Two Peasants And A President Part 21

More troubling was the burning of a tractor-trailer rig whose contents appeared, at least from the logo on the trailer, to be Chinese. Four youths in a fast car had hurled a Molotov c.o.c.ktail at it and driven off. The president finally took to the airwaves in an attempt to calm things down, but in a move that baffled everyone, his speech made it clear that he blamed the Republicans. This time Senator Baines remained in his Senate seat as other Republicans and even a few Democrats denounced the president for such an absurd and uncalled for partisan gesture. The president's inept and ill-considered words managed to do what few at this point thought even possible: make things worse.

Some of the more volatile members of society combined their already shaky grasp of propriety with liberal amounts of alcohol, and the torched truck incident began to be repeated. In several cities, flash mobs looted stores under the pretext of protesting Chinese goods. That most of these goods somehow ended up in their homes and apartments did not seem to them at all inconsistent. Community leaders appealed for calm and, for the most part, it was at least partially restored.

Holly had returned home to a well-deserved rest, but given the fragile state of the public mind at the moment, an appeal was made to see if her considerable charm could be used to reignite the spirit of cooperation instead of Molotov c.o.c.ktails. In spite of the fragile state of her own mind, her indomitable spirit once again rose to the occasion and she delivered a speech in the House of Representatives that had all present on their feet. Without regard to party affiliation, every major news organization broadcast the speech in its entirely and within the hour it went viral on the internet and social media.

Perhaps it was the youthfulness of the speaker, perhaps it was what she had been through; for whatever reasons most of America listened and heeded. The faltering boycott began to return to an organized and focused state and, for the most part, the violence subsided. The president wisely kept his mouth shut for a change. Once again breaths were held and all eyes were on China.

Tourism there had trickled virtually to a halt. Hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions were devoid of customers. Airlines cut their flight schedules as frightened flyers stayed home or boycotted altogether. Tour guides squatted before empty attractions eating cheap noodles. Trade shows didn't bother to open as most buyers had canceled. Factories laid off workers who would not be receiving unemployment checks. The mood that at first had been frustration was evolving into anger. Try as they might, Chinese censors had not been entirely successful at hiding what had happened in Tianjin and its aftermath. With increasing numbers of displaced workers on the streets, rumors flew and smuggled reports of Holly's speech in Paris reached more and more people.

In the combat information center aboard the Dinh Tien Hoang, officers watched the converging flights of Chinese J-10's and Vietnamese SU-27's, now inside each other's air-to-air missile envelope. China and Vietnam were within a finger's breadth of war. Any one of the eight pilots approaching each other at super-sonic speed was capable, either by intent or miscalculation, of starting a conflict that could envelope several nations as well as plunge an already teetering world economy into the abyss.

As blips on radar screens drew closer, a Vietnamese pilot with exceptional eyesight could now make out the distant shapes of the approaching Chinese fighters. He and all the others were well aware that he who fires second dies first. He prepared to lock up the closest, a move that would seen by Chinese attack radar sensors and would provoke a counter response and mean the inevitable launch of missiles. With his finger poised to perform the lock, his sharp eyes detected a maneuver, or so he thought. His heads up display confirmed what his eyes had just told him: the Chinese fighters were turning.

The Vietnamese flight leader ordered his flight to turn away and circle to the East, over the projected path of the ships below. He had no way of knowing that the Chinese commander in Hainan had orders that his fighters were to attempt to intimidate the convoy into turning back to Viet Nam but were not to attack unless fired upon.

Also unbeknownst to him was a parallel battle raging in Beijing. In China, the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party and the PLA (People's Liberation Army), to all extents and purposes, controls the country. The Politburo Standing Committee consists of four to nine people, typically older men, who make all major decisions in China. But implicit in the decisions taken by them is the acquiescence of the People's Liberation Army.

The current crisis was a perfect demonstration of what happens when the two groups disagree. On the one side, Li Guo Peng, presumptive heir to the presidency and a hardliner with powerful friends in the PLA, felt that that China's amazing success is attributable to its iron fist and intransigence in international affairs. On the other side, Sheng Guangzu, the Chinese Premier felt that the days of governing from the turret of a tank were over and more democracy must be introduced to avoid turning the growing insurrection into a civil war.

Sheng Guangzu was, by all appearances, the ant.i.thesis of Li Guo Peng. Short of stature and quiet in manner, his early years had been marred by the arrest of his parents during the Cultural Revolution. Raised by an aunt, he had dedicated himself to the battle of logic and reason since his size and disposition did not lend themselves to the life of a warrior. In 1991, when he rose to give his first speech of any significance, chuckles were heard around the hall since at his full height of five foot three inches, only his head could be seen above the lectern. However, the power of his speaking style and the obvious wisdom of his words quickly brought a respectful silence to the hall as his listeners discovered a man who would one day be referred to as the Mark Twain of China. He was also destined to become one of the youngest men to ever sit on the Politburo Standing Committee.

