Razing Beijing

by Sidney Elston

  Stuart still had difficulty accepting the implications of Devinn’s escape. What would life entail for him as a parent until the fugitive’s eventual capture—if he was captured?

  “But I’ve got good news,” said Hildebrandt. “We’ve worked out a legal framework for you and an FBI team to try to isolate that computer virus in the Thanatech memory module.”

  McBurney added, “Lance Lee has admitted to having directed Devinn and Thompson to commit sabotage.”

  Stuart was surprised. “How did you manage that?”

  “I guess there’s nothing like capital punishment hanging over your head to clarify matters.” Hildebrandt chuckled then winced at the pain in his chest wound. “We’re stumbling over a few holes in Mr. Lee’s story. But we see the potential for closure with this software virus of yours.”

  Closure...? Stuart noted Hildebrandt’s obvious physical discomfort. “Let’s grab a seat inside the boathouse and continue this over a beer.”

  “I don’t know about beer with this painkiller I’m on, but a chair sounds awesome.”

  Emily suggested that she help Ashley whip together sandwiches and chowder. The two left the others behind in order to attend to the food.

  Hildebrandt paused outside Stuart’s boathouse looking perplexed. “I thought it was Emily’s mother who was near death. What was that comment Emily made about her father?”

  McBurney said to Hildebrandt, “I guess I forgot to tell you about that.”

  Hildebrandt rotated stiffly toward his colleague. “I can’t imagine.”

  McBurney gazed at the woman and girl walking hand-in-hand toward Stuart’s house. “During the exciting part of the episode at CLI—the part that you and I apparently missed, Ed—it seems Miss Chang was more or less convinced that her father was among those about to be killed in Beijing.”

  “You mean...she went ahead and pulled the trigger on that thing any way?”

  “We couldn’t know whether or not Emily’s father was inside the targeted building,” Stuart explained. “There was reason enough to suspect it. As it turns out, more so than we realized.”

  “About the time they rolled you into the ambulance, Emily raced out of the building. She was pretty badly shaken up.” McBurney explained that he had woken Deputy Ambassador Rotger in the middle of the Beijing night and charged him with the task of locating Deng. Rotger subsequently reported that Emily’s father was unharmed. “Deng told me a few days later that her father’s presence inside the Old Defense Building might have actually been an issue, but he had personally ordered Zhao to the hospital on the pretense that his wife was on her deathbed.” McBurney fixed his gaze on Stuart. “Your Emily’s quite an extraordinary individual—I mean, she is truly a patriot.”

  Stuart found a rag inside the boathouse and dusted off a couple of chairs for his guests. He retrieved two cans of Coors from the refrigerator for McBurney and himself.

  “A gift from the president.” McBurney removed a stapled stack of paper from inside his envelope and handed it to Stuart. “That’s a draft of the amicus brief that the government will present on your behalf, in order to have this frivolous civil suit against you and Thanatechnology dropped.”

  Stuart was stunned. “How can they on the one hand indict me, and on the other defend me?”

  “The hearing’s scheduled to take place in Cleveland next month, isn’t that right?”

  Stuart tossed the thick document onto his workbench. His expression grew dark. “When do I learn why those bastards took down Thanatech’s aircraft?”

  McBurney let out a deep breath. “It’s a long story—a really long story.”

  “Make yourself comfortable.”

  McBurney took a swig from his beer. “I guess the first important thing you already understand. Our system of intelligence had a few misfires. There are a number of reasons for that, in which I share the blame and that I’ll not go into. Sadly, it took only one man in China to exploit that vulnerability.”

  “Rong Peng?”

  “We think he was laying the foundation to usurp power during their leadership succession, which otherwise can never be certain. Instigating war between us and Iran was the apparent objective. According to Lance Lee, blowing apart Thanatech’s fuel-miserly engine and us blaming it on Tehran was intended to be one provocation toward that outcome.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard anything connecting Iran to our sabotage.”

  “That’s because they never meant to go so far as to bring the whole airplane down,” Hildebrandt explained. “Lee’s testified that both he and Rong, his spy boss, then got cold feet. They decided against inviting the scrutiny certain to follow were Paul Devinn to proceed with their original plan, which was to plant some sort of evidence suggesting that Iran had sabotaged the flight test. They took the step of blackmailing Emily Chang for similar reasons.”

