Beyond all Limits (16 page)

His gross negation of responsibility and his heinous crimes were covered up by the senior monks of the temple – the abbot deciding that police involvement and a public inquiry would only besmirch and demean the good name of Shaolin – but Zhou Shihuang was banished from the temple forever.

He subsequently became a hand-to-hand combat instructor for a large number of private bodyguarding firms, his incredible talent and skill quickly bringing him to the attention of government forces, whose recruits he also started to train.

But eventually the inevitable happened and he killed a student during training. The incident would have again been covered up had the student not been the son of the provincial governor, who demanded that an arrest be made.

It was at this stage, rumor had it, that Wu De had intervened, sweeping aside all accusations and taking Zhou on as his own private, personal bodyguard.

The man’s life had been one long episode of murder, abuse and sexual depravity, and Liu was sickened merely by the thought of him; but Zhou’s skills in unarmed combat were legendary, and Liu had no doubt that he would be a ruthless opponent. Certainly, he would ensure that Wu’s protective detail was on the ball at all times, as he was known to kill men who showed any sign of inattention.

So Wu’s security detail was tough, but not insurmountable; Liu knew that American special operations forces were probably the best in the world. But it sure as hell wouldn’t be easy. The unit hadn’t explained their plan in detail – they had no reason to trust him, after all – but to Liu it was obvious. They were coming to Beijing to kill the general and rescue the communist government. Despite their skill, Liu knew they needed all the information they could get.

One of his contacts was able to update him regularly on the position of the captured Politburo members, and he passed this on to his CIA handler. He had already informed them of the death of Vice President Fang Zemin at the hands of Zhou Shihuang, an act which had brought the number of politicians to be rescued down to twenty-one. He had also managed to get a detailed schedule of General Wu’s movements from an assistant of an executive secretary, and had also provided this information to the Americans.

Although he didn’t know the details, Liu believed the CIA had managed to organize a meeting between Wu and the American agent, which would take place at that afternoon’s Dragon Boat festival. Wu had sponsored the teams which would be racing in Beihai Park just north of the Zhongnonhai, and would be leaving the immediate security of the government compound to watch. He would even be presenting flowers to the winning team.

But now Liu had just found out that General Wu wasn’t even in Beijing.

Unable to sleep, Liu had been watching the late-night news on China Central Television and had been horrified to see the general making a speech from the steps of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei.

Liu’s contacts had never even told him that Wu was flying to Taiwan, and he in turn had never told his American handlers. His visit to Taipei had been completely unexpected, and Liu was now intensely fearful that the US operation would fail because of it. How would the American assassin kill Wu if he wasn’t even in the same country?

Another problem was now the respect and trust with which the Americans would treat the information he gave them – if he couldn’t even keep them informed of which country General Wu was in, why would they trust anything else he had to say?

Liu himself still trusted his Zhongnonhai contacts – he genuinely believed that they hadn’t known about Wu’s departure. But would the Americans believe
him?

The special operations captain poured himself three fingers of the strong white spirit known as
Baijiu
, and downed the glass in one.

He was definitely going to need help sleeping tonight.

3

‘I hope I’ve been able to answer all of your questions satisfactorily,’ Dr. Bruce Vinson said with his cut-glass English accent and a winning smile.

They were sat in Vinson’s private office, a mahogany-paneled English Regency-style study complete with bookcases filled with custom-tooled leather-backed volumes, gilt-framed oil paintings of hunting scenes and landscapes, an imported desk with tortoiseshell inlay, a couple of leather wingback armchairs and a button-backed Chesterfield sofa. After so long living in America, it was like a home from home for Vinson.

The view from the window was equally charming, the leafy suburb of Forest Hills opening up across the rooftops. It wasn’t too dissimilar from the view afforded from the don’s office at Oxford University, and served to bring back pleasant memories.

But Vinson wasn’t a man to live unnecessarily in the past, and turned his attention fully to the man sat across from him.

‘You have indeed,’ Clark Mason replied, finishing off his coffee before looking directly into the director’s eyes. ‘But I have one more question, I’m afraid. Many of my colleagues have had great things to say about one of your key analysts here, a Doctor Sandbourne. Alan Sandbourne. He’s often at the White House it seems, although I only ran into him for the first time myself the other day. Anyway, I was wondering if you might know where he is? I’ve been trying to get in touch with him, I thought he might be useful on this China thing, you know? But nobody seems to know where he’s gone.’

