As with several other nations, a number of disturbing events had recently plagued j.a.pan's relationship with its larger neighbor. China apparently felt that its ever-increasing domain now included j.a.pan's coastal waters, and its fishing fleet had become particularly aggressive, including a collision with a j.a.panese naval vessel that resulted in the arrest of the Chinese captain.

For j.a.pan, who in the early years of the twentieth century had initiated an enormous naval and military buildup in antic.i.p.ation of the war they would begin in the 1930's, the juxtaposed parallel was clear. China's current buildup was clearly intended to one day enforce what had until now been claims and a.s.sertions. Accordingly, j.a.pan was increasing its submarine fleet by fifty percent.

"I believe the j.a.panese government would be pleased to entertain you and your Chinese heroes, Captain. I will have to observe certain formalities, of course, but I think our people will be astonished to hear what your family and these people have been through. Frankly, between you and me, we shall enjoy immensely tweaking China's nose."

Only after exhaustive phone calls did Thurgood substantiate that the refugees had been ferried from the carrier to the base. Dutifully, he made his way through Yokosuka traffic to the base entrance to present his letter to the base commander. Having been told that the commander had already been contacted, he felt confident that it would be clear sailing from here. However, due to the hour, the base commander was not in his office. In what was a far more troubling development, the commander's subordinate notified him that the j.a.panese government had graciously offered the refugees a place to stay since with the a carrier in port, s.p.a.ce on the base was extremely limited.

The Continental red-eye flight from Washington to Tokyo, even in the best of times, is extremely grueling, but for the two State Department officials dispatched to deal with this very sensitive issue, it was particularly exhausting since they had already spent a sleepless night devoted to it. Learning mid-flight from their man in Tokyo that the task had just become more complicated, they were as yet unaware that even now it continued to evolve as their plane pa.s.sed an eastbound flight containing two young American newlyweds with a horrific story.

Upon arriving at Narita airport in Tokyo, they were met by the peripatetic Thurgood in a state of dishevelment resembling theirs. The man was nothing if not efficient, however; he had come armed with two fresh cups of Starbucks, each with the officials' preferred condiments, but when he related the most recent developments, the coffee began to take on the characteristic of a peace offering.

It seems that Tokyo was waking up to its usual morning news and talk shows, but the interview with a retired American captain and a group of Chinese refugees would be anything but usual. And as the Chinese Vice-President's plane crossed the Pacific toward Washington at more than 600 mph, the first news stories of what had transpired in Hong Kong and Tianjin pa.s.sed it at light speed.

"Madame Secretary, I'm terribly sorry to wake you at this hour, but there's been a unfortunate development," said the American amba.s.sador in Tokyo. "It seems that in spite of our considerable efforts, we were unable to intercept the refugees before they left the ship."

The words jostled Valerie Waters from her slumber and she sat up trying to bring her consciousness on line.

"Where are they now?" she finally asked.

"I'm afraid that they are now guests of the j.a.panese government."

"What! How the h.e.l.l did that happen?"

"Miscommunication between the Navy and State would be about as charitably as I could put it," replied the amba.s.sador. "They were flown off the carrier without our knowledge and apparently landed at the Yokosuka base. The story we're being given is that with six thousand sailors disembarking the carrier, the base was rather crowded and the j.a.panese government offered to put them up."

"Those sons of b.i.t.c.hes!" she said under her breath. Waters knew she'd been outmaneuvered, and Benedict and Larimer's fingerprints were all over it.

"Oh, and one other thing," said the amba.s.sador, "All the morning shows in Tokyo had something about the refugees and their escape from China, and there was an interview with Captain Davis on one. It wasn't pretty. Beijing has already sent a formal protest to Tokyo demanding the refugees be returned to China."

"All right, thanks for the heads up," she said as she dialed the home number for the president's chief of staff.

"You did what?" shouted James Dahl, the president's chief of staff. "How in the h.e.l.l could you let those people off that carrier when they were already effectively under wraps?"

