by Matt Miksa
“What?” Olen was skeptical. It sounded too easy.
“Li wants the foreign press to document the investigation, but in a manner he can control. It’s a brilliant maneuver, actually,” Allyson continued. “Li can claim transparency—to both the international community and the Chinese people—without losing face by accepting material aid from foreigners.”
“I see where this is going,” Olen said.
“You’ll penetrate the TAR under media cover as the sole Western journalist with authorized access.”
“You sound a little too happy about this, Cam. You’re sending me into a hot zone to be devoured by some kind of flesh-eating amoeba.”
“This horrific outbreak may have opened a small crack for us to get a peek into one of the most elusive and politically unstable regions of China. We’re fortunate to have this opportunity.”
“A front-row seat to a—how did you put it?—horrific outbreak. Yep, I’m a lucky ducky.”
“You’re wheels up first thing tomorrow morning,” Allyson ordered. “Langley is sending a pair of analysts to brief you overnight. There’s very little time to review the operational plan, so you’ll just have to sleep on the plane.”
Olen nodded. “But there may be a weensy problem,” he said. “You know I don’t speak Chinese, right?”
CHAPTER
6
Beijing, People’s Republic of China
A STIFF SILENCE HUNG over the Great Hall of the People. A disease as dangerous as Blood River virus loose in Beijing was unacceptable. Dr. Zhou knew the outbreak would strain President Li Bingwen’s tenuous authority. At the beginning of Li’s term, right after the National Congress appointed him to the presidency, Dr. Zhou, like many others, had hoped he could inspire unity and lead China into the future. Childish notions. Over the past year, brutal infighting among the political factions had ripped Zhongnanhai apart. Li lacked the inner strength to rally his people and rebuild consensus, and the members of the Standing Committee were too entrenched in their views. They were vicious, intractable men who had ascended to the country’s highest ruling body through a toxic blend of coercion, extortion, and, if the rumors were true, the occasional quiet murder.
Mao Zedong would’ve crushed them all. Six months breaking up rocks in the northern labor camps would’ve done the trick. However, Li Bingwen was no Maoist strongman. He was barely in charge. His rivals made sure of that.
China’s president was supposed to rule the state, the military, and the Communist Party—the holy trinity of power in the People’s Republic. But compared to his predecessors, Li was a maladroit politician, easily outmaneuvered by more ambitious men. The nation’s elites—the same hypocrites who had voted him into office—had bailed on Li within months. Like beetles to a lamppost, they’d swarmed to a brighter luminary, General Huang Yipeng of the People’s Liberation Army. The final blow had come the previous spring when the Standing Committee blindsided President Li. They stripped him of his authority over the military and anointed General Huang chairman of the nation’s armed forces. Huang wielded the PLA as a political weapon, while Li struggled to retain what little control he had over the civilian branches of government.
Dr. Zhou studied the two men, Li and Huang, who were now seated three feet apart behind the mahogany dais. The animus was palpable.
“What do we know about this man, your patient zero?” General Huang interjected. “This Mr. Chun …”
“Chang Yingjie,” Dr. Zhou corrected, returning to her seat.
The general’s question wasn’t medical in nature. All eyes focused on a man in a gray suit standing at the opposite end of the briefing table.
Wei Feng spoke with the steely bearing of an officer of the venerated MSS, the Ministry of State Security, China’s most elite intelligence agency. “Chang Yingjie worked for the NSB,” Wei reported, referring to the Taiwanese National Security Bureau.
“You’re telling us patient zero was a Taiwanese spy?” General Huang said. “How the hell did the NSB get into Tibet?”
“He slipped into the country through Hong Kong ten days ago using an alias. Security camera footage at Hong Kong International Airport captured Chang passing through the main terminal at ten-oh-two in the morning.” Officer Wei flashed a fuzzy image on the screen. It was Chang, breezing past a crowded duty-free shop. “Our facial recognition software matched Chang with photos taken of him during an operation he ran in Sudan last summer.
