Empire Rising

by Rick Campbell

  Between her and the exit was the two-tiered Mausoleum of Chairman Mao Zedong, surrounded by a thin strip of trees. The mausoleum was closed at this time of day, and there were only a few people milling around the perimeter of the square building; tourists by the look of things, taking pictures of the exterior. Christine hugged the edge of the green foliage as she passed by, proceeding toward Zhengyang Gate looming directly ahead. The gate and the Menjianlou behind it, both built during the Ming Dynasty in the fifteenth century, comprised the only gate complex in Beijing whose Gate and Arrow Towers were still intact, each tower traversed via a fifty-foot arched tunnel in its base.

  Pedestrian traffic was sparse as Christine approached the four-story-tall Zhengyang Gate, passing peddlers at the entrance to the tunnel, their wares laid out on blankets spread at their feet. She eyed Mao lighters, DVDs, and socks of every color as she entered the tunnel, her footsteps echoing off stone walls until she emerged onto the sidewalk of a busy boulevard running between the Zhengyang Gate and Arrow Tower. Christine waited for a break in traffic, then crossed the street and entered another arched tunnel, this one passing beneath the Arrow Tower. After another fifty-foot trek, she exited the empty tunnel and pulled to a stop. Qianmen Street was teeming with people. Locals and tourists packed the busy pedestrian and streetcar thoroughfare.

  Christine abandoned the idea of avoiding others on the way to the safe house. This was better—she would melt into the sea of tourists patronizing the upscale stores and famous restaurants lining Qianmen Street. She continued on, passing under a decorated archway painted in vibrant colors, marking the entrance to the district. Six wooden pillars supported the archway, each pillar framed by two stone lions facing opposite directions.

  The buildings in the shopping district imitated the architecture of the Qing Dynasty. Along both sides of the street, pagoda-style roofs sat atop two-story buildings constructed of green tile and red pillars. Streetcars moved up and down the sixty-foot-wide boulevard, passing by artists performing acrobatics and vendors peddling candied haws on sticks, filling the air with their distinctive, sweet aroma.

  Threading her way down the middle of Qianmen Street, Christine dodged the occasional streetcar, distancing herself from waiters standing outside the restaurants, men dressed in the robed attire of the Qing Dynasty who greeted passersby, bowing with their hands folded across their waist. As she moved down the boulevard, the buildings gradually transitioned from the decorative Qing architecture to boxy brick buildings more representative of modern Chinese design. Christine’s eyes flicked to the birdcage street lanterns lining the boulevard, wondering if they contained security cameras feeding images to government officials. She wondered if they were already searching for her.

  Christine checked the street sign at each intersection, searching for Dajiang Hutong. Finally, rising above the mass of pedestrians, gold letters glittered atop a black background. After passing Dajiang Hutong, she turned left at the next alley, entering a twenty-foot-wide hutong. Following the hutong as it curved to the right, Christine increased her pace, passing narrow redbrick residences interspersed between storefronts constructed of cement blocks faced with white tile.

  As the sounds of the busy shopping district faded behind her, so did the lights. The street was soon draped in shadows, lit only by storefront lanterns hanging near their entrances. Christine peered into one of the stores as she passed by—a hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving a different clientele than the upscale restaurants along Qianmen Street. Men seated in plastic chairs gathered around square metal tables. Construction workers by the look of things, their tanned and burnt faces tilted over their food, paying no attention to the woman passing by.

  Christine returned her focus to the street as she approached a cluster of men; teenagers arguing loudly outside an abandoned storefront. One of them noticed Christine and the conversation ceased as every head turned in her direction. Christine moved to the opposite side of the street as she prepared to pass by, but that only spurred the group into action. In unison, the young men sauntered across the road at a pace that would intersect Christine’s path as she headed into the darkest section of the street. Christine slowed, evaluating her options.

  She could turn around and go back up the alley toward Qianmen Street. But that was no guarantee the teenagers would leave her alone—and if they chased her, she doubted she could outrun them. Additionally, Yang had told her to keep going once she turned into the alley, and someone would find her. Christine decided she would have to go past these men.

