by Fritz Galt
Then he spread his fingers around the perimeter of the island. “To overcome its defenses, we must co-opt the military.”
He leaned back against the buffed leather seat. “I supply the chaos and lower the defensive shield. You bring in the troops.”
“First of all, how would you create civil war in Taiwan?”
“As you know, Taiwan’s population is divided over the independence issue.” André showed a political cartoon of two party flags stuck into the island of Taiwan.
The first flag had a green silhouette of the island. “The native half, which is less educated, drives taxis and plows fields, wants independence from all vestiges of General Chiang Kai-shek’s autocratic rule. They are mostly of Chinese blood, but want nothing to do with China. They want their own Taiwanese language and so on.”
He pointed to the second flag with a single white star against a blue field. “The other half comes from the two million souls who fled China in 1949. They and their prosperous offspring fear Communist China’s political institutions and military, but eventually want to reunite, if not retake, China. The battle over the island is firmly drawn along political lines.”
“Where would civil war lead?” General Chou asked.
“To a reinstating of martial law. Absolute control by Taiwan’s military over people’s daily lives.”
“And how would you co-opt the military?”
André smiled. The general seemed to catch on quickly. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out the photo of a heavily decorated military man. “General Li, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces on Taiwan,” he said. The face looked old and resolute, if a bit stern. “I’ll lure the military into illegal activities here in China.”
“How can you lure them?”
“Taiwan’s current military leadership is old and desperate to maintain a strong defense against China.”
He slapped another photo on the pile. Again, it was an aged face verging on either senility or insanity.
“Nan-an, a politician, has come out of retirement to run for president in order to restore the military’s control over the government.”
“Forgive me, but they sound like the wrong kind of people to welcome Chinese troops,” the general said skeptically.
“The hook is that it’s up to the military to finance this man’s presidential campaign. Since Taiwan uses a system of vote buying, nobody can win without money. What more convenient place for the military to earn a quick buck than here in China?”
He peeled back his curtain and revealed the city.
“Since all members of their armed forces are strictly prohibited from investing in China, we’ll offer them Chinese stocks discretely, offering them a quick return on their investment.”
“You’ll catch them trading illegally.”
“Exactly. We’ll put pressure on the military as soon as it takes over the government. We can then threaten to publicize their investments, revealing their treason.”
“You’ll blackmail them.”
“Essentially. When it comes down to defending their island or themselves, these characters will protect their necks and their pride. Taiwan’s military leadership will then do whatever we say.”
“So how, exactly, would we invade? We still don’t have a quick strike capability.”
“You won’t need to strike at all. They will invite you in. To get your troops together, mentally prepared and logistically ready, I suggest that you immediately begin a drill on China’s southeast coast, just opposite Taiwan. Call it something innocuous like ‘Operation Summer Wind.’”
General Chou was looking at him curiously. “You’re a foreigner. What do you get out of this?”
At that point, André looked out his window once more and identified the Jianguo Hotel. He had stayed there in the Dark Ages, a decade earlier. At that time, the hotel had sold the only French bread in town. These days Vie de France patisseries competed on every street corner of the capital.
“I want contracts,” he said.
The car climbed a ramp onto the Third Ring Road where André could watch history being obliterated before his very eyes. Where once there had been a wall, Beijing now ferried traffic around a new highway built over the razed rampart.
In the twilight, he saw dust billowing up from floodlit construction sites on both sides of the highway. Laborers had descended on the capital in endless droves, and the government put them to work building the city literally overnight.
“China represents one quarter of the world’s population,” he said. “I want to keep one step ahead of the other three-quarters of the world by obtaining preferential access to your markets, beginning with military contracts.”
“This is all theoretical, of course, but you’re asking a lot of me.”
“I need very little from you. Just your contracts and your launch of ‘Operation Summer Wind.’”
As the car sped onto the airport road, General Chou seemed withdrawn, as if he had lost interest.
André gathered up his map and photos and began to shove them into his briefcase. “I have all the people in place already. I have a radio station in Taipei, Johnny’s brokerage firm in Hong Kong, this desperate old politician in Taiwan, one of your top diplomats named Leng Shi-mung pressuring Taiwan’s government and I just eliminated my last obstacle. I sent two men to take care of a nosy American geologist whom I suspected was a CIA agent looking into our project. And now I have the bomb.”
General Chou seemed to reach a realization. “You don’t actually intend to use it on Taiwan.”
“It’s not going to Islamabad.”
The muscles in General Chou’s face sagged. “I thought Taiwan was just part of our deal. You have your bomb. You don’t have to use it.”
“Oh, but I will.”
“I refuse to take part in this.” General Chou folded his arms. “I’ll expose you.”
André sat back. “And I’ll expose you. Need I remind you whose signature authorized the atom bomb’s removal from your nuclear arsenal and sent it to a ship on the South China Sea?”
He extended his hand.
“General, you’re part of this whether you like it or not.”
