More orange blooms now appeared on the submarine sails.
With his teeth clenched, Paul kept firing. Whether it was his bullets or the Arctic cold, he didn’t know. Maybe the pilot wasn’t familiar enough with the jetpack under combat conditions, or maybe having someone firing at him panicked the man. All Paul knew was that the flyer plummeted toward the ice.
The next two submarine-launched missiles veered to the right, exploding in the darkness.
By then, Paul was sprinting to the snowcat. Would the Algonquin leave him behind? Did Red Cloud hate him that much?
The cat lurched to a halt even as Paul wondered. The machine began backing up. Paul glanced at the sky. No more jetpack flyers appeared. Just as good, no more missiles launched from the towers. Maybe whoever fired at them had to order up more missiles from within the submarine.
Exhausted, Paul climbed into the passenger seat. “I nailed two!” he shouted, slamming his door shut.
Red Cloud was hunched over the wheel. His eyes were hard on the ice before them. “Ready?” he asked.
Paul yanked on his seatbelt. “Let’s get out of here while we can.” He laughed as he patted the assault rifle between his knees. “They’ll probably chase us. But at least we’ll make it hard on them before we die.”
Red Cloud gave him a single glance. Then he returned to staring outside as the treads began to clank.
The atmosphere was tense as a bodyguard wheeled the Chairman into the conference chamber. On one side of a large oaken table sat Jian Hong, Xiao of the Police, and a red-eyed Admiral Qiang. On the other side of the table were Deng Fong and the Army Chief of Staff.
Around the large room, the curtains were drawn against the gloomy weather outside. It had rained for three days and the weatherman predicted hail tonight.
Jian kept his hands on the table near his glass of mineral water. He yearned to fidget, to release some of the anxiety that seethed in him. There had been another rice riot yesterday. This time the people hadn’t simply looted the rice factories and stormed into the stores. Rather, leaders had spontaneously arisen and several mobs had attempted to burn down police stations. News of it had leaked onto the blogosphere, with several cell-phone videos racing around the Internet.
Jian had been urging the Chairman to order a full Internet blackout until the emergency was over.
During the meeting, Deng had attacked him cleverly, repeatedly bringing up the ongoing food disaster. Deng had the gall to stare at him as he talked about full-blown famine.
Fortunately, the Chairman had already moved Jian out of the Agricultural Ministry and had made him a Minister without Portfolio, becoming the de facto coordinator of the Alaska Invasion. Therefore, he kept telling Deng to bring these food-supply matters to the new Minister of Agriculture.
The Chairman appeared both worse and better than the day he’d made the decision to invade Alaska. His skin had an unhealthy, shiny quality. And the pain creasing his features from his ramrod posture almost made Jian feel sorry for the old man. The Chairman’s eyes, however, radiated power to a greater degree than before.
As the Chairman entered, Deng turned to his computer, eagerly reading something.
Jian yearned to know what it was. The man had an agile mind and attacked from many directions.
I will only be happy when the police drag Deng screaming from this room. A gun pressed against the back of his head, and boom—Deng Fong’s corpse will flop about like a catfish. On that day, I will sigh with relief.
“Sir,” Deng said, not even having the decency to allow the Chairman to make himself comfortable again. The bodyguard knelt and rearranged the plaid blanket around the Chairman’s useless legs.
“You have news?” the Chairman asked. The old man no longer whispered, but spoke crisply.
“Sir,” Deng said, “the Secretary of the U.N. has phoned. She urges you to sit down with the Americans and talk out any differences we might have.”
“The woman is presumptuous,” Jian said. It would ruin everything if there were peace now. He needed war—a highly successful war—if he were to oust the Chairman and become the new ruler of China. During these past days, he had seen a way to gaining total power. But for that to happen, he needed a long war.
“I am baffled,” Deng said. “In what way is the U.N. Secretary’s common sense presumptuous?”
“There are no open hostilities between our nations for her to fix,” Jian said. “She is like a dog that sticks its nose up a woman’s dress, sniffing where it isn’t wanted. I am sorry to say, but to me that is presumptuous.”
“You surprise me,” Deng said. “Do we not attack America?”
“There is no ‘open’ conflict between our nations yet,” Jian said. “That is what I’m saying.”
“Yet the U.N. Secretary has drawn the correct conclusion,” Deng said, “as she no doubt witnessed the destruction of the American carriers.”
“We preemptively struck the worst of the grain-hoarding nations,” Jian said. “That is true. But as yet there is no open conflict.”
“The Secretary desires world peace,” Deng said, “particularly peace between the two largest nuclear powers. She must hate the glacial period as much as we, since China, like much of the world, can no longer feed its starving population. Imagine a world sunk in a full-blown ice age as a nuclear winter howls across the continents.”
“The Americans know we have an impenetrable ICBM defense,” Jian said. “For that reason there will be no nuclear winter—no true ice age—because the Americans would never dare to launch their missiles.”
“This is excellent news,” Deng said. “Yes, your prophetic gift reassures me entirely. Please, former Agricultural Minister, could you focus your far-seeing powers to help find the Chinese people enough food to eat?”
Jian seethed inwardly. The clever intriguer was a master at these conversations. “We will have enough food,” he said, “once we force the Americans to open their storehouses to us.”
“Enough of this,” the Chairman said. “We have important matters to discuss.”
“I am at your command, sir,” Jian said.
“We all are,” Deng said.
Jian forced his mouth shut in order to forestall more words. A crease of irritation had deepened the lines on the Chairman’s forehead. Instead of words, Jian now hunched toward the Chairman. He sat nearest the leader, at least on his side of the table. Jian folded his hands, trying to radiate obedience to the Chairman’s will.
Deng, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, was too proud to play that game. He sat in his high-backed chair like a foreign potentate. He sipped mineral water and picked up a spiced wafer, popping it onto his tongue.
“I am about to begin a conference call with the President of the United States,” the Chairman informed them.
“Do you know the reason for his call?” Deng asked.
Jian scowled at Deng, trying to project to the others the unforgivable nature of the slight of speaking to the Chairman before being spoken to.
“As stated earlier,” the Chairman said, “we destroyed two American carriers. The nature of the call would therefore seem obvious. The President will seek reassurances that we didn’t do it.”
“I have scanned their news agencies,” Deng said. “I believe they know we did it.”
“I’m not sure I can agree you,” Jian said, unable to contain himself. “Their pundits argue between themselves, offering several different reasons of why the attack occurred. The foremost theory is that Taiwanese extremists wish to foster hatred and discord between our two great nations.”
“Do you truly think the President of the United States believes such twaddle?” asked Deng.