Empire Rising Read online

  Burrell’s eyes shifted nervously between the sonar display and the Weapon Launch Console. The Weapons Control Coordinator had finished assigning presets to the torpedo in Tube One, and was waiting for the torpedo tube to finish flooding down and the Torpedomen to open the outer door.

  Nearby, the submarine’s Executive Officer was directing the three men on the combat control consoles, assigning each man to one of the three Chinese submarines, determining their course, speed, and range. Commander Baughman, standing on the edge of the Conn, monitored the progress of weapon preparation, contact solution generation, and the bearing of the incoming torpedo.

  Both Baughman and Burrell’s eyes were glued to the Sonar display, trying to discern if they had fooled the torpedo and it was now passing harmlessly behind them.

  The Sonar Supervisor’s report over the 27-MC answered that question. “Torpedo is homing!”

  Sonar had detected a change in the torpedo’s ping pattern, signaling the torpedo had detected them and was refining its target solution.

  Baughman responded immediately, “Helm, right hard rudder, steady course zero-nine-zero!”

  Jacksonville kicked around hard to starboard, steadying up quickly on her new course. Everyone in Control waited tensely for Sonar’s report, wondering if the torpedo had detected Jacksonville’s turn to the east.

  “Torpedo bears two-five zero. Range two hundred yards! Still homing!”

  Ten seconds.

  Their fate was sealed.

  With ten seconds left, there was nothing they could do.

  As Burrell counted down the seconds, the faint pings of the incoming torpedo echoed through the submarine’s steel hull. He had heard the sound many times from exercise torpedoes. The frequency of these pings were a bit higher, but unmistakable nonetheless.

  When Burrell reached zero in his mental countdown, Jacksonville jolted violently forward, throwing him back against the starboard periscope. The wail of the flooding alarm filled his ears and the lights in Control fluttered, then went dark momentarily before the emergency lights kicked on. The Chief of the Watch initiated an Emergency Blow upon the Captain’s order, but the submarine soon slowed and its stern began to squat from the weight of the ocean flooding the Engine Room. As Lieutenant Burrell watched the red numbers on the digital depth detector swiftly increase, he knew Jacksonville would never surface again.

  10

  BEIJING

  Beneath the Great Hall of the People, Christine walked down a narrow corridor lit by incandescent light fixtures spaced every twenty feet, bathing gray concrete walls in weak, yellow light. Behind her followed one of the Cadre Department bodyguards. She could sense the presence of his drawn pistol pointed at her back. As her mind raced, wondering what lay ahead, she hoped Ambassador Richardson and the two DSS agents would be treated well.

  The bodyguard directed Christine down a narrow stairwell into the sublevels of the Great Hall, then down a musty corridor until they reached a metal security door with a twelve-by-twelve-inch plasma display located shoulder height on the right side of the door.

  The bodyguard spoke in English, with a heavy accent. “Step aside.”

  Christine complied, moving against the corridor wall. The man approached the plasma display and began to place his hand on the panel when he pulled up short, his hand going to his ear instead. He turned and faced Christine as he listened to the receiver in his ear, finally speaking into his jacket sleeve in Chinese.

  He dropped his arm, addressing Christine. “We wait.”

  * * *

  Several minutes passed while Christine and the bodyguard waited in the dimly lit hallway, the silence finally broken by the sound of approaching footsteps. Christine looked down the corridor the way they had come, spotting Yang Minsheng, head of Xiang’s security detail.

  Yang eyed Christine again as he approached, but said nothing as he passed both the bodyguard and Christine, stopping at the security door where he placed his right palm on the plasma display. The display lit up upon his touch, and a bright, vertical red light scanned his palm from left to right. After the scan was complete, the metal door slid open, revealing an identical corridor to the one they were in, except for several dozen doors spaced ten feet apart, lining the left wall.

  Detention cells, no doubt.

