by Fritz Galt
She looked across the table at May. What a terrible injustice had been done to her. Jade knew her friend well. May had always been the personification of propriety. She was loyal, dedicated, and responsible toward people, her career and her country. And her behavior had always been exemplary. She was bright and conscientious and not the drunken vagrant picked up by the police.
But that morning, she found her friend petulant and childish. Even a latte didn’t improve her mood.
But enough was enough. “What is the matter with you? This won’t go on your military record.”
May sat cross-legged and sullen. “I want to go dancing.”
Jade heaved an exasperated sigh.
Outside the window, cars inched south toward Hoosier Pass. It was before noon, and no nightclubs would be open.
“I just want to be part of the music,” May said.
“Then dance in your seat. We have to find Liang and your father.”
May began to squirm in her rattan chair.
Jade chose to ignore it. “If Liang left us passed out in public, you can only imagine what he’s doing to your father.”
“Why did Liang leave us?” May said, suddenly dejected.
Jade began to sip at the foam. “He obviously has more important things to do. Look!” A white Ford Escort with two occupants was creeping toward the traffic light.
“That’s my father,” May said.
Jade carefully set her coffee down and stared out the window. The car was lurching toward a traffic light, the last signal in town before the road headed up into the hills. Then the light changed to green.
“There he goes!”
May was already out the door.
“Hey lady. Pay for your coffee!”
“Drink it yourself.”
Jade scrambled out onto the sidewalk. There she pushed through a group of skiers on their way to the slopes.
She saw May reach the car and tug on the passenger’s door. But it wouldn’t open. Dr. Yu was sitting in the passenger seat trying desperately to unlock the door, but apparently Liang had a master lock.
“Baba!” May screamed. Father!
Drivers paused in both directions.
Yu gave a shrug as if there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even roll his window down.
Liang lurched forward, and May scrambled around to the hood of the car. She glared at him behind the wheel. “Stop this car right now!”
Jade threw her hands up in exasperation. Clearly there was nothing they could do. Drivers had complete control of their passengers in American cars. Then she noticed a policeman hurrying toward them. Help was on the way. What a pleasant surprise the policeman would have when he realized he was capturing an international criminal.
“What’s the problem here?” he shouted, one hand on the handle of his revolver.
Jade took another look at him and her hopes were dashed. It was the same cop that had released them from jail. As soon as he recognized the two women, he pulled up short and rolled his eyes. He stuck a traffic whistle between his lips and began to wave cars on.
Liang began jerking the car forward. May climbed onto the hood and clung to the windshield wipers. The policeman’s face reddened and Jade knew that they were in for another confrontation. Then she remembered her car. It was parked at their condo, just a block away.
She spun on her heels and took off for the garage. She would pick her girlfriend up and they would pursue Liang’s Escort until it ran out of gas. She reached the parking garage at full stride and pulled the remote door lock from her purse. The cute yellow SUV beeped twice and winked its taillights.
Moments later, a loud screech echoed through the garage as she wheeled the car about and shot out onto the street. She turned onto the route heading south out of town. A crowd had formed along the road. An elfin figure in tight white jeans, a powder blue parka and a cowboy hat was struggling with the policeman. Meanwhile, the traffic had moved on.
Jade lowered the passenger window. “Jump in.”
The cop was trying to book her friend for disorderly conduct. May finally noticed Jade. She turned to the man and pulled the tangle of hair out of her eyes. “I am sorry,” she squeaked. “I need to go.”
The sudden mood swing must have caught the lawman off guard, and he released his grip on her arm. May smiled sweetly and tiptoed over to the car.
Jade made eye contact with her friend as May sat down and strapped her seatbelt on. “Which way did he go?”
May lifted her chin to indicate straight ahead.
Jade nodded. A couple of drivers were honking behind them.
At the sound, a vague smile appeared on May’s lips. “They must know me, the dancing queen.”
Jade glanced up to the rearview mirror. She wasn’t so sure. The honking sounded more like impatience than applause. The light turned from green to yellow and she shot forward into the intersection. It turned red on the car behind her.
A mountain lay before them. Liang’s car was somewhere up there in a long line of cars. She turned her attention back to her friend, who was gently flexing her fingers. “Are you hurt?”
Red grooves creased her palms. The wounds must have been carved by Liang’s windshield wipers that May had latched onto. Jade tossed her a pack of tissues from her purse.
Then she studied the road ahead. Two-way traffic streamed between the town and the 11,000-foot pass. A slow-moving truck held up the line of cars in front of them. No sane driver would attempt to pass it given the steep grade and blind curves.
“Let’s see how this car handles.”
May gave her a wry twist of her lips. “Want to go to jail again?”
Jade burst out of the line of traffic. They whipped past a blur of trees and streams. A family sedan was heading straight for her. The driver flashed his headlights. There was no space back in line and no shoulder for the oncoming driver, so she held the wheel steady and pressed the gas. Her engine fought against the incline and thin air. She downshifted for more power. The oncoming driver blared his horn in her face. The lower gear finally caught and gave her a boost of power.
