Hong Kong

by Stephen Coonts

  Ma Chao did not answer. He thought about the question but refused to state a mere opinion.

  “When the revolution begins,” Wu said, “you will have to weigh the situation and make the best decision you can, then go forward confidently, aggressively, believing in yourself. There will be no one to give you orders. You must decide for yourself what needs to be done, then do it. What we require of you is the courage to believe in yourself.”

  Ma Chow thought about that courage now as he sat in the ready room waiting for the earth to turn.

  Governor Sun’s secretary found that his boss was tied up with an engineer who was trying to explain the difficulty with the subway doors. “The problem is in the computer,” the engineer explained.

  “The computer opens and closes train doors?”

  “Yes,” the engineer said, pleased that Sun was with him so far. “Something has gone wrong with the software. We must find the problem before we can fix it.”

  “I thought you said the problem was power fluctuations?”

  “Power fluxes caused the problem with the software.”

  The secretary went back to the New China News Agency man he had on hold. “The governor is busy. Why don’t you tell me the message? I’ll write it down and give it to him when he has a moment.”

  “This is very important,” the censor said. “The message is too important and too long to be written down.”

  The secretary rolled his eyes. “I’ll have the governor call you. How is that?”

  “I will await his call.” The censor dictated the telephone number at the radio station, then hung up.

  The secretary threw the call-back slip into the governor’s in-basket.

  The soldiers on duty at the Victoria end of the Cross-Harbor Tunnel heard echoes through the tunnel of the small battle in Kowloon. They also saw General Tang’s helicopter crash and assumed, correctly, that it had been shot down.

  They waited in nervous dread for what might come next. There were only a dozen of them, a small squad, manning a police barricade in front of the tunnel entrance. They were young, the oldest a mere twenty-four, from rural villages far to the north. They had joined the army to escape the drudgery of the rice fields. Only four of them could read the most basic of the Chinese ideographs.

  They were armed with old Kalashnikov assault rifles and one machine gun. When they heard the clanking of the bulldozer coming through the tunnel, they assumed it was the tank that they knew had been positioned at the Kowloon end.

  Relieved, they relaxed and the sergeant in charge walked down the tunnel to meet the tank coming the other way. He went about fifty yards and waited.

  When he realized he was looking at a bulldozer, and behind it trucks, the sergeant knew something was happening that no one had told him about. He turned and scampered back up the tunnel, shouting to his men.

  Unsure of what to do, the men waited for direction.

  The uncertainty ended as the bulldozer emerged from the tunnel. Two men atop the dozer opened fire on the soldiers standing about.

  The other soldiers might have killed these two men and some of the men following the dozer on foot if they had been given a chance, but they weren’t. A machine gun atop a nearby building swept the tunnel entranceway with a long burst, sending the bullets back and forth, knocking the standing soldiers down like bowling pins.

  The three-second burst was enough. Men emerging from the tunnel shot the survivors as the bulldozer rolled over two bodies. The trucks turned into the crowded streets and stopped. Men inside the truck beds began passing out assault rifles and ammunition to the crowd of young men and women who had been lounging there.

  At the biggest television station in Hong Kong the atmosphere was strictly business as usual when Wei Luk and three other rebels walked in. There were no guards in the lobby, armed or unarmed, and no guards in the reception area; just two potted palms and large photos of the station’s news stars. One of the stars was a man named Peter Po, who, like Wei Luk and his friends, had bet his life that communism could be successfully overthrown.

  Wei Luk glanced at the smiling picture of Peter Po and then stepped over to the receptionist, a beautifully made-up young woman with an expensive coiffure and long, painted nails. She gave Wei and his friends a dazzlingly professional smile.

  Their pistols were in their pockets, so they looked presentable enough. Wei Luk smiled, told the girl that he had an appointment with Peter Po.

  “And these other gentlemen?”

  “Them too.”

  She picked up the phone, pushed a button, waited a bit, then asked his name. He gave it.

  “At the end of the hallway take a right,” she told him after she had talked to Mr. Po, “then it’s the third door on the left.”

  The girl pointed toward a green steel door with a small window. She unlocked it with a hidden button as Wei Luk pushed.

  Po welcomed them into his office. He was wearing the television uniform, a suit and tie.

  “I thought there was a guard,” Wei Luk said.

  Peter Po nodded. “I told him today would be a good day to stay home sick, and he agreed.”

  “Okay.”

  Peter Po looked at his watch. “When do you think?”

  “I don’t know. When the truck delivers weapons and more men, then and only then.”

  Fortunately Governor Sun had not yet realized that the rebellion had begun, so no one at City Hall had sent police or troops to secure the one operating television station or shut it down. A rebel broadcast would cause them to cure this error as quickly as possible, however. Until an armed force could be resisted, the rebels thought it wise to hold their tongue.

  Yet the rebels were now inside and the police and army were out. Peter Po had a script and knew how to run the equipment in the building so that the rebel leadership could talk to the people of Hong Kong.

  Wei Luk’s orders were to ensure that the police and soldiers stayed out of the building, to the last man. “Fight until there are no bricks left stuck together,” Wu Tai Kwong had told him.