In recent weeks, however, a mystery had not been unfolding. Not . . . since unfolding implies to some extent being revealed and reveal is a word that China would like to strike from the lexicon entirely, such is the secrecy with which they prefer to conduct their affairs. The mystery that was not unfolding was Sheng's disappearance. The Premier had not been seen in public in almost three weeks.

As Premier, Sheng's job is to organize and maintain the bureaucracy. Some speculated that he had failed in this in two ways: first he had not maintained the public order. Unrest was growing and before his disappearance, he had spoken of the need for more democracy. Democracy is one of many words that Chinese censors are instructed to delete or block wherever they encounter it. That the premier was openly advocating for it was, at least in the minds of his enemies, dangerous. He had also utterly failed to detect what was going on in Hong Kong and Tianjin.

Li Guo Peng, Sheng's nemesis, had not been successfully navigating the Chinese bureaucracy for more than two decades by being unwilling or unable to seize opportunity wherever he found it. He had correctly a.s.sessed that both the army and the majority of the old men on the Standing Committee favored forceful action and, above all, saving face. It was he who had strongly advocated sending the navy into the Yellow Sea in the fruitless and highly embarra.s.sing attempt to capture the Americans and thereby cover up the Tianjin affair. And it was he who pushed for a naval embargo of all ships destined for the United States which carried goods in support of the American boycott.

Sheng had actually argued forcefully in favor of admitting what had transpired in Tianjin, punishing the culprits and moving on, but he had been brushed aside by those for whom saving face is everything. Despite the incontrovertible facts, the Standing Committee and the PLA had allowed Li to hang both these failures on Sheng, blithely a.s.serting that it was under Sheng's purview as premier and was therefore his fault. It seemed not to matter that the responsibilities of the premier had not the least thing to do with the navy or actions against foreign nations. The premier's absence in public suggested that Li had been successful, not only in blaming Sheng, but in removing him from any chance of ever attaining the presidency.

China's succession process, if one could call it that, had always been opaque in the extreme. It somewhat resembled the old Soviet Union where, if a leader was said to have a cold, one might infer that what was actually cold was his corpse. At any rate, the disappearance of the premier, at least from the public eye, did not bode well either for his health or his well-being. That all this was happening concurrent with the boycott and China's military misadventures implied instability, and instability involving a nuclear power is always troubling. But the events that were taking place in tightly guarded rooms in Beijing were extraordinary, even by Chinese standards.

For several weeks Li's clique had largely held sway, though he had not been given an entirely free hand, either in terms of a full-blown crackdown or a go ahead to take additional military action on the South China Sea. Sheng's allies and even some of the hard-liners had made a forceful case that events in the South China Sea and the disastrous military response to the Tianjin debacle had only weakened China's hand. They used as evidence the fact that West had actually succeeded in doing what had heretofore been thought impossible: cooperating to a degree that was making the boycott effective. There was danger of further uniting the West against China.

As a result, Li and his allies in the PLA had been forced to employ what amounted to a bluff on the South China Sea. It had failed miserably when Vietnam's ships simply continued sailing eastward without so much as a wave. China had now been humiliated twice in the eyes of the world. Li and his allies dared not ignore the possibility that another colossal loss of face could ultimately result in their being purged. One of Sheng's strongest allies on the Standing Committee was working diligently to accomplish precisely that.

Ma Wen was nine years old when his father and mother took part in the infamous 'Long March.' The Communist armies, in danger of encirclement by Chinese Nationalist Party forces, had embarked on a series of marches which were said to have covered 8,000 miles and from which only ten percent of the original force survived. Ma's mother had been one of those who perished as the army traversed some of the most difficult terrain in China. This heroic event in Chinese history had resulted in the elevation of Mao Tse Tung to the leadership of the most populous country on the planet. It also meant that Ma Wen had a very special pedigree and a powerful voice on the Standing Committee.

In his long life, Ma Wen had come full circle. Mao Zedong was said to have been responsible for the murder of more than forty million people during his reign. Those who survived did so in part by never questioning his decisions. Ma Wen had not only witnessed this but had partic.i.p.ated in much of the horror that was China in those decades. He had personally overseen the uprooting and imprisonment of most of China's educated and cultural cla.s.ses during the disastrous Cultural Revolution. He had personally signed the death warrants of countless of China's most gifted citizens, simply because their intelligence was a threat to a regime that valued obedience above all else.