At the last possible moment, she eased in front of the truck.
For the first time, she saw genuine enthusiasm register on May’s face. Her troubled expression had disappeared and was replaced by bright eyes and a gleaming row of teeth.
Ahead lay the open road, and Jade could make out the flat, white roof of Liang’s car as it neared the top of the pass.
Chapter 21
High over the north Pacific, Brad was growing philosophical about life. Travel was transition. An airline flight was an opportunity to look with the clear perspective of great distance back at where he’d been and where he was going.
China had offered all the intrigue and history that he could want intellectually, and it had also fed his soul. But once May left the scene, the only emotional attachment that remained was Earl, who hovered somewhere between an okay bud and an irritating dweeb.
The more he thought about Earl, stuck in a country that was backsliding into chaos, the more poignant his guilt became. Brad had left him festering in the hospital, anticipating one last day of recovery from a broken or severely sprained ankle before he would be dumped back on the street.
Looking forward, Brad saw his mission as having two parts: finding May and Liang, and helping his father solve the brewing trade crisis. But where should he focus his attention and energies first?
Save the nation. Therein lies the key.
The key to what? There was no response, and with growing reluctance he came to see that he had little hope of a future with May if they had nowhere to spend it.
He opened the packet given him by Mick Pierce in Beijing. Out spilled two sealed manila envelopes and three folders. Each item was stamped with the CIA seal. The entire packet appeared to be an extensive compilation of the CIA’s latest research on and analysis of the economic upheaval being experienced in America. Brad hoped there weren’t too many numbers and tables.
He was no economist. In fact, he was no genius with the checkbook either. Nevertheless, he felt it his duty to open the envelopes and folders and delve in to their contents.
The first oversized envelope was labeled CLASSIFIED–TOP SECRET. He hesitated before breaking the seal. He had absolutely no security clearance. Was he violating some federal law on the handling of classified material, or was it the person who gave him the information who risked punishment? He thought back to the two spymasters: Igor Sullivan and Mick Pierce. Were they sticking their necks out in order for him to save the nation? That thought gave him pause, but also buoyed his confidence.
He slid a finger into the end of the envelope and carefully broke the seal. Maybe he could squeeze the end together afterward and deny having read it. Inside, he found an explosive report on the utter chaos in store for America. He had to smile at the purple prose. An academic like him could never get away with such hyperbole.
The report began calmly enough by describing in dry detail what steps the governors of Colorado and California had taken and how the situation was likely to proceed, namely the president issuing an executive order to open the ports. Then it launched into an apocalyptic scenario, probably meant to appear only on the president’s breakfast table. Was the CIA merely adding fodder to the president’s argument to reopen the ports, or was the risk as grave as the report stated?
He turned to the next manila envelope for more answers. A single page was stapled to the confidential envelope. He paused for a moment before discreetly opening it. How many lives could languish in jail for the act he was about to commit? Inside was a stack of computer printouts detailing likely outcomes based on various models. His eyes glazed over at all the facts and figures. So he backtracked to read the cover sheet. It was a table that synthesized the data and began with a fascinating question: “Who stands to gain from the embargo?”
Once again a computer had generated a result. It was a list of players preceded by a probability factor that the crisis would produce a positive outcome for them. Leading the list of those who stood to benefit the most from the trade crisis were
98% Stock market futures investors betting on a downturn in the economy
92% Nations with extensive holdings outside the U.S.
87% Political opposition within America
The assumption behind the question was that one could ascertain from the results who was behind the crisis. And in fact, the subsequent unclassified folders were arranged in that order.
The first folder contained a printout of the major traders on the futures market exchanges. The endless list of companies and institutions meant nothing to him. In fact, it numbed his mind. How could he use that list as a starting point in his investigation?
The second folder contained a combination of tables listing computer models of the prospects for the U.S. economy and that of other major countries, including Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and China.
Whereas most economies would wobble significantly but not crumble if America’s economy bit the dust, China was at greatest risk of total collapse. It spoke volumes about the interdependence of the two nations. Beyond shared trade, China was a major holder of U.S. government bonds, essentially funding America’s enormous government debt. China had put nearly all her savings into America, betting on the stability of the American economy. Now they would end up holding worthless paper, useful only for flushing their own economy down the toilet.
Then came the last folder. It covered the third category of beneficiaries of economic failure: political opposition within America. The folder contained four dossiers, one for each of the declared and potential candidates for the presidency of the United States.
The first dossier included a photo of Colorado’s governor, Herman Stokes, a few newspaper clippings about his decision to close Denver International Airport to imports, a list of his rather trivial political accomplishments, and a recent travel itinerary. That included heading business delegations to Mexico and meeting with town councils. It bored Brad to death. Stokes came across as an ageing politician who was fading fast from the political scene.
