Chinook

by M. L. Buchman

  “Oh man,” Jeremy groaned. “That’s like the best show ever. I remember looking up all the Chinese words and phrases the first time I saw it. But that was a while ago; guess I forgot them.”

  By his tone, Taz knew that if she herself hung out with Jeremy long, she’d be watching it, too. Binge night with Andi. She was surprised that Andi and Jeremy hadn’t become a couple, but what did she know.

  Taz glanced at Mike, but he was keeping his own counsel.

  Andi looked beyond weary; as if the short bits of translation were ripping out her soul.

  Miranda flipped open a small notebook, glanced back and forth between a page and Andi’s face a few times. Then she reached out tentatively and rested a hand on Andi’s shoulder. Just as Miranda was closing her notebook, Taz saw the page was covered in emojis.

  She must have identified: sad. And then probably had a note of appropriate next action: console.

  Taz remembered the Boeing engineer who offered her hot tea every time they met, even if they’d only parted ten minutes before. Someone had taught him that’s what you did when you met someone, in addition to being a brilliant, if somewhat hyper-focused, engineer.

  Miranda’s lookup table was much more sophisticated.

  The moment Miranda touched her, Andi clutched onto her hand like a drowning woman grabbing onto a lifeline.

  Even with the support, her voice was shaky as she spoke. “What are the last two pieces? Play them both. I don’t know if I can hold it off long enough to do this twice more.”

  Mike released his seatbelt and tensed.

  Something else was going on here besides the recording, but Taz wasn’t sure what. She prepared herself as well as she could for the unknown, silently easing off her belt as well and tapping the inside of her wrist against her thigh to ensure that her knife was in place.

  Jeremy hit play.

  “He’s calling for help,” Andi translated in little more than a whisper. “Apparently there’s a boat that was supposed to meet him, except there wasn’t.”

  “The last,” Jeremy whispered during a brief silence, “was less than a second before he impacted the bandshell.”

  The Mandarin phrase was short, and sounded resigned, even to Taz’s untrained ear.

  “It’s another Firefly curse. ‘Oh, Panda piss.’ He knew he was about to die.”

  And then Andi simply folded up into a little ball.

  Mike leapt from his chair, but hesitated when she landed with her head on Miranda’s lap.

  After a long hesitation, Miranda began gently stroking Andi’s hair.

  Mike watched them for a bit before reaching over and unplugging Andi’s headphones without removing them, taking her out of the circuit.

  He must have seen her puzzled expression after he returned to his seat.

  “PTSD. Crashes are really hard on her. She drove herself into an episode—for us. Holding it off by sheer force of will to help.”

  Taz didn’t think that was quite right; not based on where Andi had curled up for safety from her memories.

  She hadn’t done it for them; she’d done it for Miranda.

  Just as Mike and Holly had both threatened her, in their own ways…for Miranda.

  And she didn’t want to take any bets about whether Jeremy’s instincts would have chosen to protect her or Miranda at the JBLM helicopter crash, if he’d only been able to save one.

  Though she still didn’t understand what Miranda did to garner such loyalty, Taz could feel it working on her as well. And it wasn’t the blind, unthinking loyalty she’d given to General JJ Martinez. She had, past all reason, given him her soul. Miranda made no such demands, which made her so much harder to understand.

  No, she would stay focused on what General Zhang Ru was up to.

  65

  Leaving Mei-Li in a taxi to go to her school, Ru had been one of the last to board the flight from SeaTac to Beijing.

  He should have forced her to tell him what she’d said to the Americans at the other table. But he didn’t think of it until they were at the airport’s curb, and he’d run out of time. Besides, she could play her hand very close when she chose to.

  Ru didn’t dare miss his plane in case Drake had some idea about keeping him here or exposing him. That’s why he’d purposely chosen a China Airlines flight; once aloft, they wouldn’t turn around for any foolish American demands.

  He kept an eye out the window until they passed out over the Pacific Ocean.

