Typhoon Season

TEN

“This is very irregular, to say the least,” Sarah Wexler said as she mounted the last step to the top of the Lincoln Memorial. T’ing was standing in the shadow of one of the columns. Wexler found herself glancing around for bodyguards — or assassins — or something. She had no idea; she was functioning entirely on instinct.

“No one knows you came?” T’ing asked. He was wearing his usual charcoal suit and white shirt.

“No. You?”

He shook his head once. “As you say, this is very irregular.”

“It had better be good, Ambassador.”

“We do not want war,” T’ing said in a low voice.

“Ah.” Wexler felt the tension leave her shoulders, and her stomach start to smolder. “You disappoint me. After all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, I at least expected to hear some new lie instead of the same one you keep repeating at the UN”

“It is not a lie. I am telling you the truth from Beijing.”

“Really? Well, I’m afraid ‘the truth from Beijing’ pretty much equals a lie from my perspective.” God, it was liberating to speak openly for once.

T’ing did not seem offended. “I am not here to bicker, Ambassador. Bickering is for the United Nations. I am here to be blunt.”

She raised an eyebrow. Blunt? An ambassador? A Chinese ambassador? That was like the Iranian representative claiming to extol freedom of religion.

Still, she was more intrigued every minute. “Be blunt, then,” she said.

“Beijing believes America began the trouble in Hong Kong.”

“Oh, please, not the drug war nonsense again. There’s absolutely no evidence Phillip McIntyre was involved in — ”

“I am not referring to the drug war story. No one in Beijing believes that. This is blunt speaking. However, they do in fact believe American began this trouble. That is also blunt speaking. You understand, Ambassador? They truly believe it.”

“But… that’s absurd. Sink a boat belonging to one of our own citizens? Shoot down our own airplane?”

T’ing shrugged. Wexler understood, and felt a little chill: He was telling her that his masters wouldn’t think twice about doing such a thing; destroying Chinese citizens if it would further some strategic purpose. They expected it from other governments, as well.

She glanced to the foot of the steps outside the monument, where a family was gathering: three children scrambling around a pair of adults and an infant. With part of her mind, Wexler heard the kids’ shouting voices, and thought, Dutch.

“Ambassador T’ing,” she said, “you’ve lived in the United States long enough to know that even if our government was into murdering its citizens for political gain, they would never get away with it. It’s not the way we do things here.”

Again, T’ing shrugged. The Dutch family was coming up the steps, and T’ing moved farther behind the pillar. “Nevertheless, my government, like your own, bases its conclusions on the evidence at hand. They look at events in Hong Kong and think, ‘America is doing this.’ My point is simple: Until more evidence surfaces to explain what is happening in Hong Kong, the wise ruler exercises caution. And the rash ruler causes disaster.”

“But meanwhile, of course, you’re suggesting that the stupid United States just sit back and let the PLA kill its citizens in Hong Kong, right? I don’t think that’s going to work out, do you?”

“Many leaders in Beijing speak the same way about dealing with the American military near Hong Kong. This is the pity. And never forget, we have the largest army in the world.” With that, T’ing gave a short bow, turned, and walked away down the steps.

Wexler stared after him, wondering if she’d just been given delicate inside information, or a red herring, or a dire warning… or nothing but an insult.

With the Chinese, it was impossible to tell.

“Heard Robinson’s been bad-mouthing you, brother.”

Jackson Ord looked up at his friend Skinny Washburn. “What?”

Skinny squeezed his 250 pounds behind the table and put his tray down. “Bird Dog Robinson, Mr. Hotshot. He’s been bad-mouthing you all over the hangar bay. You ain’t heard that?”

Franklin’s stomach gave a sour lurch. He scowled. “He can’t bad-mouth me. I didn’t do nothin’ wrong. I tightened that connector, and there ain’t nobody can prove different.”

Skinny raised one massive shoulder; his other arm was busy shoveling food into he mouth. “Don’t matter if they can prove it; once you on an officer’s shit list, you got nowhere to run.”

Franklin’s scowl deepened. “Who you hear talking about that pilot bad-mouthin’ me?”

