Razing Beijing: A Thriller (52 page)

The two men stared at each other. Stuart’s face burned with
anger.

McBurney said, “I assure you the FBI’s capable of handling
this matter. I do know a little about what’s going on. I can tell you that it’s
not directly a CIA matter, and that the FBI takes these unresolved issues
seriously. It might make sense not to approach anyone other than the
authorities with your story, at least for now. What measures have you taken to
protect your daughter?”

“I’ve sent her where I’m sure she’ll be safe. But I can’t
keep her there forever. And I won’t live my life surrounded by bodyguards.”

McBurney shook his head. “I really am sorry about your
situation. You’ve got to understand, though. Domestic investigations are
outside my legal bounds. Your recourse is with the FBI. I don’t know what I can
possibly do to help you.”

“You truly don’t collaborate on something like this? Maybe
we’re in worse shape than I thought.”

“Collaborate on something like what?”
What does this guy
know about Emily Chang and Beijing?

Stuart clenched his fists—for a moment McBurney thought the
guy might actually reach over the table and slug him. “It’s very possible the
lives of my daughter and Emily Chang are both on the line.” Stuart leveled a
finger at McBurney’s chest. “You say the FBI handles this sort of thing—fine. Do
me a favor. Tell them to get off my back and go find who really murdered these
people.” Stuart tossed a five-dollar bill onto the table, and stormed out of
the diner.

Monday, June 22

Beijing, China

WHO’S NEWS

Thanatechnology Corporation Says Stuart Resigns
Executive Post

—————————

By a
WSJ
Staff
Reporter

CLEVELAND, Ohio—
Thanatechnology Corp
. said Robert
Stuart, the aircraft engine manufacturer’s vice president for development
operations, resigned ‘to pursue other interests.’

A spokesman for
Coherent Light Incorporated
, a
Richmond, Va. firm co-founded by Mr. Stuart in 2002, confirms that talks are
underway for negotiating Stuart’s return.

Mr. Stuart, 41 years old, had been with Thanatech for
just under 4 years and served as vice president for the entirety. His
resignation was effective immediately. No successor has been chosen. Thanatechnology
was the second-largest U.S. manufacturer of military and commercial aircraft
engines at the end of last year.

Separately, sources inside the company claim that
development difficulties plaguing their next-generation commercial product
offering (WSJ, January 12) are nearing resolution. Neither Messrs. Stuart nor
Cole, the president and chief executive officer of the Cleveland-based concern,
could be reached for comment.

Deng squinted to read the English words beneath the dusk
sky descending over the park. His recollection of Robert Stuart occurred to him
immediately upon reading his name. He was reminded again how readily Americans
bounced from
danwei
to
danwei
with perplexing flexibility. Indeed,
he hadn’t known that Stuart ever left this CLI for another company, let alone
that he had apparently returned.

Peifu said to his father, “Some articles quote the company
in the context of corporate financial information. I assumed you had no
interest in those. Would you like me to retrieve all of them?”

Deng paged back through the dozen or so articles, the product
of an Internet search, clipped together in reverse chronological order. Several
discussed the company’s latest medical products, a plan to expand revenue
growth with a push into the telecommunications services industry—all of it
information freely accessible from most any computer terminal on the planet,
with the exception of China. He asked his son whether or not there had been any
mention of fraudulent or criminal activity. Not that he had reason to believe
there would be any, a fact Peifu confirmed in the negative.

From there in Beijing, the Ministry of Information Industry
regulated every aspect of Internet access. Inside government offices, only
select Party elites using special codes gained access to proxy servers in order
to read foreign news media, until frequent attacks by anonymous hackers brought
restrictions to bear on even that limited practice. It had been common
knowledge for years that students and academicians, while civil in chat rooms
that the information ministry propagandized, regularly disregarded controls in
order to engineer breaches of government firewalls. Deng had heard recently
that new decryption technologies allowed the ministry to weed out unregistered
Internet servers and those who frequented them.

