“If you please, comrade,” said Rong’s bodyguard without raising his eyes from the pages of a magazine. “The vice chairman will be only another moment.”
A splash in the pool a few minutes later announced that the moment had come and gone.
The bodyguard smiled. “Vice Chairman Rong will see you now.”
Inside what was still officially known as Mao’s Swimming Pool, exotic flowering plants dangling from the cavernous skylight invoked the image of a luxurious resort. Deng glimpsed the naked form of a young teenage girl walking hurriedly off, wet hair clinging to the middle of her back, spare hips and buttocks swaying tightly. Clutching a towel to her chest, she cast a distressed glance over her shoulder before disappearing through a doorway on the opposite side of the pool.
Rong Peng hauled himself up the steps of a swimming pool ladder and met his two guests at a circle of teakwood furniture arranged poolside. Deng noted that the man contending to become China’s next core leader kept himself in exceptionally robust physical shape for a man in his fifties—a fact that their interruption of his indulgent virility was probably meant to convey.
Rong meticulously wiped himself dry with a towel before donning a cotton robe. He sat opposite his guests, crossed his legs, and said to Deng, “I am concerned that we are about to be overtaken by the Americans.”
Deng allowed himself a deep breath. He had feared the curt summons from the number two commander-in-chief might be a precursor to devastating news of a more personal nature. Perhaps his son’s sense of invincibility was not so misplaced after all.
“Something is troubling you as well, Commissioner?”
“The engineers are actually making good progress,” Deng said. “It is down to essentially a computer reprogramming exercise. Since Dr. Zhao’s miraculous reappearance, modifying the American program has proceeded well. You may have heard that he is back on his feet.”
“When should we expect a successful demonstration?”
“As early as a week, probably ten days.”
“Ten days?”
“I approved the plan this morning. Assuming the trials check out, the final uplink will then be performed on the orbiting vehicle. In ten days we could be in position to attempt a demonstration.”
“And there will be no more delays? We have been here before.”
“I would be lying to say with certainty that there will be no more delays.”
“We are no longer in the realm of research, Comrade Commissioner.”
“I am aware of that.”
Rong reached for a pack of 555 brand cigarettes on the lounge table. “Fourth Line is grossly behind schedule. But I did not drag you here to harp and complain. On the contrary, you are to be commended for your profoundly visionary undertaking on behalf of the Chinese people.”
“Thank you.”
Rong tapped a cigarette loose. “As an admitted imbecile when it comes to technical matters, I like to think of your organization as a great distillery of knowledge. The ingredients consist of all modern science—some Chinese, some provided to you with the help of people like Chen here. You patiently refine the process, year after year, until the valuable distillate meets our ever-shifting political needs. Like a distillery, would you agree?”
“A novel description.”
“None of us dreamed you would not experience occasional delay. However,” the powerful Vice Chairman of Military Affairs lit his cigarette, “we are simply out of time.”
“It does not help that we cannot say exactly when the Americans will fully deploy their missile defenses,” Chen added.
“But if we are lucky, technocracy is the same everywhere,” said Rong. “And I think we have managed to minimize that particular schedule uncertainty. Nevertheless, you may have heard rumors, Commissioner, that the American government is experiencing a lack of testosterone. It would be foolish for you or anyone under your charge to place faith in these rumors, to view them as a potential source of reprieve.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Deng replied honestly.
Rong seemed captivated by the possibility that that could be so. He leaned forward. “Schedule is everything now. Should the American’s space-borne missile defense elements possess anti-satellite capability, and they deploy first, you will be facing twenty years of work down the drain.”
Having already had this explained to me for the millionth time... Deng cleared his throat. “No doubt the American infra-red detection satellites will provide a level of ASAT capability—but what they cannot see, they cannot attack.” Their own, Chinese satellite was specifically designed with such ASAT defense and detection in mind. “Rather than bore you with technical details, I need only point out our intelligence briefings. I trust you have received them. Our stealth provisions seem so far to be operating effectively. If they were not, the Americans with their advanced reconnaissance tools would have, by now, detected the satellite in orbit.”
