South China Sea

heard a prisoner urinating and the never-ending crashing of the sea on the reef.

* * *

After Jae Chong’s escape — during which he had killed two JDF agents and Wray of the CIA — the ambulances raced through the city to help those injured by flying glass during the melee. In the JDF’s HQ there was special consternation among the staff. How was it that the American, Wray, was permitted into the room while he was still armed, a direct contravention of internal JDF regulations? Someone was going to get it in the neck for that violation, and never mind about the possibility of the families of the deceased suing, even though the JDF officially had no office of Intelligence.

In all the confusion of how to word the official report of the shootings that would have to go to the minister, it was a junior clerk who found what looked like a phone number written on a piece of paper that had been lying, blood-soaked, in the interrogation room. He gave it to his section chief, who immediately punched out the number on his computer, waiting for the number/address correlation listings. It came up on the screen as a local number for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“Very amusing,” the section chief said, decidedly unamused.

The headquarters staff got the distinct impression that the chief was more interested in recapturing Chong for ridiculing him than for killing the two agents and the American. To be on the safe side, the chief ordered a stakeout of the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. It wasn’t beyond the range of possibility, he told his staff, that the gaijin Chong had written down an actual contact number — that some other gaijin working for the KFC outlet was in fact a spy.

For a few days, however, the chief’s loss of face could be measured in the number of chicken and cock-a- doodle-doo jokes doing the rounds of the Japanese Defense Forces HQ. That is, until the funeral of the two agents and the return of Wray’s body to the United States, reminding everyone that Jae Chong, the uncooperative comedian, was also a killer, and a killer who now had nothing to lose as one of the biggest manhunts in Japanese history got under way.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Taipei

“You turd!”

“You’ve been looking in your mirror, you asshole!”

This edifying exchange was not unusual. It merely signified that yet another day of “debate” had begun in the democratic life of the Li-fa Yuan, Taiwan’s legislature, between the Nationalist and Democratic Progressive parties. The subject of discussion was whether or not Taipei would contribute any of its well-equipped and superbly trained armed services to the U.N. force under the command of General Douglas Freeman. Taiwan, as the congressman, Shen, from Kaohsiung in the south put it, was caught between a “rock and a hard place” about what to do in the conflict between the U.N. — in effect, the United States — and China. If Taiwan did not contribute to the joint U.N. force, Congressman Shen pointed out, then Washington would be angry, but if Taiwan did furnish troops and materiel to the U.N. force, then Beijing would be furious. Indeed, Beijing had already cautioned Taiwan about getting involved on the American side. “Remember,” the Communist Chinese had warned them, “after the war you’ll still be there and we’ll still be here — only a hundred and sixty kilometers away. We can wait. Fen- shen-suei-ku—we will break your bones.”

A member of the Nationalist opposition party rose and suggested that if the government was too “gutless” to throw Taiwan’s hand in with the Americans, who, during the hard times of the fifties, had contributed enormous amounts of aid as well as putting the U.S. Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and mainland China to thwart a Communist invasion, then the very least Taiwan could do was contribute money to the U.N. cause.

“Like Japan!” a Nationalist party member charged, springing to his feet. “As gutless as Japan in the Iraqi War. War by checkbook!”

“You talk of war by checkbook! You, the ardent followers of Chiang Kai-shek!”

The joke was a pun on the English phrase “Cash My Check,” the name Harry Truman had given to Chiang Kai-shek. That such an aside could be made in the Li-fa Yuan, no matter that several legislators wanted to punch Mr. Shen in the nose for making it, was a measure of just how far — or, for the Nationalists, just how low — Taiwan had come in its surge to a multiparty democratic system.

“We’ll break your bones!” shouted another legislator in warning that there was a dire risk of war with the mainland should Taiwan assist the U.S. or the U.N. In any case, another warned, the Americans wouldn’t want a war on two fronts— Vietnam and Taiwan.

“On three fronts,” another legislator said. “Don’t forget the Spratlys — Beijing certainly hasn’t.”

In addition to risking war with the mainland, Taipei had another serious matter on its mind, namely the fact that because Taipei had prohibited direct offshore investment in the mainland economy, which would constitute a de facto recognition of Beijing, the only way in which Taipei businessmen could do business with the burgeoning entrepreneurs of the mainland was to either become petty smugglers or, if they were big investors, to funnel their money through middlemen in Hong Kong, such as Jonas Breem, within his South Asia Industries Group.

* * *

When the Taiwanese noninterventionist decision reached the White House, there was disappointment on the part of the President, but not surprise. Americans had not had to live under the guns of the PLA for almost half a century. However, among the Joint Chiefs of Staff there was resentment in view of the fact that U.S. forces and billions in foreign aid had helped Taiwan develop into one of the powerhouses of Asia with one of the highest levels, if not the highest level, of personal income per year. CIA chief David Noyer helped put the situation in perspective when he advised those present at the morning intelligence briefing that despite Taiwan’s official refusal to become involved in the U.N. stand against the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China could still be helpful in maintaining and, where possible, activating its covert network on the mainland and in the South China Sea.

“Submarines?” the President inquired. “They only have four, and none of them are nuclear.”

The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Reese, was impressed by the President’s recall of Taiwan’s status in the military balance of power.

“No, not subs,” Noyer said, “though I’ve no doubt they could prove useful in helping us with guarding our Japan-Vietnam convoys, and Beijing’d have no physical proof of their intervention. But what I mean, Mr. President, is their clandestine operations on the mainland — saboteurs. If they could help sabotage the Ningming-Lang Son railway in the south, we could sever the head of their logistics line.”

“For how long?” Ellman asked.

“Depends on what kind of job the Taiwanese agents can do. However long it is, it’ll help Freeman’s force.”

“Fine,” the President said. “But what if the Taiwanese are captured and talk?”

Noyer shrugged. “Beijing’s hardly going to go to war with Taiwan over that. Besides which, Taiwan’s agents on the mainland are mostly mainland Chinese. For most of them it’s not a matter of ideology — it’s just another way of making money.”

“Like the smuggling,” the President said, “that goes on between Fujian province on the mainland and Taiwan.”

Ellman suppressed a grin. The President was showing off. Fair enough — it wasn’t a bad idea now and then to let the Joint Chiefs and Noyer know that he knew more than he told them in his briefing papers. “And besides,” the President continued, “there’s already a tremendous amount of jealousy in China between the north and the more prosperous south. The northerners are seen as snobs in power, while the south is prone to much more capitalistic-type economic drives. And there’s one hell of a lot of resentment by the minority groups and the non- Mandarin-speaking groups against the north.”

All right, Ellman thought, that’s enough — we read the State Department memos too.

Even so, Noyer appreciated the President making the point. It was surprising how few congressmen fully