  “Take your places,” Wei told his men now. He directed one of the men to go back to the lobby and sit with the receptionist.

  “Let no one else through the door. Call when the truck arrives.”

  The crowd in the Central District of Victoria chanted antigovernment slogans, sang snatches of songs, surged along the streets carrying everyone with them, a giant human river.

  The crowd came to a stop against the ring of PLA troops that surrounded the Bank of the Orient square. There were five hundred soldiers in the streets around the plaza, all armed with assault rifles and wearing riot-control shields and face masks. The trucks that had delivered them there were parked on the streets inside the military perimeter.

  At the four corners of the plaza the officer in charge, Tang’s number two, Brigadier General Moon Hok, had ordered machine guns placed in nests built of sandbags. In the center of the plaza he had placed two tanks. Between them sat a command car bristling with radio aerials.

  General Moon was in the command car when he learned that General Tang might have crashed. While the PLA was attempting to verify why their helicopter had ceased all transmissions, Moon got out of the vehicle and stood looking at the sea of soldiers in the square and the huge buildings that surrounded it.

  From a military point of view, the position was not a good one. The buildings were man-made high points that would afford an enemy excellent positions from which to shoot down into the square, creating a killing zone.

  He called a colonel over, told him to assign squads to search each of the buildings adjoining the square. The colonel walked away to make it happen.

  As Moon Hok listened to the noise of the boisterous crowd echoing through the urban canyons and the radio noise emanating from the command car, he decided to use his troops to push the crowd back one block in all directions, thereby putting the buildings that faced the square within his perimeter. Tang had told him to bring no more than five
hundred men this morning because the square wouldn’t physically hold any more; now he was contemplating holding nine blocks with the same five hundred men. They would be thin, very thin.

  What if the crowd rioted, got completely out of control?

  Could Tang be dead?

  The noise of the crowd made the hair on the back of Moon Hok’s neck rise.

  He got on the radio and called for another five hundred men to join him. It would be hours before they arrived from Kowloon, but better late than never.

  When Virgil Cole designed the Sergeant York units, he realized that the volume of data flowing from the sensors would require that each unit be individually monitored. Since a network was only as good as the data its sensors fed into it, he didn’t trust a computer to make life-or-death decisions. The U.S. Army planners didn’t want people completely removed from the loop, either. Consequently, part of the York system was a mobile command and control trailer where the people who monitored each unit sat at individual stations. Here a mainframe computer checked the sensor data and suggested possible courses of action to the human operators.

  The trailer had also been on the C-5 Galaxy that delivered the York units and was now parked in an alley three blocks from the Bank of the Orient. Despite the fact that power cables led to it from mobile power units parked nearby, the trailer was gaily painted with surprisingly good graphic art. A sign on the side proclaimed the trailer to be a mobile museum exhibiting the latest in computer technology, sponsored by a well-known philanthropic organization dedicated to the education of the world’s children.

  Cole had huddled with the Scarlet Team members this morning, telling them what he knew of other team efforts throughout China. He repeated the litany of woes that the minister in Beijing had recited to Governor Sun, ticking them off on his fingers. “The government is inundated with troubles this morning,” he said in summation. “The population is getting out of control in most of the major Chinese cities. Beijing is beginning to suspect that revolution is in the wind. When the people see how fragile the government’s control is, the rebellion will spread.”

  “Wu Tai Kwong has done his work well,” someone commented.

  “We must do ours equally well,” Cole shot back and went to check the sensor data feeds from each York unit. Six monitors were arranged in a row, all six labeled from left to right: Alvin, Bob, Charlie …

  Kerry Kent stood beside him, comparing her handheld tactical controller with the main monitor.

  Satisfied, she stood back, took a deep breath.

  “Worried?” Cole asked.

  “Only about Wu,” she replied. “This will go fine. You’ll see. You built good stuff.”

  Cole waved the compliment away. “I won’t authorize a transfer of money to Wong’s account until Jake Grafton sees Wu and Callie Grafton in the flesh and calls me—they leave together when the Swiss have got the loot.”

  “Does Wong know that?”

  “I told him when he called earlier. The bastard threatened to hack off more fingers, but we have no choice. We must be tough, insist on fair dealing, or the son of a bitch will take the money and kill them, sure as shootin’.”

  Kerry Kent took a deep breath. “When?”

  “Tomorrow night is the earliest I could set up the wire transfer. We have to do it while the Swiss bank is open; they don’t stay late for anybody.”

  The two-way radio had been busy all morning. Now the man monitoring it signaled to Cole. “The convoy has cleared the harbor tunnel.”

  “Cleared the tunnel, aye,” Cole acknowledged.

  He keyed the intercom mike on his headset. “The convoy has cleared the harbor tunnel. All units check in.”

  The operator at each monitor sang out, “Alvin ready,” “Bob ready,” and so on, in order.

  Kerry Kent took control. “We are ready, Mr. Cole.”

