Two Peasants And A President Part 28

The hair on the back of Jun's neck alerted his brain to the two enormous silhouettes approaching the intersection ahead from the left. The fugitives had been following a winding rural road northwest toward Beijing when they reached the point where it crossed old Highway 103 at the town of Hexiwu.

"Tanks," barely made it past the lump in his throat when he heard an answering voice in his cell phone. "Too late to turn around; we'll have to stop and let them cross in front of us," he told the voice on the other end. As two pavement-shaking T-99 main battle tanks lumbered by, preceded by a BJ-212, the Chinese version of a jeep, a hasty conference took place in the van, still more than a block behind the taxi.

Jun stopped just shy of the intersection and stared straight ahead, hoping the tanks were in a hurry and would not bother to investigate vehicles they pa.s.sed along the way to wherever it was they were going. The heads of the two soldiers in the jeep rotated sideways, looking over at the taxi and the van pulling up behind it. When the jeep's tail lights suddenly brightened and one of the soldiers spoke into his radio, Jun realized he had never been more scared in his life. His heart felt like it was throwing itself against his ribs. The tanks rolled to the side of the highway about fifty yards ahead and to the right of the taxi and stopped.

The jeep made an agonizingly slow U-turn and circled back to the taxi. The pa.s.senger door opened and a highly polished boot appeared beneath it. The officer stepped out, haughty gaze firmly fixed on Jun as he walked around the front of the jeep. Raising his portable radio to his lips, he spoke something inaudible into it without taking his eyes off Jun. In obvious response to his words, the hatch on the turret of one of the tanks opened and a crewman's head and torso appeared. The tank's heavy machinegun was quickly swung around and trained on the taxi.

"Papers!" the officer said coldly.

Jun handed his credentials to the officer, willing his hands to stop shaking.

"Where are you going?" the officer asked.

"To visit my sister in Beijing," Jun lied.

"What is your connection to the van behind you?"

"None, they were just traveling behind me," Jun replied. The officer looked into his eyes for what seemed like minutes, attempting to detect deceit or nervousness. As the seconds dragged on, Jun's heart continued to thrash inside his chest, surely announcing his guilt. Finally the officer handed the doc.u.ments back to him dismissively and with a curt wave of his arm said: "You may go."

Then, as the officer turned his attention to the van, its pa.s.senger door opened, and a soldier with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder stepped out, saluting sharply. The officer until now had not noticed the dull green uniforms in the dark cab of the van. The sight of a weapon prompted him to glance briefly over his shoulder toward the heavy machinegun now aimed at the soldier in front of him.

"Why are you traveling in that van, Corporal?" the officer demanded.

"Transporting prisoners, Sir," the soldier replied. "The tires on our truck were flattened and we commandeered this van. Respectfully request that you a.s.sist us in escorting the prisoners into Beijing, Sir. These are the ones they have been looking for."

The officer motioned his driver to get out of the jeep to a.s.sist him.

"Open the back," the officer demanded, "Carefully!" The soldier driving the van stepped out, keys in hand, and went to the back of the van where he unlocked the doors and swung them open while the corporal kept his Kalashnikov leveled at the Americans, reinforcing their status as prisoners.

The officer and his driver moved cautiously behind the van where they could see four Americans sitting on the floor, hands apparently cuffed behind them, looking very much like subdued prisoners.

"These are the Americans they have been looking for," the corporal said. "We are relieved that you can now take charge of them."

The officer smiled, realizing he had just been handed a serendipitous gift. The capture of the most wanted men in China, for which he would now take credit, doubtless would result in a promotion and perhaps even a better apartment for his family.

"The People's Republic is greatly indebted to you, corporal. You will be handsomely rewarded," he lied as he turned to see the Kalashnikov now pointed at his chest.

"Do not move, either one of you, or you will not live to see your families," the corporal said menacingly. "Remove your side arms slowly and place them on the floor of the van. Do not attempt to move from behind the van so the soldier with the machinegun can see you. If you do, you will be shot."

