by Fritz Galt
“I have just overheard Iron Man Zhuang speaking on his deathbed to your grandfather.”
Interesting. After all, Zhuang was the Party’s senior member, on the Central Committee. And Peng had been a cricket in the corner listening to the final exchange.
“Zhuang revealed an intriguing historical nugget about China,” Peng said. “It appears that past leaders have been driven mad by a persistent rumor that there is a place of eternal youth in Tibet.”
That was understandable. People often lost touch with reality when they grew old.
“It appears that much of the fighting between the Japanese, Nationalists and Communists in the 1940s was over that mythical land. Before he died, Chairman Mao went there and never came back. The same was true of other chairmen. Iron Man Zhuang made sure to pass this information along to your grandfather before he died.”
Intriguing, but people took the legend too literally. Surely there had been no greater hardship for the Chinese than to endure the Japanese Rape of Nanjing and subsequent battles that ranged from Manchuria to the Burmese border. The Nationalists had put up stiff resistance supported by the Americans. How convenient that the Communists swept in and claimed the land cleared by the Japanese. How strange that Mao took on both the Japanese and Nationalists simply in the hopes of finding a valley where he might live forever.
“I find it hard to believe Zhuang’s story,” Liang said. “How did grandfather Qian react?”
“He didn’t sound convinced.”
That was true to form. And revealed Qian’s complete lack of ambition. Why wouldn’t anybody seek out perfection on Earth? “Did Zhuang reveal where this land is located?”
“He said only this: A German professor named Hans Fried traveled there in the early 1960s and resurfaced only last week. Zhuang granted him permission to leave the country. That’s all I know.”
Liang spread a leaf of rice paper on the table before him and dipped a calligraphy brush into an inkwell. “How might one get in touch with this Professor Fried?”
“I have no idea,” Peng said. “He has left the country.”
Liang lowered the brush to the paper. He had his sources in the immigration and communications bureaus. He could find out within an hour where the professor was headed. “Very well. You have done us a great service.”
“…if only to illustrate how insane our leaders become.”
Liang nodded to himself. “And how desperately we need change.” He hung up and set the phone aside.
A drop of ink dripped off his brush. He turned the spot into a streak that represented the profile of a mountain. Then he drew another peak.
Somewhere on the Tibetan Plateau, Mao and others had sought paradise. His mind worked quickly as he considered ways to profit from the information. How much would a tycoon, corporate executive, or country’s president pay for a guarantee of immortality?
But before he called the immigration service to track the German down and before he went hunting for any such place, he would get in touch with his American friend who had a knack for turning a dubious venture into a thriving enterprise.
Chapter 5
Sunday
It was early June in France. Young Brad West, son of the former CIA case officer Bradley West in Berlin, ambled through the spacious exhibition hall at the Paris Air Show. The booths and displays had all the glitz and hype of a typical trade show, but Brad’s attention was drawn exclusively to his delectable Chinese girlfriend, Yu May Hua.
“Lookie. An Israeli Arrow.” She rushed over to touch the upright missile. “This is the only active missile defense in the world.”
She sure knew her military hardware.
“But it does not work,” she finished with a frown. Then her eyes landed on the next exhibit, and her face lit up. “Our own infrared missiles!”
How could he get excited about weapons systems when they could be enjoying Paris? At least he had her company.
May pulled her girlfriend Jade over to the missile. “Only last year, this was top secret. Now it is bottom secret.”
Jade, taller and more muscular, looked just as tiny next to the Chinese air-to-air rocket. The two young ladies, already clad in their orange flight suits, looked like walking advertisements for the Chinese air force.
Brad shuddered at the thought. In the futuristic pavilions of the world’s largest aerospace and defense trade show, merchants of death gathered to do business on a global scale. And all were invited. All it took was money to buy weapons. Diplomacy and trade restrictions no longer applied when billions of dollars were involved.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of barfing. He turned around to see his best friend, the rotund yet agile Earl “Skeeter” Skitowsky, bent over an airsick bag, part of a firm’s display. Above him, the garish graphic read, “Blow some chunks. We catch it all.”
