Razing Beijing

by Sidney Elston

  “Probably,” Lee admitted. “But that’ll take a week or ten days to come to a head. By then it won’t matter.”

  Devinn pondered the compelling answer without saying a word.

  Orville set the timer before joining the men in the truck. Lee drove them all back to where the car was parked. He kept the engine running and all of the men variously looked at their watches, covered their ears, and waited.

  The blast was powerful enough to buffet the truck. The neatly formed mushroom cloud of smoke rising up in the darkness was dissipated quickly by the breeze. This actually had been a concern, at one point compelling them to contemplate the time and difficulty to muffle the entire works with an iron-mesh blast blanket, of the type employed by the construction trade. In the end, Lee decided that probable inquiries into the need for and licensure of blasting equipment were not worth the risk. With one of the largest domestic terrorist attacks in U.S. history unfolding fifteen miles away, there was no one nearby to notice or care.

  90

  Wednesday, July 8

  MUCH OF DENG ZHEN’S TIME since arriving in Tokyo was spent catching up with his professional acquaintances. Inevitable were the invitations to visit their countries and to enjoy, perhaps, a secluded estate, everywhere from Norway to Malaysia. Deng well understood these overtures to be what they were, not dishonest enticements but simply largesse of the profession of government. Just today, his Indonesian physician friend offered Deng and his family use of a seaside villa in Bali, his polite refusal invariably triggering in him a familiar sort of embarrassment.

  Presently, Deng sat on the sofa inside his suite at the Capitol Tokyu while contemplating an invitation of a totally different sort. The single rap on his door had drawn his attention to the slip of paper on the floor. At first he had thought Cheung or one of the others must have slid it there, but opening the door he had found the hallway empty.

  Would you care to meet for a nightcap? I have information of vital personal importance to you and your family.

  Whoever had written it was clearly aware of the throng of security, requesting he leave in five minutes unless his telephone rang twice, the signal to abort. Was this some sort of a trick—a test of his allegiance to the Motherland? Perhaps an effort by his political adversaries to cast him in disrepute?

  The secondhand of his watch indicated that another minute remained. The phone taunted him silently. This was ludicrous, he thought, heaving a sigh. Before his eyes the ink letters of the note began to fade. In another few seconds, they were entirely gone.

  Deng stared at the blank page, thinking. He rose stiffly to his feet, tore the piece of paper into slivers, entered the bathroom and flushed them down the toilet.

  INSIDE THE HOTEL’S opposite wing, Stuart sat on the edge of his chair leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped together, staring at a cigarette burn in the short bristle, gold-on-maroon carpeting. On the other side of the room, McBurney leaned back on the spindly legs of a chair, hands folded comfortably on his stomach, gazing up at the ceiling.

  Stuart could tell the moment he had entered the room that McBurney was still piqued over the process break-down that Emily’s call represented. It was as if he, Stuart, was somehow at fault for hiring intelligent people capable of deducing his whereabouts. What bothered Stuart was McBurney’s apparent indifference to the substance of her message. McBurney also made him nervous by frequently checking his watch.

  Stuart cleared his throat. “They don’t believe a word you told them, do they?”

  McBurney lowered his gaze and stared at him.

  “This is all a political exercise, then.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Your faith in the NRO seems to depend on the moment. I’d have thought Emily Chang’s message would warrant that they reconsider—”

  “Suffice it to say that my colleagues at home are busy following other leads,” McBurney blandly dismissed. “Let other people worry about the bridge. Right now I’d concentrate on my script. You won’t have as much time as you...” McBurney held up one hand and the other to his ear, the flesh-tone coil of wire visible above the collar of his shirt. He glanced at his watch.

  McBurney snapped his fingers and clamored to his feet. “You’re on, Mr. Pedersen.”

  THE AIR FELT CLAMMY as they rode down the service elevator. Arriving on the floor beneath the lobby, the doors slid noisily open. Waiting just outside with a cart full of laundry was a stocky Japanese man who, maybe because Stuart knew otherwise, did not look the part. The man nodded almost imperceptibly to McBurney, who then tapped Stuart’s elbow to motion him out. Their Japanese accomplice brushed past them and disappeared behind the elevator doors.

