“Please,” Henry whispered. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The Korean policeman pointed at the bags of looted rice found in Henry’s apartment.
“Is it a crime to eat enough to live?” Henry asked.
The Korean smirked, rolling his eyes.
After a bewildering set of twists and turns, the van entered Fifth District Police Headquarters. When the vehicle came to a halt, the side door rolled open. Two Mongolians in brown uniforms with red belts entered the vehicle, causing the van to tilt their way.
Henry’s stomach curdled. “Please,” he whispered. Then his mouth became so dry that he could no longer speak.
The two East Lightning operatives hustled Henry through the cargo entrance and to a large elevator. Once inside the elevator, it went down to the basement. When the door slid open, Henry’s knees buckled, and he might have pitched onto the cement.
Fortunately or not, the two operatives each gripped Henry by his arms, marching him through the underground garage as his feet dragged. They entered a lit room with a bloodstained chair in the center. The chair had strange drill-like devices around it, much like a twentieth century dentist’s chair.
Henry twisted, trying to free himself. The left operative touched a stun rod to Henry’s neck. A numbing shock ended Henry’s resistance. They dumped him in the chair and tightened leather straps around his legs, arms, chest and one around his forehead, pinning him in place.
“I’m a loyal Party member,” Henry said.
A new operative appeared, a small man with large ears. He, too, wore the brown uniform with red belts and the armband with the three-pronged lightning bolt. He smiled, and his eyes seemed reptilian.
“You are Henry Wu,” the man said, checking a computer-slate.
“I am, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You shot a soldier yesterday,” the small officer said.
The words shocked Henry worse than the stun device. East Lightning knew everything. “No,” he said. “That was someone else. You have the wrong man.”
“We shall see,” said the operative. “In case you wish to confess immediately, I will now explain the procedure. First, we shall inject you with a sense enhancer.” The man took a body-sized apron from a hook and tied it so it protected the front of his uniform. Next, he produced a large hypodermic needle. A sludge-like yellow solution moved within.
Henry tried to twist free, but the straps held him immobile.
The officer dabbed Henry’s neck with a cold, wet swab.
“Please,” Henry wept. “I just wanted some rice. I was so hungry. I was tired of the ache in my stomach.”
“Ah,” said the officer, as he stabbed the needle into Henry’s neck. The man pressed the plunger, squeezing the solution into Henry.
“All right!” shouted Henry. Spit flew from his mouth as he said, “I shot the militiaman. He killed the teenager. I had to do something.”
“Excellent,” the officer said. “It is most healthy that you admit to the truth.” He reached up for a drill, much as a dentist once had done, and lowered it toward Henry’s face as he sat down on a stool.
“What else do you want to know?” Henry asked, squirming to free himself.
“Many things,” the officer said. He tied a cloth over his mouth and nose, set aside his hat and slipped on a doctor’s cap. He flipped a switch and the drill began to whine. “First, Henry Wu, do you work for the CIA?”
“What?” Henry asked, bewildered.
“Open your mouth,” the officer said coldly.
Instead of opening his mouth, Henry clamped his jaws shut.
The two Mongolian operatives moved to the chair. They used thick fingers, prying open Henry’s mouth. One inserted a bracer to keep his teeth apart. The other inserted a tongue suppressor, to keep it out of the way.
“You will talk to me, Henry Wu. You will tell me what I want to know.”
An hour and twenty-four minutes later, it was over. The small officer switched off his recording device. Then he used a cloth to wipe the bloody specks from his hands. “Dump the body in the incinerator. Then give me several minutes before you bring in the next patient.”
“Sir?” asked the larger Mongolian.
“Hmm, is that too imprecise for you?” asked the officer. He took off the mask and sipped from a water bottle. “Make it fifteen minutes. Afterward, bring in the next one.”