"We requested that the Navy . . ."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what you requested. It wasn't a request, it was an order! Now we've dumped a bucket of dog s.h.i.t on the Chinese vice-president's shoes just as he's walking in our front door. d.a.m.n it, Valerie, what were you thinking?"

"Yeah, there's no doubt about it. The knife's sticking so far out of my back I can see it in the mirror," Dahl said to a president who'd been sound asleep minutes earlier. "No, the horses are already loose and there's not a thing we can do about it but say we're sorry."

"What! You think I can just tell him that there was this little mix up and the most important fugitives in the world waltzed off that carrier and are now on j.a.panese television. Those people hate each other. The Chinese vice-president's going to think either we arranged it or we're the biggest b.u.mblers on the planet. Aside from shooting down his plane, I'll be d.a.m.ned if I can think of any way we could have screwed this up worse. I wouldn't be surprised if he just turns around and heads home."

"Look, Mr. President, there's a slim chance that we can mitigate this thing if our friends in media can be persuaded to knock it down, imply it's a hoax. All we have to do is discredit an already disgraced sea captain and a couple of newlyweds who happen to be related to him. Refugees lie all the time to get into this country; they've got no credibility whatsoever."

"Yeah, but the thing's already all over the j.a.panese media," said the president.

"So what! Those people are always at each others' throats. Who is there that has any proof? n.o.body. We just do what we've done before: deny it. There's still plenty of time before the Chinese vice-president arrives to get everybody's story straight. But I'm gonna have to make some phone calls p.r.o.nto. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, try to relax and focus on the meeting."

The morning news programs and most of the New York and Washington print media went to bat for their man, either ignoring the story altogether or casting it in fifteen seconds of dubious light. Other accounts of events in China were predictably ridiculed and research was begun on a campaign to discredit and smear Captain Davis and his family. But it would not be enough to placate the Chinese vice-president. Papers in Europe and the Far East immediately picked up the story and ran with it. There were simply too many places where the heavy boot of China was deeply resented for the story to go away, and with the captain and his friends doing convincing interviews in Tokyo, it had firmly taken root.

It was about to take root on the set of a popular and nationally syndicated New York morning show where an obviously sincere young woman was describing the most horrific honeymoon that any of the millions of viewers could have ever imagined. From the moment she and her husband had been drugged to the room in a prestigious Chinese hospital where she was just hours from being dissected, the story of her ordeal and the courageous dissidents who had risked their lives to rescue her was riveting audiences.

The most powerful part of the interview came when the camera cut away to a diminutive Chinese lady sitting in a Tokyo studio. The young American spoke eloquently of her courage, inspired by a son who had been executed and whose organs had been removed and sold because he had raised his voice in defense of peasants whose homes were being razed solely to enrich corrupt speculators.

Those whose job it was to attack and discredit the young woman quickly began to run into problems. Satellite shots of the Chinese Northern Fleet sortieing were hard to explain as a routine exercise when it could be clearly seen that they were stopping and boarding ships and boats across the Yellow Sea. A warship just checking fishing licenses with heavy weapons trained on a small boat was a stretch, and the complete absence of any credible explanation or evidence to show how the American couple got from Hong Kong to Tianjin in the first place was providing some embarra.s.sing moments for talk show hosts who make a living attempting to spin events to their employers' and the administration's advantage.

Most of all, it was Holly's impa.s.sioned recounting of a horror beyond imagination. That she could simply have fabricated such a tale as well as her emotional response to it seemed more than all but a very few viewers could swallow. To most, attempts to impeach her story appeared to be bullying, and the effort to discredit her was becoming untenable. What was worse for the administration was the steadily rising tide of anti-China sentiment and resentment of the fact that China had not only become America's banker but was clearly expecting more in return than Americans were willing to give.

The coup de grace, so to speak, came in the form of taped conversations that appeared on the internet and quickly went viral. In them, one of the president's closest aides and an a.s.sociate could be clearly heard talking about blackmailing Senator Baines using a hooker. Not only did they discuss botching the job on the first attempt, but they intended to try again. That people close to the president were involved in a tawdry scheme to smear a senator whose popularity had risen dramatically as a result of his anti-China campaign reflected badly on the administration.

