Hu Chiang’s speech broke the spell in City Hall. Never known for an even temper, Sun exploded as he listened. He cursed Tang and Moon and the other PLA officers as incompetent, defeatist traitors. A call was put forth to the navy base. Sun demanded that all the gunboats steam up the strait and use their guns on the rebels celebrating in the Bank of the Orient square. The commander had caught the tail end of the televised debacle, and he agreed. Without much enthusiasm, Sun noted darkly.
Next he called the Su-27 squadron at Lantau. He got the squadron commander on the phone and demanded that armed sorties be flown against the rebels in the square.
“Drop bombs, strafe, shoot rockets… kill the rebels! Stop the rot right here, before it spreads.”
The colonel made him repeat the order to ensure he understood. “We will use a cannon to kill mosquitoes, eh?”
“Will you obey or must I call Beijing and have you court-martialed?”
“Bombs in the square will do a lot of damage, Governor. I just want to ensure you understand that. Afterward will be too late to complain.”
“Kill the rebels.”
“Bombs don’t care whom they kill, Governor. Rebels, bankers, children, women, tourists, soldiers, policemen, whomever. That is what I am trying to explain.”
“Obey my order!”
Next he called the chief of the metropolitan police and demanded he muster his officers and engage the rebels in armed combat. The police chief wasn’t enthusiastic. Unlike the navy and air force commanders, he knew his men would be face-to-face with the robots he had seen on television.
“What are those things, Governor? What are their capabilities?”
“I do not know. Bullets will stop them, however.”
“The army didn’t seem to have much luck with bullets. What makes you think the police will do any better?”
“I have given the order,” Sun said icily.
“So you have. But I tell you now, my men are police, not soldiers. They are trained in traffic control, not armed combat. I make no promises.”
“Lead them yourself, coward!”
“If I am killed, whom will you blame for our defeat?”
Before Sun could give that disrespectful question the answer it deserved, he discovered that the chief of police had hung up.
Sun slammed down the phone. His chief aide was right there by the desk.
“Governor, you must report this matter to Beijing, but first, you must think of getting off this island.”
“What are you saying?”
“Sir, the rebels will come for you, walk in the front door. The three or four policemen on duty out front cannot hold off armed rioters. You must not be here. You must not let them make a spectacle of you.”
“You’re right,” Sun said, with more than a little gratitude in his voice. He telephoned the army base in the New Territories, asked for a helicopter to pick up him and his key aides on the roof of City Hall as soon as possible.
On the way to the roof, he stopped in the radio room. The operator called Beijing on the scrambled voice net.
Sun tried to quickly summarize the events of the morning. He told Beijing of his orders to the army and navy. “We need military reinforcements now,” he pleaded with the minister.
The minister made no promises. “You must resist with the forces you have at your disposal,” the minister said. “The rocket forces have had a horrible disaster, the trains cannot run until the computer systems get sorted out, the nation’s electrical grid is experiencing spot failures, the telephone system is sporadic at best. We cannot get troops to you for some days.”
“Air support? Could we have two more squadrons of MiGs or Sukhois?”
“The maintenance personnel, spare parts, and weapons all must be moved by road,” the minister in Beijing informed Sun. “The move will take several weeks. I will give the order, but until they arrive, you must hold out with what you have.”
Hold out with what we have.
Perhaps that is possible, Sun thought as he made his way up the stairs to the roof of City Hall. If we can hurt the rebels in the square, then keep the remnants of the rebel forces on this island, prevent them from crossing the strait, perhaps it can be done.
The chief of police was too old a dog to go running after every stick. He sat behind his desk at police headquarters watching the rebels celebrate on television.
After he read the flyer this morning, he ordered his policemen to stay away from the heart of the Central District. Apparently they had obeyed him, because he didn’t see a single police officer on any of the camera’s sweeps of the crowd.
A cop learns many things about the people he serves: who drinks to excess, who has a drug-addicted son or a pregnant teenage daughter, who takes bribes, who doesn’t… who is fucking whom. In a society in which everything is for sale, everything has a price. A cop quickly learns to survive or he is eaten by the sharks.
The chief was busy surviving right now.
He tried to ignore politics when he could. Sonny Wong told him a year ago that rebellion was brewing in Hong Kong. Of course Sonny wanted to profit from that fact — that was a given. The rebels wanted change, Governor Sun and the Communists wanted to keep the status quo. One would win, one would lose.
Whoever won would need the police. And the police would need a chief.
This chief had no intention of ending up like China Bob Chan, with a fresh hole in his head and everyone in town breathing sighs of relief. Sure, China Bob made lots of money, got rich, had the big house and hot women and all the trimmings… and now he was sleeping in a hole in the ground because he knew too much about too many things.
Actually Sun wasn’t a bad sort. The chief wondered now if he should have told the governor to get out of Hong Kong; the rebels would kill him if they caught him. Surely the man is bright enough to figure that out for himself.
The chief reached for the telephone, then thought better of it. He owed the governor nothing.
Michael Gao was on the roof of the building near the entrance to the Cross-Harbor Tunnel when he spotted the PLA helo running low, at treetop level, headed for City Hall on Hong Kong Island. He had a Strella launcher at his feet, so he lifted it, squeezed the trigger to the first notch to try for a heat lock-on.
And got one. He squeezed the trigger and the missile roared out of the launcher.
Away it went in a plume of fire. Straight across the street into the top story of the next building over.
He had another launcher, but he waited. Perhaps he would get a better shot. If he could get onto the sea wall…
The chopper settled onto the roof of City Hall. Sun and three aides came running out. When they were aboard, the chopper rose into the air just enough to clear the railing on top of the building, then tilted into the wind.
The pilot turned to fly out over the strait, then he turned east.
Michael Gao ran with the missile launcher in his arms. People scurried to clear a path. He came to the sidewalk on the sea wall and hurriedly threw the launcher to his shoulder. The helo was speeding east over the strait, at least two miles away and low, no more than fifty feet above the water.
The missile’s guidance unit refused to lock on to the helo’s exhaust. The distance was just too great, the angle too large.
Gao lowered the launcher and watched the helo fly away.
Tommy Carmellini systematically examined every item in Kerry Kent’s apartment, disassembled the lamps and clocks, took the television from its shell, examined the works. Did the same with the clock radio. Tapped along the floorboards, scrutinized the light fixtures, used a knife to slice the stuffing from the easy chair near the window, picked through every single item in her dresser…