  Once they had, he snapped his fingers at the first-class attendant, who trotted over in her tight little red-and-gray blazer and skirt. “Scotch. American.”

  Yes, his plan was coming together very nicely. He would celebrate, a little. It wasn’t done quite yet.

  Drake would get his J-20.

  Ru assumed the Americans had already stolen the plans, so it wouldn’t make much difference as long as they couldn’t fly it.

  As to the half-billion-yuan financial loss? If that sycophant Chen Bo had done his job properly to save his family, then it would land squarely on Li Zuocheng’s shoulders.

  Yes, it was sad that Zuocheng was one of Ru’s old war buddies, and had elevated Ru to his current position, but he was now getting in the way of the future.

  Ru counted again; the numbers still added up.

  Mei-Li had done exceptional research. He could directly control the votes of two of the CMC’s seven members. And with the sudden removal of Zuocheng, he could use fear to guarantee at least one more. That would give him a majority.

  Trading a J-20 for the seat of one of the vice-chairmen of the CMC was a small price to pay. Especially because Zuocheng would be the one paying for it with his life.

  Installing a replacement for his old seat with someone he could absolutely control would make his majority an overwhelming five of seven.

  And with Zuocheng gone, Mei-Li’s little lover would lose all her favoritism and protection. Her on-going safety would come under Ru’s control. What he could do with two such women stretched the imagination.

  As much as he’d enjoy returning them both to Mei-Li’s former role as a mistress (that he could lend out when he needed leverage), Mei-Li had proven that she could help in other ways…if she was willing. Her deep stubbornness was most unexpected. Sadly, he knew that he must forego the carnal pleasures she was such an expert at providing.

  But his price for their freedom would be both girls working to solidify his complete control of the CMC. From there, the Presidency was not such a great step.

  There lay the true power. It was dangerous and care would be needed, but the President, as Chairman, could overrule them all.

  After he deplaned at Beijing Capital International Airport, a secure alert pinged onto his phone. It would never be mentioned in Chinese media, but a rogue J-20 jet had crashed in Taiwan, killing the pilot.

  Excellent.

  And he’d enjoyed sticking it to Drake right in his own backyard. Crashing that MH-47G Chinook, the newest addition to their Special Operations Night Stalkers, during an airshow had been a joyous sensation. It had also been payback, which had been even better. He knew that Drake must be behind embarrassing him in front of the vice-chairman of the CMC.

  Now if he could just stick it to that pretty little general-wife of his, life would be very good indeed.

  Just ten minutes later, Ru found what he was looking for so easily that it must be a sign of good fortune direct from the gods. Too bad he didn’t believe in any of them.

  She was just finishing her shift at the VIP passenger security kiosk.

  A hundred and sixty centimeters and not a gram over fifty kilos, even in her Army boots. A technical sergeant, which placed her in her mid-twenties. Older than Mei-Li, but she still had the look of youth.

  Most importantly, she was mixed-blood Japanese.

  The other part of the mix was Chinese rather than American like Drake’s xiao riben guizi, but she had the same look: the longer and wider face, the up-slanted, larger eyes. Just enough Chin
ese showing to not be distasteful. Probably the great-granddaughter of one of the comfort women from the Japanese Army’s occupation during World War II.

  Yes, he could work with that. She would have been ostracized by many of her peers for her obvious mixed blood and her clear reversion to her great-grandfather’s Japanese features. Probably even passed over for promotions.

  His guess proved accurate over a simple, late-night dinner of noodles with soybean paste and pork dumplings: just turned twenty-seven, she’d been given an undeserved poor review rather than a promotion.

  It took only a phone call to fix that, which he made while at the table. Her commanding officer would be transferred to the Tibetan wilderness, and her promotion to master sergeant would be signed by tomorrow. Over a dessert of aiwowo—sticky rice cone cake with a sweet bean paste center and a red fleck of sugar jelly perched like a nipple atop the perfect white ball—a quick e-mail fixed the trivial matter of the advanced health care needed by her ill mother.

