Stealth Sweep. Don Pendleton

sir!” Ming replied eagerly, giving a fast salute.

      Shen-wa almost smiled at that, then it hit him. Less than thirty-six hours had passed since the attack on Kazakhstan. There was no way the CIA could have dispatched an agent to China in so short a time period. The colonel knew the bureaucracy of the Agency was horrendous. Whomever Colonel Weng had tried to capture was merely somebody pretending to be a CIA agent. That was the only logical answer.

      Exhaling a long stream of smoke, Shen-wa grunted. The old bastard may have done the project a good deed, accidentally uncovering an unknown enemy before he could get close.

      “Something wrong, sir?” Ming asked in concern.

      “Yes and no,” Shen-wa replied, removing the pipe. “After you terminate everybody in the political office, go to Hong Kong and find out who it was that entered the island. He isn’t a CIA agent, and we need to know who this man actually works for.”

      “Perhaps the American…ah…NAS?”

      “NSA,” Shen-wa corrected. “But no, they are code breakers. More paper-pushers. This was the act of somebody with blood in their veins. A professional. A killer.”

      “Perhaps the Mossad.”

      “Yes, that could very well be,” Shen-wa answered slowly. “The Israelis are very good at what they do, almost as good as us!” He chuckled, and the sergeant joined in for the sake of solidarity.

      “Find this man,” Shen-wa said. “Question him thoroughly. Then poorly hide the body, and blame it on the Russians.”

      “What if he is Russian, sir?”

      “Blame it on them anyway. Who can keep track of their internal politics, eh?”

      “Sir, yes, sir!” Ming replied with a crisp salute.

      Puffing on his pipe, Major Shen-wa watched as the sergeant strode away, loosening the massive .50-caliber Norinco pistol holstered at his side. Just for a fleeting moment, Shen-wa almost felt sorry for the poor bastard, but then it was gone, a random thought lost on the breeze.

      Leaving the small heliport, Shen-wa walked to an iron door and waved his identification card before the scanner. There came a subtle hum, and the door unlocked, then cycled open to the sound of working hydraulics.

      Stepping inside, the major walked past a huge soundproof room full of technicians busily operating the complex controls of the gargantuan power station. A pretty woman at one of the consoles smiled at him in passing, and Shen-wa politely touched his cap in reply. Lieutenant Lee Jade was a distant cousin, and he had gotten her the job in case he needed some insider information about the daily operations of the dam. So far, he hadn’t, but it was nice having family nearby, anyway. After all, family was why he was trying to help China conquer the world.

      Reaching a private elevator, Shen-wa showed his identification card to the wall scanner once more, then pressed his hand on a glowing sensor plate. There came a slight tingle as the plate sent a few volts of electricity through his fingers to make sure the hand was still alive, and not detached by an enemy spy in order to facilitate entry. This was another Chinese invention, although he had heard rumors that the West had also created a similar device, for the exact same reasons.

      It was a very long ride down to the bottom level, and Shen-wa emerged from the elevator in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Tapping out the glowing ashes into a trash container, he then slowly walked toward a sandbag nest with two soldiers stationed behind the waist-high barrier. They looked strong and fit, even though one was clearly much older than the other. Both men were in full dress uniform, heavily armed and wearing class four body armor. Field soldiers got class two armor, and special forces wore class three. Class four was much too heavy to wear in combat, but the bulky armor was perfect for soldiers who could sit down and rest for most of the day.

      “Major!” a young private called out crisply, snapping a strange weapon to his chest in lieu of saluting. The barrel of the weapon was ridiculously large, the ammunition clip even bigger, and there was a bandoleer of 35 mm shells draped across his chest, with two more tucked into loops at his side where he normally would have had a sidearm.

      “So, it finally arrived,” Shen-wa said softly, looking over the QLB 35 mm grenade launcher. “Yes, Major!”

      “And you passed the mandatory testing?”

      “Of course, Major!” the young private stated proudly. “I can fire the QLB in my sleep, and repair it in the dark!”

      Hefting his own QBZ assault rifle, the older private grunted in acknowledgment. “He actually can, Major. I’ve seen him at the gun range. Fast. Faster even than Sergeant Ming.”

      “Show me,” Shen-wa commanded, pointing down the corridor. “Destroy that light, third from the end.”

      In a blur of motion, the young private crouched as he swung up the oversize weapon and fired. Hot smoke and flame belched from the muzzle, and a hundred feet away a light fixture exploded into debris, leaving a fist-size dent in the steel wall.

      “Why nonexplosive rounds?” Shen-wa asked sternly.

      “Only the first two are solid,” the young private replied crisply. “The next three release hundreds of razor-sharp fléchette rounds. The last shell in the clip is high-explosive, armor piercing.” He grinned. “In case an invader is also wearing body armor.”

      “Very wise. Carry on,” Shen-wa said, walking around a corner. Just a few words now and then, a touch of courtesy, and the troops would die for him. It was a good investment.

      An iron gate closed off this section of the corridor, and the major again pressed his hand to a sensor plate. The gate unlocked with a clang, and he went through, closing it tight behind. Electronics were all well and good, but he would always put his real trust in simple cold steel.

      An unmarked door was at the end of a short corridor, and sitting at a plain wooden desk nearby was a mature woman in a long civilian dress, the flowing black fabric decorated with colorful flowers. A plate on the desktop had her name in both Mandarin and Cantonese. She was industriously typing away on a computer keyboard, and looked up at his approach.

      “She’s waiting in the office,” Wu Cassandra said without any preamble, not pausing in her work.

      “Thank you, Miss Wu,” he said, walking past and opening the door, which gave a musical chime.

      Across the office, a tall woman in a tan outfit looked up in surprise at the noise, then jumped to her feet and gave a salute. “Good evening, sir!” she cried out.

      There was a canvas duffel bag on the floor near her chair, along with a nylon travel bag locked with a red security seal. Shen-wa recognized it as a weapons kit. “At ease, Zhang,” he said, closing the door.

      “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Zhang Meiron replied uneasily, but stayed erect. It had been a long flight from Taiwan, and she was more than a little tired. However, she was also grimly determined not to show any weakness before the dreaded old man.

      A veteran of numerous wars, the major had helped create the Red Star, and had personally terminated over a hundred enemy spies during his long career. It was rumored that he had even helped design the August 1st Building, the headquarters for the entire Chinese military. The only reason Major Shen-wa held so a low rank, instead of being in charge of the CMC, was that he was a maverick, a loner who hated politics, and disliked obeying the rules, being much more interested in getting results.

      Just like me, Zhang thought proudly.

      Six feet tall, and built like a professional weight lifter, Zhang found that nothing in the world easily accommodated her. Beds were too short, doorways too low, shirts too tight, and romance was mostly a matter of finding somebody drunk at a bar, and leaving quietly in the morning before finding out his name. Only the military had accepted her with open arms, in spite of its many reservations to a woman serving in combat.

      Automatically cycling closed, the armored door to the office shut with a muffled boom.