Razing Beijing: A Thriller

by Elston III, Sidney

  Peifu stopped and turned to him in the descending darkness, distrustful of the conversation’s direction. “It’s not so much what you should do. It’s more what I think you should not do. You should do those things that serve humanity, like modernizing your cherished medical system. You should not kowtow to a corrupt government and an evil military. Earlier you asked if I was content. Well, these fascists are content only with the necks of the people securely pinned to the ground beneath their heels, and yet for these toadies you develop the implements of power. I have never understood these two faces you wear.”

  “The government you despise provides each and every day for the future of China. A future worthy of your children and grandchildren and their great, great grandchildren.”

  His son pointed back toward the way they had walked. “We are not even at liberty to freely discuss things in our own home. Is that what you believe the future should hold?”

  “Surveillance is a matter of nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Their modest intrusions benefit the whole of society. They secure us from enemies of the state.” Things cannot be freely discussed in our home, Deng was tempted to say, because of your foolish transgressions.

  “They secure themselves.”

  Deng considered his son to be something of a pacifist, albeit an exceptionally rebellious one. He probably still had no idea that twice he’d been spared the degradation of the gulag due only to the intervention of his father. “You chafe for democracy. What more proof of the folly in this does one need than the chaos that prevails over the so-called democracies? They are perpetually incapable of bestowing power upon worthy and effective leaders.”

  “Nobody would claim democracy perfect. At least it makes an attempt at legitimacy.”

  “Legitimacy like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “In the eye of the people—not the Politburo or a handful of power brokers. Even the old usurpation of power under the Mandate of Heaven was more intellectually honest than our present arrangement.”

  Deng actually saw a glint of truth and irony in his son’s point. He once read that the English Magna Carta, upon which most of Western democracy was based, viewed Heaven’s authority as vested in ‘the people,’ who bestow it upon whomever they select to lead them. In China’s dynastic era of regime change by conquest, legitimacy was bestowed by Heaven’s mandate directly upon the victor. That both concepts, however disparate, happened to promote Heaven as the arbiter of authority was apparently lost on Peifu.

  Deng gestured to an empty bench between the lake and a patch of trees.

  Sitting quietly beside each other for a time, Deng realized he was nervously probing the dirt with his cane. “I have something to admit to you. I have dedicated my life to technology. As you know, such intellectual pursuits China has not always encouraged among her citizens. As commissioner I have tried to embrace this great opportunity, to discern which technology to develop for the betterment of China. That is the essence of what I do. At times, I have known my resolve to waiver.”

  “So...you have questioned the Party’s authority, have you?”

  “And yet you see only my dedication and mistake it for blind obedience.”

  “I do not see the distinction.”

  “We’re talking about my role in providing for the defense of our country—these implements of power, as you call them. There are times when my resolve waivers, even to the point of fear. Not fear that these technologies will fall into oppressively governing hands, as you might. Fear that they will find their way into the hands of foreigners bent on our destruction—that, after all, is our history.”

  “Really, this is nationalist propaganda.”

  “I am not a propagandist. Why must you be so insulting?”

  “Why have we not discussed this before tonight? Are you ill?”

  “I am not sick!”

  “You would tell me.”

  Deng dismissed the concern with a wave. “Consider what I am trying to illustrate, my son. For a millennium, the Europeans were poised at the dawn of the Bronze Age while China led the world’s innovations. Eventually, the spice and textile trade flourished along the Silk Road, foreigners arrived on our shores in their meager, rudderless sailing ships incapable even of tacking into the wind. It was a time when China freely shared her inventions, everything from a compass to navigate the seas, a wondrous mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal for treating skin ailments, to the crossbow, an implement of battle perhaps but also an accurate means of game hunting. Our complacency had set in. Intellectuals ruled with specious Confucianism, the military class who had fought all the wars were despised, and the burgeoning advances of the West were arrogantly spurned as petty tricks.

  “You see, our enemies noted these attitudes. And when the foreigners returned to defeat us, they navigated by compass aboard ships with sternpost rudders, and fired upon us using guns charged with powder—all innovations of Chinese design. We had hastened our own dynastic decline and disgrace. Our weakness led the way for invasion by foreigners, their religions, and their opium. Did you know that opium addiction became so epidemic that demand for our silk, our tea and our porcelain, known for centuries to be of such fine quality as to be sought the world over, virtually disappeared? Peking was too weak to prevent the chemical subornation of their people by foreigners. And this time they had been conquered not by Mongols or Ottomans but by the more distant British and Dutch, with their humiliating territorial annexation, followed by two major Japanese invasions...” Deng shook his head with a sigh.

  “When the rest of the world was manufacturing commercial jets and dreaming of manning rockets to the moon, China had not the fundamental technology to feed itself. Beginning under the Ming rulers, we had walled ourselves off from the world, rejected their technology, their methods of commerce. By the time I was born, China had become a pathetic laggard—the global imbecile.”

  Deng waited as a young couple strolled past and disappeared in the descending dusk. A police siren wailed somewhere in the distance.

  “The lesson of history is clear,” he continued, “as I assure you it is to our adversaries, whomever and wherever they are. Peace is preserved only through strength.”