The second dossier began with a glossy of Randy Walsh. Then it covered the governor’s recent decision to close all ports of entry to foreign imports. It contained a detailed itinerary for the past few months. Finally, it concluded with a bio that began with his illustrious football career and ended up with his possible last-minute bid for the presidency. His chances depended upon whether he could garner enough political support within his party to oust President Burrows’ bid for reelection. There seemed to be plenty of political ambition there, but major hurdles as well.
The last two dossiers covered the two declared opposition candidates for the presidency.
Brad glanced through the hastily assembled scrapbook of news clippings on the freshman senator from Missouri, Spencer Hawthorn. Even Brad was acquainted with the man’s public life. A few juicy tidbits from the gossip columns made interesting reading, but nothing stood out in Hawthorn’s bio as particularly sinister.
Lastly, he turned to the dossier on the Reverend Terrence B. Smith. He remembered Mick Pierce emphasizing the menace of the preacher and his late entry into the presidential race making it a three-way contest. “Your father believes,” Mick had said, “Liang Jiaxi has teamed up with some powerful force in America in a bid for political control of the United States. And the man who stands to gain most from such a situation is the Reverend Terry Smith.”
There were only two reports inside Smith’s dossier: a personality profile and an itinerary.
The personality profile clearly came from the public domain. It was written by a professor of psychology at Georgia State University. Brad noted that it was penned the previous summer and thus was not completely up-to-date. But how much could a man’s basic personality change in half a year? It contained a lot of psychobabble. He was right-brained, extroverted, intuitive, thinking, judging, and self-actualizing with high needs satisfaction and an internal locus of control.
The second sheet contained a detailed schedule of Smith’s travel for the past two years. It included flights around the globe to visit world leaders and trips across America to meet with corporate heads, church leaders and political figures of all stripes. The guy had his fingers in everything.
Brad put the final sheet away, sealed up the folders, closed the packet, shut his eyes, and plotted out his future. He would pursue the three targets on the list in order.
What did he know about futures traders or countries with extensive foreign holdings?
He’d have to turn to the institution he knew best: academia.
Chapter 22
May felt like she was on a sandy beach. The noonday sun reflected off of the blacktop and dry landscape in shimmering waves.
“We’re nearly out of gas,” Jade said from behind the wheel.
May snapped out of her reverie. They were no more than fifteen miles beyond Breckenridge.
She pulled out the road map and studied it. “Gasoline. We’re ten miles from the next town. We can pull into a gas station and be out of there in less than five minutes.”
She watched their approach to Alma carefully. Sure enough, there was a gas station right off the road. But there was also a line of cars that stretched a hundred meters in both directions.
“This will take forever,” Jade said. “Quick, call Brad’s father. He can explain the problem to the gas station. This is a national emergency.”
May slapped the pocket of her parka. “I don’t have my cell phone! How did I lose it? It has all my phone numbers.”
“Well, I don’t have his number programmed into mine,” Jade said. She reached into her purse. “Check my BlackBerry.” Her hand came back empty. “My wallet is gone! It had all my money and credit cards and…and my BlackBerry!” She bit her lip. “Liang must have taken all our stuff.”
She pulled off the road and cruised past the line of cars.
“Let’s just explain ourselves
to the attendant,” May said. “Pull in here.”
Jade wedged the front bumper of the Escape into line just in front of the gas pumps.
A man jumped out of the car behind them. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
Jade rolled her window down. “I’m sorry. Police business.”
“Like hell. Show me your badge.”
Meanwhile, a creaky, old attendant was motioning for them to pull forward. Jade lurched into position beside the pump.
“Of all the gall,” the man said, and returned to his car.
May watched with amazement as Jade vaulted between the pumps to the other side of the island and grabbed a hose from a young ranch hand who was filling up his pickup truck.
“What’re you doing?” the young man said, stunned.
Jade hauled the hose between the pumps and jabbed it into the tank of their Escape.
“Why are you doing that?” May asked in Chinese, still startled by Jade’s uncharacteristic rudeness.
The man rounded the pump to get his hose back. Meanwhile, gas began flowing smoothly into the Escape. “That’s my gas,” he said with a booming voice. Then he seemed to notice that Jade looked foreign. “This is America. I don’t know how people do things in your country, but this is considered stealing.”
“Sheme?” Jade said, playing dumb. What?
The ranch hand spaced out his words. “Give me the hose.” His anger was getting the better of him.
The car behind them honked.
The old attendant tried to intervene. “You’re making a nuisance of yourself, ma’am.”
“She doesn’t’ speak English,” the ranch hand said. “I tried to reason with her.”
The old guy cleared his throat and tried some charades. He pointed to the hose and then to the pickup. Meanwhile, Jade topped off the tank. She handed the hose back to the young man and jumped back in the car.
Strangely, the young man no longer bothered to argue. He took the hose and hurried back to his pickup without further complaint.