The officer's imperious demeanor evaporated when he found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle with whose capabilities he was quite familiar. He laid his pistol on the floor of the van and nodded to his driver to do the same.

"Now, listen very carefully," the corporal continued. "I'm going to return to the jeep with you where I will sit in the rear seat with my gun pointed at your back. You will order the tank crews to form up with you in front, followed by the van, and the tanks bringing up the rear. You will continue to lead your armored convoy as before, but this time according to my instructions."

The machine gunner was surprised to see that soldiers had been driving the delivery van, but saw little cause for alarm. From his position ahead and to the right on the shoulder of the highway, he could see nothing on either the left side or directly behind the van with its back doors open. He watched as one of the soldiers got back in the driver's seat of the van and the other followed the officer to the jeep. Then his radio crackled with the familiar voice of his officer ordering the tanks to escort the van, for reasons he did not explain.

Jun had continued on the rural road for a quarter mile before pulling over. The worst case scenario was now reality; the Americans had been captured along with the defectors who would be tortured and would implicate him and others. His mind was struggling to find some course of action when his phone rang.

"Hey, Jun buddy, you still there?" It was Jim. "We've got ourselves a military escort now."

"Why are you calling me if you're under arrest?" Jun asked incredulously.

"Who said anything about arrest?" Jim replied. Corporal Sheng's in the back seat of the jeep with a gun aimed at that officer. The tanks have been ordered to escort us. Now we need you to scout ahead and tell us what you see."

"Where are you?" Jun asked.

"We just pulled onto the highway heading northwest."

"I'll try to find a way to get back on the highway somewhere up ahead. I'll call you then."

Through a pair of small windows in the back doors of the van, the Seals could see the head of the tank's driver protruding from his hatch, directly below the barrel of the main gun. Both the turret and the drivers position in the T-99 closely resemble that of the American Abrams tank, but then many Chinese and Russian weapons systems resemble their American counterparts, from which they are often copied. Except during combat, when the tank would be fully 'b.u.t.toned-up,' this position allows the driver at least a fair view of what is in front of the ma.s.sive fifty-four ton machine.

While the tank driver sat quite low in the hull and could not see into the back of the van ahead, he had a clear view of its rear doors. In the tank turret was a soldier who could fire its coaxial machinegun, which is next to the barrel of the main gun and could quickly turn the van into sc.r.a.p metal, should he be ordered to do so. For that reason, the soldier manning the machine gun on top of the turret had resumed his seat inside and closed the hatch against Molotov c.o.c.ktails, which were increasingly being employed as the government called out more of its tanks. No one in either tank had been informed they were escorting prisoners and as far as they knew, there could be other soldiers in the van, or perhaps even officers traveling incognito to avoid being attacked by the mobs. For this reason the driver concerned himself with keeping his fifty-four ton machine on the road.

The astonished Seals now found themselves with a most unlikely escort, one they hoped would allow them to pa.s.s unchallenged through roadblocks. But the fact that their convoy was under the control of one who, while a defector, was a Chinese soldier who could conceivably experience regret and strike a deal with the officer in the jeep, troubled them. However, he had shown himself to be both resourceful and convincing thus far, and they had no choice but to trust him, at least for the time being. But at some point in the very near future, they would need to lose their armored escort; how no one had yet determined, so the unlikely convoy continued northwest toward Beijing.

Less than a week ago, Sheng Guangzu had been an army corporal based at the Beijing garrison. Now he sat in the backseat of an army jeep with a gun in one hand and a compact satellite phone borrowed from one of the Seals in the other. Having been pressured by circ.u.mstance to join the army, he had not found the brutal way enlisted men are treated to his liking. Studying history was his first love, something he had inherited from his parents whose level of education brought them considerable grief during the Cultural Revolution. They had both died before their time, primarily the result of the treatment they had received in their youth from the Red Guards.

