Stan closed his eyes. He felt the weight of his years. Three weeks ago, he’d turned fifty. He couldn’t believe it—fifty! He still lifted weights, played basketball, ping-pong and ran occasionally. More than anything, the trouble was recuperation. He didn’t heal like he used to and his left knee bothered him. He couldn’t play basketball on cement courts anymore. Even blacktop hurt the knee. Wooden floors were the best. The truth, he should give up basketball. Otherwise, he was begging for a ripped tendon or a torn muscle.
Yet even ping-pong pained the bad knee when he lunged to slam the ball. If he slammed the ball too many times in a game, it made his shoulder hurt for the next two days.
Who would figure that ping-pong could hurt a man, even an aging athlete? It was ridiculous. Maybe he could learn to play like some of those experts he’d seen in Las Vegas last year. One old man with white hair had hardly moved. He had been an old geezer in every way except that he’d hit the ball just so and it did magical things, spinning off at bizarre angles, making the younger players leap around like fools. The trouble was Stan had never played that way. He liked speed, to drill the ball as hard as he could.
“Ten thousand new-dollars,” Stan muttered, attempting to focus on the computer screen. His son had been accepted to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. That was one of the best places to earn an engineering degree. Now Jake had gone and openly protested the President’s state of emergency. Even if Stan posted the bail, Jake would probably get kicked out of Cal Poly. Losing his Student Status, they would likely draft him into a Militia battalion.
“I don’t have ten thousand new-dollars,” Stan told himself.
Lines appeared in his forehead. Should he have remained in Anchorage? On his teaching salary and with the extra pay from the National Guard—
Stan blew out his cheeks in depression. So much had changed since the Alaskan War. What had that been, seven years ago now?
He had a theory about why time moved faster the older you got. When you were ten years old, a year represented one tenth of your life. When you were fifty, one year represented one fiftieth of your life. Therefore, one year was shorter the older you became. But none of that was going to help him post bail.
Laughter rang out from the TV, sounding like a drunken hyena. No doubt, it was over a joke that wasn’t even funny. Shows still used laugh tracks just as when he’d been a kid. Stan wanted to yell at his wife to turn down the TV. She knew he was in here thinking about how to free Jake from the Detention Center. If someone spent too long there, officials stamped their driver’s license with “Resister Status.”
Stan massaged his forehead. He’d always wanted Jake to succeed. He wanted to give Jake every advantage he could. It wasn’t like the old days. Good jobs were hard to come by now. An engineering degree from Cal Poly would have gone a long way toward making sure the boy avoided the Army, whether Regular or Militia.
Stan bared his teeth. The Army: fighting…killing…running from overwhelming odds, from enemy tanks. He’d never told anyone about his nightmares, not his wife, not Jose and for sure not the base psychologist who diagnosed each of them in the experimental unit, seeing if they were still mentally fit for duty. About once a month in his dreams, he relived the worst horrors of the Alaskan War. He dreaded the nightmares: the screech of Chinese shells, watching long-dead friends burn to death and fearing the terrible tri-turreted tanks rumbling toward him, knowing that every shell he fired would bounce off the incredible armor.
Lately his wife had begun asking if he was okay. He’d wake up in the morning hollow-eyed, or he’d start up from sleep sweating. He made up all kinds of excuses. Now, sitting here, Stan wondered if he was going the route of his dad. Old Mack Higgins had gone around the bend—crazy in the head. These days, Stan had a greater appreciation as to why it might have happened.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Stan quoted to himself. He dreaded the idea of going crazy. For sure, he wasn’t going to tell the base psychologist anything she might use against him.
Stan blew out his cheeks. He was a captain in an experimental unit. Seven years ago, he had been a captain in the Alaskan National Guard, in one of the few tank units there. He had received the Medal of Honor for helping stop the Chinese Invasion into Anchorage. Some people said his actions had been critical for victory. Afterward the Army Chief of Staff invited Stan to accept a commission in the Regular Army. Since Stan’s expertise had been Armor, he’d entered that branch of the service and had soon found himself in the experimental department.
