Hong Kong (31 page)

"This computer failure the story speaks of, could it have been sab-otage?

"We do not know."

"Find out," Sun snapped. "Immediately," he added and shooed the aide out.

The story was libel, of course. Well, probably libel.

Sure, there were grotesquely greedy men in government—there had been misfits and rogues in every government in every age since the world began. And of course some of these misfits might have twisted arms in the Hong Kong banking community. But to suppose that these people, if they did owe money to the local banks, would destroy the banks so they wouldn't have to pay it back? The whole thing was preposterous, pure poppycock.

And even if the story were true, this rag should never have printed it. The sole purpose of such a story was to lower the people's respect for the government and the men who made it function.

Mao would never have tolerated such disrespectful diatribes from anyone, Sun told himself primly, and certainly he should not.

Regardless of what the bureaucrats in Beijing thought, the time had come to take off the gloves with these people. Show them the government's steel backbone and this type of libelous misbehavior will stop.

Sun was capable of applying the pressure, of crushing enemies of the state. He didn't have many skills, but at least he had that one. He picked up the telephone on his desk and told his secretary to call General Tang.

Tang came to City Hall by car to confer with Sun. The two of them ate a hurried breakfast of rice and fish at Sun's desk while they waited for a call to Beijing to be returned. An aide came in and told them that the subway trains refused to operate this morning. "It is the doors," the aide said. "The administrator of the system says the doors will not open on the trains."

"Can't they be opened manually?"

"Yes, but then they cannot be closed. The chief engineer blames the fluctuations in the power grid."

When the minister in Beijing called, he was obviously distraught. "First Hong Kong, now the nation is under attack. We do not even know who the enemy is, and he is wounding us seriously."

Sun didn't have a clue what the minister was talking about. He made noises anyway.

The minister explained: "Several hours ago our ballistic missiles exploded in their silos, starting horrible fires that threaten to contaminate large areas. Last night the Hong Kong and Shanghai banking systems collapsed, the stock exchanges cannot open, the railroad dispatch computer refuses to come on-line, refineries all over the country have had to shut down to prevent dangerous conditions progressing to explosions and fires ... and every air traffic control and GCI radar in the country is mysteriously broken. The nation is wide open to an aerial invasion, and we won't know it is coming until enemy troops arrive at the gates." His voice rose an octave here.

The minister paused to get himself under control. "Obviously the nation is under cyberattack. The telephone network has been used to sabotage critical computers. The premier has decreed that the telephone system be shut off on the hour, in ten minutes, until such time as the critical systems can be brought back on-line, our enemies identified and rendered harmless, and future attacks of this sort guarded against."

Sun couldn't believe his ears. He pushed the mute button on the speaker phone and asked General Tang, "What is a cyberattack?"

"Computers," Tang replied.

The minister was still going on, about how Sun should notify Beijing immediately of any change in the situation in Hong Kong, and then he hung up, leaving Sun staring at the little telephone speaker on his desk, quite unable to grasp the import of what he had just heard.

"They are turning off the telephone system?" he asked General Tang.

"So he said."

"The Taiwanese," Sun said bitterly. "I have argued for years that China must bring those rascals to heel. Events will prove me right."

"I suspect the Japanese," General Tang shot back. "They are our natural enemies."

They finished eating in silence, each man deep in his own thoughts.

When they pushed the plates back, they discussed the situation. They were on dangerous ground and they knew it. The nation under cyberattack from unknown enemies, the power of the government being tested here in Hong Kong ...

The right course of action was unclear. Still, they were the men who would have to answer to Beijing for inaction as well as action.

When he had heard Tang out, bun issued his orders. loday many unhappy people will congregate in the Central District. They will once again attempt to embarrass the government." The British legacy was still causing problems, Sun thought sourly. "That challenge to the government's mandate to rule is, in my judgment, our most important problem. Put your troops in the downtown and refuse to let the demonstrators in."

"The subway problems will keep people from coming into the Central District," Tang remarked. He assumed that most of the city's citizens would want to demonstrate against the government, an assumption that Sun didn't challenge.

"The time has come to be firm," Sun declared. "We must show the people the steel of our resolve. Show them the might of the state they hold in such contempt."

Lest there be a misunderstanding, Sun added darkly, "I abhor the useless effusion of blood, but if we do not hold our ground now, that failure will cost more blood."

"We will give the order to disperse, then enforce it." "We must tell the people," Sun told the general. "Go from here to the television studio. Stand in front of the camera and tell the people to stay home. Tell them the nation is under attack, but we shall prevail because we have the resolve of a tiger."

"Only one television station is still operating," the senior aide informed them. "The others have had power outages or equipment fail-ures.

"All?" Sun demanded.

"Yes, sir. During the night they went off the air, one by one." "Sabotage," said Tang. "Could this be related to the nuclear weapons disaster?"

"Impossible," the governor opined. "Here in Hong Kong we are dealing with criminal hooligans."

Had the brain trust in City Hall asked about the situation with the radio stations, they would have been more alarmed. Of Hong Kong's dozens of stations, only one was still on the air. The morning DJ at this station atop Victoria Peak was a Hong Kong personality named Jimmy Lee, easily the most popular man on the south China coast.

Lee was funny, irreverent, crazy, with it, and cool, a combination that delighted the young people and brought smiles to the faces of everyone else. Listening to Jimmy Lee was always a breath of fresh air.

