“You are a most observant guest. More than any other alien I have entertained.”
***
Dinner with Hor Chew Guat was on the second floor of an exclusive restaurant that did not have a street frontage or a big sign to lure in tourists. Hor, when he entertained someone of the baron’s status, intended to impress with exotic and extremely expensive dishes. In his late fifties, Hor and his wife, Xiu Mei, were at the restaurant before the arrival of their honored guests.
Tak, with her Western-sized breasts, red hair, and beautiful face, was the subject of envy of the Chinese who saw her as they walked in.
Baron was in his element, as usual, receiving great face as they entered, with looks of admiration for him with his escort of the best looking woman, especially with a “round-eyed” knockout.
They found Hor, and greetings and introductions were exchanged. Xiu Mei wore a yellow cheong sam with an ostentatious diamond necklace, a matching diamond bracelet, and a ring with an enormous diamond surrounded by many smaller ones.
After the introductions, in keeping with his reputation, Hor signaled the waiter and it was then obvious that he had pre-arranged the menu ahead of time with the chef for an exotic meal, as there was no ordering at the table. A waiter came with a big plate and set it in the center of the table.
To Tak’s amazement, the first dish was covered with black scorpions, each fully intact and arranged around the plate with its head pointed in and its tail curved up and forward, as though to strike. Rice was also brought, which Hor and his wife put on their plates to eat with the scorpions.
“Ah, fried scorpion,” Baron said. He took one and ate it as Tak looked on in utter amazement.
“Must I eat these insects, or draw attention by not doing so?” she quietly asked Baron, who was seated next to her.
He just looked at her and smiled.
She took one and put it on her plate to try it.
“Don’t eat the tail, as it has poison in it,” Baron said.
Her eyes wide in shock, Tak stared at him, but he said nothing more. She studied the one on her plate, trying to make sure which was the tail. By watching the others, she determined where the tail was and took a bite of the other part. Disgusting.
The next plate was filled with light-brown objects the size of kidney beans, and each had a small black spot. Fifteen hundred or so filled the plate.
Tak looked to Baron, as she was now used to doing, for an explanation. Baron waited for their host to present the dish.
Hor spoke in English for Tak’s benefit. “These are miniature clams. Each was shelled and cleaned by hand. It’s done by women along the coast on the mainland. They are called hin.”
“This is nice,” Tak said, a relief after the scorpion.
The waiter then brought out a tureen of soup and opened the silver lid.
Tak’s eyes opened wide. Inside was a huge animal hoof.
“This is camel’s hoof soup,” Hor said. He then, with gusto, put some broth in Tak’s dish and then the others.
Tak was bewildered. “Do we eat that thing?’
“No, just the broth,” Baron whispered.
After the others, she sipped a tiny bit of the broth. It was not as bad as it looked.
Then came two plates of cooked vegetables, both of which Tak tried and found to be quite delicious. But then came another “spécialité” dish. The waiter put down a plate with a huge, black paw on it, surrounded by vegetables. Tak turned to Baron in despair after looking at what was clearly a hand cut off of some animal resembling a human, except that it was larger, black, and had claws.
“This is bear paw,” Baron told Tak quietly. “A bear is a large animal with fur that lives in the northern territories.”
Hor gestured to the dish, for which he would pay quite dearly. “Yes, these are poached in North America and smuggled over.”
Tak stared at Baron in disbelief that he expected her to sample something that resembled a hand of a human and was so like cannibalism.
He leaned over to her and said quietly, “It’s illegal to kill bears for food, so it is considered very rare to have the dish.”
To fit in and be polite, she took a small bit of the revolting-looking dish when it was passed to her. The taste, she found, was somewhat disguised in the vegetables surrounding it and not altogether bad.
Then the final dish came, a huge, hand-made clay pot on a silver tray. The clay pot was completely enclosed, including the top, and a foot and a half high, narrowing to a point near the top. The waiter broke the clay top free from the bottom, by hitting it with a large knife several times, and then lifted off the top in one piece, revealing the contents.
Oh no! To her amazement, inside was an entire, roasted, small animal, upright, with its arms and legs wrapped around a natural stick, poking up from the bottom of the pot, as though to be in its natural environment. It had tiny finger-like digits and big, sympathetic eyes that were cooked in the open position.
Hor proudly pronounced. “Clay pot surprise! Roasted lemur!”
Xiu Mei’s eyes opened wide. She grinned widely in excitement and began to clap her hands in great delight at the marvelous treat.
Tak fought to keep from throwing up. Just ahead of her was the dead, furry creature with its big eyes open as though looking at her, its hands and feet with fingers holding onto the stick, and steam coming off of it from being roasted.
Baron laughed aloud.
She then realized that he was once again amusing himself at her expense. She sighed, wondering, how she could avoid having to try a piece of the poor little creature. When she got the opportunity, and their hosts were not listening, she said softly to Baron, “Is there nothing about this planet that is not barbaric?”
He smiled. “Only you.”
