by Ed Nelson
As they were letting ten people at a time in, I figured he was an odd man out and let in to make up the numbers.
While I was putting these thoughts together, he made a lunge towards the Empress. I dived after him in an American-style football tackle. I hadn’t played football in high school and now it showed.
I was able to grab one of his legs, but he slipped free. It didn’t help him as he was shot down by guards hidden behind the screens. At the same time, the ladies, and the thrones they were sitting on were slid behind the side screens by some mechanical device.
The assassin was removed roughly from the room and a clean-up crew came in. In less than five minutes you would never have known what happened.
There were many photographs taken before anything was disturbed.
The other people in the assassin's group were all taken aside. They would be questioned and held until the wake was over. Not that they were suspects, but by keeping them from going back out the viewing could continue.
Chapter 20
After the wake, the family got together. This time I changed into comfortable clothes. When I entered the room, it was sad to see how the family had shrunk since the last event.
It was only one less person, but Chun-Chieh filled a room with his outgoing personality. Now the room had seemed to shrink in size even though it was the same one.
This was the first time that I was able to have a real conversation with Empress Ping. Once more she thanked me for my actions in trying to protect her family.
Since I had missed the tackle, I didn’t think thanks were in order, but I guessed it was the thought that counted. I didn’t express any of these thoughts, instead of replying with a simple, “I see it as my duty to try when I can.”
I continued with, “What is the mood of the Chinese population these days?”
“The mood here and in the other large cities is ugly. The countryside doesn’t hear of these events until much later.”
“What is the mood ugly about?”
“There are several different factions. The largest is mine, pro-Empress, they are happy with the direction the country is going. Then there are the old hardline communists. They want a return to communism.”
“The hardliners are doing us a favor by identifying themselves. We are collecting names and they will be rounded up as a group.”
“The most troubling group are those that want a strong Emperor rather than a weak woman. They are proposing that Haoran be made the Crown Prince instead of May-ling being next.”
“These we are picking up and questioning them to find links back to Haoran.”
“Then there are other factions that want many different things. One of them wants China to divide into many different states so they may live in peace.”
My comment was, “And I bet they have a peaceful warlord to run each of those countries.”
“You are beginning to understand China.”
“How is the absorption of Siberia going?”
I asked because Siberia now had a special place in my heart. A hard frozen place in my heart.
We continued our talk for a while as we drank another cup of tea. I had to introduce Coca-Cola to the Chinese. It was strange that they didn’t have it.
Rumor had it one of the secret ingredients in the Coke formula was from a berry that only grew in China. The Coca-Cola company was smuggling it to the US. I have no idea if this was true or not. It made a good story.
I must have made a face when I sipped my latest cup of tea because May-ling handed me another cup saying, “Try this blend it is smoother.”
It was much smoother and carbonated, if I didn’t know better, I swore it was Coke. When she winked at me, I knew it was. I thought I was in love.
I buried that thought, I had been in love too often recently and it had got me nowhere.
While this byplay was occurring, an agent came in and presented a file to Empress Ping. She browsed through it and then made an announcement.
“The man who attempted the assassination earlier this evening has given us a name. We in turn shared that name with the former anti-communist agents. One of them recognized that name, their home, and offices are being raided as we speak”.
She then turned to May-ling and told her, “I would love to have one of your Cokes.”
That brought a little laughter to the sad group. Even amid death life would go on. I read that somewhere.
At breakfast in the Empress’s quarters, we were given an update on the raid that had been carried out last night.
A link was found with a company that was owned by Haoran. A raid was being carried out currently on that company.
We retired to our rooms to get dressed for the funeral. This time I chose to wear my military uniform with all my medals. I did wear the black armband.
I wanted to make a statement that while I was in mourning that I was prepared to act. When the Empress saw me, she nodded in appreciation.
The funeral went off on time. Events didn’t seem so strange to me since this was my second time around in a month.
I kept scanning the crowd but since every other one was a soldier; I didn’t think there would be any trouble. I didn’t realize it at the time but there were international news outlets present.
They filmed me in my uniform against a backdrop of the many soldiers. It made it appear that I was in charge of the Chinese army. I didn’t know about it until the next day when Mr. Norman called me and asked if I needed new uniforms.
When I questioned him, he told me what was being reported. In the stories that came out my entire history was being brought to light. It made me sound like some international guy running things behind the scenes.
Just what I needed. I wondered if I hitchhiked from California to Ohio, I could rewind the whole thing.
These events were for later. During the funeral, the already clean tomb was opened and the late Chun-Chieh was interred. He had told me once that he had never thought he would be the Emperor of China. Sadly, he was correct.
After the gifts were burned and envelopes handed out, still using M&Ms, and red threads being kept repelling evil spirits and ghosts we returned to the Empress’s chambers.
