Hong Kong

by Stephen Coonts

  One soldier threw down his rifle and stood erect in the center of the square with his hands in the air. One of the junior officers drew a pistol and pointed it at the erect soldier. He was immediately shot by two Yorks.

  Other soldiers threw down their rifles, first a few, then many.

  The firing slowed to an occasional shot, then stopped altogether.

  The running Yorks slowed to a walk, then came to rest. Each one stood with its head turning, its sensors scanning, and the barrels of its minigun spinning, ready to fire. They were ominous, fearsome.

  A cheer went up from the watching civilians, who ran into the square.

  Burned and groggy from the concussion of the tank that had exploded nearby, General Moon Hok managed to get to his feet. He stood swaying, looking uncomprehendingly at his soldiers with their hands up. Then he took his first good look at the closest York, Alvin, whose sensors were scrutinizing him in return. The minigun followed his every move, but the shot didn’t come.

  The helicopter carrying Hu Chiang settled into the center of the bank square and Hu stepped out. The cameraman, his camera still going, piled out the back and focused his camera on Hu, who looked around, then walked over to General Moon Hok and demanded that he surrender his command to the revolutionary forces of China.

  The civilians were running into the square now, many of them armed with weapons liberated from the Kowloon police barracks. They were taking weapons from soldiers and passing them to unarmed civilians. A few of the newly armed revolutionaries aimed their weapons skyward and pulled the trigger, just to see if they would shoot.

  The Yorks nearly shot these people. Cole suspected what was coming and warned Kerry Kent, who safetied the Yorks’ firing circuits just in time.

  Moon Hok was in no mood to do or say anything to the people who had killed his soldiers and humiliated him, and Hu Chiang wisely decided that Moon’s silence was good enough. He ordered one of the armed revolutionaries who had appeared nearby to jail Moon and his officers.

  All this made excellent television. It got even better: From his hip pocket Hu removed a written speech that he and Wu Kai Kwong had drafted for Wu to give at this moment. Since Wu wasn’t here, Hu read the speech to the unseen audience behind the camera as the cheering crowd gathered around him.

  “We hereby proclaim the goals of the revolution: China shall become a free and democratic nation with a written constitution guaranteeing the rule of law, with leaders regularly elected by popular vote, a nation free of graft and corruption, a nation that protects its citizens from criminals, a nation where everyone shall have an equal opportunity to earn a living, a nation with free speech and freedom of religion, a nation that can take its place as a proud member of the world’s family of nations… .”

  The last half of the battle in the square was broadcast all over Hong Kong and mainland China. In Canton and Shanghai, in Beijing and Hunan Province and in villages all over the nation, people who happened to be near a television saw the Yorks standing in the center of the bank square surrounded by PLA troops with their hands in the air. Then the cheering crowd flowed into the square as if a dam had burst.

  In Hong Kong City Hall someone called Governor Sun to the television. He was not in time to see the Yorks in action, but he watched as Hu Chiang landed in the square in the television station’s helicopter and walked over to General Moon. He saw Hu accept General Moon’s sidearm and he saw the first of the deliriously happy civilians stream into the square, hugging Hu Chiang and the surrendered soldiers and each other and gazing in awe at the York units.

  “Radio Beijing,” Governor Sun ordered peremptorily. “A revolution is underway in Hong Kong and we need more troops immediately to stabilize the situation.”

  The aide went off to do as he was told, leaving Governor Sun rooted to the spot, still staring at the television.

  Nothing happened instantly in China, Sun well knew. It would take days for the government to reinforce the division of troops that were already here. Perhaps several weeks.

  For the first time, Sun admitted to himself that he had misjudged the situation here.

  His next epiphany followed immediately: The rebels would probably execute him if they could catch him. Chinese revolutions had never been bloodless affairs. This one wouldn’t be either.