  Stuart followed McBurney down the service corridor, past a bank of polished brass elevators and a coatroom toward the sound of a pianist meandering through a melody by Gershwin. As they entered the carpeted foyer outside the Lipo Bar, McBurney exited the building by himself through revolving glass doors.

  Stuart watched to see that McBurney had disappeared into the night. Just inside the entrance to the bar, he then quickly did a few things above and beyond the usual Japanese etiquette for entering a drinkery. The first of these might easily be attributed by locals to a Westerner’s lack of nuance: he slipped off his shoes. Stooping as if to position them away from the door, he also slipped off his belt, folded it and tucked it into one of his shoes. In the other he placed his wristwatch. With that, Stuart entered the lounge.

  At 12:13 A.M. the tables were pretty much empty. Seated at a table near the baby grand piano was an attractive olive-complexioned couple, who ignored Stuart walking past the oval-shaped bar at the center of the dimly lit room. The Japanese bartender in white dinner jacket kept his eyes downcast while toweling off the burnished mahogany. The room’s one individual patron, a Chinese man whom Stuart instantly recognized, eyed Stuart’s approach and stood uncertainly to greet him.

  Deng Zhen accepted his hand and gripped it firmly. Behind the mutual recognition and calm intelligence in the older man’s eyes was a strong charisma. “Hello, Mr. Stuart.” Deng spoke in halting English. “This must be very important.”

  Stuart noted the lack of surprise. “I am afraid that it is, Mr. Deng. But then, so was your e-mail.”

  Deng made no effort to disagree. Both men sat down.

  “I’m sure you would agree that we probably don’t have much time,” Stuart said, a bit more confident now. He explained that their meeting had been arranged by an intelligence branch of the U.S. government, and that to the best of his knowledge, their conversation wasn’t being recorded, but they should expect their meeting place was under surveillance for their own protection. Deng seemed unmoved by Stuart’s first point; he visibly relaxed upon hearing the second.

  The bartender appeared with two tumblers of ice water and returned to the bar without requesting their orders.

  “You work, then, for the CIA?”

  “No. You might say I’m doing them a favor.”

  Deng nodded slowly. “What have you to discuss with me?”

  “First, a small group of technicians has observed a rather novel phenomenon.” Stuart was careful to fix his eyes on Deng’s and to keep his voice low. “A stream of lazed photons and an encrypted transmission burst were detected originating in the upper ionosphere.” This evidence he overstated a bit, intending to sidestep debate similar to the ongoing one with McBurney. “This occurred at the time of the destruction of the New York City bridge.”

  Deng appeared to be shocked, but the moment passed. “What you allege is preposterous.” He turned to gaze out through the smoke-colored glass at the lights of Tokyo. Stuart saw a sober recognition gradually take hold. “Of course, your government will respond,” Deng said.

  Wow... Stuart grasped the magnitude of what these words revealed. “I don’t think my government fully accepts that your weapon even exists.”

  “Then...there is uncertainty in the reconnaissance measureme
nts?”

  “Depends on who you talk to.”

  Deng appeared to be confused.

  “Actually, it wasn’t my government who conducted the measurements.”

  Deng looked at him with dawning appreciation. “Your own engineering staff.”

  “Ironically enough, one of them is a gifted young Chinese woman. More on her later. But we do have access to commercial satellite communication gear. I believe they’re still in the process of trying to decrypt and verify the data.”

  “That they will find difficult,” Deng pointed out with a chuckle. “But if your people are correct, this is all the more reason you must convince your government our weapon exists. After more destruction occurs, your leaders are likely to be only that much more inflamed once they learn of the truth.”

  More destruction? Stuart found the admonition disturbing. Deng seemed surprised on one hand that their weapon might be responsible, yet he spoke of more attacks. “We believe your government stole our technology to make your weapon, and that they had help from inside our company in carrying out this espionage. Might I ask who in my organization is responsible for stealing our technology?”

