by Ray O'Hanlon
Cole led him to a long corridor in the rear of the house at the end of which were stairs to an upper floor. The wood lacked the polished finish of the broader staircases in the more traveled part of the house, and at each step the wood gave off a groan as if it, too, was suffering from some wasting ailment.
Cole said nothing, and Falsham judged it better to remain silent. He had a sense that Cole was so deep in thought that words would be ignored anyway. As they climbed upwards Cole began to speak to himself, though very softly. His words rose slightly, and Falsham heard the words of prayer.
At the top, there was a way to the right and one to the left. Cole turned left and advanced on a heavy door that blocked any further progress about twenty steps from the top of the stairs. He turned the handle and walked into a room that was, to Falsham's surprise, the most lavishly furnished that he had seen in the entire house. A great pile of kindling and firewood stood in the grate. The room, however, was cold and there was no evidence or indication of recent occupation.
Cole walked slowly to the great fireplace and upon reaching it placed a hand on the stone mantle. He was having obvious difficulty in breathing but he turned to Falsham and smiled.
“I have enjoyed the fruits of this life in this room on occasion, John. It is full of memories.”
Falsham nodded. No matter its cushioned luxuriance, he thought, there was little for Cole to do here now other than dwell on past glories.
“I am sure with the fire ablaze there was warmth enough to match any desires,” he said.
Cole, however, had partly entered the fireplace.
“Come here, John,” he commanded.
“There was a time when the queen's men were very energetic in these parts, seeking out priests, so whenever we had unwelcome or unexpected visitors we would set this wood ablaze and engage in a game of chess. After they had gone and after the fire had eased we would…”
At this point Cole strained. His two hands were stretched upwards into the sooty darkness, and he was pushing against the inside of the mantle.
Falsham could not easily see the stone backing of the fireplace, but he was conscious of a grinding and rumbling sound. And then he could see flames and with some alarm took several quick steps towards Cole, his hand extended to pull him out.
“No, John,” said Cole, with some alacrity. “They are only faggots burning to light our descent into the hidden room. I had Tom light them. As you can see there is a system of levers and pulleys that are activated by hands placed against precise spots in the stone. Your fingers will not detect any grooves or indentations. It is by practice that you will learn the pressure points.”
“I am impressed,” said Falsham. “I have of course seen priests’ hidden quarters before, but they were invariably hidden behind wood panels. Stone is God's own work.”
Cole was already through the portal and descending what seemed to be a curved stairway.
“Time is short,” he said without turning. Falsham followed.
“What I did not tell you is that the messenger who brought that damnable packet also brought word that the king and his party will be here at Ayvebury by tomorrow. Clearly we must advance our plan.”
Cole stopped and turned his head. The shadows from the flames flickered across his pained face, but again he managed to smile.
“I have all my life longed to gaze into the face of my savior, John. My time has finally come, and you will be my instrument.”
29
WHAT HAD CHANGED THE GAME as far as Beijing was concerned was Taipei's constitutional referendum, and its anticipated result.
No matter all the reassuring words from the advocates of independence, it was seen in Beijing as the end of a manageable standoff. For decades, the two Chinas had been locked in an embrace of sorts. Each claimed ownership of the other. Thus, the Republic of China and the People's Republic, had been able to live with a stalemate. Now it was different. Taiwan had taken a step too far for the rulers on the mainland to bear.
And so they resolved to bear it no more.
Three files were spread across Henry Lau's desk, all of them opened but the pages still untouched and in order. Lau had stared at the documents for what to Burdin had seemed an age. But he had said nothing.
Eventually, however, Burdin felt it necessary to speak, though on a less weightier matter than the secrets of a superpower.
“Any chance of a tipple? Something a little stronger than this admittedly excellent vintage?”
For a couple of seconds there was no response but Lau was not entirely absent from the moment.
“Forgive me, Roger. I am a horrible host; anything of course. Please, step over here and take your pick.”
Lau motioned towards his exquisite collection of booze but made no attempt to rise from his seat. The tension, though not broken, had been eased. Burdin stood up and briskly walked over to an array of bottles and decanters worthy of a man as wealthy as Henry Lau, a man, of course, who did not touch alcohol very much at all himself, except for the occasional sip of a top class wine.
Burdin allowed himself a small Scotch and stood for a moment staring through the windows and into the night sky. The storm had done it worst and all that remained was the occasional flicker of lightning, now some miles distant.
“You know, Roger,” said Lau, “I have dealt with the lies and chicanery of business rivals and friends for all of my life. Deceit has never surprised or shocked me. It is what I expect. Each and every day I expect to be cheated, laid waste by those who publicly toast my health.”
Burdin, sensing a summons, returned to his chair.
“So why should I be surprised if the affairs of nations night be any different? Of course, I am not. Betrayal of one nation by another, even a friend or an ally, is as old as nations themselves. Perhaps we Chinese invented betrayal. After all, we invented just about everything else.”
Lau folded his arms and smiled.
