Insider X (29 page)

54

Tower 9

HUILIANG WALKED INTO the bedroom.  She put her bra back on.

“We need to hurry,” Huiliang said.

“What’s going on?” Na said.

Huiliang looked over at the clock by Na’s bed.  “We need to go.  Put your running shoes on.”

“We’re going running?” Na said.

“Yes.  Wear sweatpants.  And a light jacket.  Make sure it has pockets.”  Huiliang was busy taking out stuff from her duffel bag.

“You’re not taking a shower?” Na said.

“No,” Huiliang said.  “Hurry!  Get dressed.  We must leave.”

Huiliang pulled some running clothes from her bag.  She quickly began to get dressed.  Confused, Na didn’t ask any more questions, but proceeded to do the same.

55

Facility 67096

THEY WENT DEEPER into the building.  Place was bustling with activity.  Forklift operators were moving pallets; soldiers and uniformed personnel were busy doing tasks.  They continued through the warehouse space with their crates of wine.

Not a lot of women in this joint.  Mei was definitely in the minority.  Marks heard some of the soldiers talking as they passed them.  The soldiers weren’t speaking English.

First potential snag just reared its ugly head.  Lip gave Marks a look.  He’d heard the men talking too.  Looked like Mei’s intel had some holes.  If it came to conversing, Marks was going to have to play the deaf dumb mute, and that might be a problem.  He was in uniform, after all, and even the PLA had standards.

Mei led them past some equipment that was being unpacked.  They went through a pair of open double doors that led into another section of the complex.  They walked by a large shelving area where deliveries were being dropped off.  One of the workers, a man with a full dolly, was talking with four soldiers with rifles that were standing at a checkpoint station.

Mei, acting full of purpose, walked over to them.

The soldier with yellow bars on his sleeves stood to attention and saluted Mei: hand rigid, thumb aligned, palm pointing towards the face.

Mei smiled and saluted back.  “At ease, comrade.  We’re here to drop these off for the colonel.  Xi normally does these deliveries, but he asked me to fill in for him today.  He said we would need to be escorted to the colonel’s special storage area.”

The soldier nodded.  “Of course.  Your papers?”

Mei handed the man some documents.  The man glanced at them perfunctorily and handed them back.

“Nuan can assist you,” the soldier said.

One of the soldiers next to him stepped forward and saluted.

“This way, comrades,” the soldier said.

He turned smartly and started walking.  The three of them followed.

56

Grounds, Facility 67096

NA WAS NOT used to this type of exertion.  She never jogged.  It wasn’t something many did in Chengdu.  Least not outdoors.  The air quality was usually too poor.

Today, however, the air didn’t seem too bad.  But it wasn’t the air that was making her breathe hard.  It was this running.

Huiliang didn’t seem to be doing much better than she was.  Huiliang was breathing hard too and her face was flushed.  She’d barely said a word since the apartment.

The walking trail they were running on had turned to brick pavers.  Huiliang slowed down and began to walk.  Na was grateful.  She was already exhausted.

“You must tell me about Crush,” Huiliang said, in-between breaths, speaking in English.  “I heard he was taken.”

“Yes,” Na said, catching a breath, “by the colonel.”

“
Shangxiao!
 
He came himself?” Huiliang said.  She put her hand to her mouth.  “They must know then.”

“What’s going on, Huiliang?” Na said.  “Where are you taking me now?”

“I need to know something,” Huiliang said, dropping her voice.  “Do you wish to stay here, Na?”

For a brief moment Na wondered if Huiliang was trying to entrap her with that question.  But she dispelled that thought.  Na sensed fear and other tumultuous emotions radiating from Huiliang right now.

“I saw what happened to Chen and An,” Na said, speaking not much louder than a whisper.

Huiliang stopped walking.  “Tell me,” Huiliang said.

Na told her what she saw out the window.  Huiliang’s face set in a grim mask.  She nodded.  Her eyes were wet.  “They were very brave,” Huiliang said.  “They knew that might happen.  We’ve always suspected it.  But we’ve never had it confirmed.”

