Warriors

CHAPTER 69

The auditorium went quiet as the general crossed the stage and made his way to the podium. The walls of the academy’s Great Hall were hung with battle flags and portraits of China’s great military heroes. A huge monitor behind General Moon carried a heroic image of the general’s face with the scrolling words CHINA SHALL RULE! superimposed over it in countless languages.

Moon was impeccably dressed in his customary snow white uniform. He wore mirror-polished knee-high riding boots. Every ribbon, cross, and battle decoration he owned was pinned to the snowy white breast of his brass-buttoned jacket.

Moon gazed out at his flock. The eager faces of the young assassins, the proud faces of their teachers, instructors, and trainers. He smiled. This was a far cry from his own graduate ceremony at Oxford: all the raucous youth, the dour faces of the dons, the ancient architecture, the palpable weight of British history, the old-world feel of it all.

He smiled at his private thought: that was the old world.

This is the new world.

This is my new world.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the general said, leaning into the microphone in his breathy, soft-spoken way.

“Or should I say, good morning. I confess I am filled with mixed emotions. I have served Te-Wu Academy as headmaster for nearly twenty years. I arrived on this island with only one thing. A vision. A vision to create the world’s very first school for what I shall call ‘the dark arts’ of interrogation and political elimination.

“I recruited the best teachers on the planet, men and women who had served our nation with distinction around the world. And then I began recruiting the first class. Graduates of that class still serve our nation, bringing honor and glory upon us as well as themselves… I mentioned mixed emotions. Let me explain, please.

“This is probably the very last time I will address a graduating class… No, no, please be quiet and let me continue… Address this class and also all the faculty and instructors here with us tonight. Because of my new government and party responsibilities, sadly, I will be leaving you. Leaving my beloved academy to fill a slightly more exalted post in Beijing.”

They laughed, and he paused for a moment to let the laughter die down.

“I will assume the official mantle of the presidency one week from today. And so I have decided that this class, your class, will be graduating from the Te-Wu not in June, as is traditional, but a bit early this year. As a matter of fact, it will be tonight. This very night will be your final examination, as it were. I have assembled all fifty of you here for a very special graduation assignment.

“And so I ask you. And I want to hear your answer. Are you, each of you, ready tonight to meet your final challenge? Shall you serve?”

“We shall serve!” the audience roared in unison, getting to their feet, repeatedly thrusting their right fists into the air and stamping their feet. “And China shall rule!”

“Shall you serve?” he exhorted them.

“We shall serve!” they replied.

“So China shall rule?”

“China shall rule!” they shouted to the rafters, stomping their heavy boots even harder.

Moon smiled and spread his arms wide, as if offering a papal benediction. As they continued to chant, the fluttering image of the Chinese flag on the massive monitor behind the general faded away.

“I want you to take a very close look at this man.”

Moon used the remote to bring up a new image. It was an old color portrait of a handsome English naval officer in dress uniform. Jet-black hair, piercing blue eyes, strong jaw. Boyish good looks, late twenties. Some of the females in the class sighed audibly, as if the officer were some kind of British royalty or rock star.

“His name is Alexander Hawke. Remember that face. British, former Royal Navy officer, now a counterterrorist operative with British Intelligence, MI6. This is the face of the enemy. This is the face of the man who dishonored my daughter Jet. The man who had her sister killed aboard my own houseboat in Hong Kong many years ago.”

The audience was too shocked at this personal revelation to react.

Moon leaned forward and snarled into the microphone.

“But tonight I will exact my revenge. Or rather, you will exact it for me.”

Shouts and cheers erupted then that filled the entire Great Hall.

“Shall you serve?” Moon cried out.

“We shall serve! We will serve! We will serve!”

He waited for them to quiet down and then he said, “Hawke is here. On this our island. Now.”

The audience expelled a collective gasp.

“Hawke, along with a group of battle-hardened commandos, has breached our perimeter. Our academy, our military installations, our very home is under attack. Your assignment is obvious. The death of all invaders. If you are successful, you will all graduate with honors and the rank of full colonel in the Te-Wu. On this very stage. Tonight. But. If you should fail… it shall be deemed an act of treason. You will all hang. At dawn.”

Numb, shocked silence.

“As that electrifying American Benjamin Franklin so eloquently put it, ‘You must all hang together, or assuredly you shall hang separately.’ ”

Moon smiled the smile of a beneficent uncle, pressed his hands together as if in prayer, and continued smoothly.

“On your seats tonight, you found a sealed envelope. Do not open your envelopes until you have left the auditorium. Inside each envelope is a picture of one additional target. Do not be surprised if you recognize the face. It is the face of one of your instructors or perhaps one of your classmates upon whom I look with distrust and disfavor.”

At that moment, one of the elderly instructors, his face distorted with fear and panic, leaped from his seat and raced up the aisle toward the doors at the rear.

“Let him go,” Moon said, chuckling softly. “He won’t get far. Now, one final word. In exactly one hour, some of my fiercest ground commandos will parachute into this compound to defend me and this military installation. So you have until the first army boot hits the ground to complete your final exam. Good luck. It has been my profound pleasure to lead you all these years. Shall you serve?”

“We shall serve!” they cried.

“Shall China rule?”

“China shall rule!”

General Moon bowed deeply from the waist and then stood tall. He raised his right fist in triumph and his words rang out and filled the hall: “Then bring me the head of Alexander Hawke!”