Two Peasants And A President Part 22

"What sort of suspicious activity?" Baines asked.

"A man was seen in the alley behind your house," replied Detective Chambers.

"By whom?"

"The lady across the street."

"Gladys saw someone in my alley?"

"Apparently."

Baines was puzzled. While Gladys was known to keep a pair of binoculars handy and her vigilance was unquestioned, her view of the alley in this block from across the street would be obstructed at best, especially in the dark. Given Doris' murder, it was not surprising that Gladys would jump at shadows, but what seemed out of character was that she not only hadn't called Virgil's cell phone as she had before, but she had apparently gone to bed earlier than usual, as if seeing a stranger in the alley and calling the police had made her suddenly sleepy. It also seemed a bit odd that Baines had seen no marked cars or uniformed officers since arriving home.

"Are there any patrol cars searching the area now?" he asked. The detective seemed to hesitate, then said: "There were earlier."

"Did they see anything?"

"No, I don't think so," replied the detective.

"You don't think so?"

"They would have informed us if they had found anyone in the alley," his partner said, abruptly deciding to join the conversation.

Something about the interaction was very off. Both detectives seemed inexplicably ill at ease and while both officers held a radio, there had been no audible chatter or static or, for that matter, sound of any kind coming from either. And the eyes of Chambers' partner repeatedly flicked to and from the bulge under Baines jacket where he had tucked the .45. Baines tried to tell himself that cops are usually a bit nervous around an armed citizen, but in the home of a senator who had every reason to be armed . . . Molly turned slowly around and headed back into the kitchen where she had left her cell phone.

"Well, thanks for checking things out, Detectives," Baines said, "If we see anything unusual, we'll give you a call."

"Oh, by the way, how is Lieutenant Roberts?" he added.

"He's fine," replied Chambers, after a brief hesitation.

"Oh, I meant to say his sick daughter," Virgil corrected himself. "Please tell him we hope she's getting better."

Since he'd just invented both Lieutenant Roberts and his sick daughter, Virgil now realized that although his left arm was extended toward the door, as if to usher the men out, they had not budged an inch.

"I'll pa.s.s that along," said the detective perfunctorily, but the look he gave his partner said they both knew they'd just been had.

Virgil used the extra second that his ruse had provided to reach for the big Sig. Chambers was slower and paid with a bullet in his eye socket. But as Virgil swung the .45 toward the other man, he could already see his gun coming up. The shots were nearly simultaneous but the 9mm hit Virgil in the gut just as his .45 exploded, the heavy 240 grain bullet striking the arm holding the 9mm causing it to release the pistol.

An instant before the mental shock of the 9mm bullet entering his abdomen, Virgil fired three more times in quick succession at the figure before him. The next two shots missed the man's head, but the third shot entered one side of his neck and exited the other.

Virgil crumpled, clutching his stomach, while the other man's horrified look said that he well knew that his neck wound would soon be fatal. He sat down hard on the floor, vainly trying to plug both holes. Molly screamed at the first shot and rushed into the hallway, still clutching a cell phone that she had yet to realize was being jammed by a device in the pocket of a man now moving up behind her.

Virgil raised a hand to warn Molly, but he could not coax a sound from his perforated diaphragm. She was totally focused on him and had started to kneel down to help when she was brought up short by the wire around her neck. Gagging, she felt herself lifted away from Virgil and dragged backward so that she could not get her feet under her. She did not have to see the man behind her to know who it was.

Virgil's gun had tumbled over an armchair and he was crawling toward it when the man launched a kick that hit him in the side of the head. He rolled onto his back, stunned. The man again devoted his full attention to the garrote and Molly heard him say in heavily accented English: "No second chance for you, b.i.t.c.h!"

Then she heard a guttural sound from behind them that at first she did not recognize. The garrote loosened slightly as the man abruptly twisted his head sideways toward the steps leading up to the bedrooms. Ping was standing on the stairs holding Virgil's 12 gauge shotgun.

"Let her go or I will kill you," she said in Chinese.

