He liked people to know that the protection service, known as the SSPPD, was not like other branches of the Secret Service. Everyone had heard of the SS, but few people really understood it. The Secret Service had been set up by Abraham Lincoln, who signed the bill, can you believe it, on the day he was assassinated at the theatre: 14 April 1865.
There had been one local patrolman assigned to guard him, and the man had wandered away to get a better view of the stage, not realising that the real action was going to take place in the audience. Yet protecting the President had not been part of the original brief of the newly founded USSS. It was set up for the specific purpose of stopping the printing of fake money, which was considered a far greater threat to the health of the country than the mere killing of the President.
Lincoln’s death did not inspire Congress to take serious action to protect their leaders. And so gunmen were allowed to kill President Garfield (not related to the cat) at a railway station in Washington in 1881 and President McKinley at an expo in Buffalo in 1901. Only then did Congress decide to assign somebody to take the blame if more Presidents got killed: the Secret Service, thanks to the catch-all nature of its name, got the job. Those who understood the SS had argued that it was really just a type of commercial crimes bureau which accidentally had a moniker that belonged in pulp fiction. But no one listened.
So the USSS continued to grow with two non-matching core functions. Over the years it had developed a good relationship with the Mint, and the two organisations prided themselves on doing their job well. The fact that the US dollar had more or less become the world’s currency appeared to be proof of this. Fighting fraud and counterfeiting—especially in these days of high technology—was relatively straightforward. The other core function, protecting the President, was not. The SSPPD, the Presidential Protection Detail, had evolved into the organisation which probably ran the most complex logistics operations in history. Its work had nothing to do with sitting at computers and devising systems to catch tech-savvy criminals. PPD officers were out there, on the street. They were visiting venues. They were prowling along alleyways. They were sneaking up stairwells. They had to be the eyes and ears of large patches of ground, because they had responsibility for unimaginably wide areas. If fifty thousand people came to see the President, they had to ensure that not a single one of them could harm him. If he went on a tour which involved him being visible from eighty buildings, then all eighty of them had to be checked out and ‘secured’. If he drove 100 miles, then every one of those miles had to be made safe.
If all those things had to be done away from Washington— say, in Chicago—the job was ten times harder. If the President’s trip was outside the United States—say, in London—the job became one hundred times harder. And if the task was on one of the Hard Targets list—problem countries, like China—the task became one thousand times more difficult. He thought of Europeans as semi-foreigners and Asians as ‘full’ foreigners. And so on this occasion, at the recommendation of his department, the President was travelling with a team of seven hundred and twelve individuals, of which some three hundred were minders, plus a huge amount of equipment, including a fleet of armour-plated vehicles. The one that everyone knew about was the bulletproof limo, but other vehicles were always present, including the communications van and the military ambulances.
Since September 2001, assignments had become harder. Not only did the Secret Service PPD have to secure every inch of the ground, they were also responsible for the air. The ‘equipment’ list on this occasion included a small air force. In this case, permission had been obtained (after weeks of negotiations) for U-2 reconnaissance missions to be flown over Shanghai. There were also two helicopters available—one was a Bell attack chopper, known as the Topchop, prepared for quick escapes if the Prez had to be zipped to a safe location. The second was a Sikorsky Blackhawk AH-60, on permanent standby at a nearby helipad for ‘contingencies’.
The incongruous crocodile of rushing, unhappy people arrived at the wings of the main auditorium of the Shanghai Grand Theatre, which was carefully guarded by four individuals. After a word with the men at the door, they were allowed onto the stage. There were very few performers there as most had been asked to do their rehearsals on a similar stage at the other end of the building.
‘Lasse,’ Dooley growled. ‘Explain the system to them.’
‘Everyone who comes in here has a theatre zone one pass or is accompanied at all times by someone with a theatre zone one pass,’ the jumpy junior agent said. ‘Everything that is carried in here is checked. Every box, every bag, every piece of paper. Even the animals are all individually checked, their cages, their food trays, everything. You couldn’t smuggle anything in here. You couldn’t smuggle a beer can in here. If there is a bomb in here, it would have to be microscopic—the size of a thimble. Too small to cause any trouble.’
