Beyond all Limits (31 page)

3

The pain in Cole’s toes, his chest and his shoulders had now all but eradicated the burning pain in his groin. The crucifixion position he was in had done its work perfectly, leaving him a mess both physically and psychologically.

And it didn’t help, knowing that he was waiting for Zhou’s return, anticipating what it was Zhou was going to do to him.

But it was just pain, he tried to remind himself, it was only pain. He had to try and put his mind elsewhere, just as he’d been trained to do, as he’d done during those hellish months in that stinking prison in the mountains of Pakistan all those years before.

He wasn’t embarrassed for letting go after Zhou’s last visit and crying; it had been necessary, a grieving process which had enabled him to move forward, get his mind back on track, where it had to be.

It was only pain.

Even when the monster forcefully violated him, he would put his mind elsewhere, disconnect himself from the pain, the psychological damage of such an attack.

He assumed Zhou was going to sever his manhood in its entirety too, his promise to use the razor again hinting at such, and again Cole told himself that he could – he
would
– handle it, if it came to that.

But whatever Zhou was planning on doing to him, Cole had decided that this time he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

During his last visit, the man had put his face so close to Cole’s, so close that Cole had felt his rotten, stinking breath on his cheek.

He knew the man would do so again, would remove the gag so he could hear Cole beg for mercy; and when he did, Cole would bury his teeth in the man’s face, take hold of his nose and whip his head back and forth like a dog, rip the entire thing off. Or maybe an ear, or the cheek – anything he could sink his teeth into, anything that presented itself.

He should have done it the first time, was angry with himself that he hadn’t.

But he was going to fight this time;
hell yes
, he was going to put up a fight. He would make that bastard bleed, and then he’d take anything the man gave him in return, his mind made up that he could handle anything the monster threw his way.

Yes
, Cole told himself,
you can do this. You can do this. You can do this
.

And then the metal door creaked open slowly, painfully, the noise deafening him after so much silence, the corridor lights blinding him after so much darkness.

But in the doorway, he could make out the huge, monstrous mass of Zhou Shihuang; watched as the man’s hand crept up the wall, hit a light switch.

The entire cell was bathed in stark, harsh light for the first time since Cole had arrived there, and the first thing he saw was the knowing, lecherous smile on Zhou’s face, a look full of anticipation for the joys to come.

And then he saw the concrete floor, the walls, all stained with dried blood that had been scrubbed but had obviously proved impossible to get out, and Cole wondered how many people had met their lonely, pain-filled deaths here in this horrendous room.

‘Hello,’ said Zhou softly, edging into the cell and closing the door behind him. ‘I couldn’t sleep, thinking about you. I was going to wait until morning, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t wait to make you my . . . how do you Americans call it? My
bitch
.’ He smiled his savage, terrible smile again, and Cole knew the man was far from normal, far from sane.

His heart leapt in his chest, his mind screaming at him in raw panic at what the man was planning on doing to him, but he cut it off with an iron will, concentrating on the only thing he could control – the passage of his teeth towards the big man’s face.

Zhou approached, sizing up Cole’s naked body once more, and then his thick fingers went to the gag, pulling it down to rest around his neck.

‘I’m not American,’ Cole whispered quietly, pretending to be even weaker than he actually was.

‘What was that?’ Zhou asked with interest, unable to hear him. ‘You are what?’

‘I’m Dutch,’ Cole whispered again. ‘I’m not an American.’

Zhou laughed, moving in closer. ‘Say that again, my friend? You are what?’

Yes, you sonofabitch
, Cole said to himself, watching as the man’s massive head moved closer towards him,
just come a little bit closer, just a little more, a little more . . .

Cole’s mouth opened, pretending to whisper again as Zhou’s face came in that last fatal inch, his wide, fleshy nose so close now, and Cole primed himself like a rattlesnake for the attack.

‘Sir!’ a voice shouted from the doorway, and Zhou’s head snapped up, immediately out of range.

‘What is it?’ Zhou asked the soldier stood in the open doorway. ‘I gave orders I was not to be disturbed.’