Now, with the perspective of time and the wisdom of his eighty-seven years, Ma realized that while brutality encourages obedience, it must be constantly reapplied. Decades of continual brutality had resulted in a nation of cowering slaves who produced only what they were forced to and never, ever took any initiative. Ma and others felt that for China to grow, there must be a system of rewards. In what was one of the most clever moves in human history, they decided to create a capitalist economic system within a Communist political system. Although they well understood that freedom is a powerful drug and that once unleashed would be difficult to control, they also knew that without it, China would continue to mirror the nation of zombies that is North Korea.

In the intervening years, China's metamorphosis had turned a drab gray coc.o.o.n into a brilliant b.u.t.terfly of neon cities with daring skysc.r.a.pers, high-speed trains and a population that was, for the most part, content to have cars, refrigerators and televisions and all the coveted goods formerly reserved for the West in exchange for obedience to the Communist Party. For the first time, the Chinese people could actually aspire to own the goods they produced. In the early years of this transformation, bicycles carrying small refrigerators and televisions were a common sights as the exhilaration of consumerism spread across China. But as the age of I-Phones and the internet dawned, the very technology and innovation that made these goods possible created challenges for the Communist Party by revealing another world, a world which the Party did not wish its people to see.

Armies of censors vainly struggled to block the images that made the people long for more freedom, more choice. But it was like trying to catch every raindrop in a storm. With each new technological innovation, the futility of it only grew as the government appeared more repressive and pathetic. Now the very thing that had made China's growing power possible was threatened cheap exports. China's new found greatness was fueled by the world's insatiable thirst for affordable goods. It was the enormous influx of dollars from the sale of these goods abroad that built the bullet trains and skysc.r.a.pers, not to mention the ships and planes that now threatened the South China Sea. Only by controlling everything from wages to the exchange rate of the yuan could the Communist Party keep export prices low and foreign demand high.

The old men knew that democracy would inevitably lead to higher wages which would in turn result in reduced demand and more compet.i.tion from other nations; this was already occurring. If the rush toward democracy were not curtailed, the end game would be the diminution of China's wealth and power and the end of the dream of the Chinese Communist Party global domination. Li Guo Peng did not intend to allow this to happen. He had successfully sidelined the moderate Sheng, but Ma Wen was proving to be a far greater challenge. His pedigree and position in the Party were una.s.sailable. Indeed, were it not for his age, he might well be the next Chinese President. Clearly, he could not be purged or even attacked.

But Ma Wen had become weak in Li's eyes. He had vetoed the use of force against the Vietnamese frigate, in part because he feared that it might actually prevail in a battle with the Chinese warship. Of the latest Russian design, the frigate was a formidable ship and losing a battle to it would be an unacceptable loss of face. Of course, China could have brought far more force to bear than could Vietnam, but a large scale conflict would not be expedient at this point in time.

Ma had also sided with Sheng in preferring to admit and deal with events in Tianjin, but the PLA had overruled them both, and a disaster had ensued. Now, with the American boycott growing and beginning to spread to Europe, Ma felt that it was not an auspicious time to throw more fuel on the fire. He felt strongly that China could outlast the United States in terms of the boycott and that the American public pressure would soon force Washington to capitulate.

Li seethed at what he perceived as timidity. He was convinced that China had reached a position of sufficient strength to call the bluff of any nation; his friends in the PLA concurred. But Ma and his allies stood in the way of going all in and Li resolved to break the impa.s.se. He had formulated a plan, one that he would share with no one, not even the other hardliners. He would tell them only once the plan had been executed. Li was about to gamble everything on an audacious and dangerous move. If it failed, he would likely pay with his life.

Feigning illness and the unavailability of his usual doctor, Li asked Ma Wen's doctor to see him. Expecting to be dealing with the usual ailments of the most powerful men in China, Dr. Chen Zu stood poised with stethoscope hanging around his neck, waiting to shake the hand of a man he'd never met. He wore a kindly smile, one soon to be ruffled by an unusual demand.

"If the western economies, and indeed the world, are to find a light in this ever-darkening tunnel, then we must find the light switch together," said Senator Baines, addressing the Senate. "We cannot continue to rain down blows on each other's economies and to brandish our swords and expect to move anywhere but downward into the abyss."