Lasse called a man in blue overalls over and asked him: ‘Leong, what animals do we have in here today?’
The man, who appeared to be Chinese-American, spoke in Shanghainese with a local man, similarly dressed, and then turned back to translate into perfect English: ‘Very few, he says. There will be six white doves, but they haven’t arrived yet. They should be here in a few minutes. The Spinning Acrobat Sisters are bringing them. There is a parrot that appears with Mystic Megiddo. There’s the elephant that he makes vanish. The ceremonial horse. And there’s a kennel on standby, since one of the guests is bringing a seeing-eye dog. That’s it.’
‘Megiddo makes a real elephant vanish?’ Joyce asked, looking through a box of props on the stage. ‘Look at this— amazing,’ she said, pulling out a pack of Mystic Purple Smoke Bombs.
Lasse nodded. ‘Yeah, apparently. I don’t know how he does it but there’s all sorts of trapdoors and fake walls and things on the stage. You know how it is with these magic guys.’
A stagehand pulled a heavy rope and a pink curtain fell noisily onto the middle of the stage.
‘Careful with that,’ Lasse squeaked, unnerved by the sudden movement and loud sound.
‘Show me the elephant,’ Linyao said.
Leong made a call on a walkie-talkie and two other men laboriously brought the white elephant to the stage from a passage that opened onto the stage-left wing.
‘It’s not moving very well,’ the man in overalls said in Shanghainese to Linyao, vaguely recognising her as a Shanghai government vet he had seen before. ‘I think it’s sick. It’s sweaty, too, and smells funny.’
‘Can we keep as much of this conversation as possible in English, please?’ rumbled Dooley, annoyed at losing full control of everything going on.
‘He’s saying that the elephant is sick,’ she said.
The pale-skinned beast approached slowly, its weight clearly detectable through the sprung floor as it lowered each of its oak-like feet to the ground.
‘Aha. There’s the problem. There’s the crack in your security.’
Dooley stared. ‘Are you telling me that this is not an elephant but some sort of terrorist bomber? Dressed up, is he?’
Linyao shook her head. ‘No, I’m not saying that this is not an elephant. I’m saying that it’s not Jin-Jin. That’s not the elephant which I had to health-check and clear for the job. It’s not even the same sex. This is a male.’
‘It’s an elephant, but the wrong elephant. Fine.’ Dooley turned to Leong, who pulled out his clipboard and started scanning the pages. ‘Got any others in a cupboard somewhere? Bring me a spare.’
‘Look,’ Leong said, holding up an image. On one page of the thick pile of papers clamped to his clipboard was a photograph of a white elephant. He gestured at the beast. ‘It looks the same to me.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Linyao. ‘There’s no similarity at all. Look at the forehead. Look at the eyes. Look at the wrinkles at the top of the trunk. This one’s much older, for a start. And, as I said, it’s male.’
Leong pointed under the beast. ‘Male? Well, where’s its things?’
>
‘The testicles are inside. That line is where its penis is.’
He shook his head unhappily. ‘They all look the same to me.’
‘Okay,’ said Dooley, now feeling confused. He straightened his back. When you are a five-foot-nine boss, you cannot afford to relax your spine, not for a second. He filled his chest and deliberately lowered the pitch of his voice half an octave. ‘So we have established that our security ain’t quite as flawlessly airtight as we would have liked to think. One impostor has managed to penetrate the inner sanctum. But it is an animal, for chrissake.’
‘Yeah,’ sneered Lasse, anxious to back up his boss. ‘An elephant. What’s it going to do? Spray water through its trunk at the Prez? Throw a banana at him?’