With that kind of start—even though he’d been old by Army reckoning—he should have risen in rank. Allen had just received a promotion from captain to major. Stan had been counting on getting the promotion. With better pay, could he go to a bank and finance ten thousand?
“Seven years of service,” Stan muttered, as he rubbed his forehead. Now that he thought about it that was too long for a man of his age and expertise and with the Medal of Honor. He knew what was wrong. The colonel in charge of the experimental unit disliked him and his methods and Stan wasn’t good at politicking, at butt kissing.
Stan slammed his fists onto the desk, jarring the computer screen.
Once, the TV volume would have lowered if he did that. His wife would have asked if everything was okay. Now, the volume increased. She didn’t want to think about Jake being in the Detention Center.
“Ten thousand new-dollars,” Stan whispered.
Maybe he could call Crane. The man was a former National Guard Colonel who belonged to the John Glen Corporation, a military-funded think tank in D.C. Crane had known him during the Alaskan War. Crane knew his nickname of “Professor” and Crane had said many times that he appreciated Stan’s military historical knowledge. “John Glen could use a man like you, Stan.”
The last offer had come two years ago. Stan had been too absorbed then in the experimental unit, in the Mark I Behemoth battle tank. The Behemoth dwarfed all known tanks. It was a three hundred ton monstrosity, three times the size of a Chinese tri-turreted tank.
Stan flexed his hands. Two years ago, the possibilities of the Behemoth had excited him. Now he needed ten thousand new-dollars. Besides, the Army had passed him over yet again. He had learned that the Chief of Staff who had invited him into the Army—President Clark had twisted the officer’s arm. The truth was the Army didn’t want a man they considered a maverick at best and a hotheaded, insubordinate fool at worst. Which was funny really, because Stan knew himself to be a plodding man who always tried to do the right thing. There was nothing maverick about him, unless seeing historical parallels from time to time in a given situation was considered eccentric.
Stan stared at the judge’s ruling as his mind raced from one thought to the next. He wanted to feel appreciated, as when he taught high school in Alaska. He was afraid that remaining in the military would only intensify his nightmares. Lastly, the bugs in the Mark I Behemoth—it was possible the three hundred ton tank would never see action and would never fulfill the destiny the U.S. needed against the threatening aggressors.
Stan tapped the screen, removing the judge’s decision. With his mouth in a grim line of determination, Stan began writing an email to Crane, seeing if the John Glen Corporation still had a spot for a fifty-year-old captain. If there was such a spot, he would have to talk to the base colonel tomorrow about resigning his commission.
What would Jose say about that? What would his tankers tell him? How was he going to cope with the coming guilt as he bailed out this near to war?
You have to think about your son. Besides, you’re an old man now. War—leave that to the young, to the strong. You need to understand that your days of action are over.
The idea made Stan miserable. No one liked to admit he was old. But it was time to face reality. He had to do whatever he could to bail Jake out of the Detention Center.
BEIJING, P.R.C.
Marshal Shin Nung’s stomach seethed even though outwardly he seemed placid as he sat in a window se
at of a large military helicopter.
Nung was sixty-six years old and a hero of the Alaskan and Siberian Wars. His hover/armored thrust across the Arctic ice to Prudhoe Bay had succeeded after a fashion, although it had been bloody and costly. His armored thrust in Siberia years earlier had captured Yakutsk and effectively ended the conflict.
He was the commander of the First Front, of the three Armies on the Californian-Mexican border: the most heavily defended real estate in the world.
Even at sixty-six, Nung still had blunt features and an aggressive stare, though he was more jowly than seven years ago. In his distant youth he had studied at the Russian Military Academy in Moscow. It had been a lonely existence and had earned him the reputation among the Chinese military that he was half-Russian, a terrible slur.
Nung allowed himself a bitter smile. Many in the Army hated him because he had continually achieved success through his adherence to headlong attack, as the Russians used to teach. Once, the old Chairman had backed him. Now the new Chairman known simply as the “Leader” felt obligated to him. During the Alaskan War, they had shared the task of securing Dead Horse, particularly the oil fields there.
