Flags of Sin - 05 Read online

She stretched out her hand, and her heart nearly stopped as she saw how much it shook. The coins were deposited in her palm, then the soldier closed her hand around them lest they should fall onto the road.

  “Now go.”

  She stood frozen, unable to move. She felt his hand on her shoulder. It squeezed gently. She looked up. Her jaw dropped as she recognized the young man in front of her as a soldier she had seen many times in the Empress Dowager’s court.

  He smiled at her.

  “Go, Mei, and save our future emperor.”

  National Stadium, Beijing, China

  One Week Ago

  Chris looked up at the massive structure, his mouth agape. “It’s incredible!” he exclaimed. He looked down at his much shorter wife, who too was staring at the combination of glass and metal towering above them. “You can see why they called it the Bird Cage.”

  Anne-Marie nodded. “Reminds me of that nest above our door that bird kept trying to build last year.”

  Chris chuckled at the memory. “I think I had to clean that out every day for almost a month. Persistent little bugger.” His experienced eye took in every square inch of the structure it could manage. An architect himself, he had just finished his involvement with the Freedom Tower in New York City, and as a reward, he and his wife decided to fulfill a lifelong dream—visit China.

  It was a blowout, four week vacation, where he wasn’t skimping on anything. The downturn hadn’t hit them at all, his work secure due to the project he was on, and though he felt some sympathy for those actually losing their jobs, he felt little sympathy for those losing their homes due to having taken on ridiculous mortgages.

  Think people! How can you earn forty-k a year and expect to afford a four-hundred-k home?

  As an architect, he was always floored at how much square-footage the average American thought they needed to live comfortably. Every year the average seemed to go up, the footprint getting larger and larger as each new-home season began. He thought of the homes he had seen last year in Europe when travelling on business. These were well-off people, living in half of what an American would find acceptable, yet perfectly content.

  And we wonder why it all collapsed.

  A massive Ponzi-scheme, funded by the average person, who trusted the experts advising them. Don’t worry, just pay the interest now, and when the balloon comes due, your house value will have risen so much, you can just flip it and double your money.

  Chris frowned. Yeah, and what happens when someone wises up? But he knew the answer. The bubble bursts, and the very people who gave the bad advice, not out of the desire to improve their customers’ lives, but to line their own pockets, get bailed out by the very taxpayers they bilked.

  He understood the anger of the Occupy protestors, but their anger was directed at the wrong people, at least it was after the first couple of weeks. Once the unions and politicos got involved, the protesters were merely pawns, their message manipulated by experts without them even knowing it.

  One thing the kids protesting didn’t get was that they were most likely part of the one percent. This was the fault of a society so successful until the Great Recession the kids had no way of knowing how good they have it compared to most of the world’s population. There are almost two hundred countries in the world, and less than a couple of dozen actually have any significant immigration.

  It’s so bad out there, despite all of our problems, they still want to come here.

  When the daily wage for eighty percent of the world is under ten dollars, food is a constant struggle and personal safety is a daily concern. The average American salary of over $30k per year is an unimaginable dream that the Occupy protesters apparently feel isn’t enough for the common man. Laughable.

  Protesting against bailouts, he agreed with. You never throw good money after bad. Auto bailouts? Never should have happened. He firmly believed that those that couldn’t survive, should have been allowed to fail. The proof was Ford. A rock solid American company now, but not always. It had had its difficult days, but made the proper decisions years before the recession hit, reducing costs, improving their product, and when the buckets of cash were offered, they were able to turn them down.

  And the naïve notion that if they weren’t bailed out, hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, was ridiculous. He knew enough about supply and demand to know that for one thing, the millions of cars produced by GM and Chrysler would still be needed. It wasn’t like millions of Americans were ready to just stop driving because there were no cars to buy, and second, other companies would have swooped in to fill the demand, and the only way to quickly fill the demand, is to keep those factories open, with the existing workers. Would those workers have been forced to accept a more reasonable wage and benefits package? Absolutely, but when your workers are getting free weekly Viagra handouts, perhaps your union has run out of reasonable things to demand.

  He understood the need for unions years ago. It was the unions who helped bring in decent salaries, five day workweeks, forty hour workweeks, benefit packages. But now they had lost their way. The laws were now in place to protect workers from the very things they had formed unions to gain protection from. It is now against the law to force someone to work more than forty hours, to put them in dangerous situations, to not give them time off. Would some employers take advantage of workers if there was no union? Absolutely. But with the vast majority of Americans not unionized, if this were a real concern, wouldn’t they all be up in arms?

  Unions helped make America great, but now some were destroying it by becoming politicized and forgetting their real role. Manufacturers were fleeing the country to build the wares Americans demanded, fleeing to countries with far cheaper labor. Did he agree with the ridiculously low wages paid to these workers? Of course not, but it was an economic reality that America had to wake up to. A unionized bus driver shouldn’t be getting nearly six figures with overtime, when a researcher in a lab, working on the cure for cancer, who spent seven years in university, but isn’t unionized, makes less.

