Chapter 25 #2
“I don’t know. Though the agent on the roof reports fire in the direction of Reagan National. The first attack only lasted eighty-three seconds. This one’s been going on for three minutes already.”
Only three minutes?
“It must be over soon.”
“Must it? Fucking Chen is trying to bring us to our knees. He has no idea what he’s just done. As soon as the power comes back, we put the plans into action. There’s no doubt now. We’re at war. Find McAllister. What the fuck is he doing? I need to know more about APAI and blockchain.”
He’d passed that information on to their intelligence agencies, as well as their consultants in the tech sector, and their allies, and was about to challenge Chen with it, when the lights went out. When everything went out.
When the power failed.
It was inconceivable that the Russians had found out how the Chinese did it before the US did. This was the Information Era equivalent of Sputnik. A national humiliation, but in this case much more.
This wasn’t a space race; this was a land grab, with all of China in play.
If the Russians knew more, were they also planning an attack? After all, they are right on the border …
“How can we still not know anything?” he demanded.
Alice, Vivien, and Liu got to the third room, the largest of them, the first discovered and excavated. The one normally open to the public. But closed now.
“Up here.” He took the stairs two at a time while Alice practically carried Vivien up.
“Careful.” Her mother straightened her clothes at the top of the stairs before following Liu through another door.
Daylight was streaming in, and with it, they could see hundreds of warriors. But these were tiny.
“The gift shop?” said Vivien. “You brought us to the gift shop?”
Hundreds of the five-star red flags of the People’s Republic were on sticks, to be bought and waved at every opportunity. The largest star represented the Communist Party of China, and the four smaller ones represented the workers, peasants, middle class, and the bourgeoisie.
While the intellectuals had disappeared below the blood-red background.
There were pins and big badges with President Chen’s smiling, fatherly face. Chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil sat in little mesh bags. A bin held paper snakes ready for the New Year celebrations coming up.
They ran to the exit.
“Wait,” said Alice. “I saw a bathroom.”
“Not now, for God’s—” But it was too late. She’d dashed back into the shop.
“God almighty, don’t tell me you stole a bag of chocolates,” said Vivien as Alice came out, shoving something into her pocket.
“There.” Liu was pointing to an army vehicle parked a small distance away. “We need to get to it. Wait.” He held Alice back. “Stay here.”
As he walked out, half a dozen guards turned their weapons on him. Alice held her breath. But they lowered their weapons and bowed when they recognized him.
Liu went quickly to the commanding officer. Gestured emphatically. Alice and Vivien watched as the squad took off for the low bunker building.
“What did you say to him?” Vivien asked as they ran to the vehicle, unobserved now.
“I told them Wang Lai was trapped in one of the restorations rooms, and air was running out.”
“Still can’t drive?” Vivien said to Liu when he got in the passenger side.
“No need. Besides, I like looking at the scenery.”
Vivien laughed. It was a nice sound, thought Alice. Almost girlish.
My mother loves a monster. Now there’s the title of a bad B-movie. The sequel would be My Mother Is a Monster.
Perhaps Vivien was not quite as bad as Alice had always thought, but then her father was not nearly as good as she’d always believed.
“Turn here.” He pointed.
This was like some parody of her childhood drives with them. Sitting in the back seat while her mother careered around corners and her father gripped the door handle, as though deciding whether or not to jump out.
Alice looked behind to see if anyone was following. So far, nothing.
“Left here,” Liu said, and the vehicle skidded around a corner, kicking up a cloud of dirt.
“Who said Asian women can’t drive?” he said, looking to Alice more frightened than he wanted to let on.
“There.” He pointed to a barn in the middle of a field.
Once parked, they leaped out. Alice realized it looked like a barn but was actually a hangar. A small plane was inside.
“What?” Vivien said to Liu as she climbed in. “You can’t drive a car, but you know how to fly?”
“Let’s hope,” he said.
Alice was just relieved her mother was not going to fly the plane.
“Internet’s back,” she said.
“Which means the electricity’s back,” said Vivien as Liu started up the prop plane.
“Where’re we going?” Alice asked.
“You’re going to Fuzhou, then on to Taiwan. We can’t fly there, they’d shoot us down, you’ll need to take a boat from the mainland.”
“We need answers,” said Alice. “And they’re not in Taiwan. I think they’re in Hong Kong.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Liu as he pulled back on the stick and the plane rose.
“Because that’s where Liam was. He found out something.”
“The young man murdered by Pangu,” said Liu.
“Murdered by someone,” said Vivien, and shot a warning look at Alice that Liu could not fail to see.
“Where’s Pardington?” snapped Chen. “I need him. Now!”
The lights had just come back on and, with it, telecommunications.
“I’m trying. The White House isn’t answering our calls.”
Wang burst out of the building and ran to where his vehicle was.
Should be. Had been.
“Where’s the car?”
“Liu Tongzheng took it. He said they were your orders.”
“Get me another one, quick, and get me President Chen.”
Grant McAllister sighed with relief.
He was right. There was more proof. Zhou had hidden it behind the framed photo of his parents and younger sister.
McAllister scanned the paper. It was damning. There could be no doubt for anyone reading it who the Pangu agent in the White House was.
His phone sprang to life. It was slammed with messages, but he replied to only one.
Tell the President I’m on my way. I have news.
The head of US Intelligence stopped in at the bathroom. Locking the door, he went to a cubicle, tore what he’d found to shreds, and flushed it down the toilet.
Then he took out another piece of paper with notes written, with the help of AI, in Zhou’s hand.
“Why’re you taking us to Taiwan?” Alice yelled over the airplane engine. “What’s there?”
“Your uncle.”
“Who?”
“Kai-wen,” Vivien shouted from the copilot seat. “He’s not dead. He’s in hiding in Taipei.”
Alice pushed back into her seat with a thud and stared out as China rolled by beneath them.
Tank Man was alive? Her father hadn’t killed him after all. He was in hiding. But, Alice wondered as she looked at the back of her father’s head, from whom?
And most of all, why would her father let Vivien believe he was guilty of turning him in all these years?