Jian Hong was Greater China’s “semi-divine” Leader, if one believed the propaganda messages. It was foolish to disagree openly. That was one lesson Nung had learned: to keep dangerous truths to himself.
Marshal Nung flew out of Mao Zedong Airport in Beijing, having arrived from Mexico, from near the American border actually. He was to attend an emergency session of the Ruling Committee. He knew why: the Americans had broken the secret of Blue Swan. It was a terrible blow to Chinese plans, or it could be. Marshal Nung knew the answer to the present dilemma. He usually knew what to do in an emergency. It was his gift and curse to see farther than those around him could. Once, he would have openly declared to anyone who cared to listen what should be done. At sixty-six, he had learned a modicum of wisdom. These days, he kept such opinions to himself and practiced mediations in order to keep his once explosive temper in check.
Nung stared out of the helicopter’s window. Below him, Beijing spread out in all its glory. It was rush hour, he supposed. Enormous Chinese cars crawled along the wide avenues and city streets. Many flew large flags with the single Chinese star, showing their patriotism. The vehicles moved past giant glass towers, monumental buildings and titanic statues, products of the Leader’s mania for size and grandeur, and of the largest and longest construction boom in history. Beijing was the chief city in the world, the center of civilization, the Middle Kingdom. It was a riot of colors, boasting the most people, the most cars, the most billionaires and the highest concentration of political power.
The rich here maintained private zoos and botanical gardens of gargantuan size. The Leader’s polar bears had been pictured in several documentaries, and he had often shown his favor by gifting a lucky official a prime polar bear cub. No longer did masses of pedestrians clog Beijing’s sidewalks, nor did bicycles clutter the streets as in many foreign cities. Mexico City had seemed like an overturned ant colony with its tens of thousands of bicyclists. Everyone in Beijing went by car at least, if only in a taxi.
The helicopter’s intercom crackled. “Sir,” the pilot said. “In case you were wondering, those are two Air Force jets pacing us.”
Nung stared out of the window. He spied a J-25 air superiority fighter. Sunlight winked off the craft’s canopy.
The pilot banked the helicopter. They were headed for the Leader’s summer palace outside the city. Nung closed his eyes, willing his seething stomach to settle down. The next few hours…they might well decide the fate of the world for many years to come.
***
Twenty minutes later, the helicopter banked once more and lurched, going down toward a landing pad in a vast garden of gingko trees. Nearby, there stood a huge palace dominating a luxurious villa. Grecian marble and Californian redwoods predominated as building material. There were gold inlaid fountains, a pagoda and even a large bronze Buddha with half-lidded eyes.
Armored cars ringed the landing pad. Each car bore a lion head on the hood and on the sides. Those belonged to the Leader’s Lion Guard, his personal security apparatus.
Without looking at the Army security team in the helicopter with him, Nung said, “Maintain decorum throughout the proceedings and on no account will you take offense at anything said.”
His chief of security, a large man with sloping shoulders, turned a stern face toward him, nodding once. The man never wasted words and Nung appreciated that.
A last lurch told him the helicopter had landed. Together, Nung and his security detail strode down the helicopter’s carpeted walkway.
Now it begins. Now I enter the political world with its thousands of murky undercurrents.
First divesting his security personnel of weapons, Lion Guardsmen hustled them to waiting cars. The Leader’s mania against assassins real and imagined was well known among those in power.
The chief Lion Guardsman, a hulking specimen, stepped up, blocking the sunlight. He bowed before Nung, although there was nothing conciliatory about it. “I must frisk you, sir,” the giant said in a deep voice.
Nung froze for an instant. This was a grave indignity for a man of his rank. He resisted the impulse to turn to his security chief—the man wasn’t there, but going away toward a confinement cell. For the first time in years, Nung had no security. It was a strange feeling, as if he’d left his fly open or forgotten to put on his tie.
“There is no need to touch me,” Nung said gruffly, handing the man his service pistol.