“Mick, you’re shivering,” Natalie said, her eyes lingering on her husband’s muscular chest and arms. It was ninety degrees outside, and his bronze skin had goose bumps.
He shrugged and struggled into a starched white shirt.
“And why the fancy duds?” It was Tuesday evening, and yet Mick looked like he was going to work. She loved her job as an economics officer, but this was going too far.
“I’ve got some bad news,” he said at last.
She examined his broad, handsome Pueblo face. His steel-gray eyes were avoiding hers.
She finished slipping on her Bermuda shorts and dropped the drawstring. “What is it? You can tell me.”
His eyes wandered away, glancing around the walls of their small, in-city apartment. “I can’t go to the hot pot restaurant tonight.”
Terrific. She had been looking forward to an evening up in the hills where their food would be cooked over a boiling thermal spring.
He continued to examine the walls, the light fixtures and the drab State Department furniture.
“There’s more,” she said. “I can tell.”
“There is, but I can’t tell you.”
“That’s all right. Just stand me up.”
He looked at her with large, sad eyes.
She felt the tug of her drawstring as he tightened her shorts.
“Can I take a rain check?” he asked meekly.
“Honey, if you aren’t home by the time I go to bed, you ain’t gettin’ any.”
He closed his eyes and smiled. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
Chapter 4
“One assailant is dead,” Mick announced. He blew against his fingers to keep them warm in the morgue-like air of the security bubble. “The other assailant got away.”
Bronson Nichols, director
of the unofficial American embassy, frowned at the words “dead” and “assailant” as if police work were beneath him.
“Is Alec all right?” he asked, grumpy. After all, Bronson had been hauled out of some evening event to attend the meeting.
“Bloody knee and a smashed larynx,” Mick said. “But he’ll survive. He got lucky this afternoon.”
“You call that lucky?” another voice said with contempt. It was Bill Fellows, Mick’s wry, well-groomed station chief.
Next to him sat Juliet Marsh, the station’s secretary, checking her fingernails.
Mick was delivering bad news to a hostile audience during after-hours.
Nearing forty, Mick had survived many brushes with death in his career. But under Bill’s rule, he had had to stuff his powerful, six-foot one-inch build into an anonymous business suit.
“Can’t imagine who these characters were,” Bronson said. He seemed to stretch out his Wyoming drawl when he needed time to think.
“Alec said they had Fujian accents, but that doesn’t mean anything.” Many on the island had roots in the Chinese province directly across the Taiwan Strait. “But they did mean business. They either meant to teach him a lesson or take him out completely.”
Bronson sat up. “You mean kill him? Heavens, what kind of trouble has Alec gotten into?”
The room fell silent. Mick’s brother, Alec Pierce, was to all appearances a well-intentioned research assistant in geology at Taiwan’s largest and most prestigious university. He had no particular assignment from the Central Intelligence Agency. He was merely on call to Mick, his case officer, boning up on his Chinese. He had no contact with the American Institute in Taiwan other than socially through Mick and Natalie.
“Did he inform the Foreign Affairs Police?” Bill inquired as he drummed his fingers impatiently on the oak tabletop.
“No,” Mick said. “The media reported a body found in the jungle. Police suspected the man slipped while climbing and didn’t survive the fall.”
“And Alec didn’t report anything?” Bronson said. “It only draws more attention to himself.”
“It probably didn’t seem unusual to the accomplice,” Mick said. “To the researcher he was with, it might have seemed odd.”
“Researcher?” Juliet inquired.
“A woman named Dr. Hu May-lin.”
“A woman, of course,” Bill said, throwing his hands up.
“She’s a geologist specializing in volcanoes,” Mick continued, undeterred. “I don’t know her at all. Alec says they’re getting close.”
“That horny bastard,” Bill said with righteous indignation. “What’s he up to now?”
“No doubt following his instincts,” Mick said.
“I’ll say. His instincts,” Bill said.
Mick let it go. How could he defend his half-brother’s tactics to such a rational man? Sure, Alec’s natural impulses had gotten him into trouble before. He seemed to defy logic in the most dangerous circumstances, often by tangling with precisely the wrong woman.
Bronson leaned back and clicked a pen. “Is there any way we can find out what these guys were after?”
“I asked Alec how we could track the surviving assailant down. There’s no way that he knows.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Juliet said. “But can we review communication protocol here? How did Alec contact you?”
“He drove past my apartment with a megaphone.”
Bronson laughed.
“It’s important,” Bill said, defending his secretary. “In case something happens to you.”
“We met in Shi Dong Market this afternoon.”
“We need to establish covert means of communication,” Bill said, “before this blows up into something.”
“It already is something,” Mick said.
“I’ll work out some other procedures,” Juliet said, and jotted down a note.
“Fine,” Bronson said. “Tell Alec to keep us all apprised.”
Then he began counting light bulbs in the ceiling. “One bulb is out.”