Huiliang started walking again.  She spoke quickly.  She told Na how Chen and An had asked to leave two months ago.  They had put in their request to leave at the end of their tour.  Like usual, they were offered more money to stay.  A substantial salary increase and a signing bonus for another tour, if they chose to reenlist.  But they had declined.

They were told the terms, if they left.  No contact with past colleagues after they leave.  No exceptions.  To do so would be to forfeit the monies they had made during their two tours.  They understood and signed the forms.

“But we’ve never believed,” Huiliang said.  She told how many that had left in the past had secretly set up a means to communicate back to the rest that they were okay.  But only a few had ever done so.  And those communications had always seemed suspicious—not quite genuine.  When asked certain questions in the online forum, or wherever they had prearranged to communicate—questions only they should know—they didn’t know the answers.  Communication would then abruptly stop.  Soon afterwards the person who had asked the questions, who had communicated with the person that had left, always managed to be brought before the colonel.  They were scolded for trying to communicate with their friend.  They were told that their friend would now lose all their monies they had made working here.

Huiliang slowed her walking pace.  They’d reached the main thoroughfare where the shops were.  The place they’d come yesterday.  Na waited for Huiliang to say more, but she seemed to be done.

“And they were asked to leave too.  Weren’t they?” Na said.

Huiliang smiled.  It was a bitter smile.  “Yes.”

Na saw the shop they’d gone into yesterday.  The shop with the beautiful shoes and purses.  For the first time, Na realized they were alone in this area.  No others were walking around.  She hadn’t seen anyone during their run, in fact.  When they’d come to this area yesterday there were hundreds of people shopping and strolling.  But now?  Now there was no one.  Just them.

“Where is everyone?” Na said.

57

Interrogation Cell, Facility 67096

CRUSH TASTED BLOOD.  The last hit had hurt.  The soldier who had delivered the blow smiled cruelly.  He had on black leather gloves that were stained and well worn.  Behind that man was the colonel.  Crush realized with the many times he had met the man, he’d always called him ‘colonel’, or
shangxiao
.  He’d never addressed him by his actual name:
Xue Mauzi
.

Very few, in fact, knew the colonel’s real name.  But Crush knew.  He knew much about the colonel.

The colonel could fool most people with his friendly smile and affable-looking face, but that was simply a veneer that hid the real man.  The real Colonel Mauzi.  Colonel Mauzi the monster.  The mass murderer.  On his watch, death had reigned supreme.

Crush knew the number.  He had done the math one time and had kept the tally ever since.  He added Chen and An to the final number in his head, knowing their fate without having to see with his own eyes.

With them, two more added, the number was now five thousand and eleven.  That was how many had left the facility since Crush had first started here.  Five thousand and eleven.

How many before Crush had come?  He didn’t know.  But the number was, no doubt, an equally horrible number.  Maybe triple?  Maybe a little more?

Crush knew that the colonel had been here since the beginning.  Since the facility was first built.  This was his station.  His duty to The State.

Manage The State’s resources.  Manage the Online Blue Army.  Do not let what happens here ever get out into the press, into the newspapers, into the world beyond these walls.

Do what must be done to keep this secret.

And the colonel had done his job well.  He had learned from the masters, after all.  Those men in power who curried favor with the Politburo.  Those men who had the exalted blessings from ‘The Seven’.

Enforce the laws.  Secure The State.  Keep the peace.

Simple directives.  Given by the seven men on the Standing Committee.  Seven men who dispensed their will on one point four billion people.

Not an easy thing to do.  To control such a vast number.  To be leaders of such a country.  But they had figured out a way.  They had used men like the colonel to impose their will.  To cut down any that would question it.

And Facility 67096, like others of its kind, was their scythe.  Their cutting implement.  The way they kept one point four billion in their proper place.

They knew the key to totalitarian rule lay in darkness.  On keeping The Truth from the people.  Because with Truth comes will.  And the will of the people, if unleashed, is a powerful thing.