Ironically, Corporal Sheng had only risen to the rank of corporal because he had more education than the other privates, something more highly valued now than in the time of Mao and the Red Guards. But in the eyes of the officers, corporals and privates comprise a lower cla.s.s suited only for menial and dangerous jobs, of which the army has many. They are universally despised and disrespected, not only in the army but even by the merchant cla.s.s who themselves have historically occupied a low stratum in Chinese society.

So Corporal Sheng kept his feelings to himself and shared little about his past with his fellow soldiers for fear of being ridiculed. His was not a happy lot, but it was nevertheless one that would have been envied by many a peasant in China's long and troubled history. At least he had plenty to eat and a dry place to sleep at night. He had allowed his mind to wander back in time when the officer's voice intruded.

"Why are you doing this, corporal? It will not end well for you; you know that, don't you?"

"Shut up!" Sheng spat out, surprised at hearing such words come out of his own mouth, then belatedly realizing that it had felt rather good to treat this pig officer as he had so often been treated.

"It's not too late," the officer persisted, hoping to persuade the corporal to change his mind.

"You're right," Sheng answered, "It's not to late for you and your driver to join our movement and bring democracy to our country. Know this: a tyrant whose people hate him will not survive. Sooner or later, he will be replaced and you would do well to be on the winning team."

"You will not live to see it," replied the officer.

"And you will precede me in death if you do not do exactly as you are told. I have nothing to lose now. You and your driver would do well to remember that."

Sheng thought back to what he had been promised by the Seals: a new life in the United States. He hoped the Americans had not deceived him, but regardless, he had already made his fateful decision on the day when the convoy was attacked. The sheer audacity of attacking with bows and arrows an army convoy armed with a.s.sault rifles! It was a stupendous gesture of unbridled courage by young people yearning for the right to speak and to be heard, and it had filled his heart with a joy he had not experienced since he entered the army. The decision to join them had been spontaneous.

His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of the phone.

"h.e.l.lo," he said, realizing he would now need to communicate in English, something he had done infrequently since school.

"Ask the officer what his orders were before he stopped back there," said Jim. This Sheng did.

"He says he was ordered to form a roadblock at an intersection in Beijing."

"Where?" asked the Seal.

"It's just outside the 3 Outer Ring, in northeast Beijing," he says.

"Do you know how long it will take to get there?"

"About thirty minutes, I think," replied Sheng.

The Seals conferred in the back of the delivery van. In the jeep, the officer's radio crackled.

"Give it to me!" ordered Sheng.

The officer handed it across the seat.

"Yes," answered Sheng, trying to speak with the authority of an officer and at the same time elevating the muzzle of his Kalashnikov slightly, lest those in the front seat be tempted to speak up.

"We have been delayed by the capture of important prisoners and will be forced to detour to take them to headquarters. You will need to a.s.sign someone else to the intersection."

"We have been ordered to take them directly and not to turn them over to anyone else," Sheng responded when questioned. "Their ident.i.ty is not your concern!"

Sheng could not detect in the voice of the person on the other end any hint that he had been expecting someone else to answer his radio call. He had offered neither his name nor rank but had sounded like an enlisted man calling on behalf of an officer. Sheng had spoken to him as would a superior officer and, as far as he could tell, it had worked, at least for the moment.

He now hoped they would not be expected to show up at the intersection to set up a roadblock. It did not escape his attention, however, that what he had said would likely be reported to others whose response could not be predicted, and he dreaded the likelihood that the radio would soon crackle again, this time with the voice of an officer demanding to know what was going on.

Without revealing any destination, he ordered the driver to take the next exit, one that would take them closer to the American emba.s.sy. In the back of the van, Jim was updating the CIA station chief.

"Norwood."

"Looks like we've got ourselves an escort," said Jim.

"Would you care to elaborate?" the station chief replied. "We were stopped by a jeep and a couple of T-99's. One of the defectors is now riding in the backseat of the jeep with a gun pointed at the driver and the officer in the front seat. At this point, we're in control of our escort. I don't think the tankers even realize who's in the back of the van. There was silence on the other end as Norwood processed what he had just heard.

