Beyond all Limits (15 page)

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‘Mr. Vice President,’ the secretary greeted Clark Mason with wide-eyed surprise, ‘what an honor, we had no idea you were coming here today.’

Mason smiled back, suave and charming as always. ‘Oh really?’ he said earnestly. ‘I was sure that my office had made the arrangements. Could you show me through to the director?’ He smiled again. ‘I’m sure he’ll see me.’

The secretary nodded her head, flustered, and picked up the internal telephone to call through to Dr. Bruce Vinson, Director of the Paradigm Group.

Mason’s own assistant had provided him with a full briefing document on the Washington think-tank, and although it seemed to be absolutely genuine and above-board, Mason was an old-hand in these matters and believed he could read between the lines.

The Paradigm Group was a respected international policy analysis unit, and had served Washington for several years now, initially under the leadership of respected Harvard professor and ex-Secretary of State Hugh Miller – a man that Mason knew and liked. It had been an effective but relatively low-key organization until late last year, when it had received a considerable cash injection from Miller’s successor and the Paradigm Group’s new director, Bruce Vinson.

Vinson had obviously had the backing of some serious investors, and the group had bought up some valuable real estate and relocated to the exclusive DC suburb of Forest Hills, not too far from Mason’s own home.

The Paradigm Group had since escalated in its endeavours, rapidly becoming the go-to think-tank on matters of national and international security issues, right up there with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute, and the RAND Corporation. It paid its staff top-dollar, and was pulling in the cream of the crop. Its facility was also supposed to be state of the art, not too far removed from a national intelligence agency headquarters.

Dr. Bruce Vinson seemed to be an interesting man, Mason had thought upon reading his profile. An Oxford don from England, his academic credentials were impeccable; he also came from money, which explained how he had transformed the Paradigm Group. What was not in his official record – but
was
in the document that Mason’s investigative team had pulled together – was the fact that Vinson had served with the British Army’s Special Air Service commando unit before gaining his doctorate, and had gone on to work for that country’s Secret Intelligence Service while posing as a respected academic. Eventually, he had ended up in Washington, a high-level liaison officer between UK and US intelligence. That had been years ago now, but Vinson’s presence as the head of the Paradigm Group raised a lot of questions in Mason’s mind.

Mason had called up his old friend Hugh Miller and asked why he had sold the group to Vinson. Miller had told him that he was getting old and wanted to enjoy his retirement, and the offer had been too good to refuse. Mason could sense there was something more but – despite their friendship – Miller had refused to expand on his explanation.

But Mason could tell what had happened – elements of the US government, no doubt led by President Abrams herself, had wanted to create another secret intelligence group, unhindered by the rule of Congress. They had recruited Vinson, funded him, and helped to push the Paradigm Group into the elite ranks of DC think-tanks, a perfect cover for such a unit. They would have access to the sharpest minds, the best intelligence, the costliest technology.

Was there a direct-action wing? Mason had no doubts about it – why else would Mark Cole, the legendary special ops ‘asset’, be involved?

Mason’s team had also created a file on Dr. Alan Sandbourne, one of the Paradigm Group’s top analysts, and the man Mason suspected was really Mark Cole.

Like Vinson, Sandbourne’s academic credentials were beyond reproach – he had gained his doctorate from Georgetown University right here in DC, travelled the world attached to various educational institutions, policy units and think-tanks, before migrating back to take on a teaching role at Georgetown.

Apparently he had been taken on the year before, as part of Vinson’s high-level recruitment drive, and now headed up one of the international security desks. His papers were well-regarded, and he was often seen around DC giving briefings and being used as an expert consultant.

But – although his background appeared immaculate – when Mason’s investigative team had done a bit of digging, it seemed that precious few people from Georgetown actually remembered him. There were records and reports, pay checks and minutes of staff meetings at which Sandbourne had supposedly been present, but actually finding someone who had met the man before he came to work at the Paradigm Group had been a lost cause.

Which led Mason to one inescapable conclusion – Dr. Alan Sandbourne did not in actual fact exist at all, but was merely a very cleverly-constructed covert identity.

But Mason knew that suspicions were not the same as proof, and before he confronted Abrams with what he knew, he had to get something more concrete that he would be able to use. That was part of the reason that he was here today – on the off-chance that he would find some form of evidence.

But the other part was to convince himself that he was right – he would look in Vinson’s eyes and see if the man was lying to him.

He was also curious to find out the current location of Dr. Alan Sandbourne. Mason’s people had discovered that he had not been at the offices for several days, and Mason couldn’t help but wonder if this meant he was engaged on an operation; and if that was the case, if it had anything to do with China and General Wu.

And if
that
was the case, Mason thought as the secretary gestured him in towards Vinson’s office, then Ellen Abrams might finally be his.

Captain Liu Yingchau of the People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Forces was worried. Indeed, he was hovering somewhere between worry and panic, and the sensation wasn’t one he was happy with. As a military man he liked to be in control, and the situation he now found himself in was entirely out of his hands.

An experienced officer with the Chengdu Military Region’s ‘Hunting Leopards’ Special Forces Unit, Liu had been on secondment to the People’s Armed Police, helping to train their personnel in anti-terrorism tactics, when General Wu had instigated his military coup.

His liaison job had in fact been the reason that he had been unaware of the military’s plans; it soon transpired that his own senior officers had been involved with Wu, and had already committed certain elements of the Special Operations Forces to reconnaissance of Taiwan in preparation for the invasion. Liu had marveled at the secrecy and compartmentalization which had surrounded the coup, something which he was sure would be impossible in the West. While he had been training the PAP, his own friends had been out scouring beach-heads in Taiwan for the upcoming landings. But soldiers did as they were told, and Liu had no doubts that his commando brethren would have had no idea that their orders were coming from General Wu and the officers of the Central Military Commission, and not from any member of the Politburo.