  As the teenagers approached, the group spread into a line that arched into a semicircle. Christine stopped near a street lamp hanging outside what looked like the entrance to an apartment complex—she had only a few seconds before she was surrounded. She moved to the side of the street, pressing her back against a redbrick wall rising four stories above her as the men completed their encirclement, stopping ten feet away.

  Christine assessed her predicament. If the men’s intentions were nefarious, she had a pistol but didn’t dare use it—the gunfire would draw attention she could ill afford. But perhaps brandishing the weapon would frighten the men away, or at least generate enough respect to allow her to pass without harassment. After a moment of indecision, she pulled the pistol from underneath her jacket, letting her hand fall by her side.

  The sight of the semiautomatic generated a reaction, but not the one she had hoped for. Conversation rippled through the teenagers, accompanied by derisive laughter.

  As Christine faced the twelve young men, she wondered how many rounds were in the pistol’s magazine. But even if she had enough bullets, if the men rushed her, there was no way she could shoot them all.

  A man in the middle of the semicircle spoke. “Where are you headed, lady? And why do you have a gun?” He seemed the oldest of the men, nineteen maybe, while the others appeared to range from sixteen to eighteen. He was five-feet, ten-inches tall, a Uyghur from western China by the look of things—brown hair, hazel eyes, and a broad face with high cheekbones, with a thin scar running down the right side of his face. Christine mentally tagged him as Scarface. His English was surprisingly good. Good enough to understand her response.

  “None of your business.”

  There was an assortment of catcalls and laughter from the men, accompanied by a few elbows to the ribs. Apparently they understood English and considered her response humorous. Perhaps she needed to clarify her answer.

  “Clear a path for me, or I’ll clear one myself.”

  Scarface took a step toward her. “There’s no need to be rude, lady. We just want to know how we can help.” His statement was accompanied by another round of jeers and catcalls, and it didn’t take much for Christine to imagine the kind of help these men had in mind.

  “I don’t need your help.”

  The man smiled, revealing crooked yellow teeth, then spoke harshly in Chinese. From the periphery of Christine’s vision, she spotted men at each edge of the semicircle working their way toward her, the ring of men slowly contracting. Gripping the pistol with both hands, she raised it toward Scarface. “Tell everyone to freeze or I’ll put a bullet in your chest.”

  The man lifted his hands out to his sides, palms facing Christine as he glanced at the other eleven men, who froze instinctively, waiting for direction. “We mean you no harm,” Scarface replied. “We are only looking for entertainment tonight, and we could not let an attractive foreigner pass by without…” his smile widened as he continued, “engaging in conversation.”

  “We’ve talked enough. Now clear a path.”

  Scarface stared at the weapon in Christine’s hands before replying. “There is a price for your passage. You hold a Type 92 Norinco, carried only by special units in the People’s Liberation Army or government. That you have this weapon means you are a special woman, so we will let you pass without further harassment. However, you must first give me your pistol.”

  Christine considered the man’s proposal for a second before
rejecting it. There was no way to know if he was telling the truth—once the pistol was handed over there was no guarantee she’d be allowed to pass unharmed. The odds of safe passage were better, she figured, as long as the pistol remained in her possession.

  “No deal. And I’m running out of patience.”

  The man’s smile faded. “I doubt you would shoot unarmed men.” He paused a moment before adding, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  As he spoke, the man on Christine’s right moved toward her again. He was dangerously close now—only three arm lengths away. She had to do something. She swung the pistol toward the advancing man and squeezed the trigger. As the shot echoed down the hutong, the man collapsed to the ground, clutching his thigh as blood oozed between his fingers.

  Christine swiveled back toward Scarface, leveling the pistol at his head. “Now, how wrong do you want to be?”

  The man uttered a harsh command in Chinese. The men withdrew to their original semicircle, with one man remaining behind to assist the injured teenager, stripping off his shirt and applying it as a tourniquet around his friend’s leg. Christine waited in silence as the injured man was pulled to his feet, his arm draped around the other man’s neck. Slowly, the two men limped back, joining the others.

