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the Communists opened in Gamba, and he was selected to read the first issue to the class.
The senior members of the current government—this prime minister included—remembered the taste and feel of disorder. They did not want to see it return, not as a result of student demonstrations in Tian’anmen Square or from disagreements among powerful members of the government.
The prime minister exhaled smoke through his nose. He thought about the fake elephant of Liu Shao-ch’i. Somehow, he would have to convince the warring forces that he was a dragon. That the only way to defeat him was to put their differences aside and join forces.
Le Kwan Po did not know how he was going to do that. All he knew was one thing.
That it had to be done, and done quickly.
TEN
Beijing, China Monday, 11:18 P.M.
Chou Shin, Director of the ultrasecret 8341 Unit of the Central Security Regiment, sat in his fifth-floor office of the old Communist Party Building. It was located in the shadow of the Forbidden City, site of the palaces of the deposed despots who had run China for centuries. The six-story-tall brick structure had been built in the 1930s on the site of the Yuan Chung Silver Shop, one of the oldest banks in the city. The Communists had torn down the pavilionstyle institution to prove that the old ways were gone and a new era had begun. It was in Chou’s very office that the war against Chiang Kai-shek was planned and executed.
The structure itself had brick walls, copper ceilings, and pipes that groaned with their inadequacy to cope with the demands placed on them. There were several small windows along one wall, but the shades were drawn, as always. The director had the heat turned on, not only to chase out the chill of the stormy night but to generate white noise. It helped to befuddle any listening devices that might be present.
The seventy-one-year-old Chou was waiting for an intelligence update from an operative in Taipei. What they were planning was dangerous. But as the day had proved, so was inactivity.
While he waited, Chou reviewed what he called his cobblestone data, intelligence that was pulled from the street. This collection was done by a combination of paid informants, operatives who habituated bars and restaurants, hotel lobbies, and train depots just watching and listening, and electronic eavesdropping. Vans from the CSR drove through the streets of Beijing listening to cell phone conversations and intercepting the increasing number of wireless computer communiqués. Although the CSR had sifters on the staff who went through the raw data, what ended up crossing his desk had still managed to double in the course of a year. He could not imagine what it would be like two or three years hence. Perhaps, like the American CIA, they would be forced to listen for just key phrases like terror plot or bomb threat and let the rest go by.
Years ago, the CSR list would have been a short one. During the late 1950s when Chou was recruited for the organization, the primary task of the 8341 Unit was to see to the personal security of Mao Tse-tung and other Communist party leaders. But the elite division of the People’s Liberation Army was more than a bodyguard unit. It also ran a nationwide intelligence network to uncover plots against the chairman or senior leadership. Chou himself, a former telephone lineman in the PLA, was part of the team that had discovered electronic listening devices in Mao’s office, hidden in the doorknob. The young man’s first promotion was to the counterinsurgent unit, assigned with executing surveillance of Mao’s rivals. The 8341 Unit was a key participant in the 1976 arrest of the Gang of Four, the group that attempted to seize power after the death of Mao. After that, the unit was officially disbanded. Mao’s successor, Teng Hsiao-P’ing, wanted to make a point of “decommunizing” the nation and its institutions. However, hard-line Communists like Chou resisted the change. Unlike many
The senior members of the current government—this prime minister included—remembered the taste and feel of disorder. They did not want to see it return, not as a result of student demonstrations in Tian’anmen Square or from disagreements among powerful members of the government.
The prime minister exhaled smoke through his nose. He thought about the fake elephant of Liu Shao-ch’i. Somehow, he would have to convince the warring forces that he was a dragon. That the only way to defeat him was to put their differences aside and join forces.
Le Kwan Po did not know how he was going to do that. All he knew was one thing.
That it had to be done, and done quickly.
TEN
Beijing, China Monday, 11:18 P.M.
Chou Shin, Director of the ultrasecret 8341 Unit of the Central Security Regiment, sat in his fifth-floor office of the old Communist Party Building. It was located in the shadow of the Forbidden City, site of the palaces of the deposed despots who had run China for centuries. The six-story-tall brick structure had been built in the 1930s on the site of the Yuan Chung Silver Shop, one of the oldest banks in the city. The Communists had torn down the pavilionstyle institution to prove that the old ways were gone and a new era had begun. It was in Chou’s very office that the war against Chiang Kai-shek was planned and executed.
The structure itself had brick walls, copper ceilings, and pipes that groaned with their inadequacy to cope with the demands placed on them. There were several small windows along one wall, but the shades were drawn, as always. The director had the heat turned on, not only to chase out the chill of the stormy night but to generate white noise. It helped to befuddle any listening devices that might be present.
The seventy-one-year-old Chou was waiting for an intelligence update from an operative in Taipei. What they were planning was dangerous. But as the day had proved, so was inactivity.
While he waited, Chou reviewed what he called his cobblestone data, intelligence that was pulled from the street. This collection was done by a combination of paid informants, operatives who habituated bars and restaurants, hotel lobbies, and train depots just watching and listening, and electronic eavesdropping. Vans from the CSR drove through the streets of Beijing listening to cell phone conversations and intercepting the increasing number of wireless computer communiqués. Although the CSR had sifters on the staff who went through the raw data, what ended up crossing his desk had still managed to double in the course of a year. He could not imagine what it would be like two or three years hence. Perhaps, like the American CIA, they would be forced to listen for just key phrases like terror plot or bomb threat and let the rest go by.
Years ago, the CSR list would have been a short one. During the late 1950s when Chou was recruited for the organization, the primary task of the 8341 Unit was to see to the personal security of Mao Tse-tung and other Communist party leaders. But the elite division of the People’s Liberation Army was more than a bodyguard unit. It also ran a nationwide intelligence network to uncover plots against the chairman or senior leadership. Chou himself, a former telephone lineman in the PLA, was part of the team that had discovered electronic listening devices in Mao’s office, hidden in the doorknob. The young man’s first promotion was to the counterinsurgent unit, assigned with executing surveillance of Mao’s rivals. The 8341 Unit was a key participant in the 1976 arrest of the Gang of Four, the group that attempted to seize power after the death of Mao. After that, the unit was officially disbanded. Mao’s successor, Teng Hsiao-P’ing, wanted to make a point of “decommunizing” the nation and its institutions. However, hard-line Communists like Chou resisted the change. Unlike many
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