It also made it increasingly more difficult for certain Democratic senators who would soon come up for re-election to vote against the tariffs bill that Baines supported. The bill had recently been amended to include tariffs on a range of tech toys and tools as a result of China declaring that it would severely restrict sales of rare Earth minerals that are used in everything from phones to electric car batteries, and of which it produces more than nine tenths of the world supply. The bill, which had pa.s.sed the House, now had almost enough votes to pa.s.s in the Senate. If the president were forced to veto it, his veto would not only reinforce growing suspicion that he was siding with China, it would also jeopardize his green energy initiative, whose products rely heavily on rare Earth minerals.

On the morning of the Chinese vice-president's visit, Senator Baines stood on the floor of the Senate to condemn China for its attempt to hide the kidnapping and attempted murder of American citizens for the purpose of selling their organs for profit. In a new twist, he revealed that one of the European women who had fled the hospital in Tianjin had gone public, claiming that she was unaware that her diseased kidney was going to be replaced with one from a living person who had been kidnapped for that purpose. The sheer weight of bad news was crushing attempts to spin or discredit a story that was now front page news on every continent. Worse, in the view of the Chinese vice-president, Washington, and in particular Senator Baines, had caused the greatest loss of face for China since Tiananmen Square.

57.

A large and vocal crowd greeted the Chinese Vice-President's limousine as it entered the White House grounds. Predictably there were more than the usual free Tibet, free Falun Gang and anti-currency manipulation protestors present. Filipino expats and sympathizers by the hundreds lined the iron fence surrounding the residence. Some managed to get close enough to lob eggs. In what would soon change, only one sign read: Invasion of the body s.n.a.t.c.her. The limo reached the White House portico festooned with dripping egg yolks. It was an inauspicious beginning.

The first thing the agent opening the limo door noticed was not the usual balding pate of most senior diplomats but a head of thick black hair. The Chinese vice-president stood up, revealing an expressionless soapstone face resembling a Forbidden City statue. Li Guo Peng, presumptive heir to the Chinese presidency, mounted the White House steps with the air of an emperor come to instruct the American president in what was required of him. The president noted the icy demeanor and a handshake with all the warmth of a bra.s.s door knocker. His smile was met with the briefest curl of a lip, as if disdaining the meaningless expenditure of energy to convey a friendship that did not exist.

Li sat stiffly, eyes cast downward during the introductory formalities, providing opportunity for those in the room to stare at his mirthless face, a face seemingly un-warmed by lifeblood pa.s.sing through its veins. To a president who is fond of placing his hand on the back of those with whom he speaks, the prospect seemed abhorrent, as if his touch might reveal arms and shoulders of stone. When it was time for him to speak, Li's eyes circled the room like a teacher's, pinning each student to what he was about to say.

His prelude, as his persona, droned like an organ pedal-point, a single deep tone underscoring, accompanying everything. 'Core interests which must be respected' rumbled a warning, a forbidden place, open to neither discussion nor negotiation, territorial claims in Tibet, Taiwan, and now the entire South China Sea, doors that for the West needed to be opened but for China were sealed like a tomb.

That other nations' interests and even borders could be so cavalierly dismissed infuriated the gathered diplomats. But most have forgotten what Mao Tse-Tung once said: "Power flows from the barrel of a gun." While the West focused on the joys of consumerism that cheap Chinese goods had made possible, China focused on its 5 year, 10 year and 20 year plans, all of which ensured that one day the rest of the world would learn the meaning of what Mao had said.

Ironically, Li also spoke of building trust and cooperation, a fascinating concept given the unprovoked sinking of the Philippine ship, not to mention the ongoing genocide in Tibet. Evidently there were no bounds to what this man was capable of. He had cheek, of that there was no doubt.

Li also broached the subject of removing export restrictions on a wide variety of high tech items which could clearly be of use to the Chinese military. Larimer, the Secretary of Defense found himself wondering why China hadn't simply stolen them, as it had so much of America's defense inventory. That there was actually anything left that they hadn't stolen was the only real surprise, and with new restrictions on rare Earth minerals, without which virtually all tech items could not be manufactured, there might be little to export anyway.

