Prologue
Beijing, China
Present time
EVERY WEEKNIGHT AT 10:00 P.M., the buzzer on the door from the rear alley sounded, and one of the guards would let the cleaner in. They called her Lăo fù rén; it meant old woman. Her real name was Sun Jia. She wasn't old; she was in her early fifties, 54 to be exact. But the privations of life had manifested in her features: dull eyes, deep lines on her face, hunching shoulders, and silver-gray hair. When she laughed, which was not often, gaps could be seen where teeth used to be when she was younger. In China, dental problems were considered a minor health concern, and dental care education all but non-existent.
Pushing a trolley with cloths, bottles with liquid cleaner, a bucket, dusters, brooms, and a vacuum cleaner, she reached the office of General Lang Jianhong, Commander of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Ground Force. His was one of seven offices she cleaned every weeknight. General Lang's office was the most prestigious of them all; that's why she always started with his.
She had no husband; he left her thirty-four years ago when she told him she was pregnant. Her son worked for the government—something to do with computers. She didn't understand anything about computers, but Sun Yan was the pride of her life. He was married and had one child, a four-year-old girl, Lei, Jia's only grandchild, and the delight of her life. Once a month, on a Sunday morning early, she would make the one-hour train ride to visit her family and spend the day with them. On the other Sundays, she attended church in the morning.
She had always taken pride in her proletarian job, which was the best she could get with her basic education. Serving one of the top generals in the PLA and his staff, even if it was only to clean their offices five times a week, late at night when they'd all gone home, was an honor not bestowed on many.
That was until she met General Lang, once, about seven months ago, when he came into the office late one night to get some documents from his wall safe. He was extremely rude to her, ordering her to wait outside with a barrage of invectives. And when he came out of the office, he told her to spray air freshener in there when she was done to get rid of her disgusting body odor lingering inside.
His words were humiliating, degrading. Jia was dirt poor and uneducated, but she had dignity. She never neglected personal hygiene. Her mother would not have used the words 'cleanliness is next to godliness', but she definitely understood the principle and taught it to Jia from an early age.
That was the day when Jia's respect for the revered general and the joy of her job took a nosedive. But, she didn't have another job to go to. She needed the money; the little financial support her son could afford to give her was not enough to keep body and soul together if she didn't earn an income of her own. Even then, she had barely enough.
Though the joy of her job was gone, there was one thing she still relished: sitting in General Lang's luscious leather swivel chair behind his desk every night and eating one candy from the big hand-painted ceramic bowl sitting on top of the general's impossibly large desk. She knew what she was doing was not only a sin; she was also living dangerously—the general could have counted the candy. But this was her payback for his incivility.
She always took two candies; one she ate, and one she kept for her granddaughter. Tonight, she studied the variety of candy bars and noticed one she had never seen before. It was red, rectangular, about half an inch wide by two inches long, and a quarter of an inch thick. She took it out of the bowl. It had no wrapping. It felt like plastic. She turned it around carefully; she had never seen any candy like that. She licked it—no sweet taste. Maybe Lei would like it.
She put it in the top pocket of her overall jacket and retrieved her favorite, a pinyin, white rabbit, milk candy wrapped in printed waxed paper. She removed the wrapper and put it in the same pocket as the plastic candy. She put the pinyin in her mouth, leaned back in the chair, closed her eyes, and allowed the sweet sensation to fill her mouth and thoughts.
***
Manhattan, New York, USA
Present time
JOSH AND MARISSA FARLEY arrived in New York shortly after midday in their rental car. They had a dinner date with Marissa's best friend from university and her husband that night. The next day they'd visit the Statue of Liberty and a few other sites around the city, and on Sunday morning, they would be off to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, for seven days. They'd never been to Martha's Vineyard and wanted to see for themselves what all the fuss was about.
The Farleys had reservations at the four-star One Tree Hill hotel in Manhattan, less than half a mile from Wall Street. They checked in, dropped their luggage in their room, and went out for lunch. Afterward, they returned to the hotel and had a nap, then showered and got ready to meet Marissa's friend and her husband for dinner at their home on Long Island.
Josh fastened his seatbelt, looked at Marissa to see if she was ready, and turned the key in the ignition. His head started spinning. He looked at Marissa; her mouth was open as if she was taking a deep breath. Her image blurred, and then, darkness.
***
Unknown location
Present time
THE POUNDING HEADACHE WAS the first sign that he was alive. Next was the thundering disconsonant noises filling his ears and then the filthy smell that filled his nostrils, roiling his stomach.
Josh remained still and tried to reconstruct, but all he remembered was starting the car, feeling dizzy, seeing Marissa gasping for air, and then, darkness. He was on a bed, his hands and feet tied to the frame. He was completely naked. His mouth was covered with duct tape, his head covered in a hood—the source of the nauseating odor threatening to rid his stomach of his lunch. They must have dipped the hood in a cesspool.
Over the hood was a set of earphones strapped tightly over his ears blasting the sounds of fire alarms, police sirens, breaking glass, crying babies, and screaming people into his brain. With no amount of shaking and wiggling of his head, was he able to get rid of the earphones pumping out the cacophonous sounds.
He pulled on the restraints holding his arms and legs down, but they wouldn't budge.
"Marissa!"
No answer.