  Jimmy Lee’s producer stopped talking into the radio microphone when he realized that someone was standing beside him with a pistol, a pistol that was pointed at his head. He stopped talking in mid-word.

  The pistol jerked, ordering him out of the chair.

  A young woman of eighteen or nineteen years, an inch over four feet tall, took his place and began speaking into the microphone. “The Chinese revolution,” she announced simply, “has begun. The island of Hong Kong has been liberated from Communist control.”

  Lin Pe watched the celebration in the Bank of the Orient square on the small television the Shatin grocer kept above his soft drink cooler. She watched as the cameraman inspected a York unit at close range—the thing towered a foot over everyone there and its head never stopped scanning—and the smoking hulk of a tank.

  Hu Chiang appeared on television, behind him the crowd milled around, every now and then someone fired a shot into the air … the scene was festive, gay. No one even bothered to guard the unarmed PLA soldiers, who wandered through the crowd aimlessly, without direction.

  Wu should have been here to see this, Lin Pe thought. He worked for a dozen years to make this happen, this first step!

  The long journey had finally begun. She didn’t know whether she should be happy or sad. She went back outside and sat down on the orange crate where she could see the gate of the army base and thought about everything.

  She would tell Wu of this. In this life or the next.

  In City Hall the governor and his staff were mesmerized by the televised spectacle, by the aerial shots of the crowd surging into the plaza, and by the simple, infectious joy that was apparent on every face.

  They huddled around the television, which alternated between shots from the square taken with a handheld camera and aerial shots from the helicopter, which had taken off again. Through it all Peter Po gave the voice-over, as calm and collected as though revolutions were a weekly occurrence.

  Hu Chiang’s speech broke the spell in City Hall. Never known for an even temper, Sun exploded as he listened. He cursed Tang and Moon and the other PLA officers as incompetent, defeatist traitors. A call was put forth to the navy base. Sun demanded that all the gunboats steam up the strait and use their guns on the rebels celebrating in the Bank of the Orient square. The commander had caught the tail end of the televised debacle, and he agreed. Without much enthusiasm, Sun noted darkly.

  Next he called the Su-27 squadron at Lantau. He got the squadron commander on the phone and demanded that armed sorties be flown against the rebels in the square.

  “Drop bombs, strafe, shoot rockets … kill the rebels! Stop the rot right here, before it spreads.”

  The colonel made him repeat the order to ensure he understood. “We will use a cannon to kill mosquitoes, eh?”

  “Will you obey or must I call Beijing and have you court-martialed?”

  “Bombs in the square will do a lot of damage, Governor. I just want to ensure you understand that. Afterward will be too late to complain.”

  “Kill the rebels.”

  “Bombs don’t care whom they kill, Governor. Rebels, bankers, children, women, tourists, soldiers, policemen, whomever. That is what I am trying to explain.”

  “Obey my order!”

  Next he called the chief of the metropolitan police and demanded he muster his officers and engage the rebels in armed combat. The police chief wasn’t enthusiastic. Unlike the navy and air force commanders, he knew his men would be face-to-face with the robots he had seen on television.

  “What are those things, Governor? What are their capabilities?”

  “I do not know. Bullets will stop them, however.”

  “T
he army didn’t seem to have much luck with bullets. What makes you think the police will do any better?”

  “I have given the order,” Sun said icily.

  “So you have. But I tell you now, my men are police, not soldiers. They are trained in traffic control, not armed combat. I make no promises.”

  “Lead them yourself, coward!”

  “If I am killed, whom will you blame for our defeat?”

  Before Sun could give that disrespectful question the answer it deserved, he discovered that the chief of police had hung up.

  Sun slammed down the phone. His chief aide was right there by the desk.

  “Governor, you must report this matter to Beijing, but first, you must think of getting off this island.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Sir, the rebels will come for you, walk in the front door. The three or four policemen on duty out front cannot hold off armed rioters. You must not be here. You must not let them make a spectacle of you.”