  “Where you and I differ, Father, is whose strength we should labor to preserve.”

  “Our strength—why is this not obvious to you? China lay wasted and broken in the midst of feudal destruction, barren and not arable, our people impoverished and starving. For the life of me, I cannot understand your refusal to accept the significance of this. As I look back over history, I find it difficult to comprehend what possible spoils China’s foreign invaders had sought to acquire, yet conquer they did. And why? Because conquer they could.

  “China’s standing in the world can only be elevated through superior strength. Helping restore her to the pinnacle of civilization has long been my ambition. Now, we may have stumbled along the way. While I may not live long enough to see that day, on our ancestral honor, that day will come.”

  Peifu slowly shook his head. “I view China in the context of a different world. You illustrate how vastly that world has changed. I do not deny that Han people must protect themselves, our disagreement is in the perception of the threat.” He turned toward his father. “The leaders of our country preside over a system without checks on their abuses, save one—that the proletariat will bombard the headquarters.”

  “Careful, you will be labeled a black hand.”

  Peifu chuckled at his father’s dry sarcasm; no doubt he had been so labeled, and for some time now. “You labor to protect China from threats which you perceive lie beyond our borders. I see the threat as already here, within our borders. That threat is the unbridled oppression wielded by those unelected and unaccountable—our political class.”

  Deng took a deep breath. “Was it Marx who said the only thing democracy did for the masses was allow an election every few years, to decide who would represent and oppress them?”

  “We have long disr
egarded anything Marx had to say. What little, actual history I have been privy to reads like some fascist utopia, which succeeded in starving thirty million of its own citizens, our ‘Great’ Leap Forward, for which we were treated to our ‘Great’ Proletarian Cultural Revolution—one great atrocity after another. You’ve actually lived through those unspeakable times, as have we through your stories of them. Under the fraud of socialism, more than fifty-million people have been exterminated.”

  “It was not so straightforward.”

  “It was criminal. Who has been held to account? Four people? Exactly what is it that convinces you another power-mongering despot will not rise-up to ravage another generation?”

  “I am one man. You are one man. One man cannot right the wrongs of one dark chapter—”

  “Who will be there to stop him?”

  Deng felt himself sinking into despondency. What father deserved suffering the lecture of his own child? But there the words were, hanging in the silence. “Chairman Mao and his Gang of Four were an aberration. That could never happen again.”

  “You mean, history cannot repeat itself?”

  A breeze rippled the surface of the lake, distorting the reflection of lights. Peifu had certainly inherited the tact of his mother, whose memory Deng cherished. Somewhere within the bastion of power was a man—the butcher of his family, gaogan, one to whom Deng may have unwittingly suborned himself. How amusing it would be for such a man—from a position of power?—to have manipulated him, indeed, to have made a mockery of him. What does my dedication to such men say for the future of my grandson?

  Deng Zhen turned to his son. “What type of world would you have for your children?” His voice sounded unexpectedly weary.

  At length, Peifu finally replied. “One free from manipulation into hatred of the freedom loving people of the world.”

  53

  THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE listened carefully, interrupting only occasionally with a question as McBurney described the convoluted series of events. He tilted his head back and another two puffs of smoke began a languid drift toward the ceiling duct. “This really a Beijing attempt to shut her up?”

  “I believe it is,” McBurney answered without hesitation.

  Burns looked at him.

  “We had the lab analyze her so-called blackmail note. Wherever the message might have originated, the words are cut from newspaper printed on recycled pulp matching batches used by two Midwestern distributors. Spectral analysis of the photographic paper revealed trace elements typical of water samples found in aquifers all around northeastern China. So we can also say that wherever the photographs were shot, they were printed in that region of the world. Ziegler reprocessed the image of the forearm in the background, the one seen holding the playing cards. The dark-green sleeve material appears to be a heavy utility weight. You can make out what looks like two points of the red star worn on the sleeve of the PLA standard issue fatigue.”

  “Just sloppy work, you think?”

  “It happens.”

  “This suggests a highly orchestrated, premeditated series of events.”

  “Espionage, executed by an agent in-country.”

  Burns nodded, eyeing him patiently. “Are we sure?”

  “Sir?”

  “Consider the implications. The PRC sponsors sabotage of a non-military, purely commercial test aircraft, God only knows why, which crashes on American soil and kills American citizens. In legal terms, that’s an act of war. It’s astounding to me they would intentionally do something like that. I find it equally astounding they would proceed to cover it up by risking attention being drawn to the daughter of the man whom they know we tried to defect. The odds of a coincidence are unimaginably small.”

  McBurney pointed out that they had no idea as to the sequence of those events. “And the father’s a physicist, daughter’s an engineer. These careers tend to run in families. That probably increases the odds a bit.”

  “Any intelligence officer worth his salt realizes no cover-up attempt is ever guaranteed to work. They would have had to consider our potential interpretation of those odds beforehand. And yet, they decided to proceed with it.”

  “Or the connection may have simply been an oversight. They run a disjointed sort of bureaucracy in their intelligence community, after all. I’m still not sure I see your point.”

