It had been so much easier as a child catching the fly on the window glass as it buzzed to escape. Today, his eyes hurt from reading endless reports and his back was stiff from sitting in this chair too long.
He wished to lead from the front again, driving in a command vehicle as he raced with his troops to the objective. Exhorting exhausted and dispirited soldiers had once been his specialty. Drive, drive, drive toward the enemy, smashing anything that dared stand in the way. He’d done that in Siberia and on the North Slope of Alaska. Could he exhort his front to do the same thing in California?
There was so much to do, and his troops needed to do it secretly, or as secretly as possible.
Can we fool the Americans?
Clearly, six million Chinese on the border made it impossible to surprise the enemy in a true sense. Yet there had been endless American alerts these past two years. East Lighting had discovered that much at least about the enemy. The alerts, the crying wolf, had sapped the American populace and perhaps the enemy generals. Now it was a matter of moving hundreds of thousands of troops in a chess game along a thousand mile border. A technological surprise could give him the needed edge. A hidden massing in the critical sector would ensure the surprise obliterated a million or more American soldiers and give him California. Perhaps it would give China the entire West Coast.
Would Blue Swan work as advertised? It had succeeded during the tests in the Gobi Desert. Had those been genuine tests or had some aspects of the tests been rigged so the person in charge would look good on a bureaucratic report? That was a problem. He had to trust others to do their job well.
He rubbed his throbbing hand, digging a thumb into the sore palm. It was a good plan, but it would demand competent execution by his troops. If he could lead each of the critical attacks from the front, ah, then he would win because he knew how to make soldiers fight. Now he had to trust others to act as he would, to act in an aggressive manner. He had worked hard these past two years weeding out the cautious commanders in his Front. He had prepositioned mountains of supplies and his troops had trained endlessly these past five months.
The Americans have their own problems. You must remember that.
In the old days, both sides would have watched the other through satellites. Those days were over for both of them. Chinese satellites watched much of the world, but not wherever the enemy ABM lasers could reach. The Americans didn’t have satellites, at least not for more than several hours after launching. Chinese lasers or missiles took them down. The American drones, on the other hand, were still a problem.
Marshal Nung blew out his cheeks. He would have to decide later today how many Chinese drones to use to study the American defenses. Too many would alert them of an attack. Too few would leave his army open to defensive surprises.
I must think carefully. At all costs, I must gain tactical surprise and hopefully operational surprise as well.
If only he could read the enemy’s mind. Nung grinned mirthlessly. War was the ultimate contest and in a week, in nine more days perhaps, he would initiate the greatest battle in human history with a full-scale invasion of California.
Cracking his knuckles, Nung picked up the next thing to sign. Hmm, penal battalions, he needed more East Lightning commissioners to ensure discipline. This could be a delicate topic.
Nung made a face as if sucking on a lemon. He had little love for East Lightning, particularly learning to hate them from the assault across the Arctic ice seven years ago. Still, the police had their uses, and he would need more penal battalions, especially during the initial attacks. He lacked enough special infantry. The Leader had promised him more, but they had not been forthcoming. Gang had sent back a negative dispatch to the Ruling Committee concerning the need. The Marshal had interfered against him, and it likely wouldn’t be the last time, either. Only an observer—Nung understood that Kao meant Marshal Gang as a threat to take over the First Front if he failed. He could never give Marshal Gang that reason.
Hmm. Perhaps penal battalions would have to take the place of special infantry.
With a flourish, Nung signed his name. He needed more commissioners, which meant East Lightning. With this signature, he would get more because the Leader backed his plan. Let East Lightning worry about where to get extra men. They didn’t even need to be excellent commissioners. At this point, he needed more warm bodies to feed the coming furnace.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
Captain Wei sat in his office, with the back of his head resting on the cushioned top of his chair. It stretched the muscles under his jaw, especially a tight knot parallel with his left ear. His eyes were closed and a cigarette dangled between his lips. He sucked on the cigarette, attempting to empty his mind of thoughts.
Today, that proved impossible. His report on Maria Valdez had climbed the rungs of power and importance. It had reached all the way to the Ruling Committee itself where, he’d heard, generals had swayed the Leader toward immediate war.
With his eyes closed, Wei frowned.
Usually while he smoked, the lines in his forehead eased away because he would drift into non-thought. He would relax as his qualms or worries disappeared, floating away with his smoke.
The Maria Valdez report had reached the Ruling Committee. His words, his pretense—according to what he’d learned—had actually affected state policy. He found that unsettling, believing nothing good could come from it.
Wei drew smoke into his lungs. He wanted peace, non-thoughts, not anxiety concerning his actions. Why did he let this information bother him? Could it be Maria’s curse taking effect?