Brad sighed with relief. Earl was some joker. The barf bag in his hands was just one of the diverse products related to the airline industry, such as oxygen masks, in-flight entertainment systems and the latest in First Class accommodations.
“Get your head out of your puke bag and let’s catch up with the girls,” he called.
Earl wiped his mouth and joined him. “Damn omelet. Shouldn’t have had it for lunch.”
At close range, he did have an odor about him. Brad decided to ignore it. “Looks like Jade’s got a cruise missile by the tail.”
Earl looked ahead to his girlfriend, who was demonstrating to May how to adjust the tip of the missile in order to direct its flight. Her thumb and index finger gently flexed the tip up and down.
“I taught her that,” he said, and rushed forward enthusiastically.
Brad closed his eyes. What in the world was May watching? She was too young and innocent to be exposed to such vulgarity. Yet he could tell from her expression that she was taking Jade seriously and submitting her instructions to memory.
Brad drew up behind his diminutive dream girl and gently turned her away. “Don’t you have a plane to catch?”
May’s saucer-like eyes flashed down to her army-issue watch. “Ay-yo! We have to go.”
“Okay, you little vixens,” Earl said. “It’s off to work you go.”
Jade strolled up to Earl until she was chest to chest, eye to eye glasses. Brad couldn’t watch as she screwed her lips around Earl’s and didn’t let him go for several embarrassingly long seconds. “Bye, my love sac,” she said.
Brad searched around for some of his own terms of endearment to use on May, but could only come up with “Maysters,” and punched her in the shoulder.
Finally, Jade pried away from her Napoleonic boyfriend and stared at him. “Have you been vomiting lately?”
Earl leveled his eyes dreamily at her, and she blew him a kiss.
Brad prepared mentally for another half hour of touring the exhibition hall without May’s enthusiastic guidance. “Well, looks like you gotta split.”
She examined her jumpsuit, from armpits to crotch. “Where is my split?”
“I mean,” he sought to clarify, “it looks like you have to go.” He pointed to his watch. He had to be more literal with the love of his life.
She smiled and stood on her tippy toes to kiss him good-bye. He enjoyed the moment when her broad lips puckered up and lingered hard and passionately against his. It didn’t matter that CEOs, admirals and generals were walking past with official delegations, that the overcast sky had suddenly turned dark as night, and that Earl was urging him to give her a full frenchie.
When she drew away, her hands dragged reluctantly across his broad shoulders. “I am split,” she said.
He nodded, understanding her implicitly. “Stay safe.”
Then she and Jade turned in unison and headed down the hall to begin their demonstration of the latest Chinese fighter jets.
“Ah, so beautiful. So busy,” Earl sighed. “One could never settle down with such a prize.”
“Why not?” Brad said, surprised. His eyes lingered on May’
s long hair as it swung across the small of her back. “I plan to marry that girl someday.”
“Someday,” Earl said, leaving Brad an out.
Earl was right to be skeptical. Who was Brad to ask a Chinese national hero to wed him? He was an aspiring anthropologist who didn’t even have a doctoral degree under his belt. That made him an amateur anthropologist. And if it weren’t for the good heart of May’s father, one of the world’s leading scientists in the field, he would be an unemployed anthropologist.
Shacked up though they were in Beijing, Brad and May seemed years from the financial security that he felt necessary before he asked for her hand in marriage.
But they were in love, damn it.
“I’m going to ask her soon,” he declared on the spot. A bolt of lightning descended from the heavens, bringing a crash of thunder. It froze the moment, including the image of Earl with his hair standing on end.
When the thunder finally rolled out of earshot, people resumed their normal breathing.
“You’re serious?” Earl said with a trace of awe.