CHAPTER 22
Lhasa was easy. The government capital, the largest city, and the center for trade and commerce, it contained the most concentrated population of Han Chinese in Tibet. Two large military bases kept soldiers to squelch demonstrations which the Tibetans liked to have on their religious holidays. Nikolay and the tour group split up into two groups, each going to one base. The photo sessions with the passing of coins and cigarettes worked easily on soldiers who were on their way in to the military bases. The two groups then went to different shopping areas, where food was being sold, and transferred the virus from their wet hands to the food, passed wet money to pay for goods, and gave away cigarettes to many Chinese shop owners.
A few of the bolder Russians offered some Chinese a drink from their portable water container and were able to get them to actually squirt the Ebola right into their mouths. Several mail carriers were seen and stopped for pictures, lured by a free cigarette, the idea being that a mail carrier might infect hundreds on his route for several days before he became too sick to work, not to mention infecting other mail carriers back at the post office where he would return at the end of the day. Those postal carriers would, in turn, infect hundreds more on their routes. Police were also thought to be good targets, but tended to be a little more reluctant to be photographed. They all readily accepted the free cigarettes, however as they couldn’t resist an expensive Western cigarette.
The tour bus driver took them as part of the tour to Potala Palace, a thirteen story building with a thousand rooms, and the Jokhnag, the most important Buddhist temple. Both of the sites had a great many Chinese-owned shops, were wonderful places to infect. The Drepung Monastery, built in 1416, named for a pile of rice, was another major tourist attraction, and similarly surrounded by many Chinese merchants, excellent for infecting large numbers with Ebola.
After three days in Lhasa, by pre-arrangement, the group split into two, with nine driving by private tour bus to the second largest city, Xigatze (Shigatse). Two-hundred-twenty-five kilometers west of Lhasa, Xigatze was also an important trade and commercial center and, as such, was chock full of Chinese just ready to be infected. A large military base and a downtown concentrated with Chinese busines
ses made it a cinch to ensure massive infection. Their group was scheduled to spend four days there, as it was nearly as large as Lhasa, and the group had been cut in size to less than half. There were government buildings, markets, military, police, and many merchants that were easy to infect in very little time, even though only there were only nine operatives in the group. The tour bus driver then took them to the Tashilhunpo Monastery, around which there was a huge number of Chinese shops owners, merchants, and customers, all easily infected.
In Xigatze, one of the Russian women, Marina, decided to get bold. She went up to a Chinese on the street and started talking to him in Russian. When he could not understand, Marina, a light-haired, good-looking Russian woman with big breasts, started flirting with him and pretended to show him how to pronounce her name by touching his lips as though to teach him how to hold them. In doing so, she put Ebola right on his lips. That she was a woman and an attractive, light-haired foreigner made the gesture non-threatening and fun for the unknowing man. He was done in, for sure.
Another Russian woman, Tatyana, picked up on it and the two of them started trying to outdo each other on how bold they could be, something that worked very effectively and, at the same time, added a little sport to the task. Tatyana went so far to outdo her friend that she put some of the fluid on her lips and kissed a soldier for a picture that Marina pretended to take.
Another one of the group, Sevastiyanov, was at a market where chilled beer was sold. Outside the market were two soldiers, standing on the street. He purchased a bottle of the beer inside the store and opened the top. He then squirted in a few drops of the Ebola and took it outside. He went up to the soldiers and smiled at them, showing his camera. They agreed to allow the photograph, which Sevastiyanov took. He then held up the beer, offering it to them as a gift. One of them took it and the two turned and went off to drink it out of sight of the crowded street. Sevastiyanov watched as they went alongside a building and drank from it, sharing the bottle. Perfect, Sevastiyanov thought. They would go back to their base and multiply the effect.
Their group then took the tour bus south to Sakya, then east to Gyantse. Gyantse, the City of Heroes, so-called for its resistance to British invaders in 1903, was known for carpet production.
It was the Tibetans who made the carpets. But it was the Chinese merchants who had set up many shops to sell those carpets and other Tibetan goods to the tourists. The shopping areas attracted many Chinese. This large concentration of Chinese was excellent area for Yageltchuk and Opanasenko’s group of to infect the Chinese in large numbers.
Their group then headed back to Lhasa, stopping along the way to infect Chinese merchants and customers at several roadside stops.
***
Nikolay, Timoshenko, and Zuhk took the other group of twelve, by plane, east to Chamdo, the only other city with a major airport. After two days there, that group split into two groups of six, with Nikolay leading one to the north by tour minibus to Jukundo, then southeast to Derge, then east to Kandze, and farther east to Sungpar, stopping at each for a full day. The group then returned to Chamdo.
Timoshendo and Zuhk took their group, by hired bus, southeast to Dartsedo, then west to Litang, then Batang, and back to Chamdo where they were reunited with Nikolay and his group.
Along the way, the groups stopped wherever there were Chinese travelers and Chinese-owned rest areas where they could infect others. At the airport of Chamdo, they did their best to infect as many personnel and military guards as they could, becoming much bolder at it as the end of the trip drew near.
The group arrived in Lhasa in the evening, and everyone had most of the next day to see more of the city before their return flight the next evening.
