its main cash cow.”
“Like you have any idea what the PLA will do,” Fingers snorted. But he’d put his finger squarely on her fear — memories of the Spratley Island conflict a few years ago. Back then, the PLA had proven it was willing to do damned near anything to score a victory against the United States.
“Still no sign of Flanker Number Two,” she said, tweaking the radar. “Nada.”
“Maybe it splashed,” Rabbit said. “Piece of duct tape holding the wing on came loose; something like that.”
Fingers grunted.
“Come on, Fingers. Russian planes are like Italian cars — great ideas, lousy execution. You go really fast for ten miles, then the wheels fall off. So just relax; no bogeymen are after us.”
“I feel ever so much better now,” Fingers drawled, still diddling with the radar, trying to coax out a reassuring image. She’d like to think Rabbit was right, but something told her not to bet on it.
With the Chinese, you just couldn’t be certain.
TWO
Tai Ling placed his call from a public telephone booth outside the busy tourist attraction known as Ocean Park. Even this late in the evening, the place was overrun with tourists from America, Germany, England, Japan. Tai preferred the view he had of Hong Kong from his SU-37. He couldn’t get used to seeing so many foreign faces up close at one time, especially in a city that should be exclusively Chinese.
“What happened?” the voice on the other end of the phone demanded after a single ring. Tai was surprised by the lack of protocol, which before now had always called for the exchange of inane passwords. The sound filter was working, though, imbuing the voice at the other end a constantly-shifting variety of tone, depth and even accent. Tai knew the owner of the voice only by his code name: “Mr. Blossom.”
But the big shock was that Mr. Blossom already knew that something had gone wrong during Tai’s patrol flight today. Tai had left his commander’s office not a half hour ago. Just how far, and how deep, did Mr. Blossom’s connections run?
Never mind. So long as Mr. Blossom believed he had a sound investment in the pilot Tai Ling, that was all that mattered. “My lead saw something he shouldn’t have,” Tai said. “I had to shoot him down. I reported it as an accident; I said he had a flame-out at low altitude and went into the water before he could eject. The incident will not be investigated; Hua was known for occasionally flying recklessly.”
There was a long pause, filled with the strange clicks and hums of a scrambler or random line-routing device. Not far away, a fat blond-haired child was squalling furiously as he was led away from the park. Tai visualized the child roasting on a spit.
Finally Mr. Blossom said, “Your lead did not report this sighting?”
“No. He wanted to destroy the aircraft before reporting it.”
“Then what you did… was the right thing to do. Congratulations.”
Tai did not respond. He didn’t feel that he had done the right thing, only that which
“Yes,” Mr. Blossom replied, and the line went dead.
“How does it feel to help finance your own biggest enemy, eh, McIntyre?” blared Myron Carstairs, waving a cut-crystal tumbler of Scotch through the air.
Martin Lee winced and glanced at his boss, Phillip McIntyre. But, as always, Mr. McIntyre remained unruffled. He just smiled, his hands folded in front of him, his feet spread slightly on the polished wooden deck of
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Carstairs,” McIntyre said. “Financing my biggest enemy?”
“Well, your
A few other guests on the fantail of the yacht looked a bit uncomfortable, but McIntyre just continued to smile. He was very erect and trim in his tuxedo, and looked much younger than his sixty-odd years. “I guess they need the security,” he said. “Like anyone else.”
“Security for what? To finance food shipments to starving peasants out in the countryside?” Carstairs let out an extravagant snort and staggered slightly, his diminutive Filipino wife clinging ineffectually to his arm. Lee frowned. Carstairs had
“I run an engineering company, Mr. Carstairs,” McIntyre said. “PRC national politics aren’t my business.”
“You ‘run an engineering company?’ Phillip, that’s like saying Bill Gates runs a software company.” Carstairs gulped half his Scotch. “It also means you sell to Poly, right?”
“Poly Technologies is among McIntyre Industries Limited’s customers, yes,” McIntyre said mildly.
“Never mind that they’re owned by the PLA and sell weapons to bloody Libyan terrorists, right?”
“What’s the matter, Myron?” a voice called derisively from near the stern rail. “Did someone outbid your firm on a Poly job?”
Yet another guest, Pablo Cheung, stepped forward. “I did read that Poly sold several thousand AK-47 rifles to American street gangs, didn’t I?”
“That’s right!” Carstair’s voice foghorned over the bright tones of Hayden being played by the string quartet on the upper deck. By now, Martin noticed, most of the guests were staring at Carstairs. “Bloody cheap Chinese knockoffs, at that. But gunrunning isn’t the big problem, not by a long shot. No, it’s what’s going to happen when the People’s Republic decides it has built its military up enough, and suddenly defaults on — what — eight hundred million dollars’ worth of American bonds and securities? What are you Yanks going to do then, eh, Phillip?”
McIntyre raised his hands, palms up. “I’m an American by birth but a Hong Kong resident by choice. This is where my future lies, and where my decisions must be made.”
“That’s pretty damned evasive.”
“There’s a proper time for everything, Myron; that’s a fundamental rule of both business and war. To quote a popular Chinese sage, ‘Make timely and proper change of tactics, according to the conditions of the units and of the terrain — both on the enemy’s side and on our own.’ ”
“Oh, hell, is that Sun Tzu? I might have known you’d be one of those blokes who uses
“Actually, the quote is from Mao Zedong. Of course, he was a great aficionado of Sun Tzu.”
“Mao? You’re quoting
“Even Mao didn’t dare take on Hong Kong!” Cheung cried, and raised his glass high. “Here’s to the
Several guests on the fantail cheered and raised their glasses in return.
Carstairs snorted. “Where’s that bloody waiter? I need a drink.”
The Englishman wandered away, wife in tow, and Lee relaxed a bit. As McIntyre’s personal assistant, he had been responsible for organizing the yacht cruise this year, and he wanted everything to go perfectly. For most of