"Make no mistake," he continued, "my words are not a balm; I do not speak to calm you, rather to unite you to rise above what has gone before. Let my message not be confused with weakness and indecisiveness, for they will only lead us back down the path from which we came. Our voices must be as one, first: to admit to ourselves that we have allowed partisan differences to imperil our nation; second: to say to China that we can no longer allow trade between our two nations to unfairly favor one side or the other; and third: that from this moment on, that nation's attempt to dominate its neighbors and us by force of arms or wealth can only lead to disaster for all. It . . . Must . . . Cease!"

"I propose that each government appoint three representatives to formulate rules to prevent the unfair trade practices that have placed us all in jeopardy. I further propose that for ninety days, during which time the parties will meet, that trade be resumed as it was before. Finally, I propose that if, according to our representatives, at the end of ninety days, substantial progress has not been made to level the playing field, then this nation will reinstate recent tariffs. China as well as the United States knows that these tariffs have caused pain for all. I would therefore hope that the threat of their re-imposition will provide sufficient impetus for each side to move heaven and Earth to break the impa.s.se."

Some compared the senator's words to Winston Churchill. Others had nothing kind to say. All agreed that a statesman was needed. The president had considerable eloquence, but it now seemed to most that while he wore the hat of a statesman, in his heart he was not. Many who had been swept away by his bold oratory and stirring words had come to the conclusion that they were just that, words. Some had less flattering things to say, but few now thought that he was a man who could be trusted. Two days after Senator Baines speech in the House, the president spoke similar words. He would later try to take the credit, as he had done often in the past. But few were listening.

What the senator had proposed was bold, there was no doubt, but those with their feet firmly planted knew that it was a very long shot. The gulf between what had been and what was needed was wide and strewn with obstacles. The way forward involved honesty and a willingness to sacrifice, qualities always in limited supply. But the senator had yet to squander the people's trust and for this reason they were willing to follow him, at least for now. Once again, it was China's move, but from Beijing came only silence.

Military satellites were the first to notice that China's ships and planes no longer sallied forth from their bases; for that all were grateful. Old China hands postulated that a major shift in the power players was in progress, possibly even a coup. But it was clear that the world would only learn the details when China wanted it to. And the details would shock everyone.

Ping was lonely. She had only seen one of her friends since they had arrived and she spoke of them often. Virgil and Molly could tell that though her grat.i.tude was abundant, her memories were increasingly melancholy. Molly proposed a gathering of all of them plus the captain's family. There would be a backyard feast with everything from satay and spring rolls to good ole fashioned Texas barbecue. When they mentioned it to Ping, it was like the sun peeking through a storm. Her footsteps around the house lightened perceptibly and once again she hummed the melodies of her youth as she cooked and knit.

It was decided that on a Sat.u.r.day evening three weeks hence, both a reunion and a celebration of all that had been gained since their journey out of h.e.l.l would be held and that if it wasn't the best party anyone could remember, it wouldn't be for the lack of trying. Molly and Ping began the party planning while Virgil worked to find three individuals who could be comfortable in the role of everything from amba.s.sador to accountant and had the stature and trust of the people. The State Department reported only that a wall of silence existed between the US and China. It was as if the bamboo curtain had again descended.

The boycott was, for the most part, continuing to hold. People encouraged each other to stick with it because there was nothing to replace it and because Senator Baines inspired trust, unlike some in Congress. But trust and especially patience are perishable and Baines knew that without China's partic.i.p.ation in a remedy, an economy that was still teetering was likely to collapse entirely.

That China had undergone tumultuous leadership changes in the past was unquestioned; that even the more typical evolutions of power were shrouded in secrecy was well known, but something was amiss in what the State Department was telling him. He did not believe that China's silence could be complete; it didn't make sense. Considering his recent experience with the State Department and their collusion with the White House in the cover up, trust was non-existent.

Baines once again relied on someone whom he trusted completely: Thomas Benedict, Director of Central Intelligence. Benedict had put everything on the line when he learned from Commander Moore of the horrific saga of the American newlyweds. He had intervened personally when it became obvious the White House would not. He had burned an important a.s.set in Tianjin to ensure that he could follow the progress of the escape across the Yellow Sea, and he had saved the lives of three Americans and a courageous group of Chinese dissidents when the Chinese frigate was upon them. He had also compromised the Secretary of Defense with his request that a United States submarine be employed on a mission that was unsanctioned and unknown by the president.

For this he expected to be dismissed or even imprisoned. But he would not go quietly, not as long as there were traitors afoot. He would not be silenced as long as the dream of the founding fathers was put at risk by men and women who were not patriots, whose aim was to undermine the Const.i.tution and everything for which it stood. The president and the secretary of state now realized that the DCI and secretary of defense had made an end run around them.

