indicated that he uses more electricity than anybody else in his neighborhood, and that he has disguised communication gear on his house, which house also boasts unusual security. What does that tell you?”
Jay said, “He’s growing dope or he’s a hacker.”
“Yes, my thought as well. I expect the only reason I was able to follow him is that he doesn’t believe anybody can — certainly not in China. He is very cautious.”
“So you think this might be our man?”
“No.”
Jay shook his head. “Why not?”
“Because he is not doing anything that seems connected to your problem. He is spying upon somebody else who is Chinese. I think this man is a watchdog, and since he would have had to go to no small amount of effort and expense to put himself in that position, and he is obviously more adept than most in my country, then whoever he observes is likely of large importance.”
Jay watched a particularly large gull settle down on the sea, just outside the breaker line. “Go on.”
“So far, I regret that I have been unable to find out anything about the junk, or who, if anyone, is actually on it,” Chang continued. “I cannot find a way to approach it undetected.”
“You think maybe our quarry could be on the junk?”
“My skills are humble, but I cannot imagine there are that many computer experts in my country who are so much better than I that I had no clue they exist. Especially when one of the best I’ve seen is busy carefully watching another. There may be no connection at all. But still…”
“It’s something we need to know,” Jay said.
“Exactly.”
“Thanks, Chang. I guess I’ll be taking a run at that big boat on the Yellow River, to see if I can figure out what’s what.”
“Let me know what you find out.”
“Oh, yeah. We owe you, man.”
Chang smiled. Yes. He knew.
31
“You are a great man,” Mayli said when he was done speaking. She said it quietly, with what seemed to Wu to be real admiration.
She was dressed — Wu had not wanted to have this conversation in the raw — and they sat at the same table where he had discussed Shing with Locke only a day earlier. He had watched her face as he’d told it, and her amazement was genuine — or the best acting he had ever seen.
“No need to flatter me,” he said.
“Not at all, Wu,” she said. “I have never heard any idea so bold. If a man can accomplish such a thing, ‘great’ would be the least of his accolades.”
Wu resisted the smile. This had been a major step, to tell her, but the warmth he felt in his heart now justified it. “You must point out what you see as flaws in the plan.”
She shook her head. “What you say about Beijing’s reaction seems valid, but I am not political. And if the Republic does not act as you hope…”
Wu nodded. “The Taiwanese will. For the ROC to turn down the chance at collecting all that a most- respected general of the People’s Army can bring with his defection? No, they will offer me asylum. Even if I do not grease the ramp — which I will — they could not pass it up.”
“And the North Koreans?” she said. “You believe they will go forward?”
“They have been poised at the gate too long. The mad-man who rules them would kick it open tomorrow if he thought he had the advantage. With a couple of operational nuclear weapons in his hands? He will leap on the South as a starving tiger does a deer.”
“The Americans—”
“—will have enough distraction that they won’t know what is going on until it is too late. Their military computers will be crashing, and they will not be focused on the Koreans. They won’t be altogether asleep, but their current President is a cautious man. With the long and slow drain of Iraq and the problems with Syria still fresh in their memory, he won’t be in a hurry to get into a shooting war in Korea.”
“Even if the North uses atomic weapons?”
“I don’t think the Koreans will use them — not unless the battle turns against them, and even so, they will not aim those at American troops, but against their Southern kin. Many old hatreds there, and jealousy. Ever see a satellite picture of Korea after dark? The lights of the cities in the South are easily seen; the North is very nearly dark.”
He paused, thinking, then shrugged. “Of course, the Americans have the capability to squash the North Korean Army flat, albeit at a huge cost, but — I do not believe they have the
“And if you are wrong?”
He smiled now, most pleased. “That is the best part — if they do, it does not matter to my plans. If the Americans are willing to join the battle with serious intent, the North Koreans will find themselves mired in a great and stinking pigsty, and they will suffer large misery. Too bad for them. None of it will be linked to me. The bombs will be surplus Soviet Union, from one of the hungry and broke countries that still has them — but delivered by people who won’t be around to speak of the deed afterward. By the time the bombs are transferred and the Koreans ready to move, I will be on Taiwan, with hundreds of millions of British pounds at my disposal, nobody will be the wiser, and the path to power before me without obstacles I cannot overcome.”
“What of your family?”
“They will remain here,” he said. “Beijing will know what I have done, but they will lose so much face if it is known in the West that they will try to keep it quiet. My family will be safe enough — Beijing will be informed that if anything happens to my family, I will reveal all. I can show a Chinese link to the nuclear bombs, and I will let that fact be whispered into certain ears as well. The last thing Beijing will wish is that the United States believes they had
She shook her head slowly, and was impressed, he could tell. “So you will be rich and respected and alone, living in Taipei?”
“Not alone,” he said. He reached across the table and took her hand.
They both smiled.
It was good to have a helpmate such as Mayli. A formidable woman who did not even blink at the idea of using a little nuclear war to cover one’s tracks.
Jay drank warm sake and watched the men — mostly samurai, but he was sure there were a couple of
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the thickening clouds made the lamps in the large room necessary as the sky darkened. Rain soon.
This was the place that Leigh was watching. His quarry, and Jay’s, was in here.
Jay, also disguised as a samurai, shifted his position a little and smiled at the young woman attending him. She wore a flower-patterned kimono, and her face and neck were made up to be chalk white, with cherry-red lips painted on. When she smiled, her teeth were stained almost black. It was the look, but it wasn’t one that appealed to Jay. She was just cover, so that he could figure out which of the men in the pleasure house was his prey.