Exhaling smoke, Wei sneered. Silently, he mocked the concept of karma. Perhaps it was a useful tool to help keep fools in line. Let them think their bad actions rebounded on them later. Let fear keep them on a “pure” path of action. Ha! A simple scrutiny of life showed the folly of such thinking. The powerful trampled others in their quest for influence, fame and money. Thieves prospered, some of them running the largest banks in the world. Adulterers ruled nations. Mass killers received medals and politicians stoked voters lust for other people’s money. The entire idea of the redistribution of wealth was nothing more than coveting what others possessed and then stealing it from them, all while praising yourself at how noble such theft was. Karma—it was a ridiculous idea.
It’s as foolish as Maria Valdez’s curse. She died. I’m safe and alive, and now my report will win me a promotion. I have nothing to worry about.
It he was lucky, he might actually leave this barbaric land and return home to civilization.
While resting his head on the back of the chair, Captain Wei heard a faint sound. His sneer shifted to a frown. Usually, it was quiet up here in Dong Dianshan headquarters. Who dared to march about in the halls? Yes, those were shoes—boots, he realized.
Are their soldiers in the halls?
No, that was preposterous. The outer guards would have fought to the death before admitting the military into East Lightning Headquarters. The outer guards were chosen specimens, hypnotically motivated and thus fearless fighters even against outrageous odds. If the military had attempted to enter these halls, he would have heard gunfire.
The sound of marching grew louder. It was in cadence, too. Likely, that meant several jackbooted thugs trained to move in step. What were they doing here?
Wei inhaled so the tip of his cigarette wobbled as it glowed. Cadenced steps of booted thugs—
Wei sat up and opened his eyes. He blew smoke out of his nostrils and mashed the cigarette in his overflowing ashtray. He still had half the cigarette to smoke, too. It was the only one of its kind in the tray. All the other stubs had been smoked down to the end. Wei hated wasting cigarettes.
He’d heard such cadenced steps before from Easting Lighting personnel. The Guardian Inspector kept armored enforcers with her wherever she went. They often marched like that, with boots crashing down against the tiles. If she was in the halls—Wei blinked rapidly. The Guardian Inspector was second-in
-command of East Lightning personnel in Mexico. Why would she be here in his halls?
Wei recalled the doctor’s sly sidelong glances as the man had probed Maria Valdez’s corpse. The doctor’s silence during the examination had unnerved Wei enough to mention several of the doctor’s indiscretions he’d committed this past year.
For many years now, Wei had found it useful keeping a dossier on his underlings, on anyone who could write a report about him. Would the doctor have been foolish enough to write or speak to others about his suspicions concerning Maria’s death?
Wei released his crumpled cigarette as his office door swung open. There was no polite tapping on it first by his secretary. No one would barge in here like this unless he or she wielded power. Therefore, Wei raised his eyebrows in an attentive manner, in the way an East Lightning operative should do before his superiors.
Three red-armored enforcers strode into the room. They were big men in body armor and enclosed helmets with darkened visors. Each cradled a close-combat carbine, an ugly-barreled weapon with a pitted end. They took up station in his cramped quarters and leveled the carbines at him.
Inadvertently, Wei touched his constricting chest. Those pitted barrels...
The Guardian Inspector entered the office, confirming Wei’s worst fear. She was taller than he was, average-sized for a Chinese woman. Her hair was short, barely covering her ears. She wore a scarlet uniform with brown straps, reversing the normal East Lightning uniform. A short brown cape was draped over her shoulders and pigskin gloves clad her hands. She had a peasant girl’s features. They were too wide in Chinese terms to be called beautiful. Even so, she had a pleasing face, with incredibly dark eyes of a compelling nature. They made her seem like a night creature, a seductress who would leave his bloodless corpse for jackals or rats to quarrel over.
She stopped before his desk and regarded him. “Captain Wei,” she said.
He recovered from his shock enough so his chair scraped back. He stood, saluting smartly in the accepted manner.
“Sit,” she said, while unpinning her cloak. She let it drape over a chair and then sat down.
Wei sat stiffly, putting his hands on the desk, waiting.
“You’re surprised to see me,” she said.
Wei nodded. How could it be otherwise?
“The carbines,” she gestured at her enforcers. “Do they unnerve you?”
“Innocent men need not fear,” Wei said, quoting an East Lightning maxim.
Her smile became cruel. “It surprises me then that you are not a quivering wreck on the floor.”
Wei blinked several times. He wanted a cigarette. No, he needed a pill as his heart thudded. “Your words wound me,” he managed to say.
While staring into his eyes, she shook her head. “It is my policy to never utter false words or to bandy in jest with those I’m about to destroy.”
His throat tightened. What had gone wrong? The doctor—he would kill the man before this was over. He would escape and hunt the weasel to the earth, using a knife to castrate the informer and stuffing the man’s—
“May I inquire as to what this is about?” Wei forced himself to ask. He needed to concentrate, not escape into revenge fantasies.
“Poor Wei,” she said. “You wish to maintain dignity in your final hour. You have hidden like a snake among us all these years. I wonder now upon the number and magnitude of your transgressions.”
“Guardian Inspector?” he asked. He would slice open the doctor’s belly and pull out the man’s—
“We know about your drug addiction,” she said.