As the meeting wore on, the Chinese vice-president eventually got around to what he called 'speaking with one voice,' clearly referring to the American president's inability to stifle criticism. That free speech had been a fundamental precept here for around 250 years seemed not to matter. Beijing had for decades chaffed at the American concepts enshrined in their Bill of Rights, but now the Chinese felt they were in a position to be more bold and a.s.sertive about any speech of which they didn't approve.

Had a visionary or even a historian, rather than a politician, occupied the White House, he might have pointed out that China's transformation into an economic and military powerhouse had only been possible with America's cash. The gradual evolution from manufacturer and seller of low priced consumer goods to princ.i.p.al banker to the United States had been aided by a long series of willing congressmen and women who seldom let principles or economic planning stand in the way of their re-elections.

Now the American president had provided China with the final piece of leverage it needed. The enormous expansion of the United States government's scope and power required the already staggering $1.15 trillion in China's US Treasuries holdings to rise even further. America's banker had come to demand something in return. Much as Europe and the United States had looked the other way when Germany annexed the Sudetenland, Li was making it clear to the American president that he too must look the other way as China expands its power in Asia.

Ironically, Li Guo Peng had fully intended to give the American president the cash infusion he so badly needed, but with his pathetic failure to keep a handful of troublesome people away from the press, Li decided to imprint his displeasure indelibly by suspending additional investment. The term 'further study' was used, but the message was clear.

As Beijing saw it, there was a far greater problem than the bungled matter of the escapees. The effort to keep the United States from interfering with a centuries old dream was nearly off the tracks. China has always seen itself as the rightful heir to the world's center of influence and power. It could not simply step back and watch it all disappear into the abyss.

For the first time, trade had actually dwindled, not by much, but enough to be noticed. Men and women who could no longer even take for granted having a job, much less owning a home were focusing their collective anger on China. The tariff bill seemed about to pa.s.s in the Senate. That the president would veto it didn't matter; it was the ground swell of anti-China sentiment that threatened everything.

From Li's perspective, one voice held the power to derail decades of Chinese planning; one man was the catalyst without which the firestorm would subside. Americans now trusted Virgil Baines more than they trusted their president. Every time he spoke, he shoveled more dirt on China's dream. Something had to be done.

In a suite in the Chinese Emba.s.sy lavishly appointed for the use of top level dignitaries, Li Guo Peng sat facing one of two men who had recently displeased him. The other had been secretly flown back to Beijing with a serious neck wound. Because the injury had not been treated quickly in a US hospital, the man had not survived the long flight.

Facing the vice-president was one who, until now, had never disappointed. He had already paid for his error with a wound that still made it excruciatingly uncomfortable to sit. Had he been anyone else, he would have also paid with his life. But this one was special.

If one were to judge him purely by his physical stature, one might be unimpressed, but beneath the tailored suit was a highly trained and conditioned body. More importantly, from the standpoint of his masters, the well-conditioned body held a mind with no conscience. Utterly none.

His childhood spanned the Cultural Revolution, one of the most horrific periods in a history filled with horror. Intellectuals, teachers, musicians, artists, in short anyone with more than the most rudimentary education was either eliminated outright or sent into the countryside to pick up night soil, a euphemism for the excrement that the peasants deposited outside each night.

His father had been a teacher, his mother a violinist, a marriage made in h.e.l.l from the standpoint of Mao Tse Tung, the despot responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions of his own people. The teacher and the violinist had been dragged out of their bed one night and carted off. He never saw them again.

The young boy was quite bright, that much was obvious. Rather than take up a n.o.ble profession as his parents had, he was taught to kill. But his task was not merely to put a bullet in those who knelt before him in defeat and submission. This one would be no mean executioner. There were others who were more spirited and clever, those who did not meekly accept their fate. These required skilled hunters, single-minded workmen who would track and kill their prey regardless of where they sought safety. Of these, the piano tuner was the best. His tool of choice, a piece of piano wire with heavy metal loops at each end, hence his name.

