“I’ll alert my contacts.” He looked around at his men. Some were already snoring. Smart guerrillas, they slept when they could. “Let’s move.”
He circulated, waking them, speaking softly. They checked their weapons, took bandoliers of extra ammunition from boxes hidden among the rocks, and waited, prepared. A low whistle from Asgar brought the six pickets in with reports of everything quiet.
A gibbous moon hung just above the treetops. Asgar sent out his point men, nodded to Jon, and the remainder broke into two columns and moved deeper into the timber. Ten minutes later, the forest thinned, and they emerged onto a dirt road where a Land Rover, an ancient Lincoln Continental limousine, and a battered U.S. Army Humvee waited.
Jon raised his eyebrows in question. “That’s a lot of foreign horsepower for rural China.” Asgar smiled. “One’s a reluctant gift from a Tajik journalist, and the other two were midnight ” in Afghanistan. Amazing what you Yanks give to various warlords in and out of the Northern Alliance, and how careless they can be with their ill- gotten swag. Shall we saddle up?”
They climbed into the three vehicles, which cruised out in a caravan on the rough road, one after the other, beneath the broad, starlit sky.
Although the Uighers did not look like it, they behaved like a trained and highly disciplined unit, which encouraged Jon. They drove along a series of dirt roads past farmers, fields, and animals. In this part of China, Asgar explained, even a bicycle was a luxury. Most people walked long distances to see family and barter for goods. Consequently, there were few vehicles on the road or parked beside buildings. Still, there was evidence of people everywhere. The farmhouses came in clusters, in small villages, and in larger villages. Shacks offering barbering, food, and tea appeared periodically beside the road. Still, no one came out to see who was passing by so late. Whether in rural or urban China, it did not pay to be too curious.
“They probably wouldn’t report us if they did look,” Asgar told him.
“It’s not wise to attract attention from officials, even out here.”
Less than a half hour later, Jon saw the outlines of a chain-link fence and two guard towers in the distance. The drivers turned off their headlights. Asgar gave an order, and the vehicles rolled off into a stand of timber.
“The government won’t allow houses to be built any closer than a mile to the prison. We don’t want to be seen or heard by the guards, so we’ll park here.”
“And then?”
“It’s just like any military anywhere. We wait.”
The Chinese ambassador had demanded to speak with the president immediately. The matter was urgent, or so he said. Chief-of-staff Charlie Ouray took the request upstairs to the president, who was working on a bill in his overstuffed recliner, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.
Charlie noted that the president had moved a framed family portrait to the lamp table beside him. It was lying faceup. He must have been looking at it. Charlie had never seen the photo before. It showed the president as a gangly teenager in a football uniform, standing between his proud parents, Serge and Marian Castilla. All three were smiling, arms wrapped around one another. They had been a close family, and now Serge and Marian were both dead.
Charlie focused on the president. “Shall I tell the ambassador that he doesn’t get to make demands? I can soften it by saying you might be able to squeeze him in for a few minutes tomorrow. Maybe in the late afternoon.”
President Castilla considered the pros and cons. “No. Tell him, as it happens, I want to see him, too. Let him worry about what that could mean.”
“You’re sure, sir?”
“It won’t set a precedent, Charlie. We can let him cool his heels some other time to make the point. Right now, I want to hammer at the Empress and at the same time give a strong hint of willingness to work with the doves in Zhongnanhai to defuse the confrontation. We want that human-rights accord for a lot of good reasons.”
“Still, Mr. President, we can’t let him think?”
“That we don’t want an incident? Why not? If my theory’s correct, there are at least some on the Standing Committee who feel the same as we do.
Maybe we can pry confirmation out of our eminent ambassador.”
“Well?”
“Make the phone call, Charlie. He won’t browbeat me, you know that.
Besides, I’ve got some brickbats of my own. If what we believe is true — that there’s a power struggle going on over there — he’ll be just as uneasy and cautious about the whole situation as we are.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Half an hour later, Ambassador Wu Bangtiao walked into the Oval Office.
This time he wore a simple Western business suit, but his face was neutral, as if he were delivering a recorded message. The same mixed signals, but with more weight on the outrage this time.
“These intrusions into Chinese sovereignty are becoming intolerable!”
the tiny ambassador snapped, speaking this time in his perfect Oxbridge English. His tones held barely suppressed fury.
The president remained seated behind his desk. “You might care to go back out of the Oval Office, Ambassador Wu, and make a fresh entrance.”
Castilla caught a faint hint of a smile as Wu said, “My apologies, sir.
I fear I am so upset I forgot myself.”
The president refrained from saying Wu Bangtiao never forgot himself.
Bluntness had to be used judiciously. “I’m sorry to hear that, Ambassador. What is it that’s so upset you?”
“An hour ago, I received a communication from my government that our military in Sichuan Province reported a high-flying aircraft, identified by our experts as an E-2C Hawkeye AWACS of the type flown by your navy, had violated Chinese airspace two hours before. In light of your navy’s continued harassment of our cargo ship on the high seas, my government sees a pattern and strongly protests these incursions on our sovereign rights.”
The president fixed his hard stare on Wu. “First, Mr. Ambassador, the matter of the Empress violates no Chinese sovereign rights.”
“And the flyover? Would you know anything about that?”
“No, because I’m sure it never happened.”
“Sure, sir? But no categorical denial?”
“I’d be stupid to categorically deny what I know nothing about and which could have a perfectly reasonable explanation should it actually have happened. You say your military identified the aircraft as an AWACS? The area you speak of is quite close to northern Burma, where we have drug interdiction operations with, I believe, China’s full support.”
Wu inclined his head in acknowledgment. “A reasonable theory, Mr. President. However, we’ve also had a report there was a possible parachutist into Sichuan at nearly the same time. Near Dazu. Local authorities are investigating as we speak.”
“Interesting. I wish them success.”
“Thank you, sir. Then I’ll bother you no more.” Wu, who had not been invited to sit, started to turn toward the door.
“Not so fast, Ambassador. Please have a chair.” The president made his expression as stern as possible. But underneath the severity he felt a surge of optimism for the risk he was about to take. Wu Bangtiao had said not a word about the abortive SEAL raid on the Empress. That could mean only one thing — the Standing Committee knew nothing about the SEALs’ attempt. The warning to the Chinese sub had been delivered by one member or