‘It is General Wu, sir. He needs you in the control room immediately.’

Zhou stood stock still, regarding the soldier in front of him, before turning back to his prisoner, casting his eyes once more over Cole’s bleeding, naked body.

He nodded his head in resignation, and looked into Cole’s eyes. ‘I am sorry, but it looks like we will have to delay our little game a while longer. But don’t worry,’ he said with a wink, ‘I will let you have another go at biting me when I return.’

And with that, the big man was gone, striding off out of the cell toward the control room, leaving Cole to ponder the unsettling fact that Zhou had known his plan all along.

‘Is he talking?’ Wu asked Zhou Shihuang, back in the Zhongnonhai control room, two subterranean levels above the prison block.

‘Not yet,’ Zhou said moodily, ‘I was just in the middle of my interrogation. But he will. They all do in the end.’

Wu nodded his head, knowing the man was right. It was impossible to resist forever, for any human being. The question was, how long it would take – it was a simple truth that some took longer to break than others. Still, Zhou always made them crack quickly. He didn’t know how the man did it – and nor did he want to – but Zhou was definitely effective in his work, and that was all there was to it.

Answers would be good, Wu knew, but he had managed to get some political capital out of recent events anyway; the entire world media was fired up about what had happened, many blaming US intelligence for the attacks, all of them wondering why the Politburo had been targeted.

There had been plenty of commentary about the Taihang Mountains and the Great Wall Project too, Wu had been pleased – but not surprised – to see, all of it fearful and panic-inducing. By the time his fleet arrived at the Japanese coast, not one country in the world would have the political will to stop him. The fears of their citizenry would put paid to all notions of helping allies, and it would be every man for himself, America included.

He had wondered, idly, about sending another DF-26 ‘carrier killer’ to finish the USS
Ford
off for good, in retaliation for the US attack. Two things had stayed his hand in the end – he could still not be one hundred percent sure that it
had
been an American attack, and he really didn’t want to risk US reprisals as a result. He
was
willing to nuke the United States off the face of the planet, but really didn’t want to let it get to that stage. After all, America was a huge market for Chinese and Japanese goods, and her continued existence made sound financial sense.

‘How can I serve you, my master?’ Zhou said, and Wu couldn’t quite tell if he was being made fun of; Zhou had a peculiar sense of humor. Wu didn’t like Zhou’s tone, but was hardly going to tell the man; despite his own elevated rank and position, he didn’t dare offend the ex-monk. The man was unbalanced in more ways than one and – while it made him an incredibly effective enforcer – it also made him a shade too unpredictable to argue with over such trivialities.

‘We are leaving,’ Wu said simply.

‘Leaving?’ Zhou asked in surprise. ‘Where are we going?’

Wu smiled. ‘To lead the fleet into Japanese waters,’ he said proudly. ‘Our helicopter leaves in twenty minutes, we should land on the
Liaoning
within four hours.’ The smile spread underneath his well-oiled mustache. ‘Just in time for our appearance on the radar screens of the Japanese dogs.’

Zhou shook his head. ‘Surely it is too dangerous for you to be there?’

Wu shook his own head. Did the man not understand?

General Wu De was
not
like those other world leaders, those cowardly and idle politicians who sent others into battle while they stayed at home and drank tea.

No, Wu was a military man, and combat was in his blood. It was his dream to lead the forces in against his enemies, to lead the Chinese in their quest to expand the empire.

He had deeply regretted getting to Taiwan so late, had always wondered what it would have been like to lead the attack himself.

He wanted to be seen as a vibrant, active, courageous man by his people, a man who could lead by example, to motivate and inspire the Chinese people into following him towards their true destiny.

He was the Genghis Khan of his times, and he knew he had to be seen as such.

He had lost his opportunity in Taiwan, and the chance to impress the public at the Dragon Boat races had also been lost the day before; he would be damned if he was going to lose such an opportunity again.

Common sense – and the direct advice of his many aides – warned against his actions, but Wu knew what he wanted, and he was going to do it.