“I don’t know. Everybody.”

“Shit.” Franklin threw down his fork. “This ain’t fair.”

This time Skinny raised both shoulders. “It’s the navy.”

In his dream, Tombstone could not escape from the UAV. It stayed glued to his tail, banking when he banked, rolling when he rolled, looping when he looped, refusing to be evaded or tricked. And yet it didn’t come in and hit the Pitts, come and blow the little plane out of the sky, either. It just stayed there, not a foot behind the Pitts’ rudder, as if connected with a tow bar. Showing him that it was a better flier than he was. That it could take him out whenever it wanted. That it was the wave of the future…

Tombstone opened his eyes, but the darkness remained. There was a sour odor in his nostrils. His head pounded, and he had to fight the desire to vomit. He remembered the hood being yanked over his head. After that, nothing… but judging by the smell and his symptoms, the bag must have been soaked in chloroform or some other knockout chemical.

He felt a sense of movement. He was stretched out on something, on his back, moving along at a fair clip. His wrists were tied together in front of him; his ankles were tightly bound. He breathed shallowly, and waited.

At last the rolling motion stopped. Someone spoke a few clipped words of Chinese, and Tombstone felt hands clutching his armpits and the backs of his knees. He was lifted, turned vertically so his feet touched the floor, and supported there. Try to fight now? No, not blind.

He heard the sound of a lock turning, followed by the squeal of rusty hinges. The same voice that had spoken before now shouted in English, “Back! Get back!”

Then, without warning, Tombstone found himself hurtling forward. He threw his bound hands out just in time to catch his weight against a floor of hard, cold stone. He skidded and rolled to a stop, then brought his hands up and yanked the hood off his head.

He was in a small, gloomy room. The walls and floor were made of stone, the low ceiling of wooden planks. The only light leaked through a narrow slit window of pebbled glass, mounted up near the ceiling. The glass was translucent, and barricaded behind metal bars.

The heavy thump of a bolt sliding home echoed across the room. Tombstone rolled over. The door was narrow and solid-looking, made of riveted metal. There was no window in it.

Tombstone’s wrists were tied with hemp rope. As he tugged the knots loose his teeth, he looked around more carefully. There wasn’t much to see — a pair of buckets standing in one gloomy corner, a pile of blankets piled in another. No furniture, no cot, no nothing. The air smelled damp and salty.

Once his hands were free, Tombstone untied his ankles, then got unsteadily to his feet. The nausea rose with him, and he bent over and waited for it to either do its job or go away. He was relieved when it chose to fade without emptying his stomach first.

He was furious with himself. Okay, so he’d never been trained as a spy. That didn’t excuse his climbing right into the trap of the enemy. So now he was a prisoner of the Red Chinese — and nobody on the outside knew it. At least, he assumed they didn’t, unless his captors had chosen to reveal their hand. If not, then it would be at least a couple of days before any of his friends or contacts began to worry about him.

“Idiot,” he wheezed at the floor. “Moron.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the blankets in the corner move. He whirled. “Admiral Magruder?” a voice said, and a figure rose up, pale in the gloom. The blankets fell away, and the figure staggered toward him.

Tombstone’s eyes widened. “Lobo?”

“ — so Washington would like me to get a look at this new bogey, if at all possible,” Tomboy concluded. “Based on our radar data, the attacking unit could have been a Combat UAV with its own warhead, A Combat UAV, or CUAV, possibly carrying multiple missiles, has really got the Pentagon sweating. They want to know more about it, and they want to know now.”

She looked around the table. Besides her, the meeting was attended by Batman, Coyote, Lab Rat and Bird Dog. She found comfort in their familiar faces. She also felt the slight buzz in her head that accompanies west-to-east jetlag, and struggled to remain focused.

Batman drummed his fingers once across the top of the table. “I take it you were impressed by Dr. George’s story, then.”

“I’d call him a credible witness.”

“So would I. The question is, what do you want to do about it? What exactly is your plan?”

