The Elephant Game Read online

  The Coast Guard cutter James arrived later that day. She had been on patrol only been fifty miles to the north when the USS Farragut’s VBSS team was conducting their boarding. While the James’s main mission was counternarcotics focused, she was one of the newer Legend-class national security cutters that the US Coast Guard had in service. They were larger and more capable than their predecessors and allowed the Coast Guard to effectively perform a wider variety of national defense–related missions.

  A Coast Guard investigative team had joined the Navy’s VBSS team on board the smuggler boat. The Coast Guard lieutenant had spent decades on these types of missions. He was speaking to both his captain and the captain of the USS Farragut over his radio.

  “Looks like a mothership alright. Empty fuel drums, guns belowdecks. We just did some tests and there are traces of multiple chemicals here that indicate narcotics trafficking. But something definitely went down here. Pretty strange, really. We don’t normally see this type of thing way out in the ocean. If it was a rival smuggling operation, I would expect them to fight it out on shore. Either way, we think there were five or six people killed here. We’ve collected seventy-four rounds of ammunition so far and we’re just getting started. We’ll send that back to the lab once we get into shore.”

  The CO of the Coast Guard cutter replied, “What about the dead body?”

  “Sir, it looks like that person was part of the crew of this mothership. We think he was trying to hide in a small storage locker. There were bullet holes in the locker. The person must have been shot while hiding in there, but then made his way out when the attackers were gone. Then he just bled out. My guess is the other bodies were dumped overboard. Probably floating around here somewhere if the sharks haven’t already gotten to ’em.”

  Commander Boyle said, “Alright. Thanks for checking this out, gentlemen. I assume you’ve got it from here? We were just informed that we have a rendezvous with the aircraft carrier Ford that we have to make.”

  “We’ve got it from here, Captain,” replied the captain of the Coast Guard cutter.

  Commander Boyle recalled his VBSS team to the Farragut. Within the hour, the destroyer was sailing away. The Coast Guard cutter James ended up towing the narcotics mothership back to Panama City. From there, special investigation teams would comb it for clues and pass on the intelligence to various international agencies.

  It would be several days before forensic experts matched some of the spent rounds to Chinese military weapons.

  5

  General Chen threw his cover across the room with such velocity that it slammed into an unstable bookshelf, swaying it and knocking several volumes onto the floor. The noise was sufficient to cause his secretary to open the door and check on him. Through the small sliver that she dared to create, she could see that the general was quite upset, but physically unharmed. She quietly re-closed the door.

  Chen knew that three members of this staff would be out there in the waiting area. The general’s mood was the chief indicator of the quality of life of his staffers. General Chen had fifty-six staff members in all, but he only spoke to the most senior officers among them. The others were beneath him. But for those staffers who had daily contact with him, death would be a welcome comfort, providing a quick end to the general’s daily verbal onslaught.

  The general knew that he had a certain reputation among his staff officers, but he didn’t care. They were tools for him to use. A good day for them was when the general sent them on a distant errand, usually to investigate the status of one of his units.

  Today was not a good day.

  Cheng Jinshan and Admiral Song had been arrested over a week ago. To the general’s knowledge, no one in the president’s circle had been aware that he too had been assisting Jinshan. But now he had been told that two Central Committee members were asking about him. Their staffs had contacted his own, asking for information on his schedule.

  What if they were scheduling an inquiry? Given his high rank, they would want to be sure of his involvement before leveling any charges.

  General Chen had told Jinshan that things were moving too fast. China was a massive country, and massive organizations didn’t move with lightning speed. But Jinshan was notoriously persistent. He’d demanded that the Chinese military be ready for war by spring. How was that supposed to happen given the current presidential leadership? When was Jinshan planning on installing a puppet? If the coup was unsuccessful, any one of them could be rounded up and shot for treason. And now they were in a precarious position…

  For the last fifteen to twenty years, the general had been of such high rank that he had grown used to unwavering support of his every idea. His belief that he was supremely intelligent and omnipotent was reinforced by subordinates that quivered at the thought of opposing him. He ruled with an iron fist. Any subordinate that voiced an opinion of dissent was sprayed with a verbal flame that left little doubt as to how to behave in the future. These years of royal treatment had served to reinforce the general’s belief in himself.

  Disappointment could be devastating to his psyche. His response was usually disbelief and a therapeutic lashing out at his favorite of targets—the staff.

  Where were they? Did they expect him to come get them? Fine. He stomped over to his door and swung it open violently, hitting the wall and causing the secretary to jump in her seat for the second time in as many minutes. The general glared at his men.

  “Well?” His voice boomed. “Get in here!”

  They scurried in like scared dogs. Then the general slammed the door behind them, marching around his large wooden desk and collapsing in his chair. His staff remained standing. They were senior officers themselves, but the general’s treatment of them was indicative of their place in his eyes. They were the lowest of cretins. They would stand because they were subservient to him. He would sit because he was their king.

  “Well? What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Li?”