“The difference is, of course, is that I am not helpless before my business enemies and rivals. Quite the contrary, and I have been lucky over the years in that I have been able to smite most of them. I have suffered some wounds, I have lost out on some deals, but nothing has been fatal. So here I am, one of the richest men in the world and yet helpless in the face of treachery and betrayal that is continental in scope and will likely decide the future course, not just of Taiwan, but all of Asia and beyond.”
Burdin nodded and took another sip of his drink.
“Most of humanity, Lau continued, “is born helpless and dies helpless. It is the natural course of things. So you can understand the even greater sense of helplessness that a powerful man feels when that power is suddenly like a water vessel with a vast hole in its side. The pain, the frustration, is beyond normal appreciation and understanding. I might as well be some dirt-digging peasant in a remote province that Beijing still considers Maoist.”
Burdin nodded again and took another drop. He wished he had poured more of the elixir into his glass. He was familiar with Henry Lau's tendency towards homilies though this was a sermon rooted in genuine angst and justifiable anger. It was, in his own world, as if the Americans had abandoned Britain to the old Soviets.
“I am a dead man, as you know,” Lau said, taking Burdin a little by surprise with his change of tack. “My cancer is inoperable. I might live a year, a little more or a little less. Time is not my friend, and history is rushing past me like a stream of melted mountain snow. A month seems like a minute, a week like a split second.
“A thousand years of history is about to be written, and I have but a few moments to stake my claim on posterity. So rather than me languishing over these documents, Roger, why don't you summarize them for me? I already have an inkling but I must hear treachery's name spoken by someone I trust. And that is you, my friend. This first file, it is in Mandarin, I see. Do you speak it?”
“Not beyond a greeting and a farewell I'm afraid,” said Burdin with a look of mock seriousness on his face. He put down his
drink and lifted the file from the table, holding it with the cover facing its host.
“But I do know what it contains in a general sense. What we have here is Beijing's wish list as communicated to the Americans.
“As you can imagine, it is not exactly a ‘Dear Santa’ letter. It is rather rude and hectoring, full of self-justification and historical claptrap. You really don't need to read it at all because you well know the form. The end of it, however, is of greater interest. This is the carrot where much that has gone before has been the stick. It offers all manner of deals and tradeoffs if the United States looks the other way. These are offers that would be very hard to refuse if you're thinking strictly about jobs and the future of your nation's rather battered economy.”
Burdin paused for a few seconds before opening the second file.
“This one, in English, of course, deals with scenarios. It is a combination of assessments from the CIA, the Pentagon, NSA, DIA and a couple of others. The documents, all copied from the originals as you would expect, are variously marked ‘restricted,’ ‘classified’ and ‘top secret.’
“What they mostly do is to sketch out the likely build-up to an attack. They accurately predict unrest on the mainland as a primary precursor to invasion of this island. We are already witnessing such scenes, or at least we have become aware of them.”
“Yes,” Lau interjected. “And I have in my possession a number of firsthand accounts from friends on the mainland, and in one case, a cousin. Armed resistance to the so-called People's Liberation Army has been growing in several districts, and so too has the PLA's retaliatory repression. There have been hundreds of deaths, and many other have disappeared, but the fires of rebellion, if anything, are spreading.”
“Quite so,” said Burdin. “I am separately aware of a British plan for the evacuation of United Kingdom nationals from at least one large southern city. The expectation clearly is that the unrest, though mainly rural at this moment in time, will eventually spread to the cities.”
Burdin pushed the folder across the desk.
“As you read this, in your own time of course, it will become increasingly clear to you that those making these assessments consider the defense of Taiwan an ultimately futile venture, one that would lead to enormous losses for the US. and possibly even result in a world war.
“One of the files, the one merely marked ‘restricted,’ outlines the fig leaves that Beijing will use in advance of an actual invasion. As you will see there are fifth column units allied with Beijing already in place on the island. The author refers, without a hint of irony I might add, to a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident off the coast that could also be used as an excuse for retaliation by sea, air and land.
“The assessments predict stiff resistance by your own armed forces and pleas from your government for international help. It outlines the likely effects of missile strikes from the mainland and even allows for the use of tactical nuclear weapons by the PLA. They would not be directed at Taipei but at some of your military units at the other end of the island. They want your capital intact, if possible.”
“Of course they do,” Lau said, sitting straighter in his chair. “Please continue.”
“There is a file marked ‘top secret,’ this one, that warns of a possible attack by North Korea on the South as the Chinese attack on Taiwan gathers momentum. Beijing, of course, turns a blind eye and all of a sudden Washington is facing twin Asian wars simultaneously.”
“Ah,” said Lau, “that's how they get out of it. Washington's greatest nightmare. So they choose to see it all as a choice, Taiwan or South Korea, and, of course, it will be Seoul, not Taipei. Clever, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Burdin replied, “such a predicament would force the hawks on Capitol Hill to back away from Taiwan even as they are seen rushing to the defense of South Korea. This occurs even if Pyongyang does not attack. There only has to be authentic sounding reports of preparations for an attack from north of the 38th parallel. And who, in a crisis as great as this, is going to pay any heed to a North Korean denial? Nobody.”