"Give me the shotgun and I will let you live," he said and turned to face Ping as Molly slumped to the floor.

"I am not afraid of you," she said. "Men like you have already taken from me what I valued most. Now I will take from you what you value most," she said as the barrel of the 12 gauge moved from the man's chest to his zipper.

The man's hand had moved slowly behind his back where a pistol was tucked into the waistband.

"Don't be a fool, old woman," he said. "If you shoot me, they will send you back to China and you know what awaits you there."

"I have already been to h.e.l.l," she said. "Let me know how you like it." As the man's hand pulled the pistol free of his waistband, the muzzle of the shotgun exploded and the crotch of his pants and everything behind it disappeared. The man toppled forward clutching the shredded fabric that had once covered his manhood.

Unable to use the disabled phones to call for help, Ping ran onto the porch, jacked another 12 gauge sh.e.l.l into the chamber and fired it into the front yard. Then another and another until the tube was empty. She dropped the shotgun and raced back into the kitchen to get some towels. Kneeling over Molly she wrapped the towels around her neck and held them tightly to staunch the bleeding.

"Please no die, please no die," she said over and over as tears streamed down her face. Molly had lapsed into unconsciousness.

62.

Not since John Kennedy was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1963 had the shooting of a American politician caused so much outrage. That the victim was a senator and not a president didn't seem to matter; the nation had grown to trust Baines and many felt that he was the only man who could pull the country back from the abyss.

Since the shooting occurred late in the evening, most Americans didn't learn of it until the following morning. Even then, details were sketchy and confusing. Several media outlets, for reasons known only to them, ran with a headline that seemed to insinuate that the senator had shot two detectives before being shot himself. Once again the opportunity to smear the senator, even temporarily, was too great to pa.s.s up for some of the denizens of the darker corners of journalism.

Though in the first few hours there was little known about the a.s.sailants, it was clear they weren't from the police department. Aside from phony badges, they carried no identification whatsoever. Ping verified that the third a.s.sa.s.sin was Chinese, but little else was known on the first day other than he was in the hospital clinging to life, part of his lower digestive tract as well as his manhood removed by Ping's well-placed shotgun blast.

By the next day's evening news cycle, doctors had announced that both the senator and his companion were in grave condition. The two imposters had yet to be identified, but the media was speculating that the a.s.sa.s.sin with the garrote was a Chinese hit man, though there was as yet no proof of that. But the mere rumor of Chinese involvement in the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of a United States senator was enough to propel the story to the front page of newspapers around the world, except in China, where the story did not exist.

Citizens whose spirits had reached a new low were left to wonder who would rise to resume the charge against China and the proponents of big debt, big government. The heart of the boycott had skipped a beat and the economy was on life support. New start ups were desperately trying to fill the void, but banks were stingy. Companies abroad, outside of China, had been shipping more each week, but the jobs they sp.a.w.ned on the US end were few. Unemployment was still climbing due to the fallout from Chinese factories that had closed, many of which were all or partially owned by American firms. And now, in a blow that some thought could be the coup de grace for the boycott, a Chinese submarine had apparently sunk a container ship in another cowardly sneak attack.

The sound of one hand clapping could have described what was emanating from the halls of power in Beijing. The Chinese premier had not been seen in public in several weeks. Ma Wen was rumored to have died and Li Guo Peng was poised to ascend to the presidency with apparently nothing to stand in his way. In what was seen as the removal of the final impediment, ma.s.s arrests of dissidents were under way in cities across China. The 'Forbidden City' had taken on new meaning as one of the greatest upheavals in Chinese history quietly unfolded behind its walls.

While Western journalists were either excluded entirely or kept on a very short leash, video clips of demonstrations, some of them violent, had begun to filter out. And in what was proving almost as troublesome, Chinese citizens and businessmen returning from abroad were increasingly smuggling tiny memory cards and thumb drives into the country. The videos contained on those devices were quickly disseminated. Speeches by Holly and Senator Baines were especially popular, but news coverage of the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination was a bombsh.e.l.l that Beijing certainly didn't need.

