"Do I have your word on that, Mr. President?" asked Qin Shang, his aggressiveness pulling a negative expression from Chief of Staff Laird.
"You can tell Premier Wu Kwong that he has my personal assurance."
Laird marveled at the conciliatory atmosphere in the room between the shipping tycoon and the President when the air should have crackled with antagonism.
"The other matter of concern is the harassment by your Coast Guard and immigration agents of my ships. Search boardings have become more numerous and extensive in the past months, and shipping-schedule delays have proved very costly."
"I understand your concern, Qin Shang," said Wallace flatly. "At last count by the INS there were six million people living illegally in the United States. A good percentage of them, so the Immigration and Naturalization Service claims, were smuggled into the country in your ships, and the fiasco at Orion Lake was not an easy event to conceal. By rights I should have you arrested as you stand in my office and indicted for mass murder."
There was no display of indignation from Qin Shang. He stared at the most powerful man in the world without blinking. "Yes, under your laws you have every right to do so. But then you run the risk of much delicate information being leaked to the American public about your secret dealings with Qin Shang Maritime and the People's Republic of China."
"Are you threatening blackmail against the President of the United States?" Wallace demanded, suddenly disturbed.
"Please forgive me," Qin Shang acquiesced quickly. "I merely wished to remind the President of possible contingencies."
"I will not condone mass murder."
"An unfortunate event caused by criminal syndicates in your own country," Qin Shang countered.
"Not in the report I read."
"You have my solemn oath there will be no repetition of Orion Lake."
"In return, you want your ships left alone. Is that it?"
Qin Shang nodded. "I would be most grateful."
Wallace looked at Laird. "Inform Admiral Ferguson and Duncan Monroe that I wish the Coast Guard and INS to treat the inspection of Qin Shang Maritime ships entering our waters with the same courtesy offered to any other foreign shipping company."
Laird's brow was furrowed in disbelief. He sat quietly and did not immediately acknowledge the presidential order.
"Thank you, Mr. President," said Qin Shang courteously. "I speak for my board of directors when I say we are very honored by your friendship."
"You're not off the hook that easily, Qin Shang," said Wallace. "
lease pass on my concern to Premier Wu Kwong regarding the continued use of slave labor to manufacture your trade goods. If we are to maintain close ties, his government must accept the use of decently paid workers in its manufacturing facilities and reject violation of human rights. Otherwise, I will cut off our export of phosphatic fertilizers to China."
Morton Laird smiled inwardly. At last the President struck a chord. Phosphatic fertilizers exceeded one billion dollars in sales by a chemical company in Texas that was a subsidiary of the vast global chemical corporation in Jiangsu Province with headquarters in Shanghai. Without threatening trade sanctions against Chinese exported cotton goods, shoes, toys, radios, television sets and related items that totaled over fifty billion dollars a year, Wallace had zeroed in on the most essential commodity of all.
Qin Shang's green eyes briefly flashed with uneasiness. "I will relate your counsel to Premier Wu Kwong."
Wallace stood, signaling an end to the discussion.
"Thank you, Mr. President. It was a privilege to meet with you again."
"I'll accompany you to the reception room," said Laird graciously, while diplomatically concealing his contempt for the financial criminal.
A few minutes later Laird returned to the Oval Office. Wallace did not look up as he signed a stack of bills sent over from Congress. "Well, Morton, it was obvious by the sour apple look on your face that you're not happy with my performance."
"No, sir, I am not. I am appalled that you even talk to that murderer."
"He's not the first ghoul from hell who has walked in this office since it was built. If not for Qin Shang and his influence with the Chinese government, I might not be sitting where I am."
"You are being conned, sir. Conned by Qin Shang and his government up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the interest of political expediency, Mr. President, you've dug yourself a grave too deep to climb out of."
"We're dealing with a country that has one-point-four billion people," Wallace persisted. "This presents an incredible opportunity to sell billions of dollars' worth of American goods. Whatever sin I've committed was in the interest of the country."
"There is no justification to stand by while the Chinese rip off the American public," said Laird earnestly. "The last combined CIA-FBI counterintelligence report named over a hundred Chinese agents who have penetrated every level of our government from NASA to the Pentagon. Several have achieved high-level staff jobs in the Congress and the Commerce and Interior departments."
"Come now, Morton. I browsed the report. I failed to see a critical threat to our security. China no longer harbors a fanatical desire to steal our nuclear technology and military secrets."
"Why should they?" Laird's voice was hard and low. "Their priority is now political and economic espionage. Besides obtaining our business and technology secrets, they're working every minute of the day to influence our trade policy as it relates to their economic expansion. They've already passed Japan as the trading partner with whom we have the greatest deficit. Economic forecasts put their economy ahead of ours before your term of office expires."
