Warriors (11 page)

“The Centurion Submarine Fleet, of course. First one, then two or three more major American cities on the eastern and western seaboards will fall victim to our undersea missiles launched from the bottom of the Atlantic basin and the mid-Pacific trench. They will all disappear simultaneously. Poof! New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, let us say. The same fate will immediately befall a few of the great cities of England. The ones that Hitler sadly failed to annihilate.

“We will then issue demands that the Seventh Fleet be withdrawn from the Pacific within seventy-two hours. And that all U.S. forces be withdrawn from South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, et cetera. If our demands are not met within a reasonable timeline, the annihilation of more cities on both sides of the Atlantic will follow. Until the White House comes to its senses. Assuming a reeling President David Rosow is still capable of making any sense at all at that point.”

“That’s why you took out McCloskey. Rosow’s barely had time to consolidate his government.”

“Excellent deduction, Doctor! And then, with the strength and might of the entire Chinese military solidly behind me, I shall march on Beijing and arrest the current government and assume sole power.”

“And then? What will you do then, O mighty Caesar?”

“Then? Why, then I shall rule the world, Dr. Chase.”

The old man sat there beaming like a well-fed cat in a garden full of mice. He looked up at the beamed ceiling, eyes glazed over, like an addict pumped full of some ecstatic chemicals.

“Chase?” he said.

“Yes.”

“What a lovely sentence that is, is it not? I shall rule the world.”

C
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  1 5

M
oon struck a match and lit a long yellow cigarette. He delicately inserted it into an ebony holder and stuck it in the right corner of his mouth. He kept talking, letting it burn down without taking a drag. He was a man of peculiar habits, and this was one of the milder ones.

“You will play a key role in the final phase of my grand plan, Dr. Chase. What my officers are calling ‘Spring Dawn.’ And when China emerges from the coming preemptive strikes on the British and the American mainlands, victorious, of course, I shall terminate any further obligations on your part to my newly formed government. You will be reunited with your lovely wife and two children and returned to what’s left of your homeland.”

“You said you had news of my family. I’d like to hear it now. I insist.”

Moon reached across the desk and handed him a letter.

“Read that. As always, Dr. Chase, all three are in perfect health and being well cared for. Here, read the letter from your lovely wife. They are involved in the camp tasks for which they have shown the most aptitude and pleasure. They live in relative comfort and safety. I think you can rest assured that—”

“Fuck you, I don’t believe it,” Chase said, his eyes skimming the banal letter of reassurance. “Kat didn’t write this happy horseshit. Somebody else wrote and made her sign it. I think you’re lying.”

“Oh, come now. Me? Why? What possible reason would I have to lie? I’m not a monster, Dr. Chase.”

“I won’t even bother to address that. You listen to me, damn it to hell. I want to know where they are, General! I want to speak with them. All of them. How long has it been? How long? You told me that—”

“And you will see them. You will speak with them. All of them. Just as soon as your final mission here at Xinbu Island is nearing completion. When this is all over, your family will be generously provided for. You will be given an inordinately generous stipend for your services to my country and provided with private jet transportation anywhere in the world.”

“When does this Spring Dawn commence? It’s spring now, as you may have noticed.”

“The clock is officially ticking. We’re now going to be driven across the island to the Weapons Design Center. This is where Operation New Dawn will be headquartered. As director, you will have a spacious new corner office and sleeping accommodations on the uppermost floor of the new building. From that office, you will become an integral part of China’s New Reality.”

“Reality? Really, General? Here on Xinbu Island? I haven’t had even a glimpse of reality since your thugs kidnapped me and my family off the streets of Georgetown, two blocks from our home.”

“Better than assassinating you, I should think. A far better fate than that originally intended.”

“What?”

“You may as well know. Premier Li had decreed to the Politburo and to me that you were a grave threat to our national future. That you alone were the single biggest danger to China’s manifest destiny, were we to become locked into an arms struggle with the Americans. Te-Wu Academy had sent a four-man team to Washington to eliminate you and your family. They were in place, reporting to me. Watching each member of the family’s every move for months.”

