Razing Beijing: A Thriller (57 page)

Bernstein leaned wearily against the railing by the window,
shaking his head.
Next
, he thought,
they’ll suggest I divvy out
ownership to the players.
He turned from the window and walked to his desk.
There he tossed the budget reviews into his briefcase, to be studied at home
over a glass of Riesling with his wife.

He walked across the carpet toward the door. Suddenly
behind him there was a bright flash with a crack of thunder that he felt
through the floor—the light imprinted on his retina an image of his shadow
against the wall. Bernstein’s immediate reaction was that it was too bright and
prolonged for lightning—had a thunderbolt struck and ignited the stadium
lights?

He tried to recall his insurance provisions as he hurried
back to the window. To his relief, it looked as though the stadium lights were
intact but...
what in the name of...?
His eyes began to adjust. The
briefcase slipped out of his hand, bounced open and spilled its contents onto
the floor.

Bernstein staggered backward and fell against his desk. Hands
shaking, he picked up the phone and stabbed out 9 - 1 - 1.

EMILY LOWERED THE TOP OF
HER
newspaper in order to scan the faces of CLI employees streaming
toward the lobby exit on their way home for the evening. With her office buried
deep within the company’s high-security complex, and other than the occasional
glimpse, Emily found herself cut off from most of Stuart’s daily agenda.

Why has Stu not invited me to dinner, or even just for
coffee?
She had sensed his attraction to her, and yet he had not taken the
initiative. Having allowed herself to be hired into his company, was she
somehow less attractive a woman to him, condemned by some Western cultural
nuance she hadn’t considered? Perhaps she was the victim of an ironic twist of
fate. As a corporate manager, Stu might restrain himself because of American
laws threatening punishment for such behavior.

The stream of people had reduced to a trickle; so too Emily’s
faith in her present strategy. Perhaps I should choose a more direct approach,
she thought. She had noticed the occasionally aggressive techniques of American
women, but was that an approach that Stu found attractive?
Perhaps I should
simply drive to a pet store and buy another cat.

The door to the executive suite swung open. Emily stole a
glance—there was Stu, handsomely dressed in a dark blue suit, his right hand
gripping a briefcase. He paused to talk to a well-dressed petite woman whom Emily
didn’t recognize.

Minutes later she heard his steps resound sharply on the
marble floor. Emily deliberately uncrossed her legs and, with a self-conscious
tug on the hem of her skirt, crossed them the other way. She dipped the top of
the paper down to reveal her face, ever so slightly, her eyes scanning the
articles...

“Emily?”

She looked up from the
Richmond Times-Dispatch
with
her eyebrows arched in casual surprise. Stuart’s smile warmed her. “Hello, Stu.
How nice to see you.”

“I just had half the office checking to see if you’d left
for the day,” Stuart surprised her by saying. He glanced at her satchel and
purse on the adjacent chair. “If you’re waiting for someone, maybe I’ll just—”

“No,” she assured him, perhaps a little too cheerfully as
she folded her newspaper. “I think my friend and I must have missed each
other.”

Stuart cocked an eyebrow. “I know it’s spur of the
moment, but have you got a little free time this evening?”

EMILY FOLLOWED
in
her own car to a quiet restaurant not far from Stuart’s home. Sitting down at
the bar that overlooked the Potomac, Stuart ordered them each a beer. Besides
the careful attention he paid her when she had entered at his side, and the way
he held her gaze when listening to her speak, Emily sensed that something was
troubling him. Occasionally Stuart would appear about to say something, only to
avoid her gaze. They discussed for awhile how she was adjusting to her job, her
ideas for addressing the challenges they faced, the new people and
surroundings—Stu mentioned he’d already overheard people’s positive comments. Their
talk inevitably shifted to the subjects of her father in prison, Thanatech, and
Stuart’s daughter. Neither she nor Stu had discovered anything new since his
unfriendly rendezvous with the CIA officer.

