by Clancy, Tom
“Sir, we tried communicating with the tower when we landed,” the pilot informed him. “Our radio signals are being blocked.”
Chou turned to his aide. “Cellular phones as well?”
The young man was holding his phone. He looked grim. “There are too many satellite dishes at the base. I cannot get a signal.”
“Will the tower be able to block our Internet uplink?”
“That is very unlikely,” the pilot answered. “Our airborne wireless operates on one point nine gigahertz, which is a privately used frequency. Unless the communications center knows exactly what that frequency is, they cannot block it. Not as long as we have direct line-of-sight access to the satellite.”
“Thank you very much, Captain,” the intelligence director said. He looked back through the door. He was perspiring slightly from the heat. Chou asked his aide for water. He did not want anyone to think he was afraid. As he drank, Chou was surprised to notice two men were approaching with a ladder.
“What are you doing?” Chou asked the lieutenant.
“You will close the door,” the officer replied. “Otherwise, we are prepared to close it for you.”
“We will close the door and leave,” Chou decided suddenly. “You will see to our refueling.”
“I will relay your request to the base commander.”
“That was not a request,” Chou informed him.
“I only take orders from the general,” the lieutenant answered predictably.
Chou regarded him but said nothing. “Close the door,” he told his aide.
The director of the Guoanbu returned to his seat. He opened his own laptop and began composing an E-mail to the prime minister’s office. It would be marked Top Priority, National Security. The heading guaranteed that whoever received it would contact the prime minister immediately, wherever he was.
The pilot got on the public address system. “Director Chou, a fuel truck has been sent from the hangar.”
That was a surprise. Obviously, Tam Li did not want them here. He would probably have the aircraft fueled as slowly as possible. He must believe that by the time Chou was in the air, it would be too late to stop him. It was curious that he was not concerned about E-mail. Perhaps he thought his signals would block it. Tam Li often acted with passion rather than sense.
Chou quickly composed his E-mail as the smell of jet fuel filled the cockpit. After several minutes the pilot came back on the speaker.
“Director Chou, please come to the cockpit,” the captain said. “Something is happening outside.”
Chou set his laptop aside and went to the front. He did not hurry. Panic was its own fuel. He stepped inside and looked out the window. He saw three fire trucks moving along the runway in their direction.
“Obviously, Captain, there is a fire somewhere,” Chou said.
“If so, sir, there would be an alarm,” the pilot replied.
The captain was correct.
“How has the refueling proceeded?” Chou asked.
The captain indicated a gauge. “It has not yet begun.”
Chou felt foolish. Not just because he had overlooked the obvious but because he had underestimated General Tam Li.
“Captain, we need to take off,” Chou said. “You have to get us to a commercial airstrip.”
“Sir, the nearest fields are in Hong Kong or Canton, and we have barely enough fuel to reach either—”
“Take off!” Chou ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
“If these trucks try to block us, go around them or over them, but get us out of here,” he added.
The pilot and copilot immediately began preparing the jet for power-up. Chou sat in the seat beside his aide. Both men buckled their seat belts. The plane rattled as the engines were started in tandem.
“Sir, why would the general give us fuel, then use fire trucks to close off the runway?” Chou’s aide asked.
“I do not believe that is what he is doing,” Chou said ominously. He cast a look out the window. The airmen were all watching the back of the aircraft. After a moment, they were given a signal to withdraw.
Chou undid his belt and jumped from his seat.
“Sir?” said the aide.
“The door!” Chou yelled. “Open it and deploy the emergency slide. We have to get out!”
The aide got up and went to the hatch. Chou stood behind him.
“Stop the engines,” Chou told the pilots. “We’re leaving—”
There was a whooshing sound from the back of the aircraft, like a gas range being ignited. Chou looked back. That was not far from the case. The windows in the center of the aircraft were suddenly filled with a smoky orange glow.
The orderly pulled open the hatch just as the dull light reached the forward section. The young man cried and stepped back as flames whipped over the foot of the doorway and into the cabin.
That was why the general was not worried about E-mailed messages, Chou thought. He knew they would never be sent.
Perhaps.
While the pilot jumped forward to close the hatch, Chou turned and rushed down the aisle. He reached his seat just as the aircraft lost all structural integrity. The fuel that had been set aflame below the aircraft ignited the fuel that remained in the tanks. The tires exploded first, dropping the aircraft to the tarmac a moment before it disintegrated. The fuselage blew open like a holiday firework. Instead of spraying the air with sparkling light, it threw shards of glass, metal, and quick-melted plastic in every direction. The wings were blown from the fuselage. Weighted down by the engines, one on each wing, they hit the asphalt and skidded several dozen yards from the sides. The tail section simply broke off and fell backwards, allowing a fist of flame to shoot from the back of the cabin.
Because the aircraft fuel tanks had been near empty, the blast was contained to the jet and the surrounding airfield. The three fire trucks that had already been en route arrived immediately after the explosion. Foam punched through the black smoke, hissing as it came into contact with fire and superheated metal. Within several minutes the flames had been extinguished. Men in fire-resistant white suits were beginning to move through the wreckage. They used back-mounted fire extinguishers to kill spot fires and search for survivors.