58.

Given that he had outmaneuvered them so completely, the State Department neglecting to return several calls from his office was not surprising. Nor was the rude snub out of character for bureaucrats who routinely hand out billions in taxpayer dollars to those who hate America and who never intend to pay a dime of it back.

The State Department does, however, hold the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. Considering his end run around them, it was highly unlikely they would be more willing to allow Ping and the other dissidents to enter the United States now than they had been to begin with.

While the j.a.panese government had been only too happy to use the refugees for its own purposes, it could not be expected to put them up at government expense indefinitely. Furthermore, since it was Americans who had been saved by their courageous action, it should be for Americans to in turn help. If the State Department could not see the basic fairness in this, then Senator Baines would appeal directly to the people.

The appeal consisted of a campaign to put a face on the heroic efforts that Chinese dissidents in general, not just these particular dissidents, make to the cause of freedom everywhere. Since those still in China could not be identified directly, certain friends of the senator saw to it that a series of video and print portrayals of the lives of those now waiting in j.a.pan found their way into the media. Simultaneously, businesses and families were sought who would volunteer to help give the refugees a new start.

The first whose story was aired was Min, the doctor who had been forced to harvest organs from people in whose chests a heart sometimes still beat. The horrific and ghoulish details of his journey from the Hippocratic oath to the execution grounds outside the hospital moved millions not only to tune in but to demand that the refugees be given asylum and eventual citizenship.

The second story to air was that of Ping, her life in a small rural village, and her son's courageous but ultimately tragic battle against corruption. By the time Ping's story had aired, and with others waiting to share theirs, the administration was already being subjected to a withering a.s.sault for its attempt to cover up the torment of these people. In a more troubling development, at least for the White House, China made it known privately that the already strained relations as well as prospects for any future investment could be damaged beyond repair if the bad publicity were to continue unabated.

Predictably, the State Department, in what it called a humanitarian gesture, announced that the refugees would be granted resident visas. The heroic Captain Davis and his charges were soon happily boarding a flight to Washington and a new life.

It had been hoped by both the administration and China that the refugees' story would soon fade, and while some of its intensity did begin to dissipate, China persisted in angering the world by doing what it does best: bullying everyone. Its perennial support for the worst dictatorships on the planet had only grown, and with it Virgil Baines' determination to shine a light on ways in which the administration was complicit.

While China continued to a.s.sert its total sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, punctuating it with periodic displays of overt military aggression, the administration postponed consideration of the Philippines offer to base ships at Subic Bay. That and its ambiguity re Taiwan's desire for independence sounded suspiciously like capitulation to some. They saw clear signs that the president was willing to trade access to the western Pacific for financial support for his unprecedented government expansion.

The de facto ceding of much of Asia to China should have ignited a firestorm of protest, but once again short-term monetary and political gain obscured the judgment of many in Washington. To those with any historical perspective, it would be quite simply the largest and most tragic uncontested transfer of power and territory in history. But alas, far too many people simply weren't paying attention to what was going on in the world around them and probably wouldn't ever care unless it impacted them personally. By then, any chance to influence events would have likely slipped through their fingers.

This was the challenge that Senator Baines and his allies confronted. Apathy and the unquestioned acceptance as fact of the administration's propaganda meant that millions of Americans were, for all extents and purposes, in a perpetual state of hypnosis. Somehow, they would have to be awakened.

Baines, his colleagues, and sympathetic corporate partners began to formulate a strategy to do just that. First, it was obvious that if you wanted the attention of America's youth, you would need to go through their eyes, and their eyes were on smart phones, tablets, game consoles, television and computers. Second, you would have to compete with the best that Madison Avenue and Silicon valley have to offer. In other words, your message would not only have to be vivid and compelling, in the first seconds it exploded on the screen, it must indelibly imprint its message.