She took a seat and leaned across the top of the table. “I need to fly as near the coast as possible, in an unescorted Tomcat, to see if it’s possible to lure this bogey out. If it engages, fine. If we get the chance to shoot it down, even better. But the main goal is to gather as much data on it as we can. If the Chinese have one of these things, they probably have more, and we need to know how to face them in the future.”

“Oh, that’s all you want to do?” Batman said sardonically, one eyebrow raised. “Fly around and play bait for a basically unknown enemy aircraft?” The eye beneath the peaked brow was socketed in bruised-looking flesh. Tomboy wondered when was the last time Batman had gotten more than a couple hours of sleep. “Plus,” he said, “I assume you want to use one of my aircraft.”

“Those are my orders,” Tomboy said. She knew Batman was already aware of this, but let him have his say. He deserved the opportunity to vent.

“Well, I don’t like it,” he snapped. “At best, it’s likely to be a wild-goose chase, or should I say a wild Tomcat chase? At worst, it could cost me a pilot, and a certain RIO on loan from the Pentagon, not to mention a perfectly good F-14.”

“The Pentagon considers this worth a try, Admiral,” Tomboy said quietly.

“Well, what about the storm? There’s no sign of the typhoon Dr. George keeps talking about, but the barometer is falling, and the weather definitely is picking up. Tell me, how do you expect to go bogey-baiting if visibility goes to hell?”

“That’s what radar’s for, Batman.”

“Not with this thing; this thing is stealthy.”

“The Pentagon considers this worth a try,” Tomboy repeated, in exactly the same tone of voice as the previous time.

Batman sighed. “Wouldn’t want to argue with them, would we?”

Dinner was dried-out white rice with a few pieces of fatty pork in it, and water. This was passed into the cell by an unarmed PLA soldier while another PLA soldier, this one carrying an AK-47, stood guard behind him. Lobo understood the logic: Jumping the inner guard would do no good; he had no weapons to steal.

She glanced at Admiral Magruder. Tombstone. He stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed and his scowling face as unyielding as a granite carving. Although she hated to admit it even to herself, especially since in the final analysis result he was just as powerless as she, nevertheless she felt almost desperately happy he was here. Before his arrival, every time the door opened she had pressed herself against the back wall or burrowed into the pile of musty blankets in a pathetic attempt to hide. She had expected, each time, to see a long file of PLA soldiers waiting outside while the first one came in, smiling, laughing, reaching for her in the darkness….

She knew there would be nothing Tombstone could do if the soldiers came for her in that way — nothing any one person could do — but still, his presence was welcome.

At least she had someone to talk to.

He’d already told her how he ended up here, and she had described being picked up by the PLA boat after punching out of her Tomcat and floating around for a while. She’d told him about Handyman, and saw the pain cross the admiral’s face.

Now, rice bowl in hand, she asked the one thing she hadn’t dared bring up yet. “What do you think they’re going to do with us, Admiral?”

“Tombstone,” he said absently, squatting on his heels and eating the rice with his fingers. They had been given no utensils, not even chopsticks. “I have no idea. Most likely they’ll questions us, then use us for propaganda or bargaining chips.”

“And what are we supposed to do?”

“You know the drill from SERE school. We hold out as long as we can with name, rank and serial number. When it gets too bad, do as little damage as possible. Make them work for every bit of information. If they force you to read a confession, do it in a way that makes it clear you’re reciting a speech someone else wrote for you.”

She nodded, remembering the wooden, almost comically insincere “confessions” given by the few allied pilots who had been shot down over Baghdad and subsequently captured.

She ate some rice. Her throat was so tight she could barely swallow it, even with a chaser of water. She didn’t want to ask the next question, but felt she had no choice: “Do you think they’ll question us?”

He turned toward her, his eyes unexpectedly kind in the hard face. “I expect so. But if it’s torture you’re worried about, I can’t say what they’ll do. It’s best not to dwell on it.”

The dirty hands ripping at her flight suit, at her breasts, tearing away her underwear…

She swallowed, lowered her head. She would not give in to this fear. Not ever.

“They’ll come get us, Lobo. You can count on it.”

Lobo looked up at him, despair in her eyes. “Like they got your father out?”