  In his in-town apartment that night, once he had coaxed her out of her uniform, he decided that even more than her face, her body was exactly as he’d imagined General Elizabeth Gray’s to look.

  He turned her to stand in front of the mirror so that he could see all of her at once, and still she didn’t disappoint. He wouldn’t have to pretend at all, they must be very alike. Perhaps they shared an ancestor. That was a most pleasing thought. Her hair would need to be trimmed to match Gray’s shoulder-brushing cut. Or perhaps he’d leave it long, tantalizing as it was along the upper curve of the girl’s small breasts.

  Coming up behind her, he lifted those two hands, just as fine fingered as the American general’s, to brace against the mirror. He would find out how skilled she was with them—later.

  This time…

  He grabbed her from behind, and took her.

  Her cry of surprise was so perfect, so sweet.

  Yes, Lizzy Gray would cry out just like that for her general—if Drake had the balls to take her properly, which Ru doubted.

  In the mirror, the comprehension first showed in the further widening of her already oversized Japanese eyes until they seemed larger than her whole face. As he surged deeper into her, a blush radiated from her brow all the way down to her breasts.

  So unblemished a soul.

  Yes, that had been the problem with Mei-Li. Any illusions had been driven from her by the man who had enjoyed her while she was still a gymnast. There had always been a feisty edge to Chen Mei-Li, as if a man just might be about to tangle with a dragon. It had been very invigorating.

  Not this one.

  Her meekness was utterly charming. Added to already being an outcast from Chinese society for her mixed-race Japanese features, and not daring to lose the new-found health care her mother needed so badly, he’d be able to count on her cooperation.

  He rode into her hard, forcing her to keep her hands braced against the glass. When she tried to look down and away, he released her breast to clamp a hand around her chin and force her head up to watch herself and him over her shoulder.

  Yes. She was timid enough to not fight his control. And so perfectly tight.

  It didn’t matter whether she was skilled or not. He would keep her—add her to his military security detail as a cover. She and his wife Daiyu could service him together while he thought of Drake and his little Jap devil. And Daiyu wouldn’t dare complain when he told them to service each other, while he watched and thought of Chen Mei-Li and her lover Chang Mui.

  With General Li Zuocheng gone, Ru’s own path to the presidency was as firmly in his grasp as this girl’s crotch.

  And if that didn’t work, he’d help the president do to Taiwan what he was doing to the young tech sergeant right now—together they’d fuck that troublesome little island properly as only true men could. It should have been done seventy years ago when that bastard Chiang Kai-shek was still alive to watch his own dick shrivel as he lost everything.

  Of course, if Mao had done what was needed, then Ru wouldn’t have this opportunity. Though there were many very satisfying paths to power, opportunities as good as this were beyond rare.

  He could taste that edge of perfect power as he probed her depths so completely that the girl’s arms gave out and she collapsed forward to lie pressed against the glass. Driving her against his hands now pinned between her body and the mirror, his explosion inside her was the most glorious since his final time with Mei-Li.

  Yes, she would do very well.

  66

  “Wait! Wait! Wait!” Taz waved her hands until everyone shut up. A single intercom channel made everyone speaking at once impossible to understand, and the engine noise of the cargo bay didn’t allow for talking easily without it.

  Well, everyone except Andi, who still lay curled up in her seat with her head resting on Miranda’s thigh. Though she finally appeared to be sleeping.

  Holly had scared up a blanket, and showed a surprisingly gentle solicitude as she spread it over Andi. Taz hadn’t known she had it in her.

  “Just,” Taz held out her hands once more, “wait. There’s a scenario here that no one’s considering.”

  “And what’s that?” Mike was trying to act as referee, but between Miranda’s inability to see any bigger picture, Jeremy’s knee-jerk support of her emotional blinders, Holly’s attacks, and—Taz sighed—her own assumption that they were all adversaries, he had a tough job.

  She pointed at Jeremy’s computer. “We have a recording here that blames both Li Zuocheng and Zhang Ru. They’re both bastards.”