  Yang passed through the doorway, and the other bodyguard motioned for Christine to follow. Christine stopped when she reached the doorway, her anxiety increasing. Yang turned, and noticing her hesitation, gave a command to the other guard. A second later, Christine felt a firm hand on her back, shoving her forward.

  She stumbled into Yang and he grabbed her, holding her against his body longer than was necessary, the musky scent of his cologne assailing her. She looked up, his eyes probing hers for a moment, then he shoved her against the wall with one hand. His hand remained on her chest, his palm between her breasts, his fingers touching her bare skin where her blouse parted. Then he ripped her blouse open, exposing the top of her breasts and her white lace bra.

  He stepped back and spoke to the Cadre Department bodyguard. The guard retrieved a set of keys from his pants and unlocked the nearest door.

  As the door opened, Yang pulled Christine away from the wall by her arm and shoved her inside the darkened room. The lights flicked on a second later and Christine took in the Spartan accommodations—a small cot against one wall and a toilet along the other. The door closed, leaving Christine inside the cell with the two men. Yang spoke to the other man, nodding in Christine’s direction.

  There was no doubt what was about to happen. But she wasn’t going to take this lying down, so to speak. Even against two men, she could inflict a reasonable amount of pain. She knew she’d be on the losing end of a physical confrontation, but she really didn’t have much choice.

  Yang spoke again, but the guard hesitated. Christine could see the reservation in his eyes and hope set in. Perhaps she could leverage his concern into a way out of her predicament. But then Yang leaned toward him and whispered into his ear, and the restraint melted from the guard’s eyes. He licked his lips as his eyes devoured her body, his leering gaze undressing her. He took off his jacket and handed it to Yang, along with his pistol and holster. Christine’s eyes went to Yang as the man handed him his jacket. Yang was watching the other guard with a sly smile. If she survived this ordeal, she would find a way to hunt Yang down and kill him.

  Her eyes shifted back to the other man, and her thoughts returned to defending herself from the pending assault. Christine’s pulse began to race, her heart pounding as she backed up, pressing her body against the cold, concrete wall, putting as much distance between her and the two men in a futile effort to delay the inevitable.

  The man dropped his hands to his waist, loosening his belt, and Christine’s panic crested and then broke, the fear flowing past her. She took a defiant step forward with her left foot, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet as she raised both hands in front of her in a defensive posture. She wasn’t going down without a fight. The man pulled the belt from his waist, wrapping it around his fist, the buckle tight along the outside of his knuckles.

  Yang raised his pistol and pointed it at Christine. In clear, unaccented English, he said, “Let’s not make this more difficult than it needs to be, Ms. O’Connor. I have no desire to hurt you.”

  Christine almost laughed at the absurdity of his comment. “I suppose rape doesn’t hurt?”

  Yang stared at her with dark eyes for a moment, then swung the pistol toward the other guard’s head. He pulled the trigger and a red puff exited the opposite side of the man’s head, the moisture splattering against the far wall of the cell. The Cadre Department bodyguard crumpled to the floor.

  She stared in stunned silence as Yang stuffed the pistol inside the waistband of his trousers. He opened the cell door, then stepped into the corridor, turning back toward Christine. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  * * *

  Christine stood frozen at the back
of the cell, staring at the pool of blood spreading across the gray concrete floor, trying to make sense of what had happened.

  “Come, Christine!” Yang called from the hallway.

  The sound of his voice spurred her into action. Stepping over the corpse, Christine entered the corridor as she rebuttoned her shirt. Yang was busy at the security door, typing something into a touch-screen plasma display, identical to the one on the other side of the door. Christine stopped next to him, glancing alternately between his face and the plasma display, attempting to discern what he was doing and why he had murdered the Cadre Department bodyguard.

  Yang finished tapping the display. “Give me your right hand.”

  “What for?”

  “There are other security doors you must pass through to escape. I cannot accompany you so I’m entering you into the security system.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I work for your country,” Yang said quickly, followed by something in Chinese. Christine sensed a reservation in his voice. Yang followed up in English, “One heart, one soul. One mind, one goal,” as if that explained everything.

