by Fritz Galt
In that regard, he owed his friend Vincent Chu, Vice President of Taiwan, a heads up.
He punched speed dial for the vice president’s office.
“This is C.Y. Lu. Let me speak with Chu.”
“Mr. Chu is in a meeting, sir.”
“Tell him this is very urgent.”
The call went through.
“Chu, this is C.Y. Very important development on the foreign relations front. Are you sitting down? The Americans just announced a shift in policy.”
“Go ahead,” Chu said slowly.
C.Y. knew that Vincent Chu, born in China, was a naturally conservative man. Above all, Chu feared the Communists, Maoist doctrine, and the People’s Liberation Army. As badly as Chu wanted to reunite with the rest of his family on the mainland, he knew that the divide was too great. Chu’s only hope was for the support of American warships should a crisis arise.
C.Y. read the statement and waited for the reaction.
“She said ‘joint government’ and ‘reduced arms’?” Chu said, anxiety building in his voice.
“That’s a direct quote.”
“Well, you can’t release that.”
“I already have. It’s on the streets. I can’t take it back.”
“You should have consulted me first. This could mean the end of our defense relationship with the United States.”
“We can’t stop what the Americans are saying.”
“I’ll call AIT at once,” Chu said angrily.
“Don’t blame me,” C.Y. said.
The line went dead.
Chapter 8
Mick started up the narrow sidewalk between a restaurant and a temple. He had to step around women washing vegetables. Aside from what Tony Chen had told him back in the parking lot, nothing indicated that Leng Shi-mung, the Chinese diplomat, was nearby.
Thick foliage blocked Mick’s view as he climbed the steps to the cemetery.
When the walkway leveled out, he was rewarded with a panoramic view of a hillside covered with graves. There lay some of Taipei’s wealthiest former citizens.
The enormous expense for the marble tombs had wiped out many a family fortune. Each curved stone wall, braced against the evil north wind, pointed the grave to the sunny south. Most graves included a stone table and chairs on a tile terrace. Some featured running fountains, lily and goldfish ponds and other emblems of heaven and eternity.
As it was Ghost Month, many tables had open bottles of Coke or Evian and wrapped cakes, potato chips and other delectables. Joss sticks burned here and there.
A man in a white shirt stepped out from behind a rock and greeted Mick. It was Tony Chen’s partner. “Leng’s over there.” He nodded to a gravesite slightly above them and one-third of the way across the slope.
“What route did Leng take?”
The man turned his gaze upward. Mick followed his eyes to a tiny road that connected the burial site with the sites on the other side of the mountain.
“Here are my car keys,” Mick said. “Have Tony bring my car around to the far side of the hill. I’ll follow Leng.”
“Yes, sir. And sir?”
Mick had already advanced along a narrow ledge that led between burial sites.
“Take this.” The man held out an automatic pistol.
Mick closed his eyes briefly. “I don’t think I’ll need that.”
“Today you might,” the man said.
Mick took the gun and checked the clip. It was fully loaded. He winced and stuffed the piece under his belt.
“Eight rounds,” he muttered to himself. “My aim isn’t that bad.”
“Get me Bronson Nichols,” Vincent Chu, Vice President of Taiwan, told the operator at AIT.
Though raised in mainland China, Chu was the son of a successful engineer and went to Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science. His vernacular was American English, with a strong Boston accent. On the other hand, he was completely dedicated to his lovely, vulnerable wife, a former Miss Taiwan, and all she represented.
Bronson picked up the phone.
“Chu, is that you?” the gruff voice said.
“You’ve got it,” Chu said. “And something’s not quite kosher here. China News Agency is printing a report that your economic counselor just announced a reversal in American policy toward Taiwan.”
“What?”
“That’s right. At a speech to the Joint Chambers of Commerce at the Grand Hotel this morning, she announced that the U.S. will back a single Chinese government with arms reduction on both sides. Bronson, you’re cutting us off at the knees.”
“We haven’t changed our policy one iota. This has never come up for discussion, I am personally aware of no such change in our position, and I would be chagrined if AIT ever made such a statement.”
“Well, the other side of your mouth says something completely different.”
“There is no other side of my mouth.”
“Her name is Natalie Pierce.”
“She’s cracked. She’s young and eager and not particularly experienced. I’ll talk to her.”
“And you’ll issue a retraction.”
“There was no official statement, so there will be no retraction.”
“What is your economic counselor doing giving speeches like this? It’ll create havoc in our relations. If the United States no longer supports a separate government and military in Taiwan, they’ll eat us like hungry wolves.”
“We have made no such shift in policy. We’re bound by American law to defend the people of Taiwan, and we will uphold that law today as in the past.”
“What assurances do I have that you haven’t pulled the rug out from under our feet?”
“You have my word. America is not involved with Chinese internal affairs. America does not tamper with existing relations. We don’t engage in covert operations, we don’t play war games and we don’t plant disinformation. It would be like playing with dynamite, and we know it. We engage in absolutely none of that.”