Brad would just have to show his good buddy how it was done. “We’re in Paris,” he explained. “Love is in the air. Why fight it?”
“Wait a sec,” Earl stopped him. “Love is in the air. We’ve got to go outside and catch the show.”
Brad let him pull him through the vapor trails of cologne and perfume that followed the well-heeled crowd.
Heck, he could be one of them. With a surge of optimism, he could visualize a financially lucrative future with May, perhaps dwelling in a villa in Greece or catching a show at London’s West End.
Then a waft of Earl’s breath passed under his nose. He looked at his friend with the sweaty armpits and knock-knees. The two of them had a long way to go before either could offer his sweetheart the quality of life she deserved.
They passed turbine engines where executives exchanged business cards. A mockup of a supersonic business transport caught his eye. All Brad had to do was to make one airplane deal, and he’d be set for life. Perhaps dump a hundred 777s on the Indian market. Or offload a fleet of cargo transports on the Saudis. Maybe seal a multi-billion dollar deal selling fighter jets to the Kazaks. Why not? This was where money changed hands. Let statesmen worry about world peace. This was all about the free market.
Together with Earl, he burst out of the exhibition hall to where airplanes could show off their true beauty. In a gust of wind, he was overpowered by the smell of jet exhaust mingled with the musky scent of impending rain. Perhaps a shower had already fallen on nearby fields in the semi-rural northern suburbs of Paris.
His eyes lifted to the heavens. This was where he belonged. In nature. In the wild. He had to stay true to himself. He was no businessman. He’d never earn a fortune. His life was in the soil, digging up fossilized traces of mankind’s past. That was all he had to offer.
Nothing fancy like the static display of a composite aircraft they passed. Adoring fans fawned over the plane and took obscene close-ups from every angle.
He wasn’t in love with the future. Heck, he wasn’t even comfortable in the present. Lord knows his cell phone didn’t work in France. He was a creature of the past, fixed in time and place.
Just then, a formation of Blue Angels roared past on the runway and lifted off to the sky.
May was a product of China’s lofty ambitions in the world. She was thoroughly modern and dreamed of traveling through space one day. It was as far from man’s long, sorry history as one could get. They were running in opposite directions on the timeline of mankind.
Perhaps that was why he had never asked her to marry him.
Earl turned away from the screaming jets and faced Brad directly. Admiration and envy were clearly evident in his face. “So when are you going to pop the question?”
Chapter 6
May approached the hangar where her indigenously built Chengdu J-10 fighter/attack jet awaited her. She had to concentrate on the upcoming flight. But she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Brad, stuck in the pavilion. He had looked so forlorn, so hopelessly lost in that environment. He was like a deaf man at a Chinese opera. He didn’t know what he was missing.
And she had felt his light brown eyes on her, observing her every move. She had been affected by his laser-like attention. It warmed every organ in her body and ignited a passion she could barely contain.
How someone could ignore such sexy hardware to focus on her body left her breathless and only cemented her attachment to him. Brad West was her American dreamboat. He was taller than most Chinese, muscular in an impressive but cozy way, and his lips tasted like clover honey.
The stiff breeze, cool for mid-June, gave her a shiver and reminded her of the new environment she had entered. The three other test pilots in her team had already put their helmets on and were climbing into their fully serviced jets. May swung her long hair over her shoulders and tucked it under her collar. Then she donned the glass bubble of her helmet and climbed the metal rungs to the cockpit.
The team leader rolled out first and May pulled her jet into position behind him and to the left. Her wingman took up the right side position, and Jade followed a cautious distance behind. Together, they formed a diamond of gleaming silver spears.
The control tower at Le Bourget Airport was especially busy that Sunday. A general aviation airport no longer servicing commercial flights, Le Bourget hosted the Paris Air Show, which was held every other year. That week it had become the temporary home of some 250 aircraft, half of which would take to the air that afternoon.