"So what? Even if China does pass us in the gross size of its economy, her people will still only have a per-capita income one quarter of the average American."
"I respectfully say to you, Mr. President, wake up and smell the coffee. Their forty-five-billion-dollar balance-of-trade surplus is poured back into building their military and worldwide criminal smuggling activities, all the while enhancing their mushrooming economic power."
"You've taken a pretty tough stand against me, Morton," said Wallace coldly. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"Yes, sir," said Morton inflexibly, "I do, because I honestly believe you have sold out the country for your own personal political gain. You are well aware how strongly I disagreed when you extended most-favored-nation trade status and at the same time said your decision was no longer contingent on progress in human rights."
"My only concern was for American jobs." Wallace was standing behind his desk now, his face turning red with anger.
"If that's the case, how do you explain the fact that in the last fifteen years a total of eight hundred thousand American workers have lost their jobs to cheap Chinese labor, much of it slave labor?"
"Do not push too far, Morton," Wallace snarled through clenched jaws. "I have done nothing that will not pay dividends for the American public."
Laird crossed a hand wearily over his eyes. "I've known you too many years not to know when you're distorting the truth."
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"That and more, sir. I'm calling you a traitor. And to back up my sentiments, you'll have my resignation as chief of staff on your desk within the hour. I don't want to be around when the chickens come home to roost."
With that, Morton Laird walked out of the Oval Office for the last time. Fully enlightened as to his former friend's vindictiveness, he and his wife soon dropped out of public view and moved to an island off the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, where he began to write the memoirs of his life and times in Washington with great insight into his long association with President Dean Cooper Wallace.
Su Zhong, Qin Shang's personal secretary, was sitting at a desk inside his large armored bus, which he entered after concluding his meeting with the President. As soon as he settled into a leather chair behind a desk covered with a battery of telephones and computer systems, she handed him several m
essages that had arrived by fax and satellite phone. Qin Shang had developed a code to frustrate any agents, government or commercial, who attempted to eavesdrop on his personal business. He ran the messages through a scanner that instantly translated them.
"Any word yet from Zhu Kwan?"
Su Zhong recited a synopsis of the reports as her boss scanned the translations. "Only that he is attempting to track down the location where it was rumored the Princess Dou Wan sank. He claims the pieces do not fit together as constructed."
"If anyone can find the whereabouts of the ship, Zhu Kwan can," Qin Shang said confidently. "What else do you have?"
"The purchase of four Russian oil tankers has been concluded. Our company crews are in flight to Sevastopol to take command of the ships. They are scheduled to reach your yard in Hong Kong for refitting by the middle of next month."
"Progress on the new cruise ship?"
"The Evening Star?" said Su Zhong. "Four months from completion. Our promotion department has produced preliminary art for her introduction as the largest and most luxurious cruise ship in the world."
"And the United States. What is the latest on her status?"
"She has entered the Head of Passes at the mouth of the Mississippi River and is in transit to New Orleans. That part of your operation is going as planned."
"Anything else I should know about?" asked Qin Shang warily. "Any incidents at Sungari, perhaps?"
Su Zhong shook her head. "Not Sungari."
He could tell from the way she avoided his eyes the news was bad. "What is the story?"
"Federal agents have raided and closed down the staging depot at Bartholomeaux, Louisiana. Three hundred and forty-two immigrants were apprehended."
"Our people?"
"Ki Wong is dead. Jack Loo of the Dragon Triad is dead. His assistant, May Ching, is in the custody of INS agents."
Qin Shang merely shrugged. "No great loss, any of them. Jack Loo was only one cog in the American-Chinese syndicate. His death and the raid, no doubt brought about by his lax security and stupidity, offers me an excellent opportunity to renegotiate my agreement with the Dragon Triad."
"A more profitable agreement in your favor, of course," said Su Zhong.
"Of course," Qin Shang said, smiling. "I would have ordered Bartholomeaux closed down in thirty-six hours anyway, once I realized my goal of making Sungari the premier shipping port on the Gulf."
"The last report will not be to your liking," Su Zhong murmured reluctantly.
"No review?"
"Perhaps you should absorb it with your own eyes, Qin Shang." She nodded at the message containing a report detailing the destruction of the security post on the Mystic Canal.
As Qin Shang scanned the report his eyes shifted from somber to wrathful, especially when he reached the message from Pitt. "So Mr. Pitt wonders if I still stoop to pick up bananas. He seems to take great delight in taunting me."
"The accursed devil should have his tongue torn out," Su Zhong said loyally.
"I have had many enemies in my time," Qin Shang said quietly. "Most were business competitors. But none were as challenging as Pitt. I must say, I relish his pathetic attempts at sarcastic wit. A worthy opponent?" Qin Shang shook his head wearily. "Not really. But an opponent to be savored, not like fine caviar, but more like an American hamburger-coarse, common and primitive."
