by Fritz Galt
Taipei lay in ruins, crushed and burning in the roaring wind.
Admiral Shi had often thought of himself as a lucky man.
On a normal afternoon, he might stroll down his neighborhood lane in his boxer shorts with his shirttails loose and his hands clasped behind his back.
And he would remind himself how Taiwan was as Chinese as China and as lucky as the United States.
Children would run to and fro in the traffic. Stuffed in their backpacks were the teachings of Sun Yat Sen, not Lenin.
Myriad cable TV and telephone lines crisscrossed the street bringing information from every corner of the world to every apartment.
Unbroken streams of motor scooters and American automobiles filled the streets at all hours of the day. Families no longer relied on rickety, hand-me-down bicycles.
His people prospered, applying their business acumen and technical know-how to a virtually unlimited world market.
On shore leave from his battleships, he had seen the Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York. They were also free, vigorous, unbridled Chinese societies, not the dour ghettos ruled by communist neighborhood committees.
But his luck had changed.
He hurried from block to block trotting down desolate, rain-soaked streets shared only by blowing debris.
He carried a double burden that day. Not only had the country sunk back into the bleak days of martial law, but incredibly, as Mick Pierce had shown him, the military had begun stashing billions of New Taiwan dollars in China.
Following Mick Pierce’s tip that Leng Shi-mung was part of an investment scheme in China, and aware that Leng was also General Li’s adjutant, he had arranged for drinks with General Li at the officer’s club.
Shi had leaned over confidentially and asked Li for investing advice on the mainland.
The highball had done wonders to loosen Li’s tongue, and out came the name of a company, Kuang Hua Petrochemical. “A sure bet if you invest by tomorrow,” Li had said.
Shi wasn’t sure if the moisture on his face came more from the rain or his tears. He was like the great bamboo painter Wen Yuke. Before beginning to sketch, he already carried the image in his mind.
China would blackmail the supreme leader of Taiwan’s military.
Shi had opened the door and seen the mountain. China’s plan to annihilate Taiwan was clear. And who could stop it?
He had to get the name of the Chinese petrochemical company, the “shure bet” investment by Taiwan’s military leader, to the American Institute in Taiwan.
Mick had to find Natalie and stop the invasion. But trouble lurked in the windblown interior of the rugged island. As he followed Nan-an’s reckless driver through the rain, he suddenly had to hit the brakes.
Nan-an’s limousine was skidding sideways on the mountain road. The long sedan couldn’t control its slide and was spinning in full circles toward a cliff.
Then Mick saw the reason for the sudden spinout. A tree had fallen across the road and blocked their way.
The limo plowed broadside into the tree with a bone-jarring crash. Leaves quivered, but the tree trunk held.
The limo tipped momentarily onto two wheels and scraped across the pavement, producing sparks. Then it fell back in place and bounced toward the edge of the cliff. It finally came to rest with its front wheels dangling over the edge.
Meanwhile, the brakes on Mick’s car had locked and he was forced to steer into his skid. The slick surface brought him straight up to the limo before his tires caught hold.
His car touched Nan-an’s rear bumper and sent the limo tilting precariously over the cliff.
Mick had to rescue the old man before the car fell. His only hope of stopping the insanity of Taiwan’s martial law and China’s invasion was to get Nan-an to lean on the military leadership and get him to expose the plot to the public.
Mick jumped out of his car and rushed over to the limousine. Gingerly, he opened the rear door where Nan-an sat. Inside, the man lay limp over his seatbelt. His glasses hung smashed and broken across his lacerated face. The side of his head had already turned blue.
Then Mick saw why. Nan-an had hit the side window and cracked the glass, leaving blood behind. His arms were outstretched, one hand clutching the handset of a radiophone.
He shook the old man, but Nan-an was unresponsive. He tried to free him from his seatbelt, but couldn’t reach around the body without climbing into the car. So he grabbed the handset and held it to his ear.
A man was beseeching in a lonely, trembling voice. “Nan-an, speak to me. What happened? Are you okay?”
“Is this General Li?” he asked in Chinese.
“Yes. It is,” the voice responded.
Mick thought quickly. “Listen. Nan-an was just involved in an automobile accident. What’s your telephone number? He’ll contact you as soon as he’s able.”
“This is a direct office line,” the general said, and reeled off a seven-digit number. “Watch him carefully. We old men need a lot of care.”
“Don’t worry,” Mick said. “I’ll call you back.”
He heard a groan from the front seat. The chauffeur was just coming to. The man’s foot suddenly shot forward as if to slam on the brakes. Unfortunately, he hit the accelerator. The wheels began to spin on the gravel shoulder.
Still leaning into the limo, Mick had no chance to free Nan-an. He dug the wallet out of Nan-an’s suit coat pocket and threw it onto the pavement. He needed the radiophone, too.
The tires were gaining traction in the gravel.
Finding a support strap, he unlatched the radiophone and battery. The doorframe spun him sideways as the limo tilted over the drop-off.
He fell back under the weight of the phone and hit the pavement.