Just then, the door clunked open, and a grinning Chinese soldier walked in. “All finish eating?” he asked. “Good, good. We have question for you. You first, lady. You come with us now.”

Hot Rock sat on a chair beside Catwoman’s bed and stared down at her. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Okay.” Her voice was soft and dopey, her face as purple and mottled as an overripe plum. “I’ll be NPQ for a few days, then I’ll be back on the flight schedule.”

“Yeah, I know. Busting my ass again.” He started to reach for her hand, then changed his mind. She looked like one huge wound, and that was only the parts not covered by sheets. The worst stuff was hidden. From what he’d heard, it was amazing she was alive at all. And fly again? Maybe. Probably not.

No thanks to you, a voice snorted in his mind.

He licked his lips. “Catwoman, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry I wasn’t more help out there. They had me boxed in. There was nothing I could do.”

Her eyes rotated toward him. “I’m sure everybody did their best.”

He nodded. “That’s right. Bird Dog did a hell of a job flying back in. Half his wing was shot off, but he refused to dump the plane for fear of losing you. Did you know that?”

Her lips curved up briefly. “I always said he was too stupid to be a pilot.”

“I just wish I could have done more to help, that’s all,” he said again. He sounded so sincere he startled himself.

She gave a brief nod. Her eyelids fluttered. “Maybe next time.”

“Sure. Next time.” He watched her eyes close, her breathing slow down and deepen. “Next time it will be different, you’ll see.”

There was no reaction. Hot Rock rose to his feet and walked quietly around the privacy curtain. As he was passing the only other occupied bed in the hospital, a voice cried cheerfully, “Excuse me, young man, but could you tell me what the weather’s like this morning?”

“Sorry about the rough air, Tomboy.” Bird Dog’s voice sounded soft and pensive over the ICS. If Tomboy hadn’t seen him get into the front seat, she wouldn’t have believed it was Bird Dog Robinson up there.

“I doubt — you had — anything to do with — the weather,” she said from behind her radar hood, her voice cracking every few words as the Tomcat hit a particularly violent spot in the sky. Although no RIO could afford to be prone to motion sickness, she was definitely feeling greenish.

“Dr. George says this is just the start of the bad weather,” Bird Dog said. “He predicts a super-typhoon. What do you think?”

“I’m no meteorologist geek.”

“Me neither. According to Lab Rat, the National Weather Service is predicting no more than a mild tropical storm.”

“Bird Dog, you — seem distracted today. Are you — keeping your eyes peeled — up there?”

“Yes. Sorry. Didn’t mean to babble. Catwoman’s going to make it. I saw her this morning.”

“That’s great news, Bird Dog.” Which was true. Still, he was babbling; combined with the roller-coaster air, it made concentration difficult. Tomboy’s fingers moved over the radar’s controls, each bump and knob identifiable by its unique shape. One advantage of the rowdy atmosphere was that there was relatively little air traffic today. Unfortunately, so far none of it looked suspicious.

She was losing hope for a quick encounter with the bogey. Bird Dog had made innumerable passes up and down the coastline of the SAR, and had seen and passed both commercial and military aircraft, but so far nothing had challenged them. Not even one of the ubiquitous PLA fighters that periodically moved in disturbingly close, then peeled away again.

Tomboy was painfully aware of how helpless they were out here, without support and armed with nothing but a cannon. On the other hand, their wings-clean configuration probably explained why the PLA was not pressing them too hard.

She realized she’d lost all her concentration. She had the feeling Bird Dog wasn’t adequately focused on doing his job today. She leaned back, extracting her face from the hood, and winced as the sunlight crashed in on her through the greenhouse bubble of the canopy. She flipped down the tinted visor of her helmet. “Bird Dog?” she said over ICS.

“Yes?”

“Want to talk about it?” It was easier to converse in a level voice when you could see around you, even if the bounces themselves remained unpredictable.

“Talk about what?” Bird Dog asked in an elaborately casual voice.

“What happened the other day, at the end of the ACM. You aren’t feeling guilty about coming back when other people didn’t make it, are you? Because — ”

“It’s not that. I know there was nothing I could do, the way my plane was acting.”