  Yang slipped his left hand into his pants pocket, retrieving what looked like a USB flash drive. “This flash drive contains the details of China’s military offensive. Without this, the United States has no chance of defeating the PLA.

  “Now give me your hand,” he added.

  Christine offered her right hand and Yang placed her palm on the plasma screen. A bright red light scanned across the display. After the scan was complete, Christine pulled her hand back and a menu screen appeared. Yang tapped several of the Chinese characters, stopping when the display blinked green. He tapped three more buttons, and the schematics of the Great Hall appeared. With two taps and sideways slide across the glass panel with two fingers, he shifted the schematics to their current location.

  “We’re here,” he said, “and you need to travel this path.” Yang traced his index finger along several corridors, pointing to a set of stairs she needed to ascend two levels. “There’s a security camera above the exit door, which I’ve disabled. They’ll eventually figure out which exit you departed from, but it will gain you valuable time. You must move fast once you are outside the Great Hall, but not so fast that you attract attention. Understand?”

  Christine nodded as Yang continued. “There’s a CIA safe house not far from here. After you exit the Great Hall, cross the street into Tiananmen Square, then head south through Zhengyang Gate onto Qianmen Street. Go three blocks and turn left into the first alley after Dajiang Hutong. Follow the alley and someone will find you.”

  Yang placed the flash drive into the palm of her left hand and the dead bodyguard’s pistol into her right.

  “When I learned of your meeting with the president, I planned to slip this flash drive to you after the meeting. The PLA will not discover the drive is missing until their inventory Friday afternoon. Until then, they will simply be searching for America’s national security advisor. You and this drive must be out of the city by Friday afternoon. If not, I fear you will not leave Beijing alive.”

  “What about you?” Christine asked. “What are they going to do to you when they find out what you’ve done?”

  “They will not find out,” Yang said. “The dead bodyguard is the only one who knew I came down here.” Yang folded Christine’s fingers into a fist, wrapping them securely around the flash drive in her hand. He offered her a warm smile before he added, “You don’t have much time. The security patrols outside will be heading past this part of the Great Hall in ten minutes. You must pass through the ringlet of trees and into Tiananmen Square before then. Go now.”

  Things were moving too fast. A minute ago she was a prisoner in the Great Hall of the People, and now her escape was being orchestrated by the head of President Xiang’s security detail.

  “Dajiang Hutong. Hurry!” Yang began entering commands into the plasma screen.

  Christine’s mind and body were numb, processing what had happened in the last fifteen minutes. She turned slowly, then took a step forward, followed by another, willing her body into motion. It wasn’t long before she was jogging, then sprinting down the desolate corridor.

  11

  BAISHAWAN BEACH, TAIWAN

  Her bare feet left deep imprints in the soft white sand, barely visible in the fading light before they were washed away by gentle waves breaking upon the shore. As day transitioned to night, Peng Weijie could barely make out the silhouette of volcanic cliffs rising a few hundred yards inland. Weijie enjoyed her walks along the sandy shore each day, and the scenery even more. On the northern tip of Taiwan, just forty minutes from Taipei City, Baishawan Beach offered spectacular views of both the east and west. In the early morning hours, the approaching dawn illuminated the horizon in an inspiring fusion of pink and orange hues, and in the evening, the crimson sun set upon her country, stolen by the communists.

  Weijie was only five when her family fled the mainland. She could still recall the image clearly—peering over the rusty railing of an aging fishing trawler at the disappearing shoreline, clinging to her mother’s leg as they fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek and what remained of his supporters. As the trawler pitched in the rough seas, fighting its way across the Strait, the loss was almost unbearable. Their father had been killed by the Red Army in the waning days of China’s bloody civil war.