  That’s only the half of it, thought McBurney, recalling Lance Lee’s unemotional monologue inside the Alexandria interrogation room. They had confirmed that the diplomat-spy, Mohammad Ahmadi, was following Lee’s instructions on the risky errand to blackmail Senator Milner into divulging secrets of America’s missile defense. Ahmadi simply had to have been terrified, his overture to Thomas Herman for political asylum undoubtedly genuine. Lee admitted the plan all along was to eliminate Ahmadi any way, in order to subordinate control of the Iranian network to him.

  The subject of Mohammad Ahmadi’s murder investigation still grated McBurney. Responding in plea bargain testimony to the question of why he had had Samuel McBurney summoned to the scene of the double murder at the Rivergate, Lee admitted to having been surprised by the diplomat’s resolve under torture to conceal the stolen satellite document. Faced with the dilemma of the document’s recovery by his own bureau investigators, Lee cited McBurney’s prior failure to execute on his assignment to eliminate the terrorist who, decades later, would lead the attack on the Holocaust Museum. Casting a look at McBurney, Lee had explained that the CIA veteran was simply the man he wanted in charge of investigating the matter.

  McBurney found it bad enough that Hildebrandt and others were there, but Thomas Herman... Of all people on hand to savor the slap in his face...

  “Something wrong, Sam?” asked Stuart.

  McBurney realized he was gritting his teeth. He nodded toward the amicus brief. “You’ll find that’s full of redaction, but Thanatech will be able to make use of it. You won’t.” He could see that Stuart’s patience was growing thin. He actually wondered how Stuart had managed to keep it together as long as he had.

  “Remind me again why I just offered you dinner.”

  “We’re only having a little fun. Now, what we’re about to tell you cannot be shared with anyone, including Emily. That was part of the deal.”

  “What deal is that?” Stuart caught the look that passed between both of his guests.

  “The Attorney General’s plan to indict CLI for illegally transferring technology to China, and then covering it up as a theft, was conceived inside the Oval Office.”

  “I figured out that much on my own, Sam.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever his motivation to cover his own rump, I can tell you that Dr. Denis did not take lightly your acting unilaterally. What you also didn’t know is that charging you with attempting to murder Paul Devinn, ‘a key government witness in the unsolved terrorist attacks,’ was supported by the discovery of Devinn’s DNA in a dead Iranian’s Rivergate apartment.”

  Stuart looked confused.

  McBurney explained how a match of Paul Devinn’s DNA had come about, from the blood inside CLI to material found beneath Katherine Prouty’s fingernails. “With your image battered by that civil lawsuit, and their spin on your admission to shooting Devinn, the Justice Department figured your indictment as a corporate big shot would be a slam-dunk. What this all means is, the White House has been preparing to weave a conspiracy theory that links everything to you. Talk about tidy solutions. It would allow the President to downplay accusations of a
n intelligence disaster on his watch. His Justice Department was happy to play along, of course.”

  “Not everyone,” Hildebrandt reminded him.

  “Oops, not everyone.”

  Stuart realized that just when he thought he had heard the last of the subterfuge, there suddenly seemed to be no end of it. “Are you telling me that Lance Lee is getting off the hook?”

  Hildebrandt suppressed a smile. “Lee was given a choice. In exchange for divulging key information, he could choose to stay in the United States and stand trial for treason, or expatriate to China. Of course, when stepping off the plane in Beijing he discovered that he will stand trial there for conspiring to undermine China’s regime change. The man is toast.”

  “And their messy matter of Lee is no longer our issue,” added McBurney.

  “I’ve heard the Chinese don’t waste time meting out criminal justice,” Stuart observed. “What about Reedy?”

  “Reedy’s one of several bit players who seem to have operated pretty much in the dark,” Hildebrandt said.

  Thinking it all over, Stuart decided...that he was still confused. “I don’t see where ‘the deal’ is in any of this. I mean, my lawyer gets to hear the plaintiff’s evidence, doesn’t he?”

