Chapter 38
Liu’s helicopter flew low over the Forbidden City on its way to Zhongnanhai.
He looked down at the centuries-old compound that had been the near-mystical residence of generations of divine emperors.
It was indeed a thing of great beauty. Thank God, he thought, the Red Guard hadn’t destroyed it as it had destroyed so much, in a vain attempt to wipe out China’s past. Mao’s misguided Great Leap Forward had turned out to be a horrific step back into anarchy and brutality.
An era the first emperor would have been proud of.
But here it was, this temple to an older, more predictable time. Not necessarily easier, but people at least knew the rules. Unlike under the Communists, when there was rigid chaos.
Liu had some sympathy for Pangu, for their desire to wipe away this current corrupt and brutal regime, though not for the organization’s methods.
His Pangu, created to bring about a peaceful evolution, had been corrupted just as certainly as the CCP.
Infinite, ultimate glory had turned sour. As it always does.
When the helicopter put down on the roof of the foreign ministry building in Zhongnanhai, he and the young MSS agent with him were immediately surrounded by armed guards, their weapons drawn.
“Your weapons and cell phones,” demanded the lead guard.
They were handed over.
“I need to see President Chen, immediately.”
“The President wants to see you too,” snapped the head of security, a man Liu had recruited and mentored. But who now looked at him as though he were something rotting in the dumpster at a street market. A once vital internal organ discarded and stinking.
Chen, he knew, was at heart a good man, but a man raised in the system, who believed in it. And who resisted change with all his might. But change had found President Chen. His might was proving not mighty enough.
Vivien, Alice, Kai-wen, and Ming-na sat silent, strapped into the army helicopter flying them to the coast and a boat that would take them to Taipei. Back to the calm of the recluse scholars. To the peach-blossom-strewn riverbank. And at least a temporary peace. Until …
Kai-wen had an almost wistful smile on his lined face. How he had missed his home. His noodle shop. His peach blossoms. His tiny perfect life.
They’d failed. He knew it. They all knew it. There was nothing more to say. Or do. And now they could only wait for the next, the final, disaster.
Alice, unique among them, still clung to hope. Two in particular.
She hoped that her father would succeed in finding what he needed among Wang’s documents and could still stop Pangu. And, equally important, she hoped that her mother would not see herself in a mirror.
That image of the Mad Hatter her father had conjured after reading the autopsy report followed her, was dogging her.
The Mad Hatter had introduced the young Alice to a world where terrible, unpredictable things happened.
Up until then, her life had been one of complete innocence. Never knowing anything bad.
And then the Mad Hatter appeared.
But Alice in Wonderland was fiction, and Alice in China was all too real. Wang, with his combination of near-infinite power and dementia, was all too real.
The Hatter.
Hatter.
“Wang was as mad as a hatter,” she said.
“What?” her mother shouted above the thudding of the rotor blades.
“Wang.” Alice leaned forward and yelled, “Dad said he was as mad as a hatter.”
“Yes.”
“I need my phone,” she shouted at Captain Hu.
“I’m not giving it to you.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I need to contact my father. I have to ask him something about Wang’s autopsy. You can call and put it on speaker. I’m not trying to hide anything.”
She hated using the little-girl voice but knew it was one way to get what she needed from this man. He had his weapons, and she had hers.
The officer considered, then decided to do it. She seemed so vulnerable, so fragile. So dirty and smelly too. That just made her seem less a threat, more pathetic.
He dialed and held the phone out.
It rang. And rang.
Liu stood before the head of the Communist Party of China and bowed.
President Chen was already in full regalia. His stiff military uniform was festooned with medals he’d presented to himself. It was unclear to Liu what the President had done to deserve them, though surviving in the thin air at the pinnacle of power in China was no small feat.
Perhaps they were for that.
“Explain yourself, Comrade Liu. You were looking for Pangu, then you disappeared. And now you’ve reappeared. What do you have to tell me?”
Chen had considered telling Liu about the deaths of his daughter and former wife, but thought that would distract the man, and he needed Liu fully focused.
Liu looked at his options and realized that he was reduced to telling the truth. Or at least part of it.
“I haven’t made headway, but I think Wang knew more about Pangu that he admitted.”
“I know Wang knew more, or at least did before dementia and a bullet destroyed his brain. He’s dead. Shot by someone inside this complex. You need to stop telling me things I already know.”
“Not dementia. He had mercury poisoning.”
Now that was new. “How do you know?”
“The coroner sent me his autopsy report. I forwarded it to you.”
“I haven’t read it. You didn’t come here to tell me about the number of fillings in Wang’s teeth.”
“No, sir. We both know that the next target is probably here, today at the grand parade to open the National People’s Congress. If I can get to Wang’s office, I might be able to find evidence. Something that could lead us to Pangu’s headquarters.”
“You think we haven’t searched it? I’ve had it taken it down to the studs, and nothing.”
“Not that office. His other one.”
“Pick up. Pick up,” Alice whispered. “Come on, Dad.”
It was only much later, when his phone had been returned to him, that Liu realized he’d missed a call from Alice. By the time he called back, it was much too late.
Grant McAllister was taken the back way through the White House, down the concrete stairs. The chef was alone, as the president had advised, not wanting to bring anyone else into it. Not knowing who to trust.
It was a good strategy. And would have worked had another woman not entered the stairwell at just that instant. Causing a momentary distraction.
It took a split second. McAllister dipped and turned, grabbing the gun from the chef. Her last thought on earth, just before she hit the ground was, How could I have been so stupid?
The shot echoed up and down the stairwell.
The head of National Intelligence quickly turned to shoot the witness, only to see a weapon in her hand.
His last thought, as the bullet ripped through his brain, was, How could I have been so stu—
Captain Hu hit the end icon, and the line went dead.
Alice bit her upper lip and thought. Thought. Then turned back to the senior officer.
“Can you get Wang’s autopsy report?”
“Why?”
“Please. Can you get it?”
They were descending. She needed an answer before the helicopter touched down.
“I don’t see how.”
Alice closed her eyes—Coconut bun, coconut bun, coconut—and made up her mind.
“We need to go to Xi’an. To the Terracotta Warriors. I know where Pangu is hiding.”
Hu regarded the young woman and this bold statement. Now she sounded like her father, his commander. Calm, certain, in charge.
It was just possible, the idea flashed through his mind, that they had underestimated this girl. He hesitated, and held her steady eyes.
“Suppose I’m right?” she said, meeting his gaze. “Are you going to be the one who destroyed China, and maybe worse? You’ve seen the devastation of the last two attacks. They’re escalating. Imagine a third…”
She could see that, though fighting against it, he was imagining …
“It will happen at eight this evening. When the grand parade signals the opening of the People’s Congress. It will also signal the final attack.”
Still Hu hesitated.
“For God’s sake,” Alice demanded, “if I’m wrong, we’ve wasted time. If I’m right, we might just stop a catastrophe.”
That did it.
“Turn the craft around,” he ordered the pilot. “We’re going to Xi’an.”