Had there been a strong president in the White House, Benedict would no longer be in Langley, he would be consulting with his attorney in preparation for his trial and likely conviction. But at no time in this presidency had the man in the oval office been more weak. He could no longer feel confident that in a showdown with his DCI and secretary of defense, he would prevail. He could dismiss them, of course, but in so doing might in the end hasten his own impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. So the president closed ranks with those he trusted and shut out those he did not.

The irony that White House intrigue now resembled the court of a Chinese emperor was not lost on Senator Baines. Like Benedict, he was a patriot who would gladly sacrifice his life to contain the greatest internal threat to freedom that had existed in his lifetime. That there were those who would gladly see him sacrifice his life or even help him down the path was not lost on the senator. Patriots had been sacrificed before and patriots would give their lives over and over to preserve the republic. That the real enemy was not only in Beijing saddened him, but it did not deter him in the least from what he had to do.

Benedict confirmed what he already knew: there was indeed a power struggle in Beijing. The presumed heir to the Chinese presidency, whose grace and kindly disposition had so endeared him to his hosts in Washington, was locked in a struggle with a faction that believed that the loosening of the central government's tight rein on the people was inevitable. Unrest could not be stifled indefinitely, and in spite of efforts to contain and conceal it from both the Chinese public and foreign governments, it was spreading. Li Guo Peng believed that a crackdown like that in Tiananmen Square, though on a broader scale, would continue to ensure the Party's tight grip on power.

As in struggles in other totalitarian states, the critical question was: on whose side is the army? Benedict believed that at this point they had not yet committed to a crackdown, preferring to let Li stick his neck out and see who rose to the surface, but he stressed that in the past, the military had always ended up siding with the hard-liners. It was not a promising prospect for the senator and a nation in severe economic turmoil. The uncertainty continued to push up oil prices and the strain on the tenuous spirit of cooperation on the part of the American public.

Baines resolved to focus for now on those things he believed he could impact. The price of oil, hence gasoline was crushing families and businesses. World supply was adequate but fear and uncertainty were keeping prices artificially high. Speculators had long been a favorite target during times of high prices, but it was not quite so simple as most people believed. Those who had skin in the game needed to hedge future needs. Without the ability to hedge, thus plan ahead, transport companies, railroads, airlines etc. would be crippled by wildly fluctuating prices.

However, a sound argument could be made that those who would never take delivery of a drop of oil and only speculated for profit were unfairly harming the economy. Under current regulations, a speculator who never actually uses more oil than that in the crankcase of his car, could buy an oil futures contract worth $100 with as little as $6 of his own money by using what is known as margin. That was manifestly unfair. A similar situation with sky rocketing silver prices had been brought under control by raising the margin rate on silver futures contracts to 50 percent. Silver prices had immediately plummeted.

Therefore, the senator introduced legislation that would curb the ability of those with no skin in the game to speculate with little or no money of their own. The measure to raise the margin rate on oil futures contracts to 50 percent quickly pa.s.sed the House and after a few recalcitrant senators saw the light, pa.s.sed in the Senate. The president signed the bill and less than a week later claimed credit for it. No one cared. The price of oil had immediately begun to fall and with it the growing pessimism that was threatening the spirit of cooperation and the boycott.

Then the senator made his next move. China's continued refusal to come to the table or even acknowledge the efforts being made to remedy the situation was unacceptable. So the senator upped the ante with legislation that would further hike tariffs on a broad range of goods. To offset the impact on those whose livelihoods and businesses depended on the China trade, he offered tax credits and deductions. And to those who were filling the void by manufacturing needed items here at home and creating jobs, he offered other tax incentives.

The effect of these moves on morale was instantaneous. Americans, for the first time they could remember, felt that their government was actually working for them, and they redoubled their efforts to pitch in and help. The falling prices they saw each day at the gas stations they pa.s.sed served as a meter of sorts of the success of their cooperation. Spirits that had been flagging were given a boost and the importance of that boost could not be overestimated. The senator once again had breathed life into the boycott and into the determination of the American people.

The moves had a dramatic effect in China. Factories were forced to lay off thousands of workers as the tariffs made their products uncompet.i.tive. Unrest and dissent smoldered as hard-liners pressed for a crackdown. Li pushed through a regulation that codified what had long been practiced: secret incarceration. It was now entirely legal for authorities to arrest any citizen and hold him or her for six months without telling anyone, not even the family. The person detained could be spirited off to a distant jail and the worried family would be left to wonder what had become of their loved one.

In a further indication of how far Li was prepared to go, several western businessmen were arrested and charged with crimes relating to their companies' operations in China. Since the charges in each case involved infractions that appeared to be both nebulous and opaquely technical in nature, most observers a.s.sumed it was pure retaliation. The many other ways in which China appeared to be interfering in the operations of western companies only reinforced that a.s.sumption.

