Strong Darkness Read online

  “Perhaps,” Zhen continued to the shocked trio seated before him, “I should be bringing this opportunity to other parties.”

  “You would dare disrespect us this way?” snapped the third man. “Watch your tongue or you will find yourself without it.”

  “I come from a neighborhood like this,” Zhen told them quite calmly. “I was raised in a slum.”

  “As you remain in our eyes and the eyes of China. Peasant scum,” one of the men hissed.

  “We are well aware of your background,” the man in the center, who Zhen knew to be the leader, said, sounding more intrigued than angered, “along with the areas of expertise that have already endeared you to us. Your pornography interests have yielded a great fortune. Perhaps you should consider an expansion there in an area of familiarity.”

  “It is another area I seek your support in pursuing.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “The future, shīfù,” Zhen said, careful to use the most reverent word for “master.”

  In China, there was no such thing really as upward mobility. The only alternative to winning the favor of the government or military for men like Li Zhen was to pursue an alliance with the only other true power in China: that of the Triad, a criminal organization with interests all across the globe that often counted the government and military as its willing partners.

  “We can look out the window and see the future,” the second man scoffed. “You waste our time. Go back where you belong.”

  “A slum like this is where I belong, among the dregs where Chinese society dictates I must reside. I come to you because it lies in our mutual best interests to change that. And I wish to do right by the Triad,” Zhen added respectfully, “for the opportunities already afforded me.”

  “Then go back to make more of your dirty pictures.”

  “I can do much better than that,” Zhen said and produced a floppy disc from his pocket; he promptly brought it to the table and laid it before the leader seated in the center. “This is merely an example.”

  “And what exactly does it contain?” the leader asked, holding the disc up before him.

  “The product of a quest, shīfù, a quest that brought me to America on the pretext of expanding my interests there. A new age of communications technology is dawning that will change the world forever. And we can own that age. It can be ours.”

  The leader passed the disc to the man on his right.

  “One disc,” that man said, regarding it disparagingly. “This must be a very modest future indeed.”

  “I have nine more containing the greatest secrets of America’s telecommunications industries, the secrets that will open the door to the future of their wireless technology. We can beat the Americans in the race to this future. They see it as a sprint, while we know it is a marathon.”

  “What do you seek from us?” asked the leader.

  “Your backing now, shīfù. Your funding later.”

  “I’m afraid,” said the Triad captain still holding the floppy disc, “backing for such an elaborate venture does not suit a man of a standing better fit for serving us with his films of naked women and sex.”

  Zhen remained unruffled.

  “I have further demonstration of my true capabilities,” he said, focusing on the empty chair set behind the table. “A shame about Governor Chen’s tragic passing.”

  The Triad captain slammed the floppy disc down atop the table. “You dare raise his name, you dare violate the sanctity of this chamber with such a blatant disregard for our ways?”

  “I understand it was a car accident just this afternoon after his driver inexplicably lost control,” Zhen resumed. “You will learn that the car continued to accelerate, that its braking system was rendered inoperative. It was traveling at over a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour when it crashed into that bridge support and burst into flames.”

  “And you tell us this to showcase the depth of your knowledge?” the man challenged.

  “No, I tell you because it could’ve been you, any of you. A check of the remains of the wreck’s engine block will reveal my initials soldered just under the head gasket. So the three of you should count yourself as fortunate that I chose Governor Chen for my demonstration.”

  “Demonstration of what exactly?”

  “The potential to use technology toward our nation’s best interests.”

  “So if you were aware of Governor Chen’s identity,” the Triad captain on the far left started, “we can assume you know ours as well.”

  “A fair assumption, Magistrate,” Zhen told him casually.

  “You play a dangerous game,” the leader said, before either of the other two Triad captains could respond. “Now it is up to you to explain why we should let you leave this building alive.”

  “Because, Colonel Chang, it remains in your best interests to do so. I have just demonstrated to you the power of using technology as a weapon. Multiply that many, many times and you have a notion of what backing me can achieve, the power I seek to lay at our country’s doorstep with your help.” Zhen bowed slightly again in feigned reverence. “But I have also come with an offering of my goodwill and intentions,” he continued, “a sacrifice to the greater good of China.”

  With that, Li Zhen removed a picture from his pocket and held it up to the light for the Triad captains to see.

  “A gift?” the leader raised, clearly impressed by what he saw.

  “As is the custom of any man who comes before you.”

  “Even a man who would dare threaten us?”

  “Especially such a man.”

  “You understand the consequences.”

  Zhen nodded. “I do, and I accept them with heavy heart but knowing mind. Regrettable, but necessary to prove my loyalty to you and to provide tangible demonstration that I love our great nation more than anything.”

  He stopped there to let his point sink in, taking the silence of the Triad captains for the fact this face-saving gesture had captured their interest and left them in his trust. Yet he couldn’t help wondering what they’d think if they knew his true purpose in coming before them, his true goals. Zhen had killed the fourth member of their council, Governor Chen, to make one point.