After the generals had taken charge, Liu had been ordered into Beijing to help protect the Zhongnonhai. In the confusion, it had taken him several hours to understand that there had been a coup at all; he’d been instructed to come to Beijing by his superior officer, and that was all a soldier ever needed.

Indeed, this was why military coups could happen in the first place; if the generals all agreed, they would order their colonels to follow, who would order their majors, who would order their captains, who would order their lieutenants and junior officers, who would order the men and women who made up the bulk of the armed forces. The chain of command would still be in place, save for the politicians at the very top; but for the regular soldier, it would just be business as usual.

But the trouble for Liu was that he knew General Wu De, and believed the man to be singularly unsuited to lead his beloved nation. Wu was a psychopath, and one who had serious delusions of grandeur.

Liu had come across him while on a joint training mission with the Second Artillery Regiment, and had been appalled at Wu’s obvious lust for power, his savage, bestial personality. He was able to put across an entirely different persona to the people he wanted to impress – military colleagues, politicians and foreign governments; but to the people beneath him, Wu was nothing more than a medieval barbarian warlord.

Liu genuinely feared what would happen if Wu was allowed to remain in charge of the People’s Republic. He had no idea what the man’s ultimate plans were, but didn’t think for one moment that things would stop with the occupation of Taiwan. He was already hearing rumors about Japan, and there was no telling where it would end.

Liu was also sure that Wu had the capacity to use nuclear weapons against his perceived enemies, with no thought of the consequences; because the man was a sociopathic maniac, he wouldn’t think to be concerned with an American counter-strike. If he was opposed, his pride would force him to lash out, and it was Liu’s greatest fear that such an action would wreak absolute devastation on China and her people.

It was purely for the love of his country that he had sought to get in touch with his colleagues in the American military, to place himself at their service. He had gone through his contacts within the Joint Special Operations Command in the first instance, who had then assigned him to a CIA handler who was now ‘running’ him from the embassy in Beijing.

They had initially wanted him to try and find out what Wu’s plans were, but it was harder than it looked; Wu was surrounded by people that were one hundred percent loyal, and anyone about whom he was unsure was destined to remain outside Wu’s immediate area. But Liu was a resourceful individual, and had himself recruited people within the inner circle itself; a secretary here, an executive assistant there, none of Liu’s contacts were particularly high level, but between them he was starting to build up a picture of the new Wu government.

Eventually, the CIA had put him in touch with an American commando unit that apparently wanted to gain entry to the city. Liu quickly agreed to assist the CIA in getting the unit where they wanted to be, and also to gain the information needed for the operation they were launching. They needed to know General Wu’s schedule and security details, as well as the exact location of the members of the Politburo and information about the forces which guarded them.

Liu already knew a significant amount about the general’s security – he had watched and catalogued what movements he could from his own restricted position, but had gained most of his information from his special contacts, which he had passed on to the CIA and the covert action team that was already en route to Beijing.

Security for General Wu was fierce, handpicked men he had brought in from outside the Chinese mainland, commandos of Hong Kong’s ‘Five Minute Response Unit’ Special Operations Company. They were well-trained and experienced, a formidable combination, and were backed up by Macao’s ‘Kimchee Commandos’ Guard Unit.

These elite units also monitored the various military groups who were responsible for the Zhongnonhai compound and the Forbidden City, ensuring that high standards were adhered to at all times by every element of the government security forces.

But it wasn’t the inner security group itself which Liu worried about the most; perversely, it was the solitary figure who controlled them with the proverbial rod of iron – Zhou Shihuang.

If Liu had misgivings about Wu’s sanity, then he was convinced of the absolute lack of it in Zhou. The man was a half-blind monster, a renegade Shaolin monk who lived only to hurt – and preferably kill – others. Indeed, the threat of this huge man and what he would do to informers was one of the reasons that Liu had faced such difficulty in getting information out of the Zhongnonhai – it was a rare person who was willing to cross Zhou Shihuang.

From Liu’s limited research on the man, it appeared that Zhou had been taken in at the Shaolin Temple – a renowned center of Buddhist teaching and austere martial arts combat training – when he was just a boy. The reasons given for this varied in the telling – some said that he had been forced to flee after killing his abusive father, others claimed that it was due to the repercussions of gang violence – but whatever the reason, Zhou had proved to be a most capable pupil.

Reports from the temple indicated that he was less than enthusiastic about the Cha’an Buddhist teachings, but had soaked up the physically demanding Kung Fu lessons like a hungry sponge. Such was his prodigious combative talent that – despite his less than impressive spiritual fortitude – he was eventually appointed as a senior monk, and a martial arts instructor to the temple.

Recognizing his discordant spirit, the Shaolin abbot had given him the Buddhist name
Kung
, which meant ‘empty’.

Liu could see how appropriate the name had been, for Zhou turned out to be a dangerous sociopath, truly ‘empty’ of all emotion.

Zhou had been an instructor at the temple for years before his debased, inhuman proclivities were revealed, one lone incident with a young boy leading to an investigation which finally showed everyone his true nature; he had been bullying and abusing the students ever since he had become an instructor, his victims numbered by the dozen. Two had even died in ‘training accidents’ which later came under close scrutiny, his every action subsequently looked at in great detail.