“Then what’s eating you? Your backseater’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah, but… I’m kind of worried about Lobo. She took that missile for me.”

“She was just doing her job, Bird Dog. Besides, I understand she’s still MIA, which means there’s hope.”

“Maybe. But it also means if somebody did pick her up, it must have been the wrong people.” Then, in a fast, gruff voice, he added, “She saved my ass, man. I owe her.”

Tomboy was silent, frowning. Then her eyes widened. Could it be…?

But the idea that had occurred to her wasn’t something she could say out loud, not on a mission, not even over the privacy of ICS. “Tell you what,” she said. “When we get through with this gig, I want to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” he said. “Speaking of finishing, we probably ought to head back, unless you want to call up a Texaco for refueling.”

“I don’t think so. But tell you what. When you make your turn, let it get you closer to the twelve-mile limit. Let’s really push it on the way back, see if it stirs up any wasps.”

“Roger.”

The Tomcat leaned into a slow, smooth bank. Tomboy looked to the west, where the mountains of China winked in and out of sight between billowing piles of cloud clearly visible in the full moonlight. Then, instinctively doing her job as backseater, she turned and looked over her shoulder to check their tail. And suddenly she was shouting, “Bogey at five o’clock! Bogey at five o’clock! It’s right on our ass, Bird Dog!”

“Countermeasures,” he said in a steely voice.

“Right.” She calmed herself and twisted in her seat as far as possible, trying to keep the thing behind them in view at all times. Meanwhile, her hands did their work unseen. She didn’t bother glancing at the radar screen again, either; if it hadn’t detected the bogey creeping up behind them, it undoubtedly didn’t display it now.

In fact, she could barely see the aircraft even now. If the shadow of a passing cloud hadn’t wrapped over it briefly as it banked behind the Tomcat, she wouldn’t have noticed it in the first place.

But what she could see jibed exactly with Dr. George’s description: a flattened, narrow manta ray of an aircraft, with angled winglets in place of conventional tail surfaces. Distances were difficult to judge, but the bogey couldn’t be more than a quarter-mile behind the Tomcat.

“Hold your turn,” she said to Bird Dog as she groped for her camera. “Don’t let him know we’ve noticed him.”

“Swell.”

She got the camera out and started snapping. The bogey stayed exactly where it was relative to the Tomcat, as if both aircraft were sliding along on the same set of rails.

“This is sure fun,” Bird Dog said, “but I’d be happy to go buster anytime you say.”

“Another few seconds. Hold the turn, hold the turn; the bank gives me a better view of — ”

Her words were sliced off by the insistent beeping of the ESM gear. “Fire control radar!” she cried, but even as she dropped the camera and reached for the chaff-release controls, she knew it was too late. A corona of flame appeared beneath the bogey as a missile’s rocket booster ignited and hurled the warhead forward at speeds far greater than human reflex.

For a half heartbeat, Tomboy actually saw it: a white circle trailing flame and smoke, growing larger as if by magic.

Then she was staring only at the smoke trail, just below them. What —

She slammed back in her seat as Bird Dog hit the afterburners. “Missed!” he shouted over ICS, and the Tomcat cranked into a neck-snapping left turn. “Sucker missed us!”

With her helmet locked against the inside of the canopy by centrifugal force, Tomboy watched the missile’s smoke trail billowing away into the distance, puncturing each cloud that stood in its way, lacing them together. Then she saw what lay beyond the clouds.

“My god,” she said.

“What? What?”

“It’s heading straight for Hong Kong.”

“Hey, Bubba.”

Franklin smelled the stink of diesel fumes, and turned slowly. “I’m busy, Orell.”

“Know who I saw down here earlier? Ol’ Bird Dog.”

Franklin wiped his hands on a rag. “So?”

“He was checkin’ this bird out real careful. I mean real careful. Know what he told Beaman?”

Franklin just kept wiping his hands.

“He said he was glad he was takin’ some other Tomcat up today. And he didn’t want you touching his plane again.”

“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” Franklin said, jaw clenched. He was getting sick of saying that.