Ground control was busy positioning several WWII fighter planes for a reenactment that pitted an American P-51 Mustang and British Spitfire against their German Messerschmitt counterpart. The ping of their piston engines was drowned out by afterburners of the American Blue Angel F/A-18s roaring overhead. A huge Russian Antonov transport, built to carry large objects, such as other airplanes, clawed through the sky several hundred meters above the crowd. May felt the sound waves rock her fuselage as she took her position at the end of the runway.
Finally, a Russian Sukhoi-30MK completed a daring downward corkscrew that ended in a graceful swooping turn perpendicular to the runway.
Then ground control gave her team clearance to take off.
By that point, May was in the zone. Her instruments checked out. The team leader asked each pilot to confirm his or her readiness. Then on the count of “San, er, yi…” the four birds took off down the runway.
The vacuum created by the lead aircraft caused a euphoric pull that made accelerating all the easier. At rotation speed and precisely on cue, the lead jet lifted off, then May and her wingman lifted their noses in the air. She was off the ground, maintaining consistent acceleration per the team’s previously rehearsed routine.
The airport diminished in size. It began to look like the original airstrip where Charles Lindbergh had landed the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927. She was dancing with the great aviators of the past.
“Hello, ladies,” a deep voice came over her earphones in Chinese.
May’s hand nearly slipped off the column while they were banking hard left. Her wingtips rocked slightly before she regained control and eased the plane into alignment.
She knew that voice all too well. She glanced to the right and sure enough, waving at her from the neighboring cockpit was her archenemy, her bugaboo, her nation’s scourge and her former boyfriend.
By all accounts, Liang Jiaxi should be dead. She struggled to reconcile the ghastly scene where he had fallen off a cliff in Hawaii with what she saw now as a sinister smile twenty meters away. She had heard reports that he had miraculously survived the fall, that he had returned to China and built a new life for himself. But she had never expected to see him again.
“I’m back,” Liang said, his voice cool over the airwaves.
Then a heat-seeking missile fired from under one of his wings straight at the exhaust pipe of the team leader.
Chapter 7
; Brad West couldn’t have felt prouder as May’s team banked sharply in his direction.
He and Earl flashed their platinum entrance cards and passports at the security gate. Then they approached the VIP area that flanked the runway. They strolled past the flight-line row of “chalets,” where executives and their families grilled meat, drank champagne and signed multi-billion-dollar deals.
The Chinese team flew in perfect formation. They lined up like a high-flying kite for an overhead pass.
On his way to the Chinese delegation, Brad caught the aroma of crepes and jam coming from one chalet, followed by curry from another and Swedish meatballs simmering in the next. He almost hesitated at the distinctive smell of barbeque sauce and sizzling beef on a grill, but proceeded toward the Peking duck.
“Ganbei!” the director of the Chinese corporation said, and handed Earl and him shot glasses of distilled rice wine.
Before Brad could raise his glass, something else caught his attention. Against the heavily overcast sky, white smoke trailed out of one Chinese plane. He hadn’t expected skywriting in addition to precision drills.
Suddenly, the plane burst into flames. Debris exploded everywhere, and May’s plane swerved to avoid slamming into it. The other planes separated, and the formation lost all symmetry.
Brad kept an eye on the exploded plane. He waited for a parachute to appear, but none did. The pilot must have been blindsided by the attack. Brad felt a hand reach for his glass. It was Earl, taking another drink, his smeared glasses also fixed on the catastrophe.
Brad tried to keep track of May’s plane, the leftmost in what had once been a tight formation. It dived abruptly and separated from the others. A tiny stunt plane tried to get out of her way, but that put it directly in the takeoff path of a military transport lumbering down the runway. The cargo jet gunned all four engines, causing the glasses on the picnic table to rattle and fall to the ground. With a last-ditch effort, the stunt plane arced vertically and hung from its propeller, mere meters above the transport taking off.
