China Dolls

By Rob Wood

A terrorist threat is communicated to the U.S. Navy in Nushu, an old Chinese script understood only by women. Cody Cochrane, an American student, argues the threat is real. When the Navy encounters a radiation victim and a corpse is mutilated, Cochrane seems vindicated. Working with Lieutenant James Purdy, she implicates a Hong Kong movie star and businesswoman with ties to the Uighurs -- Muslim-Turkic rebels in western China. What if Purdy and Cochrane are wrong? Perhaps nothing is as it seems and the real threat is yet to be discovered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098329334

Rob Wood

After completing college and a two year tour of duty in the Army, award winning author Rob Wood followed in the footsteps of his forefathers and spent several decades cowboying in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Pursuing a calling to dude ranching, producing rodeos and ranch real estate allowed him to fulfill many of his childhood dreams. Rob honed his storytelling skills around campfires of the Rocky Mountain west. Rob's first book of short stories, "The 5 Greatest Spankings of All Time" was published in 2012 to critical acclaim. The Texas Association of Authors awarded it First Place in the Short Story Fiction category of their 2012 Literary Awards. Rob's new book "Let's Scare Mom" unfolds around those original tales and continues to pack the tastes and smells of the 1950's into his humorous and very personal stories. Aside from writing, Rob enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, cooking indoors as well as over an open fire and riding a good horse along the Continental Divide. Rob, his wife Ellen and their dogs Babe and Casey currently live outside of Dallas, Texas.

Book preview

PARTY

1

TIGER BANK

Her name in Putonghua, the official standard language, was Lijuan. Zhang Lijuan. In her Xinjiang homeland, she knew some people referred to her as Loulan, a reference to a beautiful woman from 3800 years ago. Then her homeland sat powerfully astride the Silk Road. Loulan was to return from the past when her people most needed her. A bitter myth, she thought.

Most people now knew her as Lily Zhang, a prominent film star, with connections in Hong Kong and Beijing. Another name, another myth. In a culture that believed in the destiny-shaping power of a name, she was presented with a great many potential outcomes.

Lily Zhang sat straight and erect. Her finely chiseled features were expressionless, but her heart raged with anger, humiliation, and frustration. A mystery indeed: how could one harbor so much fury beneath a mask of calm indifference? It was a talent.

She had been placed behind a screen like an attractive potted plant. She couldn’t see. Cao Kai had wanted to ‘spare her.’ These ignorant people soiled themselves in multiple ways during interrogation, he said. The scene was indelicate. But as he well knew, she could still hear. Their torture was her torture, focused and refined because it could only be experienced through sound. Each sound, in its extended, fulsome, harmonic complexity, summoned images vividly to mind.

Now she heard the thunk of the heavy hammer against the broad end of the wooden wedge. The beat was followed by a small shriek of wood as the wedge inched forward, lifting the board. And this, in turn, was overwhelmed by the counterpoint of pain: whimpers, moans, and sobs. Unlike an alligator clip on a nipple or a belt sander on a knee, it left no tell-tale scars, only tell-tale pain.

This particular method was called tiger bank. A person, sitting upright, was tied down at the thighs and knees on a narrow wooden bench. A board was positioned under the heels, driven further and further upward by the wedge. The victim’s legs were stretched backward against the knee joint and the victim suffered excruciating pain.

Yet Lily Zhang seemed utterly composed in her trench jacket and linen travel suit. To signal fear, loathing, or even impatience would be to give in to Cao Kai and to reveal more about herself than she wished. She wore indifference like a mask.

She stared at the screen in front of her. In five panels, it supported the image of a winding, gnarled, intricately-detailed old cypress. It was a reproduction of the brush and ink drawing by the scholar-official Wen Zhengming. It was a symbol of endurance. In the upper left, Wen had added a couplet: Weighted down by snow, oppressed by frost, with the passing of years and months, its branches become twisted and its crown bent down, yet its strength remains majestic.

Lily thought about the couplet and wondered if she had the requisite strength and endurance.

Cao Kai had arranged to interrogate prisoners in the old municipal prison at Pingyao, a remarkably preserved medieval city. On the slab stones outside the gate, you could still see the ruts left by the wheels of carts that brought goods and people for disposition. The ruts dated from as far back as the Ming dynasty.

Pingyao was situated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, in the eastern region of the Loess Plateau. All of the city was preserved like a snapshot in time: barbican- fronted defensive wall, residential courtyards, and temples that rose in tiers like a layered cake, upturned at the corners. In 1986 it had been designated as a famous historic cultural city by the State Council of the People’s Republic. This act essentially froze the city in time.

Colonel Cao Kai liked Pingyao. Cao fancied himself a dramatist. So, for one night, he had brought political prisoners here to this remnant of medieval China to be interrogated and disposed of. When Cao visited, tourists were forbidden. True, Pingyao was nearly a third of the way across China from his offices in Beijing. But Cao could get a bullet train. He was extremely well placed and influential in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) security division.

And prisoners? They were available nearly everywhere. There were thousands across China. No one knew how many because, of course, they had been taken without due process. As a result, many were merely detained forever and simply forgotten. But Cao did not like to forget anyone.