And Japan of all places – how could he miss watching the invasion of Japan, that most hated of nations, first hand? He had dreamt of conquering that nation, of
crushing
it, since boyhood.

He had fought with himself, the sensible side of his personality warning against it, telling him that as the paramount leader of China he should remain where he was, all the better to monitor all of the things that had to be monitored within a country as vast as China.

But the day-to-day trivialities of running a nation held no interest for him – they were merely hindrances which stood in the way of the expansionist war-mongering that he desired, that he loved, so much.

The actual, mostly mundane running of the country was why he had so many aides and assistants, why he had kept so much of the communist bureaucracy in place after the coup.

His purpose in life was to lead the nation into war, and he was damn well going to do it.

4

‘Welcome aboard the USS
John C. Stennis
,’ the naval captain said with a broad smile. ‘My name is Captain Dan DeLuca, and we’re all happy to have you here.’

The captain gestured to one of his officers, who saluted smartly. ‘Lieutenant Henning will escort you to your quarters, and then we’ll need the Vice Premiers to come back up to the flag bridge to liaise with Admiral Charleston, the commander of the
Stennis
battle group. Then we’ll see about getting a link up to the White House.’

There were mumbled assents from the exhausted Politburo members, Kang Xing among them.

It was truly a relief to be aboard the
Stennis,
one of the older Nimitz-class aircraft carriers but a formidable weapons platform all the same.

It was sailing just outside the range of the DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles of the Second Artillery Regiment, about sixteen hundred kilometers from the Chinese coast, in the western Pacific Ocean to east of the Ryukyu Islands, and it was accompanied by its full carrier battle group, ready to go into action at a moment’s notice.

Kang accepted that it was a good place to take them, and recognized the slick, professional job done by the submarine captain on getting them here in the first place. He’d had to slip the
Texas
through several bodies of Chinese-controlled water before reaching the relative safety of the Pacific, and he’d done so quite expertly.

They would be quite safe here, Kang was sure; and it would also provide them with direct communication with President Abrams and the White House, the next best thing to being in DC themselves.

And this way, still close to the action, they could be seen by the people to be courageous, not running all the way to America; they were still in-theatre, able to return home at any moment.

Kang wondered if General Wu had launched his attack on Japan yet; for that was surely the man’s next major move. And what would the
Stennis
carrier battle group do then?

Kang smiled as he wondered if the
Stennis
was indeed the safest place for them; they might well be pulled into the war with Japan, to see it with their own eyes first hand.

Kang wouldn’t mind that at all.

But first things first, he decided; he had to speak to Chang Wubei, make him understand the opportunity he had to impress Admiral Charleston, and then the Americans at the White House. If it could be decided that
Chang
would take the lead in negotiations over the First Vice Premier, Liang Huanjia, then his protégé would definitely be on his way to claim the leadership upon the Politburo’s return to the People’s Republic.

And that, at the end of the day, was a large part of what this had been about all along.

‘You’ve found the
Liaoning?
’ Ellen Abrams asked with trepidation.

The president was in the Oval Office in a meeting with her National Security Adviser when the call had arrived from Bud Shaw, the director of the NSA.

Eckhart looked across the polished wood desk at her with interest and alarm in equal measure.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Shaw said as Abrams clicked him onto speakerphone. ‘The Japanese have just tracked her passing out of the East China Sea around the southern tip of Kyushu. The
Liaoning
, with an entire carrier battle group.’ He paused, took a breath. ‘In fact, it seems that most of China’s East Sea Fleet has passed into Japanese waters. Some elements are already stationing themselves off around the lower areas of Japan, the carrier group is still headed north.’

‘To Tokyo?’ Abrams asked.

‘We have to assume so, yes,’ Shaw confirmed. ‘And it will be sitting outside the Japanese capital within the next few hours. But that’s a purely psychological gesture – it’s already close enough to launch its planes.’

‘Do they have landing ships en route?’ Eckhart asked.