“Tell me, how is it that you were able to search these
without attracting scrutiny?”

Looking perturbed, Peifu removed his hand from his coat
pocket and gestured at the pages in his father’s hands. “I haven’t asked you
what you plan to do with those, have I?”

Deng folded the pages and stuffed them inside his coat. “I
already suspected your capabilities, or I would not have asked you to help me. Do
not fault me for being concerned about whatever it is that draws you away from
your family at night.”

His son stared out over the pond.

Deng said, “The other night, I had the opportunity to
observe the police break up a mob of dissident hooligans not far from Beijing
University. Actually, not very far from your office.”
And you were there
among them, were you not?
“They appeared as if they were trying to post
some sort of logo or cult symbol.”

“They are not hooligans. They are not members of a cult.”

“Defacing government buildings is criminal activity. I can
tell you something else. State Security officials are as nervous as dogs in a
hailstorm with all that’s going on, and illicit Internet access is not the only
thing they are clamping down on. Those students they arrested will talk. Listen
to me. It is not just
you
that they will be coming after.” Deng studied
his son while yearning to see some sign of dawning uneasiness.

Instead, Peifu removed a sheet of paper from inside of his
coat and handed it to his father. “This is what I found on the doctor.”

Deng eagerly accepted the sheet and unfolded it. While
following up on Dr. Wu’s offer to determine the whereabouts of his missing
physicist, Deng had visited Capital Hospital only to discover Dr. Wu now
missing. ‘Transferred,’ was the explanation offered by virtually all, yet no
one on even Wu’s own staff could say to which hospital or province the man had
been reassigned. Deng’s hammering fist on the party official’s door had yielded
nothing. Dr. Wu was on the surgical staff at Capital for as long as Deng had
known him. Talented doctors were revered like pearls, they did not simply
vanish.

Deng looked up from the sheet of paper. “His phone number
at Capital Hospital? That’s it?”

“If they mean to hide somebody, the Internet is probably
the last place you will find him.”

Deng sighed. He supposed he should not be surprised. “I
hope nobody has been put at unacceptable risk as a result of your researching
this.”

Peifu shook his head.

Deng reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. “Curfew,”
he reminded his son, and they began the walk home.

Xichang, China

DENG WAS DISAPPOINTED
to
note only a few paltry signs of progress as he entered the Long March assembly
bay, where most of the thirty-nine ton spacecraft’s subassemblies appeared to
be undergoing their final preparation. High atop the beam steering mechanism,
the aperture doors had been installed and the entire module wrapped in sheets
of cellophane, as were the guidance, laser and capacitor modules. The
thirteen-meter folding solar panel arrays, ungainly as they were, had been
retracted to their payload launch configuration
like the promising petals of
a rose
, Deng rather whimsically imagined.

His eye was drawn to one rather irritating laggard, the
computer support system. Floodlights illuminated the module’s interior where
the access ports had all been removed. Umbilical cables snaked out and down several
meters to the floor, where racks of portable computer and diagnostic equipment
attested to both the challenge and source of persistent doubt. He would expect
to find the various sophisticated implements for resolving their software
difficulties. What perplexed him was the conspicuous absence of even
one
soul actively working the problem. Deng swiveled his head all around. In a room
large enough to accommodate two satellite vehicles, he counted
three
technicians. Rather than working, these individuals stood near the top level of
the gantry and gazed down at him and Korzhakov.
Was this any way to adhere
to a schedule?

Suddenly fit to be tied, Deng rounded on Korzhakov. Korzhakov
in turn beamed him an odd smile. To Deng’s further astonishment, the scientist
actually dared to chuckle.

“What is going on here?” he demanded.

An eruption of applause and laughter drew Deng’s attention
to dozens of bunny-suited engineers spilling in from the adjoining utility
room.

Korzhakov was clearly amused by Deng’s slow uptake. “We
have good news to report. At 4:12 this morning, a simulation routine
successfully converged on a solution—the first time since incorporating the new
targeting algorithms.”