Beijing appeared to be on the verge of a nationwide crackdown on the scale of Tiananmen Square. The question being asked on news broadcasts and talk shows around the world: Could the West hang together long enough to outlast China?

Ping had, for all extents and purposes, moved into the hospital. No one employed there could have been unaware of who she was or the role she had played in events in China and in the senator's home. Though una.s.suming in manner, her inner strength somehow seeped into the air around her and was felt by all she touched. Everyone pitched in to make sure she had plenty to eat in the cafeteria, and Ping responded by pretending that the cafeteria food was delicious.

Molly's wound had come very close to killing her. Had the ambulance arrived just a few minutes later, she would not have survived. As it was, the garrote had done considerable damage to her trachea and the blood vessels and muscles in her neck, and it would be some time before she would be allowed to speak or take sustenance through anything but a feeding tube. Often, when she awakened, she would find Ping sitting there holding her hand.

The bullet that had perforated Virgil's abdomen had missed areas that could have made recovery far more difficult, but the pain was nonetheless excruciating and he had spent most of the first day under sedation. When he awoke, all he wanted to know about was Molly. The man was clearly in love and though some in the press had said unkind things about the senator's companion, anyone could see they were meant for each other.

By the end of the first day, the police had learned that the dead 'detectives' had no past, no records, no finger prints on file, and no relatives to claim them. It was as if they had materialized in front of Gladys' house. The car they drove had been stolen, which wasn't unusual, but what was unusual was that it had been stolen months ago. It seems that it had been s.n.a.t.c.hed and put on ice somewhere for future use. That pointed to an organization.

The piano tuner would likely have gone unidentified too were it not for a set of prints he had inadvertently left in Tokyo. They weren't even close to the victim, but the very thorough j.a.panese police had picked them up on an object he had handled and thrown into a nearby trash bin. His gruesome style had also placed him at several murder scenes in Europe and the Middle East, but in those locations only a few grainy surveillance photos hinted at who the mysterious killer might be. The ident.i.ty of some of his victims, his nationality and his most recent appearance seemed to point to control from China, but that would remain conjecture for the time being. That he was expected to live was known only to a few. The press had been told he was dead; indeed with a rather critical part of his lower abdomen missing, doctors had at first declared he would not survive. Evidently the same tenacity that had made him so good at his trade was, at least for now, keeping him alive.

As far as the public was concerned, there was more than enough evidence to implicate China. That Beijing had attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate any United States senator, much less the most popular one in anyone's memory, ignited an outrage that once again occasioned the staging of riot police near the Chinese emba.s.sy. Several Chinese trading companies in New York and California were either vandalized or firebombed and many Chinese owned restaurants across the country suffered substantial declines in business, which in some cases was manifestly unfair since they were Taiwanese.

At first the president seemed paralyzed; the very people he needed to fund his government expansion were clearly behind a series of misadventures that could no longer be ignored. On the second day after the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt, he addressed the people, first with kind words for the senator he detested and then with vague, undefined threats of retaliation against China. Given the total lack of specifics and his well known dependence on China's investment dollars, few felt that there would be any real action from the White House.

In all fairness, there wasn't much he could do, at least not militarily. China had grown so powerful that sending a carrier battle group against it would be suicide; they would be overwhelmed by the thousands of land based missiles, not to mention air and naval a.s.sets. China had become virtually invulnerable militarily, at least near its sh.o.r.es. Only economic sanctions could even be contemplated and recent events had dramatically exposed their shortcomings. Without Senator Baines' rallying cry, the boycott was fast approaching morbidity.

When Vietnam had set up a convoy system, resulting in several convoys safely reaching open ocean, it had seemed to some that China's bluff had been called. In reality, it was the powerful voice of Ma Wen that had prevented escalation into actual combat. Now deceased, his pa.s.sing gave Li and his PLA allies a free hand and resulted in the sinking of the container ship.

