dormant giant. The symbiosis would allow both to grow exponentially. And in a very few years, China would be the greatest power the world had ever known.
General Tam Li wondered how Chou Shin would react to the sudden, wrenching change in Chinese society. How could anyone react negatively to their nation going from a Third World economy to one of the most viable on earth?
The PLA and the rest of China were about to find out. And then Tam Li would make certain of something else: that Chou Shin was arrested and executed for treason.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Morgan Carrie did not go home when Op-Center’s night crew came in. She waited until she had received messages from each of her marines that they had arrived. As she was leaving, the general learned that she was not the only one who was working late. Bob Herbert was still in his office, which was next to hers. The intelligence chief was looking at a series of figures on his computer on his desk to the left. It presented his profile to the general.
“Staying the night?” she asked, leaning in.
“There’s a crisis, I’m a crisis manager,” he replied without looking over.
“Do you have something new?”
“If you consider confusion as something new, I have it,” the intelligence chief replied.
Carrie was feeling more than a little hostility from Herbert. She did not know him well enough to determine whether it was her, the pressure, or overwork that was bringing it out.
“What’s the problem?” she pressed.
“I know what we’re looking at,” Herbert told her. “I don’t know what we’re looking
“Pertaining to what? The bombings?”
“The trail from Charleston to Xichang,” Herbert said.
“You assume there is one.”
“No, that’s just something I have to consider,” he told her. “Putting aside the satellite launch for a moment, we seem to have this tit-for-tat struggle taking place between two men, a general, Tam Li, and an intelligence officer, Chou Shin. What we do not know is why. It could be nothing more than personal animus, manifested as attacks on their reputation, sovereignty, or economy. But there is also the possibility that it’s a proxy war between those two groups.”
“That’s unlikely,” Carrie said. “A struggle between the military and intelligence communities would be counterproductive. It’s also rare. Intramural wars are usually fought between rival intelligence units or military divisions.”
“A fight for funding or the ear of the leaders,” Herbert said.
“That’s a simplified view, but yes.”
“I agree,” Herbert said. “It does not appear as though the general wants to take over Chou’s position, or vice versa. There is nothing in their backgrounds to suggest that kind of personal ambition or professional interest.”
“So where does that leave us?” Carrie asked.
“With a prize that we have not yet identified,” Herbert replied. “To try to find that, we have to take a large step back and look at the picture of China overall. Before they went home, Ron Plummer and his hardworking assistant Robert Caulfield shot me a State Department bullet-point overview on China. What they are about, where they are going. One thing stands out, what State calls the Hong Kong Factor.”
“Which is?”
“The success of democracy as an economic spur,” Herbert said. “Since the Chinese takeover in 1997, Hong Kong has underscored the lie that Beijing has been promulgating for over sixty years, that Communism works.” Herbert scrolled to some figures. “Hong Kong has six million extensively educated citizens. The society is multilingual and highly Westernized, with a low crime rate. Here’s the fascinating part, though. At $24,750 in per capita annual income, the citizens of Hong Kong are twenty-five times wealthier than mainland Chinese.”
“Has Beijing tried to explain the discrepancy?” Carrie asked.
“They say that Hong Kong is not a fair laboratory for China,” Herbert said. “It is small and relatively homogeneous. China is too vast, too uneducated, and too culturally diverse to embrace the kind of democracy that has worked in Hong Kong and, of course, in Taiwan.”
“All true.”
“As far as it goes,” Herbert said. “It’s also true that if people got to vote, most of them would probably toss the Communist leaders.”
“Which would result in a fracturing of China in much the same way that the Soviet Union came apart,” Carrie said. “Every province would vote for policies that brought industry or agriculture to it.”
“Or new military bases,” Herbert said. He looked at Carrie for the first time. “That would give young people jobs, and older folks would run the support services that feed and equip it.”
“Perhaps,” Carrie said. “For China to build and modernize its military would require the kind of economy it simply does not have. We studied this at G2, extensively. It’s one of the great problems of our age. If the different regions are not held together by force, or do not get an across-the-board influx of prosperity, we will have another Africa or Middle East or Pakistan with warlords and tribal leaders coming to power and fighting one another. No one wants to see one-fifth of the earth’s population pitched into that kind of chaos.”
“Which is what puzzles me,” Herbert said. “Apparently, someone in China has figured out another way.”
“The Mob,” someone said from the hall.
Carrie turned. Darrell McCaskey was behind her. His eyes were half-shut and his five o’clock shadow had become a thicker-looking five A.M. shadow.
“You’re cracking your head on this, too,” Carrie said.
“It’s what we do, Bob and me,” McCaskey said. “Ron sent me the same data. We review it separately. If we come up with a lead or idea that matches, chances are it’s worth following.”
“So which mob are you referring to?” Carrie asked.
“The one with a capital
“I didn’t think of that one,” Herbert said.
“You weren’t a G-man,” McCaskey said. “That’s why I was coming over to talk about it. The Mob has a bloated hierarchy, just like China. And how do they support it? By constantly moving into new businesses. They leave it pretty much alone and shave cash from the top. Then they plug that cash into diverse new businesses, some of them legitimate, so they can stay afloat in any economy.”
“I’m not getting your point,” Carrie said.
“It’s the other Hong Kong Factor,” McCaskey said. “China took the colony over, learned some new tricks about running a capitalistic society, and put some of the profits into the Bank of Beijing. What’s the next logical step?”
“Expand that into China, except—” Herbert said.
“That would not work,” McCaskey said. “The process would be too slow and too jarring to the current system, as you’ve said.”
“So you need more of the same,” Carrie offered.
“If you’re going to grow, yes,” McCaskey said. “But if you’re an old-school Red like Mr. Chou, you are going to resist that.”
“I wonder how he stood on the Hong Kong takeover,” Carrie said.
“He was for it, but with deep, deep reservations,” McCaskey said. “He sent a very detailed white paper to the National People’s Congress and to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party warning against allowing more ‘water under the foundation,’ as he put it.”
“Do we have a copy of that paper?” Carrie asked.