There she asked me to take Ann and May-ling out of the country again to keep them safe while Haoran was tracked down.
It was official now, the company doing business with Haoran had his chief of security on their board of directors. It appeared that he had used the company as a cutout to hire the assassin.
They had captured him at his home, and he confessed. I asked what would happen to him. The reply was, “Nothing, he didn’t survive the interrogation.”
China was still China.
We returned to the airport in reverse of the convoy in, but this time no one tried to kill us. My 707 had been surrounded by troops the whole time it had been on the ground.
The crew had all stayed on the plane. It had been refueled and was ready to go. We boarded and once more got out of Dodge.
We flew to Hong Kong where troops once more surrounded the plane. The only ground people who were allowed near was the refueling truck and they were watched carefully. I hope it wouldn’t come to gunfire with all that JP1A around.
A man I recognized from the Governor's office knocked on the aircraft door. He had a messenger bag for me. It had hundreds of messages for me, most looking like they concerned JE.
One of them caught my interest because it had come from Spain. As soon as we took off again after a brief ground stay, I opened it.
It was an update on my efforts to create an accredited school at the estancia. Fra Tomas was pleased to let me know that Mrs. Echevarria had quotes from contractors to build the new schoolhouse and convert the old school building to housing for the nuns who were coming to be teachers.
Why did I feel used? I sighed and decided that I had to work within the system and that I was getting what I wanted. I just hadn’t planned on being a supporter of the Catholic Church. Next, they would want m
e to convert.
May-ling had heard my sigh, I suspect the pilots up front heard it. When I explained it to her, she laughed? Her first real laugh in days.
“You are too used to having your way with everything. Learn to work with what you have rather than what you want.”
Now I thought that was unfair, as I thought that was how I operated. However, I was not going to get into an argument with her. Seeing her smile disappear wasn’t worth being right.
Based on that I drafted a return reply thanking the good father and asking him to help Mrs. Echevarria keep things moving along.
See? I can work within a system.
Another was from Don Pearson telling me he had dispatched a team to Spain to set up a maintenance program on the ranch. They were prepared to oversee putting up a building, ordering machinery, stocking spare parts.
On a side note, he told me this was a great opportunity to reward some good maintenance staff. They viewed it as a vacation in Spain and had volunteered to rotate people in and out to hire and train workers. By the way, could I make sure there was housing for them and any families they brought with them?
So maybe it wasn’t only the Catholics that were using me.
Chapter 21
I drafted a message back to Don that there would be room for any visiting families. I also prepared a message to Mrs. Echevarria asking her to make certain the empty worker's cottages were updated and cleaned as the maintenance trainers would likely have their family with them.
After thinking for a moment, I also suggested she buy at least one van and two more cars for transportation to and from the airport. Then there was the problem of food, things to do.
I asked her to treat it like a Dude ranch, though she didn’t have to have a rodeo or bullfights. This was getting more complicated all the time. I added a note for her to find out if there were any American trained Doctors in the area. If so, we should have them on call. Maybe we could run a clinic at the estancia.
What was I getting into? Maybe I should revisit my thinking about an even larger ranch in the Australian outback.
Once more I must have sighed loudly, and May-ling heard me. She raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t bite. I had about enough second-guessing for the day.
The next batch of mail was from JE. It was mostly about the IC Chips. We had our first licensing agreement in place with a defense contractor. They were designing ground-to-air missiles for the US Air Force and needed a lightweight solution for their electronics package.
If ours worked correctly they would more than meet their requirements. The test units we provided worked as advertised so I didn’t see any reason full production wouldn’t.
There were also exploratory talks going on with IBM about providing chips for a computer that would sit on a desktop for office use. I could see them migrating to the home in short order.
In this case, there was a hold-up because of software. They needed a user-friendly operating system because not everyone was a programmer. Without this system, the user would be limited.
IBM had been caught flatfooted on this deal. They didn’t plan to have a desktop computer until the 1980s. That is what their development people had told them.
With the event of our IC Chips, it was the first one to market wins. I did write a note to Jim Williamson asking him to see if any startup companies had the capabilities.
Maybe we could back them for a percentage of the business.
There were normal updates on the business. Dockworkers were striking in Sydney. Popeye was on his way to straighten it out.
Mark Downing wanted to expand the DF once more. My reply told him to proceed. He also let me know that Anna Romanov was going to renovate several bathrooms in the White House.
I just hoped she and Jackie didn’t meet up.
In other news, Queen Elizabeth invited May-ling and her Mother to stay at one of the royal residences. I thought that was an excellent idea, but I wanted to cut our trail. I had an idea I wanted to pass by Mum.
