A Time for War (42 page)

Still, the sense of loss and shame was profound. He had hoped that the destruction of this particular Financial District—perched, symbolically, on the edge of the Asian world—would lead to the final decline of the American nation and the natural ascendancy of China. That was to be his gift to his homeland, his legacy. Even if his colleagues never learned of his involvement, the failure would haunt him till death.

There was a gentle knock on the door.

“Come,” he said.

Shing Wei entered. “Excuse me, Consul General, but there is a woman who would like to see you.”

Jintao looked blankly at his personal secretary. “I assume she has a name?”

“Bu hao yi se,”
he apologized. “It is Maggie Yu.”

“Do I know her?” he asked impatiently.

“No, sir, but I thought—”

“What does she want, Shing?”

“She says she has had enough of America and wishes to go home. I thought you might wish to see her.”

The consul general felt a smile pull at the sides of his mouth. “Home.” His eyes seemed far away. “I see.”

The young secretary stood in the partially opened door, his head slightly lowered in respect, waiting patiently for his superior to speak.

“Bring her in,” Jintao said.

The neatly dressed young man stepped back and extended his arm into the office. Maggie was dressed in a traditional costume, a floor-length red skirt and sleeveless, shoulderless white blouse in the style of a bamboo hat dancer.

She bowed respectfully to the secretary as she passed. It was protocol to leave the door open with all guests who did not come on official government business. These meetings were typically brief. Listening from his desk just beyond the door to the right, the secretary would know what was required without Jintao having to repeat it.

Jintao rose as the woman entered. He felt it was appropriate. He
needed
to do it: the gesture was less to honor the woman than to celebrate the idea of his homeland, the desire for an expatriate to be there.

Maggie approached the desk. “Consul General,” she said softly. “You have disgraced yourself and the Chinese people.”

Shing leaned across his desk to see into the room, frozen with surprise. Jintao was too startled to move.

Maggie did not have that problem. She tucked her elbows into her chest and pushed her arms straight out at the diplomat, across the desk, her hands open and facing him. The Dragon Palm strike hit him on the chest and sent him backward, off his feet, into his chair. She was on the desk with a single crouching leap. Her next jump had her legs tucked under her and her hands extended. She landed on the now-seated Jintao, her fingers grasping his shoulders, her knees landing hard in his belly. She was gripping him so hard that eight spots of blood appeared beneath his jacket, causing him to cry out. She released her right hand, curled the fingers into a tiger claw, and buried them in his eyes. His cry became a scream, which she smothered by putting her other arm across his mouth and leaning forward.

“If you want me, come and get me—if you have the courage,” she said into his ear. “I'll be on American soil, the soil of my home.”

Maggie rotated the swivel chair a quarter turn and stepped off backward. She turned toward the door. Shing was standing there, openmouthed and aghast. Without looking at Jintao, she formed a tight fist with her right hand and, with an arcing blow, punched Jintao in the right ear. He fell against the left armrest. A blow to that side sent him to the right.

“That was for treating your secretary with disrespect,” she said.

She pulled the telephone from Jintao's desk and yanked it out, dropping it to the carpet as she walked to the door.

“I will hurt anyone who tries to stop me,” she told his secretary.

“I—had no intention of doing so,” Shing told her. He looked back at Jintao. “Though admitting you, I fear, will cost me my job.”

“Yes. He cannot give a press conference with bleeding ears.”

Shing looked at the panting heap sprawled in his chair.

“Leave with me,” Maggie said. “I know people who can give you asylum, help you get a visa.”

“But my home—my parents, my brothers, they are all in H
ā
ě
rb
Ä«
n.”

“You'll have a better chance of seeing them again if your fate is not entwined with what this man has done,” she said. “He will be exposed. Disgraced.”

The young man was nodding even as he considered what she had said.

“All right,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “I should distance myself from what has happened here, at least for now.”

“And it is fitting that we have met. You are at least a Third Pin.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing,” she smiled. “Come.”

The young man took his overcoat from the rack and led the way from the office.

*   *   *

Bruno's was closed due to the rattling noise going on under the dining room and kitchen. Officials from the Department of Public Works said they would need at least a day to finish work under this stretch of the tunnel system. But Bruno opened for his old friends when they came for lunch.

Doc sat in the outdoor area where the sounds and rattling were minimized. Work crews were coming and going from the wreck of the clinic, not only shoring up the tunnel but also sealing it off along its entire length with a series of iron bars. A roped-off hole two feet in diameter, blown by the terrorists, was a hundred yards to Doc's right, near a natural gas pipeline. A foot closer to the pipeline, the whole street would have gone up. And the hole was just one of a half dozen new potholes that stretched from the clinic through the Financial District.

