“We will never know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!” Paul said with heat.
“Why are you angry?”
“You’re the one who wants to know how things work. You read science fiction. You’re supposed to be curious, right?”
“We must save our thoughts for survival,” Red Cloud said. “The Aurora Borealis and those points of light, they are good because they’ve brought you out of the gloom that filled your mind. Now we must conserve our strength—”
“Why did you tell me to hit the ice just now?” asked Paul.
“The unknown instills fear. I was afraid.”
“Wrong answer, Chief.”
Red Cloud grew still. “I do not care for you calling me that.”
Paul’s nostrils flared. Then he nodded as he thought about it. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. You and me are in this together. With Chinese Commandos blowing up our jobs we don’t need to bring up bad blood between ourselves.” Paul watched the blinking lights. “Do you think those are more Chinese?”
“The Chinese blew up the rig and tried to kill us. Now something odd occurs on the ice again, meaning the likeliest explanation is the Chinese are doing something strange.”
“Are there anymore oil rigs or science posts around here?” Paul asked.
“Not along this route, no.”
Paul’s eyes narrowed. He felt alive again. With the feeling came a desire to strike back, not to just take it all the time. The desire hardened, and he said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to follow those blinking lights.”
“You are using your emotions, not your mind. To do as you suggest will decrease our chances of survival.”
Paul jumped to his feet, using the assault rifle to point at the blinking lights. “My gut says those are choppers. First, what are choppers doing out here? Second, how far can choppers fly? They don’t fly as far on one tank of gas as a cargo plane.” Paul shook his head. “We’re never going to make it to Dead Horse. But if there’s a camp on the ice somewhere close by—”
“If there is a camp,” Red Cloud said, “it could be thirty, fifty, or even seventy miles away from here.”
“Seventy miles is still closer than over two hundred miles away,” Paul said. He hesitated. “This is it, Red Cloud.” It was the first time he’d used the Algonquin’s last name. “Are we splitting up, or do we stick together and find out what’s going on?”
Red Cloud watched the blinking lights. “You are an American. I am an outcast without a country, maybe even the last of the free Algonquins. Let us die on the warpath as warriors, the two of us, former enemies facing impossible odds.” A hard smile stretched the woolen fabric of his ski mask. “This one time, you shall know what it feels like being an Indian.”
“Sure,” Paul said. “Let’s go.”
Jian Hong felt fear as he rode an elevator deep underground beneath Mao Square. The Chairman had summoned him to his personal bunker. Few entered it and fewer still left alive. According to Police Minister Xiao, who compiled such statistics, not even Deng Fong had ever been summoned down here.
Beside Jian in the elevator were two silent guards in black uniforms. They wore red armbands with the Chairman’s personal symbol in the center, the head of a lion with an imposing yellow mane. The guards towered over Jian. The occasional glances in his direction weren’t overtly hostile, but these two seemed contemptuous of him.
The two guards made Jian feel small and weak. His strength would prove futile against these two. If he were to oust the Chairman from power, he needed to figure out a way past the Lion Guard, as the security teams were named.
The elevator stopped, the door opened and one of the guards pushed Jian into a utilitarian steel corridor. He stumbled ahead of the two specimens of Chinese perfection.
The corridor was long, with iron-grilled lights glaring down on them. Knowing they were underground, under tons of earth, magnified Jian’s fear. He felt claustrophobic and soon he was short of breath.
“We’re almost there,” the nearer guard said.
Jian wanted to tell the man he wasn’t tired, but claustrophobic.
“Halt!” said a guard.
Jian stopped before a steel-reinforced door. It slid up, revealing a large room.
“In,” said the guard, shoving Jian into the room.
Behind Jian, before he could protest, the steel door slammed shut. It made Jian jump. A moment later, he heard a chuckle. He whirled around, taking in the room and the situation.
It was oval, with hundreds of posters on the walls. Each was a propaganda picture of the Chairman during various stages of his life. Some related to the Siberian War, others to the reunification of Taiwan. There were posters concerning hard work, more on worker safety, and more on exercise and dietary habits. Each showed the Chairman exhorting or lauding others for some good behavior.
Jian saw that he’d reached the final antechamber where the badly ailing Chairman lay in the flesh. The Chairman was propped up in a large mobile medical unit. It was like a huge American recliner, with a joystick-control. The old man looked small in it, with several medical tubes sticking into his side. He seemed mortally diseased and weak, the opposite of the security guards. Only the eyes were powerful, two pinpoints of energy.
“Welcome, Jian Hong,” the Chairman said. Somewhere on the chair, a microphone must have picked up the words. It amplified them, making the Chairman’s withered voice painfully loud as it bounced off the steel walls.
Jian silently congratulated himself on keeping his features neutral. It was said the Chairman took odd or fearful facial expressions in the worst light possible, usually as a sign of guilt.
“I’ve brought you down to my quarters so we can speak freely,” the Chairman said.
“It is an honor,” Jian said.
“There are many spies in the outer world.”
“Yes,” Jian said.
“And not just CIA spies, but Chinese spies—the creatures of those who yearn to oust me.”
A sick thrill of fear coursed through Jian. Was the Chairman toying with him before the old man ordered his arrest? The Chairman kidnapped his worst enemies and sent them to experimental stations, where indentured scientists practiced hideous tortures.
“Do you wonder why I wish to speak freely with you?” the Chairman asked, with his eyes bright.
“I thought it would be concerning the war.”
“The war against hunger?”
Jian wondered if he could sprint across the room and throttle the Chairman before he was cut down. He knew hidden marksmen watched behind the walls. If he made a threatening motion, bullets would riddle his body… or worse, they would sink knockout darts into him.
“I am at your service,” Jian said.
The Chairman’s chair swiveled as crooked fingers pressed controls. Part of the wall slid up to reveal a screen. “I have read statistics,” the Chairman said. “Our internal unrest is subsiding as the people watch news-shows and blogs about the war.”
“Your strategy was brilliant, sir.”
“Yes,” said the Chairman, “it was brilliant. But this is a waiting period only, as far as the people are concerned. We must quickly defeat the Americans.”
“We are winning the war,” Jian said.
“We are advancing in the Kenai Peninsula. But we are not necessarily winning.”
“I bow to your superior insights, sir.”
“As well you should. Didn’t my insights allow the military to conquer Siberia?”
“Most certainly, sir.”
“Was it not me who returned Taiwan to the mainland?”
“You have guided our nation through its hardest times.”
“You are uncommonly perceptive, Hong. It is one of the reasons I’ve given you political control of the invasion.”