  “You’re right,” Sun said, with more than a little gratitude in his voice. He telephoned the army base in the New Territories, asked for a helicopter to pick up him and his key aides on the roof of City Hall as soon as possible.

  On the way to the roof, he stopped in the radio room. The operator called Beijing on the scrambled voice net.

  Sun tried to quickly summarize the events of the morning. He told Beijing of his orders to the army and navy. “We need military reinforcements now,” he pleaded with the minister.

  The minister made no promises. “You must resist with the forces you have at your disposal,” the minister said. “The rocket forces have had a horrible disaster, the trains cannot run until the computer systems get sorted out, the nation’s electrical grid is experiencing spot failures, the telephone system is sporadic at best. We cannot get troops to you for some days.”

  “Air support? Could we have two more squadrons of MiGs or Sukhois?”

  “The maintenance personnel, spare parts, and weapons all must be moved by road,” the minister in Beijing informed Sun. “The move will take several weeks. I will give the order, but until they arrive, you must hold out with what you have.”

  Hold out with what we have.

  Perhaps that is possible, Sun thought as he made his way up the stairs to the roof of City Hall. If we can hurt the rebels in the square, then keep the remnants of the rebel forces on this island, prevent them from crossing the strait, perhaps it can be done.

  The chief of police was too old a dog to go running after every stick. He sat behind his desk at police headquarters watching the rebels celebrate on television.

  After he read the flyer this morning, he ordered his policemen to stay away from the heart of the Central District. Apparently they had obeyed him, because he didn’t see a single police officer on any of the camera’s sweeps of the crowd.

  A cop learns many things about the people he serves: who drinks to excess, who has a drug-addicted son or a pregnant teenage daughter, who takes bribes, who doesn’t … who is fucking whom. In a society in which everything is for sale, everything has a price. A cop quickly learns to survive or he is eaten by the sharks.

  The chief was busy surviving right now.

  He tried to ignore politics when he could. Sonny Wong told him a year ago that rebellion was brewing in Hong Kong. Of course Sonny wanted to profit from that fact—that was a given. The rebels wanted change, Governor Sun and the Communists wanted to keep the status quo. One would win, one would lose.

  Whoever won would need the police. And the police would need a chief.

  This chief had no intention of ending up like China Bob Chan, with a fresh hole in his head and everyone in town breathing sighs of relief. Sure, China Bob made lots of money, got rich, had the big house and hot women and all the trimmings … and now he was sleeping in a hole in the ground because he knew too much about too many things.

  Actually Sun wasn’t a bad sort. The chief wondered now if he should have told the governor to get out of Hong Kong; the rebels would kill him if they caught him. Surely the man is bright enough to figure that out for himself.

  The chief reached for the telephone, then thought better of it. He owed the governor nothing.

  Michael Gao was on the roof of the building near the entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel when he spotted the PLA helo running low, at treetop level, headed for City Hall on Hong Kong Island. He had a Strella launcher at his feet, so he lifted it, squeezed the trigger to the first notch to try for a heat lock-on.

  And got one. He squeezed the trigger and the missile roared out of the launcher.

  Away it went in a plume of fire. Straight across the street into the top story of the next building over.

  He had another launcher, but he waited. Perhaps he would get a better shot. If he could get onto the sea wall …

  The chopper settled onto the roof of City Hall. Sun and three aides came running out. When they were aboard, the chopper rose into the air just enough to clear the railing on top of the building, then tilted into the wind.

  The pilot turned to fly out over the strait, then he turned east.

  Michael Gao ran with the missile launcher in his arms. People scurried to clear a path. He came to the sidewalk on the sea wall and hurriedly threw the launcher to his shoulder. The helo was speeding east over the strait, at least two miles away and low, no more than fifty feet above the water.

  The missile’s guidance unit refused to lock on to the helo’s exhaust. The distance was just too great, the angle too large.