  And is perfectly happy with what he makes.

  He stared at the incredible feat of engineering in front of them and wondered how much it cost to build, and how much it would have been in America. What he had seen in his first two weeks in China had been breathtaking. The progress they were making was incredible. This was where the unions were needed. He wasn’t blind to the fact the population was poor, and those building the infrastructure were paid a pittance, but he also wasn’t blind to the fact that this economic progress had created a burgeoning middleclass that would soon rival that of America.

  And if we don’t get our act together, it will be a Chinese flag planted on the moon or Mars, orbiting in space, or on the soil of the very countries we have vowed to protect.

  He shuddered to think of what would happen when China had a blue water navy that could rival our own. Their first aircraft carrier was in testing, a second was being built. Their first stealth fighters were already flying, and with no qualms of stealing any and all industrial and state secrets, with no repercussions because we needed them to buy our treasury bonds due to our massive deficit, there was little we could do to stop them.

  And the next Bird Cage would continue to be built.

  I just hope democracy catches on here before it’s too late.

  He felt a tug on his hand and he looked down at Anne-Marie. “Sorry, Hon, lost in thought.”

  She smiled. “I recognized that distant stare. Let me guess, wondering about how much this would have cost to build back home?”

  A smile stretched across his face as he laughed. “My God, you know me waaay too well.”

  She motioned with her head. “Let’s go. There’s lots more I want to s—”

  It was as if she had been grabbed by the back and torn from his hand. Her arms and legs seemed to remain in place for a split second, then her entire body was shoved thirty feet from where he stood as a snapping sound he didn’t recognize echoed through the
park.

  “Anne-Marie!”

  He turned, pushing his legs as hard as he could, trying to close the distance between them. A moment later he saw the prone figure of his wife jerk, and shoot back another ten feet, but this time something was different. As he closed the distance, it took a few seconds for his mind to comprehend the horror it was witnessing.

  His wife’s body had been torn in two pieces.

  Her waist and legs were nearest, her upper torso, including arms and head, were another ten feet distant. His realization of this sent bile spewing from his mouth as he felt a terrific force slam into his back, then heard another snapping sound as he was sent sprawling forward. He hit the ground hard, then rolled several times before coming to rest beside the upper half of his wife’s body.

  There was no pain. No feeling whatsoever. No sensations. Just the dead stare he saw on his beloved’s face, the same stare all he too could manage as he felt the life drain from him.

  His last sensation was that of a single tear rolling across the bridge of his nose, then dripping onto the ground.

  I love you.

  Outside the Forbidden City, Beijing, China

  January 13, 1875

  Li Mei rubbed at the mud that had now hardened on her face. Then she stopped herself. It was a disguise that had worked once, and she may not have a chance to replace it should it be necessary.

  But the little one.

  If the Emperor saw his son, how his face was soiled with common street grime, he would most definitely be horrified, and whoever had let his son get in such a state would most definitely be put to death. Or at least cast out of the palace with nothing but shame on their family name.

  But he was dead. She was sure of it. She was certain she had heard his cries as he was murdered by the traitorous troops loyal to the Emperor’s “doting” mother, the Empress Dowager Cixi.

  Mei had been in the next room when they had fought. It was plain to everyone from the beginning that there was no love shared between the eighteen year old emperor, and his mother. Her child being a boy meant continued power. Having usurped the regents appointed to rule in his stead until he was old enough, she was the true power until he had come of age, and even then, had continued to be the iron fist behind the young man.

  But when he had a son, it had all changed. He had begun to assert himself, to overturn some of her rulings, to push back against some of her mad philosophies.

  And she would have none of it.

  Mei had cowered in the next room when the Empress Dowager had her final fight with the Emperor. But her style wasn’t to yell. It was to talk at a near murmur, barely audible to those not close to her. Her voice, old, gravelly, to the point she almost sounded like her late husband should, sent fear through those around her. And that fateful evening, when Mei was in the side chamber washing the baby in preparation for a visit with his father, she had heard the Emperor’s side of the conversation, increasingly agitated and angry, but consistently answered by the low, sotto voce of the Empress Dowager.

  Until her final line, delivered louder than Mei had ever heard her speak. It wasn’t a yell by any means, merely a line spoken at a volume most would consider normal, but from her, it was chillingly ominous.

  “Never doubt, my son, that you can be replaced.”

  He had yelled after her, demanding she explain herself, but she had left. When Mei had entered the room with the baby shortly thereafter, she found the Emperor perched on the edge of his favorite chair, his head held in his hands with a distant, vacant stare that bore through time as he apparently recalled the conversation.

  He held a hand up at her as she approached, and she stopped, bowing low. He snapped his fingers at one of the aides. The man jumped several inches, running to his Emperor, bowing deeply.

  “Get Us the Captain of the Guard.”

  The man bowed even deeper, and backed away, not turning until he had reached the door. His footfalls could be heard tapping down the stone hallway as the Emperor waved Mei over.