While compared to the Philippines, Vietnam has a capable Navy, though its total complement of only seven frigates meant that they could not sustain a naval war of attrition with China. And since any likely conflict between the two neighboring countries would doubtless involve aircraft and missiles as well as ships, Vietnam had stepped back from the brink. It would seem that, at least for the present, their great naval victories over China in 938 and 1288 would not soon be repeated.

Li Guo Peng was well aware of this and of his newly elevated position of strength. He now had no enemies with sufficient influence to challenge him, and he did not intend to wait long before again flexing his muscle. The drug of power was coursing through his veins and no one had the courage to tell him what he needed to be told: that he had miscalculated badly. By looking only outward for enemies, he had failed to gauge the depth of discontent at home.

Two days after hundreds of dissidents were swept up in dragnets across China, strikes erupted at more than thirty factories. Once again, Li misunderstood the significance. He a.s.sumed that the strikers could easily be replaced with those who were already out of work, vastly underestimating the level of determination evidenced by people who still had jobs in a bad economy and who nonetheless made the choice to strike in support of others.

What was even more critical, several of the striking factories represented key defense industries and some of the strikers were highly trained technicians. Furthermore, instances of sabotage of expensive and indispensable machinery began to occur. In his "let them eat cake" moment, he ordered that several of the perpetrators be executed as a lesson to others. Li Guo Peng now wore the mantle of an emperor but, in an age of instant communication, was as out of touch as his ancient predecessors had been when they lived in the Forbidden City.

With the boycott fraying badly and discontent growing, a unifying voice was needed to rally the nation. Senator Baines would not be giving speeches anytime soon; the bullet had perforated his diaphragm and he could barely speak. The president's eloquent but phony oratory no longer brought any but his diehard supporters to their feet. Not since the darkest days of WWII had the country been so in need of inspiration.

An unlikely uniter of the desperate citizens of a desperate nation stepped forward. Pet.i.te of stature but blessed with uncommon determination, the side of her head still bore the scar of her own attempted a.s.sa.s.sination. Inside her head were worse scars. Each day she struggled with horrific memories, each night unspeakable nightmares. Too proud to ask for help, she covered the dark circles under her eyes with makeup and told her face to smile.

Holly Petersen knew that the United States was staring over the abyss. She also knew that from the horror in China had sprung a heretofore unknown gift. But the angry red slash on her temple reminded her that the gift had nearly cost her life. In Europe, thousands had been captivated as she recounted her ordeal and her will to survive, but they could not know how it haunted her.

She needed to find a place where it could not follow her, a place where she could wash away the horror and erase the memories, but the horrors had not abated. She had seen the news reports of the attempted murder of an American hero, reports which had not at first revealed if her beloved Ping was alive. Her anguish at the images of sheet-covered corpses being wheeled from the senator's home was beyond description. Upon seeing the report of Ping in the hospital caring for the senator and his friend, her eyes poured her heart's relief onto her cheeks.

When the tears had finally stopped flowing, she knew she had no choice. She would share the most intimate horrors of her personal journey through h.e.l.l with the American people in order that they might discover their own reserves of strength. She would show her countrymen that the impossible is just a little farther down the path, within reach if they allow themselves to believe. She would take them back to another difficult time when the American worker saved the nation, every bit as much as had its soldiers, sailors and airmen. Realizing that the nation needed to hear her voice, a grateful network CEO graciously provided time for her during the most watched evening news commentary program.

"This morning, as I prepared to speak to you, I was reminded that only a few weeks ago a young woman in a gleaming white dress and shoes walked among loving family and friends to the spot where she married the man of her dreams. Days later, two young Americans very much in love embarked on a honeymoon cruise that held the promise of an adventure that few newlyweds ever enjoy. My husband and I had very much wanted to experience the history and charm of the South China Sea, and our wonderful parents obliged by giving us a cruise on a real Chinese junk, one that had actually sailed the waters around Hong Kong for almost a century."