“Sure, of course,” Orell said. “Lots of you techies work on these planes, right? Coulda been anybody, doin’ anything. ’Course, they’re not all the same color as you. Shit brown. Wonder why Bird Dog is so sure you’re the one fucked up?” And with a wink, Orell released the tractor’s brake and moved off across the hangar.

Tombstone was squatting on his heels next to the wall, face upturned to the intermittent sunlight, when he heard the blockhouse door open. He lowered his head and looked down. Two guards were escorting Lobo into the compound. Her legs looked wobbly, but she stood in place when the guards released her.

Refusing to acknowledge the screaming pain in his own muscles, Tombstone rose to his feet and walked toward her. The guards eyed him disdainfully for a moment, then turned and walked back inside the blockhouse. They closed the door behind them. That left only the armed guards on top of the wall. Two of them. More than enough.

“How are you?” Tombstone asked when he got close enough for Lobo to hear him.

She raised her head. Her face was unmarked but very pale. He was pleased to see that her eyes smoldered from their bruised sockets. “They beat me with a rubber hose. I thought the Chinese were supposed to be masters of subtlety.”

“Maybe that was back before the Revolution. Follow me.” He turned and led her toward the center of the compound, which wasn’t much larger than a good-sized patio. On one side was the blockhouse, a tall stone building with barred windows and a steeply-slanted roof of brown tiles. From either end of this extended the high stucco walls that formed the enclosure. Set in the wall opposite the blockhouse was a tall, arch-shaped doorway and a pair of solid wooden doors. Teak, Tombstone thought — one of the hardest woods in the world.

Above the walls, the occasional crown of a tree swept into view, tossed by a strong wind Tombstone could hear but not feel. Beyond that, the sky was crowded with towering thunderheads. Below, the ground was covered in crushed white limestone. There was no dirt, no trash. In fact, the surroundings were generally not all that grim. Throw around some lawn chairs, potted palms and maybe a Jacuzzi — and open the doors, of course — and this place could be almost pleasant.

Nothing like the underground rooms. Especially the one with the bolted-down chair fitted with leather restraints.

He halted in the middle of the compound and turned toward Lobo. “Turn your face up,” he said. “Get some sun while it’s still there.”

She looked at him strangely. He tilted his head back and spoke from the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t you remember your training? Make your face visible to spy satellites, just in case.”

Although he couldn’t see her now, he heard her speak softly: “I keep forgetting they can actually I.D. us that way.”

“Only if the timing is right. But it’s worth a try.” He paused. “Lobo, you said they beat you. What about…”

“No. I kept waiting for them to… but… no.” She sounded both relieved and surprised, but Tombstone detected no shakiness in her voice at all. This was one tough woman. Still, there was no point in dwelling on that aspect of her situation. It could always change.

“What questions did they ask you?” he asked.

“About the battle group’s plans. I told them I didn’t have a clue. That’s the truth, but of course they didn’t believe me.”

“They didn’t believe me, either. But I guess my being a rear admiral might have had something to do with it.” He paused. “This is going to seem like a weird question, but when they were working you over, did they seem… sincere?”

“Sincere?”

“I’m no expert on torture, but… I don’t know, I got the impression they were just going through the motions. Not really trying. I know things could have been a lot worse than what I got.”

She was silent for a long time. Overhead, the thunderheads were beginning to crowd together, shutting out the sky. Solid cloud cover would make things much more difficult for any spy satellite that happened to be parked over Hong Kong. Assuming, of course, that this prison was located anywhere near Hong Kong. For all he knew, it was on the outskirts of Beijing.

Then Lobo said, “You’re right. Things could have been worse. A lot worse. But maybe they’re working up to it slowly. Psyching us out.”

“Either that,” Tombstone said, “or like I said before, they have some other use for us. Did they take your photograph?”

“Just before the rubber hoses came out.”

“Mine, too. Yeah, I’m sure they’re planning to use us as bargaining chips of some kind. The good news is, that means they won’t torture us too badly.”

“And the bad news?”

