by David Poyer
Scattering into two- or three-man groups, too many to pursue, the rebels would disperse into the mountain fastnesses, vanishing amid millions of square miles of tormented terrain. Then, later, reconstitute; as usual, they had a rendezvous point specified many miles to the west, not far from their old mountain base.
The smoke from the burning aircraft was heavy, choking, blowing up from the valley floor. The crackle of enemy fire had lessened. Good, maybe their attackers were having second thoughts.
Guldulla loomed suddenly out of the seething smoke. His face was so blackened with powder smut and dirt that even the white of his mustache was dyed black. He was panting hard. The barrel of his AK was smoking, the plastic handguard deformed and melting. “They are falling back, Lingxiu. Regrouping. But our lookouts to the south report more dragonflies on their way.”
Their warning net covered every village north and west of the Taklamakan. Teenagers and old men with cheap handhelds, passing warnings and poems of battle from mouth to mouth throughout western China. Hajji Qurban had lit that fire before he died. Turned ITIM’s struggle into a full-fledged jihad.
Now Teddy had to ride that unleashed tiger.
But first, he had to extract his guys from the fiery hell this once-remote valley had become. He stood by the cleft in the rock, waving men in. Urging, “Hurry the fuck up there. Gankuài! Gankuài! Shoshilmoq!” Dandan and the other slaves scurried past, heads lowered, burkas whipping against bare ankles and bare feet as they ran, carrying packs and cooking gear. Jusuf followed, with other young mujs carrying the Swiss drone-detection gear, the antidrone rifles, and the solar panels they charged from. Then came the rank and file, sweating riflemen and RPG gunners, some with charred and smoking hair and clothing. Those who’d been closest to the front line when the helicopter went down like a flaming Lucifer falling from Heaven.
Teddy didn’t want to imagine what the guys directly under it looked like now.
The wounded staggered past, clutching shoulders, chests, bellies. They looked desperate to keep moving, no matter how badly they bled. As well they might … Shading his eyes, Teddy searched the battlefield. The pops of pistols came from among the boulders as the squad leaders, retreating last, finished off anyone too far gone to walk, plus any wounded Han within range.
He slung the carbine and drew his Makarov. Holding it out at arm’s length, he limped forward, between the boulders.
The young ammo carrier who’d been shot down saw him coming. He couldn’t be more than ten. He struggled to rise, holding his guts with both hands. His spindly arms were bare.
Teddy smiled down at him, and bent to pat his shoulder gently. “Siz yaxshi jang qildingiz,” he said. “Bu shunday bo’lishi kerak.”
You have fought well. But this must be done.
The boy muttered something in return, but his words were inaudible in the din of shots and cries and screaming. He sank back on one elbow, nodded, and turned his face to the ground.
Teddy brought the pistol down to touch the black hair, the bowed head. He looked away, and pulled the trigger.
When he was satisfied they’d gotten everyone back who could still walk, that no rebel was left behind to torture and interrogate, he unslung the Claymore he’d carried all this time. Twisted the prongs into the gravel, and pointed it toward the enemy. Turned it on, and set the self-det to Auto IR. Then turned and limped as fast as he could into the shadowy opening in the rock, which was screened by an overhead ledge so that it was almost a cavern.
The dark closed in. He could touch both sides with outstretched arms. He hustled along, cursing as pain jabbed through the waning endorphins of battle. Agony shot up his bad leg.
Suddenly he paused. Standing motionless in the cleft as a thought paralyzed him. One he just hadn’t had time to ponder during the engagement itself.
Who had known they would be here? Who had wanted, set up, arranged the meeting here with the CIA agent?
Had the CIA given their location to the Chinese?
Behind him the Claymore went off with a hollow crack that echoed down the cleft. It would hold their pursuers up, but not for long. Jusuf jostled him from behind, breathing heavily. “We must go on, Lingxiu,” he said urgently. Recalled to the danger, Teddy limped forward again, hunched over, carbine at the ready. Just in case there were enemy posted at the exit, too.