Perhaps most troubling was the fact that China seemed in no way inclined to work toward a remedy and, in fact, was only growing more bellicose. Had Congress been more attuned to global realities and not just partisan politics, it would have been obvious to them that China was simply playing hardball as they always did. But few realized that the United States' long history of knuckling under to China, North Korea and others only reinforced and prolonged this behavior. Given the American state of mind, it did not seem likely it would dawn on anyone soon that playing cream puff when the other side plays hardball is always a losing strategy.

The CIA had been receiving indications that one of the most important members of the Politburo Standing Committee was gravely ill. Ma Wen's gradual transformation from hardliner to moderate had provided hope that China might become more flexible and ultimately helpful in breaking the impa.s.se. With Sheng apparently out of the picture and Ma Wen in poor health, the likelihood of a rapprochement seemed dim. But even the a.n.a.lysts in the CIA did not foresee what was about to happen.

Had the two hulking, rectangular shapes not been familiar sights, they might easily have been confused with multi-story apartment buildings, except for the fact that they were moving. In the dim twilight, the twin gray ghosts pa.s.sed almost unnoticed by the Filipino fishermen motoring out to the place where they would cast their nets. At almost thirteen hundred feet in length, the two behemoths moved slowly across the horizon, shadowed by the Dinh Tien Hoang, Vietnam's most modern frigate.

The frigate's combat information center was quiet, the sailors on duty there staring almost blankly at their displays. This was the third rotation since the standoff with China had ended peacefully, and given the inactivity in recent days of China's navy and air force, it was expected to be uneventful. The surface radar scanned an unbroken sea, devoid of any but commercial shipping and fishing boats.

The two Panamanian registered container ships each held the equivalent of fifteen World War II freighters, much of which was merchandise destined to replace the Chinese goods now affected by the boycott. Vietnam, as well as several other countries, had been quick to fill the void and were handsomely profiting from the disagreement between the two larger nations. They were also enjoying immensely tweaking the nose of their ancient enemy.

A sailor with headphones tethered to the sonar display had been wishing he had a hot cup of coffee when the speakers in his headset suddenly erupted. The sonar contact was distant but distinct. An anti-ship cruise missile had been launched from a submerged submarine almost thirty miles away. The combat information center erupted as sensors picked up, then attempted to track the missile. When the projectile broke the surface and its solid rocket booster ignited, it presented a vivid image for the ship's sensors, but within less than a minute the booster had detached and the missile leveled off at slightly over ten meters above the waves. The YJ-82 missile's turbojet engine was now pushing it over the sea at almost the speed of sound.

The Dinh Tien Hoang had been shadowing the two container ships at 19 knots, their best speed, but it now increased to its full battle speed of 29 knots in an effort to place itself and its defensive systems between the leviathans and the missile, which was closing at 600 mph. Two jammers and a PK-16 countermeasures rocket launcher were immediately switched on along with an AK-630 6-barreled, 30mm point defense gun.

The jammers saturated the area in front of the missile with powerful signals designed to disrupt the missile's guidance system, but the YJ-82 cruise missile had its own powerful anti-jamming capability and bored through the electronic noise. The frigate then began launching countermeasures rockets, hoping to distract the missile's lock, but the missile's target was almost thirteen hundred feet in length and with its flat sides and zero stealth characteristics, it was more than an easy target. Now only the 30mm Gatling type cannon waited for the missile to come within range. Switching on its terminal guidance radar, the missile ducked to only four meters over the water and began to jink, its. .h.i.t probability a proven 98 percent.

Sailors on the bridge of the container ship saw the stream of 30mm projectiles streak across the water before they saw the missile, just four seconds before it struck their ship. The missile's 165 kg semi-armor-piercing anti-personnel blast warhead easily pierced the ship's side and exploded in the engine s.p.a.ce, killing all the crewmen there and starting a raging fire. In less than five minutes, the giant ship was listing and taking on water.

A Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopter lifted off the stern of the frigate and headed for the submarine's last known position but was recalled when the ship's radar detected two Chinese J-10 fighters taking off from Hainan.

Without power to operate its pumps, the container ship continued taking on water until, more than three hours later, it rolled over and sank, leaving dozens of containers bobbing in the sea.

An American reconnaissance satellite had recorded the attack and less than twenty minutes later, Thomas Benedict and several a.n.a.lysts were watching it at Langley. The message was clear: China had upped the ante. Rumors drifting out of Beijing indicated that Ma Wen had had a heart attack and was not expected to live. The hardliners were now virtually unopposed.