“Chang’s flight originated in Paris. He’d purchased a round-trip ticket with a return flight departing twelve days later. For a man planning to spend nearly two weeks in our country, he traveled light. The chief of airport security suspected something unusual when guards noticed Chang hadn’t checked any baggage.”
“Well, if airport security spotted a known intelligence officer of the NSB waltzing through Hong Kong International, why didn’t we snatch him up?” Huang asked.
“We considered it, but we decided to follow him instead, to see if he planned to meet with anyone. Chang jumped into a taxi, and MSS surveillance teams tracked him to the Lo Wu train station thirty miles away. Three trains, two buses, and over forty hours later, he arrived in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province.” The MSS officer paused to clear his throat. “That’s where we lost him.”
General Huang grimaced. “How did you lose him, Officer Wei?”
Wei Feng looked nervous. As the leader of the MSS surveillance team, Wei had personally tracked Chang to Sichuan Province. That made him responsible for the failure.
Wei went on to explain the details behind the pursuit that had spanned two full days. He’d followed Chang from the Chengdu train station to Tianfu Square in the city center. Chang had wandered aimlessly in the expansive plaza, gawking like a dumb struck tourist. Wei wasn’t fooled. He knew Chang was scanning the crowd, searching for someone.
Officer Wei maintained a safe distance, finding a bench in the shadow of a mammoth Mao Zedong statue lording over the plaza. Giggling children scurried across the square, flying colorful kites. A wrinkled man with a gray kitten perched on his shoulder sold bags of jaozi, steamed pork dumplings, from a wooden cart. Nothing seemed out of place.
Then Chang lit a cigarette, and Wei knew something was wrong. Chang Yingjie didn’t smoke—not according to his dossier, anyway. Officer Wei had memorized every page. The cigarette was a signal. Wei couldn’t be sure what it meant, but it confirmed his suspicion: the Taiwanese spy wasn’t sightseeing. Officer Chang Yingjie was operational.
The sun sank lower, making it difficult to observe Chang from across the square. Then music blared from speakers hidden in the trees. The plaza’s centerpiece, a regal fountain, lit up in radiant red, and the nightly water show began (right on schedule, Wei would later learn). The booming, symphonic score and synchronized flashing lights drew the attention of hundreds of spectators. A swarm descended on the fountain like ants to a popsicle. Wei lost his line of sight. Moving in, he filtered through the throng, attempting to reestablish a visual, but it was no use. Chang had vanished.
“Intelligence Officer Chang Yingjie may have been young, but he was a professional,” Wei explained to the Standing Committee. “He never looked over his shoulder. He didn’t run an SDR, a surveillance detection run, or make any attempt to shake us, yet his behavior near the fountain was decidedly evasive. Chang pushed into the wide-open plaza to force us to fall back, and then he used the crowd as a smoke screen to slip away. He knew about the water show and timed everything perfectly.”
“He obviously spotted the MSS lurking,” Huang said derisively.
“Actually, sir, we don’t believe Chang detected surveillance. He didn’t have to. He bought his airline ticket using a well-worn alias guaranteed to send up red flags. He knew we’d be watching from the moment he stepped off the jet bridge in Hong Kong. He counted on it. In my estimation, Chang deliberately lured us to Chengdu.”
“Well, someone must have seen him leave Tianfu Square, Officer Wei,” Huang said. “The next time Chang was
spotted, he was a thousand miles away, sipping tea with Tibetans. Does the MSS have any idea how the man infiltrated one of the most restricted areas of Eastern Tibet unnoticed?”
General Huang’s neck pulsed with visible frustration as he continued. “As soon as the MSS learned a Taiwanese spy had arrived on Chinese soil, the ministry should have handed the matter over to military intelligence.”
Dr. Zhou wasn’t surprised by the general’s view. The man had spent his career serving the Second Department of the PLA’s General Staff Headquarters—the esteemed 2PLA—and the military intelligence outfit didn’t play nice with the civilian branch.