  That was over sixty years ago, and Weijie remained proudly defiant. Her people would never succumb to their larger and more powerful neighbor. She feared the communists would eventually attempt to take their small refuge by force, but they would not be easily conquered. She cast a reassuring glance at the volcanic cliffs. The plateau was populated with dozens of early-warning radars and missile batteries, defending what remained of her homeland. Beneath her fierce defiance, however, Weijie harbored a glimmer of hope that their two countries would indeed be united, her children and grandchildren inhabiting a single, democratic China.

  As Weijie’s thoughts turned to her family, she looked forward to tomorrow’s visit by her daughter and granddaughter. She and her daughter would swing Xiaotien between them as they walked along the beach, dipping the child’s feet into the ocean. Weijie’s rumination ended when she stepped on something hard in the soft sand. Stooping to examine the object, she unearthed a mollusk shell, its striated colors shimmering even in the dim light of dusk. Xiaotien would be thrilled to add it to her collection.

  Weijie stood, brushing off the remaining sand, and was about to put the shell into her pocket when an unusual sound coming from the west captured her attention. As the sound grew louder, Weijie watched as hundreds of tiny, bright red lights streaked overhead. Seconds later, explosions rocked the peaceful shore, illuminating the plateau in a splattering of fire while hundreds of bright red dots continued inland. After a fearful glance at the darkening west, Weijie turned and ran toward home, dropping the shell onto the soft white sand. To the east, the horizon was alight in an orange glow.

  12

  BEIJING

  A blood-red moon hung low over the city as Christine burst into the cool night air, her breath condensing into a white mist. Behind her, the security door swung slowly shut, clicking into place next to a plasma display matching the one on the other side of the door. Christine paused for a moment to catch her breath as she examined her surroundings, barely visible in the weak moonlight. As Yang mentioned, there was a camera mounted above the door, and the small LED light beneath the lens was dark. Surrounded by ten-foot-high granite walls, she stood in a small C-shaped alcove with the fourth side open. The night sounds around her were a strange contradiction; the high-pitched chirping of nearby crickets, almost masked by the sound of cars traversing a busy street not far away.

  Christine was carrying an object in each hand: a flash drive in one and a semiautomatic pistol in the other. She searched for a place to hide both items. The flash drive slid into a slim pocket in her slacks, but there was no easy way to hide the
pistol. Thankfully, she was wearing a business suit, and she folded her arms across her chest as if warding off the evening chill, tucking the pistol inside her jacket.

  The events of the last few minutes jumbled though her mind as she stood in the small alcove, but there was only one item of relevance at the moment: the security guards who would sweep past this part of the Great Hall in a few minutes. There was no time to lose. She moved cautiously to the alcove exit, which opened to a twenty-foot-wide swath of concrete encircling the Great Hall, bordered by a ringlet of trees. Beyond that was the busy Guang Chang Boulevard and Tiananmen Square.

  After verifying that no one was within sight, Christine hurried across the concrete path, slipping into the cypress and pine trees. She picked her way through the uneven terrain, reaching the far edge of the trees a minute later. Tiananmen Square was across the street. She hoped she could reach the CIA safe house without drawing attention. She was a Caucasian with auburn hair, but it was dark and if she kept her face down, perhaps she could blend in.

  Standing a few feet inside the tree line, she scanned the busy street, searching for the best place to cross, spotting a crosswalk fifty feet to her right. She waited for a break in the pedestrian traffic, then stepped onto the sidewalk unnoticed. As she approached the crosswalk, the electronic crossing sign turned from a red stick figure to a green one, and Christine fell in a few feet behind a man and a woman engaged in conversation. After crossing the street and entering the west edge of Tiananmen Square, the couple turned left while Christine continued straight ahead, her eyes scanning the sparsely populated square.

  There was a cluster of boisterous young men in the northeast corner of the square, with a few dozen other people traversing the concrete expanse, some meandering hand in hand while others hurried across. Directly ahead of Christine rose the Monument to the People’s Heroes, a 120-foot-tall granite obelisk bathed in bright white light. As she approached the lower of two tiers of white marble railing surrounding the monument, she turned right and headed toward the south exit of Tiananmen Square.