Deng wondered why he was having so much difficulty making himself clear. “It seems that whenever I provide this explanation, it only serves to cast doubt upon my commitment to schedule. This could not be further from fact. Events in the United States or elsewhere have no bearing on our commitment to schedule.”
“There is also the issue of intelligence assets,” Chen Ruihan pointed out. “The longer we must hang onto these as a contingent source of technical product, the more we risk their exposure.”
Rong asked Chen, “Are you aware of any specific risks?”
“None recently. The FBI had begun to investigate an apparent security breech within the teleportation consortium. Fortunately, other matters intervened before surveillance and any arrests could be made. The investigation was dropped.”
An attendant appeared carrying a silver tray of fresh fruit and a decanter of carbonated water. The man poured them each a glass before promptly leaving.
Rong rose from his chair and walked to the glass wall overlooking Zhonghai Lake. “What are your plans for the future, Commissioner? Once your dream becomes a reality.”
Deng chuckled. “My personal ambitions are of interest to you?”
“Certainly.” Rong turned from the window glass with a disarming smile. “Locked inside your head is invaluable knowledge.”
“Oh, I believe it’s time to make room at the commission for a fresh perspective. Technology is about innovation, after all.”
“No plans to hang around and bathe in the aura of accomplishment?”
The general secretary had already given his approval of Deng’s post-leadership role. Rong’s inquiry had a disturbing ring to it. Deng was suddenly impatient to return to his work. “I expect to continue my role in international trade activities and so forth. Consulting for the commission whenever it’s needed, that sort of thing.”
Rong strolled back from the windows wearing a contemplative expression. “One should never underestimate one’s utility.” He took a sip from his water and sat down heavily in his chair. “The future may belong to youth, but you have much experience and wisdom that youth will need to build upon. You don’t consider your age and experience a handicap, do you?”
Deng forced a grin. “I don’t see your point.”
“Our culture has always been somewhat dismissive of the potential of the handicapped. Take, say, the historic valor of Zheng He. Here was a man whose accomplishments are as yet unmatched—voyaging out over the oceans, scouring the hemisphere on behalf of the Middle Kingdom, centuries, dynasties before we would ever again give a damn about the rest of the world, let alone rebuilding our blue-water navy. Did you know that China once claimed over 6,500 sailing vessels?”
If for some reason Rong wished to indulge in a history debate, Deng was willing to oblige him. “The Ming emperor lost interest in trade, and the knowledge of how to build such ships was subsequently lost.” What handicap...?
“Precisely! Then you see the analogy?” A smile.
Deng suddenly remembered that Admiral He Zheng was known a
s the Three Jeweled Eunuch, a man castrated before earning the emperor’s trust. He rose from his chair. “I have a flight back to Xichang this afternoon.”
“Thank you for taking time from your very busy schedule. Perhaps you and your family would enjoy an evening at dinner, attending the theater?”
“That’s thoughtful, but no.”
“Don’t forget that the commission has a villa at your disposal in Bedhaie. You and your family must use it.”
“Perhaps after our successful demonstration.” Deng proceeded to leave, determined not to reveal the slightest indication of a limp.
“Comrade Deng?”
Deng stopped and turned.
“Your son keeps an interesting circle of friends.”
Deng felt a chill pass over him.
“But I would really like to hear sometime of your grandson. I am told he’s a very bright boy. I hope you are planning to aim high for his education.”
Without a word, Deng turned and headed out the door.
THROUGHOUT HIS FLIGHT later that evening, Deng vacillated between placing the call and leaving the man out of it. In the end, he had the driver deliver him directly to the Xichang apartment complex. As he had hoped, a light was still burning inside. He decided it was probably okay to knock.
“Commissioner Deng?” The renowned physicist answered the door looking startled but awake—and fully dressed, Deng saw, at 12:12 in the morning.