There were none.
There were not even remains that could be easily spotted, let alone identified.
General Tam Li was given an update about the spill and its aftermath. He thanked the fire captain.
Then he called the prime minister to inform him of the tragic crash.
FORTY-SEVEN
Xichang, China Thursday, 8:55 A.M.
The prime minister was in a pleasantly detached mood as his plane neared Xichang. He had been reading for pleasure, not for work, which was unusual. But it had been an intense few days, and a search for the historical Wong Fei Hung was a welcome distraction. Tales of the nineteenthcentury Chinese hero had been a favorite of Le’s when he was a boy. The son of one of the Ten Tigers of Canton, Wong Fei Hung was a healer, a philosopher, a martial arts master, and a defender of justice. He was also the subject of over one hundred feature films and four times as many novels, which had obscured his real-life accomplishments. Le Kwan Po found the real man even more fascinating than the fictional one, living quietly as a peddler of herbal medicines while battling tirelessly for the rights of his fellow citizens. Married seven times—the last, to a teenage girl—Wong Fei Hung was obviously a man of considerable strength and stamina.
Anita was sitting beside her father, and Paul Hood was sitting across the aisle. They were chatting amiably in English. Le Kwan Po was happy and surprised to see his daughter so relaxed. She had asked that Mr. Hood be seated across from her rather than in the section of the airplane reserved for dignitaries. That caused some indignant glances and awkward remarks from the European representatives, but Le ignored them. It was the privilege of a high-ranking official to be provocative. Besides, none of them had ever gone for a walk with his daughter.
L
e had been tempted to ask what they were speaking about when the phone in his armrest beeped.
It was General Tam Li calling from Zhuhai. Chou Shin had been killed during an unannounced visit to the Zhuhai Air Base.
“I do not know why he was here,” the general said. “We are trying to ascertain whether there were explosives on board.”
Le Kwan Po’s first thought was that Chou Shin may have been planning another unworthy act, such as a direct attack on Tam Li. It would have been a blow to the general’s power base by hitting his eastern command hub.
It also would have been treason, Le thought. Chou Shin was many things, but he was not a traitor. The defense of China was as important to Communists as it was to the more progressive elements of government. Even so, there would have been no reason for the Guoanbu director to go there personally. Unless it was to gain access to a place where others could not go. Tam Li’s office, for one.
“I had been preparing to leave for the launch, Mr. Prime Minister, but I want to be here for the investigation,” Tam Li went on.
“I understand,” Le replied. “Let me know what you discover.”
“At once,” the general assured him.
“And General?”
“Sir?”
“Has Taiwan begun its traditional coastal exercises?”
“They have,” Tam Li replied.
“Then tell your bureau of information to inform the Defense Ministry that a government jet has crashed on the runway, nothing more,” Le said. “Until your white team finds the director’s remains and has confirmed his death, I do not want that information released.”
“Yes, sir. May I ask why?”
“Taipei may see the death of our military intelligence chief as an invitation to expand their mischief,” the prime minister replied.
“Of course.”
“I will speak with you after the launch.”
Le Kwan Po hung up. He turned to his left. Paul Hood was wearing a perplexed look. Anita regarded her father with open concern. Obviously, that was what had caused Hood’s expression.
“What has happened?” Anita asked.
“Chou Shin has been killed in an explosion,” he told her.
“One of his own design? An accident?”
“I do not know,” Le said.
“Are you going to tell the gentleman?” she asked, indicating Hood with her eyes. She obviously did not want to say his name, which he would pick from the unfamiliar dialogue.
“American satellites will surely have seen the explosion,” her father said. “I will have to tell him something.” He could see that Anita wanted to suggest something. “Do you have any thoughts?”
“Tell him the truth,” she said.
“Why?”
“He is an intelligence officer,” she said. “He might be able to give us insight into the actions of another intelligence officer.”
Le managed a small smile. “That is true. But that is not the insight we might need at this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Chou Shin and Tam Li were bitter rivals,” the prime minister said. “It is the insight of a thwarted military officer we might need.”
“I believe our guest may know someone like that as well,” Anita said.
Le had to think for a moment. “The man whose company built the satellite?” he asked, once again avoiding any names.
Anita nodded.
“All right,” her father said. “Let’s have a chat with Mr. Hood. As quietly as possible, so the others do not hear.
Anita turned to Hood and said that her father wished to speak with him. Le took a moment to gather his thoughts.
He needed to find out why Chou Shin had gone to the base when he should have been flying to Xichang. It was unlikely that anyone at the Guoanbu knew. Chou Shin was a man who guarded his own activities as jealously as he kept secrets of state. Perhaps the intelligence director had contacted someone before leaving or while en route. The prime minister would have his assistant look into that.
Of more immediate concern, Le did not know whether Tam Li had simply decided to carry their feud to a new level. That was certainly a possibility. It was also the one that concerned him the most. Because if it were true, there was no telling where—or how—it might stop.