“Bronson, I’m warning you. If your people make the slightest move toward revising the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, I swear we’ll declare independence on the spot.”
“Nobody wants that to happen,” Bronson said. “We’ll never let it come to that.”
Chu hung up the phone before he said anything he would regret.
Whether the Americans intended it or not, change was in the air.
Mick entered the shadows of a gravesite. Around him was a wide terrace, two ornamental trees and a Christian cross. It seemed like a restful place. But it also seemed final.
In the distance, the Communist official Leng Shi-mung and his half-brother, a Nationalist soldier, stood conversing in low tones. Mick was close enough to smell the incense they were poking in an urn, but not close enough to make out what they said. And boy, was he ever curious.
He had seen the negotiator’s thin face on television earlier that morning and placed his age at a young fifty. Mick had never seen the younger half-brother before.
From Tony, he had learned that the younger Leng was a captain in Taiwan’s military, yet this morning he wore a green polo shirt, shorts and flip-flops.
From newspaper accounts, Mick had learned that back in 1949 old man Leng had retreated with the other two million Chinese from the mainland after the Nationalists were ousted from power. He had left behind a wife and son and made a new life constructing mountain roads with his army buddies on Taiwan.
Mick could make out the characters “Leng” and “Xie” etched into the grave marker where they stood. Old Leng had died, but the woman in Taiwan he married named Xie had no date of death. The mother of the soldier at the gravesite was still alive.
Now forty-five years after the family split up, the half-brothers met each other for the first time. Mick had been expecting great emotion, but the occasion was understated and businesslike.
Something in the way the two men wandered around the gravesite, cleaning off leaves and tossing
words to each other, struck Mick as odd.
“How would Natalie read this?” he wondered. She had a razor-sharp ability to read emotions. He detected no strong feeling in the fragments of conversation brought by the wind. He hadn’t expected a wily Communist Party operator to express much love for the son of a man who had deserted him and his mother and fled the country, but what Mick did expect was curiosity.
The two men didn’t bother to look at each other. They didn’t compare their frames, listen carefully to each other’s voice or search out common personality quirks. Rather, from the tone of their voices, they seemed unmoved as if they already knew each other.
Although Taiwan allowed its ordinary citizens to visit China, members of the military were barred from traveling across the strait. The younger Leng could never have visited Leng Shi-mung.
Mick could draw two conclusions: Leng Shi-mung and his half-brother had met before, and the meeting didn’t take place in China.
Tony Chen handled Mick’s expensive sports car with extra care. He drove down into Peitou Valley and caught the road up behind the Eternal Sun Cemetery.
Like an avalanche of polished stone, graves spilled down the hill toward a gravel parking lot. He pulled into the shade of a tour bus and waited in the convertible. A motor scooter and a yellow taxicab also waited in the lot. In the stillness, the only sound was that of the taxi driver chatting on his CB.
Then Tony heard the slap of flip-flops. Someone was hurrying down the path. He caught movement through the wavering heat of a brick furnace. It was a man in a green shirt.
Not far behind, Mick scrambled downhill careful to remain out of sight. He sought cover in a group of old women returning to the bus. They moved slowly under a great shelter of sun parasols.
When the man reached the furnace, a place to offer ghost money, paper credit cards and checks, he pulled a note out of his pocket and read it carefully. Then he crumpled it up and tossed it onto the hot coals.
Mick reached the parking lot apparently unaware that the man had tossed the note into the fire.
Tony jumped out of the car. His nose for evidence told him he needed to retrieve the burning note. Hustling but trying not to attract attention, he brushed past the man in the green shirt, passing close enough to smell his perspiration and the garlic on his breath.
He scrambled uphill and angled toward the furnace. The note had not yet burst into flames, but he could see it turning brown and uncurling in the intense heat.
Two women were standing there. They held hundreds of sacrificial bills and folded them in preparation to offer them to the orange coals.
Tony pushed the two aside. The money fell to the ground and scattered in a slight breeze.
That brought an angry cry from the women.
Tony fanned the smoke out of his face and leaned into the wall of heat. With long curved fingers, he stabbed at the small piece of paper. Its edges were already incinerated.
He felt a red-hot ember land on the palm of his hand and dropped the note to the ground.
“Tony,” Mick shouted. “You’ve got my keys.”
That was the last thing Tony heard before the sudden roar of pain in his ears. He held his burnt hand and concentrated on the tuft of paper cartwheeling in the dirt. Finally, he trapped it under one shoe and knelt down to blow out the embers.
Above, he heard the whoosh of an accelerating object. That was followed by a sharp whack against the side of his head. Not lethal, but vicious. He bent over to protect himself and his treasure.
Another club banged against his back. It felt like wood and fabric. He noticed tiny feet approaching him from all directions. Women cursed him for defiling their offering, and whapped him with their parasols. Meanwhile, their ghost money fluttered down the hillside.
