Darkness Under Heaven (11 page)

“Since we
are
here in Beijing, it's a matter of some interest to me.”

“Whatever you say,” Avakian replied.

“And please give it to me straight, as opposed to tactfully not mentioning Molotov cocktails flying through the window.”

“Okay, unless Taiwan backs down, or some face-saving arrangement is reached, I think China's going to war.”

“Even if it wrecks their economic boom?”

“That's what Taiwan's counting on. And I think they've miscalculated. Nobody in China believes in Communism anymore, but it's still a Communist dictatorship. You can make money, but you can't challenge the government or mess around in politics. Other than bribing politicians, that is. Communism used to keep a big, chaotic country with a lot of different regions, ethnic groups, and interests in line. The government turned to nationalism to fill that void. They don't teach the dictatorship of the proletariat anymore, they teach a unified China as a great power, China's rightful place in the world, and traditional grievances about being oppressed by the other great powers throughout history. The government made everyone happy by getting Hong Kong back from Britain and Macao back from Portugal. Taiwan's the last piece of the puzzle. They can't back down and lose face over this. Nationalism's a powerful thing.”

“Powerful enough not to care about wrecking everything they've built?”

“I went to Armenian summer camp when I was a kid. Swimming, archery, and hating the Turks.”

“Did you?”

“Swim?”

“Hate the Turks?”

“Even as a kid, those ancient grievances never appealed to me. I have a rule. I don't hate anyone I don't know personally. But it gave me a little insight into what I'd have to deal with later on in the army.”

“The army has ancient grievances?”

Avakian chuckled. “That was good. Not as many as you'd think, but Central American Indians, Kurds and Pashtuns have a lot more. The Chinese have their share, too. Their economy's booming, but there's practically no economic security. The social safety net is gone. The law only works for the powerful. Any morning you might wake up to the tanks rolling in like Tiananmen Square, or the whole fabric of society could get torn to pieces like during the Cultural Revolution. Lot of fear out there. And I get a sense of barely contained hysteria.”

“Hysteria as a symptom of repression?” said Doctor Rose.

“Sure. And the Chinese are pretty high-strung to begin with. The leadership doesn't mind using that as long as it's directed outward at the Japanese, or Americans or whatever, but they've been very careful about reeling everyone back in before they get out of control. So far. The only thing they care about more than the economy and trade is power. They'll do whatever it takes to hold onto power. Which is why I think they'll have no choice but to go to war.”

“You mean invade Taiwan?”

“Now that I'm not so sure about. If you asked me before,
I'd have said that the Taiwanese were too rich and too soft, that all China would have to do is fire a few salvos of missiles at them and they'd surrender rather than see their way of life go down the tubes. But I think this new group in charge in Taiwan would fight. They'd lose, of course—their military is equipped mainly for parades. And that's not a good thing.”

“For Taiwan?”

“For us.”

“What do you mean?”

“We've promised to defend Taiwan from invasion. If they just gave up before we could get involved I think everyone would prefer that. But if our 7th Fleet gets close enough to make the Chinese nervous, that means real trouble.”

“You mean someone starts shooting.”

“We'll try to bluff the Chinese out of it, the way we have before. But if they have decided to invade they've already made up their minds to fight us. And that means our fleet will get hit without warning. Our style is a big show of force. Chinese military strategy is based on deception.”

“Could our navy stop them?”

“In my opinion?”

“In your opinion.”

“I'm in the minority, but I say no. The Chinese don't have to defeat the 7th Fleet to keep us from interfering with their plans. They just have to engage it far enough out to sea. They don't have satellites like ours to locate our ships but they have a lot of fishing boats with radios. They don't have aircraft carriers but they have a few hundred of the latest Russian supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles specifically designed to kill aircraft carriers. They can fire those from their brand-new Russian submarines or destroyers,
their brand-new Russian Sukhoi fighters or their old 1950s-era Badger bombers, or even from launcher tubes strapped on the decks of fishing boats. It's easier to shoot off a hundred missiles than it is to keep from getting hit by a hundred missiles. Quiet diesel-electric submarines get through to aircraft carriers all the time in exercises. No carriers, no fleet.”

“Do we have a defense against them?”

“The supersonic missiles? Yeah, our defense is the navy acting like they don't exist because they don't have a defense that works.”

“You're giving me chills now. Would the Chinese throw us all out of the country?”

“No,” Avakian said.

“Why not?”

“Because they're smart enough to realize that tens of thousands of foreigners in your capital city is the best defense against air attack ever devised.”

Now she was staring at him again.

Avakian told himself to snap out of it. You just had to show off by running off at the mouth, didn't you? “Pay me no mind. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm kind of addicted to the worst-case scenario. Thankfully, our waitress is bringing food.”

She delivered the first course, cold cucumbers with chili oil and garlic.

“The longer you let the cucumbers sit in the chili oil, the spicier they're going to be,” said Avakian.

“Are you married?” the doctor blurted out.

Avakian grinned. “Did I lose focus and miss the preamble to that question?”

Doctor Rose's coloration turned deeper by several shades. “Sorry, I sort of skipped over that. I apologize.”

In Avakian's experience, not answering a woman's personal question only meant that she'd find thirty new and different ways of asking it in the immediate future. “I was, but I'm divorced.”

“How long?”

“Fifteen years.”

