The China Dogs
Page 29
“Nearly there,” says Shin with a sense of relief. “We’re nearly there.”
133
Miami
Florida’s morning sky is a delicate swirl of soft pinks and pale blues.
Clint Molton can’t imagine a more peaceful view in the world than the one he is enjoying from Air Force One.
But all that is about to change.
He takes a final look out of the window as the plane straightens up and noses its way toward Washington. The secure phone is in his hand, and in a second it will connect him to his nemesis, the leader of the People’s Republic of China, the man who is dragging him and his country to the brink of ruin—or the first shots of war.
Better that than occupation, he thinks. Giving in to Xian’s economic demands would be no different than having twenty-five percent of Congress run by the Chinese.
If it wasn’t for the thought of casualties—millions of casualties—he’d already be fueling up the warplanes and sighting the missiles.
And it may still come to that.
Seeing the dead and dying last night in Miami shifted Molton’s mood. He got to thinking that it would be better for his country to fight and die than acquiesce and live under such a regime. For in his mind there is no doubt that Xian’s demands are just the beginning. If he wins, then he’ll be back for more, much more.
The operator on the line announces, “You’re through to President Xian.”
Molton takes a deep breath. “Mr. President, I believe you called my office last night. I’m sorry I wasn’t available. I was visiting parents who had seen their children savagely injured or murdered, and I was visiting the morgues where lines of broken-hearted citizens lined up to identify the remains of their loved ones.”
Xian is unmoved. “Death is a sight no one should see. Your job and mine is to protect life, to prolong it and to enrich it. We are fast approaching a crossroads, Mr. President, and I fear unless you and I talk more closely we may both lose our ways.”
“Sir, I don’t have time for cryptic conversations. Nor am I in the mood to be given final ultimatums or watch my countrymen continue to be the victims of cowardly attacks—”
Xian interrupts him. “Then I will speak plainly. Unless you and I arrange to meet in person, I will be unable to stop the military momentum that is being built. So far, only my influence has managed to restrict operational activity to Florida. Do you not think such devastation could also have been inflicted on New York or Washington? Florida was chosen because you could seal it off. Contain it and contain the curiosity of your people and your press. Now the containment is almost over, and when it ends, so too will my influence on what follows.”
Molton reads between the lines. China has always been locked in a deadly balance of political power and military might. If Xian’s star was falling, then General Zhang’s was rising, and that thought was about as unpalatable as could be. “I will need to talk to some members of my cabinet and executive office, but what do you suggest?”
Xian senses the softening and tries not to show his relief. “The APEC conference is about to begin in Hawaii. Issues will arise and I will join it for the latter stage. It will seem appropriate for you to also fly there.”
“What issues?”
“In the greater scheme of things, they will be of no real concern. Will you join me?”
Molton feels he has little choice. “And if I say yes, will your influence be strong enough to prevent any more deaths?”
“Not presently. What is in play cannot be stopped. Not until we have met.”
Xian’s words trouble Molton. He wants to say no. Wants to tell him to go to hell. In fact, he wants to bring hell to him, bring it in the form of air strikes all over his military bases, barracks, and weapon stocks.
But he knows he can’t.
“I’ll join you.”
“Be there the day after tomorrow. We’ll meet in the afternoon. There may even be cause for us to dine together.”
Molton is not sure he could stomach that. He puts down the phone and stares at the sky pressed to the window. The outlook is no longer so bright.
Clouds are gathering over South Carolina. The plane hits a patch of turbulence and the seat belt light comes on, along with the pilot’s voice. “Bad weather ahead, Mr. President. I’m afraid we’re in for a bumpy ride, sir.”
134
DMZ, North Korea
Rain beats like ball bearings on the corrugated iron roof of the Watch Tower.
Two soldiers climb down the steep ladder and come to the locked gates topped with coils of barbed wire.
Rifles are trained on Shin and Jihai, and through the wind comes the clear instruction, “Hands up! Put your hands in the air and step forward.”
The two men leave the braked gurney in the middle of the approach road and advance toward the soldiers.
Jihai sees bewilderment on the face of the first guard. He’s rightly suspicious of anyone moving around outside in weather like this. The black body bag could easily be packed with explosives.
Shin is keen to do the talking, and Jihai is more than happy to let him. “I come from the hospital,” he explains. “We called in advance. The body back there is of a scientist that has to go to the Joint Security Area for collection by the Americans.” He turns his head toward Jihai. “Where are your colleague’s parents flying in from?”
“New York,” answers Jihai. “New York State.”
The guard is still suspicious. “Papers.”
One hand in the air, Shin slowly removes Péng’s medical papers, including his ID card and certificate of death, from the pocket of his greatcoat.
The guard inspects them all. Rain pours over his round, steel helmet and spills onto the documents. He shakes them and pushes them into his own pocket. “Now show me your identification.”
Shin dips into an inside pocket.
“Slowly!” The guard’s eyes grow large.