  “What if the note and photos are disinformation meant to draw our attention to the sabotage?”

  “You mean as a diversion?”

  Director Burns nodded. “I suppose that’s one possibility.”

  A minute of silent contemplation elapsed.

  McBurney finally shook his head. “I can’t envision State Security staging any diversion which has the potential of implicating themselves in an act of war. We’re talking real hell to pay at the very least, a significant loss of life to avenge...they’d be averse to that. I could see Beijing trying to implicate somebody else, if in fact a diversion is what they intended, or somebody trying to implicate Beijing—that’s also a possibility we should not overlook. On the other hand, given the involvement of Zhao, my hunch is that coincidence and maybe a lack of discipline were the cause. With succession on tap, there’s a good bit of confusion over there these days.”

  “Which brings us to the subject of motive. Anything special about this aircraft they were testing?”

  “Yeah, it’s very fuel efficient. Word is airlines are clamoring for it, or were before it fell out of the sky, that is.”

  Burns bit into his cigar.

  McBurney scowled. “I suppose a connection could be drawn to China’s hoarding of Middle East oil, insofar as it follows the general pattern of denying the United States energy independence. Proving that would take a hell of a lot more intelligence...what?” He realized his boss was staring at him incredulously.

  “You’re bullshitting me,” said Burns.

  McBurney shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “This is preposterous! Sam, you’re about to get very busy.”

  “I thought I already was.”

  “I presume you’ve contacted the FBI about this Chang woman coming forward with this?”

  McBurney didn’t respond.

  “Sam. They’re conducting this Thanatech investigation. We have to tell them something, don’t we?”

  While usually averse to sharing his cards with the FBI, McBurney was nowadays repulsed by the idea unless a few questions unrelated to the present topic could be answered. “I suppose so, if we expect to get any of their help.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “I’m not sure I want to do or say anything the FBI might use to call the dogs off their principal suspect,” McBurney said in a rather poor attempt to establish some wiggle room. “Speaking of whom, Ross and I each think Emily Chang betrayed affection for this guy. Stuart might be a key player in whatever ant hill the FBI are hoping to kick open.”

  “You think this Stuart is actually Emily Chang’s handler?”

  McBurney didn’t know what to make of Stuart. “The FBI apparently consider him central to their investigation. I just don’t think there’s much to be gained by sharing this information right now.” He described what he knew of the investigation that the Richmond field office was spearheading at the behest of the Cleveland FBI agent. “Meanwhile, Stuart and Chang are working some quirky non-military R&D, which doesn’t seem to relate to anything. At first I was intrigued to hear the company was involved in satellite business. Carolyn Ross found this only amounted to providing credit card and telecom services, that sort of thing. Really not techie enough to whet China’s appetite.”

  “What’s the company called?”

  “CLI—Coherent Light Inc. Most of their business involves laser components for surgical and industrial use, some high-tech military optics. Stuart actually co-founded the place.”

  “Money?”

  “I guess he has plenty. It would not surprise me if an IRS audit isn’t mysteriously triggered.”r />
  They discussed one obvious flaw in connecting Beijing to events through the current set of players: with the exception of Emily Chang, none were Chinese. Stuart himself didn’t really fit the foreign intelligence profile by being well-educated, wealthy, Caucasian, a single parent. In descending order of preference, Chinese intelligence organs tended to recruit as spies Chinese citizens residing in the U.S., immigrants to the U.S., naturalized citizens, and least preferably, latter-generation ethnic Chinese.

  Burns said, “Find some way to proceed other than misleading the Bureau folks, will you? Good God, the FBI director will scream bloody murder if he finds we’re meddling in his investigation. Seems we also have an obligation to inform the company whose plane was blown out of the sky—discreetly, of course. They’ll have to be dissuaded from making public statements until we know what’s going on.”

  McBurney felt a bit awkward raising his next point. “What about the woman’s request that we extricate her father from prison?”

  The DCI studied him. “What about it?”

  “I guess we’ve already taken our best shot.”

  “I guess. Look, Sam. Leave the humanitarian gestures to Amnesty International. If I were you, right now I’d work on getting to the bottom of why the Chinese might’ve taken down that goddamn airplane.” Burns pushed himself up from his desk and crossed the room to his black mahogany sideboard. “Would you like a cigar? Brandy, whiskey?”

  McBurney was mildly surprised. He politely declined.

  Director Burns returned rolling a fresh Churchill between his forefinger and thumb. The Director settled back into his chair. His expression became grave. “For a little over a year, the President has been conducting secret negotiations with Beijing. The deal is, or was supposed to be, that China use their growing clout with OPEC and get them to back off the embargo against the United States.” Burns paused to roll the end of the cigar through the flame of his lighter. “In return, President Denis would convince Congress to water down missile defense, delay it, whatever. Last I knew, the President was hoping to extract several concessions. He wanted Beijing to curtail nuclear weapons production, and give their unequivocal assurance to terminate transfer of weapons technology to ‘rogue’ countries, but shit, they’ve already signed up for those things. Takes real balls, if you think about it. China was demanding as a minimum that we not deploy SBIRS Low coverage over East Asia.”