He had no idea where he was or what time it was. What he did know was that he and Marissa had been abducted. And both of them were going to die—after they'd been tortured for information. Who their abductors were, what information they wanted, he didn't know, not yet. For now, the abductors were softening him up with the age-old psychological routine of sleep deprivation, starvation, and disorientation.
What are they doing to Marissa?
"Marissa!" he shouted again—it was useless; his voice was muffled by the duct tape and the stinking hood and the unhinging noise in his ears.
Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped, and Josh heard the screams of a woman in his ears. He jerked on the restraints and twisted; it was as futile as before.
"Marissa!"
A Chinese-accented computerized voice came over the earphones, "That was your sexy wife, Josh. She's entertaining the men next door. That black, laced lingerie of hers got them. . . how shall I put it. . . worked up."
The Hadean noises resumed.
Part 1
Eight months in the making
Chapter 1 - Ten marshals to see you
Beijing, China
Eight months ago
ZHONGNANHAI, LITERALLY TRANSLATED AS 'Central and Southern Seas,' is the former imperial garden in the Imperial City of Beijing next to the Forbidden City. It is the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council, China's central government, and the office of the President of the People's Republic of China. Zhongnanhai is China's version of America's White House.
In his office at Zhongnanhai, Li Lingxin, President of the PRC (People's Republic of China), was at his desk. The past three hours had been the worst of his life, and it was about to get worse as it dawned on him that his hourglass had run empty. It began with a call from the President of the United States three hours ago.
For the past two years, Li had a task force working on a weapons-grade virus, which he and his co-conspirators were hours away from unleashing on the world. He had grand visions of how an unsuspecting world would descend into utter chaos as their economies collapsed and civil unrest ripped their countries apart. In the utter chaos, China would have emerged as a knight in shining armor to save them from the devastation of the virus and total economic ruin. Within twelve to eighteen months, China would have been the most powerful nation on earth. He, Li Lingxin, would have been the most powerful man on earth, the supreme leader. Chairman Mao's hundred-year plan to make China the world leader by 2049 would have been achieved in 70 years—30 years ahead of time.
But three hours ago, that call from the President of the United States had turned the dream into a nightmare. General Yuan Lee, the man in charge of China's biological warfare program, under whose leadership the deadly virus had been developed, had betrayed him and defected to America. How it happened without the Ministry of State Security's (MSS) knowledge was a conundrum he didn't have the time to solve. But when he saw the traitor sitting next to the President of the United States, it felt like a bullet had hit him in the stomach—it was just a matter of time before he would bleed out and die.
Two and a half hours after that fateful call, he had signed the last executive order and had been staring at his own letter of resignation for the past half hour when there was a knock on the door. His aide entered and told him that there were ten marshals in the reception area, demanding to see him immediately. He said nothing, only nodded slightly, and sighed softly.
The marshals filed into his office, formed a semicircle in front of his desk, and stared at him. No word was said, not even a greeting. Everyone knew what this was about.
The last person to enter was one of the president's guards. He also said nothing; he didn't salute either. He walked to the president's desk, unholstered his 9mm NP-22 pistol, a clone of the German-made Sig Sauer P226. He removed the magazine, checked that one round was chambered, pocketed the magazine, and placed the gun with the one round in it on the president's desk, within reach of his right hand. He turned and left the room in the same manner he entered, neither saying a word nor saluting.
Exactly one hour and five minutes later, the lonely guard outside the president's office door jolted when he heard a single gunshot on the other side of the door. He took a step toward the door but then remembered the marshals' instructions and remained at his post.
Less than a minute later, the door opened, and one of the marshals appeared in the anteroom pushing the president's office chair. The president's body was slumped in the chair. His face and upper body were covered with his own jacket.
The guard came to attention. There were no other guards.
The marshal said, "Your shift is over. You can go now. We'll take care of this."
The guard saluted, made a half-turn, and left.
It was Li's wish that his body should not lie in state, nor be embalmed for posterity like Chairman Mao's or some of history's most infamous and controversial leaders. It was his wish to be cremated and his ashes scattered over the South China Sea.
Seven days later, the late president's wishes were honored in a massive, glamorous state funeral. The world was told that President Li had suffered a fatal heart attack. Only a few people knew different.
By 6:00 a.m., the vice president of China, President Li's other advisors, and co-conspirators were all in custody, and the haggling to elect a new president was in progress.
***
Beijing, China
THE THREE MOST POWERFUL offices in China were: the president, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, the head of the military.
Li Lingxin held all three offices. That had to change. One man with all that power was not good.
On paper, the Communist Party Congress (CPC) determined who would lead the 1.39 billion people of China. The CPC delegates elected the Central Committee of about 200 members. The Central Committee, in turn, elected the 24-member Politburo, and they selected the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body.
Under the People's Republic of China (PRC) constitution, the president was supposed to be mostly a ceremonial office with limited power. But Li Lingxin changed that. He managed to remove the term limits to his presidency, which was always two terms for his predecessors. He had also centralized much of the institutional power by taking personal charge of economic and social reforms, military restructuring and modernization, and the internet.
However, what very few people outside the Communist Party's inner circles knew was that the president and anyone else in the top three positions was actually beholden to the marshals. There were seventeen of them after General Yuan's defection. They were generals of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) who was not controlled by, nor were they part of the PRC government. They were part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Li Lingxin came to power with the support of eleven of the eighteen marshals at the time. Not a significant margin; if two generals changed allegiance, Li would have been in trouble. And that's precisely what happened now—ten of the marshals wanted him out.
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