‘Shut up, Lasse,’ said Dooley, who liked to abuse those who worshipped him. He turned to Linyao. ‘Look, ma’am. We don’t like being fooled in any regard whatsoever when it comes to security matters. So ah’m grateful to you for pointing this out to me. But yet ah’m finding it damn difficult to see where the logic of all this lies. Why would someone go to all this trouble to switch one elephant fur another?’
Linyao knelt down in front of the animal. ‘Look at this,’ she said. She pointed to a scar which ran along the elephant’s stomach. She felt its leathery skin. ‘It’s badly distended.’
‘The Trojan Horse,’ Joyce put in. ‘Maybe they’ve done something to the elephant. It’s like the Trojan Horse, you know, where all the baddies were hiding inside?’
‘There are bad guys waiting to leap out of this elephant?’ Dooley scoffed.
‘I didn’t mean it literally.’
By this time Linyao had pulled out her extra-large veterinary stethoscope and was listening carefully to the underside of the beast, moving the instrument along the scar. After half a minute she stood up and faced the Acting Special Agent in Charge. ‘This elephant has two heartbeats. One of them is its heart. The other is something else.’
‘Gimme that,’ said Dooley, snatching the stethoscope viciously out of Linyao’s hands. He placed the end of it on the elephant’s skin. ‘I don’t hear nothin’.’
Linyao took hold of the pad end of the instrument and moved it further down the beast, towards its stomach.
‘Hear something there?’
‘Shit.’
Dooley’s exclamation, although quietly spoken, had a tone which silenced everyone. If the Acting Special Agent in Charge was worried about something, then it was time for everyone to be worried.
Linyao had an I-told-you-so look on her face but resisted letting the same comment form itself on her tongue.
The Secret Service boss rose slowly to his feet. ‘Shit. It’s ticking. This elephant is ticking.’ POTUS was due to arrive in this room in one hour and something was ticking. Geez.
Dooley snatched up his walkie-talkie from a nearby table: ‘Code red, code red, twenty-one:twenty-one: we have a situation in Auditorium One. Possible presence of an explosive device. Explosives Unit One and Two immediately to Auditorium One. Repeat, BD Unit One to Auditorium One. Ah want Donaldson.’ He thought for a moment, and then added: ‘Code red, forty-two: seven. Armed Units One and Two should proceeded to Auditorium One immediately. Bring arms, code forty-two:seven.’
Running feet could be heard immediately. Within thirty seconds the doors of the theatre burst open and a bomb disposal squad appeared, followed within seconds by dozens of men with guns.
A man in orange overalls with the letters BD over his breast pocket was at the head of the pack. ‘Where’s the blaster?’
‘Donaldson, you ain’t never going to believe me.’
Three more bomb disposal officers approached.
‘Where is it?’ one of them asked, looking at Dooley.
‘In the elephant.’
‘Get out.’
‘In the goddam elephant.’
‘Shut up.’ Donaldson, his eyes on stalks, approached the beast. Dooley held out the stethoscope to him.
‘How do I get to it?’
‘Tell the elephant a funny joke and while he’s laughing, slip in through his mouth.’
‘Thanks, Dooley.’
‘It’s all yours.’
‘You kidding us or what?’
‘Have you ever known me to kid anyone? Ah don’t kid people. The bomb is in the goddam elephant.’
‘Shit.’
‘Shit is right.’
‘What are we supposed to do? This is not exactly a standard situation in the bomb disposal manual.’
‘It’s not in mah manual either. But it’s a bomb, so it’s your baby.’ The Acting Special Agent in Charge was trying to sound cocky but was sweating like a pig—no, never mind pigs, like a waterfall. His whole body was suddenly wet.
The two men dropped their voices and walked to the back of the stalls, talking intently. Several other armed men had entered by this time. Lasse barked at them to stand by in the front stalls while Dooley and Donaldson decided what to do.
On the stage, Joyce whispered to Linyao: ‘What do you think they’ll do?’
‘Shoot it. Then cut it open.’
‘We can’t let them do that.’
‘I know.’