‘They do,’ Shaw replied gravely. ‘It looks like they are planning on a full invasion.’

Abrams looked down at her desk, aghast at the news. What was she going to do now?

Japan was her ally, and she had pledged the protection of the United States; but Wu was alive, in control of three thousand nuclear warheads. What could she possibly do?

The good news was that Force One had succeeded in rescuing the entire Chinese Politburo from Beijing, and they were now ensconced on the USS
John C. Stennis
. Admiral Charleston had confirmed their arrival and she was due to speak to the Vice Premiers shortly. The only advantage she had was that she would have contact with the Politburo, while the rest of the world assumed they were dead, and she wondered what she could so with that.

But what was going to make matters worse was the fact that pretty soon – within the hour, she guessed – the news media of the entire world would have picked up on the entry of the Chinese fleet into Japanese waters, and a panicked public would be demanding answers.

Another telephone rang on the desk, and she looked at the ID. Not surprisingly, it was Prime Minister Toshikatsu.

‘I’ll have to call you back, Bud,’ Abrams said. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’

She put the first telephone down and picked up the second, wondering what she was going to tell him.

The helicopter wasn’t far out from the Fleet now, Zhou could see. Soon, General Wu could take the lead position on the flagship and give the order to invade.

He began to consider the American prisoner back at the Zhongnonhai; it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to play his games with the man for some time. Who knew how long Wu would keep them on the battlefield?

But there were certainly attractions that came with going in with the troops – the spoils of war, just as there had been in Taiwan. Women, men, boys, girls – all for the taking. He smiled; perhaps he could indeed forget about the American for a while.

But he
did
still want to question the man, and would be angered if the prisoner died before his return.

He looked at one of the officers who traveled with them. ‘Contact the Zhongnonhai prisons,’ he ordered, unsurprised as the man recoiled from him slightly; it was the story of his life.

Although nobody would have believed him now, Zhou had been a weak and frail boy, a target for bullies for many sad, unhappy years. His own father had been the worst, cursing his small size and physical weakness and beating him continually in the hopes that he could make a ‘man’ out of his pathetic son.

His boyhood had been unpleasant and unhappy, but one year he had finally started growing, and at unprecedented speed; within a single year he had changed beyond all measure.

And with the change in size came a change in attitude, a change in spirit; no longer would he be the weak and feeble one, picked on and bullied. No, now he would be the bully; and he had decided to start with his father.

It happened when he had started to insult his son’s clumsiness instead of his size, finding something else to pick on and seizing on the fact that Zhou’s coordination had not kept step with his growing body. In a fit of rage, Zhou had picked up his father’s hammer and had brandished it in his face, threatened to hit him with it. But his father had just laughed, and that was when Zhou had had enough; when his mother came down to investigate the noise, she’d found her son slumped over his father’s body, exhausted, the head completely caved in.

Zhou had escaped from the house before the police could arrest him, and had been surprised to read in the papers that the dead man had been struck in the head sixty-eight times with the ball hammer. Zhou could remember no more than one or two.

On the run, Zhou had started to run with the local street gangs, his increased size and strength combined with his newly-discovered ruthlessness standing him in good stead within the community of Guangzhou’s criminal youth.

But he had killed again, and again, and soon the danger of being killed himself by rival gang members was too great and he had fled Guangzhou forever, finally ending up – at the age of fifteen, his coordination now finally matching his colossal size – at the door of the Shaolin Temple in Hunan.

He had been taken in, and a new chapter in his life had begun; and people had never ceased to be afraid of him.

‘What shall I tell them?’ asked the officer nervously.

‘Tell them to take the prisoner in cell H-28 down from the crucifix position,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want him harmed any more than he already has been. Keep him naked, do not tend to his wounds unless he shows signs of infection, but make sure he’s given enough food and water to survive until I return.’

‘Yes sir,’ the officer said, repeating the instructions into his satellite radio link back to the command center in Beijing.

Zhou nodded. Who said he couldn’t be merciful? And with that, he turned his mind back to Japan, and the delicate prizes that awaited him there.