Officer Wei continued his report. “We suspect Chang Yingjie went underground. The nearest subway station is inside the subterranean shopping mall underneath the square. He likely traveled directly to the airport. From there, it would not have been hard to hop a shuttle flight to Lhasa. For that leg, we assume Chang used a different alias, one we don’t know about, to book a ticket.”
“And why do you believe that, Officer Wei?” Huang asked.
“Because we have no record of his trip,” Wei answered.
“To be clear,” Huang said, “a Taiwanese intelligence officer infiltrated our borders, evaded our surveillance teams, and then unleashed a deadly virus that ravaged our citizens.”
Wei nodded. “It appears that way, sir.”
General Huang looked down the row of powerful men flanking his sides. “Gentleman, we must recognize this for what it is—nothing less than a direct act of biological warfare. Taiwan has attacked us from within, and our obligation as leaders of this great nation is unambiguous. We must retaliate.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” President Li Bingwen broke in. “If Taiwan intended to cripple us with an outbreak, why attack a cluster of isolated monks and farmers in the hinterland? Why not hit Beijing or Shanghai? There are fifteen million people in Guangzhou alone. Targeting any one of these cities would have done considerably more damage.”
“You’re thinking like a politician, not a military strategist, Comrade Bingwen.” Huang leaned into the table, craning around President Li to address the other members of the Standing Committee. “Taipei has thrown a match into a barrel of gasoline. Those people of Tibet need very little encouragement to provoke this government. When news of the virus spreads, and you can be sure it will, there will be blood in the streets. We will look helpless, impotent, too weak to protect the nation. Dissent will spread faster than the disease! There will be riots. Shops vandalized. Property torched. And therein lies the real attack, you see. Taiwan doesn’t want to make people sick—it wants to make them angry. Angry with us.”
“A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” Li replied.
“The Taiwanese know this government’s legitimacy rests on thin ice. Zhongnanhai will not survive a major groundswell of opposition. If Tibet rebels, what’s next? Xinjiang? Hong Kong?” General Huang’s thundering baritone echoed as he paused for breath. “I will mobilize the People’s Liberation Army tonight. A show of strength will quash any misconceptions about our capacity to restore order. Taipei will get the message. We’ll plaster it across the tips of our Dongfeng-16s.”
“We cannot hurl bombs at innocent people because one man got the flu,” President Li countered.
“Not just any man. An enemy spy,” Huang replied. “And the Taiwanese are not innocent, comrade. They’re seditious needlers, too feeble and too cowardly to challenge us overtly, like men, so they chip away little by little, weakening us from the inside. Their NSB spies infiltrate our corporations, steal our technology. Who knows how many have already penetrated our intelligence services? When was the last time you took a hard look at your MSS, Mr. President?”
President Li bristled. The general had trespassed on sensitive territory. Official authority over the civilian intelligence service fell to Li as head of state, and the men of the MSS were not bumbling amateurs. They risked their lives for China, and in return for their selfless commitment, some had made the ultimate sacrifice.
The president slammed his fist into the heavy tabletop. “Your insinuations are slanderous. Chairman Mao is long gone, General Huang. There will be no great purge of your imagined enemies.”
The general pulled his shoulders back like an osprey lifting its menacing wings before dive-bombing for trout. “You’re right. Chairman Mao is dead, and thankfully so, for his own sake. The Great Helmsman would be humiliated by this committee’s impotence.” Droplets of Huang’s spittle dotted the table.
“Your distaste for my administration is well established,” Li rasped. “Despite the ever-widening chasm dividing our views on foreign policy, it is now clear that China’s future rests not in our ability to achieve political consensus but in our ability to effectively mitigate this rapidly deteriorating public health emergency.” Li folded his hands. Huang was a bully, but Li couldn’t ignore that the general had raised a legitimate concern.
“Now, I must agree, on its face, we’d be foolish to disregard the connection between this Taiwanese intelligence officer and the outbreak in Tibet,” Li conceded. “But a connection alone is not evidence of malevolence.” The president refocused his attention on Dr. Zhou. “Doctor, is it your expert opinion that Chang brought this disease to the mainland intentionally? Did his autopsy reveal any indication he’d purposefully infected himself, perhaps as part of an elaborate suicide attack?”