Slightly more than 100 metres away, the two senior officers were having a similar conversation.
‘Shoot it,’ said Donaldson.
‘What if it sets the bomb off?’
‘Geez, Tom, you don’t shoot the bomb. You shoot the thing in the head. Your guys can hit a friggin’ elephant, I hope? You shoot the thing in the head, and it goes down, and then you cut it open and then you get the bomb out, and then you clean it up, and then you put it on a silver platter with a little pink ribbon on it, and then you give it to me, and then you say please and then you say pretty please, and then, maybe, if I am in a good mood, I will disarm the bomb for you.’
‘We’ll take the elephant out. But you take the bomb out.’
‘I may be a vet, but I ain’t that kind of vet.’
‘Neither am I. But my guys aren’t qualified to move a bomb. We aren’t qualified to touch the damn thing. That’s your job.’
‘Yeah, but we aren’t qualified to hack the thing out of an elephant’s gut. That’s not our job. You need a—I don’t know what you need.’
They heard footsteps. Linyao had raced down the aisles. They turned to face her as she reached them. She had caught the tail end of their conversation. ‘You need me. I’m a veterinarian. I’m a surgeon. I know the right person to do this job. There are not many specialists in large animal surgery, but I know who they are. If you can’t reach the specialists, I’ll try to do it myself. I’ve never done anything with an elephant before, but I have operated on horses and other animals. Ideally, we should move the animal to a proper surgical theatre.’
Dooley shook his head. ‘No, lady, we don’t have time to play around. We don’t know when the thing is due to go off. We’re talking about the President. We can’t take risks. POTUS will be here in sixty minutes—less. We need to deal with this right now. Finish it. This place has gotta be clean for the Prez.’
‘You have to get the bomb out. What other choices do you have?’ Linyao said. ‘This way, the elephant survives, the bomb gets disarmed, everyone is happy.’
Dooley spoke to Donaldson: ‘Can we whisk the thing out? Put distance between it and the Prez?’
He shook his head. ‘No way. Unless you got a giant-sized Star Trek transporter. Every road is jammed out there. You’d have to land a major troop-transport aircraft on the roof of the theatre. Impossible. Whatever we do, we have to do it here. We need to finish it as quickly and neatly as we can.’
‘But let’s not kill the elephant unless we have to,’ Linyao pleaded.
Dooley puffed out his chest and glared at her. ‘Listen, lady, ah perteck the President, and ah make all decisions involved with pertecting the President. We don’t have time for fancy-nancy operations on your four-legged friends. Ah’m really sorry but we have to take the thing out. A few bullets in the
temple—it won’t hurt a bit. And then you can help us saw the thing open. And then Donaldson here will get the bomb out. How does that sound?’
Without waiting for an answer, he barked orders at his troops.
‘Okay, Group One. Arm your rifles. We are going to take out one elephant. Serbis, Nozinsky and Walters, you are going to do the job for us. Assemble. When you are ready give me the signal, and on my count of three you will shoot the beast behind the right eye. We want a quick and painless death. Not too messy, please. Do it backstage somewhere.’
The three men prepared their weapons.
‘Now where is the damn thing?’
‘Behind the pink curtain,’ Donaldson said. ‘That’s where the other girl took it.’
‘Move that curtain,’ Dooley shouted.
A stagehand yanked the rope and the curtain flew up.
But Joyce and the elephant had vanished.
9
The King of Ji was raised from a baby on the finest wine. From birth to adulthood, he drank nothing but the greatest wines from the most celebrated vintages.
Then one day he went exploring among the common people and saw a peasant drinking a liquid that was perfectly clear. It was not red, not white, not yellow.
He said: ‘What sort of wine is that?’
The man said: ‘It is the wine of heaven. It falls from the sky and I catch it in my rain barrel.’
The King was amazed and asked to taste it. It was the greatest wine he had ever tasted. He swapped all his wine for the peasant’s rain barrel.
The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics Page 17