The two operatives unbuckled the straps holding down Henry Wu’s contorted corpse. Each grabbed a shoulders and hip, lifting the corpse out of the chair. They carried Henry Wu to the mobile Security Incinerator they had brought along for the task. It looked like it was going to be a long day before they were through. At least the position paid well, and they were able to eat enough to keep their normal weight. Not everyone could say that these days. Therefore, they went about their task with quiet resignation, looking forward to tonight’s meal.
Meanwhile, the small officer who had interrogated Henry sat in his chair. He stared into space and smoked a cigarette. For his brief fifteen minutes, he blanked his mind, trying not to think about anything.
-3-
Plans
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
Two old friends in their early forties played ping-pong downstairs in a basement. They’d first met in college many years ago, both of them highly competitive at intramural sports. They had double-dated then and ended up marrying their girls. Both had stayed in Alaska where they had gone on many hunting and fishing trips together. They were like brothers, and even in their early forties, they were competitive.
Stan Higgins was a high school history teacher. He supplemented his sparse income as a captain in the Alaskan National Guard. His nickname was Professor, and he had read far too much military history for his own good.
Besides being a pastor, the second man, Bill Harris, was a sergeant in the local Militia. The Militia was a recent development due to limited Federal funding and the continuing shrinkage of the U.S. military. The Militia was voluntary, the men paying for their own weapons and uniforms. They mustered under their State’s control and had National Guard drill instruction every summer for those who wished for advanced training. Bill was one of those. The States with the largest Militias per capita were Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Alaska. The three southern States had large Militias due to the proximity of the Mexican border. Alaska did because so many of the State’s population were hunters and fishermen.
Stan used his ping-pong paddle and bounced an orange ball up and down. Bill stood at the other end of the green table, waiting. The single bulb above the middle of the table flickered as the light dimmed. Brownouts were common these days and electrical grid repairs constant.
“Think the lights will stay on tonight?” Bill asked.
Stan grunted noncommittally. They had played four games of ping-pong already, tying at two wins each. Their wives talked upstairs as the children played board games.
“Just a minute,” Bill said. He moved to a shelf and checked his cell phone. “It’s getting late. Should we call it?”
The bulb stopped flickering then as the light strengthened.
“We can’t leave the series at a tie,” Stan said.
Bill nodded. “It’s more fun with a winner. Since this is the last game, should we volley for serve?”
“I lost the last game. Loser gets first serve next game.”
“Oh, okay,” said Bill, with an at-least-I-tried grin.
Stan kept bouncing the ball on his paddle. There was a distracted look on his face. He had been trying to forget about his dilemma all night. Trying to beat Bill had done that, but now…. He hadn’t wanted to bring this up, but after this game, he’d be leaving.
“Is anything wrong?” asked Bill.
Stan nodded. “It’s Sergeant Jackson.”
“The police officer?”
“I think he wants to bust my dad.” Then the words gushed out as Stan asked, “Is it wrong to hold a grudge?”
“Do you mean is
it wrong for the officer to hold a grudge against your dad? Or is it wrong for you to hold a grudge against the officer?”
Stan looked up, letting the ping-pong ball bounce on the table and onto the floor.
“Bitterness never helps anyone,” Bill said.
“I know.”
“You need to forgive Sergeant Jackson for what he did to your dad.”
Stan scowled. “I understand what you’re saying….” He shook his head.
“Well, think of it like—”
“I’m sorry,” said Stan, as the bulb flickered again. “It’s late. We’d better finish the series before the power cuts off.” He retrieved the orange ball and took his serving stance.
“I know this can be a hard topic,” Bill said.
Stan didn’t want to think about it anymore. He should have known Bill would tell him to give his worry to God. Now Bill would start talking about it. Stan decided to put an end to the lecture, serving the ball, using a crafty spin.
Surprised by the serve, Bill moved too late. He still managed to hit the ball, but it zoomed into the net.
“One to zero,” Stan said.
Bill glanced at him. “One to zero,” he said, his voice changing from its reflective pastor’s tone to his competitive voice. Then the two friends began to play in earnest, this being the final match of the night.
BEIJING, P.R.C.
