Without a word, he put the gun out of sight on his lap.
Shun Li barely closed the cell door in time. The colonel appeared with his two idiot guards.
“I explained the situation to them,” Lu said.
Shun Li could see that. Both guards had hard-ons pressing against their trousers as excitement shone on their lumpy faces. She had heard rumors about Colonel Lu, and could see now that they were true.
“One moment,” she said. “I must inform you that I’ve witnessed the Chairman’s Lion Guardsmen in similar action. They prolonged the… hmmm, encounter to provide maximum intensity.”
Lu glanced at his large and eager guards. “That might be difficult today.”
“Oh,” she said, as if crestfallen.
“But I have an idea or two,” Lu said, winking at her. “We will make it agony for the small one.”
“Excellent,” Shun Li said. She noticed a hint of suspicion in Lu’s eyes, and she wondered how she’d given herself away. To cover, she said, “I will go in first. Follow me.”
“Ah,” Colonel Lu said.
Shun Li opened the door to the cell. She wondered if Fu Tao would start shooting immediately, killing all of them. No, the young man looked up as if wondering what would happen to him. He must be wiser than he appeared.
Shun Li stepped to the side. The first Mongolian entered the cell, then the second and finally Colonel Lu. The heavy door closed behind him.
“I give you the honor,” Shun Li told the colonel.
Lu clicked his heels, and he addressed the seated man. He told Fu Tao how China had paid for his training and he had rewarded them by his shameful actions.
“Therefore,” Colonel Lu said in a ringing voice. “You will be punished. Can you imagine how you will be punished?”
Fu Tao simply watched and waited. He didn’t even shake his head.
The first Mongolian giggled as he unbuckled his belt and zipped open his fly. He shoved his pants down, to reveal a massive, straining sex organ.
“You will be raped many times, Fu Tao,” the colonel said. “You will—”
The small East Lightning operative lifted the pistol off his lap.
“What?” Lu asked. “How did you get that?”
The gun barked with deafening sound in the small confines of the cell. Colonel Lu flew back, groin-shot. He slid down the wall as he began to scream in agony.
Fu Tao pulled the trigger three more times. He shot each Mongol in the forehead, dropping the two like oat sacks. The third shot he put in Colonel Lu’s left kneecap. The man howled with renewed zeal.
Shun Li began shaking inside, but steeled herself. She watched Fu Tao the entire time. The man terrified her. He shot without emotion, without the slightest remorse. His eyes showed emptiness, a black hole.
He approached her, with the gun in his hand. He reversed the grip and handed it to her.
With the greatest concentration, she took the pistol with a steady hand.
Colonel Lu continued to scream.
“Thank you, Police Minister,” Tao said in an ordinary voice. “I will never forget this.”
“I take you at your word. Now—”
“Excuse me, Police Minister, but shouldn’t I finish the task?”
“You mean killing Colonel Lu?”
Tao nodded.
“Please do,” she said.
Fu Tao approached Colonel Lu, and he proceeded to kick the man in the head until the colonel died. Then it was over, and Shun Li had her first loyalist.
She wondered why she had not thought of this before.
-9-
Betrayal
From Tank Wars, by B.K. Laumer III:
Seen from a strategic prospective, Premier Konev’s deception proved as brilliant as Hitler’s ability to fool Stalin in 1941 before Operation Barbarossa.
The Russian blitzkrieg, starting April 10, caught the Chinese flatfooted in Kazakhstan and Siberia. The best divisions of the Sino Interior Reserve were far away in Australia, while both regions lacked their former number of troops.
The Russians had several aces in these fast-moving battles. One, the Artificial Intelligence Kaisers and “Terminator” drones of General Mansfeld took the brunt of the head-to-head clashes along the Trans-Siberia Highway. Massed airmobile and paratroops—the second ace—swung around and over the fixed Chinese formations, often inducing wholesale surrender. The third ace was American THOR missiles, annihilating onrushing reinforcements, destroying parked drones, fighters and bombers and obliterating Chinese rocket batteries. Finally, Russian hovercraft proved second to none, and made astounding advances. The most famous was their sweep across Lake Baikal, isolating the Chinese Fifth Army in and around Irkutsk.
Russian supply difficulties were mastered through airborne transport, both engine-powered and lighter-than-air helium airships, a risky but profitable exercise in the rear areas.
Twenty-one days of breathtaking warfare won the Russians Kazakhstan and the Trans-Siberian road and rail net. They killed, captured and incapacitated over 600,000 Chinese troops for a loss of 183,000 killed, missing and wounded. They passed the northern Mongolian border and reached Northeast China—Manchuria—finally halting in sheer exhaustion.
Several factors now aided Hong, including a breathing spell as the Russians regrouped behind the Amur River on the Chinese border. By defeating the Americans-Australians in Australia and keeping the breadbasket country, Chairman Hong convinced the Indian League to resume neutrality. The food convoys from Australia to India began immediately. This allowed the Chinese to begin transferring entire corps from Burma to northern Manchuria.
In the waning days of the blitzkrieg, more Sino particle beam weapon stations came online. With their highly accurate and powerful beams, these strategic centers succeeded in destroying seventy-three percent of the next wave of THOR missile attacks. The Chinese answer to the space weapons had finally arrived, and none too soon. This greatly encouraged the Northeast Sino Army and the guerilla forces training under East Lightning guidance.
As Konev rushed supplies east along the Trans-Siberian rail net, building up for a Manchurian offensive, a call went out to America. Director Harold, Chairman Alan and General McGraw all agreed with the proposal. The American Expeditionary Force earmarked for India would reroute to eastern Siberia, using Russian transports. They would take the long way: the Atlantic Ocean to Petersburg, the Trans-Siberian rail to the Manchurian border. Although the troops were geared for jungle warfare, they went as armed to the rugged north. Time was of the essence. The India-Burma venture had fizzled, but now a new opportunity presented itself.
The Russian-European-American alliance realized the need for speed. They had to knock out China’s ability to fight before Hong could bring enough army units home and before he trained the populace for extended resistance.
The invasion of China was about to begin, and American hearts leaped with joy at the idea of finally paying the Chinese back in their own coin.
Anna Chen shivered as she looked out of the limousine’s tinted windows. Rain slicked the city streets. It was another cold and dreary day. There were few cars moving, but plenty of bicyclists getting soaked to the skin.
Most of the cars belonged to government employees, the only people who could afford them these days. Most of those workers belonged to either Homeland Security or the Militia Organization.
It’s different with Director Harold running the city. Things are more regimented, although more efficient. But something has gone out of the American people, or is that just my imagination?