  And he intended to kill millions and millions of Americans to make another. Because it was America’s fault he was forced to come groveling to these men to attain the power and riches that should have been his birthright.

  The leader continued to regard the picture Zhen was holding. “We will require some time to consider this matter.”

  “I have waited all my life for this opportunity,” Zhen said humbly. “I can wait a little longer for China to own the world.”

  Colonel Chang, the Triad captain in the center, smiled wryly. “You mean we don’t already?”

  “Not yet. But with America’s help we will.”

  PART ONE

  “So, the government provided for their protection as best it could with the means at its disposal, graciously permitting the citizens to protect themselves by organizing … ranging companies.”

  —Noah Smithwick (1808–1899)

  1

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “Sinners repent or more will die! Sinners repent or more will die! Sinners repent or more will die!”

  Caitlin Strong listened to the chant repeated over and over again by the Beacon of Light Church members who’d decided to picket a young soldier’s funeral here in San Antonio in pointless protest. The words were harder to make out across the street, beyond the thousand-foot buffer the protesters were required to keep, but clear enough to disturb the parents of an army hero who just wanted to bury their son in peace.

  “What are you going to do about this, Ranger?” Bud Chauncey, the young man’s father, asked her.

  “I’ve requested that they vacate the premises, sir,” Caitlin told the man. “My orders are to do no more than that as long as they keep their distance. It’s the law.”

  Chauncey, who owned s
everal car dealerships in the area, turned toward the Beacon of Light Church members gathered on a patch of fresh land up a slight rise across the road, land that Mission Burial Park had purchased in order to expand. His eyes looked bloodshot and weary, his face held in an angry glare that captured the frustration over being able to do no more about their presence here than he could for the son he was about to lay to rest. He stretched a hand through stringy gray hair to smooth it back down, but the breeze quickly blew it out of place again. Chauncey always looked so strong, vital, and happy on his television commercials, leaving Caitlin to wonder if this was even the same man. His neck was thin and marred by discolored patches of skin that looked to have come from radiation treatments. His hands were thin and knobby and she noticed them trembling once he removed them from his pockets. She caught a glimpse of tobacco stains on the tips of his fingers and nails and thought of those radiation treatments again.

  “Thousand feet away?” Chauncey questioned.

  “Legislature passed a law restricting protests to that distance to funerals held in the state.”

  Chauncey gazed back at the mourners gathered by his son’s gravesite waiting for the service to begin. He and Caitlin stood off to the side of the building funeral cortege at Mission Burial Park, the cemetery located on the San Antonio River where her father and grandfather were buried in clear view of the historic Mission Espada.

  “Why don’t you explain that to my boy, Ranger?”

  It sounded more like a plea than a question, a grieving father looking for a way to reconcile his son’s death in the face of picketing strangers paying him the ultimate disrespect. Blaming gays and their lifestyle for the grenade that had taken a young man’s life when he threw himself on two other soldiers to save them.

  “The world might be full of shit,” Chauncey resumed with his gaze fixed across the road, electricity seeming to radiate out of his pores with the sweat to the point where Caitlin figured she’d get a shock if she stretched a hand out to comfort him. “But that doesn’t mean we ever get used to stepping in it.”

  “I’ll be right back, sir,” she told Bud Chauncey and headed toward the street.

  2

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  It seemed like too nice a day to bury somebody as gifted as Bud Chauncey’s son, Junior. An All-District athlete in three sports, Homecoming King, and senior class president who’d joined the army’s ROTC program. He went to Afghanistan already a hero and came back in a box after his platoon was hit by a Taliban ambush while on patrol. It was bad enough when good boys died for no good reason Caitlin could see. It was even worse when it happened while a war was winding down and most back home had stopped paying attention.

  Caitlin was thinking of Dylan Torres, the eighteen-year-old son of the man she considered, well, her boyfriend, as she walked toward the road and the grassy field across it that was in the process of being dug out to make room for Mission Burial Park’s expansion. Bud Chauncey Junior had been barely a year older when he died and she couldn’t help picturing Dylan patrolling a desert wasteland with an M16 held in the ready position before him. Still a boy no matter how much he’d been through or how many monsters with whom he’d come into contact. Currently in Providence, Rhode Island, Dylan was in the midst of his freshman football season for Brown University, and had a junior varsity game next weekend, if she remembered correctly.

  Caitlin had read that Junior Chauncey had been accepted for admission at the University of Texas at Austin, where he had hoped to do the same. But Junior would never don helmet and pads again.

  That thought pushed a spring into her step as she strode across the road now crammed with cars, both parked along the side and inching along in search of a space. The funeral was being delayed to account for that, giving Bud Chauncey more time to suffer and the Beacon of Light Church more time to make their presence known. Alerted to their coming, she could see that television crews from five local stations and at least two national ones had arrived first, their cameras covering all that was transpiring on both sides of the road.

  Crossing the street, Caitlin thought she felt a blast of heat flushed out of a furnace slam into her. It seemed to radiate off the protesters, turning the air hot and prickly as they continued to chant. The sky was cloudless, the heat building in the fall day under a sun that felt more like summer judging from the burn Caitlin felt on her cheeks.