The only report that anyone heard about any illness, while the group was still in the country, was the night before they left. In their hotel rooms, watching a newscast from a European television station, they heard reports stating that a large-scale epidemic had affected many in the Tibetan region of China, but no details were said to be known.
At the Gonga airport, Nikolay looked around for a newspaper either in Russian or in English but could not find one. Once on the plane, however, there were Russian newspapers, and he was able to read a report that some unknown disease was wide spread throughout the Tibetan region of China, infecting thousands, and that a few deaths had occurred. It said that the government was doing what it could to find out what it was.
Nikolay turned to one of his group sitting next to him, and handed him the paper. “Perfect!”
CHAPTER 23
In Taipei, Baron had a scheduled meeting with military personnel in a test area for a demonstration of a weapons system he was selling. He wanted Tak to join in, keeping with his promise to include her as he was her Earth guide.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to military trials in the south, as I’ll be supervising a demonstration of military equipment that the Taiwan government will buy from me.”
“I’ll be interested to see that and learn about the nature of the weapons you are selling,” she assured him.
The next day, the hot, summer sun baked Baron and Tak as they stood in a narrow field owned by the government, in the south of Taiwan, surrounded by private pineapple orchards, including some in between them and the target area. Demonstrations by several contestants had been set up with the contestants vying to win the lucrative government contract.
Tak wore her regular outfit, but Baron wore an outfit of brand new camouflage fatigues, combat boots, and a camouflage hat, as though he was at the front of a real war. He wore a gun belt, with a stainless-steel Sig .45 pistol and two extra clips
The outfit and gun were just for show, to make it look like he was one of the military. The outfit was so new it looked a bit conspicuous--like a dressed up soldier.
Baron’s suppliers, with their various experts, were there, demonstrating the gun turret they wished to have mounted on a number of Taiwanese M113 personnel carriers for the Taiwan army. Those owned by Taiwan had no weapons, and were used as armor-plated personnel and equipment carriers, the idea being to move soldiers, supplies, and small weapons and ammo safely to the site where the Mainland Chinese might one day land to take over Taiwan, which China had often promised to do.
One of the guns had been affixed to the turret on a M113 for the demonstration. The other participants in the trials had already demonstrated their equipment over the past three days.
There were a number of observers. General Hisa was there and was in charge. There were a half dozen junior officers, another dozen enlisted men, two Taiwan officials, and several persons from the French gun manufacturer, as well as from the subcontractors who made the gun mount and targeting system. They were putting on the demonstration and would be expected to fix any problems that might arise.
A target had been set up down range by the army so that a designated Taiwanese officer could shoot the weapon. The man at the trigger was one of General Hisa’s junior officers, a nephew of Hisa’s. Unfortunately, he was not versed in the intricacies of the new gun, which had a complicated, computerized system to account for the speed and movement of the vehicle that it was mounted to, as well as the heat of the barrel, wind, range, type and weight of the ammo, and a few other factors. This data was all fed into the controlling the computer which would, or at least was supposed to, allow the operators of the M113, with the turret attached, to shoot and hit a target while the M113 was charging forward into harm’s way.
But General Hisa had decided it did not matter much what the results were as the bribe was so large that he was going to buy the baron’s system, whether it surpassed the others or not. Therefore, he decided to have his young nephew gain face by having the distinction of firing the first round of the test rather than the European expert who had come to Taiwan just for that purpose and who understood the weapon perfectly.
When everything appeared to be ready, he gave the command to his nephew, “Fire!” as though in a real war.
/> His nephew, Captain Fei, was not an accomplished marksman with such a device, nor, in reality, with any gun at all or, for that matter, accomplished at anything and had no idea how to program the necessary details needed to hit the target. Instead, he just looked down the barrel and gave it his best guess, notwithstanding the million dollar system behind it, which he had no clue how to use, and activated the trigger.
KA BOOM! It struck with its explosive round well short of the target, landing in the pineapple field that was in between the gun and the target. A blast of dirt shot into the air, followed by an ominous trail of black smoke.
The foreign crew took the lad’s incompetence in stride and prepared for another shot. Down range the smoke was growing rapidly.
“General, it would be a good idea to get the fire brigade down there,” Baron said to Hisa. “I think we have set fire to that farmer’s pineapple field.
Not wanting to embarrass himself by calling the fire brigade if he did not need it, Hisa commanded, “Get fire extinguishers down there at once!”
The enlisted military personnel ran toward the smoke with the small fire extinguishers from their vehicles that were entirely inadequate to put out the rapidly growing fire in the middle of the pineapple field, the owner of which looked on in desperation and bewilderment.
Soon flames could be seen rising up high through the bellowing smoke, and it was clear to all that a substantial fire was in the making. Soon enormous flames rose out of the smoke, blasting up to the sky. Baron realized that it was time to do something more effective or there would be a huge fire and possibly bad news in the press about the incident, all of which would draw unneeded attention to the contract with General Hisa that was already agreed would be awarded. Baron sprang to his feet, taking over leadership of the situation, as it appeared that General Hisa was not going to do it, or at least not fast enough. The flames were now eighty feet high, very wide, growing fast, and the winds were spreading the fire rapidly.
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