Flags of Sin - 05 Page 13

  She stopped at the sound of shouting beyond the door, splintering wood, more shouting, and the crash of something as it broke on the floor. Then the doors of their meeting room, the doors of a room in her private residence, burst open, revealing a platoon of soldiers, and the man she least expected, striding through the doors.

  “Anqing!” she cried as she jumped from her chair along with the others. “How dare you invade my private chambers!”

  Mao Anqing, the crazed son of her late husband, smiled at her, then nodded at the others as more troops filled the room, weapons raised and pointed at the Gang of Four.

  “Qing, it is good to see you on such a fine day.”

  Her heart pounded in her chest from the indignation of her privacy being violated, the hatred she felt for the man before her, a man she couldn’t possibly take seriously or respect, and the fear. The fear of what was to come.

  For she knew this was the end. There was nothing more she could do. Her husband had won. She knew she had lost his trust long before his death, and that even he had been plotting against her, but she would never have guessed that it would be the mentally ill brother who would be her undoing.

  Li Anhong strode through the door, a smile on his face, his hands clasped behind his back. “Good day to you,” he said, smiling at the four.

  She spit on the ground, squaring herself defiantly against them, her bravado a false façade in the face of what was to come. She looked at the other three, all of whom had fear smeared across their faces. But not her. She wouldn’t give these two vermin the satisfaction of seeing how she truly felt. One, a mental patient, the other, a pretender to the crown. Neither would know how she felt.

  For she felt terrified.

  She knew China. This was her China. She had helped build it. Shape it.

  And it was ruthless.

  And those who fell out of favor with the Party, could live to regret it.

  She debated rushing the guards, perhaps earning a quick death, but she knew they would be too well trained to shoot her, their 8341 Special Regimental insignia revealing their skill level better than anything.

  Her shoulders sagged and her head dropped.

  “All I did, I did for China,” she said.

  Anqing whipped his hand toward her, signaling the formal arrest as two men stepped toward her, handcuffs at the ready. Within moments she was cuffed, and Anqing stood in front of her.

  “And what I do today, I do for China.”

  Then he leaned in, and whispered in her ear.

  “And I do it for my Emperor.”

  Leaving the Olympic Sports Center, Beijing, China

  Today

  James Acton sat with his hands bound by plastic ties in the back of a police van as it bounced along a road either in desperate need of repair, or with entirely too many speed bumps. He jostled Laura on one side, Dawson on the other, and wondered what the highly trained Special Forces operator was thinking right now. Could he escape the ties binding him? He had no doubt. He had been trained himself in how to defeat them easily.

  But what would he do then?

  He couldn’t exactly kill the two police officers sitting across from them, nor the two investigators—or was it inspectors?—staring at them. They were innocent police, doing their job. The problem was the system they worked for wasn’t.

  And that terrified him.

  He had visions of years if not decades languishing in a Chinese prison that would make a Soviet Gulag look civilized. And what of Laura? A woman? She would probably be raped repeatedly in a place like that.

  His heart slammed in his chest at the thought.

  We’re getting out of here.

  We have to.

  “What’s the charge, Inspector…Li, wasn’t it?”

  The man nodded.

  “You will be informed when we reach the station. You have been arrested by order of our boss, Superintendent Hong.”

  “How long were we under surveillance?”

  “No questions, please.”

  Suddenly the van jerked to a halt, and shouting could be heard from the front cabin. Several bursts of gunfire were accompanied by the van jerking several times, as if collapsing slightly, Acton guessing the tires were being shot out. The rear door was pulled open as the two armed guards in the back with them were still readying their weapons.

  Both were shot in the head, instantly dead.

  Three men climbed in, decked head to toe in black—gear he would associate with a special ops team—the first two holding handguns, the third holding a cellphone. At first Acton had the faint hope it was the Delta team coming to rescue them, but when Dawson didn’t react, he realized this was something entirely different.

  The man held the cellphone camera up to Dawson’s face and pressed a button. A moment later it beeped, and he nodded. The first man grabbed Dawson and threw him out the back of the van and into the hands of another group that rushed him out of sight.

  The man pointed the phone at Acton’s face, then after a beep, shook his head, repeating the procedure with Laura. After the beep, he nodded, and the man closest to her grabbed her by the arm. Laura cried out, and yanked herself away from the man holding her, elbowing him in the head. He collapsed, and Acton shoved himself from his seat, launching his shoulder into the ribcage of the other armed man, who collapsed with a grunt, but without hands to steady himself properly, Acton fell into the laps of the two inspectors, who did nothing beyond shove him to his feet again.

  He felt the barrel of a pistol press against the back of his neck.

  “Professor Acton, be thankful we deem you to be of no value, otherwise you too would be coming with us.” The sensation of the barrel disappeared for a moment, then he felt a jolt of pain as he was pistol whipped, the ensuing fog enveloping him as he slowly lost consciousness.

  His last recollections were of Laura yelling for him, then Inspector Li shouting something in Chinese.

