That left nothing more to be said. Zhou ordered his helms man to advance his throttle and the Five Nineteen boat gained way once more. They were coming up on the curve of the river, with Shanghai’s Fuxing Dao industrial district to starboard and the Hudong state shipyards to port. Watching the east bank intently, Zhou thought he had spotted his moorage beacon. Then he caught himself just before issuing the command to turn. This flashing light had quite a different source. Zhou realized he was looking at the rear face of the shipyard’s huge covered graving dock. The entry way had been curtained off with a wall of tarpaulins and light leaked through at one point, the harsh blue white flicker of arc welding.
Bringing up his night glasses Zhou panned them across the yard. As he did so he began to realize that more was going on within the seemingly dark and deserted facility than was first apparent. Trucks rolled past, running on hooded headlights. Many figures scurried through the shadows and more light leaks indicated that the lower floors of several of the machine shops and administration buildings were occupied and operating.
The young naval officer knew full well that shipbuilding, like most of China’s other heavy industry, had come to a near-complete standstill because of the war. Something very exceptional was taking place over there. So intriguing was this concentration of stealthy activity that Zhou almost missed the true signal being flashed in their direction.
“Helmsman, come left “
The Five Nineteen boat nosed in toward the bank, and the head of a pier solidified out of the gloom. For a moment, Zhou thought he was to tie up alongside it. Then he saw the guide atop the pier motioning them underneath it.
“Hoong! Lower the masts!”
“At once, Lieutenant.”
Zhou observed that the pier’s central pilings and underbracing had been cut away, leaving an empty shell. As the hydrofoil’s bow slid into the deeper, creosote-scented blackness beneath the decking, her hull squealed against preset fenders and dolphin boards. Moisture pattered on the decks. Reaching up from the cockpit Zhou’s fingertips brushed a sheet of wet canvas suspended horizontally overhead. He understood. His nation no longer had functional reconnaissance satellites, but their capabilities were well understood. The pier would shelter them from direct visual observation, and the water-soaked tarps would smother their heat signature, rendering them invisible to thermographic scanning.
The torpedo boat’s engine grumbled into silence and the ever-efficient Hoong began to direct the line handling in the glow of a single battle lantern. Zhou remained in the cockpit for a time longer, considering. There was something in the wind here. Something major. Something they were involved in now.
Perhaps he would find his piece of the war after all.
10
“It’s eight o’clock, Mr. Secretary.”
For a moment, Hamson Van Lynden couldn’t remember where he was, a common occupational hazard for those in the profession of jet age statesmanship. Then his memory came back on line.
Manila. The first day of the crisis-reduction talks. “Thank you, Frank I’m awake,” he replied, sitting up.
“Breakfast, sir?” the Secret Service man inquired from the bedroom door.
“Yes My usual in about fifteen minutes.”
“It’ll be ready, Mr. Secretary. Ms. Sagada will also be up shortly with the morning situation update.”
“Again.”
The door closed. Van Lynden rose from the bed stretching out the last kinks of the previous day’s long air journey.
Crossing to the full-length balcony windows, he pulled aside the gold brocade curtains, revealing the glittering gunmetal blue of Manila Bay. For security’s sake, the Philippine government had elected to house all of the different delegations attending the Chinese crisis reduction talks at a single location, one that could also serve as the site for those talks. With a profound sense of either irony or history, they had chosen the Hotel Manila.
The sixteen-story grand dame of the Philippines had served many purposes during its long existence. Prior to World War II, it had served as Douglas Macarthur’s residence as he had futilely attempted to prepare the old commonwealth for the coming conflict. The hotel had seen an invading Japanese army march in to seize its namesake city, and had served as the headquarters for its conquerors. Surviving, the hotel had seen another army, this one of liberation, storm Manila. Its walls still bore the bullet scars of strafing American fighters.
Now as he watched the morning traffic build along the waterfront boulevards, he wondered what new chapter would unfold here the ending of a conflict or the beginning of a holocaust.
The bacon and eggs were excellent, and the atypical side dishes — fried rice, guava, and jackfruit — added piquancy to the meal. Seated in the suite’s living room, the secretary of state divided his attention between his breakfast and the young woman seated on the couch across from him. Lucena Sagada, his Embassy liaison, had the honey colored skin and ebon eyes and hair of a Philippine native. Her light summer suit had the cut of the Beltway, however. After serving her State Department internship in Washington, she had returned to the homeland of her grandparents to make the optimum use of her linguistic and cultural heritage.
“We finally have a complete delegation listing, Mr. Secretary,” she said, looking up from her open laptop.
“Let’s see, that should be Mr. Apayo from the Philippines, Keo Moroboshi from Japan, and Mr. Chung Pak from Korea Any word on the Russians and Vietnamese?”
“Still no word from Hanoi. I think they can be safely counted out. As for the Russians, we’ve received official notification that they will not be sending a delegation. They do request, however, that a member of their local embassy staff be permitted to sit in as an observer.”
“I don’t have any problem with that,” Van Lynden replied. “We won’t have them stirring the water, but at the same time, they’ll be kept current on the developing situation. Good compromise.”
He speared a final neat slice of jackfruit on the tines of his fork.
“Now, let’s get on to the main show. Who are we meeting from the Chinas?”
“Both delegations arrived yesterday evening, sir. Within an hour of each other.”
Ms. Sagada removed a recordable compact disc from her briefcase and snapped it into the input slot of her laptop. Rising, she crossed the room and set the little computer on the coffee table beside Van Lynden’s breakfast tray.
“The CIA Station Chief at the Embassy had a video crew out there covering the arrivals,” she said, tapping the actuation key. “Here are the Nationalist and the United Democratic Forces representatives arriving. They flew in together from Taipei.”
On the flatscreen, Van Lynden observed two individuals descending the stairway of a smart looking executive jet.
“I recognize the first man. Mr. Duan Xing Hoof the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry. I’ve worked with him a couple of times through the American Institute in Taiwan. He’s a good international man. One of their best. I don’t recognize this gentleman, though.” He indicated the spare, white-haired figure that followed Duan.
“According to the NSA database on the United Democratic Forces of China, he is Professor Djinn Yi. He’s a former faculty member of the People’s University of Canton, having taught history and political science. Currently, he appears to be serving as a kind of ambassador-at-large for the UDFC.”
“What do we have on him?”
“Not very much, Mr. Secretary. Unmarried Native of Guangdong Province. Considered academically brilliant. At one time, an unimpeachable Party member. However, that wasn’t enough to protect him when the Red Guard went on their rampage back in 1966. He and his older brother were among the Chinese intellectuals herded into the reeducation camps during the Cultural Revolution. Professor Djinn was incarcerated for over eighteen months. His brother died, supposedly from a combination of beating and starvation.”