That meant the discussion was over.
“I’ll requisition a secure light bulb,” Bill said. He wrote a note on his otherwise blank note pad.
But Bronson didn’t seem ready to go. “While you’ve keeping me from a dinner that I’m hosting, Mick, what else do you snoops have in the works?”
Mick scratched his thick black hair, and Bill stared him down.
The room took on a new chill.
“‘In the works’ on what level, sir?” Bill asked.
“I mean the stuff nobody’s supposed to know about.”
“We’ve minimized our undercover reconnaissance,” Bill said with pride.
Bronson nodded encouragingly.
“So much is available in the local media these days,” Bill explained. “It’s astounding to see all the open political, military and criminal bashing going on now that the ‘Sunshine Laws’ are in effect. The press has uncovered all sorts of official corruption.”
“It’s hardly dangerous work anymore,” Juliet chimed in, as if she knew what constituted dangerous work.
Bill smiled without apology. “For example, Mick will be briefing an international endangered species inspector tomorrow on the rhino horn trade.”
“Aw, come on, Mick,” Bronson said. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“That’s pretty much the story, sir.” Mick felt a cold, empty wind blowing through him.
“Briefing endangered species inspectors? What has the world come to?”
“Fortunately,” Bill said, “the world’s a much safer place.”
“Taipei seems to be a career-enhancing post,” Mick said. “For Natalie.”
Bronson swiveled away in his chair and stared at a blank wall. “I don’t begrudge her that,” he drawled. “She’s a damn feisty filly that needs all the breaking in she can get.”
Then he turned back to Mick.
“But if you engage in any activities remotely like your brother so help me, I’ll personally end your career.”
Mick gulped. He had no intention of losing his career. But he had no intention of frittering it away, either. There would be a more important visitor coming to town. Still, he replied, “It’s all about rhino horns.”
“You’re being straight with me?”
“Rhino horns are my life.”
High atop Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak, a private line rang in Johnny Ouyang’s study.
Curse the size of his mansion. Johnny threw his napkin onto the dinner table and slipped his dwarf-like body off his chair. He barely got to his study in time.
“Yes?” he answered, slightly out of breath.
“It’s me,” the voice said. It was his shadowy business partner, known only as André. His voice was barely audible over the sound of an airplane. “The sale is complete.”
Johnny found his desk chair and climbed into it. The words were irrevocable and set numerous interlocking gears in motion. He had entered uncharted waters and he didn’t like it.
His eyes fell on a photo in a gold-leaf frame. In the close-up, his wife smiled down at him, her lips pouting playfully, her hard, French eyes staring straight through him at his bank account. “When will Odette receive the package?”
“Your wife received it this afternoon.”
“I’m sure it made her happy.”
At least someone was happy. He had reacted quickly, if reluctantly, to Hong Kong’s new, more ruthless business practices. But he had little choice. He was a small man in a growing world. He had to remain competitive in the pro-Chinese climate, and the Frenchman helped pave new ground.
He watched palm fronds in the security lights flutter nervously against his office window. All elements of their plan were falling into place. Even Mother Nature was cooperating. “A huge storm is on its way, so I moved up the timetable and sent the crew out to map the fault line.”
“Good timing,” André said. “Are all our other assets in place?”
“They should be. Tomorrow I expect to hear from General Li in Taiwan. I should receive his funds at that time.”
“Super.”
“And is your general eternally grateful to you?”
“General Chou has to be,” André said. “He’s the one who sold it to us. He won’t want to be the scapegoat if something goes wrong.”
Johnny smiled. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you. May your consortium win all the contracts it deserves.”
“Thank you,” André said. “And we’ll always need a little help from Hong Kong.”
CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
Wednesday
Chapter 5
Mick awoke with an arm curled around Natalie’s chest. He didn’t want to move for fear of awakening her.
Sparrows twittered on the neighbors’ rooftop garden, and daybreak glowed with muted blue tones against his amber curtains.
A delivery truck pulled out of a foreigner’s bakery just across the street, and he heard the hum of early morning traffic several blocks away on Taipei’s major north-south thoroughfare.
He heard a hacking sound in the hallway. Was somebody sick? Then he realized—the neighbor was awake and clearing his throat.
Natalie’s profile against the dark room reminded him of Michelangelo’s Madonna where she holds a Christ figure that was proportionally too small to be her grown son.
Had Natalie become his mother figure?
Get off it, you junior shrink. For a moment, he considered the dissimilarities between his mother and Natalie. For one thing, his mother had been a sturdy, small Pueblo Indian with jet-black hair until the day she died, and Natalie was fair-skinned with auburn hair and brilliant blue eyes. Where his mother had been flexible to the point of allowing Alec’s mother to visit their New Mexico home and screw his dad on a regular basis, Natalie was unyielding. Where his mother was naïve, Natalie had seen far too much of the world.
The two women had never met, but they did have one quirk in common. They treated him like the only man alive.