Or was he being paranoid? Suspecting everything and everyone?
He didn’t think so. Being paranoid didn’t mean no one was out to get you.
Especially if you were the leader of a hunted, hated guerrilla band.
It would bear more thinking about.
The rocky slit narrowed until he could barely wriggle his way through. Then it widened, and light grew ahead. As did his apprehension. If their location had been compromised, this escape route might be blocked too. One of those transports could have landed here, debarked its black-clad troops, and lifted off. He could be walking into a trap.
He flicked his carbine’s safety off, getting ready to dodge left, find cover, and return fire in one last, desperate shootout. Whatever happened, he’d go down fighting. With a weapon in his hand.
There is no such thing as choice.
No such thing as chance.
You have always done My will.
“I have always done Your will,” he said aloud. And around him, ahead, behind him, screams and yells rose, deafening between the confined coffinlike rock walls. “God is great. God is great. God is great!”
II
CHAOS RISING
6
Beijing
PACING back and forth on the hotel terrace, nursing a cup of hot green tea, Blair hugged herself with one arm, shivering. The wind was chilly, as their hotel room had been all night long. Either summer was late, or the haze from the nuclear exchange was still diluting the sunlight. And the power was still off. All over the city, as far as she could tell.
Not that they’d seen much. Except for their hotel, and the Forbidden City, where the sessions were taking place. Today marked their fourth meeting with the provisional government, and Yangerhans had made it clear this would be the last. They’d all done enough posturing. Enough accusing. Enough advocating extreme positions and inadmissible concessions, none of which the other side seemed willing to consider.
Tomorrow, at the latest, they would wrap. The mission would convene to finalize and forward their recommendations to the Allied heads of state conference, scheduled two weeks from now. Transmit it, on the scrambling gear the DS people had brought with them. And then, finally, leave.
She shivered again and sighed, rubbing her arm. She was waiting out here for Shira Salyers. The petite State rep had been up late, looking over notes from the past negotiation sessions. Each sit-down had been less courteous, less productive, as the differences between the Allied positions and those of the interim government, apparently headed by Minister Chen, had only widened, ripping apart the always-delicate membrane of diplomatic protocol.
State dinners were usually fairly sociable. But the one hosted on their third evening in the city, in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, had been icy. Their hosts, standoffish. She’d faked it on the toasts, not caring for the raw distilled baijiu the Chinese bolted down glass after glass without flinching. Yangerhans and Ammermann had tried to keep pace for a while, but given up at last, red-faced and reeling. Only Bankey Talmadge had stayed with them to the end, finishing by drinking General Pei under the table. Boozily reeling away, the old senator had nearly fallen down the steps. But he’d been steadied at the last moment by one of the DPS personnel, a tall, darkly complected black agent named Maple Chaldroniere.
The State rep came out onto the terrace at last, adjusting a sweater over her shoulders. “Sheez, it’s chilly out here, when you’re not in the sun … We have a problem, Blair.”
“Another one, Shira? What now?”
“The Russians want in.”
Blair frowned and sipped her rapidly cooling tea. “In?… Into Manchuria? Well, we knew
that. They have a long history there. Not that it’s right, but—”
“No. I mean, not just that. They want into this conference.”
Blair’s eyebrows lifted. “What? No way. They were in the war all of, what, four days? And we’re almost done here. Aren’t we?”
“Maybe so, but they’ve insisted. Their representative’s arriving this morning. Bankey says shutting them out wouldn’t be a good idea. The admiral agrees.”
Ayala, the little translator, poked his head out. “Ladies. Time.”
Blair finished her tea, and stared down for a moment at the final settling flakes at the bottom of her china cup. Did they really foretell the future?
If only it were so easy.