During these strategy sessions a troubling fact began to emerge: that which causes the hearts of America's youth to beat more quickly invariably involves implicit personal gain. The latest shoes or set of wheels were obvious magnets, but even songs, sports and sitcoms were in reality just expressions of what some had that others wanted. Their lyrics and even their characters were in essence icons of desire for lifestyles that provided things.

What America's slumbering generation failed to grasp was the direct correlation between their freedom, as expressed in the things they take for granted, and China's growing power. Freedom is implicit in all of their toys, freedom to have and freedom to use as one wishes. What joy is there in a smart phone that doesn't allow you to speak freely? What satisfaction is there in a tablet that displays not what you choose to see but what is chosen for you by others? America's youth needed to awaken to the fact that what they hold dear was under threat. To accomplish this, their already overloaded synapses would need a jolt, or rather a series of jolts to sensitize them to the danger.

The first series of electric shocks would flow directly from China's decision to in effect embargo rare Earth minerals, the materials without which smart phones et al would cease to exist. Baines found it easy to enlist both support and funding as well as creative talent from tech companies that had so much skin in the game. Without access to rare Earth minerals, American companies would be relegated to middle men whose logos were, in essence, all that remained of once vibrant enterprises. America would be buying directly from China. While the new products would resemble the old, they would be modified, in other words, heavily censored; no more unlimited access to the internet, no more free exchange of ideas, no more mention of certain terms or concepts, no more p.o.r.nography. Business as usual, but on China's terms.

On a Friday afternoon at 3:00 pm, the first electric shock flowed outward into the ether. Pop-ups showed Chinese police officers s.n.a.t.c.hing smart phones from teenagers and checking for banned content. Violators, which included virtually everyone, were herded into paddy wagons. Cell blocks of shaved heads, waiting for a phone call they would never get, flashed onto the screen.

Outrage exploded from the left; insults flew like arrows from bastions in California, Boston and New York. Airwave a.s.sa.s.sins spewed clouds of vile poison in a vain attempt to silence the unwelcome message. Hyperbole was stacked upon exaggeration until the teetering piles cast frightening shadows over the very people who created them.

On Sat.u.r.day, the electricity flowed again, this time showing Americans attempting to surf the internet, their clicks sp.a.w.ning screen after screen with bold type letters: BLOCKED. Beneath the letters, grave warnings of prosecution and incarceration underscored the message. The stern face of a Chinese policeman glared from screens across America.

A fascinating barometer of the success of the campaign soon began to emerge. Left-leaning talk show hosts and pundits who at first reviled the messages, belatedly began to realize that China's reach would not necessarily be confined to its own borders. Controlling much of the planet's resources would eventually empower China to dictate to those who needed those resources. With its enormous cash reserves, China could easily afford to surrept.i.tiously acquire controlling interests in the media. It slowly dawned on smugly confident anchors and commentators that their 'opinions' might one day be handed down from Beijing, that their programs could be shut down not for negative ratings but for negative thought, as interpreted by the authorities in the East.

The following Friday, a new electronic talisman flowed outward onto millions of screens. In it, the headquarters of a hugely popular electronic device maker were shown shuttered and empty, the picture of its visionary founder hanging askew on the wall of its lobby along with its iconic fruit. Since the raw materials that went into its products were controlled by China, China held the de facto controlling interest in the company and no longer cared to maintain the facade of a corporate headquarters in the United States. Now, not only were its products manufactured in China, its entire edifice and management resided in China. Shareholders who once had been able to express their wishes through an elected board of directors found themselves without any real voice. Products once loaded with clever apps and programs from the creative minds of citizens of the free world now contained only that which had been approved by Beijing. Devoted fans and customers of the once iconic symbol of American ingenuity were forced to buy directly from Communist China, a.s.suming they had a job to provide the wherewithal. And that was a questionable a.s.sumption.

Suddenly some of the most naive and gullible people on the planet found themselves engaged in a most unusual pursuit thinking. Granted, more than a few of these new brain waves were so unaccustomed to logical processes that they quickly burnt out like sparklers in the sand, but as their owners stumbled through unfamiliar territory, some actually had ideas. Whether they sprung from video game strategies or were newly minted, they were nonetheless the rudiments of logical thought. What was more important was that these thoughts were nudging their owners in the right direction, toward the realization that world events could actually impact them. Even more strikingly, it dawned on a few that it might be wise to take action before they were flattened by the onrushing tsunami.