"After a delicious dinner aboard the junk, as we stood on the deck watching the city lights fade in the distance, I realized that something was very wrong with my husband. He was having trouble speaking and could barely stand. I scarcely had time to call for help before he collapsed. Seeing a police boat approaching our junk, I mistakenly a.s.sumed that someone on board had noticed his distress and summoned a.s.sistance. As I knelt at his side comforting him, a woman approached, whom I a.s.sumed had come to help, but instead she stuck a needle in my neck and I joined my husband in unconsciousness."

"I awoke alone and in total darkness in a steel room that I could only measure by crawling on my hands and knees until I ran into a wall, a wall I could not see, a wall that like the floor was metal and damp to the touch. Save for the endless drone of some distant machine, there was no sound, no voices, no singing of birds, no traffic, no laughter. The crushing loneliness and utter blackness gave no hint of the pa.s.sage of time and I could not know that days were pa.s.sing in my dark prison as I was taken all the way from Hong Kong on the southern coast of China to one of its northernmost cities. In what was the cruelest stroke of all, I didn't even know if my husband was still alive. He had been torn from me and my honeymoon."

"In Tianjin, a small bas.e.m.e.nt prison replaced the damp cell that I learned had been in the hold of a ship. Aside from a very special cleaning lady of whom you have by now all heard, and a doctor whose only concern was to keep me well enough so that I could be butchered for profit in the hospital from h.e.l.l, I neither saw nor spoke to a single soul. Day after day I was left to wonder what they had done to the man I had just married. I had no idea that the extraordinarily brave cleaning lady and group of courageous Chinese dissidents, along with a retired navy captain who I am proud to say is my grandfather, were planning a daring rescue which could easily have resulted in all of them being butchered too."

"When China's rulers learned that we had escaped, they sent their entire northern fleet to board and search hundreds of ships across the Yellow Sea in a frantic effort to find us and prevent my story from ever being told. In one of many moments that could have been our last, my incredible grandfather, armed with only a pistol, dueled successfully with a Chinese machine gunner aboard a helicopter and killed him. Even then, China continued to try to pursue us with their warships, and only the intervention at the last instant by the South Korean Air Force and a United States submarine prevented us from being murdered just miles from freedom."

"But let me speak no more of my nightmare, rather of my transformation. As you can plainly see, I am five foot three inches tall and weigh slightly more than one hundred pounds. I was raised in a loving family and though we were certainly not rich, I had everything a young girl needed. But nothing in my childhood prepared me for what I would endure in China. During my many days of imprisonment, I came very, very close to losing my will to resist; I was on the verge of giving myself entirely to the role of a victim."

"It was at that point that I realized that I could only lose the battle for survival if I gave up the fight, that my captors could not truly claim me until I abandoned myself to them. Somewhere inside me a voice said that I would not die as long as I refused to give up. I was raised in a military family and I remember hearing over and over to never quit, to always be strong and to stand up for what is right."

"My family also taught me the lessons of history and I would like to remind you of one that some of you may even remember. It was the spring of 1942. Our battleships had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, j.a.pan was marching undefeated across the Pacific, conquering nation after nation; the Philippines, Thailand, the fortress of Corregidor, the Dutch East Indies all fell. Even mighty British battleships were overwhelmed by j.a.panese air a.s.sault and sent to the bottom."

"Hitler had defeated almost all of Europe and seemed poised to conquer Russia. Some felt that we would be next. It would be hard to find a darker time in the history of this nation. Yet the American people refused to give up. Men who weren't fighting at the front went to work producing weapons and supplies for those who were. Women who were used to heating baby bottles became welders and riveters. Steel was rationed; there were no new cars. Fuel was rationed. Meat was rationed. And on the West Coast, black out curtains were enforced every night. Men armed with rifles patrolled our sh.o.r.es searching for spies and enemy submarines."

"Today, we face a nation whose armaments we ourselves in essence paid for with our insatiable appet.i.te for inexpensive goods. That nation has grown powerful and arrogant; it has become the world's bully. Its leaders are so certain of their ability to intimidate others that they presume to sink other countries' shipping with impunity. Let us not deceive ourselves. Men who would kidnap and murder young newlyweds simply to profit from the sale of their organs are the very face of evil. They believe that their will is stronger than ours, that we will eventually submit. They are wrong! Like our grandfathers and mothers, we will confront evil as it must be confronted, with resolute hearts and unwavering determination."