Vinson nodded his head in understanding, his eyes not betraying his thoughts.

You clever bastard
, the old intelligence chief thought as he looked at the Vice President.
Got your suspicions about the place, don’t you? Angry you weren’t informed? Have a bee in your bonnet about it, have you?

But what, Vinson wondered, did Mason actually
want?

Although he had acted as though the man’s visit had been a surprise, in reality it was nothing of the sort. You didn’t get to be the director of an organization like the Paradigm Group by being surprised. Vinson knew about the visit the moment Mason had left his home and told his driver where he wanted to go; and he also knew about the Vice President’s little investigative team and its interest in his business.

Despite his formidable academic reputation, Vinson wasn’t a mere ivory-tower theorist, and nor was he only the director of the Paradigm Group. He had a business interest in the think-tank certainly, but he also understood that – despite its success and influence – the group was only a front for something far more valuable.

Force One.

Although Mark Cole – who worked for Vinson as Alan Sandbourne – was the titular head of the covert action group known internally as Force One, the operation needed someone to run things from an organizational standpoint.

Cole was all about the action; he couldn’t help but get physically involved in the operations. While admirable from one point of view, it nevertheless detracted from his ability to monitor other ongoing missions. Cole saw Force One as a small unit, and himself as a small unit leader, a platoon commander leading his men into battle.

And so what was needed was someone to ‘stay home and mind the shop’; and that person was Bruce Vinson. Cole was the commander, out there in the thick of it, but Vinson was the chief of staff, the backbone of the operation who made sure that it all ran smoothly.

And Vinson didn’t mind in the least; it was the perfect job for the man, combining his love of academia with his arguably even greater love of espionage, covert ops and dirty wars. He helped to run the Paradigm Group purely in order to provide intelligence to Cole and his Force One members; the profit from everything else was just a bonus really.

Thinking again about what Mason wanted, Vinson was sure he knew; he’d had a psychological profile drawn up of the man from the first moment he’d started sniffing around the Paradigm Group, and knew him to be desperate for the top job. He wanted to be president, and everything else he did was purely to meet that objective.

So it was clear that he was trying to find out what he could about the group’s secrets, possibly with the intention of blackmailing Ellen Abrams in some way, or else going public with it in an effort to damage her reputation, possibly even force her to resign so that he could slip straight into the job without even going through the inconvenience of an election.

But despite Mason’s reputation, his wealth, his power, Vinson was not in the slightest bit fazed or intimidated by his presence. He had faced a lot worse over the years, and had always come out on top. An overgrown bully-boy politician who’d never served a day in his life was not a man who could worry a lifelong professional like Vinson.

And yet the man
could
be dangerous if his activities were not quickly curtailed. An official investigation of the Paradigm Group – and particularly of Dr. Alan Sandbourne – would be especially unwelcome at the moment, given that there was an ongoing operation which involved the safety of thousands – if not millions – of citizens.

‘Doctor Sandbourne is out of the country at the moment,’ Vinson said finally, taking a sip of his milky tea before reaching for a biscuit.

‘Official business?’ Mason asked.

Vinson chuckled. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Friend’s wedding.’ It was true as well, to a certain extent; tickets had been bought, photographs would be taken, receipts would be issued. To all intents and purposes, ‘Alan Sandbourne’
would
be at a wedding this weekend. It was in Nice, France; but Mason could find that out for himself, if he wished to pursue it.

‘Unfortunate timing,’ Mason said.

‘Well, what can you do?’ Vinson replied. ‘We’re hardly the military, are we? I can’t order the man to stay. And let’s face it – if I made every analyst stay for every crisis that happens, nobody would have the time to eat, sleep or even use the lavatory, never mind go on holiday, would they now?’

Mason smiled. ‘I guess you’re right.’

‘I
am
right,’ Vinson confirmed. ‘And anyway, if it’s China you’re wanting then Sandbourne’s not the man for the job anyway. He’s more into the Middle East really. For China, you want Richard Stark or Norma Valente, they’re the best we have in that sector.’ He took another bite of his biscuit and met Mason’s eyes again. ‘Shall I make you an appointment with them? Although I believe they’re actually at the White House already, come to think of it. That’ll save you some time I suppose, won’t it?’

‘I suppose it will,’ Mason replied, looking back at the academic with daggers in his eyes, though his mouth formed a semblance of a smile.  He pushed his chair back and stood, holding out a hand. ‘I’ll have to get back now actually, as a matter of fact. Thank you for your hospitality.’