“I felt it, damn it. I knew it. But I ignored my instincts.”

“You were already dead, Dr. Chase. Nothing you could have done. The executions were to take place on the night of your wife’s fortieth birthday.”

“All of us, I assume. Cleaner that way.”

“All of you.”

“But then?”

“I hesitated. I had escaped to my home in the islands. To think. I walked the beaches all day until I had to sleep. Beaches and mountains are where I get my work done. I had been thinking about you, Dr. Chase. I’d brought along a biography of you, the one by Walter Isaacson called
New Century Man.
Fascinating. And it came to me one morning that I was about to waste one of the world’s greatest natural resources. And that you were far more valuable to me alive than dead.”

“A reasonable assumption.”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I went back to Beijing and began to lay the groundwork for what was then called Early Dawn that very day. I saw that China had no need of a costly and protracted arms race with America. Look what it did to the Russians. Your Reagan brought them to their knees by outspending them at every turn.”

“They underestimated Reagan’s ferocity and tenacity. And the innate power of capitalism. His loathing for the evils of Communism. And Lady Thatcher’s, too, God rest their souls.”

“Yes. The poor, benighted Soviets could never grasp or match the U.S. war machine’s inherent ability to outspend and outthink them. Reagan launched a sustained economic attack that ended Communism in Russia without a shot being fired. I did not think China had the need to repeat those lessons of history. I saw a way around this problem.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“Deduct me from their side of the equation and add me to yours.”

“Precisely, my dear Watson.”

“How close did we get that night? Tell me the truth.”

“Less than an hour.”

“My God.”

“The basement of the 1789 restaurant had been packed to the ceiling with C-4 explosives by my people posing as electricians. We were going to reduce it to rubble. I had my epiphany and pulled the plug on that. The ‘lost’ Chinese ambassador and his wife were merely backup. Both Te-Wu graduates, I can tell you. I ordered them to make sure your family didn’t make it home. “

“Christ.”

“And now the end of all that is near. You can make all this suffering go away, Bill. You can ultimately save yourself and everyone you love. You just have to take one last step. Do you understand me? It’s all on the line here.”

“I understand you far more deeply than you will ever know, General Moon.”

“I feel precisely the same about you, Dr. Chase. It’s why we get along. Although we are adversaries and not friends, we have a great deal in common. Now, I’d like you to take a look at this. Read this dossier. Cover to cover. Take your time. The car will wait.”

It was a red leather portfolio marked MOST SECRET with a thick dossier inside.

The first thing Chase came to was an aerial sat photo of a house. A large Georgian brick home, quite beautiful, located within a rolling parkland of green beeches and elms.

“What’s this?”

“It’s called Quarterdeck. A large manor house in the Cotswolds. England. The home of the reigning chief of MI6, Sir David Trulove. That’s his picture you’re looking at. A crusty old admiral who keeps getting in our way. He’s been a persistent thorn in our sides, not unlike Brick Kelly, his American counterpart at CIA. The much-heralded era of the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and America is now about to come to a swift conclusion. One that history will ‘little note, nor long remember,’ I might add.”

“What’s all this?”

“Satellite images of the estate. Diagrams of the security systems and armed personnel in place both on the grounds and inside the house. Architect’s elevations of the house itself. Bit of an armed fortress, that house. The security measures are quite formidable.”

“You want me to kill the head of MI6 in order to gain my freedom?”

“Yes.”

“What about your precious Spring Fling?”

“Dawn. Don’t make that mistake again. You don’t have to do it personally. You need to create a team. May I suggest you start with one of our senior agents, Ku Lin. UK based, runs a cell for us there. Put him to work on this. Create or provide Ku Lin with weapons that will make the correct outcome certain. There is no budget. You’ve got one month.”

“Is that all?”

“For now.”