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”
“Not at all.” Zhao invited him in.
“I do not want to wake-up your wife. Would you prefer we go for a stroll...?”
“My wife is not presently home. Please, come in.”
Upon entering the modest flat, Deng noted that Zhao had not asked why he was there. Zhao motioned them toward the sofa.
“It is late and so I will simply get to the point. I have been troubled with the explanation of your recent whereabouts.” Deng studied Zhao’s haggard face. “How are you feeling?”
“What is not to understand? Would you care to inspect my medical records?”
Deng knew well that records could be falsified. “I am asking you directly where you were.”
“Please...what do you hope to achieve by this?”
“I am chief administrator of the most security-sensitive project in China. It is my business to know where the country’s top particle physicist disappeared to, and as it happens, during the most critical...” He waited with surprise as Zhao held his face in his hands.
“You don’t understand,” said Zhao softly, whose lowered hands revealed his anguish. “If I am not cooperating, then...”
“Then perhaps you’d better cooperate.” Deng glanced quickly around the small studio. A moment later he handed the back of a used envelope and a pencil to Zhao, who scribbled out a few words: They have my wife. I just came from there, she is still very sick. They threaten to stop importing her medicines.
Deng read the words with alarm. He handed the envelope back to Zhao. “Very well, if you insist on being stubborn. But please remember that I am not in a position to tolerate your further dereliction of duty. We do have a schedule to keep, and I expect to see you in early.” On his way to the door, Deng placed a consoling hand on Zhao’s shoulder.
65
Wednesday, June 24
South China Sea
IN AN ERA OF ELECTIVE plastic surgery among teenage youth, Clifford Gooey’s flirtation with a welterweight boxing career need not have left either his nose or the concha of his ears permanently deformed. But as the damage was done, the rebellious son of a prominent Canberra barrister had used the personal bludgeoning as a convenient means of thwarting the respectable courtroom career expected of him. Now a senior officer in the Australian Secret Intelligence Organization, his scars precluded all but a supervisory role in clandestine field operations. This was alright by him, though approaching seven weeks away from a wife he adored and two young boys of his own, it occurred to Clifford Gooey that perhaps he should’ve taken his father’s advice. Worse yet, the blasted American warship was gyrating like an amusement ride; even six-hundred feet and 9600 tons of steel was no match for the frothy fury of a following sea. As a salt-sipping Australian, Gooey was accustomed to mountainous rollers—but not the isolation of the combat information center, a dark and windowless box where he and his navy charges spent most of their time, where every object not a computer display or button to push was painted the same pale, sensory-deprivation green. Well, Gooey reminded himself, at least I’m not wasting away in a courtroom.
Another rogue wave drove the hull of the cruiser USS Cowpens into a gut-wrenching corkscrew and Gooey reached for a handhold. His movement caught the eye of the radar systems controller, Petty Officer Third-class Kevin Stayner. Stayner slid back his headset, cranked his neck around and looked up into the pale face staring down at him. “You feeling okay, Mr. Gooey?”
Gooey detected the hint of a smile. “Why the fuck shouldn’t I?”
The United States and Royal Australian navies had long shared a stabilizing presence in the South China Sea’s critically important ‘sea lanes of communication.’ Every sovereign nation on Earth had an economic stake in seeing them free and open. Even supertankers were susceptible to piracy in the SLOC, as the distress signal early that morning had shown. Petty Officer Stayner was among the few aboard Cowpens briefed on Clifford Gooey’s actual mission. Stayner’s responsibility as radar systems controller was to designate contacts of interest and hand them off for tracking and surveillance. Designated ‘targets’ were tracked by the AN/SPY-1D(V) phased array and monitored by a team assigned to the Aegis tactical display. As Cowpens was conducting routine shipping lane surveillance, there were presently twenty-three such targets. Stayner called up a page on his interactive display and scrolled down to those of interest to Gooey. On the screen beside each, he pressed the tip of an electronic wand.
