The Italian Mission (33 page)

“Good. The bastard.” The Chinese woman grimaced. She picked up the Uzi.

“We’d better get inside. The others may be here any second.” He called the Lama, and the three of them went inside the house. They found Jill tied to a kitchen chair.

“Where are the rest?” Conti asked.

“In the cooler.”

Conti removed the chair wedged against the handle of a walk-in refrigerator and opened the door. Pio, Lad, the two Chinese soldiers and the cooking school students came out, rubbing their hands together and blowing on them. “Damn!” Lad exclaimed, “Cold in there. What’s going on?”

“Cho saved my skin,” Conti told them as he untied Jill. “How’d you get loose?” he asked Cho, noticing the rope coiled on the floor next to another chair.

The Chinese woman’s lips curled in a slight smile. “We Asians are very clever with our hands. I read that in the Wall Street Journal.”

“Where are the other South Africans?” Jill asked.

“Don’t know,” Conti replied. “For some reason, they didn’t chase us. But I don’t think they’ve given up. We have to get out of here. Where the hell’s the Navy?”

“Give me your phone and I’ll find out.” Jill took the mobile and dialed Mobley’s number. After she briefly described the situation, she asked about the helicopter, frowning as he gave her a lengthy answer.

“Well?” Conti asked when she hung up.

“Mechanical problems. Had to return to the base to get another bird. Mobley says they’re close now. No more than fifteen minutes away.”

“Let’s hope he’s right.” Lad had drifted over to the window and was looking out. “The South Africans are climbing back into their copter. We’re in deep shit.”

“What do you mean?” Jill asked.

“Those metal cans hanging off the side of the copter aren’t for trash. They’re missile pods. A couple of Hellfires would blow this house into a parallel universe.”

52.

Beijing, Sunday
Morning

The Steering Committee members slowly filtered into the conference room, mumbling greetings to each other. Leong headed for Chairman Li, who, standing at the window stroking his wispy gray beard, resembled a washed out watercolor of Confucius.

“The sunrise over the lake is one of my favorite views in Beijing,” Li said.

“And are you here to see it every morning?” asked Leong.

“Of course. I always arrive around this time, after my morning Tai Chi practice. You young men sleep too much. It saps your energy.”

“Perhaps,” Leong responded, not wanting to argue with the old man.

Li turned and addressed the room. “Everyone seems to be here — in body if not in spirit. Please take your seats. I apologize for calling a meeting on Sunday morning, but developments in Tibet require it.”

When everyone was seated, he continued. “As some of you may not yet know, late last night the Tibetan rebels occupied the Potala Palace. That is where the leaders of the movement have gathered. They have also taken over several other monasteries, but the Potala is the most significant. As long as they control it, the rebels will gain strength and resolve. Comrade Wang tells us these people are not just harmless monks. Some have modern weapons. He believes the time has come to take decisive action.” He nodded at Wang, “Please favor us with your recommendation.”

Wang stood up and looked around the room, anger flashing in his eyes. “The local authorities in Tibet have failed yet again.” He glared at Chen Baojia, head of the People’s Armed Police, a department of the Ministry of State Security. “It is a colossal failure of crisis management, which will require a formal inquiry in the near future. But for now, we must take immediate and resolute steps to restore order in Lhasa. If we do not, all of Tibet, and perhaps other areas of our country where the cancer of ethnic nationalism has spread, will be in full revolt against this government.”

“What do you propose?” Li asked, his voice mild by contrast.

“The PLA now holds strategic points around the city,” Wang said. “At least one of us has done his job. We must take the Potala Palace, that corrosive symbol of Tibetan nationalism, by force, wiping out any opposition.”

“The number of casualties from such a course of action would be completely unacceptable,” Chen Baojia cried, rising to his feet. “It would create decades of bitterness and fear toward the central government.”

Wang sneered at him. “No. What it would do would is end this ceaseless agitation and lead to decades of socialist progress! Do you fear these … rustics? Without a head, the snake cannot bite. I say we chop off the head once and for all!”

Leong cleared his throat. “Speaking of the serpent’s head, Comrade Wang, what information can you give us about the so-called Panchen Lama? Some of us believe he may represent an alternative solution to this problem. If we can bring him back to Beijing and convince him to call for calm in Tibet, it may not be necessary to assault the monastery.”

“I’m afraid that is no longer possible, Comrade Leong. Your plan to take him into custody is no longer feasible. The Americans have refused to hand over the traitor. I suspect they were always just playing for time. Time to cause us more trouble. I’ve given the Army the necessary orders to eliminate that threat as well.”

