“The type of aircraft?” asked another voice, speaking in a heavy Mandarin dialect.
“An Airbus A-300. His radio designation will be ‘Dynasty One.’ There is a problem, General. Li has requested that the United States Navy provide fighter escort for his aircraft.
After a moment’s silence, “That is not a problem. The problem is the woman… ”
“Soong.”
“Yes, Soong… if she does not relinquish the office to you.”
“She will relinquish the office.. If she refuses, she will be removed. The silly woman has no interest or ability to be—”
At this Huang leaped to his feet. “Stop this charade!” He pointed a finger at Charlotte Soong. “This woman has produced a falsified recording in order to discredit me. It’s absurd.”
“Is it? Then why did you inform President Li only an hour before his departure that you would not accompany him on the flight.”
“Because I… I was ill.”
“And during your illness you made the call to General Tsin, which we have just heard. It was recorded by the monitoring device implanted in your satellite telephone that we recovered only yesterday.”
“You are such a fool,” said Huang. “Do you really think that the chief of staff of the PLA would carry out such a plan without the knowledge of his own superiors in Beijing?”
“I’m glad you mentioned that, Franklin,” said Charlotte. “It may interest you to know that we transmitted a copy of this tape to the President of the PRC.” She held up a printed message. “This came from one of our operatives in Beijing this afternoon. General Tsin was removed from his quarters this afternoon by armed troops. He has vanished, and we have an unverified report that he has already been tried and executed.”
A silence fell over the room. Huang’s chest was heaving. He stared at Charlotte Soong as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“You conniving bitch! We should have killed you with the same bullets that removed your husband.”
Charlotte Soong felt a jolt like an electric shock passing through her. “My husband? It was you who…”
“Kenneth Soong was a pathetic weakling. An insignificant politician who would have dragged the country into the sewer.”
Charlotte felt as if she were awakening from a drugged sleep. It was Huang. He was the one who killed Kenneth.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Huang was yelling incoherently. “You and your useless husband — you have ruined this country…”
She was dimly aware that he had a gun, though she hadn’t noticed where it came from. Beneath his jacket? Or was it in his briefcase? He seemed to have come unhinged. He was waving the pistol, looking for a target. Each of the ministers was diving for cover beneath the table.
“Traitors!” Huang yelled. “Every one of you! I’ll kill all of you!”
General Wu was unarmed. He was edging his way toward the raving man when Huang noticed him. He aimed the pistol and shot Wu through the forehead.
The general spun around and toppled over two chairs as he crashed to the floor.
The loud report of the pistol crystallized Charlotte’s thoughts. She knew what she had to do.
Charlotte lifted the umbrella from around the arm of the chair. Years ago, Kenneth had gotten it for her. He insisted that she carry it, even though he refused to have such a thing himself. All these years she had hauled it around out of respect for Kenneth’s memory. She had never actually used it, even in practice. She often wondered if she could bring herself to do it.
With her right thumb she slid the safety off. She aimed the shaft of the umbrella — a nine millimeter gun barrel — and fired. The sharp crack of the shot and the recoil of the umbrella-barrel shocked her.
Franklin Huang stared at her in disbelief. He looked down at the red-stained hole in the front of his shirt.
He lifted the pistol.
She fired again. The bullet hit him in the chest.
The pistol slipped from his hand. Clutching his chest, he toppled backwards into the chair behind him.
Charlotte lay the umbrella on the table.
One by one the heads of the cabinet ministers were reappearing from beneath the long conference table. They peered around the room, taking in the carnage.
General Wu lay on the floor, killed instantly by Huang’s bullet. Huang was slumped over the arm rest of his chair, his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.
A strange sense of calm settled over Charlotte. Kenneth would be proud, she thought. Using the umbrella had not been difficult at all. Killing Franklin Huang had come to her as naturally as launching the war against China.
Raymond Lutz stared as the technicians slid the shroud off the buff-colored airframe. The overhead halogen lights flooded the hangar in a harsh yellow light.
Incredible, he thought. Even though he had been the principal source of the technology that went into its development, he had never actually seen the Chinese product.
Lutz couldn’t help but be impressed. The Chinese had faithfully reproduced the geometry of the diamond-shaped airframe, even the intricate vaning that guided inlet air to the engines in the front and obscured the exhaust signature in the aft section. Except for the color and the slightly different landing gear design, it could be the same Black Star he had worked on here at Groom Lake these past eight years.
They had brought the captured Chinese jet here to Hangar 502 in the north complex. Only a handful of senior engineers and technicians had been invited to watch as they unwrapped it. Now they stood in a silent cluster, no one speaking, studying the object that had somehow, incomprehensibly, been copied from their design, built in secret half a world away. Now the technology had come full circle and found its way back to Groom Lake.
Unbelievable. The engineers were staring at the foreign object, their mouths half open, shaking their heads and muttering expressions of wonder under their breath. Each seemed captivated by this manifestation of his handiwork.
Each except Lutz.
He was no longer staring at the captured stealth jet. His eyes were fixed on the small group of men across the hangar floor. He recognized the director of the Calypso Blue Project, a man named Ratchford, with whom Lutz had only a nodding acquaintance. Ratchford was talking to a taller man in khaki slacks and an open collared sport shirt. He had a brown mustache and a straight, military bearing. There was something familiar about him.
The man seemed to sense Lutz watching him. He peered across the hangar floor, scanning the group clustered around the Black Star. Then his eyes fixed on Lutz. For a long moment the two men locked gazes.
In a single blinding flash of clarity, Lutz understood. It all came together in his mind like a complicated mosaic. He knew how the Chinese Black Star had been captured. And he knew who had done it.
Maxwell.
Lutz felt the rage sweep over him like a sheet of lava. That damned Maxwell. Of course. Maxwell had been in the South China Sea aboard a carrier. It would have been he, of all people, who would have ferreted out the secret of the Chinese stealth jet.
It was always Maxwell. At every crucial juncture in Lutz’s life, there was Maxwell, showing up like the spoiler from hell.
Maxwell was saying something to the Director, his eyes still on Lutz. Then he started walking toward Lutz.
Lutz didn’t wait. He didn’t want to talk to Maxwell. A hatred more intense than anything he had ever felt had taken hold of him. Trembling with rage, he turned his back and walked briskly toward the exit, back toward his lab.