Tombstone stared at the last visible crack of open sky, watching it close up. The air smelled of electricity. “Frankly,” he said, “the bad news is everything else.”

“So you think it was a setup,” Batman said. “You think the Chinese fired a missile at their own city in such a way it would look like we did it.”

“Yes, sir,” Bird Dog said in a level voice. “It was a radar-guided missile. It could have easily nailed us in the backside, but it didn’t. Which means it had to have been intended for Hong Kong all along.”

“How bad was the damage?” Tomboy asked. Her face, with its typically pale redhead’s complexion, looked almost greenish in the conference room’s subdued light.

“Bad,” Batman said. “Hong Kong’s the most densely populated piece of real estate in the world. Lab Rat’s checking on the latest reports right now. But it was bad.”

Tomboy compressed her lips so hard they almost disappeared. “I can’t believe they did it,” she said. “Killed their own people that way.”

“ ‘To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill,’ ” Bird Dog said, as if to himself. “ ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.’ ”

“What?” Batman said.

For a moment Bird Dog didn’t seem to have heard him. Then he blinked and looked up. “Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Offensive strategy.”

“Win without fighting?” Batman said. “Excellent idea. Any idea how to implement it, Commander?”

Bird Dog shook his head.

So did Batman. “We need practical ideas. We need some idea what the Chinese are likely to do next. Where the hell is Lab Rat?”

“Right here.” Lab Rat was just pushing open the door, holding a piece of paper by one corner, as if it had been used to wipe up something vile.

“I suppose that’s a Chinese press release denouncing the latest American aggression,” Batman said.

“No, sir.” Lab Rat’s glance shot toward Tomboy, then away.

“So what is it?” Batman demanded impatiently.

Lab Rat raised the sheet of paper with both hands this time. “We just received word that Admiral Magruder… Tombstone… is a prisoner in the People’s Republic of China.”

Yeh Lien, Political Commissar of the Hong Kong SAR, watched the argument with a sinking feeling.

“We must declare martial law,” Chin said. “Immediately.”

Strong words from a junior officer, even though Yeh agreed with them. But Major General Wei stared at Chin down the length of the table. “We do not make such decisions, Comrade. That is up to Beijing. And Beijing has ordered us to keep Hong Kong in operation, as usual.”

“As usual? How can Hong Kong operate ‘as usual’ when boats and ships are fleeing by the dozens?”

“These are minor vessels, not major shippers.”

“But — ”

The old PLA soldier raised his hand. “The Americans claim not to have fired the missile at Hong Kong, Chin. Whether they are lying or not, that statement allows us to keep this port open and running without loss of honor.”

“But half of Kowloon is still burning!”

“An exaggeration. Besides, half of Kowloon can afford to burn, just as the harbor can afford to lose a handful of junks and fishing boats.”

Yeh stared at the man in astonishment. Glanced at Chin and saw the same expression on the younger man’s face, too.

“This is Hong Kong!” Wei shouted, pounding a fist on the table. “If we declare martial law here, the economies of every country in Asia immediately crashes! This is not acceptable, to Beijing or to me!”

“So the Americans are free to attack us with impunity,” Chin said. “Whose economy does that help?”

Shocked, Yeh held his breath. Major General Wei sat silently for a long moment, his body as immobile as one of the rocky islands in the bay. Then, slowly, he reached for the telephone on the corner of the table, lifted the receiver and muttered a few words. Yeh could not hear what he said. He hung up.

“I have taken enough of your insubordination, Major General Chin,” he said flatly. “Not even your connections in Beijing permit you to question my authority this way — remember, for the foreseeable future I represent both the PLA and the State Council itself.”

“I realize that, but it is my job as a commander to question — ”

“Major General Yeh,” Wei said, turning slightly in his seat. “You are the political commissar. Is it permissible for a subordinate officer, however highly placed, to question the orders of a superior?”

Yeh swallowed. “Your orders came directly from Beijing?”

“That is correct.”

“Then… there is no question. Comrade Major General Chin, you are required to follow these orders without hesitation.” And more’s the pity.

Chin stared at him. “Even if the man issuing them is a traitor to the State?”

“What?” Wei shot to his feet. His face was purple.