Jian Shihong rode in the back of a limousine as he passed big Chinese cars. City traffic moved past massive buildings in the heart of Beijing. The construction boom had altered the city. The rich lived in palaces, sprawling villas with gold inlaid marble, redwood furniture and magnificent gardens. The latest craze was having a zoo on one’s property with tigers, leopards, pandas, baboons—Jian had purchased a polar bear. He was inordinately proud of it and hoped to buy a male so he could mate them.
The heart of Beijing possessed titanic structures, showing the opulence of oil-rich China. It was a tribute to the nation’s greatness, to its power. Above the massive structures was the even larger Mao Square with the Politburo Building and the Chairman’s quarters. Glass towers reflected the sun’s light, while gigantic statues beggared the imagination. The Chairman had a mania for architecture. He wanted to show the world and China’s millions that nothing could compare with the present government. The construction boom flowered throughout China’s coastal region, and particularly here in Beijing.
The big cars manufactured in Chinese automotive plants moved along wide avenues as hordes surged along the extra-large sidewalks. Beijing had become the mightiest city on Earth.
Jian witnessed this but he enjoyed none of it as his security personnel escorted him to Mao Square. He was late for the meeting with the Chairman, a meeting that could well decide his fate in the world.
***
Jian Shihong hurried into a large room on the third floor of the Chairman’s governmental quarters. Huge paintings of former chairmen hung on the walls, beginning with Mao Zedong and ending with the present ruler of Greater China. They were painted in a heroic style. The portrait of the present Chairman showed a strong, youthful man with a wild shock of hair and an outthrust chin. It had little in common with the old man in the wheelchair sitting at the head of the table.
Jian nodded a greeting to the Minister of the Navy, an old admiral with a bald dome. Compared to the Chairman, the admiral was an example of youthful vigor.
The Chairman’s chin presently touched his chest and his eyes were closed. His withered hands rested on his lap, one covered by a plaid blanket. The formerly wild hair was combed to the right, and it was much thinner, showing patches of skull. A degenerative disease had been eating away at his strength for years now, radically altering a once hard-charging dictator. In earlier days, the Chairman had re-forged the old Communist Party into the Socialist-Nationalist organ that now swelled with the pride of nearly two billion Chinese. His vision had led the country through the terrible crises of 2019. The fact that it had been the Chairman’s guiding hand in 2016 that caused China to unload her U.S. Bonds had been carefully weeded from the history books. That unloading had brought about the American banking and stock market collapse, which in turn had started the Sovereign Debt Depression throughout the world. That worldwide shock had brought about the crises of 2019 in China.
Under the Chairman’s brilliance, China had emerged from the Sovereign Debt Depression as the most powerful nation on Earth. He had led them in the swift but profitable war against Siberia, then in the orgasmic Invasion of Taiwan and lastly in forging the Pan Asian League. Wresting Japan from America’s military orbit had been his greatest diplomatic coup.
The Chairman snored softly at the head of the table, gnome-like in appearance, but still holding the reins of power in his arthritic hands. His security personnel surrounded the building, hard-eyed killers chosen for their loyalty and willingness to murder anyone that the Chairman indicated. Ruthless secret policemen backed them. Those policemen used computers, truth serums and secret chambers to tear needed information from suspects. In the majority of cases, however, the Chairman used a velvet glove in his dealings. His deftness had won him much. But the iron was still there, as was the willingness to crush any opponent.
Like the others, Jian Shihong feared the Chairman. Jian wondered, as surely the others must, if the degenerative disease might one day cause the Chairman to institute a bloodbath as Mao had done during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Despite the fear, Jian and the others attempted to maneuver the dying old man toward their particular projects. The Chairmen had become like an olden emperor, with Deng Fong as his prime minister and the others vying to gain the Chairman’s ear.
“Your tardiness surely indicates the contempt you feel toward the rest of us, Agricultural Minister,” Deng said.