  Caitlin recognized the leader, William Bryant Tripp, from his wet-down hair, skin flushed red, and handlebar mustache, and angled herself straight for him across the edge of the field that gave way to a drainage trench the width of a massive John Deere wheel loader’s shovel. The trench created a natural barricade between the Beacon of Light Church members and what might as well have been the rest of the world, while the big Deere sat idle between towering mounds of earth set farther back in the field.

  “Sinners repent or more will die! Sinners repent or more will die! Sinners repent or more will die!”

  “Mr. Tripp,” she called to the leader over the chants. He’d stepped out of the procession at her approach, smirking and twirling the ends of his mustache.

  “It’s Reverend Tripp,” he reminded.

  Caitlin nodded, trying to look respectful. “There’s people grieving a tragic death across the way, Reverend, and I’d ask you again as a man and a Christian to vacate the premises so they might do so in peace. You’ve made your point already and I believe you should leave things at that.”

  The smirk remained. “Peace is what this church is all about, Ranger, a peace that can only be achieved if those who debauch and deface the values of good honest people like us repent and are called out for their sins.”

  “Gays had nothing to do with putting that brave boy in a coffin, sir. That was the work of a bunch of cowardly religious fanatics like the ones serving you here today.”

  The smirk slipped from Tripp’s expression, replaced by a look that brushed Caitlin off and sized her up at the same time. “We’re breaking no laws here. So I’m going to ask you to leave us in peace.”

  Caitlin felt her muscles tightening, her mouth going dry. “You have every right to be here and I’m here to protect your rights to peaceful assembly as well as the rights of the Chauncey family to bury their son without a sideshow. The problem is that presents a contradiction it’s my duty to resolve. And the best way to do that is to ask you and your people to simply leave in a timely fashion.”

  Tripp shifted his shoulders. He seemed to relish the threat Caitlin’s words presented. “And if we choose not to?”

  “You’ve made your point for the cameras already, sir. There’s nothing more for you to prove. So do the holy thing by packing up your pickets and heading on.” Caitlin gazed toward the protesters thrusting their signs into the air in perfect rhythm with their chanting. “Use the time to paint over those signs, so you’re ready to terrorize the next family that loses a son in battle, Mr. Tripp.”

  Tripp measured her words, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth. It made a sound like crushing a grape underfoot. Caitlin could feel the sun’s heat between them now, serving as an invisible barrier neither wanted to breach.

  “It’s Reverend Tripp,” he reminded again.

  “I believe that title needs to be earned,” Caitlin told him, feeling her words start to race ahead of her thoughts.

  Tripp stiffened. “This church has been serving Him and His word since the very founding of this great nation, Ranger. Even here in the great state of Texas itself.”

  “Those other military funerals you’ve been picketing from Lubbock to Amarillo don’t count toward that, sir.”

  “I was speaking of our missionary work back in the times of the frontier; the railroads and the oil booms. How this church tried to convert the Chinese heathen hordes to Christianity.”

  “Heathen hordes?”

  “It was a fool’s errand,” Tripp said, bitterness turning his expression even more hateful. “The Chinese made for an unholy, hateful people not
deserving of our Lord’s good graces.”

  “But you believe you are, thanks to hurting those good folks across the way, is that right? Problem is you’re not serving God, sir; you’re serving yourself. And I’m giving you a chance to square things the easy way instead of the hard.”

  Tripp sneered at her. “Such threats didn’t work in Lubbock or Amarillo and they won’t work here either.”

  “I wasn’t the one who made them in those cities, Mr. Tripp. You’d be well advised to listen this time.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “Sinners repent or more will die! Sinners repent or more will die! Sinners repent or more will die!”

  The chanting had picked up in cadence, seeming to reach a crescendo as the funeral goers squeezed themselves around Junior Chauncey’s gravesite across the road so the ceremony could begin. Caitlin watched the members of the Beacon of Light Church thrusting their picket signs into the air as if they were trying to make rain, the image of their feet teetering on the edge of the recently dug drainage trench holding in her mind.

  “I guess I’ll have to think of something,” she told Tripp and started away.

  3

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Caitlin looped around the perimeter of the protesters, her presence likely forgotten by the time she reached the John Deere wheel loader parked between matching piles of excavated earth. She recognized it as a 644K hybrid model boasting twenty tons of power that could probably level a skyscraper. Caitlin had learned to drive earlier, more brutish versions while helping to rebuild a Mexican family’s home after they’d been burned out by drunken kids for a pot deal gone wrong. Trouble was the drug dealer who’d screwed the kids actually lived across the street. Caitlin’s father had arrested the boys two days later. Considering them dangerous criminals, Jim Strong made them strip to their underwear and left them to roast in the sun while he waited for backup to assist him in a cavity search. Jim had organized the rebuilding effort, financed ultimately by the restitution paid by the accused boys’ parents to keep them out of jail. Caitlin’s father had brokered that deal as well.