The Prisoner's Gold

43

Feng watched from his bedroom window as the sun slowly set on the harbor below. Soon the glowing orb would dip below the horizon of Lantau Island to the west, and the glittering skyscrapers of Hong Kong would light the city for the next ten hours.

Although Feng’s true prowess lay in the business world, he did actually believe whole-heartedly in the stated mission of the Fists. For too many centuries the rest of the world had taken China for granted: intruding on Chinese territory, claiming Chinese property, and imposing their values and ideologies on the Chinese way of life.

The Yihequan Movement of 1898 — the Boxer Rebellion, as it was called in the West — was not the starting point of the Brotherhood of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists. It was merely the Fists’ most well-known public event. The Fists had existed for centuries prior to the uprising, and their stated goal had always been to hold back the forces of industry and imperialism that constantly threatened the empire.

In simpler terms, to keep China for the Chinese.

It really wasn’t until the 1980s that leaders of the organization began to realize the value of capitalism in achieving their goals. Money could move mountains. Mountains of money could move the world. Feng had thrown himself into the world of finance with the ultimate goal of freeing China from foreign oppression. He understood that most saw China, and particularly its communist government, as the problem. But he saw things with a different perspective. It was all well and good for the US and other Western countries to decry China for humanitarian abuses, but to do so while ignoring their own history of slavery and more recent atrocities like the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo was downright laughable.

They were hypocrites, the lot of them.

They were happy to criticize China when the Chinese government wouldn’t give them favorable trading status, and yet they were more than willing to send mercenaries in business suits to rape China’s natural resources and to exploit its best asset — its people — while converting them into mindless consumers in order to keep Western commerce rolling along.

The thought sickened Feng.

So much so he decided to beat them at their own game.

At first, China would manufacture and sell products to Western companies, whose executives all had eyes on short-term profits. These fat cats didn’t care about what would make their companies profitable in ten years, only what would earn them their bonuses this quarter.

And that would be their downfall.

Feng instead chose to focus on twenty years down the road. The shortsighted executives would be long gone, but he would still be around, buying shares here and shares there until he had accumulated so many shares that he would actually own their companies.

Of course, no one in the West was going to buy all of their products from China if they thought the Chinese were getting rich from it. But they were all too happy to shell out cash for products made in China — as long as the perception was that the companies were American.

They would be, but in name alone.

No one would know that he owned the Western companies, and by the time the tree-hugging, petition-signing rabble rousers figured it out, the general populace wouldn’t care, provided he kept making the products that filled their lives with empty joy.

After that, he could move on to the next phase of his plan.

Americans have long discussed a wall to separate the US from Mexico, but Feng would actually have a wall to keep the world out of his homeland. In twenty years he would own most of the largest global companies. In thirty he would shut down the Chinese government and declare himself the new emperor of China. In forty, he would complete the Great Wall of China — and it would stretch all the way around his nation. It would be a symbol to the world: we don’t need you, we don’t want you, and you’ll stay away … or else.

By then strife in American politics and the widening gulf between rich and poor would have caused at least two rebellions — or so the projections told him. Order would crumble, and their military might would wither. China already possessed enough battle-ready satellites to make any nuclear attacks from the US moot.

The great Eagle would finally be declawed.

Russia’s Bear was in hibernation, perhaps for good.

All that would remain was China, and a new age of the Dragon.

The funny thing was that no one saw it coming. People talked about China as a rising economic giant and a potentially thorny political power, but no one grasped the truth. Most Chinese were culturally indoctrinated to believe that China was superior to everything and everywhere else. Feng laughed when he read articles speculating on Chinese expansion.

It would never happen.

We’re happy right where we are.

We just want you bastards out.

The lights of the city twinkled brightly now, the sun having set in a spray of purple and pink across the sky like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Lim Bao rushed into the room, his face full of trepidation. Feng knew the man was incredibly devoted to the Fists’ ideals. He was easy to read. He had news, but it wouldn’t be good.

‘Tell me, brother,’ Feng encouraged him.

Lim bowed his head. ‘We have news of the foreigners. They were foolish enough to return to China. This time they flew into Beijing. After refueling, they continued on toward Lhasa.’

‘Lhasa?’ Feng blurted. ‘What are they doing now?’

‘They’re still in the air. They won’t land for another hour.’

‘What about our customs agents? I thought we had men at all the major airports looking for these people.’

‘Yes, brother. An agent at the airport in Beijing just phoned me.’

‘Now? After they’ve already continued on?’

‘I’m afraid so. But our people to the west are being proactive. I’ve already sent a group ahead.’ Lim presented this information — a small accomplishment, but a vital one — with pride. He recognized that the Fists held all the cards now. ‘We can capture them there.’

‘Don’t capture them. Follow them. I want to know what they are doing as they do it. Who’s running things in Tibet?’

‘Chen,’ Lim said.

‘The same man from Xinjiang?’ Feng asked, surprised.

Lim nodded. ‘I took the initiative of sending him to Lhasa. He’s quite determined to make up for his failures at the mine.’

‘I bet he is,’ Feng hissed. ‘Tell Chen to keep a close eye on them. If it seems like they are about to damage anything of cultural value, I want them stopped immediately. But if they are only collecting information, I want to know what they find. As soon as we have a location for the treasure they’re seeking, we won’t need them anymore. That’s when I want them brought to me.’