With his good hand, Tony pinned down one edge of the paper. With the back of his other hand, he spread the paper flat, careful not to smudge it with his singed fingertips. He scanned the modern Chinese characters that were scrawled on the paper:
August 8-15.
No PRC support.
Shanghai Class A.
Despite the angry crowd that converged on him, Tony focused on the message. He couldn’t fathom its meaning, but he submitted it to memory. He repeated the range of dates. It was only a week away.
Then an umbrella scored a direct hit against his brow.
He staggered backward and tried to see the parking lot. A sea of angry faces nearly blocked his view.
The man in the green shirt was on the motor scooter heading down the hill. Then the tour bus lurched away in pursuit. Several old women hung out the door trying to climb in.
Gravel from the back wheels sprayed against those who were too late to clamber aboard.
Tony tried to break free of the angry worshipers. They seemed startled by his forcefulness and gave him room. Clearly he showed no remorse for having lost their ghost money while stealing other money from the flames. He ran into the parking area just in time to see the bus veer after the green shirt on the motor scooter. The vehicles disappeared down the steep road at high speed.
There were two remaining vehicles at the base of the cemetery: the sports car and the taxi.
Tony was turning back to the sports car when something about the taxi caught his eye.
The taxi driver’s door was open. A pair of legs lay splayed off the end of the seat. Surely the driver hadn’t slept through the disturbance.
Tony sniffed the air and approached the cab. Behind him, the silent mass closed in.
Pale and hairless, the cabby’s legs didn’t move.
Tony peered into the car and stopped short. The handle of a knife stuck out of the man’s chest. His face was sheet white, his eyes open and lifeless.
Tony tried to understand how the murder had occurred. Blood still dripped from the cabbie’s hands and left a glistening pool in the gravel. The man’s fingers and palms were sliced in several places as if he had been wrestling with the wrong end of the knife.
After a while, it was too much for Tony to look at. Bent over, he turned around. Feet moved in.
The man’s death was a bad omen. It had happened after he took the ancestors’ money.
Perhaps the women were right. Tony Chen had brought bad luck.
Chapter 9
Bronson stood up behind his desk and put his large fists on his hips. His weathered face had gone beet red.
Natalie realized that he wasn’t going to offer her a seat.
“Okay, I want to know what happened.” He was making a noticeable effort at restraint. “Vice President Chu called and told me that the U.S. has changed its policy toward Taiwan. Tell me that wasn’t you.”
“What do you mean?” A sinking feeling began to wash over her.
“He said you announced a major policy reversal at the lunch today. Tell me you weren’t making uncleared remarks.”
“I only say what’s cleared. You know that.”
“I’d like to believe you. But the China News Agency is distributing your speech to the media. Part of it has to be true.”
She took a seat anyway.
“I might have gotten a little carried away,” she said. “But I was speaking off the record. No media were invited.”
“Whether it’s on the record or off, we have a spokesman for that. You’re an econ officer, Sweetcakes.”
“I understand that. And I’m sure the press understands that as well.”
Bronson sat down and buried his head in his hands.
“Okay. So what, exactly, did you say?”
“I said cross-strait relations are warming up,” she began slowly. She had any number of ways to describe her speech, and that was the problem. “All right. I can see how this might have gotten misinterpreted, but all I said was I could foresee China and Taiwan linking various government organizations, reducing weapons proliferation and some other things by the new millennium.”
“So you said you supported reunification.”
“I said nothing of th
e sort. C’mon, Bronson. Help me out here. So I got a bit optimistic after this morning’s agreement and I tried to raise the spirits of the business community. What’s the harm in that?”
“You know damn well what the implications are. U.S. backs down and China sees this as a green light to invade Taiwan. Furthermore, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. These two countries are on a collision course and have been for years. Red China has set its eye on Taiwan. It’s Deng Xiaoping’s final, unfulfilled dream. Before he’s dead, his countrymen want to make it become a reality.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see it that way.” She looked him straight in the eye.
“Well, it’s not like we have any say in the matter. It’s up to the president and Congress to reverse our stance and not your job or mine. Do you have any problem with that?”
“Of course not. I’m sorry to have caused this mess. But as you well know, I’m far more optimistic than you old timers.”
Bronson glowered. “We’re neither optimistic nor pessimistic. We’re goddamn neutral observers. We don’t get involved. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. Neutral observers. No involvement.”
The last time Mick had driven a bus was in college at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. That was nearly twenty years ago.
He reached for the stick shift by his knee and put the bus in neutral as he sped downhill. His target was out of sight, so he fished around for third gear. Finally it caught and he popped the clutch. He flew backward as the engine engaged. The Chinese women screamed.
He didn’t mean to endanger their lives, but damnit, he wasn’t exactly in control of events, either. To catch up with a speeding motor scooter, he would have to take a few chances.
Another bus, a laboring inter-city bus, appeared on a tight mountain curve. It was in his lane and heading straight for him.
He shut his eyes, sucked in his breath and eased into the oncoming lane. His tires rumbled over a thin shoulder of rocks. There was no squeal of brakes or crunch of metal.