  “I do not know specific identities. Presumably someone of”—Deng shrugged—“influence, I suppose.”

  “But you don’t know who? Frankly, I find that difficult to believe.”

  Deng narrowed his eyes. “I see where this might represent to a capitalist something of an enigma. Why exactly are you here? Is it to vent your indignation that I do not share your esoteric views on property rights? To seek my apology for setting out to provide my country with superiority over the United States? A man such as you understands. Your organization merely provided the means.”

  “You make our possession of that means sound like some sort of an accident.”

  “No, a coincidence, for which your institutions are responsible. The Anglo-Soviet Cold War reinforced the notion that the superior technological adversary always prevails, as surely as body armor relegated obsolescence to the long bow. In fact, this is what motivates us.”

  “Technology?”

  “History.”

  Stuart studied the confident eyes of the man staring back at him. “Apparently, that is not all that motivates you, is it?” How does a man become a traitor?

  Deng raised the dark eyebrows that dominated his forehead. He seemed frustrated for lack of the desired words, or perhaps, Stuart thought, he was simply trying to gage the sensibilities of the foreigner seated before him. “You might be aware that certain men are poised to succeed China’s current leadership. I have come to the conclusion that these cadres are not true leaders. In recent months, I have come to believe that should these...these rogue elements, that should these rogues succeed they will put our technology to work in the interest of preserving their various monopolies—six decades after Liberation, our crony system is still without your Madisonian checks and balances. Their techniques are a throwback to Stalinism, an illegitimate and discredited ideology, so they whip up nationalist fervor in order to deify themselves. This is not what so many of us labored all of our lives for.” Deng leaned forward against the edge of the table and lowered his voice. “You must develop a comparable weapon to balance the military equation. You, Stuart, were meant to understand this from my message.”

  Stuart recalled the obtuse reference to cubs and lions.

  “I must also warn you that you are going to be thwarted in that effort.”

  “Thwarted?”

  “I don’t know when, or in what form it will take, but since China has a weapon of her own, efforts are underway to prevent the U.S. from developing one.”

  Stuart sensed by his uncertainty that the man might be spinning conspiracy theories. On the other hand, could this somehow explain Perry’s unexpected rumble with Congress now underway? How can anyone go about scrutinizing the true motivations of politicians and their purse strings? “I don’t know what I can do with that information. But since we’ve not built one of our own, I do have a proposal that I’d like to discuss...”

  “YOU CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING?” McBurney asked. The van was parked only a block from the Capitol Tokyu.

  Greg Nomura pressed his hands to the headphones and narrowed his eyes. “The piano...I don’t hear any voices at all. Hey, we tested the gear. I heard you guys fine up in the room.”

  McBurney ran his hands through his hair. “Shit...that son-of-a-bitch!”

  “Pedersen?”

  “He’s a pain in the ass, just...all right, what about our other assets?”

  Nomura shrugged. “Everyone’s checked in. Sorensen in the lobby says a couple of our friends there seem to be having a casual chat. Our Japanese hosts have their two men in the bar, two others in position in the guest areas. Ross is walking back from her visit to the shrine—I heard her mumble us a prayer.”

  “That’s real funny.”

  “Relax, Sam. We’re cool.”

  “Piss on cool.” McBurney looked at his watch—twelve minutes since leaving Stuart at the bar. “Mr. Pedersen better prove to have a very good fucking memory.”

  CHEUNG XU OF STATE SECURITY for the People’s Republic of China stood alone in the hallway and studied the small rectangle of brass on a copper chain dangling from the commissioner’s doorknob. Conversing in fluent English was not among the operative’s talents, yet like many educated Chinese, he could read it well enough. He had tried to phone and alert the cadre to an urgent change of plans, that he prepare himself to check out of the hotel first thing in the morning. Comrade Deng had not answered and now the brass ‘do not disturb’ sign increased his suspicion that something was wrong.