"China may present to the world a united face, but it is a painted face. It is a mask that conceals the divisions that lie beneath. An army of thousands exists for the sole purpose of concealing from the world and from its own people that nine old men and a group of generals attempt to control 1.3 billion souls. Day and night they police radio, television, the internet, even speech among private citizens. But as hard as they have tried, and they have tried very hard, they cannot control thought, they cannot control the quest for freedom, and they cannot control human dignity."

"In recent days, hundreds, perhaps thousands have been arrested for the crime of speaking out. A coup is rumored to have taken place in the Forbidden City in which those who favor democracy have been purged. A new dictator is about to a.s.sume the presidency and is already attacking and sinking other nations' shipping in a doomed effort to achieve by force what cannot be achieved by consensus."

"But here and elsewhere, resistance is mounting. China's unfair trade practices are being challenged. Products once purchased solely from China are being made here and in other countries. Small enterprises are springing up everywhere and, in spite of scarce financial resources, are beginning to replace Chinese products with American made products. Jobs are being created."

"But once again China is not content to play fair. Instead they sink a container ship bringing legally made goods to the United States and once again they do so with a sneak attack by submarine. We see that under his mask, Li Guo Peng is just another murderer and has now taken his place in the pantheon of history's thugs. We see you, Mr. Li, you and the doddering old men and generals attempting to pull the strings of a puppet nation. We see the fear in your eyes as your people rise up to take what is rightfully theirs. We see your panic as the stones in your wall of shame crumble to dust. You can sink ships but you cannot sink spirits, Mr. Li. Soon the spirit of your citizens will sink you because freedom can never be extinguished."

"My fellow Americans, in 1942 we pulled together and we pulled through. We triumphed over the two mightiest war machines ever to cast their dark shadow over the Earth. Even in our grimmest hour, we refused to admit defeat. We must pull together once again. We must refuse to allow a group of cynical, arrogant old men the unmitigated hubris of a.s.suming that we will bow to their evil will. We can and will again a.s.sume the mantle of the greatest nation on Earth."

Millions of Americans watched the courageous young American speak and, though weary of pleas to persevere, sensed that she was right; they had little choice. Holly had become a folk hero and b.u.mper stickers and political pins began to appear bearing her likeness and exhorting citizens to work as one to bring China to her knees.

The broadcast was watched carefully in Beijing, and a wrathful Li ordered retaliation against Holly's father-in-law. Throughout the nightmare, Brett languished in a Hong Kong jail where his Navy Seal training kept him in reasonably good spirits. But Li now had two thugs, highly trained in martial arts, sent to the prison deliver a message.

Many of the inmates of the Pak Sha Wan Correctional Inst.i.tution on Hong Kong Island were in the yard, some exercising, some just taking the opportunity to talk to others whom they only saw for a half hour each day. Brett was doing chin-ups when the two thugs approached. Sensing they had not come to offer him a cigarette, he stood silently facing them as a crowd began to form. The taller one attempted to move behind him so that he couldn't see both of them, but Brett moved closer to the chain link fence to avoid being flanked.

Suddenly the taller man launched a flying knee that barely missed Brett's face as he dodged. Brett's left hook counter punch did not miss. The blow staggered the man, wobbling his legs. The other man launched a vicious kick that landed on Brett's side as he continued circling left. Brett countered with a right cross that connected and followed with a head kick that did not. The taller man had recovered and threw two left jabs that pushed Brett backward into the fence, but when the man attempted to close and use a Muay Thai clinch, he was met with an elbow that slashed across his forehead, opening a b.l.o.o.d.y cut.

Dozens of inmates had formed a circle around the fighters, preventing the guards, who had been ordered not to interfere, from seeing the action. The crowd was clearly angry though he could not understand what they were screaming. Both men now coordinated their a.s.sault with strikes to the head and simultaneous body kicks. With his arms and fists raised to protect his head, Brett never saw the kick that smashed into his crotch, sending him to the ground. With two strong men launching kicks to his ribs over and over, he struggled to rise and fight, but a blow to the head knocked left him nearly senseless.

