Invasion: Alaska (7 page)

“We can’t leave the series at a tie,” Stan said.

Bill nodded. “It’s more fun with a winner. Since this is the last game, should we volley for serve?”

“I lost the last game. Loser gets first serve next game.”

“Oh, okay,” said Bill, with an at-least-I-tried grin.

Stan kept bouncing the ball on his paddle. There was a distracted look on his face. He had been trying to forget about his dilemma all night. Trying to beat Bill had done that, but now…. He hadn’t wanted to bring this up, but after this game, he’d be leaving.

“Is anything wrong?” asked Bill.

Stan nodded. “It’s Sergeant Jackson.”

“The police officer?”

“I think he wants to bust my dad.” Then the words gushed out as Stan asked, “Is it wrong to hold a grudge?”

“Do you mean is it wrong for the officer to hold a grudge against your dad? Or is it wrong for you to hold a grudge against the officer?”

Stan looked up, letting the ping-pong ball bounce on the table and onto the floor.

“Bitterness never helps anyone,” Bill said.

“I know.”

“You need to forgive Sergeant Jackson for what he did to your dad.”

Stan scowled. “I understand what you’re saying….” He shook his head.

“Well, think of it like—”

“I’m sorry,” said Stan, as the bulb flickered again. “It’s late. We’d better finish the series before the power cuts off.” He retrieved the orange ball and took his serving stance.

“I know this can be a hard topic,” Bill said.

Stan didn’t want to think about it anymore. He should have known Bill would tell him to give his worry to God. Now Bill would start talking about it. Stan decided to put an end to the lecture, serving the ball, using a crafty spin.

Surprised by the serve, Bill moved too late. He still managed to hit the ball, but it zoomed into the net.

“One to zero,” Stan said.

Bill glanced at him. “One to zero,” he said, his voice changing from its reflective pastor’s tone to his competitive voice. Then the two friends began to play in earnest, this being the final match of the night.

BEIJING, P.R.C.

Jian Shihong rode in the back of a limousine as he passed big Chinese cars. City traffic moved past massive buildings in the heart of Beijing. The construction boom had altered the city. The rich lived in palaces, sprawling villas with gold inlaid marble, redwood furniture and magnificent gardens. The latest craze was having a zoo on one’s property with tigers, leopards, pandas, baboons—Jian had purchased a polar bear. He was inordinately proud of it and hoped to buy a male so he could mate them.

The heart of Beijing possessed titanic structures, showing the opulence of oil-rich China. It was a tribute to the nation’s greatness, to its power. Above the massive structures was the even larger Mao Square with the Politburo Building and the Chairman’s quarters. Glass towers reflected the sun’s light, while gigantic statues beggared the imagination. The Chairman had a mania for architecture. He wanted to show the world and China’s millions that nothing could compare with the present government. The construction boom flowered throughout China’s coastal region, and particularly here in Beijing.

The big cars manufactured in Chinese automotive plants moved along wide avenues as hordes surged along the extra-large sidewalks. Beijing had become the mightiest city on Earth.

Jian witnessed this but he enjoyed none of it as his security personnel escorted him to Mao Square. He was late for the meeting with the Chairman, a meeting that could well decide his fate in the world.

***

Jian Shihong hurried into a large room on the third floor of the Chairman’s governmental quarters. Huge paintings of former chairmen hung on the walls, beginning with Mao Zedong and ending with the present ruler of Greater China. They were painted in a heroic style. The portrait of the present Chairman showed a strong, youthful man with a wild shock of hair and an outthrust chin. It had little in common with the old man in the wheelchair sitting at the head of the table.

Jian nodded a greeting to the Minister of the Navy, an old admiral with a bald dome. Compared to the Chairman, the admiral was an example of youthful vigor.