  Since Kerry Kent was going to be fighting a revolution this morning and her boyfriend was a guest of Sonny Wong’s, this should be a good time to search Kent’s apartment, Tommy Carmellini thought. He used the stairs for this visit—the elevator was out of service—and picked the lock to get in.

  He checked the small bathroom and closet to ensure that he was the only person there, then strolled slowly through the place taking inventory.

  He had no idea what he was looking for. Kerry Kent, SIS double agent, revolutionary, anti-Communist warrior … maybe she had Mao’s little red book under her pillow. He picked up the pillow and looked.

  Well, no book, but a businesslike little automatic. He picked it up, checked the caliber. .380. She didn’t use this on China Bob Chan.

  The bed was as good a place as any to start. He put the pistol on the dresser, began stripping sheets. He examined the mattress inch by inch to see if it had a compartment for documents or the like. Apparently not. Nothing under the mattress, in the box springs, in the frame of the bed.

  He piled the mess in the center of the bed and worked around it. Kerry’s dresser was next.

  The sea breeze and swells running in the strait this morning distracted Jake Grafton for a moment and made him smile. The salty wind cooled the perspiration on his forehead and filled his nostrils with the pungent scent of the Pearl River, flowing from deep in China. The pitching, bucking little tour boat was a handful and forced him to think about how he was going to bring the boat into the pier on Hong Kong Island.

  Just which pier he should use was a problem. Who were the men on the sidewalk? Who hired them? Whom did the man call on the cell phone? They were undoubtedly watching him now, waiting to see where he landed.

  He wanted to go back to the consulate, avoid the disaster that was about to happen in the Central District. When the shooting started the crowd might stampede, killing hundreds of people, perhaps thousands. Cole, you damned fool, getting smack in the middle of someone else’s war!

  The engine of the tour boat hummed sweetly. That was a lucky break. Thinking about possible observers, Jake took the boat in close to the shore and turned east. He motored along for five minutes before he found what he wanted, a low pier with empty cleats. Someone used this boat to make a living; Jake Grafton didn’t want to deprive him of it.

  He brought the boat in smartly toward the pier. Although he didn’t own a boat, he had watched sailors handle small boats for years. With the prop engaged and the engine idling, he leaped onto the pier with a rope in his hand and dropped it over a cleat. Back onto the bucking boat as it kissed the tire hanging at the waterline, reverse the prop, let the bowline spring the boat in … When he had the boat tied up fore and aft, he killed the engine.

  The rock-solid pier felt good under his feet. He walked off the pier thinking about the thugs in Kowloon, wondering if they had been working for Sonny Wong.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Sergeant Loo Ping was told to search the Bank of the Orient tower, which stood on the north side of the square. He picked four men and went to the front door, which was locked. With his face against the glass, shielding his eyes with both hands, he could see that the bank lobby was empty.

  He fired his rifle into the door lock. After three shots he pushed experimentally on the door. It gave, but a piece of the deadbolt still held it. He had two of the men put their shoulders against the door and push. The glass cracked, the broken lock gave way, and the door opened.

  Sergeant Loo led his men inside. Of course the major hadn’t told him what to look for. “Search the building,” was all the major said, as if the object of the search was self-evident.

  “People,” Loo Ping told his squad now. “Look for people. If we find anyone, we will take him outside to the command vehicle for interrogation.”

  The soldiers moved off. One went to the basement, the others went to the elevators and pushed the button. Nothing.

  Loo Ping led them to the staircase and they started up.

  “What if we find money?” the youngest soldier asked, which amused the others.

  “You think they leave money lying around?”


  “This is a bank, isn’t it? Perhaps there is money. They must keep it somewhere.”

  Loo Ping was a rice farmer’s son himself and had never had a bank account. Of course there was money in a bank, even a failed one. Perhaps the major really wanted the soldiers to search for money.

  “Money would be locked away in safes,” one of the soldiers remarked now, which made sense to Loo Ping. The bankers certainly wouldn’t leave money lying around.

  The second floor was a huge open room, carpeted, full of desks, with a computer on each of them. The lights were off, so the only illumination came through the windows on the sides of the grand room. The soldiers stood at the door, marveling. Imagine what the room must be like when the lights were on and people were seated at every desk, counting money!

  This morning there were no people, so after a bit the soldiers let the door close—amazing how the door silently closed by itself—and climbed another flight of stairs.

  The third floor was like the second, a vast office full of desks and computers and wonderful white machines that did God knows what, and …

  Something was standing in the center of the room, near the window overlooking the square.

  It looked like a big man.

  Loo led the way, the other three behind. All had their rifles in their hands so that anyone could see they were men with authority who must be obeyed.

  The man at the window was huge! He turned to watch the soldiers walk between the rows of desks toward him. He had dark skin and was completely naked.

  Loo Ping’s steps slowed.

  It wasn’t a man.

  No.

  A machine? Nearly seven feet tall, the neck consisted of three flexible stalks. The head was narrow at the chin and top, widest at the eyes, with a stalk or flexible tube coming out the top. The legs reminded Loo Ping of the hind legs of a dog; he thought the feet looked like those of a chicken, with three prominent toes. And that tail! Something from a movie?