After another long flight in which my logbook kept adding up. I now had almost a thousand hours on the 707. I would have to take a check ride someday to get my ticket punched.
When we finally landed in Ontario and got back to Jackson House, I asked Mum if we still owned the house in Bellefontaine. We did and it wasn’t occupied.
She thought my plan was a good one. We would fly into Dayton and stay in Bellefontaine for a week, making no real effort to hide. We would then take a limo to Cleveland and fly a charter to Ontario, Canada. From Ontario another charter to London and from there to wherever the Queen directed us.
After seeing Ann and her daughter to safety I would go someplace else, maybe Australia. Anything to confuse the trail.
When Dad got home, we shared it with him. He thought it was a great idea. He tried to picture Chinese agents sneaking around the town. He kept laughing when he thought of it. In small-town Ohio, they would stick out like a sore thumb.
We rested for a night. We invited the ladies to join in on a family game of Monopoly. They did, Mary and May-ling teamed up and took us all to the cleaners. They kept whispering to each other during the game. Mary couldn’t get me in any trouble, could she? I would have felt better if they didn’t keep looking at me and giggling.
The next morning, we flew to Dayton where we had a limo waiting. Dad had called his realty office in Bellefontaine and had them check the house out and make sure it was clean and the utilities turned on.
It was strange going into my old bedroom. Nothing had changed. Well, the bed was made, but that was it. I was never into posters but there were my old favorite books spread everywhere.
There were a few ribbons from my high school golf outings and pictures from the various dances that I went to. May-ling thought my Prom picture was cute.
I made two phone calls. The first was to the Bellefontaine Police Department. I was lucky as the new Police Chief Woodruff answered the phone. He remembered me.
I told him that I was in town for a week and that I would be out and about with several women. One was Chinese the other her English mother. He should be aware the Chinese girl was May-ling Ping the heir apparent to the Chinese throne.
Talk about dead silence on the other end. I asked him if there were any reports of Chinese men showing up in town to let us know. We would leave immediately.
I could tell he would rather have a tooth pulled without Novocain rather than go through this, but he said they would keep a lookout and he would have extra patrols pass by the house.
My next call was to George Weaver. I asked George if he were interested in a story that would give him an international byline. Of course, he said no.
What he really said was that he was on his way.
I intended to talk to George but asked the women if they wanted to. They did.
When George got there, and I made the introductions I thought he would wet himself. He managed to control his excitement and performed a professional interview.
The ladies told him of the attempted assassination attempts, giving me more credit than I was due. They next filled him on our journeys around the world. As a good reporter, he tried to find out what was next but didn’t press the issue. It may have had something to do when I told him, “We can tell you, but then I would have to kill you.”
I was joking, more like kidding on the square. I asked him if he could embargo his story until after we were gone. I thought he would resist.
Instead, he was excited. He could see the first paragraph stating the story had been embargoed at the request of the future Empress of China.
Sometimes the devil makes you do things. While he was talking to the ladies, I placed a call to the White House. When JFK came on, I told him what I needed. He thought it was a keen idea.
I handed the phone to George and told him it was for him. This time I swear I saw a drop of pee stain his pants when the President of the United States asked him to embargo the story.
All work and no play ma
ke Rick a dull boy.
After he hung up George told me he didn’t know if he loved or hated me.
May-ling spoke up quickly and said, “Rick is very loveable.”
She also blushed as she said it and ran out of the room. I think she just said what popped into her head and wasn’t serious.
Her mother had a slight smile.
The next day we walked down to Don’s Hamburgers for lunch. It was a Saturday, so school was out. A typical March day it was blustery, but we had found coats in the hall closet that fit.
At Don’s, there were kids that I recognized as being two or three grades behind me. When we walked in all conversation stopped.
A boy who looked familiar spoke up, “Are you, Rick Jackson?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh wow, wait until I tell my parents I met you! You are a legend around here.”
By this time, we had found an empty booth and sat down. I could see that this may not have been the best idea I could have had but we were here, and we were hungry.
A waitress came to our table. This was new, in the old days, we had to go to the counter and place our order. The old days, four years ago.
Chapter 22
I finally put it together that the kid I had come up to us was Tom Morton’s younger brother Bob.
After we ordered I waved Bob over to our table. It was strange, everyone in the restaurant was watching us. As Bob was coming over, I heard one kid say to another.
“She is Chinese, I just know it.”
The other kid said, “No way, China is on the other side of the world.”
Bob arrived at our table, and I invited him to sit down. His friends sitting at the counter were all turned and staring at us. Was I ever like that?
I briefly introduced Ann and May-ling. He nodded his head shyly to them.
“How is Tom, these days?”
“He’s going to Ohio State; he is doing okay but from what I hear Mom and Dad say he is enjoying the partying too much.”