Don Pendleton - China Crisis

“You have my support as always,” Cheung assured the director.

“I never doubted it. As soon as you have concluded your business here I want you to return to Guang Lor. I have the authority to give SD-1 anything you need. Work your people day and night on the prototypes. I am already in discussion with Shadow to start supplying us with hardware as soon as they obtain it. Have your technology sections ready to commence work once we receive consignments. And be ready to initiate a test launch as quickly as possible so that we can show we are capable of giving them what they want.”

Six months later

D OCTOR L IN C HEUNG HEARD the knock on his office door. He continued pouring the pale tea from pot to cup before he raised his head and spoke.

“Come,” he said.

The door opened and Major Kang stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. Kang was young, ambitious and had an elevated sense of his own importance. He strode across to Cheung’s desk and stood rigid while Cheung turned, cup in hand, and sat down.

“Tell me, Kang, do you sleep at attention?” he asked casually.

Kang’s expression failed to register any emotion. Sighing inwardly, Cheung tried to imagine what it had to be like to go through life without a shred of humor in his body. He was unable to grasp the concept, except to realize that Kang had to be a miserable individual. Being dedicated to the State was a laudable ambition but allowing it to turn the individual into a humorless drone was going too far. When he looked at Kang he felt sorry for the man. He understood Kang’s problem. The boy had been indoctrinated almost from birth, taught nothing but ideological dogma to the total exclusion of everything else.

Cheung sipped his tea, placed the cup on the desk and turned his attention on Kang.

“Your call suggested a problem. Tell me about it.”

“The C26-V missile being tested has been lost, Doctor.”

“Major Kang, would you define the word lost for me.”

“Our tracking station was monitoring the performance of the missile.”

“I’m aware of that. But you said lost.”

“The test firing was going well until a short time ago. All functions were working as expected until the missile stopped responding to instructions.”

A small shred of unease raised its head. Cheung leaned forward to pick up one of the telephones on his desk.

“Put me through to Kwok. Immediately.” He lowered the receiver and glanced at Kang. “Go on.”

“Contact was lost just after the missile was tracked moving in the direction of the border with Afghanistan. Self-destruct failed to initiate. The last thing registered was the C26 almost at the border.”

A voice was speaking through the receiver. Cheung put to his ear and heard the measured tones of Yen Kwok, the launch controller.

“…have lost all contact with the missile.”

“Give me your best guess,” Cheung said.

Kwok’s sigh was answer enough.

“I’m certain we lost it close to the border. With its remaining fuel I’d say it traveled at least twenty, maybe thirty miles before it came down.”

“Yen, what else? ”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I have known you too long, Yen. There’s something else you haven’t mentioned.”

The pause was long, heavy with dread, and when Kwok spoke it was as bad as Cheung had expected.

“I just had a talk with Sung. Because of the demand we had from Director Han the missile had to be readied so fast. Sung had no time to…”

“Just tell me.”

“The stabilizing and control circuit board we were duplicating wasn’t ready in time. Sung panicked.”

“Let me guess. He used one of the American boards we acquired. A stolen piece of technology that probably has Made in the U.S.A. stamped across it.”

“Yes. One of the shipment we purchased from Shadow.”

“Foolish.”

“Sung is beside himself.”

“I mean Han. Always pushing. Demanding so much but denying us the time to develop things correctly.” Cheung thought for moment. “Yen, keep things calm out there. See what you can do about locating where the missile went down. If we can find it quickly enough, perhaps we can retrieve it before it falls into the wrong hands.”

“And if we can’t?”

“We’ll worry about that if it happens.”

Cheung put the phone down and gathered his thoughts. He suddenly remembered that Kang was still with him.

“Major Kang, assemble a retrieval team. Use the helicopter. If the missile can be located, we have to get our hands on it before anyone else does.”

“Who else would..?”

“Any of those damned dissident groups. We know they’ve been skulking around the district, just waiting for something they can use to embarrass us. Surely you understand that if they got their hands on the missile and found we were utilizing stolen American technology it would be a great propaganda coup for them. It would cause Beijing a great deal of embarrassment having to explain how U.S. circuit boards were fitted in a Chinese missile.”

“Deny everything,” Kang said, his approach simplistic almost to the border of naivete.

“I truly wish it was that simple, Kang, but we live in the real world, not the fantasy one Beijing sometimes favors. As long as that stolen item exists, there is always the possibility of it being traced back to where we obtained it. If the people who sold it to us found themselves compromised, any kind of loyalty toward us would simply vanish. Survival is the strongest emotion within the human animal when it comes down to choice. And do not forget the money trail. With all the electronic movement in the world the slightest chance of connecting buyer to seller…” Cheung paused, aware of Kang’s expression. “Never mind, Kang. I do not suspect that military training covers the world of banking and illegal money laundering. Suffice it to say that our surest way of preventing any repercussions is to recover the circuit board from the missile before anyone else. Do that and we avert complications. That, Major Kang, is your objective.”

Kang nodded.

“Leave it to me, sir.”

He turned and left the office, heels clicking on the hard floor. Cheung sighed. He returned to his pot of tea, pouring himself a fresh cup. There was nothing else he could do at this precise moment. He would have to depend on Kang’s devotion to duty. He had no doubt as to the young officer’s skill in his chosen career. Kang would pursue his mission will fervent zeal. Cheung felt a moment of pity for anyone who got in Kang’s way and did not give the answers the man wanted to hear.

CIA Field Surveillance Unit

Agent Arnie Trickett was starting to get nervous. It showed in the way he was pacing back and forth in the surveillance truck, constantly peering at the monitors. He was downing paper cups of black coffee as if the stuff was going to go on ration.

“Arnie, sit before you wear a hole through the bottom of the truck,” his partner Jack Schofield said. “It’s going to go down.”

“Yeah? Well we’re going to look like a pair of prize dicks if it doesn’t. We only got the go-ahead because of our input. All the intelligence is ours.”

“And it’s sound.” Schofield swung his seat around. “Arnie, what’s wrong? Why the jitters?”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to catch that bastard Townsend with the goods. Every time he’s slipped through the nets free and clear. We can’t touch the guy without evidence that’s one-hundred-and-one-percent solid. I don’t see that happening. The guy is laughing all the way to the bank, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Patience, my boy, patience. We’ll catch him. Even Townsend has to slip up sooner or later. When he does, it’s payday.”