His world now narrowed to pain and sound and the unintelligible screams of inmates. On the ground and trying to fend off brutal head kicks, he knew that unconsciousness and death could not be far off. Sensing that the crowd had moved in tightly around him, he waited for each to take his turn kicking the downed American. But abruptly the kicks stopped. Looking out from under the arm that covered his bloodied head, Brett saw one of the his two attackers go down. An inmate had kicked him behind the knee, causing his leg to buckle. The other man lashed out with his own kick, but a fist smashed into his ear, staggering him. A stocky, mean looking inmate grabbed him around the back of the neck and pulled his head down where a vicious Muay Thai knee crushed his nose.

What Brett could not have known was that some of the inmates had ended up here as a result of the crackdown. Others had heard what happened to Brett's son and daughter-in-law and felt that the ex-Navy Seal had every right to try to rescue his family. Being prisoners themselves, they had little love for a regime that butchered prisoners for profit, and furthermore, the two men that Li had sent were outsiders, men from the north who did not belong here and who obviously were working for the same men who had put them in prison in the first place.

Brett felt himself being helped to his feet as the mob continued to beat the two thugs. Only when he and the two inmates supporting him appeared through the crowd did the guards realize what had happened. The intervention of more than a dozen guards barely prevented the two men from being beaten to death. It would be days before they were well enough to return to Beijing.

63.

Li had awakened in a very foul mood. His aides would have gladly donned ballet slippers if it would have helped them tread more lightly. Everywhere he looked, it seemed that events conspired to thwart his plans. He had acted precipitously when he had the strikers detained, not bothering to inform himself as to whether or not they were key employees and could be easily replaced. Furthermore, the brutal way in which the strikers were treated by the police had further inflamed pa.s.sions. Brutality, in fact, was quickly becoming the face of his administration. From the South China Sea to the streets of China's major cities, his iron fist was leaving an imprint that would not soon be forgotten.

That his citizens had begun to perceive him as a brutal leader did not trouble Li in the least. To the contrary, he saw it as an indicator of his success. For millennia, China's emperors had governed by fear and brutality and Li considered that a historical testament to its effectiveness. If anything, he felt emboldened and resolved to use China's now formidable power in the furtherance of his goals even if it meant war. So when he was informed that the thugs he had sent to the prison in Hong Kong had not fared well, he did not hesitate to act, ordering that Brett be flown to Tianjin immediately, where he would occupy the same cell his son had. Only this time, there would be no escape.

Less than twenty-four hours later, an informant at the airport reported seeing a chained, manacled and bandaged American male being led by police through the concourse without so much as a hood to shield his ident.i.ty. Based on the description, it almost certainly had to be Brett. That Li would be so bold and so disdainful of any consequences only underscored the sheer hubris of the man.

A report of the sighting was in Benedict's morning packet at CIA. He in turn relayed it to the president during the morning briefing. The president sat silently for several moments, as if weighing the news and then moved on to the next item, leaving Benedict, National Security Advisor James Langley and others wondering what, if anything, he planned to do. If the report was correct, one had to wonder why the Chinese would be moving Brett north from Hong Kong. Certainly they didn't believe that the Americans planned to break him out of a Hong Kong prison. There was another possibility that no one wanted to contemplate but, given Li Guo Peng's actions thus far, could not be discounted.

At 10:00 am, Captain Davis picked up the phone. Benedict was calling. It was not so much that the DCI felt that Captain Davis would know how to deal with what he was about to share with him but that the captain had proven himself to be both resourceful and audacious in the past. And once again it involved his family.

"Yes, good morning, Sir,"

"Richard, I have something I want to share with you, something that has not been confirmed and must not be acted upon in any way. I'm sharing it with you first because it may involve a member of your family and second because after you've had time to think about it, I'd like to invite you to pa.s.s along any thoughts you may have."