“I feel like I’ve heard that scenario somewhere before, General Moon.”

“Hmm. But really, Dr. Chase, what choice do you have?”

Chase was silent for a moment.

“Let me give you a little inside information on world domination, General Moon,” Chase said, “since you people are so obviously hell-bent on it.”

“Oh, please. I should love to hear it.”

“It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, believe me. Look at Caesar or Napoleon. Better yet, look at Tojo and Hitler, God rest their souls.”

Moon burst out laughing as Chase moved to the door.

“One more thing before we go,” Moon said, as if he’d almost forgotten. “The J-2 project is compromised. One of the new fighters you designed has fallen into enemy hands. Stolen at sea by a British intelligence officer from a carrier deck. But the circumstances are unimportant. What is important is the fact that your fingerprints are all over that fighter.”

“And your point is?”

“Somehow, somewhere, men are now going to be coming for you. So. Your usefulness to us draws to an end. You need to complete your work before the end draws near to you, my friend. And your family.”

“If you have been lying to me about them . . . God help you. Because I won’t. I will see you dead.”

Moon laughed out loud.

“Oh! Oh, my! I shall miss you when you’re gone, Chase, truly I shall. And one more thing. You might want to tune in to CNN in the morning. It promises to be a rather exciting day in Washington, my sources tell me.”

THAT VERY NIGHT, AS HE
fought valiantly for sleep, Bill Chase heard, or perhaps only imagined, the heavy sound of an old dragon’s tail moving over dead leaves.

C
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  1 6

T
he day was bitter cold, cold and wet.

As the seemingly endless funeral procession wended its way across Memorial Bridge, the sleet gradually turned to snow. Arlington House, General Robert E. Lee’s beautiful and historic old mansion sited at the top of the hill, was barely visible in the storm. In this light, the house looked frozen and forlorn, even a certain shade of grey, like the general’s ghostly armies after Shiloh and Antietam, and Gettysburg.

It had been a long time since anyone had seen a Washington crowd so still and silent. The entire route, from St. Andrew’s Church to the cemetery, was lined ten to fifteen people deep with soldiers on both sides standing at parade rest to control access to the cross streets.

As the Honor Guard and the president’s caisson neared, the soldiers would snap to attention. A female major was going up and down the lines, from soldier to soldier, behind their backs, discreetly handing them sugar cubes to suck on and keep them on their feet. They’d been standing in position since long before dawn.

The First Lady had requested the horse-drawn caisson to transport the president’s body from the funeral service at the church to Arlington. It was the first time one had been used since John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 1963. In her heart, she knew Tom would have wanted to complete his journey accompanied by his stalwart stallion, El Alamein. Two days earlier, the president’s favorite horse had been flown into Andrews from the ranch in Colorado.

The big black stallion was calm, even dignified, as he completed his last journey with the late president. A short, sad trip to the heroes’ burial ground. McCloskey was a decorated war hero who’d served two combat tours as an air force pilot in the Vietnam War. He’d flown the Convair B-58, the first supersonic operational bomber, and won the DFC for heroism.

The First Lady, though distraught, was toughing it out as the day of the funeral drew nigh. The worldwide search for her husband’s assassin was ongoing, but preliminary feedback from the FBI was not encouraging. The alleged murderer, a chef in the White House kitchen, had, in all probability, slipped through the cordon around Washington and left the country.

The media was making hay twenty-four hours a day with the fact that the suspect was a Chinese national. But whether his motive was personal or political was not yet known. He had enjoyed an unblemished career, working his way up to the number two position in fairly short order. He was well liked by the staff and was one of the late president’s favorites in the kitchen.

But most Washingtonians suspected the worst: a political assassination, and already chilly relations with Beijing were now at an all-time low.

In one of the prefuneral logistical meetings held in the family residence at the White House, an eager young staffer was quick to point out to the group that horse poop in public was a very unsightly thing. He then asked if not feeding the stallion for the day before the funeral would prevent that.