"If he but knew where to look he would be able to view the pitiful remains of those who wished you ill and tried to obstruct your ambitions."
"Pitt will be eliminated," Qin Shang said in a cold voice. "So far he has merely thwarted a pair of minor projects that can be easily restored. My only concern with him now is why is he in Louisiana when my sources here in Washington informed me that NUMA was taken off all investigations involving immigrant smuggling? His dogged persistence in annoying me is a mystery."
"A misguided vendetta against you, perhaps?"
"Pitt is what the Americans call a righteous do-gooder," said Qin Shang with a rare flash of humor. "And therein lies his flaw. When he makes a mistake, as he surely will, his demise will come because he took a moral road. He has never learned that money and power, when arranged in appropriate designs, cannot lose." He paused to pat her on the knee. "Do not trouble yourself over Dirk Pitt, my little songbird. He will die very soon."
PART IVOLD MAN RIVER
39
April 29, 2000 The Lower Mississippi River
TWENTY MILES SOUTH of the Head of Passes, that part of the lower Mississippi that branches into three major channels leading into the Gulf of Mexico, two large helicopters took turns dropping onto the open stern deck of the United States and discharging their cargo of men and equipment. Then they lifted into the air again and flew west toward the port of Sungari. The operation lasted little more than fifteen minutes while the ship continued moving at a speed of twenty-five knots, as dictated by her automated control systems.
A tight unit of heavily armed men from Qin Shang's private security forces, led by a former colonel from the Chinese People's Liberation Army, dressed in work clothes usually worn by the men who worked the river, and carrying automatic weapons and portable missile launchers, dispersed throughout the decks as maritime crewmen went to the engine room and wheelhouse, where they took manual command of the ship's systems. Before reaching the Southwest Pass, the channel most often used by oceangoing vessels entering the river, the great liner slowed as it was met by the boat carrying the pilot who would navigate the ship upriver to New Orleans.
The pilot was a heavy man with a beer belly. He was sweating heavily and dabbing a red bandanna across his balding head after climbing the rope ladder when he stepped into the wheelhouse. He gave a wave and walked up to Captain Li Hung-chang, who until two days before had commanded the Sung Lien Star.
"Howdy, Captain, Sam Boone. I got lucky and won a lottery of river pilots for the honor of taking this here monstrosity up to New Orleans," he proclaimed, pronouncing Orleans as Auwlans.
"That won't be necessary," said Hung-chang without bothering to introduce himself. He pointed toward the short Chinese man standing at the helm who was the rudder master. "My first officer will do the job."
Boone looked at Hung-chang queerly. "You're funnin' me, right?"
"No," answered Hung-chang. "We are quite capable of running the ship to our destination under our own command." He nodded at two guards who were nearby. They took Boone by the arms and began leading him away.
"Now wait just a damned minute," snorted Boone, fighting off the guards. "You're violating maritime law. You're headin' for a calamity if you're dumb enough to try navigatin' it yourself. You don't know the river like an experienced pilot. We have rigorous standards. I've been taking ships up and down the delta for twenty-five years. It might look easy to you, but believe you me, it ain't."
Hung-chang nodded at the guards. "Lock him up. Knock him unconscious if you have to."
"You're crazy!" Boone shouted over his shoulder as he was dragged away. "You'll run her aground sure as hell!"
"Is he right, Ming Lin?" Hung-chang asked the rudder master. "Will you run us aground?"
Lin turned and smiled a narrow smile. "I've taken this ship upriver over two hundred times in computer-generated virtual reality in three dimensions."
"Have you ever run aground?" Hung-chang persisted.
"Twice," replied Ming Lin without taking his eyes off the river channel. "The first two times I tried it, but never after."
Hung-chang's dark amber eyes gleamed. "
lease keep your speed within the limit. We can allow curiosity, but we cannot afford to arouse suspicion, not for the next several hours."
Hung-chang was chosen by Qin Shang's personal orders to captain the United States upriver to New Orleans. Not only did Qin Shang trust him explicitly, but his decision was also based on expediency. Having a captain at the helm who was experienced in ocean liners was not a necessity. By selecting a ship's captain and his crew who were already in America and within a
short helicopter flight of the approaching liner, Qin Shang saved time and the expense of sending a crew from Hong Kong. His ulterior motive was that he did not believe more experienced cruise-ship chief officers were as expendable as the captain and crew of the Sung Lien Star.
Hung-chang's duties consisted of little more than greeting the customs inspectors and immigration officials and acting the conquering hero to the crowds of people lining the riverbanks. His true function was mostly for ornamentation. Besides twenty heavily armed security men on Qin Shang's payroll, his crew of fifteen was primarily made up of demolition experts mixed in with a few engineers to stand by in case there was a call for emergency repairs if the ship was attacked.
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