Wei stared at her and he almost let his shoulders slump in relief. He had to suppress a caw of laughter. Drug addiction, this was about drug addiction? No one could torture people long and escape some form of relaxant. East Lightning knew this. Oh, they all spoke about hard men determined to do the unwanted tasks because this was the hour of China’s greatness. But the truth was no one was hard enough except for a psychopath.
“Ah,” the Guardian Inspector said. She was watching him closely. “You interest me, Captain. You’re relieved at the charge, not worried as you should be.”
“I assure you—”
“No!” she said. “Do not assure me of anything. You are a snake, Captain Wei. You have abused your privileged post in order to practice a loathsome habit. How can we trust your judgment if you’re addled with drugs? You are an addict. You ingest drugs to sustain yourself instead of hardening your resolve for the good of the State. You have stained yourself. You are no longer worthy of your rank or your station. I begin to wonder now about this report of yours concerning Maria Valdez.”
Was she playing him like a mongoose with a cobra? That must be it. It couldn’t really be about drug addiction. Besides, he wasn’t an addict. He merely used the pills to ease his burden. He was hard inside. He did work for the good of the State. China was everything and he was nothing, an ant tirelessly working for the nation, for the people.
The Guardian Inspector shrugged. “By his actions, our Great Leader has stamped your Maria Valdez report with approval.”
“Ah,” Wei said. “That disproves your charge then. My hard work—”
She held up a gloved hand. The glove was thin leather with little holes running up and down the fingers. The gesture was menacing, as it seemed to Wei that if she should drop her hand too quickly, the three enforcers would open fire.
“Your report has reached too high for us to dig too deeply into it,” she said. “But is there anything you wish to tell me about it, anything you wish to confess?”
He tried to appear contrite, but it was so foreign to him. He had dominated shackled patients too long, perhaps. He had always been in control.
“It is true I have sipped a drink to…to pass the time,” he said.
“You were going to say something else. Tell me what it was. Confess to me, Captain, and you may find mercy.”
Wei smiled softly. Did the Guardian Inspector not realize she spoke to the premier extractor of truths? He sifted truth and lies many times a week. He would never tell her that he took the blue pills to dull his conscience. No! That wasn’t even true. He took the pills in order to pass the tedium of life. But he would never tell her that, either. It would simply be too dangerous. High-ranking, East Lighting operatives knew nothing about mercy except that it was a word for fools and weaklings.
“You are a snake,” she said, as if pronouncing judgment on him. “Despite your glorious service to China, we must punish you, Captain. We are impartial, the dog and broom of the Socialist-Nationalist Revolution. We sniff out troublemakers and sweep them away.”
Wei’s throat felt gritty. He told himself it was the smoke of his cigarette. Yet if that was so, why hadn’t his throat ever felt this way before?
“I have never performed less than excellently while, ah, ingesting a stimulant,” he said.
“I’m sure that’s a lie,” she said. “Thus, it proves to me how low you’ve fallen from the height of dedicated service. Even in my presence, you dare to act like a snake, a liar and a drug addict.”
“Not an addict,” he protested.
“Spare both of us any breast-beating of innocence. You are charged, found guilty and will now hear your sentence, your punishment.”
Wei hid his surprise. The charge of drug addiction in East Lightning usually brought swift death. He had been waiting for bullets to smash his body.
“You are surprised,” she said, nodding, “as am I. Left up to me, my enforcers would kill you like a pig. Yet it is true that you have performed several notable services for China. Thus, you will have a chance at rehabilitation.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She shook her head. “I doubt you’ll thank me a week from now. You are being reassigned, Captain.”
“May I ask where?”
“To a penal battalion,” she said.
He frowned. “I thought only the military possessed those.”
She smiled like a hungry leo
pard. “You will join a shock battalion. It is a fancy title for those who clear minefields.”
“I’m untrained in such—”
She held up her hand again.
The three guards grew tense. Wei noticed one smiling in anticipation under his visor. The man was just tall enough for him to spot it. Wei gulped, dreading to know what a bullet entering his body felt like.
“The mine clearing is a simple process,” she said. “The battalion runs across it, exploding the mines with their feet. If you survive that, you will then become shock troops, charging enemy strongholds.”
“But—”
She stared at him, wilting his speech.
“You will still be East Lightning. You will be one of the enforcers, guarding and goading the penal troops to courageous acts of bravery. I’m told these troops often turn their guns and grenades on their enforcers. So you will need to remain vigilant. If you become drug-addled while performing your duties, well, we both know what will happen: Your commanding officer will draw his gun and shoot you in the head.”
Wei sat back. This was disastrous. What had he ever done to deserve this? It was viciously unfair.
“If you survive a year of combat,” the Guardian Inspector said, “I shall review your case. If I find you have purged yourself of this filthy drug habit, I will reinstate you in your regular command.”
“Thank you,” Wei managed to say.
“But we both know that you will not survive,” she said. “Good-bye, Captain Wei. Remember, if you can, to always act like an East Lightning hero, rooting out traitors to the State.”
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