“I'm sorry. I'm starting to interrogate you. It's a bad habit women and doctors have.”

“If you want to know, I'll tell you. But I warn you, it'll be even more of a buzz kill than my war lecture.”

“For the record, I freely acknowledge I was the one who asked both of those questions.”

“We fell in love in high school. I had a rough time at home, and she was my refuge. We got married after I graduated from West Point. She was a sweet naïve girl from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania who thought she was going to see the world and ended up seeing Fayetteville, North Carolina and Savannah, Georgia instead.”

“Savannah is nice,” Doctor Rose offered.

“For a week's vacation. I was just as naïve, but totally wrapped up in the army. Always off either training or deployed, and I was too stupid to see what she was going through. It's the one thing in my life I feel guilty about, and I still feel that way fifteen years later.” He held up a hand. “Here I go again.”

“No, not at all. Do you have children?”

“One son. I was in South America when he was born. He's twenty-three.”

“What does he do?”

Avakian shook his head again. “The army.”

“Did he go to West Point, too?”

“No. I tried so hard to steer him away from the army so of course that's what he went for. He dropped out of
college and joined up. He's a sergeant in South Korea. His mother didn't deserve that, either.”

“It doesn't sound like your fault.”

“Thanks for saying so. Change of subject?”

“These cucumbers are excellent.”

The waitress rescued him again by arriving with a stack of steamer baskets. She arranged them on the table and removed the lids with a flourish and a puff of live steam. The white dumplings were closed with a swirling crimp at the top and sat on a circle of rice paper.

“Any tips?” the doctor asked.

“The wrapping is super thin,” said Avakian. “And there's juice inside. So you've got real problems if you punch a hole in one with your chopsticks. Same if you try to nibble at it. The expert technique is to bring it up to your mouth, bite a little hole in the wrapping, drink the juice, then dip it in sauce and eat. But if you try that, you're flirting with disaster. The only safe play is to eat like a foreign devil.” He reached for a spoon, scooped up a dumpling, and slid it into his mouth intact. Pressed against the roof of his mouth, the dumpling exploded in a burst of pork, spices, vegetables and savory meat juice. Rich pork, unlike American pork, which had all the flavor and consistency of a hockey puck. He chewed slowly, aware that he must have a beatific expression on his face. “These are
really
good.”

Doctor Rose duplicated his technique. “Oh, my God. How do they keep the juice inside a wrapping that thin?”

“Witchcraft. What was yours?”

“Shrimp and pork.”

“Mine was the green vegetable and pork. I encourage you to switch between baskets.”

“If I wrap my arms around the steamer and say: mine, mine, just ignore me. Can we keep eating these all night?”

“I don't see why not,” said Avakian. “But you'll have to tell me how you ended up with USA Gymnastics.”

“Is this just a ploy to keep me talking so you can eat more dumplings?”

“You see through me like I'm made of glass,” said Avakian.

“I'm not married,” said Doctor Rose. “Never have been.”

Avakian cocked his head at her and narrowed his eyes. “Was that some clever way of avoiding my original question?”

“No, I just think it's only fair to cover the same ground you did. Grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota. University of Minnesota, Harvard Medical School.”

“Very impressive,” said Avakian.

“Did my residency in Denver and stayed there. Orthopedists love ski country. I never had time for anything except building my practice and skiing. Wow, what are these dumplings here?”

“Crab roe and pork,” said Avakian.

“They're amazing. Where was I?”

“Building your practice.”

“One day I woke up and I was bored. So I said: Judy, why don't you go see about one of the sports teams? That was because I knew a few people. My first choice was joining the circus.”

“High wire or animal act?” Avakian asked.

“I'm not good with heights and I'm afraid of tigers. And do you have any idea how few openings there are for circus doctors?”

“From your tone, I'm guessing not many.” Now he knew why he'd thought she was kind of severe. It was part of being the doctor. Don't look at me—listen to what I'm
telling you. Because of that she wasn't into display, not a flirty woman by any stretch of the imagination. But when he made her laugh she opened up like a flower and it all came out. It made him want to keep doing it.

“I suppose it's not really a life-changing adventure if you have more than enough money in the bank to cushion the life change.”

“Don't expect me to comment on that. The army pays me my pension every month.”

“How long were you in the army? I'm switching this back to you, but you've noticed how I do that.”

“Pardon?”

“You've been reading me, the same way you read all those Chinese the other day.”

Avakian paused at the brink of eating another dumpling, not wanting to risk choking. He'd never been caught at it before. Or at least never been called on it. “I'm not following you,” he said innocently.

“Kinesics. The study of body language.”

“Never heard of it,” said Avakian. “Sounds interesting, though.”

“So how easy am I to read?”

“I'm drawing a blank. You should join the professional poker circuit.”

“A likely story.”

“Twenty-three years in the army. There, see how I learned that from you?”

“You're a quick study. And what did you do in the army?”

“Started off as a paratrooper. But spent most of my career in Special Forces.”

“Really? And this is how you became…?”

“Security liaison. Really, just a glorified negotiator. I moved into security consulting after I retired. I tell you
how to keep your executives in Colombia from getting kidnapped, that sort of thing. Do security surveys, risk assessments. Compared to government service, the money is pretty incredible. I knew a few of the people here. The Chinese drove everyone crazy, so they hired me.”