‘Do they have landing ships en route?’ Eckhart asked.
‘They do,’ Shaw replied gravely. ‘It looks like they are planning on a full invasion.’
Abrams looked down at her desk, aghast at the news. What was she going to do now?
Japan was her ally, and she had pledged the protection of the United States; but Wu was alive, in control of three thousand nuclear warheads. What could she possibly do?
The good news was that Force One had succeeded in rescuing the entire Chinese Politburo from Beijing, and they were now ensconced on the USS John C. Stennis. Admiral Charleston had confirmed their arrival and she was due to speak to the Vice Premiers shortly. The only advantage she had was that she would have contact with the Politburo, while the rest of the world assumed they were dead, and she wondered what she could so with that.
But what was going to make matters worse was the fact that pretty soon — within the hour, she guessed — the news media of the entire world would have picked up on the entry of the Chinese fleet into Japanese waters, and a panicked public would be demanding answers.
Another telephone rang on the desk, and she looked at the ID. Not surprisingly, it was Prime Minister Toshikatsu.
‘I’ll have to call you back, Bud,’ Abrams said. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’
She put the first telephone down and picked up the second, wondering what she was going to tell him.
The helicopter wasn’t far out from the Fleet now, Zhou could see. Soon, General Wu could take the lead position on the flagship and give the order to invade.
He began to consider the American prisoner back at the Zhongnonhai; it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to play his games with the man for some time. Who knew how long Wu would keep them on the battlefield?
But there were certainly attractions that came with going in with the troops — the spoils of war, just as there had been in Taiwan. Women, men, boys, girls — all for the taking. He smiled; perhaps he could indeed forget about the American for a while.
But he did still want to question the man, and would be angered if the prisoner died before his return.
He looked at one of the officers who traveled with them. ‘Contact the Zhongnonhai prisons,’ he ordered, unsurprised as the man recoiled from him slightly; it was the story of his life.
Although nobody would have believed him now, Zhou had been a weak and frail boy, a target for bullies for many sad, unhappy years. His own father had been the worst, cursing his small size and physical weakness and beating him continually in the hopes that he could make a ‘man’ out of his pathetic son.
His boyhood had been unpleasant and unhappy, but one year he had finally started growing, and at unprecedented speed; within a single year he had changed beyond all measure.
And with the change in size came a change in attitude, a change in spirit; no longer would he be the weak and feeble one, picked on and bullied. No, now he would be the bully; and he had decided to start with his father.
It happened when he had started to insult his son’s clumsiness instead of his size, finding something else to pick on and seizing on the fact that Zhou’s coordination had not kept step with his growing body. In a fit of rage, Zhou had picked up his father’s hammer and had brandished it in his face, threatened to hit him with it. But his father had just laughed, and that was when Zhou had had enough; when his mother came down to investigate the noise, she’d found her son slumped over his father’s body, exhausted, the head completely caved in.
Zhou had escaped from the house before the police could arrest him, and had been surprised to read in the papers that the dead man had been struck in the head sixty-eight times with the ball hammer. Zhou could remember no more than one or two.
On the run, Zhou had started to run with the local street gangs, his increased size and strength combined with his newly-discovered ruthlessness standing him in good stead within the community of Guangzhou’s criminal youth.
But he had killed again, and again, and soon the danger of being killed himself by rival gang members was too great and he had fled Guangzhou forever, finally ending up — at the age of fifteen, his coordination now finally matching his colossal size — at the door of the Shaolin Temple in Hunan.
He had been taken in, and a new chapter in his life had begun; and people had never ceased to be afraid of him.
‘What shall I tell them?’ asked the officer nervously.
‘Tell them to take the prisoner in cell H-28 down from the crucifix position,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want him harmed any more than he already has been. Keep him naked, do not tend to his wounds unless he shows signs of infection, but make sure he’s given enough food and water to survive until I return.’
‘Yes sir,’ the officer said, repeating the instructions into his satellite radio link back to the command center in Beijing.
Zhou nodded. Who said he couldn’t be merciful? And with that, he turned his mind back to Japan, and the delicate prizes that awaited him there.
5
Cole had been counting, in an effort to chart the course of time as well as being a way of keeping his mind off the depravities that Zhou had in store for him, and knew it must now be the morning after his capture. He couldn’t be sure about the time after so many hours, inaccuracy in his counting was bound to have crept in — but guessed it wasn’t long after dawn.
He wondered what General Wu had wanted with Zhou, but knew there was no sense in thinking too deeply about it; his mind was better off concentrating on finding a way out.
While he’d been counting, forcing the images of Zhou from his troubled mind, he’d also been scouring the room with his eyes, looking for any possible way out, anything he could use to aid his escape. If he could escape, there might still be a chance to end this thing.
The room was dark, but his eyes had adjusted after so many hours of captivity and he could now see everything quite clearly. But what he saw didn’t provide him with much hope; it was just a plain concrete cell with hooks and metal D-rings in the ceiling and walls for securing ropes or other devices.
And then there was the door — what looked like steel, with only a narrow slat to see through. But the slat was covered by a metal cover on the other side.
But even if the door had been easy to breach, he still had to work out how to get down from the incredibly painful, debilitating position he had been forced into. The problem was, he couldn’t get any purchase on the floor, and his arms were too taut to be of any use to him. He could barely move.
But as he counted the time, his mind raced through scenario after scenario, trying desperately to come up with some manner of escape.
And then he heard the locks turning in the door, and he steeled himself for another visit by Zhou, still horrified that the man had seen through his attempts to bite him. What chance would he have now?
But it wasn’t Zhou at all — instead, three armed guards walked into the room, one covering him with an automatic rifle while the other two marched past him on either side, hands reaching up to the walls that the chains were secured to, unhooking his bindings from the D-rings.
They were getting him down!
His mind reeled at the possibilities. Were they taking him somewhere else? Were they going to give him food? Water? Medical attention?
As the chains were detached from their moorings, they slipped quickly through the D-rings and Cole dropped heavily to the floor, his legs unable to carry him.
The blood rushed suddenly back into his arms, his chest, and he was overcome by pain, blinding pins and needles shooting through his upper body as sensation returned to the tortured area.