Chapter 25
The pit was plunged into darkness.
A moment earlier, Alice had pulled away from her father and was staring at him. Had he really said that?
Did he really believe Vivien was still running Pangu, but instead of the kinder, gentler god of creation, this one was a terrorist organization responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands?
She could feel laughter bubbling up inside her like acid. A reflex. A reflux.
It was then that the huge lights illuminating the pit went out. Poof.
“What just happened?” Alice spoke into the void. She stood absolutely still. “Mom?”
And there, she had the answer to an unasked question. Who would she turn to when things got bad?
For better or worse, it was the woman who hadn’t left. Who’d lied, who’d been distant and critical. But who had always been there. And was there still.
Somewhere in the void.
“Come!” Her mother grabbed her hand and yanked her in one direction, just as her other hand was grabbed and she was pulled in the other.
There was immediate confusion in the room.
Lights on mobile phones came on and bobbed around like huge fireflies, illuminating in flashes the walls, the windows, the chairs. The President.
A light was shone directly on Chen’s face. He lifted his arm as a shield. “Stop that. Find out what’s happening.”
“Yessir.” There was the sound of scurrying. A door opened and closed as a firefly left.
“And get me the American President!” Chen stared at the dead phone in his hand.
APAI. They’d said APAI. Was it possible? Was that the answer?
He was desperate to know what they knew. Though Chen feared it was already too late.
The next attack was underway. And now their only hope, his only hope, was to find out what that woman in the pit, Liu’s former wife, knew about Pangu.
The time for talking was over.
Wang moved to the door.
The time for talking was over. It was now time to take those two women into custody and beat the truth out of them.
“It’s locked, sir,” said one of the guards. “Electronic bolts.”
“Why hasn’t the emergency generator come on?” someone demanded, an edge of panic in his voice. No one answered. No one knew.
Worse than no lights, without electricity, without a generator, there was no air circulation. No air.
They were in a sterile environment, built to help in the preservation and restoration of the Terracotta Warriors.
Wang felt a mad desire to laugh.
How ironic, to be trapped with the first emperor’s army. Killed by them. Just as Qin Shi Huang had threatened, should he be disturbed.
There was little doubt that Qin Shi Huang, if he came back to life, would not approve of the China he found. He would almost certainly muster his army against the CCP.
And maybe that’s what was happening now. Beyond the window. In the pit. In all the pits, all the rooms they’d excavated.
Was Emperor Qin Shi Huang awakening and, with him, thousands of warriors? While the head of the MSS, one of the most powerful men in a powerful nation stood with a dead phone in his hand.
Powerless.
Pardington sat in darkness, the dead phone clutched in his hand.
“What just happened?” he demanded.
“We’re in a blackout,” said Kathleen.
“That much I can see,” he snapped. “How extensive?”
“We’re trying to find out. Looks like the internet is down.”
“The whole thing?” Pardington turned and looked out the window. Night had fallen in DC. “I don’t see any lights. It’s not just us. We have an emergency system, don’t we? Surely there are generators in the White House—”
“They haven’t kicked in. We’re blind.”
“Oh Christ. If we’re blind…”
The pilot tried again. “Tower, this is flight AC 426, coming in for approach to Heathrow. Are we clear to land? I don’t see any lights.” Pause. “Tower?”
The black box would later reveal the beginnings of panic in her voice.
The engineer knew this section of track well. Had been up and down it, between Paris and Lyon, for years. It was a journey that took two hours and never failed to lift his heart. He loved this route through France. Loved his job. Loved his train.
But now something was wrong.
The light that should have told him if it was safe to proceed was out. Not red. Not green. Not amber.
Just nothing.
He slowed down. Behind him in the train were hundreds of souls counting on him. He reached for the phone that would connect him to the Gare de Lyon. But it was dead.
All the subway, metro, underground trains worldwide stopped. Their electrified rails dead.
Those in tunnels were plunged into darkness.
Lights on mobile phones were shone in each other’s worried faces as passengers fought to tamp down rising panic.
Traffic lights stopped working at intersections. Worldwide.
Cars and trucks plowed into each other at full speed. Pedestrians were mowed down.
Calls for help, for aid, for ambulances went nowhere.
Alarms that had sounded worldwide less than two days earlier were now silent.
“Come on. Quick!”