Now electrons that had formerly focused on a make-believe Italian plumber and his a.s.sistant were free to be put to use defending their owner and not a whoopee-yelling avatar. Rather than blindly a.s.suming that an accident of birth had endowed them with extra lives or an always charged up health meter, it began to occur to them that they were far more vulnerable than their game characters. Their lifestyles and the freedoms they had long taken for granted were endangered. They had become the hunted and Bowser was China.

As a wasteland of unoccupied brain matter was slowly settled by the electron pioneers of logical thought, astonishing events were seen across the country. Those who formerly occupied Wall Street with smart phones in hand now began to converge on the Chinese emba.s.sy, demanding fair trade, not just free trade. Young people who had been p.o.o.ping on police cars one day were the next proclaiming rights of free speech for Chinese dissidents. Pale skinned denizens of their parents' bas.e.m.e.nts clad in pizza stained T-shirts began to emerge from their computer caves into the light.

Ping had become a national hero. On cotton-covered chests across America, despicable false heroes and ma.s.s murderers like Che Guevara and Mao Tse Tung were replaced by the peaceful image of a diminutive yet marvelously dignified Chinese woman.

The bureaucrats of Beijing were beside themselves, as was the American president. His dream of a vast government that knows what is best for everyone was crumbling at his feet. Presidential decrees, recess appointments and end runs around the Const.i.tution now began to falter and grind as the green oil that greased their gears ran dry. Like the last emperor, the president had become little more than a Communist puppet, willing to trade away anything to preserve his ideology. But the trust of the people who elected him had been squandered.

Talk show hosts who failed to see what was happening and persisted in biting at the heels of those who dared to disagree with administration-speak now found their ratings sinking below sea level. Pundits who would have openly rejoiced in the death of Socrates, had he been around to vilify, were beginning to feel like Robespierre, the 18 century French politician who placed so many necks in the guillotine but never dreamed he would one day find his own there.

Congress, ever mindful of the next election, checked the windsocks outside their windows and discovered there had indeed been a transformation. Const.i.tuents who'd listened silently as their president apologized for America's sins, now demanded the respect America deserved. Taxpayers who sat still while their State Department pa.s.sed money out to their worst enemies made it clear that to write a check to Pakistan or Egypt was to write your own arrest warrant. 'Of the People, By the People and For the People' became the mantra for the awakening. There had been a sea change, and it wasn't global warming.

59.

It promised to be a special dinner. Ping had mentioned that she would like to cook them a meal, so Virgil and Molly took her to a Oriental grocery where she scooped up more than a hundred dollars of ingredients. Back at Virgil's house, she was happily humming to herself in what must have seemed like the kitchen of a hotel. Though they could not have known it, Ping had not felt such delight since she had cooked for her husband and son.

Earlier, Molly had picked up a program that could purportedly teach Chinese to a dummy. It was their plan to sit together each evening for awhile and learn a new language. When he'd first brought Ping home to meet Molly, Virgil didn't have the slightest thought of asking her to stay, but he and Molly had quickly fallen in love with that special dignity that was Ping. And there were three bedrooms in the house . . . only one of which was currently occupied.

Actually, Ping already had a smattering of English from the days when she helped her son with his homework. It wasn't much but it would grow, as would their Chinese. As she attempted to express thoughts with such limited means, Ping sometimes inadvertently said things that threw Virgil and Molly into paroxysms of laughter. An impish grin would unfurl across her face along with a trace of worry that she might have uttered something untoward.

The aromas that wafted through the kitchen were only exceeded by the exquisite bouquet of flavors that greeted their tongues as Ping looked on apprehensively. She refused to take a bite of her own food until Virgil and Molly's expressions told her what she needed to know . . . that the people who were treating her so kindly were enjoying her cooking. "Mmmm," was the most frequently used word, if one could call it that, throughout the meal.