The Chairman’s chin presently touched his chest and his eyes were closed. His withered hands rested on his lap, one covered by a plaid blanket. The formerly wild hair was combed to the right, and it was much thinner, showing patches of skull. A degenerative disease had been eating away at his strength for years now, radically altering a once hard-charging dictator. In earlier days, the Chairman had re-forged the old Communist Party into the Socialist-Nationalist organ that now swelled with the pride of nearly two billion Chinese. His vision had led the country through the terrible crises of 2019. The fact that it had been the Chairman’s guiding hand in 2016 that caused China to unload her U.S. Bonds had been carefully weeded from the history books. That unloading had brought about the American banking and stock market collapse, which in turn had started the Sovereign Debt Depression throughout the world. That worldwide shock had brought about the crises of 2019 in China.

Under the Chairman’s brilliance, China had emerged from the Sovereign Debt Depression as the most powerful nation on Earth. He had led them in the swift but profitable war against Siberia, then in the orgasmic Invasion of Taiwan and lastly in forging the Pan Asian League. Wresting Japan from America’s military orbit had been his greatest diplomatic coup.

The Chairman snored softly at the head of the table, gnome-like in appearance, but still holding the reins of power in his arthritic hands. His security personnel surrounded the building, hard-eyed killers chosen for their loyalty and willingness to murder anyone that the Chairman indicated. Ruthless secret policemen backed them. Those policemen used computers, truth serums and secret chambers to tear needed information from suspects. In the majority of cases, however, the Chairman used a velvet glove in his dealings. His deftness had won him much. But the iron was still there, as was the willingness to crush any opponent.

Like the others, Jian Shihong feared the Chairman. Jian wondered, as surely the others must, if the degenerative disease might one day cause the Chairman to institute a bloodbath as Mao had done during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Despite the fear, Jian and the others attempted to maneuver the dying old man toward their particular projects. The Chairmen had become like an olden emperor, with Deng Fong as his prime minister and the others vying to gain the Chairman’s ear.

“Your tardiness surely indicates the contempt you feel toward the rest of us, Agricultural Minister,” Deng said.

“I beg your pardon,” Jian said. He’d had trouble at one of the checkpoints. It dawned on him that Deng might have engineered the trouble. The possibility put an icicle of renewed fear through Jian. Had Deng corrupted the Chairman’s bodyguards? Was Deng broadcasting his ability to assassinate the Chairman at his leisure? Jian wondered if he might have been wiser going to Deng in secret, falling on his knees and begging to become one of his followers.

Who am I to race with tigers?
Jian thought to himself. These past weeks had been torture, as two more rice-riots had occurred in different parts of the country. Jian had maneuvered hard to keep his post, secretly using the last of his hidden food reserves to bolster stocks in the cities. In several months, real famine would stalk the inner provinces. They must find more sources of food.

In the old days before the new glacial period, the Earth’s food supply had come from two major areas: the great green plains of Europe and Russia and the American plains. China’s rice plains had helped, as had other regions. But the bulk of the food supply to feed the masses, the world’s billions, came from the two mighty plains. With the new glaciation, the Gulf Stream had changed its flow, causing massive freezing on the European and Russian plains. America was still blessed with warm enough weather to produce bumper crops. It meant that a starving world looked to America and to its Grain Union allies. It meant that Chinese wealth could only scrape up so much food on the open market. Then it needed the Grain Union’s storehouses. China needed American permission to buy.

Deng Fong stirred. He did not look like a tiger. He was in his mid-seventies and had a weak left eye that he could barely keep open. He wore a black suit of the finest make and had strangely smooth skin. It was one of Deng’s vanities, skin-tucks. Stories about his sexual exploits were legendary, as were the amounts of his testosterone injections and Viagra with which he was said to indulge himself.

Jian turned on his computer, one built into the table. He knew that one of the Chairman’s people would analyze everything he brought up, everything he read. The Chairman loved psychological profiles, placing an inordinate trust in them. Therefore, Jian had memorized a list of items he would look up here, items given him by his staff.

Deng cleared his throat, the sound aimed toward the head of the table. He sat nearest the Chairman. The Chairman snorted, and his eyelids flickered. Slowly, the old man opened his eyes, and just as slowly, the Chairman straightened his body. Everyone here knew it pained the old man to sit straight. They could see it on his face. But he did it anyway, refusing to hunch, and that frightened Jian. The Chairman examined each of them in turn. Jian felt the gaze like hot pokers in his soul.