“I didn’t perform an autopsy, Mr. President,” Dr. Zhou said flatly.
“Well, who did then?” Li asked.
“No one did,” she answered. “No body. No autopsy.”
“What?” Huang barked. “Where’s the body, Doctor?”
“They burned it. The villagers, that is.”
“Why would they destroy the body before an autopsy?” Li asked. “Aren’t there standard operating procedures for such things?”
“Dzongsar Village is a place frozen in time. There are no modern hospitals or labs. The people are deeply religious and highly superstitious,” Dr. Zhou explained. “Their only clinic is a row of spare rooms in a private residence. The community’s sole healthcare professional—if you can call him that—is a self-taught doctor whose approach to medicine is based more in mysticism than in science.”
“So they burned the man to please the gods? Or is it Buddha?” General Huang quipped.
“I suspect they were terrified of him,” Dr. Zhou answered. “After Chang collapsed, subcutaneous edema would have made his body look puffy and deformed, like a half-melted marshmallow. His skin was likely covered with hematomas—dark-purple splotches. The hemorrhaging from his tear ducts would’ve looked like he was weeping blood. This must have horrified the villagers, so yes, they burned Chang’s body immediately. And without it, we cannot determine how, or when, he was exposed to the virus.”
“Then it is possible Chang got sick after he arrived in Tibet,” Li postulated.
“Very possible. Even probable, I’d say. True, there are no previously documented cases of this disease in Eastern Tibet—or in all of China, for that matter—but the subtropical climate of the Yarlung Tsangpo Valley is consistent with other natural environments that have produced similar viruses. And some researchers believe deforestation can stir up otherwise dormant pathogens. For example, one theory presumes that jungle clearing in Zaire, to make room for plantations, unleashed Ebola in the late 1970s. China’s logging industry is aggressively encroaching on untouched forests blanketing the area surrounding Dzongsar Village. Blood River virus may have thrived for centuries within a woodland host species that until recently was isolated from human populations. Maybe something bit Chang in Tibet and that’s how he got sick.”
“And is that your prevailing theory, Doctor?” President Li asked.
Dr. Zhou sighed. “Not at all. Bottom line, whether it was a fruit bat or a foreign spy, the true source of the virus is still unknown. We don’t even fully understand how it’s transmitted.”
“Then we require more information
.” Li spoke definitively, as if he’d anticipated the virologist’s response. “A retaliatory counterattack on Taiwan would be impetuous at this stage. Dr. Zhou, you will lead the investigation in Dzongsar. You are to report any new information directly to my office.”
Dr. Zhou could think of a hundred objections to President Li’s order. The epidemiological field survey was already complete. That was how they’d determined Chang was the index case. The Ministry of Health had an army of doctors tracking new infections in Lhasa. At this point, the critical work—deciphering the pattern of mutation, determining the virus’s genetic vulnerabilities—was in the lab. Her lab. In Shanghai, not the Tibetan rain forest.
Dr. Zhou sat frozen in place. An image of Chang’s burning body flashed in her mind, flames licking his swollen flesh, flakes of charred skin swirling in the hot updraft, a dark cloud of toxic smoke roaring into the atmosphere. Finally, her mouth began to form words.
“With all due respect, Mr. President, the Ministry of Health can call upon the World Health Organization to assist with—”
President Li raised a palm to silence the doctor’s demurral. “We cannot allow the WHO or the Americans at the CDC to intervene. This is a Chinese matter, and we’re fully capable of handling it ourselves.”
Dr. Zhou knew the president’s reluctance to involve the international community stemmed from political expediency. Li’s rivals would say the man lacked backbone if he ran to the Americans for help. Dr. Zhou read the conviction in Li’s eyes. She firmly believed he was making a mistake—this wasn’t just a Chinese problem—but the president had made up his mind. Protesting his decision was pointless.
Like it or not, she was going to Tibet.
CHAPTER
7
Beijing, People’s Republic of China