Vietnam had two choices: send more force to protect its convoys or use a southerly route. A southerly route added precious time and expense to shipping each container, which would make it financially impractical. Employing more warships for escort duty could be trumped by China's more numerous naval a.s.sets. The fact that shortly after the attack, China had again sent patrol craft into the area meant that the stand down was over.

Li Guo Peng sat comfortably in an overstuffed chair across from Chen Lei, his closest ally in the PLA. The attack had proceeded precisely as planned. Once again a hidden submarine had sunk a foreign ship and made an important point: China intended to control the South China Sea by force, if necessary, but at least for the time being, using stealth.

Sheng Guangzu had been sidelined and Ma Wen's name would soon be added to the history books. Ma's doctor had been given two choices, both unpleasant. He had chosen the one which allowed him to live. Now only one man stood in the way of China's destiny and he would soon be dealt with.

61.

The Chinese restaurant was Molly's idea. She and Ping had been sharing the cooking and cleaning and, while Ping ate what Molly cooked with a smile on her face, it seemed a little forced. To most Orientals, American food is a bit on the bland side and, given their choice, would rather eat something from their homeland. After waiting more than a week for Virgil to find an open evening, they had picked a restaurant that everyone a.s.sured them served the most authentic Chinese food in the city.

The owners obviously hadn't blown a lot of dough on decor, but they offered a menu in Chinese as well as English and the look on Ping's face told them they were off to a good start. In fact, they decided to let her order the meal, which she did with relish. When the steaming plates arrived, the waiter said something in Chinese to Ping and she replied with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. While neither Virgil nor Molly recognized what was on the plates, the aromas were far too inviting to hesitate long enough to ask. At least there were no eyeb.a.l.l.s staring up at them.

It was soon apparent that not only had Ping done an excellent job; it was some of the best Chinese they'd ever tasted. When they were finished, Ping asked if she could speak with the owner. A few minutes later a man wearing an ap.r.o.n decorated with what looked to be a bit of everything on the menu and hair resembling a clothes brush, appeared at the table. When he spotted Ping, his overlarge ears seemed to pull the corners of his mouth into a wide, gold-toothed smile. The man looked as though he'd been introduced to a Hollywood star. It quickly became clear to Virgil and Molly that their Chinese lessons were still embryonic as Ping and the restaurant owner commenced an animated conversation in Chinese, scarcely a word of which was intelligible to either of the two Americans.

When at last Ping and her new friend came up for air, he turned to Virgil and in an almost reverent tone thanked him for what he had done to help get the refugees out of China, and especially for taking good care of this one. While the man professed to admire Virgil for his stance on US/China relations, he could only shake his head when asked if he felt optimistic about the prospects for success.

He also mentioned that Ping had asked about some ingredients so that she could make one of the dishes herself when they had their party. He told her to let him know a few days before and he would see to it that she had what she needed. Ping's smile confirmed that not only the food but the opportunity to speak with one of her countrymen had made her very happy. As they were leaving, the waiter came over from another table and shook their hands.

On the ride back to the house, Ping tried valiantly to describe some of what she and the restaurant owner had talked about, but her still nascent English was so peppered with Chinese as to be indecipherable. Nonetheless, Virgil and Molly listened politely, nodding and interjecting words here and there which they hoped would convey an impression of interest, if not comprehension. Suddenly Ping paused for a moment, looking from one to the other before bursting into laughter as it dawned on her that they hadn't understood a thing. They were all still laughing several blocks later when they made the turn onto Elm.

In the distance, they could see a Ford Crown Vic, looking like a standard issue plain clothes police car, parked in front of Gladys' house. Gladys was standing on the porch, engrossed in conversation with what appeared to be two plainclothes police officers. When the big Lincoln was almost even with her door, she glanced up and waived, but only perfunctorily, as though not wishing to be distracted from her duty to the neighborhood. Though clad in a flowered smock and fluffy white slippers, the official guardian of the 300 block of Elm Street firmly stood her ground as though fully prepared to repel the charge of the light brigade in her slippers if it became necessary to protect her flock.

Virgil stifled a grin as he pulled to the curb to let Molly and Ping out. Whatever it was that had again brought the police to the neighborhood, Gladys could be counted on to call and fill him in once the cops had left. In the meantime, the big Sig Sauer .45 rode in the console next to him where it had ever since the tragedy. He and Molly had debated telling Ping about what had happened to Doris since she'd only just escaped a nightmare of her own, but in the end they'd decided she needed to know. They'd gone over household safety precautions and self-defense with her but tried to avoid any unnecessary overt display of firearms around the house so as not to worry her needlessly.