There were four other Politburo members in the room. They belonged to the Ruling Committee, the Chairman’s inner circle of advisors.

Jian’s key ally was the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Qingshan, tall, handsome and still athletic at seventy-one. He was easily the most adventuresome personality in the room in terms of military action. Qingshan and Deng were bitter enemies.

“Sir,” Deng told the Chairman. “I’m afraid that I have terrible news to report.”

The Chairman swiveled his head so those hot eyes locked onto Deng Fong.

“Sir,” Deng said, “I am afraid that we have taken a viper amongst us. We have trusted a warmonger who plans to tread on the charred remains of a billion corpses so he can climb to supreme power.”

“Elaborate,” whispered the Chairman.

The whispery dry words tightened Jian’s stomach, and suddenly, the room felt much too warm.

Deng bowed his head and turned toward Jian, staring at him fixedly. “There is one among us who sabotaged my talks in Sydney. I believe he did it in hopes of stirring war. This war will cover his negligent mistakes in the agricultural sector. He would rather see millions die in a nuclear exchange than have his corrupt mishandling brought to light.”

“These are serious charges,” the Chairman whispered.

Jian now felt limp with fear as Deng turned to the old man in the wheelchair. Jian hadn’t expected a direct and personal assault today. Even more, he hadn’t expected Deng to bypass Admiral Qingshan in his admonishments. That had been part of the genius of Jian’s plan, or so he’d told himself more than once. Admiral Qingshan had authorized the commando mission against the American oil well. Jian had hoped to use the admiral as a shield as Qingshan bore the brunt of Deng’s verbal assault. Now—

“The Agricultural Minister used his insidious and occult powers to warp Admiral Qingshan’s good judgment,” Deng was saying. “He lured the admiral and tricked him into committing an adventurous and foolhardy act at precisely the wrong moment. The destruction of the American oil well occurred in the early morning, twelve hours before I would speak alone with the American Secretary of State. It sabotaged what I believe would have been a healing accord between our two nations. The Americans have grain. We have oil. The Americans need oil and we need grain. What better way to bring harmony between our two nations than trading oil for grain?”

You didn’t count on me learning about your plan, you cunning snake,
Jian thought. Deng would have been the hero, bringing grain to a hungry nation. He would die as the failed Agricultural Minister. No, he had a different plan.

“Please excuse my interruption,” Jian said. “With your permission, sir,” he said to the Chairman, “I would like to point out certain salient points that Minister Fong has conveniently forgotten.”

The Chairman’s head swiveled slightly so those ancient eyes fell onto Jian. Again, Jian felt the power there, and knew now that his life was in peril.

“Speak,” the Chairman whispered in his ancient voice, “but make it brief.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jian said. His voice sounded weak. He would never convince anyone if he came across as timid. Sitting straighter, clearing his throat, he spoke in a deeper tone, trying to come across as assured. “Three years ago, at Minister Fong’s insistence, I took over the Agricultural Ministry.”

“You snatched at the opportunity for power,” Deng said. “You acted like a monkey in a panda tree.”

“Let him speak,” said the Chairman.

Deng bowed his head.

Jian blinked in amazement. Deng’s inappropriate words gave him confidence, and the rebuff from the Chairman—Jian felt his hopes soar. Then he wondered if the rebuff might have been engineered beforehand to give the appearance of fairness on the Chairman’s part. The thought was sobering, and it constricted his throat.

Jian lifted a glass of water, sipping, trying to marshal his thoughts. “As I was saying, sir, gentlemen, I took over the Agricultural Ministry at Minister Fong’s insistence. It was hoped I could turn around the disastrous failures of the previous years. I worked with painstaking zeal, routinely putting in sixteen-hour workdays. I tried many expedients. The sad truth is that nature has conspired against China. Glaciation combined with our great population has made self-sufficiency in foodstuffs an impossibility. It is the same everywhere as famine stalks the planet. Only a few nations export grain or other foods. Occidentals of European origin control each of the grain-exporting nations. They have formed a union—”