  Colonel Li, the general’s chief of staff for the last two years, did not know what to say. The general was worried about being taken down with Jinshan and Admiral Song. The senior staff officers knew of Jinshan’s plans. They had to know. It was the senior staff that did all of the work. For them, it was a risky proposition, being loyal to General Chen. That loyalty was a one-way street. But he was quite vindictive, if crossed, and the Chinese government wasn’t known for its surplus of whistle-blowers. The last staff officer who had tried to lodge a complaint against General Chen had ended up getting demoted on the spot. Then he had been shipped off to the Russian border, never to be seen again.

  Li could either attempt to show that he had nothing to do with today’s cause of pain, or take responsibility for it himself. Either way, the staff would take a browbeating. The general was in one of his moods.

  Li began, “Sir, I sincerely apologize that we have not supported you well enough. I will do everything I can to rectify…”

  The general held up his hand. His face was contorted in disgust. “Li, do you know what this is? Failure. Each of you has failed me. Once, just once, I would like the support of my staff. But instead, this occurs. Failure. If I am accused of anything…”—he couldn’t even utter the word criminal—“then I owe it all to you.”

  The three men, sweating and swaying in their stance, stood silently and tried not to make eye contact with their boss. There was no reasonable predictor for when the general would be in one of his moods. Each time the staff approached him, it was like sticking their heads into the mouth of a lion to determine whether it was hungry or not.

  “Failure,” the general muttered quietly. He was shaking his head now. “How many times did I say that we needed to keep ourselves separate from Admiral Song’s operations?”

  The staff nodded in agreement.

  “Just get out.”

  The three staffers did not need to hear that twice. They walked in a line to the exit, closing the door behind them.

  General Chen put his face in
his hands. A dark cloud formed over him. He was sixty-two years old. He had spent over forty years in the Chinese military, and twenty as a flag officer. None of this was his fault. His talent and leadership went criminally underappreciated. Those bastard politicians didn’t understand what it was to be a warrior like him.

  He was confronted with his own mortality for the first time that he could remember. Over the years, each promotion had been another step on the ladder towards the highest title in the Chinese military. He was so close to it now. Jinshan had made promises.

  But those would not come to fruition now.

  General Chen thought about what might come next. If the politicians who were investigating him found him guilty of conspiracy, he could face imprisonment or even death. Even if they couldn’t prove anything, he would likely suffer a reduced stature in retirement.

  The general looked at a picture on his wall. In it, he stood in front of a military parade in Beijing as tens of thousands of troops and tanks went by. The Chinese president was next to him.

  He shook his head. It couldn’t end this way…

  Jinshan had promised him title and power—supreme commander of the Asian theater. General Chen would take command of all five PLA branches during the war. His name would go down in history as the greatest battlefield commander in all of China. Perhaps in all the world.

  The intercom on his desk interrupted his thoughts.

  “Sir, I’m very sorry, but you have a call from Qincheng.”

  “Qincheng?”

  “Yes, General. From the prison, sir.” What is this? “Fine,” he barked, pressing the flashing light on his phone and picking up the receiver.

  “This is General Chen, who is this?”

  “Hello, General. This is Cheng Jinshan. I hope you are well.”

  A few hours later, General Jin Chen sat behind his office desk, flipping through a brief on the American military’s Pacific deployment schedule. He adjusted his glasses as he read. His three staff members were back in front of his desk, relieved at their sudden change in fortune.

  “When do we leave?” he asked his chief of staff. Chen did not look up as he spoke.

  “Your car is waiting, sir. The drive is only ten minutes, but the politicians will be arriving soon. Now would be a good time to go,” replied the chief of staff, Colonel Li.

  The general nodded and looked up at the colonel. “What are you hearing from your friends to the West?” He was referring to the other chiefs of staff that Colonel Li had spoken to at the behest of his superior.

  “It is as Mr. Jinshan said, General. The wheels are still turning. And the politicians’ staffers who inquired about your schedule were doing it to ensure that you would be at this meeting.”

  General Chen shook his head and smiled. A rare expression for him. “Cheng Jinshan is a remarkable man. Even in prison, he is in control.”

  “Where will the meeting be?”

  “Mr. Jinshan will join you and the politicians in the warden’s office.”

  “And Song?”

  “Admiral Song will also be present.”

  Chen nodded. “Excellent. I must say that I am relieved. But I am glad to see this positive turn of events.”

  Colonel Li gestured with his arm. “Sir, if you are ready, it would be good for us to depart now.”

  The general handed the folder to one of his aides as he marched out the door to a black sedan. Three escort vehicles were in trail, two of which were part of a Chinese special operations security detail assigned directly to the general. The security men held light machine guns with slings over their shoulders. Their eyes took in everything. The other escorts carried small briefcases with secure laptops inside. They had access to any information the general might need during the brief.

  The general’s motorcade stopped outside the gate of Qincheng Prison. A gate guard began to check identifications and then spotted the general. He gave a crisp salute and motioned them to head in. The cars passed under the traditional Chinese arch known as a paifang. Then they parked in the courtyard, where several more military guards were waiting.