Deng was numbed by the news. “What were the boundary
conditions?” Was their hubris perhaps premature?

“You can relax, Commissioner. We have repeated it numerous
times with permutations of extreme atmospheric distortion. We even superimposed
several worst case predictions for photonic emission.”

Deng nodded in vague recognition. The simulation did not
actually involve firing the laser, and for that reason the adaptive optics were
unable to sample and correct the flight of the beam through the atmosphere. Duplicating
the event from orbit, incorporating the upgraded software while pointing
through hundreds of kilometers of atmosphere, would be the only conclusive
test.

None knew this better than the many skilled men and women
who approached him, heads held high despite their fatigue. Deng smiled broadly.
“Congratulations, all of you. Tell me, how did you finally succeed?”

Gripping the offered hands of exuberant engineers,
Korzhakov turned toward Deng wearing a confused frown. “Why, we knew all along
what it would take. It was Zhao and his software egg-heads.”

“Zhao? Zhao is here?”

“You did not know this?”

DR. ZHAO’S SALLOW COLOR
,
hollow cheeks and sunken eyes suggested a recent state of acute illness. Deng
was relieved if not a little confused by the esteemed physicist’s return, but
found his explanation of a prolonged hospital stay somehow incomplete. Was he
on medication? Were there limitations for him to observe on the job? Even a
mild stroke victim suffered some permanent loss of mental acuity. And
notwithstanding the excuses offered by State Security, it remained unclear why no
one had been permitted to contact members of Zhao’s family.

Deng’s concern for Dr. Zhao’s well being shifted to the
subject of his colleagues’ current discussion, the risks of the next phase. For
the software installation completed in the early hours of the morning, Zhao and
his engineers had adhered to strict production procedures. To duplicate this
process in orbit meant a total computer software uninstall, prior to up-linking
the improved master code in its entirety—the risk being that Vehicle One’s orbiting
computers could be rendered permanently inoperable. Nobody agreed upon how to
proceed.

Deng finally tired of the angry back-and-forth debate over
the contemplated series of uninstalls, reinstalls, and partial installs. “We go
with Zhao’s approach. Dr. Zhao, you will see that your engineers work very hard
not to scramble Vehicle Two’s brains. Be sure to keep Korzhakov’s geniuses in
the loop, if you please.”
Like herding cats
, he thought, shaking his
head.

Following further argument, Zhao and Korzhakov grudgingly agreed
that the revised satellite uplink procedure could be ready to go in three or
four days. Deng thought to mention that he would need to be on hand for the
encryption protocol. So far as he knew, the one other person with access to the
satellite’s security codes was an intelligence officer in the Military
Commission, whose identity was not known to him.

Finally, they agreed that if the new uplink procedure
proved successful, Vehicle One could actually be ready for a full demonstration
in a week—the pinnacle of decades of work was fast approaching. The discussion
adjourned. Grumbling his dissent, Korzhakov left his two Chinese partners in
order to delve into his work.

While patiently waiting for Zhao to finish penciling an
entry into his notebook, Deng wondered what medical procedure might be
responsible for the tiny scars healing over his friend’s cheekbones. “I’m happy
to see you up on your feet. And I’ll share a little secret with you: so is
Korzhakov.”

Zhao smiled weakly. “Your man Korzhakov is rightfully proud
of their work. We would be lost without them.”

Deng flipped through the paper corners of the massive
simulation printout. He felt his giddiness return over the morning’s success. “Do
you think it’s actually going to work?”

Zhao considered Deng’s question with his characteristic
gravity. “Yes, I actually do. The question for me has always been whether the
net quantum efficiency of the photon counters will be adequate. Most of the empirical
data has been derived for space telescopes by pointing these devices into
space—not down at the earth. But I’ve tended to be optimistic, if for no other
reason than those at CERN, and in America, who apparently share my optimism. Except...”
Zhao looked away.