Two Peasants and a President (64 page)

“OK, I’ll keep monitoring their military frequencies and let you know if I hear something pertinent.  In the meantime, try not to blow anything up.”

“I’ll do my best,” replied Jim.

“Which reminds me,” said
Rad
,
“
I wonder if those tanks are carrying ammo for their main guns.”

“What are you thinking about?” asked Jim.

“With a 125mm cannon, we could make big holes in anything that gets in our way.”

“As I recall, it takes three to man one of those babies,
Rad
.”

“Three normal humans,”
Rad
answered, smiling.

“While I am sorely tempted to entertain that possibility,” replied Jim, “the odds of two tanks, with which we have minimal familiarity, against many tanks plus attack helicopters, sounds a bit on the skimpy side, don’t you think?” 

“What attack helicopters?” replied
Rad
.

“The ones they’d deploy if they thought we were operating those tanks.”

“If you say so,”
Rad
replied, “but I still think blowing stuff up would be a lot more fun than riding in the back of a van.”

“That’s all right,
Rad
, keep thinking along those lines.  We’re gonna need an edge to move this party to the embassy.  Sooner or later, somebody with a lot of stripes is gonna challenge our little magical mystery tour here,” Jim said prophetically. 

“Roadblock!” the soldier driving the van said in heavily accented English.  Three heads collided trying to peer at the same time through the door between the
van’s cab and
cargo area.

Ahead, an older model tank stood at an intersection flanked by a jeep, from which two soldiers had already begun to dismount. 

“Don’t even think about slowing down,” 
Sheng
ordered the jeep’s driver, whose eyes widened at the thought of a couple of guards spraying the jeep with thir
ty caliber bullets.  A
fter weighing the certainty of being shot in the back against the possibility of being shot by those manning the roadblock, the caravan continued without slowing. 

“When we’re almost even with them, sa
lute,” he ordered the officer,
“
and make it good if you want to keep your spine intact.”

Upon seeing the tanks, preceded by a jeep, which typically indicates the presence of an officer, the soldiers at the road block simply moved aside, r
e
turning the officer’s salute. 

“Now that wasn’t so bad,” Jim said as one of the other Seals turned to look out the back window.  It didn’t appear that any of the tank driver’s feathers had been ruffled either; he seemed primarily focused on keeping the beast pointed in the right direction.  Once again the phone in Jim’s lap buzzed.

“Yeah.”

“This is Jun.  I’m about three blocks ahead of you.  I didn’t think they’d let you through.”

“We didn’t exactly stop to ask permission, Jun, how does it look up ahead?”

“I spoke with a friend a couple minutes ago on the phone; each hour there are more tanks blocking intersections.  It’s going to get harder and harder to find a way through.” 

“Thanks, Jun.  We’ll have a little powwow here and get back with you.”

“A what?” asked Jun. 

“A discussion, Jun, a discussion.”

“Jun says the tanks are getting more numerous.  If some officer is determined to stop us, we can’t expect our buddies back there to just run him over.  At some point we’re going to have to get a divorce from our noisy friends.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said
Rad
.

“I hope it doesn’t involve blowing anything up,” replied Jim.

“How ‘bout we have the officer up front tell the tankers they need to guard the next couple of unoccupied intersections we come to and then we and the jeep go the rest of the way alone.”

“We lose the intimidation factor,” said Jim.

“That’s right, but sooner or later we’ve gotta lose it anyway.  We’ll be a lot more agile without a hundred tons of steel behind us.  If Jun tells us there’s trouble ahead, we can do a huey and try something else.  Hard to do that with a couple of tanks.  Besides, those tankers are bound to get curious if we start telling ’
em
to change course every time we see trouble up ahead.”

“What about the officer?”

“He rides back here with us.  I’m not comfortable with getting stopped and having to rely on him to bluff our way through.  Sooner or later, he’s gonna make a break for it and then we’re hosed. 
Sheng
can stay in the jeep behind the driver.  That driver’s not going to feel nearly as brave without his officer.”

“I got a better idea,” said George, “I say we ditch the officer and the driver.  If we’re not planning to stop for anyone or anything, they’re just excess baggage and a liability.”

“You mean we kill ’
em
?”

“Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

“I don’t know how
Sheng
and our van driver would feel about that.  Just because they defected doesn’t necessarily mean they’d be comfortable with murdering their fellow soldiers.”

“I agree,” said
Rad
.  “We’ve each got a roll of duct tape in our packs along with everything else, more than enough to keep ’
em
out of circulation for awhile, especially if we
taze
‘
em
first.”

“OK, but where do we put ’
em
where some
paisano
won’t find ’
em
in five minutes and sound the alarm?”

“How about the trunk of
Jun’s
cab?  It’s not gonna attract a lot of a
t
tention parked on some side street.  Then Jun rides with us and our driver with
Sheng
in the jeep, that is, after a change of uniform with the officer.  The jeep becomes our outlier; if an army jeep does a huey, it’s not gonna attract near as much attention as the van, especially not with an officer in it.”

Jim looked at each man in turn.  Their eyes told him all he needed to know and Jim picked up the cell phone.

“Jun, there’s been a change of plan.” 

At the next intersection, the first tank was ordered by the officer to set up a road block and told that soldiers would soon arrive to help man it.  The Seals watched as the tank driver obediently pulled his tank into position to partially block the intersection. 

“
Nothin
’ like unquestioning Chinese army discipline,” quipped Brett.