  Christine was about to demand passage again when the faint wailing of a police siren greeted her ears. Red and blue flashing lights reflected off white-tiled storefronts as the siren grew louder. Christine sucked in a sharp breath as she searched the hutong for someplace to hide.

  Scarface pointed to the darkness on her left. “Into the shadows. Hide in a doorway.”

  He turned to the other men and shouted in Chinese, and a path was cleared for Christine. After she passed through the gap, the men closed ranks and turned toward the street, forming a motley group with the injured man hidden behind them, standing now without the aid of his friend. Christine slid into the shadows just as a police sedan appeared around the curve. Feeling her way along the damp wall, she found a doorway. She stepped back into the one-foot-deep recess, pressing her body against the cold wooden door as the white sedan ground to a halt in front of the men.

  An officer wearing a dark blue uniform stepped from the passenger side while the driver remained inside, eyeing the group of young men suspiciously. The officer standing outside the vehicle asked a question. Several of the young men offered short answers while others shook their heads. The officer repeated the same question, met again with negative responses. The alley fell silent as he scanned the faces of the twelve teenagers, eventually directing his gaze up and down each side of the hutong. His eyes stopped moving as they focused on the darkness where Christine was hiding, his eyes probing, staring directly at her.

  Christine’s grip on her pistol tightened, wondering if the officer had spotted her. As his eyes probed the darkness where she stood, her pulse raced.

  The officer’s gaze shifted back to the young men and he shouted a command, waving down the hutong in the direction Christine had come. The young men offered curt responses, then turned and shuffled down the hutong toward Qianmen Street. As the teenagers trudged off into the distance, the officer slipped back into the sedan. A moment later, the flashing lights atop the police car went dark and the vehicle did a slow U-turn, then sped down the street in the direction it had come.

  Christine let out a deep breath. A minute after the sedan disappeared from view, she stepped from the shadows, moving down the desolate street in the same direction the sedan had headed. The hutong continued curving to the right and pedestrians began to appear along the sidewalks, the establishments lining the street growing brighter and louder.

  As Christine hurried down the street, she had no idea how to determine when she had reached her destination. As she scanned both sides of the road, she spotted a black BMW 7 series sedan with tinted windows moving slowly toward her, the angel-eye headlamps illuminating the sidewalks.

  Christine scanned the storefronts nearby, searching for a place she could slip inside to avoid detection. Up ahead, she spotted a red and blue neon sign marking the Matrix Game Parlor, occupying the ground floor of a six-story building faced with white and orange tiles. But it was a hundred feet away and the sedan was closing fast. Increasing her pace as quickly as possible, she traversed the hundred feet, slipping into the Matrix as the sedan’s headlights illuminated her profile.

  Pausing near the entrance, she scanned her surroundings. The Matrix was a maze of arcade games and computer terminals, packed with teenagers clustered around game consoles, laughing and yelling over arcade game explosions and synthesized music. Smoking in public establishments in China was illegal, yet almost everyone was smoking. A multicolor haze drifted upward, illuminated by flickering arcade screens and strobe lights swiveling from the ceiling. Christine turned and peered out the entrance at the passing sedan, just in time to see it coast to a halt. A second later, the driver and passenger doors opened and two men in black suits stepped from the vehicle.

  Christine pushed her way through the throng of teenagers, pausing at the end of the first aisle of arcade games, turning back toward the entrance just in time to spot the two men entering. Christine turned and ran deeper into the Matrix, searching for a back exit, bumping into boisterous teens as she weaved between the arcade aisles. Finally, Christine spotted what she was looking for: at the back of the parlor, above a metal door, was the Chinese symbol for Exit.

  She hit the exit door’s metal release bar at a full sprint. It flung open and Christine stumbled into a dark alley lined with overflowing garbage cans. The only light came from the pale moon reflecting off dank, brick walls rising high above her. The alley curved in both directions, each end disappearing into the darkness. She decided to head left, continuing in the direction she’d been headed before entering the parlor.