Stuart surprised her again by asking, “How is it that after
we’ve gone through such hell together, I still enjoy being around you?”

They looked into each other’s eyes—Emily’s pulse quickened.
The bartender stepped away and left them alone. She wanted him to reach for her
hand.

Stuart reached his hand inside his coat and withdrew
several folded slips of paper. “What do you make of this? They were sent to
both my home and office e-mail accounts.”

Emily accepted his three slips of paper. The top of the
first page was an e-mail header, with the distinction of consisting exclusively
of Mandarin characters. Her eyes skipped to the body of the message, written in
English:

The cub is born, grows wobbly on its feet,

only to stumble, then walk, and ultimately leave;

does the lioness recognize the sire,

returned, to dominate the pride?

Emily flipped to the second page.

“The image was contained in an attached file,” Stuart
explained.

Emily frowned. There were no accompanying characters
explaining the solid black symbol. “Isn’t that the Nike ‘swoosh’ ?”

“Is it?” Stuart smiled, taunting her. “You could pick up
almost any newspaper yesterday and find an article with a photo of something
resembling that.”

“I think everyone in the world knows what that is. But the
message...well, that’s truly bizarre. Some sort of incest, no?” That brought a
stab of embarrassment.

Stuart looked at her strangely. “Apparently, a prankster
carved that shape into this FieldTurf stuff—”

“Oh, the Baltimore stadium! I was reading how the owner is
threatening to take Nike to court over that. What do you think is going on?”

“Take a look at the next page. That one showed up the day
after the first e-mail.”

The third page displayed the Chinese header and another
verse written in English:

It is impossible for nonbeing to be changed into
being;

It is also impossible for being to become
nonbeing.

Emily scanned the lines several times. They were vaguely
familiar.

“Do either of these riddles mean anything to you?”

“Well...this second might be Taoist. Actually, it reads a
little like Neo-Taoism.”

“What’s that-ism?”

“That
ism
was sort of a metaphysical philosophy
combining nature and religion, nonexistence was not nothingness, the pure being
is absolute and transcends all forms, or something like that. Its following
declined in third or fourth century China. We studied it as part of a
university class.” Emily looked up from the page and smiled playfully. “You
think because I’m Chinese I can unlock the mystery?”

“Frankly, yes, although I could’ve asked any one of a dozen
people at work to interpret it. I asked you because you’re smart. And because I
presume you can read who it’s from if I agree to buy you dinner.”

“You mean, if I allow you to buy me dinner?”

“Yes, of course that’s what I meant.”

Emily smiled and turned her attention to the lines of
document header. “This is strange. Some of these lines look as though they are
from servers that Beijing University uses.” She smiled triumphantly and handed
him back the pages.

Stuart looked dumbfounded. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. I attended Qinghua, but I also took several
classes there.”

“But I want to know who it’s from. Isn’t there a name?”

Emily realized Stuart did not appreciate how restricted
media like the Internet were in her native country. “Nobody sets their name to
them because they operate in the black market for Internet access. You see, the
university sets up these accounts—actually, students usually set them up while
the university looks the other way.” A thought struck Emily and she covered her
mouth with her hand. She shook her head. “We seem to have a history of
anonymous notes, don’t we?”

Stuart silently reflected for a minute, his distant stare
wandering over the rows of alcohol bottles behind the bar. “Taoist, huh? What
do you make of the first riddle?”

“Lions and siring...? I’m sorry. It means nothing to me.”

“Alluding to some sort of Taoist musings?”

“What it alludes to is Oedipus and Antigone.” Emily took a
long sip from her pilsner, eyeing Stuart over the rim.

Stuart held her gaze for a moment and said, “I don’t think
I know anyone from Beijing University.”

Emily placed her glass on the bar. She rarely drank alcohol
and was feeling a bit light-headed. “What about me?”

“You spent most your time at Qinghua. You know what I
mean.”