He knew some were Falun Gong—so-called religious extremists. Some were ethnic separatists. Some were ideological threats to the state—writers, activists, nouveau capitalists—who had stepped over the line. Some were merely the wives, mothers and daughters of the politically suspect. These were the ones Cao preferred. You never know who knows what, Cao would say.

Lily had listened to them scream. This recalled, in a clouded, indistinct way, her own memories of a young girl’s screams—and her first meeting with Cao. In the years since, she believed she had become the more powerful of the two, engineering the relationship to suit her own ends. Always, she hid her real feelings behind a mask.

At present, the screams had stopped. All she heard was the sobbing of a new victim, evidently a woman groveling in front of Cao. She knew Cao was sitting on a raised platform. He was pretending to be part of another time. He was pretending to be something other than what he was—the PLA’s pit bull, part national security, part secret police. And he was pretending that this was justice.

Of the daughters, wives, and mothers here—or anywhere across China—many were completely innocent. Some knew things, however. It was Cao’s charge to make sure anything worth knowing came to light. He had all the means of discovery at his disposal. In the end, no one refused to answer his questions. But he still had to know enough to ask the right questions.

A young girl approached Lily and proffered a small, cheap fan.

From one of the women, the girl said. She said it was all she had left of value. She thought she recognized you. She called you ‘Loulan.’ Are you famous?

Lily shook her head. She stared hard at the girl. The girl blanched at her own temerity. How could she have forgotten her manners?

My name is Lijuan.

Oh, said the girl, disappointed. Anyway, the woman wanted you to have the fan. She said she had made it herself.

The girl backed all the way out, eyes on the ground.

Lily saw that the fan was hand painted. She unfurled it, cocked it in her hand as courtesans had years ago. She admired the simplicity of the watercolor. It showed a cottage in the embrace of an old tree, a winter plum, a storied symbol in China. She thought the pattern of shadows at the corner was darker than elsewhere, as if this had been only recently painted—or repainted.

Her wide eyes narrowed. She stared until the creases, folds, and shadows resolved themselves into the script called nushu. The message was short.

This will not end well, she sighed. Where to look for help?

2

COMES SOMETHING WICKED

Suitland, Maryland, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place approximately one mile southeast of Washington, D.C. It would be totally unremarkable, except for one thing: It is the headquarters of U.S. Naval Intelligence. Think concrete and steel piled high and wide.

Inside, brusque as a January wind, Carla Izquidero shoved the folder across the desk. National Security Document. The first paragraph harrumphed: Transnational organized crime (TOC) has infiltrated many influential governments and poses a significant and growing threat to national and international security, with dire implications for public safety, public health, democratic institutions, and economic stability across the globe.

Izquidero sat back in her chair. Not only are criminal and terrorist networks expanding, but they also are diversifying. Vicky, we can’t see squat over there, and you know it.

Izquidero’s special interest was Asia. She and Joe Jovanovich—Vicky—had been friends even before the creation of the Navy’s Information Dominance Corps (IDC), a creation, as Vicky liked to say, of gumshoes and cyber nerds.

Their argument was an old one. The walls of the Suitland office building had seen and heard it all. In fact, Izquidero and Jovanovich often batted the issue around, knowing they were both in fundamental agreement.

We’ve got the X37B spy plane and satellite reconnaissance, Jovanovich said. Vicky often saw technology as the fulcrum on which to leverage scant human resources.

China and Korea—most of it’s mountains, returned Izquidero. That complicates satellite recon. Their facilities are hidden in a network of tunnels. They’re hard to see. Top secret communications are not only encrypted, they’re carried on a system of buried fiber optic cables that are difficult to tap.

Vicky lifted his hands, palms up, as if asking the heavens for patience. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. I’ve said for years there is no substitute for boots on the ground—or better said, ears to the ground. I’ve said it because the tech toys I love can’t do it all. And they never tell you anything about culture or the way people think.

Izquidero shook her head. Maybe the message isn’t getting through. The Naval Forces Command for Korea has only about three officers and sixteen enlisted men deployed across the peninsula, covering all of IDC activity.

And that’s South Korea! exclaimed Jovanovich. The beloved leader’s DPRK is a black hole. China isn’t much better. Diplomats, businessmen, aid workers—they’re all under security surveillance. They don’t—or won’t—say much. And Beijing’s control of communications is notorious.

I don’t even trust what’s coming out of Tokyo, to tell you the truth, said Izquidero. Externally, frictions with China and North Korea frustrate their intelligence gathering. Internally, I think they withhold information to shield the politically powerful people—and that includes TOC.

Maybe the China Teams will help, said Jovanovich, his natural optimism returning. I like the idea of units of expertise as mobile as our fleet, combining scholars with real warfare veterans, and calling the whole thing Navy.

It’s an idea whose time has come, nodded Izquidero. Here is a history, a culture, a strategic dynamic we don’t fully understand. I, for one, would give a lot to have one little insight into Asian transnational organized crime. One nugget of information.