  Qincheng Prison had been built in the 1950s with the help of the Soviet Union. It was located in the Changping district of Beijing, an hour away from the city’s center. The building was highly secretive, and the only prison that belonged to the Ministry of Public Security. Political prisoners, including those who had participated in the democratic protests in Tiananmen Square, had been imprisoned there. But more recently, Cheng Jinshan and the CCDI had used it as a place to send China’s “purged” elite. It was cynically referred to in China as a “luxury” prison. Ironically, Qincheng Prison was where Cheng Jinshan himself had sent politicians he had deemed to be disloyal. The prison warden had been on the payroll for years. He was one of Jinshan’s staunchest supporters.

  Several weeks earlier, Cheng Jinshan and Admiral Song had been taken into custody by the PLA military police and sent to Qincheng Prison to await their sentencing.

  But their stay hadn’t been uncomfortable. They had been given number identification, just like all the other prisoners. Guards watched them. And they weren’t allowed to leave the premises. But they were able to make phone calls whenever they pleased. And their rooms were filled with creature comforts. Jinshan had a bedroom, an office, and a couch. His personal secretary had even begun working there out of an office near the warden’s own.

  Admiral Song’s staff, in disarray for the first day after his arrest, had quickly learned that they were expected to continue their operations on the island and update him several times a day by phone.

  The wheels were indeed still turning.

  “This way, General.” The commander who was waiting for them wore the uniform of the South Sea Fleet. One of Song’s men; General Chen recognized him immediately.

  Minutes later, the general sat upright in an elegant leather chair, sipping tea. Two politicians—the ones who had scared him half to death with their inquiries—sat across from him. They were engaged in a meaningless conversation about each other’s families.

  Cheng Jinshan walked through the door wearing the drab clothes of a prisoner. There were bags under his eyes, and his skin was tinted yellow. General Chen was reminded of the rumors that he was in bad health.

  Jinshan looked at the guard who had escorted him in and waved the boy away. The guard followed orders and left the room. Probably the highest-ranking meeting ever to have occurred here. General Chen laughed to himself.

  “Sorry I’m late, gentlemen. I hope I did not keep you waiting for too long.”

  The others dismissed the apology with nods.

  “We are each glad to see that you are well,” replied General Chen, unsmiling.

  He had first met Jinshan years ago, when Chen had been a mere colonel. That unfortunate situation with his daughter. Chen still wondered about her sometimes. But he never asked. That was part of his deal with the devil.

  Chen’s wife had never been the same since then. Li had left with nothing more than a phone call for a goodbye. With Jinshan’s help, Li had been chosen for a prestigious yet secretive program. The general and his wife wouldn’t see their daughter for a long time, they were told. Perhaps never. But it was by far a better outcome than what could have been.

  Li’s actions at Junxun had been inexcusable. Criminal, even. She had mutilated another student in response to some sort of disagreement they’d had. Chen’s conversation with his daughter had revealed it to be more than that, but the details didn’t matter. It was her word against theirs, and no one would believe the girl. Besides, an opportunity had presented itself…

  Cheng Jinshan had claimed to be a sort of recruiter for the Ministry for State Security. He had explained that, from time to time, he could help wayward candidates to overcome their misfortunes—as long as it was in the best interests of the state, of course.

  Li was an exceptional candidate, Jinshan had remarked to Chen. Her slate could be wiped clean. She would be placed in a special program
. One where a person of her talents could pursue an honorable and noteworthy occupation. The sky was the limit for someone of her talent. She would be of great service to her country. And importantly, Jinshan would surely remember the sacrifice that the colonel had made as well. After all, he was up for promotion. And Jinshan was well connected to the PLA’s flag officer corps.

  A recruiter indeed. General Chen laughed at that claimed occupational title now. Chen knew that no mere recruiter for the Ministry of State Security would have been capable of what Jinshan had accomplished.

  A part of General Chen was sad that Li had left them. But truth be told, he wasn’t the fatherly type. The arrangement had been the best thing for all of them, he knew. In one fell swoop, Jinshan had allowed his daughter to retain her honor and ensured that Colonel Chen became General Chen.

  Chen’s career had quickly blossomed after that. He had barely made colonel before meeting Jinshan. That was his ceiling, he had been told by the PLA’s human resources staff—idiots.

  They hadn’t recognized his talent. That had been four promotions and three decades ago. General Chen was now one of the five highest-ranking military members in all of China. It had taken a man of Cheng Jinshan’s vision to see his talent and assist him up a promotional ladder fraught with politics.

  Politics were Jinshan’s strength, not General Chen’s. Chen continued to receive visits from Jinshan throughout the years. They had quickly found that they shared two things in common: persistence and an unbridled ambition. Empires were formed by such men.

  Now General Chen looked at the two politicians sitting across the room. The fact that they were here meant that they were loyal to Jinshan. He wouldn’t have invited them otherwise.

  But these politicians didn’t yet know why they were here. Did they possess the ambition to become empire builders? Or would they wilt in the face of such a radical proposition?

  Why did they think Jinshan had invited them? Perhaps they expected Jinshan to lobby for his release, or to have his sentence commuted? Both of the politicians were powerful members of the Politburo’s inner circle—the Standing Committee. They had likely had to take many precautions in order to come here without being seen. General Chen knew that—like himself—they must expect that the return on this investment outweighed the risk.