Razing Beijing: A Thriller by Sidney Elston III Page A

cutting
edge. We are the cutting edge.”
    “How do you expect me to give a damn when I don’t know what
it is?”
    “Can’t.” Perry shook his head. “Sorry.”
    “Department of Defense?”
    “Let’s just say they’ve provided a few of the security guidelines.
It’s Department of Energy but a commercial research venture all the way. I can
tell you that it draws on the same bonanza of green technology funding as this
energy-efficient engine of yours. Only, well...probably a whole lot more
funding.” Perry grinned.
    Stuart let out a deep breath. “I should know soon how much
longer I’ll be.”
    Later, after the dinner table had been cleared, Perry
cradled a snifter of Remy Martin XO. He looked at Stuart with the sort of
gratuitous smile reflecting both a suspicion and a desire. “You like
Cleveland?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Uh-huh. Well, I’m not happy about your delay. But I have
to attribute your reasoning to one of those quirky traits that got us where we
are. I trust you’re trying to finish up as soon as you can.”
    “Nothing would make me happier than to be back in
Virginia.”
    Perry leaned back, swirling his snifter—Stuart knew his
friend would not be so easily mollified. Not because Perry disregarded the
importance of Stuart’s commitment; Perry had been and always would be able to
serve only his own commitment. He wasn’t surprised or taken in by Perry when he
asked, “How’s Ashley been? Who’s been watching her since Angela died?”
    It had been months since his ex-wife Angela’s death of
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, something obviously beyond his control, and still he
struggled to suppress an irrational sense of guilt. He had lost his appetite to
discuss it with anyone, even Ralph. “I’m very lucky. My sister and
brother-in-law have been helping out. They’ve a daughter of their own,
younger.”
    “I’ll bet she misses her dad.”
    “I see more of her now than when her mother was alive.”
    “Weekends?”
    “For a while I was even making it back in time Fridays to
pick her up at school.”
    “You should try to hurry back. I mean, any kid prefers
a full-time dad.”
    *     *     *
    ON THE OPPOSITE side
of town, Emily Chang received an e-mail message—sent first by a family friend
in Hunan Province, then to a cousin in San Jose, who forwarded it to her. The
message reported that her parents were missing, and that no one believed the
authorities who claimed to be looking for them. Everyone thought that Party
officials were too embarrassed to admit to having smuggled them off, or so the
message indicated, in order to administer her mother the medical care which
provincial hospitals could not provide. Emily’s cousin footnoted the message by
politely urging her not to worry, that her parents would turn up sooner rather
than later, healthy and in good cheer.
    After reading the message for the third time, Emily held
her face in her hands and sobbed.

16
    LOW, IRREGULAR BREATHING of
lungs heavy with fluid cut the silent void of the underground vault. Attached
to the faintly visible ceiling were two objects. Dangling through a hole
cratered into the stone was a thin straight wire and at the end of it, a tiny
microphone. The powerful flood of light illuminating half of the room emanated
from a directional halogen lamp fixed to the top of a pole. Suspended
prominently in the glare of the light, a sling of mesh wire contained the
bottle of an intravenous drip, from which a clear plastic tube snaked through
the air to where it was taped inside the elbow of the prisoner.
    The prisoner faced directly into the light where he lay on
his back at a forty-five degree angle, naked, strapped securely with wide
leather bands to the inclined surface of a large stone pedestal. The damp air
reeked of urine, mildew, the acrid smell of the man’s breath—the odor of
infection, malnutrition, fatigue. The sleep-deprived prisoner likely sensed
none of these stimuli—save that of the light. Stretching