The nurse carefully hands over the photo ID.
The guard holds it next to Shin to check the likeness. When he’s satisfied, he pockets it. “Now him.”
Jihai feels his stomach growl and his heart cramp as the guard approaches.
The soldier sticks out a gloved hand. “Papers.”
He unbuttons the greatcoat and pulls a chain from around his neck containing his plastic ID photo card.
“Chinese?” The guard looks confused.
Shin tries to help. “They do research. In the bunkers.”
“What research?” The guard addresses the question to Jihai.
“It is confidential, between your government and mine. I am not cleared to discuss it with you.”
A gust of wind tears across the open fields and pushes everyone sideward.
The gurney topples.
Péng’s body bag hits the soaked ground and splatters mud and water upward into the white light of the search beams.
The guard shoves Jihai’s ID into his pocket with the other documents, steps to one side and points his rifle at the Chinaman. “Go and unzip that bag.”
Jihai turns and is blown again by another gust. He staggers like a drunk toward the corpse of his friend, rain now soaking every inch of him.
He kneels on the sodden blacktop and pulls the zipper down.
“Further,” shouts the guard. “All the way down.”
He does as instructed.
The soldier walks a long arc, his gun now trained on Péng’s lifeless torso, while other guards fix their sights on the two visitors to the gate.
The guard has seen enough death to recognize when it is real or not. “How did he die?”
“Virus,” shouts Jihai. “Some highly virulent unknown virus. We don’t think it is contagious.”
The guard forgets about carrying out a closer inspection. “Get him back on the wheels and bring hi
m through. I will check on your papers and your clearance.”
Jihai takes a risk. “We are in a hurry. We need to proceed immediately.”
The guard’s big eyes stare into him. “There is no immediately. I need to check before you go on.”
135
Situation Room, The White House, Washington DC
NIA director Brandon Jackson stands at the back of the Situation Room. Senior intel analyst Rhona O’Brien is at his side. The forty-year-old redhead has worked with him for almost a decade on some of the Agency’s biggest operations. They’re watching live feeds of the latest attacks at Bristol, dogs still arriving from the Apalachicola Forest.
The town’s tiny population is under siege.
Shopkeepers lie dead in their doorways.
Homeowners’ remains are spread across their lawns.
A look across the monitors shows that the situation is as bad in Sanderson and Kingsland, Palatka and Ocala, Eustis and Pine Hills.
There are more than thirty new deaths and at least that number again in casualties.
“The Joint Chiefs were right,” says Jackson. “Those murdering sons of bitches are not done out in the sticks. Cornwell made a good call in not pressing for a switch to the cities.”
“It’s what he gets the big bucks for. Making the good calls.” O’Brien scratches a hand through long coils of her unruly hair. “What I hate about all this is that we can never be ahead of the game. You can’t see the enemy until it’s too late. Do you know what I mean?”
“I do. One dog looks as friendly as the other—until it turns.”
“Exactly. And that means the rapid response teams are always going to look less than rapid. No one can get called until someone gets bit.”
They both fall silent and watch the screens. Over in Bristol, activity is now little more than a clean-up operation. Guards and local police are working together to get people off the small streets and into the safety of homes or buildings. “Wet” crews are scraping human remains off the blacktop. Covering corpses. Taping off areas. Shifting dog carcasses. Doing their best to restore an illusion of normality.
Jackson’s tired, but his mind is still racing with facts and figures, guesses, second guesses, and fears. He points at the monitor. “That town has a population of what, eight, nine hundred people?”
“Maybe a thousand.” O’Brien finishes her zillionth cup of coffee and drops the plastic in the bin.
“So, let’s do the math. Four people per household, that’s two hundred and fifty homes. On average, one in four homes has a dog, that’s seventy-five dogs—max—in the whole town.” He bites at a thumbnail while he thinks. “I saw forty, maybe fifty dogs get shot there. I’m sure I did.”
“Your point?”
“Too many dogs. I bet there are still sixty dogs alive in Bristol. We saw at least twenty or thirty being controlled or shifted by the National Guard or their owners. I bet the weaponized animals were strays, somehow guided there and forced to attack the town.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I’ll get autopsies on some of the dogs. But how the hell can a dog be controlled like that? I can’t even get my pooch to piss where I want it to.”
Almost on cue a monitor changes shots. The image is gray and out of focus, but there’s no mistaking what it is.
A pack.
Jackson and O’Brien walk down the room to take a closer look.
“Where is this?” She taps the screen and addresses one of the young analysts sitting at a curve of tracking desks.
“It’s Old Town, in northern Florida, I’ve just flagged it as a potential incident. Alerts have gone out to the police, sheriff, and the National Guard.”
“Well done,” says O’Brien. “Let’s hope they get there in time.”
They both know it’s unlikely they will.
“I’ve also called emergency service in Gainesville,” the analyst says. “We need to get copters in to airlift any survivors to their hospitals.”