The front-heavy limousine tipped up further, revealing its underside. Then, with a rumble of crumbling rock, it slid off the cliff.
He shielded his face, but couldn’t help watching the vehicle plunge out of sight. It hit the bottom of the valley with a metallic crunch. By the time the sickening sound echoed back from across the gorge, an orange flame reflected off the valley walls.
He sat up and looked at his hands. Only moments before, the car had been within reach. Nan-an may have been a goner, but Mick might have rescued the chauffeur.
He had let the two men die all for the sake of a telephone call.
He dropped the damned radiophone, but its protective black box absorbed the impact.
He leaned back against the fallen tree and fought a wave of nausea.
“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and repeated the phrase over and over again until it lost its meaning.
The mossy bark behind him felt wet and real, unlike the ephemeral quality of human life. He remembered the sudden heaviness of his mother’s callused fingers and thick hands as her life had slipped away.
He had to open his eyes before the blackness overwhelmed him.
He willed his eyes open and focused on Nan-an’s alligator-skin wallet that fluttered in a gust of wind.
Fighting the emptiness inside him and the raging storm, he crawled over to the wallet. Inside, he found the sum total of the old man’s life: a country club pass, a residential ID, a party membership card, and pictures of various grandchildren, their names inscribed on the back.
He pulled out the laminated yellow national identification card. A photograph appeared below Taiwan’s white, multi-pointed star. He stared at the politician’s fanatical eyes for a long time.
He would take over where the old man had left off.
He stood up and grabbed the radiotelephone. Damn, it was heavy. He carried it back to his car and dumped it onto the passenger seat. Then he wiped it dry against a seat cover.
At last he sat down, slammed his door shut and listened to the rain pelting his vinyl, convertible roof.
Too many thoughts and emotions were rattling around inside his head.
He buried his face in his hands. After a minute, two visions came into focus. One was t
hat of Taiwan’s General Li transferring money to the Shanghai Securities Exchange. And the second was that of an empty Legislative Yuan, the first victim of martial law.
Finally, he cleared his throat and lifted the handset. As he imagined Nan-an’s ghost sitting beside him, he flicked on the power and punched in the general’s number.
“Wei?”
“I’m sitting here beside Nan-an. He has several questions to ask you.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“With all due respect, sir, he told me to say, ‘Shut up and listen.’”
The line went quiet.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“Of course I’m here. Ask your questions.”
“Is there any way to—” What was the word in Mandarin? “Take back martial law?”
“What? The whole mechanism is set in motion.”
“With all respect, sir, did you consult the president?”
“Nan-an knows what the president would have said. Let me talk to Nan-an.”
“He is too weak.”
“Who are you? You sound foreign.”
Mick smiled. “I just returned from living in the States. Listen. He tells me that martial law is a mistake. You, uh, should have consulted the president as well.”
“Cow dung. He can’t leave me frying in the pan. He gave me specific instructions.”
“Listen, General. You’re in a lot of trouble. Think clearly for a moment. What are the steps to take it back?”
“Repeal it?”
“Yes, repeal it.”
“Nan-an knows the whole complicated process. We’d have to reconvene the Legislative Yuan. They need a two-thirds majority to approve the transfer of power. How are you going to get two-thirds of anything during a disaster like this?”
“Wait. I’ll tell Nan-an.”
He paused and rolled his eyes.
“Okay, he says, ‘Did you transfer the money to Shanghai yet?’”
“How could he think about campaign finances at a time like this? We’ve achieved our mission. We’re back in control.”
“Did you transfer the money?”
“Yes. I sent it to Ouyang this morning. Nan-an gets the interest.”
“Stop the transfer.”
“What? Let me speak to Nan-an.”
Mick rubbed the mouthpiece against his shirt. “He says, ‘Stop the transfer, you idiot.’ Sorry. That’s what he says. He thinks this is all a mistake. You acted too hastily. I suggest you listen to him, or he’ll watch you burn from across the river.”
The general didn’t respond.
“Do you hear me? He will withdraw political support.”
The general sounded uncertain. “I’ll try to get the money back.”
“And you’ll consult the president.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“General, if martial law is not repealed within two days, the deal is off.”
“Tell the old man to take care.” The general’s voice trailed off uncertainly.
Mick returned the phone to its heavy black box. What deal was off? What the hell was he talking about? And most importantly, would he repeal martial law?
By the end of the short exchange, the general had sounded suspicious that Nan-an wasn’t a party to the conversation. But the fear in his voice as he rang off indicated an equally powerful concern. Was Nan-an being held captive? Perhaps the fate of Nan-an, the general’s biggest ally, lay in the hands of the enemy.
Mick gazed at the cliff where embers from the burning car flew away in the driving wind.
Little did the general know, his enemy was death.
Mick stared out his front windshield. The fallen tree lay directly in his path.
He would have to reverse course and drive the other way around the mountains. It would be a long journey home. But he would get there.
And he would find Natalie.
Together, they would set things right.
Chapter 26
“It’s quiet,” Alec said. “It’s over.”