  Gao lowered the launcher and watched the helo fly away.

  Tommy Carmellini systematically examined every item in Kerry Kent’s apartment, disassembled the lamps and clocks, took the television from its shell, examined the works. Did the same with the clock radio. Tapped along the floorboards, scrutinized the light fixtures, used a knife to slice the stuffing from the easy chair near the window, picked through every single item in her dresser …

  Tommy Carmellini knew how to search an apartment and he searched this one. He found absolutely nothing that shouldn’t be there.

  Two hours later, discouraged and tired, he dropped his trousers and lowered himself onto Kent’s commode. Before he did so, however, he lifted the lid on the back and examined the workings. Looked precisely like a commode should. Then he felt behind the tank to ensure that nothing was taped to the back.

  As he sat answering nature’s call, he picked up a magazine that Kent had arranged on a nearby stand. Flipped through the pages, looking to see if anything had been inserted. No.

  A newspaper. He picked it up, shook it. Nothing fell out. He was about to put it back on the stand when he paused, looked again. The Financial Times, a week-old edition. Kent had it folded to the stock listings.

  Idly Carmellini ran his eye down the listings. Column one, two …

  Huh! There was a tiny spot of ink under the Vodafone listing, as if she rested the tip of her pen there for a moment.

  He held the page up, scrutinized it carefully. Here was another spot, and another. Six in all.

  Stocks. Investments. A portfolio. Well, even civil servants had portfolios these days. Hell, he had a little money in the market himself.

  But he couldn’t recall seeing anything about her portfolio in the apartment. Not a monthly statement, a letter from her broker, nothing.

  Odd.

  There should be something, shouldn’t there?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Major Ma Chao and his three co-conspirators were standing in the back of the ready room when the commanding officer and his department heads came in. Someone called the people in the room to attention.

  “We have orders,” the CO announced. “Governor Sun has directed us to bomb the rebels in the Bank of the Orient square in the Central District, and headquarters in Beijing has confirmed. We will launch four airplanes with four two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram bombs each. Fortunately, the weather is excellent. We will coordinate the attack with a shelling b
y two naval vessels, putting maximum pressure on the rebels.”

  In the silence that followed this announcement the television audio could be heard throughout the room. The pilots had watched Hu Chiang make his speech, had seen the York units and the happy, joyous crowd that filled the square. They had listened to Peter Po explain the significance of the revolution, why the overthrow of the Communists was of the gravest national importance.

  Now this.

  There was certainly much to think about, including the fact that no pilot in the squadron had ever dropped bombs from a J-11. Although the plane was a license-built copy of one of the world’s premier fighters, it had no all-weather attack capability; visual dive-bombing was the only option. Unfortunately the Beijing brass thought the risks of dive-bombing training too high, so it had been forbidden.

  Major Ma turned sideways so his right side was partially hidden and drew his sidearm, a semiautomatic. He held it low, beside his leg.

  “Sir,” Ma asked, “did you verify the governor’s identity? Agents provocateurs may be giving false orders.”

  This comment was grossly insubordinate and the commanding officer treated it as such. “I am completely satisfied that the governor issued these orders and that headquarters concurred,” he said, daring anyone to contradict his statement. “The time has come to separate the patriots from the traitors,” he added ominously. “I intend to follow orders, to bomb the rebels as directed by the government. Who will fly with me?”

  The senior officers raised their hands, but not a single junior.

  “You traitors are under arrest,” the commanding officer snarled. “Now clear the room.”

  Ma Chao raised his pistol, pointed it at the CO. “It is you who are under arrest, Colonel. Drop your sidearm.”

  The CO was a true fighter pilot. He grinned broadly, then said, “We thought something like this might happen, Ma Chao, but we never suspected you. Some of these other little dicks, yes, but you surprise me. Too bad.” He raised his voice. “Come in, Sergeant, come in,” he called and gestured through the open door to people waiting in the hallway.