“Precisely,” said Lau, clapping his hands in agreement.
“A central part of the plan, said Burdin, “is that US naval forces are as far from Taiwan as they can legitimately be when the initial, supposedly surprise, Chinese landings take place. Perhaps they will be holding exercises with the Japanese or the Australians. There will be protests, uproar and a lot of saber-rattling, but within forty-eight hours the American public will be presented with a sad but unavoidable fait accompli.
“And, of course, it isn't all that bad, really. The Chinese are not really Reds anymore, and Chinese unity is not entirely an undesirable thing, indeed good for trade relations in the long run. Beijing will be slapped with some short term sanctions, the ambassador in Beijing might be summoned back to Washington for a while, that sort of thing. But not much more than that.”
“You forgot one thing, Roger.”
“And what might that be?”
“What if we Taiwanese begin to kick mainland ass, as the Americans might say?”
Lau almost spat out the words and smiled broadly as he did so.
“Won't happen, Henry, I'm afraid,” Burdin quickly replied. “And this is something I have separately from the American files. Apart from the sheer number of men that the mainlanders are going to throw at you there are several of your generals who have been compromised. They will either surrender, sit on their hands or join with the attackers, all in the interest of saving lives and ensuring a new national harmony of course.”
“And if we had nuclear weapons of our own?”
“Do you?”
Lau grimaced. “We would if the fools in government had listened to me twenty years ago. What's in that third folder?”
“It's the recommendation to President Packer from his military brass, advisers and cabinet members. It sort of gets him off the hook.”
“It advises him to turn his back on Taiwan and leave us to the mercy of the Communists,” said Lau.
“More or less.”
“And Packer's response?”
Burdin pulled a single sheet of paper from the file, and although it was a copy, the seal was clear. He handed it to Lau.
“From the desk of the president,” said Lau, scanning the sheet.
There was no date on it but Lau recognized the signature because he possessed a personally signed letter from the president. But it was not the name that held his gaze, rather two simple words above it.
“I concur,” Lau said, almost in a whisper. “I concur.” Then, more loudly, “To whom?
“It was written to a member of the president's inner circle, but precisely which one I am not sure,” said Burdin.
“If there are other such notes, they expressed the same agreement with the general consensus.”
“How did you come by these documents, Roger?”
Burdin tilted back in his chair and stared momentarily at the tiny pinprick lights in the office ceiling. He tilted forward again and looked at his companion directly.
“I don't know which individual provided this information, only to which individual it was provided. They say that the Lord provides, Henry. In this case, however, it was more a case of someone providing on his behalf.”
“These documents,” said Lau, his hand passing over the files in a sweeping motion,” amount to a death warrant for my country.”
“That they do, Henry,” Burdin said. “And there's a little more, again not in these files. A considerable flow of Chinese money is finding itself into the concentric circles of the Packer reelection campaign. It's all disguised and well hidden, of course, and none will show up in a Packer PAC, but there's millions being funneled to specific individuals and organizations.”
“With layers of plausible denial for Packer of course,” said Lau.
“Absolutely,” Burdin replied. “I think you can see why we came to you, Henry. A murder squad officer might say you have always had the means. Now you have t
he motive.”
“And the opportunity?”
“Leave that to us,” Burdin said, draining his glass.
Lau inhaled deeply. The pain in his head had returned, now worse than before.
“So you want me to assassinate the president of the United States. I will await with interest your advice as to how I should go about it.”
30
TWO MEN WERE STANDING in a room that was approximately twelve paces by that same number. Before them was a low table adorned with lighted candles, a crucifix, chalice and several other vessels.
“Is there a priest hereabouts?” Falsham asked his companion.
“Oh there is and very close by, John,” Cole replied. “Help me kneel. I have taken the liberty of placing a pair of cushions on the floor. We deserve a little comfort.”
Falsham helped his friend to his knees before the table. He looked about for a figure to emerge from the shadows, perhaps even the walls. But there was no sign or sound. There was no one else in the dungeon-like room.
Possessed of keen senses in the matter of detection, Falsham closed his eyes for a moment and sniffed. He could detect no recent, unfamiliar human odor. Yes, he thought, they were indeed alone.
“So we just pray,” he said to Cole, whose head was now bowed, hands joined in supplication.
“In nomine Patris,” Cole said.
Falsham chimed in. “Et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti”
Before he could say amen, Cole raised his right hand. There was no mistaking the older man's intention. He was instructing Falsham to be silent.
Cole continued to speak. “Introibo ad altare dei.”
Falsham felt surprise and then astonishment take hold. Cole was speaking the opening words of Mass.
“My friend, what is this? You cannot, it is blasphemy,” he said, almost in a whisper, as if God would be deceived by a plea uttered under breath.
But Cole simply raised his hand.
“Be at ease, John, trust me. I will explain when I am finished. Please content yourself for now with delivering the responses.”