After letting Ping and Molly out in front, Virgil pulled into the driveway and before getting out slipped the Sig into his waste band. Molly and Ping were already in the kitchen putting away leftovers when he came up the steps. As he was closing the front door, he noticed that the police officers had left Gladys' porch and were crossing the street.

"Senator Baines," a voice called out. There was no apparent haste in the men's pace, no hurry up a the sight of someone waiting for them, rather a deliberate speed, as though it might provide an opportunity to check out the surrounding area. But neither man looked sideways even once, their gaze focused solely on the senator and his house.

As they mounted the front steps, Baines noticed that the men looked remarkably alike, not enough to be mistaken for twins, but roughly the same height, similar closed-cropped black hair and even suits that could have come off the same rack. Both held themselves erect, like men who had stood at attention many times in a former life.

"Yes," replied Baines.

"Detective Chambers, Sir, I wonder if we might have a moment?" He flipped his badge case open perfunctorily and closed it again as though he expected the mere whiff of official leather and shiny metal to communicate sufficient authority. Baines glanced at the other, expecting a similar introduction, but the second man proffered neither badge nor greeting, seeming to prefer a stone-faced countenance to command respect. A man of few words, Baines thought to himself. Ping, for whom the sight of police officers was never an auspicious event, hurried upstairs to her room.

"What can I do for you, officers?"

"There's been a report of suspicious activity in the neighborhood, Sir. I wonder if we might come in and speak with you about it?" The senator opened the door But rather than express a broad welcome with his left arm outstretched, he allowed it to vaguely describe the floor of the entryway, as if to say that at least for the time being, they were to only be accorded a probationary stay just inside the front door.

Baines noticed that Gladys had turned her lights out, having apparently gone to bed. He would have been less surprised to see her in the window, binoculars in hand, watching the cops or surveying the neighborhood for trouble or standing with hand poised over the phone, ready to share whatever news the officers had brought, along with the usual opinions and instructions for her flock. That she had retired early seemed unusual.

Gladys was feeling a bit miffed. One minute she'd been having a nice conversation with the two police detectives and the next they'd rudely turned and headed across the street to the senator's home. It was, after all, they who'd decided to pay me a visit, she thought to herself. Then, more charitably: Well, I guess it was the senator's house where the murder occurred, not mine. I suppose they've got more reason to be over there than here. Who'd want to murder an old busybody, anyway? she thought. She locked and bolted the front door and re-armed the alarm system before heading to the kitchen to warm some milk for Cecilia.

"Here Cecilia. Here kitty, kitty; it's time for your milk," she said, expecting the cat to awaken from her latest nap in whichever stuffed chair she'd chosen and come bounding into the kitchen. Isn't that strange, she thought, that cat's practically got a wrist.w.a.tch when it comes to meal time and milk. "Here, kitty, kitty." Gladys scooped the bowl off the floor and set it on the counter. She had just started to open the refrigerator door when she felt herself being jerked backward so roughly that her feet were pulled out of the fluffy white slippers. The next thing that wrenched its way into her consciousness was the sudden terrific pain in her neck. It happened so fast that at first she didn't a.s.sociate the pain with the wire digging into her windpipe. When she desperately reached up to loosen it, she was horrified to see blood suddenly spray her hands.

Gladys would live less than a minute longer, just long enough to recognize the reflection of the man behind her in the kitchen window. It was the man who had murdered the senator's maid.

"You will not warn anyone this time, woman," the man said in a voice distorted by his effort.

Gladys' hands dropped to her sides as her still beating heart forced waves of blood through the tear in her neck. When the gurgling sounds had ceased, the man allowed her lifeless body to slump to the kitchen floor. After wiping the garrote clean on the formerly cheery green, flowered smock that Gladys had laundered that very morning, he turned out the lights, disarmed the alarm system and headed to the house across the street.

The officers stood in the hallway, shifting from one foot to the other, as though fishing for an invitation into the living room to sit in a comfortable chair. None was forthcoming. Molly emerged from the kitchen but paused in the hall doorway, stopping short of approaching and greeting the detectives. Virgil was at first puzzled by this, but then remembered that like Ping, Molly had not always seen cops as friends and protectors.

Molly, however, was not harkening back to a former life. She sensed an inexplicable tenseness in the officers, as might be expected upon entering a drug house where every room could conceal an armed felon. The possibility that someone had entered the house and hidden himself while they were at dinner briefly crossed her mind, but the alarm system had still been armed when she and Ping turned it off. While the officers could not know that, their demeanor seemed somehow inconsistent with the presumed safety of the living room of a United States senator.