was a given. The rebels wanted change, Governor Sun and the Communists wanted to keep the status quo. One would win, one would lose.

Whoever won would need the police. And the police would need a chief.

This chief had no intention of ending up like China Bob Chan, with a fresh hole in his head and everyone in town breathing sighs of relief. Sure, China Bob made lots of money, got rich, had the big house and hot women and all the trimmings… and now he was sleeping in a hole in the ground because he knew too much about too many things.

Actually Sun wasn’t a bad sort. The chief wondered now if he should have told the governor to get out of Hong Kong; the rebels would kill him if they caught him. Surely the man is bright enough to figure that out for himself.

The chief reached for the telephone, then thought better of it. He owed the governor nothing.

Michael Gao was on the roof of the building near the entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel when he spotted the PLA helo running low, at treetop level, headed for City Hall on Hong Kong Island. He had a Strella launcher at his feet, so he lifted it, squeezed the trigger to the first notch to try for a heat lock-on.

And got one. He squeezed the trigger and the missile roared out of the launcher.

Away it went in a plume of fire. Straight across the street into the top story of the next building over.

He had another launcher, but he waited. Perhaps he would get a better shot. If he could get onto the sea wall…

The chopper settled onto the roof of City Hall. Sun and three aides came running out. When they were aboard, the chopper rose into the air just enough to clear the railing on top of the building, then tilted into the wind.

The pilot turned to fly out over the strait, then he turned east.

Michael Gao ran with the missile launcher in his arms. People scurried to clear a path. He came to the sidewalk on the sea wall and hurriedly threw the launcher to his shoulder. The helo was speeding east over the strait, at least two miles away and low, no more than fifty feet above the water.

The missile’s guidance unit refused to lock on to the helo’s exhaust. The distance was just too great, the angle too large.

Gao lowered the launcher and watched the helo fly away.

Tommy Carmellini systematically examined every item in Kerry Kent’s apartment, disassembled the lamps and clocks, took the television from its shell, examined the works. Did the same with the clock radio. Tapped along the floorboards, scrutinized the light fixtures, used a knife to slice the stuffing from the easy chair near the window, picked through every single item in her dresser…

Tommy Carmellini knew how to search an apartment and he searched this one. He found absolutely nothing that shouldn’t be there.

Two hours later, discouraged and tired, he dropped his trousers and lowered himself onto Kent’s commode. Before he did so, however, he lifted the lid on the back and examined the workings. Looked precisely like a commode should. Then he felt behind the tank to ensure that nothing was taped to the back.

As he sat answering nature’s call, he picked up a magazine that Kent had arranged on a nearby stand. Flipped through the pages, looking to see if anything had been inserted. No.

A newspaper. He picked it up, shook it. Nothing fell out. He was about to put it back on the stand when he paused, looked again. The Financial Times, a week-old edition. Kent had it folded to the stock listings.

Idly Carmellini ran his eye down the listings. Column one, two…

Huh! There was a tiny spot of ink under the Vodafone listing, as if she rested the tip of her pen there for a moment.

He held the page up, scrutinized it carefully. Here was another spot, and another. Six in all.

Stocks. Investments. A portfolio. Well, even civil servants had portfolios these days. Hell, he had a little money in the market himself.

But he couldn’t recall seeing anything about her portfolio in the apartment. Not a monthly statement, a letter from her broker, nothing.

Odd.

There should be something, shouldn’t there?