Two Peasants and a President (54 page)

******

The escapees were now scattered over a wide area, hidden by local farmers and transported under boxes of fruits and vegetables.  With tho
u
sands upon thousands of farms necessary to feed more than a billion people, even the formidable forces Li had unleashed to find them could only scratch the surface.  But the goal was not simply to hide the dissidents, it was to organize them into groups that could plan and execute operations against the regime.  The days of passive protest had come to an end.

The uprising had begun.

The dissidents knew that having deeply shamed their government and the tyrant at its head, capture meant death.  While this did not make for restful sleep, it gave them the courage of those who have nothing to lose.  And they now had unlikely allies, disaffected Muslims from the western provinces whose demonstrations were also being ruthlessly suppressed by the government.  While the authorities in countries such as Iran and Syria were at least ostensibly supporting China in return for her support in the UN, the
reality was that China is the most godless nation on Earth and it is the duty of Muslims everywhere to challenge that.

Accordingly, militant Islamists in neighboring countries had begun to supply explosives to their counterparts in China.  And while few dissidents in eastern China had any inclination toward Islam, they shared a common e
n
emy, one who resided in Beijing.  Since, properly labeled, a carton of onions is indi
stinguishable from a carton of
PETN or plastic explosives and since fruits and vegetables had in the 21
st
century become world travelers, who better to transport them than farmers?   China could not possibly monitor every shipment, not with a highly perishable commodity and more than a billion mouths to feed.

Hong now had in his po
ssession two crates of a
sophisticated explosive, though this particular crate had been shepherded to its destination by some decidedly non-Muslim allies.  It had also been promised that he would
soon
receive instruction in its use.  All that remained was a suitable target, and the American executive, Reynolds, had provided one. 

That Li
Guo
Peng
would be so heartless as to place the father of one of the newlyweds, who had suffered so unspeakably in China, in the place where he would share the same fate was beyond words.  Dissidents, by and large, tended to be educated, enlightened individuals whose sense of outrage at what China had done to two innocent foreigners now instilled in them a determ
i
nation that would soon make itself felt. 

Jun turned the same corner for the sixth time in twenty-four hours.  He noted that a police car with two officers in it had been present in the same place each time.  He drove his cab through the surrounding area, noticing another unmarked car with two plainclothes officers in it, obviously backup intended to be unseen.  A friend
who made deliveries to the No. 77
Central Hospital told him there were two policemen at each entrance and perhaps more inside, though he had no way of knowing.  The dissidents no longer had anyone actually working inside the ho
spital, the authorities having
ruthlessly screened everyone for any likelihood that they were sympathetic to the cause.

As a cab driver, Jun
had the perfect cover for a spy.  H
e could travel almost anywhere without attracting attention.  His next step would be to enter the hospital looking for a fare that had called; his boss would make sure that such calls from the hospital were directed to him.  But the challenge that Jun and his fellow dissidents faced was formidable; they hoped to figure a way to use the explosives to create a distraction sufficient to rescue the American, but they had no idea how. 

Unfortunately, their lack of military experience was second only to their naiveté in terms of the l
ikelihood of that succeeding. 
The first escape
attempt had been successful due, in no small part, to the element of surprise; the authorities had never considered the possibility of a rescue.  As would be obvious to any second year military cadet, there would now be a plan in place to thwart any such attempt.  However well-meaning the dissidents were, they would need far more than intentions to succeed.  They would need the help of experts. 

As if their chance of success were not already miniscule, there was another ob
stacle that stood in their way –
the embassy of the very country whose citizen they were trying to save.  On her first trip abroad, Valerie Waters, the American Secretary of State, had said that she could not allow human rights to get in the way of working with China on global challenges.  In other words, politics once again trumped principles in the eyes of the cu
r
rent administration.  But, as had been amply demonstrated on the Yellow Sea, not everyone in the United States government was willing to allow an American citizen to become an unwilling organ donor, much less a hero who had saved untold numbers of his fellow citizens. 

Three new attachés had just arrived at the embassy, attaché being a catch-all term for personnel who work at an embassy in any of a number of capacities and who typically carry diplomatic passports.  The host country usually assumes they are spies and often that is the case.  After phot
o
graphing them, Chinese authorities began searching databases, as is normal procedure, to see what they could learn.  The fact that none of their photos were on file only served to confirm that, at least until proven otherwise, they were spies. 

All American embassies, while ostensibly under the control of their ambassadors, have CIA and other intelligence types working there, using the embassy as a base and for cover.  While the ambassador would like to believe he can dictate to these people, that is not always the case.  At the root of this disagreement is the stark dichotomy between men of words and men of a
c
tion.  Diplomats, by nature and calling, believe there is no problem their eloquence can’t solve.  Tens years of fruitless ‘negotiations’ over Iran’s n
u
clear program would seem to say otherwise, as would talks taking place just hours before Japan’s fleet attacked Pearl Harbor. 

The CIA and military, on the other hand, believe that there comes a point when words have either clearly failed or were pointless from the start.  This, coupled with the current elevated animosity between State and Defense and CIA, meant that the ambassador and the attachés in his embassy rarely spoke; in fact, the ambassador’s aides were actively spying on them and r
e
porting back to him.  But to spies, being spied upon is as perennial as the sun and in private the attachés spoke derisively of the aides’ clumsy attempts at
eavesdropping. 