  Christine took off at a brisk run, the exit door disappearing in the darkness. Behind her, the door opened again, the sound of the metal door slamming against the brick wall echoing down the alley. She pulled to a halt and removed her shoes—she could run only so fast in heels, plus the sound clattering down the alley would be a dead giveaway. With her shoes in one hand and the pistol in the other, she sprinted down the dimly lit alley. To her dismay, the alley began to narrow. A hundred feet later, it was barely four feet wide. It continued to shrink and her shoulders began to brush against both walls.

  Christine pushed on, gulping the cool night air as footsteps raced down the alley after her. The alley narrowed to barely two feet wide, forcing her to angle sideways until she burst into a large courtyard. She paused for a second, assessing her new surroundings. In the center of the square courtyard, lit by a small yellow lantern, was a garden encircling a six-foot-tall stone statue of a Mahāyāna Buddha. Along the perimeter of the courtyard were four exits—one on each side of the square. As she tried to determine which exit to take, a hand clasped around her mouth and an arm wrapped around her waist.

  A man whispered in her ear as he dragged her toward the perimeter of the courtyard, deeper into the darkness. “I am here to help you. Do not resist.”

  Christine decided it was wise to do as she was told.

  As she melted into the darkness, two men rushed into the courtyard—the same men who had entered the arcade. She was fairly certain they were Cadre Department bodyguards, who would either kill her on sight or return her to the Great Hall.

  She’d take her chances with the man holding her.

  Christine felt his grip tighten as the two men scoured the courtyard, their eyes sweeping past the darkness where they stood. There was a quick exchange between the two men and then they split up, one heading out the exit to Christine’s left, the other departing via the opening on the opposite end of the courtyard.

  As the two men disappeared from view, the man’s grip loosened and he whispered in Christine’s ear. “As I said, I am here to help you, Miss O’Connor. Do you understand?” Christine nodded slowly and she was released. She turned toward her abductor, his silhouette barel
y visible in the darkness. “Follow me,” he said, stepping back toward the alley she had emerged from.

  Christine followed behind as he entered the narrow alley. He was maybe five-feet, eight-inches tall, with a wiry build; Chinese. She followed him only a few hundred feet before he disappeared. Christine slowed, approaching the spot where he had vanished, when a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her into a small side alley four feet wide. The man retained a grip on her arm as they worked their way slowly up the dank alley, eventually slowing to a halt. A moment later, a vertical seam of light appeared as a door opened. The man stepped inside, dragging Christine into the light.

  13

  BAISHAWAN BEACH, TAIWAN

  Under a cloudless night sky, Jiang Qui gripped his assault rifle with both hands as he stood shoulder to shoulder in the cramped amphibious landing craft. The ocean spray, whipped over the front of the vessel by blustery winds, rained down on him and the other men in his platoon, soaking their dark green uniforms. Jiang heard a dull roar overhead and looked up. Fighter jets streaked toward shore, their white-hot afterburners illuminating the darkness; bright red plumes leapt from the jets toward their targets. Over the edge of the landing craft ramp, the black sky pulsed with orange glows, and muffled explosions grew louder and clearer with each passing minute.

  Time crept slowly as the landing craft sped toward shore. As Jiang waited for the vessel to grind to a halt on the sandy beach, he thought about the dilemma he faced a year ago and the decision that had changed his life. Before joining the People’s Liberation Army, he had spent his entire eighteen years in a small village nestled below terraced rice paddies in the foothills of the Xuefeng Mountains, working his father’s farm. He had never held a rifle, never been at sea.

  After turning eighteen, he had asked for Xiulan’s hand in marriage. Her father, wanting more for his daughter than a meager life toiling farmland, had refused. Only a man of sufficient station would be allowed to marry beautiful Xiulan, a stature Jiang could never hope to attain. Desperate, Jiang latched on to a brilliant plan. He would join the People’s Liberation Army, and with enough commendations, gain entrance to the Party. With Party membership came an urban registration permit. He would bring Xiulan to the city with him, away from the hardship of life in rural China.