Doc had arrived first, as usual. Jack had stayed up most of the night, making notes. Bruno came out with a pot of coffee and a cup when he saw him arrive.

“Salute!”
Bruno said as Jack sat.

“Yeah, you did it again,” Doc said, raising a glass of grapefruit juice.

“Stumbled through it,” Jack said.

“We stumble through most things in life,” Doc laughed. “The trick is not to fall and to recover intelligently, which you do.”

Jack accepted that and took a sip of black coffee Bruno had poured before hurrying back to the kitchen. Jack's arms were huddled protectively around the cup and saucer. He noticed that since the last terrorist attack, from the Hand of Allah, he tended to do that more: protect his food. He wondered about the unmeasured, maybe even unrecognized, psychological tolls of living in watchful fear.

There was a third place at the table. Both men happened to look at it at the same time. Vintage love beads were set in a circle around a glass of herbal tea. Doc had retrieved the beads from the boat. The spotter had showed him the location on a map after some persuasion at the Eastern Rim office involving a soldering iron and a strand of melted lead.

“Nice of you to have done that,” Jack said.

Doc shrugged a shoulder. “Abe's sailing token deserved to be here. Even if it does reek of hippiness. And nearly cost me my left foot in the getting.”

“That would account for the shark bacon Bruno is preparing?”

“It would,” Doc replied.

Both men chuckled and raised their respective beverages to their missing friend.

“At least Maggie Yu benefited from this,” Jack said. “Her dad texted this morning—asked if I could put him in touch with our contact at the FBI. Seems Maggie not only beat the hell out of the consul general but came back with a young man who might want political asylum. Seems he knows enough to get the boss man in a sea of trouble.”

“Hope Johnny appreciates that his daughter was instrumental in saving a hundred thousand lives.”

“Enough to forgive her for going down the rabbit hole,” Jack said.

The men fell silent as the colorful string of beads weighed heavily on them.

“He was a pain in the rear, but a good guy,” Doc said.

“Aren't we all. So what's next for you?” Jack asked. “Sounded like you had something lined up.”

“Texas,” he said. “Bunch of folks on the border want to put together a merc army and go after the cartels.”

“That will be interesting,” Jack said.

“It was inevitable. Those suckers are recruiting kids in Victoria and other towns, kids as young as ten, eleven, paying them to get other kids hooked. Why don't you come along for a look-see? Helluva story in that.”

Jack shook his head. “I've got a story I need to produce first. I don't know who will air it, since it implicates Beijing, Washington, and one of our biggest industrial powers, but I have to tell it just the same.”

“Sounds like you
may
be safer in Mexico.”

“Maybe.” Jack grinned. “But it's like that Chinese kid Johnny was telling me about—the one who Maggie brought out of the consulate. Sometimes you just have to do what's right.”

“I'll drink to that,” Doc said, draining his glass.

Jack sat back and forced himself to move his arms away from the cup. It was a small gesture, but a significant one.

You can't let fear rule your life,
he thought.
Not fear of terrorists or fear of criticizing your own leaders or foreign governments.

“Truth tellers,” Jack said.

“What?”

“Just thinking out loud,” Jack said.

He smiled.

They had killed the show. But they could never kill the ideal.

 

ALSO BY MICHAEL SAVAGE

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The Enemy Within

The Savage Nation

 

About the Author

DR. MICHAEL SAVAGE is a multimedia icon in the conservative movement and has been called one of the most influential conservatives in the United States.
The Savage Nation
was recently the third-most listened to radio talk show in the nation, with more than ten million weekly listeners, and in 2012 it became the number-one talk show on the Internet. Savage is the author of twenty-eight books, including six
New York Times
bestsellers. He was awarded the coveted Freedom of Speech Award by
Talkers Magazine
and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. His ethnobotanical research collections are held in major museums, and he devotes his spare time to helping stop the slaughter of elephants and gorillas.

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

A TIME FOR WAR
Copyright © 2013 by Michael Savage. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Pete Garceau

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Savage, Michael, 1942–

    A time for war : a thriller / Michael Savage.—1st ed.

            p. cm.

    ISBN 978-0-312-65162-6 (hardcover)

    ISBN 978-1-250-02334-6 (e-book)

  1.  Political fiction.   I.  Title.

    PS3619.A836T56 2013

    813'.6—dc23

2012041267

e-ISBN 9781250023346

First Edition: February 2013