Crush also knew this.  He’d always known it.  On one side was darkness: unquestioning acquiescence to the will of the seven.  Belief that those men had the people’s best interests at heart.  That they were benevolent leaders.  Good and pure.  Noble.

And on the other side lay Truth.

Truth was a strange thing.  It did not bend.  It did not break.    

You cannot cut down Truth.  You cannot make it go away.  You can try and cut it down with lies, and that can work for a period of time.  But after a while, after those cuts have been dispensed, after those cut stalks are stacked on top of each other, and stacked some more, all those cut stalks begin to get precarious.

Because the whole structure is a lie; the very foundation is a lie.  All lies.  And at some point those lies stacked on each other just need the right breeze to catch it.  And when that happens those lies come tumbling down.  And Truth is what remains.  Truth is there for all to see.

One point four billion.  They will see.  They will see The Truth.

“You will speak, you know,” the colonel said.  “You will tell me everything I need to know.”

Crush looked at the colonel.  He could only see out of one eye now.  The swelling… the bruising… had caused one of his eyes to shut.

The colonel was standing now.  He’d risen from the chair he’d been sitting in.  The room Crush was in was a cold sterile place.  Just white walls.  A few chairs.  A table.  The ropes that bound Crush to his own chair were biting into his wrists.

“I don’t know what you ask,” Crush said for the eleventh time.

It was a lie.  It came easy from his lips.  He’d been lying for a while.  Ten years here.  Ten years lying.  Ten years doing his duty.

But this lie was for Truth.  He just needed to buy some more time.  The colonel would very soon have his answers.  But it wouldn’t be from Crush.  It would be from those who were done lying.  Those who stood with ‘Tank Man’.

We are Tank Man!

Their rallying cry.  The words they spoke when they weren’t afraid of being heard.  The words that united them.

Tank Man.  Exalted.  A legend.

A man who had stood before a column of tanks.  Willing to die for a cause.  Not moving away from the indomitable tanks that were bearing down on him.  About to crush him!  That man had stayed firm.  Stood before the tanks, defiant.  Erect.  Unflinching.  That man was a national hero.  He had stopped the will of The State.

June 5
^th
, 1989.  Tiananmen Square.  One man had stood before a column of tanks.

He was gone now, but not forgotten.  He lived.  The Unknown Protestor.  The State thought they could erase him.  Make him go away.  They killed him and all who knew him, so his name would be erased forever from the record books.  So that what he stood for would exist no more.

Such silly men with such small minds.  Did they really think it would be that easy?  That Tank Man would allow death to defeat him?

One point four billion people!

Crush was hit again by the soldier in the room.  This time in his stomach.  Crush gasped for air.

“I’m sorry,” the colonel said, leaning in.  “I didn’t quite hear you.  Did you say something?”

“No,” Crush said, getting his composure back.  Finding his inner wa.  His inner peace.  For some reason he was seeing Na’s face.  Visualizing her now.  Seeing her sitting next to him.

But he didn’t think of ‘what if’.  He didn’t think of the loss.  He didn’t think of a life he might have lived.  He just thought of her face.  Because that was all he had.  And all he would ever have.  But it was enough.

It was strange.  When you’re about to die, he realized, you grasp at straws.  But at least this was a good straw to grasp at.  A straw that could support him.  Give him strength when he most needed it.

“I didn’t say anything, colonel,” Crush said.  “I’ve already told you.  I believe in the cause.  I am but here to serve the people.”

He retreated into his head.  His words… his lies spoken so The Truth could live.  So that Na and others could live.  So that the
real
cause could live.  The cause of his people.  One point four billion.  Inside his head were the real words.  The words he shouted.  The words he believed.

We are Tank Man!

He smiled through the pain.  He smiled thinking of Na’s face one more time.  Such a pretty face.  And her smile.  That…

That was something else.  He was lucky to have seen it, brief though it had been.

“Hit him again,” the colonel said.