  Chongqing, China

  November 14, 2011

  Bo Yang sipped the 1963 Taylor Scion port, several bottles of which he had acquired in Europe, the rich liquid one of his few guilty pleasures. He kept himself clean—no drugs, no cigarettes, and minimal alcohol—and fit; a trim man by anyone’s standards even at nearly sixty years of age.

  For he had a purpose, a mission in life, that he had sworn to his father that he would fulfill. His father, Mao Anhong, who had died only four years ago, and had made him swear that he would fulfill the destiny laid out by his forefathers, not the least of which was his grandfather, Chairman Mao Zedong himself.

  The two surviving children, his father, Anhong, and his uncle, Anqing, had failed. Deng Xiaoping had moved too swiftly after the death of his grandfather, Mao Zedong, and consolidated power before the brothers could act. But they had done nothing to draw attention to themselves, instead maintaining their covers, one the mentally ill brother with bouts of sanity, the other a former aide to the first Chairman of communist China, neither important enough to pay attention to, or eliminate. Instead, they receded into the background, and developed a plan for the next generation.

  Him.

  And he had done well. He had been groomed from an early age, and had risen to several positions of power, currently a member of the Central Politburo, and secretary of the Communist Party's Chongqing branch.

  But how had he managed all of this with a father considered crazy, and a Communist party mostly hostile now to the policies of his grandfather? He had been raised as the son of one of the Eight Elders who had held sway over the Party, and the country, during the eighties and nineties, and had been groomed to be the future Paramount Leader. And if he played his cards right, and the markers he had been gathering were called appropriately, he would lead China soon.

  Only his wife could screw it up now.

  He loved her, which was the only reason he hadn’t had her “disappeared” years ago. They had been married twenty-five years. She was a successful lawyer—very successful lawyer—and had founded a la
w firm that had gained national, and international, renown. But she had checked her ambitions once he had told her the truth, and instead gave up her career and worked silently in the background, cultivating the contacts, gathering the intelligence to be used against his enemies, and raising the funds to pay the necessary bribes, when the time was right.

  She was instrumental in his success.

  And now she was blowing it.

  “Why did you do it?” he finally asked. She had come home almost an hour ago, had told him what had happened, and he had sat in stunned silence since, until getting himself the glass of port in an attempt to calm his nerves. “Please, explain to me how you thought this was the way out?”

  “He threatened to tell the press our plans.”

  It was a matter of fact statement. Her voice was calm, as if she had done nothing wrong. As if what she had done was perfectly normal, a rational act that any sane person would have been expected to do.

  “But you killed him.”

  She shrugged her shoulders, then rose, walking over to the liquor cabinet and pouring herself a vodka martini he had mixed her as she arrived—a pre-birthday treat for her, since in less than an hour, it would be the actual day celebrating her birth. Instead, it was the day preceding a death—by her hand.

  “It was necessary. If we are to achieve our goals, we couldn’t exactly have this man revealing our secrets, now could we?”

  She was right. And that’s what was infuriating about it. And he wasn’t sure why the death of a businessman who had assisted them in several rather “delicate” transactions should bother him. After all, once he became Paramount Leader, he would probably order the death of thousands over his tenure.

  He sighed.

  “I’m more concerned with the fact that you did it. We have people for this sort of thing. If he has become a problem, we let them deal with it. That way our hands are clean. Now...” His voice drifted away as he tried to imagine what might now happen.

  “He was going to phone a friend he had at the Times right then and there. I couldn’t let him do that, and there was no time to call our people. So, I had to poison him. Don’t worry, I made it look like he committed suicide.”

  “I doubt that will fool the authorities for long. It does worry me however that you had poison so readily available to you.”

  She smiled. “You know me, Darling, I’m always prepared.”

  He frowned. “Too prepared sometimes, it would appear. The correct course of action would have been to agree to his demands for more money, then have him killed.”

  She sat down beside him and sipped her martini. “You’re right, of course, but what’s done is done.”

  Bo Yang removed his cellphone and hit the speed dial for his fixer.

  “This is Liang.”

  “We have a problem,” he said to his trusted confidante. “A big problem.”

  7th District Police Station, Beijing, China

  Today

  James Acton was exhausted, sore, scared, and worried. Worried about Laura, and to a lesser extent Dawson. He signed up for this shit. We didn’t. He frowned. Yeah, if you had run away from the shots like a sane person, Laura would be at the hotel, safe. The thought triggered an epiphany. What if we were arrested because we were with Dawson, and this has nothing to do with Tiananmen?

  The door clicked open and he looked up at the smiling face that entered the interrogation room he had been held in for hours. He had woken here, handcuffed to the table, his head pounding from where he had been hit, and nobody had yet had the courtesy to even let him know what was going on.

  In fact, the man entering was the first person he had seen.

  “Professor Acton, my name is Mr. Brown. I’m from the State Department, and am here as your representative with respect to this matter.”

  Acton frowned. “Mr. Brown,” he nodded, as Brown took a seat across from him. “How did you find out I was here?”