"Are you telling me you captured two tanks and a jeep?" he finally said.

"Yeah, more or less. We're hoping they'll get us through the roadblocks."

"OK, I'll keep monitoring their military frequencies and let you know if I hear something pertinent. In the meantime, try not to blow anything up."

"I'll do my best," replied Jim.

"Which reminds me," said Rad, "I wonder if those tanks are carrying ammo for their main guns."

"What are you thinking about?" asked Jim.

"With a 125mm cannon, we could make big holes in anything that gets in our way."

"As I recall, it takes three to man one of those babies, Rad."

"Three normal humans," Rad answered, smiling.

"While I am sorely tempted to entertain that possibility," replied Jim, "the odds of two tanks, with which we have minimal familiarity, against many tanks plus attack helicopters, sounds a bit on the skimpy side, don't you think?"

"What attack helicopters?" replied Rad.

"The ones they'd deploy if they thought we were operating those tanks."

"If you say so," Rad replied, "but I still think blowing stuff up would be a lot more fun than riding in the back of a van."

"That's all right, Rad, keep thinking along those lines. We're gonna need an edge to move this party to the emba.s.sy. Sooner or later, somebody with a lot of stripes is gonna challenge our little magical mystery tour here," Jim said prophetically.

"Roadblock!" the soldier driving the van said in heavily accented English. Three heads collided trying to peer at the same time through the door between the van's cab and cargo area.

Ahead, an older model tank stood at an intersection flanked by a jeep, from which two soldiers had already begun to dismount.

"Don't even think about slowing down," Sheng ordered the jeep's driver, whose eyes widened at the thought of a couple of guards spraying the jeep with thirty caliber bullets. After weighing the certainty of being shot in the back against the possibility of being shot by those manning the roadblock, the caravan continued without slowing.

"When we're almost even with them, salute," he ordered the officer, "and make it good if you want to keep your spine intact."

Upon seeing the tanks, preceded by a jeep, which typically indicates the presence of an officer, the soldiers at the road block simply moved aside, returning the officer's salute.

"Now that wasn't so bad," Jim said as one of the other Seals turned to look out the back window. It didn't appear that any of the tank driver's feathers had been ruffled either; he seemed primarily focused on keeping the beast pointed in the right direction. Once again the phone in Jim's lap buzzed.

"Yeah."

"This is Jun. I'm about three blocks ahead of you. I didn't think they'd let you through."

"We didn't exactly stop to ask permission, Jun, how does it look up ahead?"

"I spoke with a friend a couple minutes ago on the phone; each hour there are more tanks blocking intersections. It's going to get harder and harder to find a way through."

"Thanks, Jun. We'll have a little powwow here and get back with you."

"A what?" asked Jun.

"A discussion, Jun, a discussion."

"Jun says the tanks are getting more numerous. If some officer is determined to stop us, we can't expect our buddies back there to just run him over. At some point we're going to have to get a divorce from our noisy friends."

"I've got an idea," said Rad.

"I hope it doesn't involve blowing anything up," replied Jim.

"How 'bout we have the officer up front tell the tankers they need to guard the next couple of unoccupied intersections we come to and then we and the jeep go the rest of the way alone."

"We lose the intimidation factor," said Jim.

"That's right, but sooner or later we've gotta lose it anyway. We'll be a lot more agile without a hundred tons of steel behind us. If Jun tells us there's trouble ahead, we can do a huey and try something else. Hard to do that with a couple of tanks. Besides, those tankers are bound to get curious if we start telling 'em to change course every time we see trouble up ahead."

"What about the officer?"

"He rides back here with us. I'm not comfortable with getting stopped and having to rely on him to bluff our way through. Sooner or later, he's gonna make a break for it and then we're hosed. Sheng can stay in the jeep behind the driver. That driver's not going to feel nearly as brave without his officer."

"I got a better idea," said George, "I say we ditch the officer and the driver. If we're not planning to stop for anyone or anything, they're just excess baggage and a liability."

"You mean we kill 'em?"