The conference room door opened. An aide slipped in and stood waiting for Wang to finish. When he did, the young man handed Wang a message, bowed and left the room. Wang glanced at the paper, then excused himself.

Back in Washington, Miss Lok neatly arranged the papers on Ambassador Zheng’s desk, making sure the edges were parallel to each other and to the leather blotter. She straightened the pens in the Dragon Boat festival commemorative cup, checking that all ballpoints were retracted. She hated disorder in the office, especially in view of the chaos caused by the Ambassador’s detention.

All at once the emotion she’d kept bottled up flooded out. She collapsed onto the Ambassador’s chair and wept softly into her handkerchief for a few moments. But she knew this wouldn’t do. Perhaps things would return to normal tomorrow. As she wiped the moisture from her eyes, she noticed the tray with the silver water pitcher on the credenza by the door. One more thing to clean up, and she could go home. She carried the tray to the office’s wet bar and lifted the pitcher to empty it. A folded piece of paper stuck to the bottom. As she unfolded and read it quickly, the Ambassador’s words came back to her — “Leong will remedy the situation once he has all the facts.” She ran into the outer office and turned on the fax machine.

Wang stalked out of the conference room, through the reception area, down a flight of stairs, and out into the parking lot. He dialed the number on the piece of paper he’d been given.

“Well?” Wang demanded when Matthis answered. “Is it done?”

“Not quite. We’ve run into some difficulties.”

“What difficulties?”

“The Lama is holed up in a house with the Americans and a Chinese agent. They have weapons and they appear to be working together.”

“And?”

“And the only sure way to get them now is to use air-to-ground missiles from the helicopter. They’ll all be killed.”

Wang hesitated for a moment. The stakes were rising too fast for his liking. Killing a few Americans he could explain. But killing a senior Chinese intelligence agent was something else. He’d have to convince the Committee that she’d fallen in a battle with the Americans over the Lama. He could do that as long as no one was left to testify to the contrary. Eventually, he would have to get rid of the South Africans too, but that was a problem for later.

“Are you sure you can get them all?”

“A couple of missiles should do the trick. Then we’ll go in and clean up any survivors.”

“Go ahead!”

53.

Lad leaned against the sink, and peered out the kitchen window using the night vision binoculars he’d found on the unconscious South African. Darkness had fallen quickly, but the nearly full moon provided some visibility. He watched as the men climbed back into the helicopter. “We’ve got to act now,” he spoke urgently to Conti and Jill.

“And do what?” Jill asked.

“Disable that bird before it gets in the air. What do we have left, Pio?”

The Italian had collected the weapons from the Chinese soldiers and the South African. “An Uzi, two assault rifles and a couple of pistols.”

“Forget the pistols,” Conti said. “They’d be useless at this range. Give me one of the rifles. You and Lad take the others. We’ll scatter in the field out front and take whatever cover we can find. Then we’ll aim at …. What’s the most vulnerable part of a helicopter?”

Lad studied the copter closely. “Hate to tell you this, but I think that’s an Apache with a bad paint job. Where the hell would people like that get an Apache?”

“Where?” Conti replied. “We’ve sold hundreds of them around the world. I’ve seen them myself arms bazaars in Pakistan. So what if it is an Apache?”

“Armored — heavily armored,” Lad answered. “Let’s get going.”

“What should I do?” Jill asked.

“Take the pistols,” Conti said. Pio handed the remaining weapons to Jill and Cho. “When we go out the front, you take everyone else out the back. Look for someplace to hide at least a hundred yards from the house. If we don’t come back, it’ll be up to you to protect the Lama.”

The three men ran out the door, fanning out in front of the house. Lad and Conti went to the right, crouching behind an antique farm wagon filled with flowerpots in bloom. Pio went left. Lad gave the signal and they began firing at the helicopter as it rose into the night sky. Conti was surprised to see bright green arcs spitting from the muzzle of his rifle. “What the hell?”

“Chinese tracers,” Lad said. “They use barium, I think.” He kept shooting. The bullets were finding their marks, but causing no visible damage. “Damn it. Even the glass is bulletproof. Aim at the rotor.”

They continued to fire as the helicopter rose ten, fifteen, twenty feet into the air. As soon as it climbed above trees, it rotated slowly until it faced the house. Clouds of smoke shot out backwards from the side pods of the copter. Conti watched, helpless, as two vapor trails headed for the house.