  A single eyebrow shot up Brown’s forehead, and both eyebrows shot up Acton’s as he suddenly recognized the man.

  Spock!

  He had no idea what the man’s real name was, but he had met him several times, and knew he was part of Dawson’s Bravo Team. He wanted to ask him what was happening, why he was there, why Dawson was in China, if he knew anything of Laura, and when the hell he was getting out of here—either through the front door as a free man, or rescued through the back door, as a fugitive.

  But he knew he had to play along.

  Spock seemed completely calm, as if this were a matter of fact situation he dealt with every day. He was every bit the professional operator Acton expected him to be.

  “We received a call at the embassy about your arrest, and I was sent as soon as we located you.”

  Acton nodded. “I met a Mr. White on the plane. He invited me and my fiancée to meet him at the Olympic stadium. That’s when we were all arrested.”

  “And where is Mr. White now?”

  He doesn’t know!

  “The van was attacked and he was taken, along with Lau—”

  The door was thrown open, the metal frame slamming against the concrete wall.

  “Time’s up!” yelled the man, apparently none too pleased at the information Acton had just revealed.

  Acton stood, as did “Mr. Brown”. Spock extended his hand.

  “Professor, I hope to have you out of here as soon as we can clear up this misunderstanding.”

  Acton nodded, wondering how to fish something more definite out of him.

  “Any idea how long I’ll be here?”

  Spock smiled as he released Acton’s hand. He felt one of Spock’s fingers press into his palm, and Acton closed his hand around the tiny object deposited there.

  “I think you’ll have to swallow your pride”—Spock seemed to incline his head slightly at this statement—“and wait probably four hours or so for further word.”

  Acton nodded as Spock was ushered from the room. The door slammed shut, and he sat back down, crossing his legs so he could open his hand slightly. In the palm, he saw a tiny metal ball. What it was, he had no clue, except that it must be some sort of tracking device, and Spock’s none-too-subtle hint suggested he should swallow it.

  Now.

  He rolled it between his fingers, and faked a cough, covering his mouth and letting the device drop in.

  He swallowed.

  Then looked at the clock on the wall.

  It was six p.m.

  And he knew in four hours, something was going to happen.

  Chongqing, China

  Two months ago

  Bo Yang sat quietly, sipping his port, waiting for the call. Everything was nearly lost. The secret had come out, it being too big to keep, and no matter how hard he had tried, he had been unable to protect his wife. She had been arrested, charged, and put on trial. The only question now was whether or not she would be put to death.

  But it didn’t matter.

  She was no longer part of the plan, and no longer a hindrance due to her sometimes irrational acts.

  And once you are in power, you can free her.

  And it was power that he was about to achieve. The money had traded hands, the markers had been called, and the pieces were falling into place. They had tried to disgrace him, but the populace had spoken. No matter how they, the Party, had tried to discredit him, to stifle his support, it kept popping up on the blogosphere, the Internet, social media, and plain old print media. People had been arrested, people had disappeared, but the support continued, and the more it became a social phenomenon, and the more he injected his own disinformation surrounding his wife into the fray, the more the Party feared him.

  For he was now an idol to the masses. Betrayed by the Party he had dedicated his life to, his wife framed for a murder she didn’t commit, his career and life destroyed because he had chosen to stand by her side.

  It was a PR campaign that would have made an American media mogul proud.

  Because it had worked.

/>   And now he awaited the final phone call, the call that would let him know he had the last piece of support he needed.

  His phone vibrated on the table, and he placed his drink down. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the phone and flipped it open.

  “Yes.”

  “We have their support.”

  “Very well.”

  He hung up and placed the phone back on the table, picking up his glass.

  Then smiled as he looked across the room at the ancient flag, gold and blue, draped behind protective glass.

  In two months, the Qing Dynasty will reign once again.

  Unknown Location

  Today

  Laura Palmer groaned, then righted herself. Opening her eyes, she blinked away the blur, and sucked in a quick breath as the memories of what had happened flooded back. James! She looked around but he wasn’t there. She recognized the Delta Force commander, Burt Dawson, lying on a cot, apparently out cold, the female police officer, sitting with her legs tucked up under her chin, and an older man she didn’t recognize. They appeared to be in a cramped room with no windows, several office-style halogen lights in the ceiling providing light, and four cots, one along each wall. Nothing else besides the locked door with a small grill blocking a Judas window.

  “Good evening. At least I think it’s evening.”

  It was the man sitting across from her. She looked at him and nodded. “Good evening.”

  “British?”

  She nodded.

  “How did you get mixed up in this?”

  “My fiancée ran forward when he should have run back.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Laura smiled.

  “There was a shooting in Tiananmen Square. My fiancée tried to help. Then we were arrested later with our friend”—she nodded toward Dawson—“by her”—she tossed her chin at the female officer—“then were ambushed. They injected me with something—knocked me out.” She looked at her watch. “I guess about three hours ago.”