Liu gave a mighty yank, and Alice almost lost her footing as she was dragged in his direction, bringing Vivien along with her.
“Quick, quick. I know the way.”
Alice clung onto her mother’s jacket. There was the slight sound of tearing.
“Watch the Shanghai Tang,” Vivien barked. But Alice continued to cling, knowing if she let go, her mother and the fucking jacket might be lost. Left behind.
She did, though, take this opportunity to yank just a little harder, and heard another ripping sound, a little louder, a little longer.
The bodies of the warriors scraped against her body. Brushing against her ribs, her arms, scratching her face, pulling her hair as she ran past. Invisible figures, like ghosts, reached out for her. Trying, it seemed, to grab hold. To keep her from leaving.
Liu suddenly stopped, and Alice grunted as she hit a wall. And then her mother ran into her.
“You must have a phone,” said Vivien. “Put on the light, for God’s sake.”
“And let everyone see where we are?” Liu snapped. “Help me.”
“How? What’re we looking for?” asked Alice.
“A door. It’s here somewhere. Hurry, before the lights come on.”
Alice and Vivien ran their hands over the rough stone of the ancient walls.
“Got it,” said Vivien.
Alice heard a slight squeal as the heavy metal door was opened, then closed behind them. Now the light on Liu’s phone came on, and he handed them back their own mobiles. There was no reception. But their flashlights worked.
They were in another chamber, with more ghastly figures. But this time, Alice could see them. Smiles that had seemed in photographs benign, even kindly, now looked smug. Knowing. Spiteful.
Vivien, unused to running, was breathing heavily. As they moved forward again, more quickly this time, she tripped over the wheel of a great chariot and fell to the ground. Alice stopped and pulled her to her feet.
When, she wondered, had her larger-than-life mother become so tiny? Insubstantial. Almost frail.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” Her mother smiled at her, and Alice realized she could not remember the last time, the first time, any other time that had happened.
But there was no time to consider. They had to get out. Get out.
Get out!
Vivien was limping now but kept moving forward. Tiny, maybe, but still formidable.
No one spoke. They all knew that the darkness, this second attack, was for them, and perhaps for them uniquely in the world, a blessing. They could use it to escape. Where to was not at all clear.
It was far too late by the time the engineer saw the freight train coming around the bend.
Far too late, the pilot got the proximity warning.
Patients, their chests and abdomens open on the operating table succumbed, one by one, despite the frantic efforts of nurses and doctors to keep the breathing machines going manually.
Grant McAllister took advantage of the blackout to search Alan Zhou’s office.
He’d been the first on the scene when the elevator had crashed to the ground floor. He’d bent over the body of the young man, his protégé. And, while apparently feeling for a pulse, had, in fact, rifled his pockets and taken Zhou’s phone and bloodstained dossier.
The dossier, when he had a chance to go through it, showed that Zhou knew a lot more than he had let on. But McAllister needed to know what more he had been hiding.
Now the seasoned spy took the next step. He’d waited for the lights to go out, racing down the back stairs, two at a time, until he reached Zhou’s office. McAllister knew the benefits of darkness. No one must be alerted to his presence.
The young man had “unexpectedly” succumbed to his injuries. Had the young agent hidden more proof in his office?
Zhou had asked to meet his boss after Liam Palmer’s body was fished out of Victoria Harbour, and McAllister knew why. Palmer must have told Zhou that he’d found proof about the mole in the White House. Proof the head of the CIA now possessed.
But McAllister needed to know if he had even more evidence.
Was there something among Zhou’s papers that could tell them for sure who in the administration was a member of Pangu? Who had been turned? Who in the administration was helping to destabilize Communist China?
It was, McAllister knew, to the West’s advantage that Pangu succeed. Though not everyone would agree with the methods. Which was why he had to find out what Zhou had discovered.
“We can’t just sit here,” said Pardington.
He was pacing the Oval Office.
The Secret Service agents had brought in flashlights and were hooking up battery-operated flood lamps.
They could now see each other, but that was the limit, the boundary of their vision. With all communication down, it was impossible to get information or even deploy the National Guard.
“The head of the Secret Service detail went onto the roof,” Kathleen reported. “He can’t see anything. No lights anywhere.”
It was ridiculous that this was how the President of the United States got a crisis update. From an agent on the roof of the White House.
“Hospitals?”
She shook her head.
“Airports?” He’d been afraid to ask.