by Tom Clancy
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.
Le 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 are 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.
“If there were an unusual deployment, and it were not reported to you, how long would it take to get independent corroboration?” the prime minister asked.
“Do you have reason to suspect that something is wrong?” the minister asked urgently.
“I cannot go into that now,” Le said.
“Mr. Prime Minister, if there is a threat to our national defense—”
“I received an uncorroborated report of a possible PLAAF buildup in Tam Li’s command sector,” Le said quickly. He did not have time to debate with the stubborn minister.
“A report from who?”
“Chou Shin, just before his death,” the prime minister answered impatiently.
“He was a patriot,” the minister said. “Radar at the Nanjiang Military Region is piped to the Coordinated Air Command in Beijing,” the minister went on. “That tells us at once how many aircraft are in the skies. At the moment I see nothing unusual apart from the required patrols.” He added, “I would tell you, Mr. Prime Minister, if it were otherwise.”
“You are not someone I doubt,” Le replied truthfully.
“Nor I, you,” the minister told him. “But this information is not deeply useful to us.”
“Why?”
“It would not take long to put several squadrons from the Nanjiang bases into the air and over the strait,” the minister said.
“Can you override Tam Li’s authority?”
“Not until and unless he actually does something that overreaches established protocol or expressed policy. So far, he has acted in accordance with the rules of preemptive engagement regarding Taiwan and air-lane security for a launch path.”
“What does air-lane security entail?”
“PLAAF jets are scrambled to patrol well beyond the boundaries of the rocket’s course,” the minister said. “That prevents enemy aircraft from moving in and compromising rocket integrity.”
“You mean firing a missile,” Le said.
“Yes. The Russians and Americans have been known to observe our launches from high-altitude fighters.”
“Our jets are already in the air?” Le asked.
“They are. A little premature but not alarmingly so.”
Tam Li was doing everything according to schedule. He was not a fool. There was also a chance that he was not guilty.
Le thanked the minister and asked for updates if and when they became available. He sat back and looked out the tinted windows at the rustic countryside. It was possible that Chou Shin had been trying to frame the general. The intelligence director had been responsible for several explosions over the past few days. Perhaps he had gone to Zhuhai to attack the general’s command post. The prime minister was willing to believe that Tam Li had struck directly at his foe, destroying the aircraft. The same could also be true of Chou Shin. His own explosives may have detonated prematurely.
Whatever the truth, there was nothing Le could do now but wait.
Wait, and hope that Paul Hood came up with something that might not be on the radar.
FIFTY
Xichang, China Thursday, 10:28 A.M.
The Xichang Satellite Launch Center was one of three major launch sites in China. The other two were located in Jiuquan and Taiyuan. The Jiuquan site was built in 1968, one thousand miles from Beijing in the Gobi Desert. It was an old site but due to its geographical location was ideal for the launch of both manned and unmanned orbital missions. Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center was primarily a test site that was ideally situated for the launch of polar-orbiting spacecraft. It was the newest of the Chinese space centers, and began operations in 1988.
Xichang had been designed to put geosynchronous satellites into orbit, hardware that would remain in place over specific regions of China. A network of geosynchronous stations would create a relay system, making telecommunications and wireless technology available to all of the vast nation. Begun in 1978 and completed six years later, Xichang was built in the heart of an area populated with small farms. The facility was inaugurated ina
uspiciously with the disastrous launch of a satellite whose third stage failed to ignite. Several years of successful launches followed until the powerful Long March 2E booster exploded on takeoff in 1995. The debris killed six farmers and injured twenty-three others who were going about their business five miles downrange. The following year, a Long March 3B crashed in a hill just a mile from the launch pad, killing six and injuring fifty-seven. As recently as one year ago a powerful new Star Dragon 5 exploded upon liftoff, killing twelve technicians and destroying the pad. Very few of the local citizens relocated. They made too much money selling food, clothes, and other goods to the men stationed at the space center.
The failure of the Star Dragon 5 was one reason Beijing had invited international participation in the creation of the hardware. The old boosters were based on Russian designs. They were brutish rockets that could lift heavy payloads but had little finesse and sophistication. A great deal of time and money had gone into the reconstruction of the base. It was important that the hardware function properly. It was just as important that the invited dignitaries see the start of a successful new era in Chinese space activities. One way that Beijing hoped to raise money for future endeavors was by using their rockets to boost foreign payloads into space.
They could not afford a failure.
Mike Rodgers was very much aware of that. He was also aware of the fact that over four hundred people were going to be in the launch area, including five Americans. He did not want to see any of them vaporized. For that matter, an explosion would not do him any good. He was well within the fallout zone if the plutonium power source were attacked.
Rodgers had taken a commercial flight from Beijing to the Xichang Airport. He managed to sleep during the three-hour-plus flight. Studying maps and white papers was a key part of mission preparation. So was being rested. Since he would be on the outside, with the data available on his laptop, he opted for sleep.
The airport was small but modern. Rodgers took a taxi to the nearby Satellite Hotel which, as the name suggested, had been built primarily for visitors to the space center. He rented a car at the hotel, a reservation that had been made through the prime minister’s office. Foreigners were not generally permitted to drive through the securityconscious area. He tucked himself into the compact cherry-red Xiali Bullet, one of the new generation of Chinese cars intended for domestic and international sales. Its pickup reminded him of one of the rickshaws that wove in and out of the streets of Beijing. Slow to build, once it reached the required speed, it hummed along nicely. Not that it mattered. Though a new freeway was being built through the region, it was not yet completed. Most of the hour-long drive took place on dirt roads, which cars had to share with bicycles and horses as well as herds of sheep and cows. At one point Rodgers had to wait for nearly twenty minutes while a bus driver and a woman argued in the middle of the road. From what he could gather based on the position of their vehicles, the woman’s scooter had tried to pass the bus and ended up in a ditch. Every now and then she slapped the hood of the bus angrily, which was a greater insult than if she had struck the man. It was not the driver himself who had offended her but his ability. That was the equivalent of insulting his manhood.