He climbed up the stone stairs of the indigenous Tao family shelter and stepped outside where he could finally regain his full height. The wooden aboveground portion of the underground hovel had long since blown down to the sea.
Flattened boards were all that remained of Kaiyuan Village and palm trees drooped in exhaustion. But the sky was blue. Birds warbled and dared to take flight. The sun kissed the hazy horizon and cast an orange glow on what was left of the island.
May-lin crawled through the low wooden doorframe. “It is only for a moment. It is the pupil of the storm.”
Alec spun around. No clouds on any horizon. It was incredible.
He surveyed the harbor. There was a new ship. He stumbled closer for a look. “Who’s that?”
“I do not know. Do not be going too far.”
A white luxury yacht had managed to dock during the storm.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Just give me five minutes.”
“You will not make it.”
He wouldn’t listen. He broke into a trot. His sore knees creaked with every step he took. In town, he walked from one palm tree to the next between which shops had once stood. Was he the only person left standing?
The luxury yacht was safely moored behind a manmade jetty. Whereas smaller fishing vessels had been dashed against the concrete wall, the yacht’s anchor had held it a safe distance from shore.
He passed alongside the eighty-foot cruiser and approached the stern. On the ship’s spacious aft deck, he found a powerful loading crane. Strange, a standard dingy didn’t weigh so much that it needed a crane. Then he saw a long reel of chain. It looked like the crane was designed to lift heavy loads off the ocean floor.
On its stern, he read the name Alabaster. Below that was “Hong Kong.”
He had found the white speck that followed the Dolphin. He was staring at the crane that mere hours before in the pitch black of night had planted an atomic bomb over the lava dome on the ocean ridge.
“Alec, come back,” May-lin called from a distance.
A slight breeze ruffled his sleeves. Wavelets slapped at the jetty. He no longer saw his shadow on the rocky shore. Clouds raced over the sun.
He took one last look at the Alabaster. He needed to get invited aboard. Somehow.
He trotted back toward May-lin as quickly as his injured legs could carry him.
She waved frantically from the hillside. Her long black hair flew in her face. Her knees braced together against the wind.
“You can make it,” she cried.
Fresh pellets stung his face. A gust of wind sucked the reply out of his mouth.
Soon, he couldn’t breathe.
He crouched on his hands and knees and clawed at the sharp igneous rock. Within seconds, his back was drenched. Sharp blades of grass whipped in his face.
Dizzy, he squeezed his eyes shut and moved like a robot. At last he felt the loamy soil of a sweet potato patch.
He closed his mouth so the wind couldn’t suck air out of his lungs.
May-lin dragged him by the shirt into the underground hut, where he fell onto his back in the dirt.
The impact forced him to open his mouth. He gasped as air rushed in. Humid air. Still air. He gulped down a lungful.
He was surrounded by a circle of wizened, smiling faces.
So he had brought the family a moment of levity during the long afternoon. They had seen many such storms in the course of their lives. He had not.
He would get over his embarrassment.
He got to his feet and looked out the small opening. Palm trees bent and swept the ground once more. He had nowhere to hide from the smiling family, who waited patiently for his next act. He might be their guest, but he wasn’t their entertainment.
He leaned over a burlap bed and slammed his fist into it to smooth it out.
“May-lin,” he said. “When this storm passes, I want you to introduce yourself to the crew of the Alabaster.”
&
nbsp; An exhausted Admiral Shi leaned against the cold, fire-blackened tiles of a Taipei convenience store.
In the building’s wreckage, gas hissed from a ruptured pipe. The invisible fumes mingled with particles of black smoke drifting up against the rain.
He’d better move on.
So he continued to stumble across the flat, wet city that was leveled by the earthquake and incinerated by flames.
The howling wind stirred up haunting memories of steamy crepes makers, stinky tofu stands, and high-pressure explosions from rice-popping machines that were hooked up to rusty motorcycles.
Would his country ever experience those familiar sights, sounds and fragrances again?
He heard activity around a corner and quickened his pace. Excited, he joined a confused and nervous fray on Fuhsing North Road.
Wearing their tan and yellow camouflage shirts reserved for emergencies, taxi drivers tried to organize the traffic. A crackling power line prevented north-south passage on the street, so they redirected cars down narrow alleyways.
Military instructors from high schools and universities had donned their green caps and yellow rain slickers. They rushed from building to building, trying to organize medical evacuations.
A truckload of army recruits bounced into the intersection. The young soldiers wearing red shorts and black boots looked around in bewilderment.
Under its new crisis, the island was functioning reasonably well. As a military leader, he was proud.
He circled the downed power line by backtracking and beating a path through fallen trees. Along the way, he passed a blue arm that was drained of blood and reached out from under a truck.
In the blinding rain, he heard a thud followed immediately by the tinkle of broken glass. Several hooligans stepped through the front window of a jewelry store.
He turned away. He had a more important mission.
Suddenly out of nowhere and tires squealing, three taxicabs pulled up to him from separate directions. His pulse quickened and he froze in place. As if following a script, the drivers approached him on the sidewalk.
He held up his hands. “I have no money.”