“I beg your pardon,” Jian said. He’d had trouble at one of the checkpoints. It dawned on him that Deng might have engineered the trouble. The possibility put an icicle of renewed fear through Jian. Had Deng corrupted the Chairman’s bodyguards? Was Deng broadcasting his ability to assassinate the Chairman at his leisure? Jian wondered if he might have been wiser going to Deng in secret, falling on his knees and begging to become one of his followers.
Who am I to race with tigers? Jian thought to himself. These past weeks had been torture, as two more rice-riots had occurred in different parts of the country. Jian had maneuvered hard to keep his post, secretly using the last of his hidden food reserves to bolster stocks in the cities. In several months, real famine would stalk the inner provinces. They must find more sources of food.
In the old days before the new glacial period, the Earth’s food supply had come from two major areas: the great green plains of Europe and Russia and the American plains. China’s rice plains had helped, as had other regions. But the bulk of the food supply to feed the masses, the world’s billions, came from the two mighty plains. With the new glaciation, the Gulf Stream had changed its flow, causing massive freezing on the European and Russian plains. America was still blessed with warm enough weather to produce bumper crops. It meant that a starving world looked to America and to its Grain Union allies. It meant that Chinese wealth could only scrape up so much food on the open market. Then it needed the Grain Union’s storehouses. China needed American permission to buy.
Deng Fong stirred. He did not look like a tiger. He was in his mid-seventies and had a weak left eye that he could barely keep open. He wore a black suit of the finest make and had strangely smooth skin. It was one of Deng’s vanities, skin-tucks. Stories about his sexual exploits were legendary, as were the amounts of his testosterone injections and Viagra with which he was said to indulge himself.
Jian turned on his computer, one built into the table. He knew that one of the Chairman’s people would analyze everything he brought up, everything he read. The Chairman loved psychological profiles, placing an inordinate trust in them. Therefore, Jian had memorized a list of items he would look up here, items given him by his staff.
De
ng cleared his throat, the sound aimed toward the head of the table. He sat nearest the Chairman. The Chairman snorted, and his eyelids flickered. Slowly, the old man opened his eyes, and just as slowly, the Chairman straightened his body. Everyone here knew it pained the old man to sit straight. They could see it on his face. But he did it anyway, refusing to hunch, and that frightened Jian. The Chairman examined each of them in turn. Jian felt the gaze like hot pokers in his soul.
There were four other Politburo members in the room. They belonged to the Ruling Committee, the Chairman’s inner circle of advisors.
Jian’s key ally was the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Qingshan, tall, handsome and still athletic at seventy-one. He was easily the most adventuresome personality in the room in terms of military action. Qingshan and Deng were bitter enemies.
“Sir,” Deng told the Chairman. “I’m afraid that I have terrible news to report.”
The Chairman swiveled his head so those hot eyes locked onto Deng Fong.
“Sir,” Deng said, “I am afraid that we have taken a viper amongst us. We have trusted a warmonger who plans to tread on the charred remains of a billion corpses so he can climb to supreme power.”
“Elaborate,” whispered the Chairman.
The whispery dry words tightened Jian’s stomach, and suddenly, the room felt much too warm.
Deng bowed his head and turned toward Jian, staring at him fixedly. “There is one among us who sabotaged my talks in Sydney. I believe he did it in hopes of stirring war. This war will cover his negligent mistakes in the agricultural sector. He would rather see millions die in a nuclear exchange than have his corrupt mishandling brought to light.”
“These are serious charges,” the Chairman whispered.
Jian now felt limp with fear as Deng turned to the old man in the wheelchair. Jian hadn’t expected a direct and personal assault today. Even more, he hadn’t expected Deng to bypass Admiral Qingshan in his admonishments. That had been part of the genius of Jian’s plan, or so he’d told himself more than once. Admiral Qingshan had authorized the commando mission against the American oil well. Jian had hoped to use the admiral as a shield as Qingshan bore the brunt of Deng’s verbal assault. Now—
Invasion: Alaska Page 5
