Kang was pleased that the comment elicited some smiles, and even a couple of chuckles, from the marching politicians. Chang was increasing in stature in their eyes with every passing moment.
Liang was about to respond, but Chang beat him to the punch. ‘We have been rescued, we are being taken to safety, and we should all be damned thankful for that. What good could we do our beloved republic while held under lock and key? None at all. So I suggest we all just put our heads down and let them get us to wherever it is we are going. And then when we get there, I think we should cooperate in any way we can.’ Chang looked around the group, trudging through the slimy, noxious waters of Beijing’s sewer system. ‘Are we agreed?’
Twenty people nodded their heads and murmured acquiescence; even Liang Huanjia, to Kang’s surprise and delight, a man who seemed to no longer have the energy to protest.
Kang also noted the American woman listening in as they marched along, the way she looked at Chang with gratitude, perhaps even admiration. He was pleased; the reports would be going back to the US government that here was a man to watch, perhaps even suitable material for China’s next paramount leader. He smiled, seeing his plans coming to fruition, and started to wonder what –
The explosion stopped Kang’s thoughts in their tracks, a colossal blast from way behind them, back down the tunnel from where they’d traveled, a soul-shuddering boom which shook the very foundations of the tunnel.
The politicians around him went to their knees, hands over their ears; Chang was halfway down too, before Kang stopped him, shook his head almost imperceptibly at the younger man, his meaning clear — this is not the time to show weakness.
Kang saw how the American commandos were not disturbed in the slightest; they had been expecting it, a booby-trap left behind in the Hall of Imperial Supremacy, no doubt.
As the staggered, shocked members of the PRC jabbered among themselves helplessly, Kang overheard the big American soldier say something to the leader — I guess that means they opened the door, Kang thought it might have been, confirming his suspicions about it being a trap left behind by the commandos.
He saw that Chang had heard it too, and he nodded at the man, urging him to capitalize on the information.
Chang nodded back, and spoke. ‘It is okay, it is okay,’ he said, silencing the others, encouraging them to get back steadily to their feet. ‘It was a trap left by the Americans for the soldiers. It cannot hurt us.’
The woman shouted across to them in Mandarin, nodding her head. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, validating Chang completely, ‘he is right. It was just a booby trap; now the tunnel will be blocked, and they won’t even be able to follow us. With any luck, they may even think you’re all dead, for a while at least.’
There were hushed whisperings, but everyone was okay, mollified by the explanation.
And, to Kang Xing’s great delight, Chang Wubei’s stock had just risen yet again, both with the other members of the Politburo, and with the Americans.
It was perfect.
The C4 plastic explosive had been rigged all around the Hall of Imperial Supremacy, with extra quantities at key structural points, all linked to triggers on the doors.
When Lieutenant Sun Shen had opened the front door, it had sent an electrical charge along the detonating wires which caused every explosive charge in the building to go off simultaneously.
The result was immediate, and utterly devastating.
The two thousand year old edifice, one which had seen so much, survived for so long despite the wars which had raged around it, was wiped off the face of the earth in seconds.
First the stone work imploded, structural joins ruptured and mangled, and then — when the building could no longer support itself, only moments later — the ancient hall collapsed in on itself, reduced to nothing more than rubble, debris and clouds of thick, dense dust.
Lieutenant Sun Shen and his colleagues were killed instantly, their bodies vaporized by the blast, and the shockwave rippled across the courtyard until it impacted the high walls around it. They shook and cracked, and the easternmost wall then collapsed completely.
The shockwaves also spread to the smaller buildings to the north and south, rocking them to their very foundations. Stonework was damaged, roofing tiles fell, shattering to the displaced courtyard floor below, but the buildings themselves carried on standing — for the time being, at least.
The scene was one of total devastation, as if the few acres of the Outer Eastern Palace had been singled out for a brutal, targeted earthquake.
And furthermore, within the ruins of the Hall of Imperial Supremacy, the hole leading to the escape route through the sewer tunnels was gone altogether, along with all evidence of the Politburo’s rescue at the hands of Force One.
Jake Navarone breathed a silent sigh of relief.
He’d been worried that the hall would be visited before they’d had a chance to get far enough away down the tunnel. To ensure that they didn’t all die in the blast, he’d set a contingency timer on the devices to ensure they wouldn’t blow too early. If anyone had entered earlier than the timer had been set for, the explosives wouldn’t have gone off, and the escape route would have been discovered. That would have been bad, but not as bad as being taken out by his own booby trap.
The good news, however, was that everything had gone as planned; the door had been opened, the C4 had gone off, and the Hall of Imperial Supremacy — hell, maybe even the entire Outer Eastern Palace — was no more.
For the time being, the authorities would have no idea what had caused it; their first thought would probably be that it was the result of some sort of precision-guided munition, perhaps dropped by a stealth aircraft.
Without any evidence to suggest otherwise, they would assume that the entire membership of the Politburo had been killed by the blast too.
It would take days — weeks, probably more likely — to sort through the rubble and debris, even longer to account for the bodies and figure out what must have really happened.
And by then, Navarone hoped, they would be far, far away.
Now the only thing he had to do was make sure that the next part of the plan worked out just as well.
4
The explosion from the southeast stopped Cole for less than a second; he merely registered it, recognized that it meant Navarone and the rest of Force One must now be on the first leg of their escape, and then turned his attention back to his current problem — the 130-ton Type 218 patrol boat which had drawn alongside his dragon boat, its twin 14.5mm machine guns pointed straight at him.
The boat had finally caught up to them, and its crew had been trying to throw grappling hooks onto the dragon boat to stop and secure it, pull it across so that Cole could be captured. And he was sure that this was what was happening now — an operation to capture him rather than to kill him, no doubt so that he could be interrogated. If they wanted to kill him, the twin machine guns would have made short work of the wooden dragon boat.
But now he saw that the explosion — although expected by Cole, somewhere within his own subconscious — had come as a complete shock to the crew of the patrol boat.
The pilot, the machine gunners, the grappling hook gang, even the captain — who had until now been screaming at Cole through his loudspeaker — were all utterly distracted, their gazes drawn to the huge plumes of smoke rising high above the terracotta roofs of the Forbidden City, muted only slightly by the heavy rainfall.