  The intelligence officer rapped twice and placed his ear close to the door. Had the elder cadre taken ill? Both the small microphone hidden inside the handset of the telephone by the bed, and the other beneath the sofa, suggested the man might have simply fallen asleep watching television.

  Perhaps this was the intended illusion.

  Cheung’s assistants rounded the corner of the hallway with a nervous hotel clerk in tow. At Cheung’s urging, the Japanese removed from his pocket a duplicate of the hotel master key—a plastic card with magnetic strip—and inserted it into the electronic lock in the commissioner’s door.

  “Of course, I don’t actually know the encryption codes,” Deng replied, as if that should’ve been obvious.

  Stuart stared blankly.

  “In any case, the authentication key changes according to a predetermined sequence.” Deng pulled his brow into a frown. “It is a sixty-four bit key.”

  “Then, is there any way you can think of to get this and the other information to me?”

  “Mr. Stuart, you are joking, yes?” Deng chuckled. Then he saw that Stuart was serious.

  ACROSS KOKKAIGIJIDOMAE, Carolyn Ross turned her back on the hotel, pretending to wait for Price O’Connell to finish tying his shoelace.

  “They’re leaning closely across the table toward each other, looks like whispering,” she said into the microphone inside the lapel of her raincoat.

  “Alone?” McBurney’s de-scrambled voice crackled into her ear.

  “Two other patrons left a minute ago. That leaves only Piano and Bar.”

  Back in the van, McBurney wondered aloud why the hell Stuart was taking so long.

  STUART STARED AT THE PROUD man seated across the table. As he had known all along that he would, he suddenly felt very awkward. “This is a bit difficult, permit me to be straightforward. The CIA has convinced me that you may be vulnerable to a powerful member of your government, a man who wields influence over you in a way and for reasons which we suspect may be unknown to you.”

  Deng’s expression revealed total confusion.

  “They seem to believe your life, and the lives of your immediate family, may be in danger.”

  “But what could be more obvious? I weighed those risks before contacting you, and knowingly accepted them.”

  Over Deng’s shoulder, Stuart saw the
couple seated by the piano rise from their table. The older man placed his hand behind the woman’s slender waist, guiding her toward the doorway and out of the lounge. The bartender threw Stuart a glance.

  Stuart removed the slip of paper from inside his coat jacket. The information on the narrow slip of paper, he knew, had the potential of interceding in the transition of power belonging to a foreign government—would Deng see the manipulation, the indignity in that? Stuart had no qualms about tampering with an unelected dictatorship. But did Deng view this Cultural Revolution as just some old baggage, dismissed and forgotten?

  “For credibility, as it were, they want you to know the source of their information. This woman’s name was Liu Qun, apparently an acquaintance of yours—I’m sorry, I understand that she passed away. She claimed to know the identity of the Red Guard who had a direct hand in the wrongful deaths of your family during the Cultural Revolution.”

  Deng appeared stunned—it was as if Stuart caught a glimpse into the man’s being. As quickly as it appeared, the pain vanished.

  “Does this make any sense?” Stuart asked, seeing clearly it had.

  Deng made no reply.

  Stuart kept the note folded in half and handed it over. “Inside, you’ll find two names. They are the same man.”

  Deng stared at the paper in his hand as if debating whether he was even going to open it.

  NAOSHI KIRAZAWA RAISED the evening’s first alarm. One of four Public Security Investigation Agency officers who were part of McBurney’s team, Kirazawa was earning his military salary that night by making the rounds to service ice machines when two Chinese secret security rounded the corner for the elevator. They passed without paying Kirazawa and his tool cart a moment’s notice. The hotel clerk following several steps behind caught Kirazawa’s eye and gave his head a subtle, firm shake.

  “Alert, alert, alert,” Kirazawa whispered moments later into his microphone, in near perfect English. “The ice box is empty. The ice box is empty.”

  The message was heard inside the van located one block from the hotel. McBurney and Nomura exchanged looks. McBurney held a microphone to his lips. “That’s it—roll it up. Say again, roll it up.”