Any survivors.
The two veterans know the kid used the right words.
On screen, dozens of people in Old Town are gathering in a field and erecting tents for some kind of fete. Kids are fooling around, chasing each other, throwing balls and having a good time.
No one has a clue what’s heading their way.
Packs of dogs.
Dozens of strays.
Coming in from all corners of the compass.
The analyst punches up different pictures on his screens and digitally refocuses the images.
Jackson watches helplessly as a group of five kids, no older than ten, stand playing twenty yards from oncoming dogs.
“Come on, move!” he shouts, as though he has supernatural powers and can be heard through the glass. “Come on—get the hell out of there!”
A young girl turns her head and one of the ribbons her mother tied comes loose.
Too late.
The pack is on them.
The children are knocked down by more than a dozen dogs.
There’s no sound coming from the monitor screens, so Jackson can’t hear the screams, but he knows they are there. Knows from his own kids’ howls just what they will sound like. Imagines they are being heard clean across the fete site, because by the look of things every adult he can see is freaking out and rushing toward the danger.
More dogs are joining the fray.
They’re pounding toward the spill of blood and rip of flesh. Drawn by the scent of violence.
Jackson sees adults writhing on the ground. Men on their backs with dogs on their chests. An old woman is facedown in the dirt. A lurcher has her spread-eagled and is chewing at her legs and back.
The NIA director has seen bad shit in his time, and counts this right up there with napalm victims drowning in seas of orange fire and dismembered babies being found in the aftermath of missile attacks.
He looks across the room, and there are half a dozen monitors all telling similar stories. All showing their own horrific silent movies.
136
Beijing
Ten thousand miles from Don Jackson’s spy screens in Washington, General Zhang, Lieutenant General Xue Shi, and Minister Chunlin are watching the same footage.
Zhang and Chunlin are standing behind Xue Shi at his desk, viewing the massacre at Old Town over his shoulder.
Dozens of bodies lie across the field. Men. Women. Children. The weaponized strays are killing everything in their path.
“It goes well.” Zhang claps a soldierly hand on his loyal number two’s shoulder. “Today’s increased activities—here and elsewhere—will break the Americans.”
A portly old grandfather with white hair and beard is backed into a fenced corner of the field with a young boy and girl clinging to his legs. They’re facing a pack of seven snapping dogs and he’s holding them off with a handgun, an old revolver drawn.
He misses with one shot and kills a boxer with a second.
Xue Shi smiles. “Four bullets left and six dogs on him—the odds are not good.”
Chunlin can’t help but say what’s on his mind. “Now is past the point we should have been able to pacify the dogs.”
The old man shoots a black mongrel.
Zhang looks at him with contempt. “Please, Minister, don’t lecture me on morality. Not you of all people.”
Chunlin points at the screen as the old man kills another dog. “I would never countenance this. I have never targeted a civilian in my life. Operatives, agents, soldiers—yes. Old men with children. Never.”
“Be quiet and watch. Or be more useful and leave.”
A Labrador leaps up on the boy’s back. His grandfather jabs his old gun forward and shoots it in the head at point-blank range.
The spray of blood and bone doesn’t seem to even be noticed by the remains of the pack.
The grandfather fires the last of his bullets and kills a sandy-colored mongrel. He quickly stoops, gathers the children tight to his chest and turns his back on the two remaining dogs.
Zhang, Xue Shi, and Chunlin watch the silent footage and wait for the inevitable to happen.
But it doesn’t.
One of the dogs inexplicably falls on his side.
The head of the second spurts blood.
Into the frame come two local sheriffs. Guns extended. Determination etched across their faces.
They climb the fence and one of them touches the hunched-up man.
He shudders with fright.
At first he thinks it’s a dog. Braces himself for the pain.
But it doesn’t come.
Slowly, he turns and straightens up. He sees the cops, and a smile as long as the Mississippi breaks out across his face.
Chunlin walks away from the monitor desk. “A great general once said that those who look most beaten often end up the greatest victors.” He opens the door. “We would all do well to remember it.”
137
DMZ, North Korea
Jihai and Shin have been left standing with the gurney at the gates.
Two guards have AKM assault rifles aimed at their chests.
Fifteen feet above them, rain still hammers on the iron roof of the open-windowed watchtower.
Silhouettes of soldiers stand out against the searchlights and starless night sky.
Jihai recognizes one of the men who spoke to them.
He has a phone pressed to his ear. In his other hand is all their documents.
Finally, he puts the receiver down, exits the box, and quickly descends the ladder to the gate.
“The lines are down,” he explains. “You will have to wait.”
“I cannot wait.” Jihai blurts the words out. “My colleague has to be buried by nightfall. His religion demands it.” He looks at the two stars on the soldier’s olive green uniform. Despite the man’s presence and confidence, he is only a junior officer, a jungwi. “If you do not let me through there will be a diplomatic incident. One involving your country, the Americans, and mine. Do you want that?”