Chapter 37
The photo of Vivien and the others covered in tomato sauce and lined up on the ground, face up, had been taken. And sent.
“Sir, you need to see this.”
They’d just sat down to talk next steps when Captain Hu handed Liu his phone. The others gathered around and read. It was an internal email. Strictly confidential.
Liu took a deep breath in but showed no other emotion.
“Jesus,” whispered Vivien. “Wang’s been killed. What does this mean?”
“It means Pangu is panicked.” Liu’s mind was racing. He handed the phone back.
“But isn’t Wang Pangu?” asked Alice.
Her father was nodding, staring ahead, trying to see clearly. “He is. Was. He shares the duties with his American counterpart.”
“Who’s that?” asked Vivien.
“I don’t know. But whoever it is must have known that Wang was growing unstable. Signs of dementia. He must have realized Wang, in his delusional state, was in danger of talking.”
“This is good news, right?” said Vivien. “It means Pangu is falling apart.”
“It means Pangu is close to its endgame. Do you know what today is?”
Kai-wen answered: “It’s February 26.”
“The National People’s Congress is starting today,” said Captain Hu, now leaning into the group. His second-in-command, Corporal Song, also joined their circle.
“With the grand parade past President Chen scheduled for eight this evening,” said Liu. “The Standing Committee and entire Politburo will be on the reviewing stand with him.”
“The perfect target for the final attack,” said Vivien.
“Dear God. A nuclear attack,” said Kai-wen.
“What?” demanded Hu. “You know this? We need to warn the President.”
“I’m sure he knows.”
“You have to stop it,” said Hu.
“We’ve been trying,” snapped Vivien. “And we’ve ended up on this godforsaken shithole of an island.” She turned to the cook. “No offense.”
Alice brought out her phone and looked again at Liam’s last message. The words. The image.
But they’d squeezed every ounce of meaning from both. Even the li bien ball had given up all its secrets. Liam had done all he could. And here they were, as her mother had said, stuck on fish ball island with just hours left.
“I need to get to Beijing,” said Liu.
“Why?” demanded Alice. “If that’s where the next attack will happen—”
“Believe me”—Liu turned to her—“if there is another attack, nowhere will be safe. I need to search Wang’s office.”
“Surely someone’s already been through it,” said Alice.
“True, but he had another, where he kept the most sensitive material. Things the MSS and Double Dragon collected on others. He might have documents there about Pangu.”
“We’re coming with you,” said Vivien.
“That won’t help. You need to head back to Taiwan.” He looked at Captain Hu and nodded to Corporal Song. “Can you two get them out?”
“We have two helicopters. We can fly them to the coast and onto a boat to Taipei.”
“Good. I’ll need the other to take me to Beijing.” Liu rose just as his phone dinged. He looked at it, then sat back down. “It’s from the coroner. Wang’s autopsy report. Shot once in the head. The angle suggests someone in the West Building of the Zhongnanhai.”
Liu reread the message, then shook his head, perplexed.
“What is it?” Alice asked.
“Turns out Wang was as mad as a hatter.”
The very reference struck terror in Alice. She remembered those grotesque illustrations from Alice in Wonderland. That creature with the top hat, creating bedlam.
“We need to go.” Liu shut off his phone and got up.
“So, Mr. McAllister,” said President Pardington. “What progress?”
McAllister was a bit surprised that the president’s private chef had been invited into this meeting. Though the chef was also in the navy, holding the rank of chief petty officer. Still, the woman was wearing an apron and covered in flour. Hardly dress code.
Anything unusual this close to the end set off alarms. And his early-warning systems were sounding.
McAllister realized that the President probably suspected him. But there was nothing Pardington could do. There was no proof. Besides, it was too late.
“I do have news. I was on my way to give it to you when word came through that you wanted to meet me, Mr. President. It’s good news, as it happens.”
“Really?” Pardington was wary. Anything that made McAllister happy would have to be very bad news indeed.
“Yes. The MSS has caught and killed Vivien Li along with her daughter and two unidentified people with her, possibly bystanders. They were on an island just off Hong Kong. The one that young man, Liam Palmer, mentioned in his email. Cheung Chau. Fish ball island.”
President Pardington tried not to show his shock and the wave of terror that was dragging him under. Vivien Li, dead. Their last hope, gone. And the terrorist on the other side of the Resolute Desk.
“How do you know?”
“We intercepted a message to President Chen. A text. There was also a photograph.”
He turned his phone around and showed Pardington the grisly picture of the bodies. The President forced himself to look at it. Then looked away.
He took a breath before he could talk.
“I wish they’d taken her alive. For questioning. We still don’t know where Pangu is operating from. Could it be from there?”
“The MSS is now scouring the island, to find out.” But McAllister knew there was nothing to find.
When he’d first seen that email from Liam Palmer, at the meeting in the White House after the alarms had gone off, he’d sent operatives to Cheung Chau island to figure out why Palmer would go there.
As it turned out, he was only on the island to eat curried fish balls and write up something for his ridiculous food blog. He was establishing his cover.
And now Madame Li and her daughter had been misdirected there too, thinking it was about more than a regional specialty.
He took back the phone, clocking the expression of dismay, despair, on the President’s face. Here was a man who’d just seen the last house on the road burst into flames. Nowhere to go now.
McAllister glanced again at the photograph.
He’d have to make sure Vivien Li’s obit mentioned fish ball island. He might even leak the picture to contacts in social media. This was how the world would remember the great dissident, the righteous fighter for human rights. As a traitor, a terrorist, and finally a filthy corpse in the dirt.
“You’re right, sir. If Madame Li was running Pangu, there’s a good chance it’s the headquarters of the terrorists. Who’d suspect fish ball island?”
Which means Pangu definitely isn’t there, Pardington knew.
He was tired of this farce and could feel himself about to do something he might regret. But time was short, and something had to be done to shake things up. With Vivien Li dead, it was past time when prudence was a virtue. They now needed bold, perhaps even reckless, action.
“You say you intercepted the message to President Chen. How?”
“I have informants deep within the Chinese leadership. We hear things.”
“You also, I believe, have contacts within Pangu,” said Pardington. If he was going over a cliff, he was taking this shit with him.
Pardington had the short-lived satisfaction of seeing the surprise on McAllister’s face. He clearly had not thought him capable of decisive, even bold action.
“I’d like you to hear this.” He stood up, and as he spoke, he walked around the desk.
Closer and closer to McAllister. Closing in on him.
“I know you killed Alan Zhou. You almost certainly murdered that young man at Madame Li’s home and are responsible for the murders of Vivien Li, her daughter, and those other people.
I know that she is not running Pangu. You are, you fucker.
What I don’t know is why you’d betray your country and engineer the murder of hundreds of thousands. But right now, I don’t care.”
He turned to the chef. “Chief Petty Officer Bahri, arrest this man.”
“Yessir.” She stepped forward, her gun, hidden until now beneath her apron, already out and pointed at the Director of National Intelligence.
“You’re under arrest, Mr. McAllister.”