Late in the evening on the sixth day Wei finally went on the offensive. He identified those in his party who were conspiring against him, and he convened a secret meeting with the rest of the Politburo Standing Committee. He stressed to the five men who were not conspirators that he considered himself a “first among equals” and, should he remain president and general secretary, he would rule with an eye toward collective leadership. In short, he promised that each and every one of them would have more power than they would have if they put someone else in his place.
His reception from the Standing Committee was cold. It was as if they were looking at a doomed man, and they showed little interest in aligning themselves with him. The second-most-powerful man in China, the chairman of the Central Military Commission, Su Ke Qiang, did not say a single word during the meeting.
Throughout the night Wei had no idea if he would be overthrown in the morning — arrested and imprisoned, forced to sign a false confession, and executed. In the predawn hours his future looked even darker. Three of the five PSC members who had yet to commit to the coup sent word that, though they would not encourage his deposal, they did not have the political clout to help him.
At five a.m. Wei met with his staff and told them he would step down for the good of the nation. The Ministry of Public Security was notified that Wei would surrender, and an arrest team was dispatched to Zhongnanhai from the MPS building on East Chang’an Avenue, on the other side of Tiananmen Square.
Wei told them he would go quietly.
But Wei had decided that he would not go quietly.
He would not go at all.
The fifty-four-year-old Princeling had no desire to play the role of a prop in a political theater, used by his enemies as the scapegoat for the country’s downfall.
They could have him in death, they could do with his legacy what they wished, but he would not be around to watch it.
As the police contingent from the Ministry of Public Security drove toward the government compound, Wei spoke to the director of his personal security, and Fung agreed to supply him with a pistol and a tutorial on its use.
Wei held the big black QSZ-92 pistol to his head; his hand trembled slightly, but he found himself to be rather composed, considering the situation. As he closed his eyes and began pressing the trigger harder, he felt his tremors increase; the quivering grew in his body, beginning in his feet and traveling upward.
Wei worried he would shake the muzzle off target and miss his brain, so he pressed the gun harder into his temple.
A shout came from the hallway outside his office. It was Fung’s voice, excited.
Curious, Wei opened his eyes.
The office door flew open now, Fung ran in, and Wei’s body shook to the point he worried Fung would see his weakness.
He lowered the gun quickly.
“What is it?” Wei demanded.
Fung’s eyes were wide; he wore an incongruous smile on his face. He said, “General Secretary! Tanks! Tanks in the street!”
Wei lowered the gun carefully. What did this mean? “It’s just MPS. MPS has armored vehicles,” he responded.
“No, sir! Not armored personnel carriers. Tanks! Long lines of tanks coming from the direction of Tiananmen Square!”
“Tanks? Whose tanks?”
“Su! It must be General… excuse me, I mean Chairman Su! He is sending heavy armor to protect you. The MPS won’t dare arrest you in defiance of the PLA. How can they?”
Wei could not believe this turn of events. Su Ke Qiang, the Princeling four-star PLA general and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, and one of the men he had made a direct appeal to the evening before, had come to his aid at the last possible moment.
The president of China and the general secretary of the CPC slid the pistol across the desk to his principal protection agent. “Major Fung… It appears I will not be needing this today. Take it from me before I hurt myself.”
Fung took the pistol, engaged the safety, and slid it into the holster on his hip. “I am very relieved, Mr. President.”
Wei did not think that Fung really cared whether he lived or died, but in this heady moment the president stood and shook his bodyguard’s hand anyway.
Any allies, even conditional allies, were worth having on a day like this.
Wei looked out the window of his office now, across the compound and to a point in the distance beyond the walls of Zhongnanhai. Tanks filled the streets, armed People’s Liberation Army troops walked in neat rows alongside the armor, their rifles in the crooks of their arms.
As the rumbling of the approaching tanks shook the floor and rattled books, fixtures, and furniture in the office, Wei smiled, but his smile soon wavered.
“Su?” he said to himself in bewilderment. “Of all people to save me… why Su?”
But he knew the answer. Though Wei was happy and thankful for the intervention of the military, he realized, even in those first moments, that his survival made him weaker, not stronger. There would be a quid pro quo.
For the rest of his rule, Wei Zhen Lin knew, he would be beholden to Su and his generals, and he knew exactly what they wanted from him.
FIVE
John Clark stood at his kitchen sink; he looked out the window and watched mist form in his back pasture as a gray afternoon turned into a grayer evening. He was alone, for a few minutes more anyway, and he decided he could put off no longer what he’d been dreading all day.
Clark and his wife, Sandy, lived in this farmhouse on fifty acres of rolling fields and forestland in Frederick County, Maryland, close to the Pennsylvania state line. Farm life was still new to John; just a few years ago the thought of himself as a country gentleman sipping iced tea on his back porch would have made him either chuckle or cringe.
But he loved his new place, Sandy loved it even more, and John Patrick, his grandson, absolutely adored his visits out to the country to see Grandpa and Grandma.
Clark wasn’t one for lengthy reflection; he preferred to live in the moment. But as he surveyed his property and thought about the task at hand, he did have to admit that he had managed to put together a good personal life for himself.
But now it was time to see if his professional life was over.
It was time to remove his bandages and test the function of his wounded hand.
Again.
Eight months earlier his hand had been broken — no, his hand had been shattered—by unskilled but energetic torturers in a seedy warehouse in the Mitino district of northwest Moscow. He’d suffered nine fractures to bones in his fingers, palm, and wrist, and had spent much of his time since the injury either preparing for or recovering from three surgeries.
He was two weeks post his fourth time under the knife, and today was the first day his surgeon would allow him to test the strength and mobility of the appendage.
A quick look at the clock on the wall told him that Sandy and Patsy would be home in a few minutes. His wife and his daughter had driven together to Westminster for groceries. They told him to wait on the function test of his hand until they returned, so they could be present. They claimed they wanted to be there to celebrate his recovery with dinner and wine, but John knew the real reason: They did not want him going through this alone. They were worried about a poor outcome, and they wanted to be close for moral support if he was not able to move his fingers any better than he could before surgery.