“I didn’t know that,” Steinbaugh said.
Cole continued: “I remember lying in the jungle with a broken back waiting for the North Vietnamese to find and kill me. I was absolutely certain I had come to the end of the road. And I was wrong.” He lifted his glass in a silent toast to Steinbaugh, and drank. Steinbaugh did likewise.
When he had his glass back on the table, Cole said, “If the Chinese people can get rid of the Communists, who knows, perhaps in the fullness of time they too will have some of the same opportunities that have enriched our lives.”
“Yeah,” Steinbaugh agreed, for the comment seemed innocuous enough.
“I want your help to make it happen.”
Steinbaugh wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“I want you to install some of your back doors,” Cole said, looking him straight in the eyes.
“Where?”
“On some systems in Beijing. You’re going to be working on some systems in the Forbidden City, the Chinese Kremlin. I want you to install back doors so that when the time comes, you can get into those systems and control them, screw them up, or disable them.”
“When will the time come?”
“When the revolution starts.”
“Jesus Christ!” Steinbaugh’s eyes got big in surprise. He had sort of suspected that Cole had something on his mind when he asked him to come to see him in Hong Kong on his way to Beijing, but in his wildest imaginings he hadn’t envisioned anything like this. “A revolution! Me screwing with government computers to help a revolution — wouldn’t that be an act of war or something?”
“I’m no lawyer,” Cole said, “but I suspect you’re right.”
The consul general’s cigar had gone out, so he fussed over it, scraped off the ash, and got the thing smoldering again. When he saw that Eaton Steinbaugh was still listening, he went into specifics, some of which were very technical.
Steinbaugh was even more amazed, then he wasn’t. Cole didn’t do anything by guess or by God. He had thought about this, about what he wanted.
“Cyberwarfare,” Steinbaugh said.
“That’s right. We must divert the government’s attention, confuse them all to hell, make it as difficult as possible for them to figure out what the threat is. That’s the first goal. Second, we want to make it difficult for the Communists to respond militarily to the real threat when they figure out what it is. Third, we must deprive them of control over the people, the economy, the course of events. If we can deprive them of the power to make things happen, we will win.”
“We?”
“You and me.”
“Oh, come on.”
“The revolutionaries.”
“You’re one of them?”
“Yep.”
“Goddamn,” Steinbaugh said.
Of course he agreed to do it.
Eaton Steinbaugh had pretty well finished the Beijing assignment when he got sick and had to go home to California. He was just thirty-five years old, and the doctors said he had terminal cancer. He mailed Cole a note, told him he’d better hustle the future right along, make it happen soon. Cole knew what he meant.
Now, today, this message arrived.
Within four hours.
One more message to go.
Steinbaugh got up from the couch and turned on the computer. He had set up the E-mail system so it would notify him immediately of any incoming mail.
Babs heard the computer noises and came to the door.
“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a damned fool, Eaton. As if you don’t have troubles enough, a dying man about to face the Lord and answer for all you’ve done, bad and good. I don’t know how many felonies you’re going to commit now.”
“Neither do I. This is sort of fun, huh?”
She shook her head and went back to the kitchen.
Well, Babs was Babs. She was a good woman, although she knew absolutely nothing about computers, which were his passion. Truthfully, she didn’t know much about men, either, or at least Eaton Steinbaugh — didn’t know why he did what he did, made the choices he made. She thought him a fool for hacking as a young man and for his back doors, which he had made the mistake of mentioning a few years ago when they were talking about how fascinating his work was. Practical and unimaginative as always, she thought him a complete flaming idiot for helping Cole. He knew that, and somehow it didn’t matter. She had never had any romance in her soul. Still, he loved her and she loved him, each in their own way, and that was good enough for this life.
When Jake Grafton got back to the consulate with Rip Buckingham, Tiger Cole’s office was in an uproar. Even though it was almost midnight the lights were on, the secretary and two hovering aides looked white as ghosts, and Cole was on the phone. Since it was midnight here, it was noon in Washington.
Cole was standing beside the desk holding the telephone to his ear, looking out the window.
Although Jake didn’t realize it, Cole was looking straight at the windows of the office of Third Planet Communications. There was a man at the window looking this way, but with the lights behind him, Cole didn’t recognize him. Cole hoped the man was Hu Chiang on a break — Third Planet was going to be a busy place a bit later tonight.
On the telephone an undersecretary of state was demanding to know what the hell Cole had been up to in Hong Kong. The fax of Grafton’s letter to the National Security Adviser had apparently found its way to his desk, and the undersecretary was shouting.
“A gross breach of trust, Cole. Outrageous! I have called the Justice Department. The lawyers there are recommending that the FBI investigate you for a possible treason prosecution. Do you hear me? Treason!”
“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Podgorski. I suppose this incident will be an embarrassment to the administration.”
“An embarrassment? You suppose? It’ll be a nightmare, Cole. How could you? You know the president is on a tightrope over China, and now this!”
“Darn. What was I thinking? A public discussion of the administration’s willingness to deal with tyrants won’t win you any friends, I fear.”
“Public discussion? Is that a threat?”
“You don’t think I’m going to plead guilty to some trumped-up political charge or refuse to talk to the press, do you?” Cole asked dryly. “Prosecutions are political acts. I promise you that you will be reading my repeated requests that the administration stand up for the human rights of China’s enslaved citizens in The New York Times. This whole issue is going to get a full, complete, open airing. Perhaps my friends in Congress will decide to hold hearings.”
“Asshole! You asshole! I’m sending the FBI to arrest you. They’ll be on the next plane.”
“I’ll pack my toothbrush,” Cole told Podgorski and hung up the telephone.
“Sounds like it hit the fan in Washington,” Jake Grafton said.
“They are agitated. My resignation was sudden, unexpected. After mature reflection, I suspect they will claim executive privilege covers my resignation and the reasons for it. They may even refuse to acknowledge I was an appointee of the administration.”
Cole grinned. He did it so rarely that the effect was startling, as if a powerful light had been turned on. And as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone.
“Why are you dripping on my carpet?” Cole asked. His gaze went to Buckingham. “Both of you?”
“Little fracas at Sonny Wong’s restaurant in Aberdeen,” Jake said.
Rip added, “Grafton started a fire. We had to swim for it.”
“Did you kill him?” Tiger Cole asked, referring to Sonny.