* * *
THE videoteleconference was set up in the same bland room they’d met in after arriving. A quantum scrambled satellite link powered by a military solar generator was set up on the roof. The ever-present security people had swept the room again. Now two of them, with the tall DSS agent helping, were hanging the antieavsdropping curtain across the window. Each day of the negotiations had begun with a VTC, mainly because of the time difference with Washington. Beijing and Washington were twelve hours apart, meaning 8 A.M. in the former city was 8 P.M. in DC.
In some ways she thought it might have been better the other way around, reporting on the day just past to fresh morning eyes in DC. But she hadn’t been asked for an input to that decision. It probably didn’t matter. The advance party was down to seven principals now, not counting security people, translators, and aides. In rough order of rank, it was Talmadge, Yangerhans, Ammermann, Shira, herself, Tony Provanzano, and General Naar, though the old senator didn’t typically show for the morning briefs, depending, instead, on a murmured summary from her as they were limo’d to the City.
When the screens came up, they were facing three people: the secretary of state, who looked more haggard and closer to eternity than Blair had ever seen him; the chairman, JCS, husky and beribboned General Ricardo Vincenzo, USAF; and dapper, silver-haired Edward Szerenci, the national security advisor.
Yangerhans opened the brief in clipped tones, recapitulating yesterday’s negotiations, which had focused on coordinating Chinese and Allied humanitarian efforts, food supplies, and medicines. “They were grateful for the formula of the flu drug, LJL 4789. They requested additional electrical generation, food, water, and medical assistance in the port cities, as soon as we can provide it, plus teams to restore electrical generation and internet router systems. As you know, these were largely destroyed or compromised in the course of the war.”
The SecState said heavily, as if short of breath, “I’ll so advise the president. But we’re in rough shape here concerning the budget and the debt. I doubt there’ll be much for foreign aid.”
“And little enthusiasm for providing it to a former enemy,” Szerenci put in, looking more foxlike than ever. He waved. “Hello, Blair. Do the Chinese still think you’re my mistress?”
She ground her molars. Not funny. Minister Chen had tossed that insult her way back in Dublin, at their first meeting. He’d called her “a pliable puppet, wife of the notorious war criminal Admiral Daniel V. Lenson, and most likely the mistress of the insane national security advisor, Dr. Edward Szerenci.” She forced a liquid-nitrogen smile. “No, Ed. Nobody here’s saying that anymore.”
“Before we discuss helping former enemies, we have to rebuild our own forces,” Vincenzo said. “There are new threats emerging, and we’re fighting rebels here at home. We’ve got to think about the homeland first. Restoring government. Restoring confidence.”
Yangerhans said patiently, “We’ll have our recommendations ready for the heads of state well in advance of the convening date. Right now, I’ll forward their aid requests via cable.” The Department of State term for what the Navy called a “message.” “Moving on … we’ll be getting into some delicate issues today. Nuclear limitations. Conventional force limitations. Governmental structure.”
Szerenci said, “Our position should be total nuclear disarmament. Disband their Internal Security divisions. Stand down their surveillance of the population. No more than a five-division standing army, and limits on conventional missiles.”
Yangerhans let that hang. Finally he said mildly, “That may be a recipe for the fall of this government, sir. There are already active separatist movements in Tibet, Hong Kong, Xinjiang—”
The NSA smiled coldly. “Let’s be realistic, Jim. Tibet and Taiwan are already gone. They declared independence. The Russians are fomenting separatism in Manchuria. Hong Kong wants out too. They see this as their chance at independence.
“But why should we fight that? Wouldn’t disintegration be in our best interest? Let China fall apart! Let the warlords rule again! It’s the last survivor of the old empires. The old imperial powers. It deserved to die long ago.
“If you can only keep a country together with oppression and surveillance, it isn’t really a country. It’s just one big prison.”
He was going into lecture mode; to cut him short Blair cleared her throat. “That’s … a defensible point of view, Ed. For the short term. But let’s look farther down the road. If we divide China into smaller states, the humiliation will fester. These people have enormous pride. If we humiliate them, it could turn them against democracy. Mean another war, eventually. Like Hitler’s crusade against Versailles. Or Putin’s drive to rebuild the Soviet empire.”