“Collector of forbidden antiquities. Briber of smugglers and customs officials. Friend of thieves and corrupt capitalists of all kinds.”

Again, Yeh was stunned. How had the Coastal Defense Force commander gotten this information? Perhaps the man wasn’t quite the helpless dolt he appeared to be.

Wei’s face slowly reversed its color trend, becoming pasty. “You — you — ”

“First Po, then Hsu,” Chin said, shaking his head. “They were also politically unreliable. Criminals. I thought that when they were eliminated, things would improve.”

“Are you saying — ”

“I thought that you, of all people, would remember our true purpose here. I hoped you might even recommend me to fill one of the vacant posts here in the SAR. Instead — ”

The door opened. Three PLA guards stepped in. Wei nodded at them, and all three turned and aimed their AK-47s at Chin.

“Comrade Major General Chin,” Wei said in his most formal voice, “you are under arrest for treason and, from your own mouth, the murders of two of our country’s highest ranking and most distinguished military officers.” He nodded again at the guards, who moved in close to Chin, rifles pointing steadily at his head.

Chin rose slowly to his feet. If he was frightened, he didn’t show it. He pointed a long finger at Wei. “You are the traitor, not I,” he said. “I accuse you of capital crimes against the People’s Republic of China.”

Wei shot straight up from his chair, face purple. “How dare you, you young — ”

With a tremulous crash, half the room’s windows burst inward. At the same moment Wei’s head snapped to one side, and blood exploded against the wall. His stocky body collapsed forward onto the table, then to the floor. As if in sympathy, all three guards folded straight down, and as they toppled over one another, Yeh saw that their skulls had been caved in by high-energy ammunition.

There had been no sound of gunfire. But Yeh’s old soldierly instincts, honed as an infantryman in Korea, reached out and yanked him to the floor beneath the enormous teak table. He waited there, head covered by his arms, for more gunfire.

Nothing happened. Then he heard the crunching sound of footsteps in broken glass. Turning his head, he saw a pair of military-issue boots. He looked up from under his arm.

Major General Chin loomed over him, fists on hips. Didn’t the fool realize he was a potential target, too? How could he seem so totally unconcerned? Chin held a hand. “Up, Comrade Major General.”

“But — ”

“It is safe.”

This was said with such conviction that Yeh allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He stared at the shattered windows, jagged openings into the darkness beyond. Through the gaps came the wail of sirens, voices shouting, running footsteps. And something else: the drumming rattle of rainfall.

“Comrade,” Chin said. “You and I think alike, and feel alike about the future of your country. You and I both know Hong Kong is no place for politically unreliable leaders. Is this not true?”

Yeh glanced at Wei’s collapsed body. He said nothing.

“Hong Kong is a cancer in the body of China,” Chin went on. “A cancer that must be cut out. Men such as Wei are not the ones to do it, but you and I are. Work with me. With your support, Beijing must give me at least interim command of the Hong Kong garrison, and I can turn this territory into the kind of place the People’s Republic can be proud of.”

Yeh heard the words, but couldn’t seem to take his gaze off Wei’s corpse. It reminded him of the many lifeless bodies he’d seen lying at the foot of the wall where firing squads did their work. More than a few of those men had died for crimes far less severe than the theft of forbidden antiquities.

“The guards will be here any moment,” he said to Chin. “How do you intend to explain what happened here?”

“The attack was carried out by an American SEAL team,” Chin said promptly. “An assassination squad. And we’ll have the videotape to prove it, you can be sure.”

Yeh looked at Chin again, and saw the fires of determination glowing in the young man’s eyes. It was hard to believe he had never noticed it before, even in the form of coals awaiting a breeze. Hard to believe he’d ever considered Chin a fool, a hapless political appointee.

He recalled one of Sun Tzu’s precepts: When capable, feign incapacity. He remembered what Ming had said about Chin: His only vice was his incompetence.

“You’ve been planning this for some time,” Yeh said.

“ ‘He will be victorious who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not.’ ”

Yeh made a slow bow. “I am behind you one hundred percent, Comrade Major General.”