Jimmy Lee wasn't himself this morning, though. The man was constitutionally unable to keep a secret—it wasn't in him. Everything he knew eventually slipped out, usually when he least wanted it to. Normally this trait didn't do him any harm since his off-kilter personality was his stock-in-trade. For the past two weeks, though, Jimmy Lee had been the possessor of a huge secret, one that had grown heavier with each passing day.

He had joked so much about Wu Tai Kwong, the phantom political criminal, that Wu had concluded Lee could be an ally. So one morning one of Wu's lieutenants was waiting when Lee finished his morning show.

At first Lee didn't believe the man knew Wu Tai Kwong, as he said he did, but the man's serious demeanor and his anti-Communist sentiments assuaged his doubts. The man returned to the station for private conversations week after week for months. Lee finally realized that the man wasn't a government agent and that he indeed knew Wu Tai Kwong.

Eventually the man enlisted Lee to become a spokesman of the revolution. Two weeks ago he was told about the upcoming battle of Hong Kong, presented with a cell phone, and told about the message that he would receive on the designated day.

Jimmy Lee had not told a soul this fantastic secret, which was a remarkable testament to the supreme effort he was making to control himself. He had thought deeply about it for two weeks, brooded upon it, had nightmares about it. The reality was that the revolutionaries wanted him to commit treason ... when the telephone rang.

Treason! If the revolution failed, Jimmy Lee's life would be forfeit. The government would hunt him down and execute him publicly.

This morning Lee was almost incoherent on the air. He played songs but babbled nonsense when he had to speak. He had never been able to resist food, was almost a hundred pounds overweight, yet this morning he was unable to eat. Sweating profusely, nauseated, able to talk only in monosyllables, he was questioned by his producer ... and he told everything.

The producer refused to believe Lee. He was unaware that this was

the last radio station on the air in Jrlong Rong. Me knew notning aDout the disasters in the stock market, the airport, the subways ... none of that had been published by the government, which like all Communist governments was loathe to admit or discuss problems.

Lee talked on. He produced the cell phone. He told about meeting a friend of Wu Tai Kwong's, told about how the army would be confronted today, about the explanations he was to make over the radio . .. and then he produced the cassette.

The producer put the cassette into a player and listened to a minute or two of it while Jimmy Lee hyperventilated.

The male voice on the cassette was as calm and confident as a human can be, calling for people to rally behind the freedom fighters, obey the revolutionary leaders, and kill PLA soldiers who refused to surrender.

The producer turned off the cassette player and sat chewing his fingernails while he considered what he should do. The first thing, he decided, was to let the New China News Agency censor listen to this tape. The man worked for the government, knew how things worked. He would know what to do about the tape.

Lin Pe was not thinking of resolve, although she had as much as the governor and then some. She was thinking of the strange ways human lives are twisted by chance, or fate, call it what you will.

She dressed in her newest clothes, brushed her hair, made herself look as nice as she could. In her purse she put her notebook—so she could write down any fortunes that crossed her mind in the course of the day—two rice cakes, and a bottle of water. She ensured the house key was already in the purse, then went to find her daughter, who was giving the maids their daily instructions. The television was on—General Tang was telling people to stay home.

When Sue Lin finished with the maids, she told her mother, "Rip wanted us both to stay home today. He said the streets will be dangerous, there may be shooting." Her mother would respect Rip's opinion, Sue Lin knew, more than she would her daughter's, for her mother had not lost her lifetime habit of deference to men.

"I think the rebellion will begin today," the old lady said calmly. "Today is the beginning of the end for the Communists."

"Richard Buckingham is paying the money today, Mother. Wu Tai Kwong will probably be home this evening."

Lin Pe merely nodded. Then she went out the door and along the street toward the tram, which would take her down the mountain to the Central District.

The matter was quite simple, really. Her son thought this struggle was worth his life. That being the case, it was worth hers, too.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At the Victoria ferry landing, people were streaming off the overloaded ferries from Kowloon and patronizing a small army of food vendors, who were selling fish and shark and rice cakes as fast as they could fry it. Not many children, considering. Here and there Jake Grafton saw people reading sheets of
The Truth,
sometimes three and four people huddled together looking at the same piece of paper. The people looked somber, grim, though perhaps it was just his imagination.

Not many people were interested in going to Kowloon, so there was no line. Jake went right aboard the ferry
Star of the East.

As the boat approached Kowloon he could see the sea of humanity waiting to board the ferries to Victoria. With the subways out of service, this crowd was to be expected. The terminal was packed, with a large group of people outside on the street, waiting to get inside.

As soon as the boat tied up, Jake was off and walking at a brisk pace. Outside the terminal the crowd swallowed him. He thought about getting something to eat in McDonald's, which was about fifty yards away, but it too was packed full, with people waiting to get into the place.

For the first time since he had arrived in Hong Kong the sheer mass of China threatened to overwhelm him. People everywhere, densely packed, all talking, breathing, shouting, pushing .. .

He made his way along Nathan Road and turned into the street that led by his hotel. Fewer people here, thank God.

The manager was in the lobby trying to calm a crowd of tourists from Germany. The common language was a heavily accented pidgin English.

So sorry, the manager explained, but the airlines had canceled all flights; daily bus tours of Hong Kong were canceled; trains to Canton, Shanghai, and Beijing were not running; telephone calls to Europe were not going through; credit cards could not be accepted for payment of bills; money-changing services at front desk temporarily suspended. So sorry. All problems temporary. Not to worry, all fixed soon. So sorry.