The Ellis County Sheriff’s Office dispatch came back over the radio. “Three SO units rolling your direction,” the dispatcher said. “Paramedics also en route.”
“Ten-four,” Calderon said. He slid to the ground, leaning against the door. “Tell them to hurry. Suspect’s down. And I’m losing a lot of blood.”
? ? ?
Three minutes later found Roy Calderon lying in the dark on the gravel shoulder of the road. The young girl cradled his head in her lap. The odor of road tar and the sweet smell of newly cut hay from the field on the other side of the fence reminded him he was still alive—for the moment. Blanca Limón pressed her hand against the wound in his neck, slowing the flow of blood.
“Are you going to arrest me?” the girl asked.
Trooper Calderon gave a tired sigh. He was incredibly thirsty, and he knew that wasn’t a good sign. “You’re just a kid,” he said. “I don’t arrest kids.”
The little girl sobbed quietly, her trembling lips set in a grim line as if she didn’t believe him.
“Parrot told us all the police would put us in jail with the other whores.”
Calderon’s heart broke. “I would never,” he whispered. “Besides, you’re saving my life.”
The girl nodded again at that. “My name is Blanca Limón.”
Calderon licked his lips. He could hear sirens now. “Good to meet you, Blanca Limón.”
“More police are coming,” she said. “Do you think they will put me in jail with the other whores?”
“No.” Calderon coughed, wincing at the movement. “And you’re not a whore.”
“But I am.” Blanca’s crying grew more intense as the sirens got closer. “I have . . . I have something that maybe I can use to make a deal.”
“You don’t need to deal.”
“Maybe that is so.” She sniffed. “But maybe not. My friend was with a man earlier tonight—”
The trooper began to cough again, cutting her off. He closed his eyes and regained control. “Sorry,” he said. “Go ahead. You were with a man . . .”
“My friend,” the girl said, then stopped. She looked down at him as if coming to some conclusion. “Yes . . . I was with a man last night. I think this man is a spy.”
“Really?” Calderon stifled a smile, humoring her, a little kid telling fantastical stories. “A spy, you say?” The sound of approaching sirens grew louder. Dear God, Calderon thought, please let that be the ambulance. “Did this man hurt you?”
The girl hesitated, blowing out a long breath as if to regain her composure. “Yes,” she said. “They all do.” She looked over her shoulder, then back at Calderon. “My father used to watch many spy movies and this man bragged about doing things I think real spies must do. He fell asleep after he . . . finished. That is when I stole the thumb drive from his computer.”
“Really?” Calderon coughed again.
“You do not believe me?” Blanca said.
Calderon groaned. “Of course I believe you.”
“Well, I did steal it,” Blanca said. “Maybe I can give it to you and you will help my friend. Awful people have her now. And I am worried for what they will do to her.”
Calderon felt himself drifting off. He licked his lips, willing his eyes to stay open, to stay awake for the ambulance. “Not . . . a very good spy . . . if he let you steal his thumb drive.”
Blanca slumped. “She told me he was a spy . . .”
The trooper coughed. “What?”
“Nothing,” Blanca said.
“I’ll tell someone to help your friend,” Calderon said. The paramedics rolled up, and just like that, it began to rain cop cars. “And I promise to check out that guy for you. What’s his name?”
A tear rolled down Blanca Limón’s filthy cheek.
“Eddie Feng,” she said.
9
The large earth-tone painting of the Great Wall above the paramount leader’s head hid a single bullet hole in the wood paneling. The thick beige carpet, too, concealed evidence of violent death. Everyone in the room knew the story of the previous president, including Colonel Huang Ju of the Central Security Bureau, but they rarely spoke his name.
Standing against the wall, out of the way but close enough to act, the colonel sensed there was something very wrong in the room, something that went far beyond any violence from the past. No, this was a new threat, and like a good protective officer, Huang could smell danger in the air.
A Chinese container ship had sunk in U.S. waters—and it was the feeling of some in this room that America was somehow to blame. Tensions were high among the advisers—and when tensions ran high around the general secretary, the man he was charged with protecting, Colonel Huang Ju paid close attention.
The commander of the 1st Squadron of the 1st Group of the Central Safeguard Regiment—sometimes referred to as Regiment 61889—stood to the right of the polished mahogany doorway inside the paramount leader’s spacious office. His senses were raw, as if they’d been rubbed with coarse sandpaper. Huang was tall and trim, with thick black hair long enough to part yet short enough that the gray around his temples was difficult to notice. His face was serene as stone, a very sharp and dangerous stone, but a stone nonetheless.
Those charged with the protection of others were often described as willing to take a bullet for their principal. Like the American Secret Service, rather than seek cover during times of attack, they were trained to make themselves larger targets. That was indeed something Colonel Huang had vowed to do, but there was much more to protection than simply absorbing bullets intended for one’s protectee. His primary duty was one of vicarious concern; he worried over the many dangers that lurked both without and within, so the paramount leader did not have to think of such things.
Though officially a member of an army regiment, Huang wore a white shirt and dark suit nearly identical to the white shirts and dark suits worn by three of the other five men in the inner office. Everyone else in the room ranked exponentially higher than Colonel Huang, but under his dark suit jacket was a Taurus PT 709 nine-millimeter pistol. None of the other men were armed, and, as Chairman Mao had so rightly pointed out, political power “grows from the barrel of a gun.”
Some twenty feet from Colonel Huang, beyond the seated guests, the paramount leader sat behind his expansive desk. Zhao Chengzhi was at once the general secretary of the Communist Party, president of China, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Thick black hair, normally combed up in the front, hung down over a pallid forehead. It was late evening, and his long workday was beginning to take its toll.
Zhao’s mahogany desk was cluttered with file folders. There was a white telephone for general calls and a monstrous red phone with twin handsets that he used to contact ranking ministers of government as well as any one of several dozen state-run businesses. A photo of the general secretary’s wife sat to his immediate right, though this and the unruly stack of files had been removed when Zhao had given his New Year’s address to the nation.