  “Let Us see Our boy,” he said with a smile, his hands held out. She handed the child over, herself still in a deep bow, then began to back away when something that had never happened in her entire time at the palace sent her heart racing.

  “Sit with Us, Mei.”

  Mei felt the blood rush to her ears, suddenly becoming lightheaded. As if under the control of some conjurer, she found her feet shuffling her to a seat indicated by the Emperor. She sat, her head so low her chin threatened to push a hole into her ribcage.

  “We are certain as a true loyal servant you would never dare to overhear a conversation between your Emperor and his mother, however We are also not a fool, and are fully aware that the ears cannot be made to ignore what they are exposed to, nor the mind feeble enough to not listen to what the ears present. But let us pretend that your ears are weak, for We know your mind is not in any fashion feeble.”

  He paused and she wondered if he expected a response. She bowed in her seat even lower than she already was.

  He continued. “You of course will repeat none of this, and if We trust you with our son, and your future Emperor, then We must trust you in this matter, as it concerns the very life our Little One.” She heard the baby gurgle as the Emperor did something to amuse him. “We fully believe Our mother intends to have Us killed, perhaps as early as tomorrow.”

  Mei nearly passed out, her head spinning, her heart slamming against her chest. How could this be? Weren’t her words simply an idle threat?

  “We can see you are shocked. You shouldn’t be. Our mother is a wicked woman, who will stop at nothing to maintain power. Her forces are strong, stronger than Ours, as Ours do not fear Us as they fear her.”

  He sighed.

  “You need not worry yourself over this. But there is one thing you need to do, and you need to do it very quietly. You must, tonight, prepare to take Our son away from here. Inform whatever staff you may feel are essential that We will be departing tomorrow morning, and to have all of the provisions required for a two day journey packaged so they can be carried on one’s back. Have everyone, and everything, assembled outside this room when the sun rises.”

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and she jumped in her seat.

  The hand remained.

  “Do you understand Us, Mei?”

  She nodded and bowed several times, a confused, scattered mess of acknowledgement.

  The hand left her shoulder.

  “Very well, take Our son, and make the preparations.”

  She stood and took the baby, hurrying out of the room as the Captain of the Guard, Fang Zen, entered the room at a bow. They exchanged a short, curious glance, and he gave her a quick smile from the half of his mouth facing her, and a slight wink. He had always been sweet on her, and she had to admit, she too was attracted to him. He was incredibly handsome, very well respected, and would make a fine husband to any woman.

  But that was forbidden amongst palace staff. Families meant your loyalty couldn’t be relied upon, lest they be threatened in some way, an otherwise loyal servant blackmailed into performing some vile act in exchange for not harming his family.

  It made sense to her, but like anyone, she had her fantasies, and at night, she sometimes found herself hugging her pillow, dreaming of what it might be like to walk through the gardens, hand-in-hand with Fang Zen.

  Somebody hissed nearby, and her reverie was broken, snapping her back to the reality of her current situation. A situation in which she would never see Fang Zen again. One where the precious package she carried was covered in common mud, and her own face smeared with the combination of dirt and dung.

  She looked and saw Jun motioning with his head from a doorway and she walked over as naturally as she could manage. She stepped across the threshold, and the door closed quietly behind her.

  She collapsed on a nearby chair, her shoulders slumping, her head dropping forward as she lost all strength. Yu rushed over and took the baby from her arms, and with her fina
l responsibility addressed, she gave in, and let the darkness take over.

  St. Paul’s University, Maryland

  One week ago

  Professor James Acton pressed the button on the remote control he gripped in his left hand, and glanced to make sure the image he was expecting appeared. He looked out at the class of several hundred students. His Introduction to Archaeology was one of the university’s most popular courses since he had become big news after recent events. He hoped the attention would die down sooner rather than later. It wasn’t that he didn’t love teaching these young, fresh minds, but he feared many of them were here for the wrong reasons.

  But it was out of his control, the past couple of years being more eventful than the first forty years of his life combined, a life that had included serving in the First Gulf War, and traipsing around the globe on one archaeological expedition after another, doomed to the single, lonely life that necessitated.

  Until two years ago, when everything had changed, and his life hadn’t slowed down since, the most recent events at the Vatican probably his most harrowing experience yet.

  And because of this new, sometimes public, life, far too many times a camera flash went off, or a hand was raised with a question about the Pope or some other thing related to one of his misfortunes over the past couple of years. It usually lasted the first week, and once people realized he wasn’t going to respond, it settled down. A few dropped the course, but most stuck around, which he took as a hopeful sign that he might actually teach some much needed history, our high schools doing a dismal job of it.

  He pointed at the flag emblazoned on the screen behind him.

  “Easy one. Who can name it?”

  A bunch of students yelled out, “Germany!”

  “Correct. Now, who can tell me what the colors represent?”

  Silence.

  He expected that. Unlike some modern day creations, flags of old actually meant something.

  “Nobody?”