The bottom line was that the administration realized it was on very rocky ground and could not afford another public dispute with either the CIA or the Department of Defense, details of the most recent one having been widely leaked.  Furthermore, the president saw it as an opportunity to have someone else upon whom he could pin any misadventure, even one of his own making. 

As might be assumed, any diplomat, real or otherwise, who leaves the embassy, is followed by one or more of the host country’s agents whose job it is to learn whatever they can, but most of all to keep tabs on everyone from the embassy.  Woe to the agent who loses the cat and mouse game of follow the spy and has to report back that he knows not where he went.  The game can become quite sophisticated with every manner of truck and car coming and going from the embassy, not to mention the foot traffic.  There was even an incident where the CIA used the fact that the local sewer system passed under the embassy as an opportunity to create another entrance.  The host country was quite baffled, at least for awhile, how certain people seemed to be able to appear and disappear.  But the lingering aroma on a certain agent finally brought an end to that ploy. 

******

It was a rather swanky lunch at a Western hotel which under normal circumstances would have been off limits for their expense accounts.  However, it served a purpose because the Chinese agents clearly identified themselves by taking a table, but not ordering; a meal here would cost a week’s salary and their expense accounts were strictly noodles.  After a marvelous meal spoiled only by the Chinese agents’ clumsy attempt to appear nonchalant while dining on tea, one of the attachés got up to use the restroom.  Since there was a door opening to
a staircase in the same hallway
which
,
due to the attachés choice of table
,
could not be seen by the agents, one of the attachés was able to make his way to the basement.  The other two paid the bill and got on one of the elevators.  When the elevator reached the 11
th
floor, the attachés got off, took the stairs down to the 10
th
floor and got on another elevator to the basement where there were shops, a tailor, a barber etc.  The tailor, no friend of the regime and well-paid by the CIA, showed them to a loading dock where they went their separate ways.

Assuming that the Chinese agents could be smarter than they had a
p
peared or were not alone, each attaché boarded a separate series of buses, each ride punctuated by a long walk to ascertain that there was no one following. 
One then boarded a taxi driven by Jun
and the other two were loaned
nimble 125cc motorcycles by dissidents also supported by the CIA.  Having changed clothes in the tailor’s shop and now wearing full-face motorcycle helmets, the attachés could travel the streets anonymously. 

******

The sun had just set when the convoy turned west south of Hue.  The plan was to skirt the Paracel Islands, over which had been fought a bloody conflict in 1974 with China emerging as the winner.  Other than a few troops stationed there, the islands are uninhabited.  The convoy would cross in plain sight of the islands, but in an era of satellites and radar, this was irrelevant.  It was expected that China would make its move sometime after the convoy had emerged into the center of the South China Sea but before it sailed near the southern coast of Taiwan on its way to open ocean.  That provided China with hundreds of miles of open water in which to stage whatever it had planned.  Everyone aboard the three ships was fully aware that China was tracking their movement.  In fact, the Vietnamese frigates had earlier picked up the sounds of the submarine that was tailing them and in turn were tracking it.  They were not, however, aware that two more lay in wait along their path northward. 

On the bridge of the USS George Washington, the captain had been informed by the US Cowpens, Aegis guided-missile cruiser CG 63, that two long-distance submarine contacts were likely Chinese submarines.  It was expected their class and identities would be verified soon.  The USS Okl
a
homa City SSN 723, a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine that pr
e
ceded the battle group, had discovered the enemy subs.  The USS Buffalo SSN 715, another Los Angeles-class sub was trailing the fleet in case there were other subs to the rear.  The captain had also requested, and received, the USS Hawaii, which was not only intimately familiar with the area but was one of the most modern attack subs in the navy.  She had already proven her ability to be a fly on the wall and was currently doing precisely that. 

If there was anything that worried the battle group commander, aside from the indecisiveness and motives of his commander-in-chief, it was that the Chinese could have one or more diesel powered submarines lying in wait on the bottom.  In this position and with their diesel engines shut down, they would be nearly impossible to hear until they made their move, which might be too late.  But then again, his fly on the wall was there for just such an eventuality.  The carrier captain still had not received any updates to his rules of engagement which continued to annoy him greatly.

******

The office wasn’t much bigger than the old desk and file cabinets it contained.  In and out bins piled so high with papers as to be virtually indi
s
tinguishable and a grimy calculator were the sole objects atop the desk.  Had it not been for the Kalashnikov in the corner, it would have looked like so many other offices whose owners expend far more time trying to earn money than keeping track of it.  The rifle had occupied the corner for less than a day; mere possession of it punishable by death, as were many of the other acts its new owner had committed in the past forty-eight hours.

A stocky teenager with brush-short hair and callused hands like his father called from across the warehouse; someone was coming.  Hong picked up the Kalashnikov and walked to a pair of tired, sagging doors and peered through the uneven crack between them.   In the distance a taxi was lurching from pothole to rut on the road that would eventually lead it to the building.  Though it was expected, that did not entirely quell the unease that the a
p
proach
of any vehicle caused now
.