“I’m afraid there is, sir.” The Lion Guardsman had hard, pitiless eyes.
He’s enjoying this.
“If you would lift your arms…”
Nung complied, enduring the shame of a pat down. The man groped everywhere, running his fingers down and under his buttocks. This was an insult, and it almost broke Nung’s resolve. He clenched his teeth, telling himself the rumors must be true then that the latest assassination attempt against Jian Hong had come within centimeters of success.
Once finished with the frisk, the Lion Guardsman looked down at him, smiling faintly before motioning to an armored car. It was a short drive to the palace. Soon, Nung marched down corridors and climbed what seemed like endless flights of stairs.
The hulking Lion Guardsman snapped his fingers. The four flanking Nung turned, and soon they entered a new corridor with portraits of the Leader and the old Chairman in their earlier days. The corridor led to maple double doors with golden handles. The chief guardsman took out a whistle and blew a shrill blast. He yanked open both doors to reveal a cavernous chamber with giant chandeliers and an enormous conference table among other grand furniture.
The chief guardsman shouted in a loud voice, “Marshal Shin Nung of the First Front!” The guardsman stepped back and the four soldiers ground their rifle butts onto the corridor’s marble floor.
Nung raised his eyebrows as he peered into the chamber. The Leader—Jian Hong—sat at the farthest end of the conference table. He was a medium-sized man with dark hair, darker eyes and wearing a black suit of the finest silk. The Leader motioned him within.
Once more, Nung complied and the doors shut behind him.
The five other members of the Ruling Committee already attended the Leader, sitting along the table’s sides. There was Deng Fong the Foreign Minister, in his early eighties but with the smooth skin of a baby. He had received skin-tucks, but laser surgery could do nothing for his weak left eye, which had closed and marred his otherwise “youthful” features. The other four members held varying posts, although Nung knew each by the man’s main occupation. There was the Police Minister, the Army Chief of Staff, the Navy Minister and the Agricultural Minister.
The Leader had attained the highest office, Nung knew, but he did not yet wield supreme power as the old Chairman once had. Deng resisted the Leader and was still too powerful to simply oust or assassinate without serious repercussions. The N
avy and Agricultural Ministers often sided with Deng. Perhaps as important, many of China’s subject states and allies trusted Deng’s good judgment. The Japanese particularly liked him, which meant the Koreans hated the Foreign Minister. The Koreans had never forgotten how arrogantly the Japanese had ruled over them before and during World War II. The most powerful Southeast Asian allies took their cue from Deng and might well leave the Pan Asian Alliance if he simply dropped from sight. The same could be said for the German Dominion Chancellor.
“We have been waiting for you,” the Leader said.
Nung nodded respectfully.
“You will sit there,” the Leader said, pointing at a chair farthest from him.
Nung marched to the chair, noting his place had a computer scroll. As he sat, Nung greeted the Army Chief of Staff, an old foe named Marshal Kao: his tall shoulders were bowed with age. Kao hardly acknowledged him, turning away to tap the screen of his own computer scroll.
“We have been waiting for you, Marshal Nung,” the Leader repeated. “We have a momentous decision to make, an ominous choice with worldwide repercussions.” He scanned the others, a frown changing his features, making him seem sterner than Nung remembered.
Jian Hong had always been known as a clever man, a keen intriguer and quick-witted in speech. Over seven years ago, he had been Deng Fong’s protégée, a “young” climber in the Socialist-Nationalist Party. Back then, Jian had accepted the post of Agricultural Minister and failed to meet harvest quotas due to increasing glaciation. Then he had backed the Alaskan attack and through it had gained fame, most of it by Nung’s actions on the Arctic ice. Nung had never challenged the official story, as it gave him a powerful patron on the Ruling Committee. Despite the Army Chief of Staff’s hatred, Nung had risen high these past seven years. If he succeeded in his coming tasks…there was no telling how high he could reach, perhaps even to the Ruling Committee itself. The past seven years had shown him that nothing was impossible.
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