Three blocks west the second tank took up its position.  As far as
Sheng
could tell, the officer had said nothing on the radio that would in any way alert either tank crew to what was going on.  Apparently he was more focused on staying alive than being a dead hero. 

Then the plan hit a glitch.  Jun, who had performed magnificently every step of the way, was less than enthusiastic about having bodies in his trunk, alive or otherwise.  He felt that the officer would not have let him go at the intersection if he had suspected him.  That and the fact that Jun had a
l
ways communicated with the van from a distance meant that the two vehicles could not be tied together and Jun could continue to help the dissident cause anonymously.  So, using the cab was out of the question.

Jun, however, had another idea; he knew of a restaurant that had been temporarily closed due to a problem with licensing.  The restaurant’s dum
p
ster was still in the alley behind it.  But the restaurant was some distance away.  The team weighed the risks of keeping the officer and his driver o
n
board versus jettisoning the liability.  To a man it was felt that it was time to part ways.

Twenty minutes and several detours later, the jeep made an unexpected right turn.  Both the officer and his driver bristled when
Sheng
ordered them to turn into the dark alley, but before they had a chance to protest, their doors were jerked open and Tasers applied to their necks.  Five minutes later, their uniforms had been peeled from their unconscious bodies and enough duct tape applied to keep them immobilized and quiet for some time.  The Seals gently lowered the dumpster lid and did a final check of the alley.  Appa
r
ently no one lived above the businesses that were closed at this hour and there was no sign that anyone had been disturbed or alerted.

The caravan proceeded as before, minus two soldiers, but with one of the Seals sitting in the jeep next to
Sheng
, managing communications while
Sheng
drove.  In a questionable move, George, who of all of them appeared the least obviously American, had donned the officer’s uniform.  However, at a muscular 6’2”, George had to practically be poured into the uniform of the shorter and considerably slimmer officer.  With arms and legs protruding
several inches, it was just as well he spoke utterly no Chinese because it would have appeared ridiculous in the extreme had he been forced to di
s
embark to deal with a situation.  For all intents and purposes, George was now a heavily-armed, uniformed mannequin.  But in the darkened interior of the jeep’s cab, with only his hat covered head and shoulders visible, no one would be likely to notice that the soldier on the passenger side didn’t look very Chinese. 

As he continued exploring potential routes, Jun called a dissident friend and learned that the aut
horities’ tactics were evolving, and to update himself on where the caltrops were likely to be.
  The
authorities
were now employing roving patrols, and in order to limit the damage from caltrops, they had started commandeering privately owned cars and taxis to ride ahead.  On a more o
minous note, they were also
regularly shooting at anyone throwing the d
e
vices into the streets, resulting in the deaths of innocent bystanders as well as the throwers.  Jun grimly soldiered on.

It was on one of the many detours that his luck ran out.  Looking for a clear route he saw a roadblock ahead and turned into a side street to avoid it.  But a police car stationed at the roadblock saw him divert and began pursuit.  In less than a minute, flashing lights lit up his rearview mirror.  Panicked, he called the Seals.

“Jun, listen to me carefully,” said Jim.  “I want you to lead them to us. When you get here, make a U-turn in front of the jeep and pull over, leaving enough space so that the police car can pull in behind you.  Then place both hands on the steering wheel where they can see them and remain calm.  We’ll take over from there.”

No sooner had Jim closed the phone than the wailing of a police siren could be heard.  As instructed, Jun slowed when he reached the convoy and made a U-turn, placing the taxi about thirty feet in front of the jeep.  The two police officers, pulled in behind the taxi and shone their spotlight on it.  In the excitement of the chase, the officers barely glanced at the army jeep or the soldiers inside, thinking it serendipitous to have backup close at hand.  Both exited the police car, hands on the butts of their service pistols and approached the taxi cautiously. 

They were not yet even with doors of the taxi when they heard a voice behind them:

The Chinese version of ‘freeze
’
,
a term well-known to any virtually any moviegoer in the world, stopped them in their tracks. 

“Do not turn around!  Using your thumb and forefinger only, grasp the butt of your side arms and carefully place them on the ground.  Then step back three paces,”
Sheng
ordered, sounding very much like the movies he had
seen. 

The officers did as they were told and Jun was ordered to collect the pistols.  Had the officers turned around, they would have been shocked to see two soldiers, one of whom looked a bit like a high school sophomore who had seriously outgrown his clothes.  But they never had a chance to see the so
l
diers before the electrodes found their necks and they collapsed in the street. 

“Quick, get ‘
em
out of their clothes.  Tape their mouths and then their hands behind them and put ‘
em
in the trunk of the police car.  Jun,” Jim continued, “change into that one’s clothes
–
quickly; you are hereby an ho
n
orary member of the Beijing Police Department.”  The look on
Jun’s
face clearly said he was not happy, but he did as he was told. 

Unlike the alley, where the team had enjoyed privacy, they were now stripping two police officers on a public street and even at this hour, it had not gone unnoticed.  At least two residents could be seen, one in a window and the other in a
partially
open doorway.  Either could alert the authorities.  As the Seals stuffed the two unconscious police officers into the trunk of their own car, the doors of two residences opened and more Chinese faces peered out at the extraordinary gathering.  Then a most unexpected thing happened. Citizens, who for all their lives had hated and feared the police, began to clap.  In a sign of both peace and victory, Brett raised his right hand, with index and middle fingers in the shape of a V, which prompted one resident to shout:  “Good luck!” in heavily accented English.  The other residents raised their own hands in the sign
of victory
.