  “There isn’t going to be an indictment.” McBurney retrieved another few pages stapled together from inside his envelope. “This is the deal: a full and unconditional pardon, signed just this morning by the President.” He handed it to a befuddled Stuart. “You see, there was one big hole in the President’s case against you. That’s because Edward and I refused to testify against Chang and Thackeray, both of whom claim that you had shot Devinn purely in self-defense.” McBurney also was ready to testify that the President had been conflicted during the crisis because of his secret, politically inspired negotiations with the Chinese government. That tidbit Stuart was better off not knowing.

  McBurney said to Stuart, “We have to agree to keep the whole thing quiet. So far as the public knows, the United States has sensibly backed down from a newly provocative nuclear power.”

  “No more federal grand jury?”

  “And no more civil lawsuit. Your bail deposit will be returned forthwith. It’s all spelled out in Denis’s pardon.”

  Stuart considered the peculiar turn of events. With Rong Peng and his cronies dead, there was one side of the story they were never going to prove. “Sounds like I owe you guys my gratitude.”

  “Like Ed said, we’re the ones who owe you.”

  “Will the Thanatech software evidence help in seeking reparations from China?”

  McBurney studied him.

  “Come on, Sam. It doesn’t take a genius to see the mess on our hands. We now have in our possession not one but two Chinese satellites, representing billions of dollars, never mind they stole the technology, and for which I’m sure their nose is nonetheless bent out of shape. The United States has cowed to the UN Security Council and begun withdrawing our forces—”

  “That’s a bit misleading. The Security Council agrees that Tehran illegally imported proscribed missile and nuclear weapons technology.”

  “The point is, the new Chinese leadership has been left holding the bag—you told me it was their guy who instigated all of this. Iran has publicly demanded that we provide reparations. And unless someone comes clean with the American taxpayer, my guess is that we’ll be forced to eat the tab for two national landmarks and a refinery, to say nothing of the disruption to our economy. There will be endless lawsuits on behalf of the hundreds if not thousands of innocent victims. If I were Uncle Sam, I’d be banging my fist on China’s door. Get them to simply retire some of our debt, or something.”

  McBurney reluctantly acknowledged the Gordian Knot of liabilities to be quietly unraveled. “It’ll take years to iron out. That you all but wiped out their government hasn’t exactly helped. Your friend Deng has been assigned to participate—by the way, he sends his regards. Oh, and I nearly forgot. President Denis may be a little miffed right now, but he is a practical man. He’s instructed his staff to see that CLI’s project funding is fully reinstated, ‘and then some.’ ”

  Stuart didn’t respond.

  “He offered up some crock about wanting to prevent working folks from being hurt by any of this. What he wants is to make sure that you’re satisfied with the arrangement. That you’re ‘onboard with the program,’ is what I think he actually said.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You are the CEO. Are you with the program, or not?”

  Stuart didn’t need long to think about it. He looked at McBurney and laughed.

  # # #

  .

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to my mother, Janice, who instilled in me my appreciation for the written word. William Holinger, Peter Kneisel, Carol Moore, Jane Bernstein, Ph.D., and Susan Meyers are the early prospectors who encouraged me to keep digging. Stephen Reucroft, Ph.D., Scott Elston, M.D., Noriko ‘Lee’ Elston, and Scott Phillips indulged my questions with their specialized insight. Any errors of substance are mine. Judy Hauser, Eileen Wilson, and Dave Dolan were generous with their time and contributions for improving the manuscript. Terri Morrison provided me with that final push across the finish line.

  This novel owes its existence most of all to my good friend Dave Spiewak, who managed to believe in both the story and my writing when I did neither.

  Only the renowned editorial prowess of Emily Bestler could have hammered the doorstop into the readable magnum opus of its present form. Truly I am the greater beneficiary of our good will, charity-born relationship. My heartfelt thanks to Emily, Caroline Porter, and the Simon & Schuster Corporation for having made that possible.

  Finally, I am inspired daily by the love and perseverance of my wife, Lynn. Along with our daughter, Lindsay, these two strong women in my life make it all worthwhile.

  .

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sidney Elston has traveled extensively to Japan, China, and Western Europe. Following graduation from Villanova University with a degree in engineering, he spent sixteen years in the field of aircraft engine design; his earliest inventions are inside the engines that power Air Force One. Razing Beijing is his first novel. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and daughter and is at work on his second novel, The Yacht Club, scheduled for release in the fall of 2014.

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