Both men looked toward the wall-size display to their right. Highlighted there beneath two alpha-numeric designations was a summary of what Gooey had resignedly stumbled into the CIC to observe. Target Echo-Five-Alpha was identified as a commercial freighter, cruising a leisurely sixteen nautical miles abeam of Cowpens. The freighter put to sea several days earlier from the North Korean port of Namp’o; Gooey and a handful of others believed it to be enroute to Bandar e Abbas, Iran. Working with US Naval Intelligence, Gooey had persuaded the captain of Cowpens to shadow the ship all the way through the Strait of Malacca to the Bay of Bengal, whereupon it was Gooey’s desire that USS Shiloh or another such Aegis-equipped warship take over surveillance. He hoped by then to convince the appropriate command that his freighter carried more than the petroleum pipeline supplies listed on its manifest.
There was the matter of Stayner’s other highlighted target. Echo-Niner-Foxtrot was identified as a diesel electric submarine belonging to the People’s Republic of China, a kilo class acquired by the PLA years ago from the Russian Federation and already catalogued by the United States Navy. An American spy satellite, and subsequently Cowpens towed sonar array, had monitored the sub after putting to sea out of Shantou, China, south of the Taiwan Strait.
“Niner-Foxtrot’s holding a fairly steady 31,000 yards behind our wake. Question is, who are they following?”
“Well I guess that’s always the question,” Gooey replied. There was actually little question in Gooey’s mind that the sub would follow the North Korean on through the SLOC and into the Indian Ocean. Confirmation might lend credence to the accuracy of intelligence regarding her cargo. Exactly why the Chinese were choosing to follow was not nearly as clear.
A related concern had influenced the decision for Cowpens not to tail the freighter through the Strait, the captain choosing instead to shadow its progress from east of the Taiwan coast. Whether or not they had tricked the freighter’s captain could not be known.
“Mind giving a shout if anything changes?”
Stayner nodded. “I’ll be certain to, sir.”
&nb
sp; “Oh. I wouldn’t let this rolling motion get to you. It’s liable to stop in a day or two.”
Stayner laughed. “Thank God for that, sir.”
Gooey slapped the young man on the shoulder and straightened to leave. How Stayner, along with the dozen or so sailors who monitored the ship’s various sensors, withstood the room’s pitching and rolling, he hadn’t a clue. While entering the hatchway he nearly ran into the slender young woman whom he knew to be the command systems controller. She pressed a note into Gooey’s hand.
“Blast,” Gooey muttered upon reading it.
Bounding up the ladder topside, already Gooey heard the descending pitch of the turbines that powered the ship. He found relief in neither the invigorating breeze nor the steady horizon while marching toward the hatchway into the bridge.
Gooey found who he was looking for, a U.S. naval intelligence officer by the name of Lieutenant Anthony Scianni, seated beside the ship’s captain.
“We had an EP-3 perform a fly-by.” Scianni jutted his chin toward a folder. “You’re not going to like what they found.”
Gooey opened the folder and spread out on the table a series of plots, which at first glance meant little to him. There were several photographs of the North Korean freighter steaming under its Liberian flag and large, white oriental characters over her transom, which translated to English as Silver Wind. He was noticing something odd when Scianni reached to arrange one of several data plots with two of the photographs taken beneath the same cumulous cloud-covered sky.
“These were all collected within the last couple of days,” Scianni confirmed.
“Magnetometer data,” Gooey observed.
“Yep. We’ve been building a database using the Aries’ cesium magnetometer for a few years,” Scianni explained. “We observe each ship as close to empty as possible in order to establish a baseline.”
“Some never sail really all that empty,” Captain McCardle added, “but most of them have, including your North Korean.”
Gooey closely examined the odd photograph of the set—the freighter appeared high in the water compared to those more recently taken. “The plots go together with these?”
Razing Beijing: A Thriller Page 40