  “How do you know that?” Jeremy asked as if he didn’t actually understand.

  Maybe she understood why Holly occasionally patted Jeremy on the head.

  “First, General Li Zuocheng. You can’t get to be the second most powerful man in China by being a nice guy. Chen Mei-Li said she had dirt on him a mile deep. And General Zhang Ru? Mei-Li told us enough to make Li Zuocheng look sparkly clean. That’s aside from his predilections for rape. It’s the most unforgivable crime there is.”

  “Sure,” Holly nodded. “If you don’t count murder or—”

  “Were you ever raped, Holly?” Something inside her snapped and she shouted out, “Were you?”

  Holly hesitated, then shook her head.

  “If you’re murdered, you just end up dead and it’s over. If you’re raped, it lasts for-fucking-ever. You want to know why I was nicknamed Taser? Trust me, it had almost nothing to do with my being the general’s right-hand weapon.”

  Jeremy put a hand on her thigh, and all Taz could see was Miranda’s little book of emojis: upset, with the note to then: console.

  She slapped his hand aside—hard—and turned back to Holly.

  “Before I got good with a knife, it happened a couple times. I was eleven the first time, and my mother was forced to watch. Part of the price of coming to America. But when I got into the Air Force, I thought I was done with that and dropped my guard. I was sixteen, nineteen by my ID papers, when my commanding officer came after me. General Martinez walked in on us.”

  Taz kept her head up. She swore she’d never be ashamed by this moment; she’d been the victim.

  But she couldn’t look at Jeremy. He saw her as somehow perfect. She knew that was horseshit…but he didn’t. He saw her as so much better than she was, and she hated losing that.

  However, she knew the anger would eat her alive if she tamped all of it down even one more time.

  Instead, she continued glaring at Holly, which placed Jeremy out of her peripheral vision.

  “My clothes were in shreds and his dick was out in the wind. The general didn’t even hesitate. He shot my commander in the back. Instead of us both dying, as I expected from a through-and-through shot, he twitched like he had epilepsy and collapsed to the floor. The general looked at the weapon in his hand as if pleasantly surprised.”

  “A Taser,” Mike said softly.

  Taz nodded. “A prototype of the X26. The whole idea of a Taser as a
military-grade weapon was still brand new back then. All he said was, I was given this for evaluation as a less-than-lethal weapon. It seems to work. When I told him that I wanted one, he pulled out a fresh cartridge, showed me how to load it, and handed it over. I wore that prototype next to my sidearm for my first five years as his assistant. I only had to use it twice before word got around to never touch even my ass without an invitation. Soon, I wasn’t going to some meeting, ‘The Taser’ was.”

  And not once had the general looked at her nakedness. She’d followed him and never questioned his requests from that day until his last. Over the last forty-eight hours—seeing what she’d done to Jeremy, starting to think about the choices she’d made in her life—she’d become much less sure about her decision to do that.

  “Every time someone calls me Taser, or even Taz, it’s a reminder of power versus helplessness, a reminder of not being raped. Do you think Mei-Li gets to have that? She deserves to see Ru go down.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Jeremy spoke softly, but it was like a roar in her ears.

  “Why the fuck not?” She turned on him.

  He was still nursing his hand; she had hit it pretty hard. Great! She was back to hurting him.

  She waited until even the headset-muffled roar of the engines seemed to fill her head to bursting.

  “Miranda said—”

  Taz was going to lose it if one more person cited the preeminent Miranda Chase of the NTSB as the ultimate authority on everything.

  “—that their President wants to invade Taiwan.”

  “Oh-kay.” Not quite the direction she’d thought that sentence was going to go.

  “Zhang Ru also said that he must be stopped. If this leaks out and damages the CMC, the President’s power becomes unquestioned. If he attacks Taiwan, thousands, perhaps millions will die. He’ll attack the island, we’ll send in aircraft carriers, they’ll target our carriers with hypersonic carrier-killer missiles like the DF-ZF that we don’t think we can block. This is major, Taz.”