That must be rare, Wu reasoned, for all three to be together. But they were approaching a culmination, he knew, of the political war. It would end — soon — one way or the other. The four men awaited Wu’s request. “I would like President Baker’s daughter released and returned safely, immediately.”
The three men in Beijing faced each other in turn.
“I want,” Wu repeated, simply, calmly, “the safe return of Stephanie Roberts.”
The minister of trade apologized and asked Han and Wu to wait. Their screens went blue and their speakers silent. Wu found Han gazing across space at Wu with a pasty-faced look of astonishment. Han’s world, Wu understood, was changing with dizzying rapidity. His constant, forced reassessment of Wu’s place in that world had left Han looking pale and sick. What new power had been bestowed upon the boy for him to make such presumptuous demands?
But even as Han remapped the topography of power, Wu knew that his father wouldn’t remain adrift forever. Han Zhemin was too skillful and had worked too hard on his life-long ascent of the summit. Once his cartography was complete, Wu knew, Han would set a new and again confident course.
The images of the elderly civilian triumvirate reappeared on Wu’s and Han’s screens. Wu knew instantly from their grim faces that they could not promise what he wanted. The prime minister’s face bore a look of deep concern. “We all empathize,” he began, “both with President Baker and his daughter. She should never have been in combat to begin with. We will make private demands — and we will publicly criticize as heartless any unseemly plans the army makes for the girl — but direct action on the matter is simply impossible.”
Wu rose from the teleconference center consoles.
“Wu!” Han snapped in horror.
But the prime minister raised his hand and shook his head. “Lieutenant Han Wushi,” he said, using — for the first time — Wu’s army rank, “I ask only that you not irreversibly choose your allegiances without long and fully considered thought. We,” he said, nodding at his brother, “are your family. Many things change in life, but blood always binds. It binds us together, and it binds us to our duty. The family supports and protects, and it must itself be supported and protected.”
“I am protecting my family,” Wu said before leaving his wide-eyed, speechless father.
Just outside the door, Han grabbed Wu’s arm and yanked him around. Han’s eyes were wide, and his grip painfully tight. He angrily propelled Wu down the hallway, opened a door, and motioned for a startled woman — who sat at her computer workstation putting on lipstick — to get out of her office. She closed the door behind her, and Han swept the room with his handheld monitor and found it free of bugs.
Han faced Wu. “That video of your attack on the American bunkers,” Han began, scrutinizing his son, “was it faked?” Wu didn’t understand and cocked his head. “Were there Chinese troops in those bunkers?” Han demanded, seizing Wu by both arms and shaking him.
“Are you asking,” Wu replied slowly, “whether the attack was staged? Whether Chinese soldiers killed Chinese soldiers?”
“But no one killed you,” Han noted in explanation of his suspicion. “Defense minister Liu did it in Tokyo — reenacted the seizure of the Imperial Palace — just because they didn’t have good video for the evening news! They’ve become experts at the deception!”
“You’re insane,” Wu said.
“They didn’t tell the attacking soldiers in Tokyo,” Han responded. “The defending soldiers were convicts with a death penalty hanging over their heads.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Wu exclaimed, breaking free of Han’s grip.
“But it happened,” Han commented calmly. “Did you see the bodies in that bunker?”
“They were burned.”
“By whom?”
“By a soldier,” an increasingly troubled Wu replied, “in the follow-on forces. He had fuel-air munitions.”
“Had you ever seen that soldier before?” Han persisted. “Did you order him to burn the contents of that bunker? Did you ever see him again?”
Wu shook his head and turned away. “This is totally absurd!” He spun on his father. “Too many years of plotting and conspiring with those old bastards in Beijing have left you suffering from certifiable paranoia!”
Han didn’t exactly smile, but his eyes softened. “Perhaps you’re right. I mean, what kind of men would do such a thing? But one more question,” Wu’s father asked. “How were you wounded, do you remember? You couldn’t tell in the video. There was so much smoke. How did you get that wound on your face?”
Wu couldn’t remember. He raised his hand to the bruise on his forehead that had been red but was now turning yellow and brown with a tinge of purple. He had never figured out precisely what manner of projectile had struck him soundly just underneath his helmet but had not even broken his skin. He had been dazed and only semiconscious when the searing pain had creased his cheek.
Han watched his son. Watched his hand rub the bruise on his forehead. “Have you ever seen the effects of a rubber bullet?” he asked. Wu lowered his hand. His eyes remained on the blank wall before him, but he was listening. “I have,” Han continued. “In our shipyards in South Korea. We couldn’t kill the workers, who were rioting because we had decreed that they had to eat their meals at the yard, rather than take the food home. They were sharing the food that we gave them with their families, you see, and weren’t getting enough calories to be efficient on the job. Anyway, the troops fired rubber bullets at them. They’re really, sort of, these little bags filled with rubber beans, and they deliver knock-out blows without causing too much damage.”
“This is all a product of your twisted, sick political game-playing,” Wu snarled.
“But what I’m saying is true,” Han said. “I saw it with my own two eyes. I didn’t see the first time that the riots were broken up. I was in Hong Kong when I got the call to go to Seoul. But I arrived in time to see a reenactment of the riots being shot by the military. By the officer in command of naval construction, General Liu. You see, their first thought was to cover up the riots. On reflection, however, the disinformation specialists persuaded Liu that word of rioting shipworkers might lull the West into thinking that their naval construction program, which was proceeding apace, was instead experiencing delays. So I got to watch what Liu assured me was a faithful reproduction of the riots while standing beside military camera crews. They rounded up the shipworkers, set a few vehicles ablaze, and even destroyed a rusty old crane for a backdrop, then opened fire with these little beanbags.”
“I don’t believe you,” Wu persisted, but with flagging self-assurance.
“Have you inspected that laceration on your face closely?” Han asked. “A bullet goes straight. The wound would be shallow at the fringes and deeper at the rounded center of your cheek. Any bones in the way would be shattered. A knife, on the other hand, would follow the contours of your face, and the width of the laceration would be much narrower than a 5.56 mm round.”
Wu’s eyes now peered through the empty wall and stared at some imaginary point a thousand meters away. Or even farther than that. At the battlefield that had felt so real.
“Do you want to save that girl’s life?” Han asked softly. Wu turned to him and nodded. “But you understand, don’t you, that those old men back in Beijing want her to die. They can get more political traction with the story of her mistreatment by the army if she’s killed, preferably by torture. They could then harness public outrage. Do you understand? They want her dead.”