“I don’t see a connection between the riddles and the Nike
logo, except that they are probably a hoax.” Emily nibbled her lower lip,
pondering the Chinese origin. “Apparently whoever sent them to you had access
to the newswire publishers. That’s unusual, even illegal, but many of my
friends did it all the time, mostly to rage against the machine.”

“Emily, did you notice the dates of when they were sent?”

She picked up the papers from the surface of the bar. “This
first email was sent to you four days ago.”

“That’s the problem I’m having.”

“Why?”

Stuart leaned close to her. “The Baltimore stadium story
didn’t appear in the papers until yesterday.”

“YOUR SITE SELECTION OF
THE TARGET
in North America strikes some of us as ill-advised,” the
junior Standing Committee member announced. “One might even say it was reckless
and arrogant.”

The Commissioner of Science, Technology and Industry for
National Defense stepped back from the glare of the projector light which
boiled the cigarette smoke over the heads of his audience. From eight
individual seats within three curved rows elevated several meters above the
podium, the most autonomously powerful political body in the world had convened
to ‘herald in the new era’—an occasion that Vice Chairman Rong Peng of the
Military Affairs Commission had begun by graciously crediting Deng’s
stewardship. As usual for such gatherings, Deng knew that little or nothing
would be as it appeared.

“On the question of accuracy, one must first understand we
are talking about a weapon
system
,” Deng replied. “This system relies
not only on the primary low-earth orbit satellite, but depending upon the
location of target, or targets, it also relies on three geo-stationary
communication satellites. That being so, only a test in the western hemisphere
would properly evaluate the transmittal of data. Another objective stipulated
to me was to ensure that the target be made to appear strictly
nonmilitary
.”

“But why involve a manufacturer who ships half their
product from Asian factories?”

“I doubt any such association has been made,” dismissed
Vice Chairman Rong, defending his own association to the project.

Deng faced his accusers with no sign of apology. “With due
respect, it was reckless only to the extent one lacked faith in the technology.”
Would you prefer that we had waited until such time that a genuine conflict
erupts?
“I am told subsequent media coverage confirms they are at a total
loss to explain it. Some have even attempted to associate the footprint with
paranormal activity. Arrogant? I accept that particular criticism,” Deng
allowed with a shrug. “American journalists have been so considerate as to
publicize precise dimensions of the extraction. These compare favorably with
our intent.”

The chuckling members of the Politburo Standing Committee
of the Chinese Communist Party studied Deng with everything from measured
enthusiasm to bored acknowledgement, to simple contempt. He had always
understood that many in the Politburo resented him, as they did anyone whose
position had not been derived through cronyism. Gripping the sides of the
lectern, Deng wondered who if any among his audience secretly harbored another,
more heinous reason to distrust him. Since Liu Qun’s death, he often was drawn
to search for a lingering stare, or an evasive shift of the eyes, perhaps an
awkward inflection in tone...

“I take it you’re satisfied with the demonstrated
accuracy?” asked Finance Minister Huang Yi.

“A few problems were revealed by the test. That’s why we
run such tests. Our engineers deem these to be minor.”

At fifty-three years old, Finance Minister Huang Yi was the
youngest man on the Standing Committee to which he had been appointed six years
earlier. Deng knew of his reputation as relentlessly uncompromising—an
attribute rare for a Politburo bureaucrat. He also knew that Huang and Rong
were pitched in their battle to succeed the core leader. As finance minister, Huang
knew well the weapon’s staggering cost, but it was clear by their incessant
inquiry that he and others found mesmerizing the satellite weapon’s operational
details. How long for the satellite power system to recharge between attacks? Will
adverse weather limit its use? When will the second and third devices be ready
for launch? How massive an extraction can be achieved with a single attack? Can
it extract objects from beneath the ocean’s surface? Could the weapon extract
components from within warheads in advance of their launch? Where, ultimately,
does the extracted target go?