Vinson shook the man’s hand, sensing that Mason knew he was being played with, and that he wasn’t happy about it one little bit.

But Vinson was a man who liked to play games, and Mason had come into his arena and demanded a shot at the champ. Who was Vinson to turn him down?

‘Not at all, old chap,’ Vinson said, clapping Mason on the shoulder and walking with him to his office door. ‘Any time you need anything, please feel free to come back. It’s been an honor having you here. Maybe you’d be good enough to sign the guest book on your way out?’

The look on Mason’s face was priceless – Vinson labeled it the ‘constipated monkey’. It was such an obvious effort to contain his rage that Vinson thought it hilarious; Mason managed a contorted half-smile, nodded once, and turned on his heel and marched off down the corridor to the elevators.

Bruce Vinson closed the leather-embossed door behind him and let out a great, rumbling belly laugh. He still couldn’t quite get over the look on Mason’s face; it was like dealing with a two-year-old. It was a shame that the man was also one of the most powerful in the entire United States.

Vinson stopped laughing and poured himself a glass of brandy. If there was one thing he had learned from this meeting, it was that Vice President Clark Mason was going to have to be taken care of, one way or another.

Vinson already knew about the man’s current mistress, along with a long list of previous dalliances, but that couldn’t really hurt him. Mason’s wife already knew about it, and the American public had long ceased to be shocked by such things. Bill Clinton was still remembered fondly, despite the cigar incident.

But Vinson was not without resources, or imagination.

And as he started to form a plan, he sipped at his brandy and once again started to chuckle happily to himself.

‘So Bruce thinks he’s serious?’ asked Pete Olsen, body ramrod straight in the easy chair in the corner of Abrams’ private study.

Ellen Abrams nodded her head. ‘I’m afraid so. It seems that my VP wants to get a bit of political capital out of the current situation.’

‘Son of a bitch!’ Olsen said, slamming his hand down on the arm of his chair, almost breaking it off.

‘What are we doing about it?’ Catalina dos Santos asked.

‘Bruce says he’s going to deal with it,’ Abrams said, ‘and I think we can trust him on that.’

Olsen nodded. ‘He’s a resourceful guy,’ he agreed. ‘Anything we can do to help?’

‘Just play it cool around Clark if he comes snooping around asking questions,’ Abrams said. ‘I’ve got an idea I might have some urgent jobs for him to do out of town though, so we shouldn’t be seeing him too much until this is over.’

‘Good play,’ dos Santos agreed, ‘let’s try and keep him out of the picture until Force One completes its mission. Do we know how they’re getting on?’

‘According to Vinson, they should be close to the Chinese mainland by now,’ Abrams said. ‘We’ll know soon enough if they’ve been successful.’

‘Report from the
Texas
is that they managed to get away in the SDV just fine, Captain Sherman’s sweeping back south as we speak,’ Olsen added. ‘Does the CIA have everything in place?’ he asked dos Santos.

‘As far as we can tell, they do,’ she said. ‘Although we don’t know many of the ins and outs surrounding their role. That’s between Force One and the agents on the ground.’

‘General Wu?’ Abrams asked. She had been as perturbed as Liu Yingchau to discover that their target had left the Chinese mainland.

‘Our sources indicate that he will fly back by military plane by tonight our time, early morning in Beijing, in time to make the Dragon Boat festival.’

‘How sure are we on that?’ Olsen asked.

‘Fairly sure,’ dos Santos replied, ‘but Wu is a law unto himself, and we won’t really know until he’s actually back there, on the ground.’

Olsen frowned. ‘There’s a lot that could still go wrong,’ he said. ‘Now, I know Cole and his teams are the best we have, but we have to face up to the fact that we may have to use one of our contingency plans.’

It was Abrams’ turn to frown. Of course, she had never agreed to place all her eggs in one basket, and had authorized planning for several contingency plans, all of which relied on far more military firepower than a single six-person squad. But although she had authorized such plans, she had no stomach for going through with them if she could possibly help it; even the best-case scenarios would result in hundreds of deaths, the worst-cases running into the millions.

‘I understand that we might have to push ahead with those operations, Pete,’ she said at last, ‘and I expect you to have everything in place should we need to move to that level. But let’s just hope and pray that things never get to that stage, for all our sakes.’