The SecState lifted a shaky hand. “What would you recommend, Shira?”
Beside Blair, the petite woman looked up from her tablet. “Mr. Secretary, I’d agree with Abraham Lincoln’s advice. ‘Let ’em up easy.’ I’d concentrate on trying to gradually foster democratic institutions. The way MacArthur did in Japan. This provisional government, these former-regime Party bureaucrats, they’re not going to be whom we’re dealing with in a year. But this has been an authoritarian state for a long time. If the center loses control, we could have another Iraq, another Syria, on our hands. Only a hundred times bigger.”
Blair started to speak, but Shira waved her to silence, taking a breath. “I think our primary mission for what time remains, sir, should be to clarify the shape of the government going forward. Work with the ROC and the Hong Kong democrats to outline a federal arrangement. A joint government, with an interim president. Sure, why not Chen, pending elections? Pull in the KMT and DPP from Taiwan for advice. Or to be the nuclei of new all-China parties.”
“Those few who survived General Pei’s massacres,” Szerenci said drily.
Vincenzo was looking doubtful. “Do you really think democracy can work in China? Maybe some societies need authoritarian rule.”
“Another way of putting what I just said,” Szerenci cut in. “If they need a tyrant, they’re not really a functional polity.”
“The Taiwanese are arguing for a free China. We owe them that chance,” Salyers said.
The secretary of state spoke again, and his age and illness were clear in the slow dragging way he pronounced long words. “The real question, as I see it, is what is our foreign policy in this sit-u-a-tion. We need to rebuild. That goes without saying. But General Vincenzo is right too. Right now, with wartime losses, we have more commitments than we have resources. We’ve got vacuums to fill in Africa. In the Mideast. We have to arrive at some understanding with Iran, now that we have a temporary cease-fire with that power. And eastern Europe is under threat.
“When our accounts are insolvent, we don’t prevent wars we could have prevented. And above all, right now, we need peace. So do the Chinese.
“So let’s arrive at whatever un-der-standing we can get to now. So we can stand down out here. Any agreement is better than no agreement.”
Someone was talking urgently to Szerenci, though off-camera; the voice was muffled. His smooth head was nodding. But when he pivoted back to the lens he looked grim. “Some bad news. Zhang’s resurfaced.”
“Where?” Blair and Yangerhans both said, together.
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br /> “Somewhere in Russia, with two of his former ministers. He’s giving a press conference to the tame media there. Saying they still constitute the legal government of China.”
“Oh, fuck,” Ammermann said.
“So now there’s a government in exile,” Shira breathed. “You’re right, Adam. This could complicate things.”
Szerenci said, “It doesn’t change where we are, going forward. We have an armistice. He’s out of the country. Out of power. But that’s right. He’ll still have active supporters.
“Which may mean, now, we have to strengthen this ad hoc government. Go the distance with them, more than we would have liked to before.”
He stopped. The room was quiet. Until the secretary of state said, “Keep us advised.” His screen went blank. Then so did Szerenci’s. And Vincenzo’s, last of all.
* * *
THE hall was set up less for a brunch than for a sumptuous dinner. The Chinese masses might be starving, Blair reflected, but their masters were definitely well fed. Unless it was just a show, a Potemkin feast, to impress the Americans … The tables were filled with sliced roast pork, savory spiced dishes, mounds of rice. Western foods, too: a chef was slicing a huge prime rib. She loaded up with broccoli florets, red potatoes, and a whitefish fillet she suspected was … cobia?
The first table she approached was occupied by Chinese. They ceased talking as she approached, and looked away when she gestured a request to join them. A frigid silence supervened. No one met her gaze. She took the hint and moved on, to the one table that had only a single occupant. She was setting her plate down before she realized who it was.