Like so many Chinese officials who had held office as the dynasties rose and fell through the millennia, Sun instinctively wanted to control the people he ruled, ensure they stayed in their place, obedient and quiet. For that to happen in this day and age living conditions in China had to improve, which inevitably caused expectations to rise faster than they could be met. It was a vicious cycle with a bad ending; Sun didn’t want to be the man on the spot when the music stopped and the whole thing exploded.
Then there were the reactionary capitalist forces that the Communists had struggled against since the first day of the Long March. Always the reactionaries were there, waiting for a misstep, a mistake. Waiting.
Sun’s aides knew his fears, and they thought they knew the seething maelstrom that was Hong Kong. They soothed him now, told him that there was no evidence of sabotage, when in fact they had no knowledge of why the computers had failed. “A voltage spike, the engineers think,” the aides told the governor, who wanted to believe.
“A voltage spike” was the message he gave to Beijing.
American consul general Virgil Cole was not telling his government the truth either. Unlike Governor Sun and Sir Robert MacDonald, who thought they were reporting the truth to their superiors, Cole was lying and knew it. He knew precisely why the power went out last night in Hong Kong and he knew why the airport and harbor computers had failed. He knew what had happened and he knew the plan for going forward.
Of this, he told the United States government precisely nothing.
The Chinese desk at the State Department wanted reports and updates and answers to specific questions, all of which Cole farmed out to his staff. He told the staff more or less what he wanted them to tell Washington, which was the truth as far as it went, but not the complete truth, not by a long shot.
Cole blamed the crisis on the Chinese government’s demand for loans at nominal interest rates, loans the government had no intention of ever paying back. The nongovernment stockholders in Hong Kong banks were taking their money and clearing out, which was the root cause of the Bank of the Orient failure. The shootings of unarmed civilians were directly due to the incompetence of the officers of the People’s Liberation Army and a government that was paranoid of any dissent whatsoever.
Subsequent problems — power and equipment failures — Cole cavalierly blamed on technical incompetence. When the CIA resident, Bubba Lee, told him of Sun’s “voltage spike” explanation to Beijing, Cole tossed that into his latest report to Washington.
During his tenure in Hong Kong, Virgil Cole had repeatedly told the American government that the Chinese government was a corrupt tyranny, with a gross disregard for human rights. The ruling oligarchy was paranoid, cowardly, greedy, technically incompetent, and devoid of personal honor. Cole had said all this so many times the people in Washington laughed about it, yet in the past he had made sure he didn’t make himself so obnoxious that the powers that be would fire him. Oh no.
He referred his staff now to some of his past missives on governmental incompetence. When they returned with drafts of the reports Washington demanded, Cole read them with interest, made a few corrections, signed the things, and sent them off.
Lying to the government was a bad business, of course, and he had fretted over it for a year. When you put garbage in, you got garbage out. His conscience used to trouble him more than it did now, although it still twinged him a little.
This evening his lies didn’t even make the long list. He was thinking of Wu Tai Kwong, Callie Grafton, and all the things that had to be done. The letter of resignation was also on his mind. It had been faxed off hours ago, and he was now awaiting an explosion from Washington.
It was time to go. He didn’t need the consulate anymore.
If the Chinese arrested him, they knew far too much and the revolution was doomed. But they didn’t know. So there was a chance, a good chance, he believed.
Time was running out. Lives were at stake, millions of lives. Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions!
He looked out the window. The frontal clouds had dissipated; blue sky was visible up there between the towering glass skyscrapers. Across the way was the Third Planet office. With the sky the way it was, the windows there were opaque.
Although Cole didn’t know it, inside those offices Kerry Kent and Wu Tai Kwong’s top lieutenants were holding a council of war. There were seven of them, each in charge of a specialized group of fighters. They were Wu’s friends… although perhaps disciples might be a better description.
They took the news of Wu’s kidnapping badly. Three of them were for finding Sonny Wong and demanding Wu’s immediate return as the price of Wong’s life.
Kerry Kent tried to dissuade them. “Sonny Wong has thought of that move,” she argued. “Virgil Cole will pay the ransom. If he doesn’t, we’ll get Wu back in pieces. Do you want Wu alive or Wong dead?”
“That’s Wong’s choice,” Hu Chiang said tartly.
“No, it’s ours,” Kerry shot back. “We’ve a revolution to fight. I want Wu back more than anyone in this room, but first and foremost, we must continue the fight that is his life. And ours. That is our first priority.”
Hu was not persuaded, but two of Wu’s other friends took up Kerry’s argument. “The hour is now,” Wei Luk argued. “Wu Tai Kwong is a general in our army, it is true, but even generals are soldiers. Our cause is more important than any one person. We must not jeopardize it by taking sides in an internal squabble.”
“Internal squabble?” Kent said incredulously. “Sonny Wong wants fifty million American dollars from Virgil Cole. That’s ransom.”
“Cole should have donated his money to the cause,” Wei Luk replied stoutly. “If he had, he would not now need us to stop the revolution to save his pocketbook.”
“His pocketbook? You fool! Wu Tai Kwong’s life is at stake. Sonny Wong is threatening to murder him!”
“Perhaps he merely threatens. I think Cole is too worried about his money.”
Hu Chiang managed to stop this fruitless argument. “Enough!” he shouted. “Enough! Kerry Kent said the revolution must be our first priority, and I agree. We cannot stop the revolution to search Hong Kong for one man. We must strike now. If we do not, for any reason, we endanger the lives of every member of the Scarlet Team. Let Cole pay the money. There will be time later to deal with Sonny Wong. There is nowhere on this earth he can go to escape us.”
Wei Luk agreed with that, and so did the others.
Around sunset two men came to the door of the stateroom — it was a stateroom, Callie had decided, in a yacht or small ship. She and Wu had tossed and turned on their bunks all afternoon. Worried as she was, she still fell asleep for an hour or two, which she attributed to the drug they had injected her with. She still felt groggy, unable to focus properly.
One of them stood in the door and motioned to Callie. “Come with us,” he said in Cantonese. She went. Pretending she didn’t know Chinese would require some serious acting. She didn’t feel up to the effort, so she didn’t try.
One in front, one behind, they led her along a narrow passageway lined with doors. She got a glimpse out a porthole, saw that this deck was six or eight feet above the waterline and that the yacht was tied to a pier. It was some kind of yacht, she decided, an old one, though still maintained in excellent shape.