FORTY-EIGHT
Xichang, China Thursday, 9:14 A.M.
Hood was not surprised by what Anita told him. He would not miss Chou Shin. The man was a hard-line ideologue who kept China anchored to its backward, isolationist past. Whose agents had helped to endanger his Op-Center field team in Botswana when they tracked a kidnapped priest.
But assassination, if that’s what had happened, was not a policy that Paul Hood endorsed. It was the last and ultimately least effective resort of desperate megalomaniacs. If they did not have the support to accomplish what they wanted through legitimate means, murder was a short-term solution.
“Do you need help with something?” Hood asked the prime minister through his daughter.
“I am concerned about Tam Li,” Le Kwan Po replied. “Your own friend the general might have some thoughts. Perhaps you have your own sources.”
Ordinarily, Hood would be suspicious of a Chinese leader who asked for help from American intelligence. Though the presidential envoy did not entirely trust the man, he believed in him. Le Kwan Po had been caught between two strong polar forces. One of them had just been eliminated. He was clearly looking to restabilize himself and perhaps his nation.
“I will call him when we land,” Hood promised. He did not want to contact him while they were in flight. Rodgers was probably with the marines. The pilots might be able to track his call using the sophisticated electronics of the aircraft. He did not want to give them that opportunity. “In the interim there is someone else who might have some insights,” he said.
Hood called Liz Gordon. The Op-Center psychologist had just gotten home and was feeding her cat.
“Paul Hood,” she said flatly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”
“Frankly, I didn’t expect to be calling,” he fired back.
As a rule, Hood had not been a booster of psychiatry or profiling. He still was not sure it deserved the validity and effort law enforcement gave it. Occasionally, however, it offered useful insights.
Gordon snickered. “Touché. What can I do for you?”
“Has Bob kept you abreast of the situation in China?”
“I read his summary before leaving,” she said.
“There’s been a new development,” Hood said. “The nonmilitary individual was eliminated, apparently by his rival.”
“The man who was hit in Charleston and Taipei struck back,” she said.
“Right.”
Hood knew that Liz would understand his shorthand. There were English-speakers on board the aircraft. The engines were loud but not that loud. Some of them might overhear.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Soldiers are not diplomats. They run out of words and patience faster than other people,” Liz told him. “Where did this happen?”
“At a base in the east.”
“Isn’t this his rocket being launched?” Liz asked.
“Yes.”
“Why isn’t he there?”
“The big man says he is staying at home to oversee the investigation,” Hood told her. “Perhaps he is concerned that the deceased succeeded in his alleged plot to boobytrap the mission.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell that to the PM?” she asked. “If he was responsible for this incident at the base, there is sure to be an inquiry. He will be a likely suspect. Information about a plot against the mission would give our man a reason for having acted the way he did.”
She had a point.
“Do we even know why the deceased went there?” Liz asked.
“No.”
“People tend to confront other people face-to-face for one of two reasons,” Liz said. “Either they ar
e flat-out nuts, or they have a virtuous cause and strength of numbers behind them. Was this man crazy?”
“Not at all,” Hood said.
“Then he must have known something, or had something that he wanted to present to his rival. That’s the information you should be looking for, information that may have been worth killing for.”
“Mr. Hood!” Anita said urgently.
Hood looked over. She was pointing to her father’s laptop. He nodded and held up a finger.
“Liz, this has been helpful. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you doing okay?” he added as an afterthought.
“Just peachy,” she replied. “Go. We’ll talk later.”
“Thanks again,” he said.
He folded away his cell phone as Anita typed a translation on the laptop. When she was finished, she handed the device to Hood. It was an incomplete E-mail from Guoanbu Director Chou. It had been sent around the time of the explosion. It read:I have come to Zhuhai to question Tam Li about a deployment being carried out under his command. It is a response to Taiwan’s standard fielding of a non-aggressive military force for one of our launches. I believe the general plans to attack the enemy with overwhelming firepower. He is holding us on the tarmac, not permitting us to contact
FORTY-NINE
Xichang, China Thursday, 10:22 A.M.
After landing at the airfield fifty kilometers south of the complex, Prime Minister Le Kwan Po had placed a call to the Ministry of National Defense. The minister confirmed that General Tam Li had reported organizing an appropriate “ready response” to the Taiwanese deployment. He had no information about Chou Shin’s report of “overwhelming firepower.”
“When was the last time you communicated with Tam Li?” the prime minister inquired.
“He called to inform me of the explosion,” the minister replied.
“You have had no other reports of activity in the east?”
“None,” the minister said.
Le was not surprised. Those reports would have originated at Zhuhai and been disseminated throughout the national defense system. The PLA was not equipped to spy on itself, and it did not have reciprocal arrangements with other nations. Still, someone was lying, either Chou Shin or Tam Li. The prime minister could not imagine the intelligence director sending an E-mail claiming an attack was being prepared unless he could have supported his claim.