The man hardly had the strength to gasp. He seemed to sip tiny draughts of air. Sepsis had poisoned his body. His hair—even his eyebrows—had fallen out. The short bristles lay dark against the pillow.

Anemia sapped his strength. Lack of oxygen, due to a plummeting red blood cell count, addled his brain. The tattoos on his chest seemed to come alive, crawling, writhing, breeding.

Good. A fitting last memory.

His tattoos were his most precious possession. His pride. His self. His proof that he was yakuza, part of the estimable crime family of Japan.

Not bad for the son of a Korean whore. Although he had been born in Hoech’ang, in the mountains west of Pyongyang, DPRK, his father was Japanese. A man of vision was his father, a member of the Red Army Faction of the Japanese Communist League. North Korea welcomed them as heroes. He was at home in both countries. But his loyalty was to North Korea, a country that employed several moles in Japan. He had been most successful with his son. His son had, in fact, become part of a cultural institution that was distinctly Japanese.

After a moment, the man’s flickering clarity of thought returned. He remembered, vividly, his initiation. He heard himself swearing loyalty to his komicho, the supreme boss. At the time, he held in his hand a picture of a saint. They had set fire to the picture. Regardless, he had to hold the fire in his hands. They cut his trigger finger and the blood seeped, sizzling, into the flame.

He heard the sound of flutes. He saw the brethren nod. He was accepted. He was yakuza.

He had waited. He had been humble. He had been obedient. Today, even as he approached death, he was only a shatei—a younger brother. But he had no doubt that his kumicho would be proud of him. He had done exactly as he was told, exactly what was required.

Not that it was difficult. On any given day at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant there were as many as 3,700 workers. A high proportion were yakuza recruits. It had always been so. How else was the power company going to meet its needs? This was the most dangerous and—considering the danger—the most poorly compensated work in all of Japan. But you did what the kumicho told you.

After the explosion, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare had admitted that no one knew precisely who they were, or where they came from. Especially after the explosions. But he knew. He was one of them. They were nameless men, popping iodine pills, stomping around in baggy suits. Like the pills, the suits were designed to protect them. They hadn’t protected him from where he had been or what he had done. But he had known this going in.

In the panic that followed the nuclear meltdown at the plant, officials could keep track neither of people nor material. They really did not know what was happening from one moment to the next. There was no accountability. And the amount he had taken could not be noted, billed, or traced. It was the perfect crime with the perfect outcome.

3

MIXED MESSAGES

For Lily, it was 48 hours later, and the circumstances seemed vastly different. For one, she had shaped a new persona. Serene and confident, she had changed into high heels and a blue western chiffon: open back, sarong neck, and billows of fabric descending from the waist—fabric sufficiently sheer to accent her long legs and thighs.

Cao was preoccupied, his attention divided between the lovely Lily Zhang and the message he had received by courier: Fundamentals favorable. Futures promising.

Lily looked past Cao, seated on her sofa, cocktail in hand, to the window-wide panorama behind him. Her capital city condominium was her favorite retreat and the unofficial Beijing headquarters of Zhang Enterprises. And the view! A world of Paul Androu-inspired skyscrapers jutted out of the smog and the hustle-bustle at street level. Hers was an aerie indeed.

I want you to go with me to Hong Kong, she said. I need to go to Hong. Customarily, she just went. But today she wanted something.

Looks to me like you’re already there. Cao snorted the words. He officially mocked the decadence of the former British colony. He had even worked to limit the distribution of Hong-Kong-made films in mainland China. Unofficially, of course, there was no one who was more decadence-loving than he. Which was one reason Lily had chosen the sheer chiffon and armed him with a Western cocktail.

Seriously, she said, I have to work. I’ve got meetings, screenings, scripts to read. If you don’t mingle, you don’t work. Hong Kong, for me, means networking.

I’m the only people you need to mingle.

Lily ignored the remark and plunged ahead. It’s the same with you. Where would you be if you didn’t get out and about. People talk. You listen. That’s the essence of your work in security.

If I want to know something in Hong Kong, I call. They tell me. End of story.

It’s not the same as your being there yourself. You’ve got big ears. She settled next to him on the sofa.

That’s not why they say I have big ears, he chuckled into his cocktail. Cao Kai had a dark, pock-marked face, and a stocky body that made him look like a fire hydrant wearing a uniform. Who needed to be attractive, when you had power and influence?

Today, you’re drunk. Tomorrow, Lily smiled, "that razor-sharp mind goes back to work and you start thinking about the things you tell me—like how China must neutralize U.S. sea power in Asian waters, how Russia wants to woo Kazakhstan, how India is a threat . . .

Shit. I didn’t know you were listening. Who’s the one with big ears?

Cao Kai spoke Putonghua with an accent. It sounded to Lily like broken glass stuck in his windpipe.

Seriously, she continued. Who better should I listen to and learn from? She turned a doe-soft, worshipful gaze on him. You taught me to really care about my country!

I could teach you a lot, Cao said, moving closer.

She turned and looked out the window. You know what my friends in Hong Kong are worried about right now? People ask, Are we the next Pakistan?"

What? Cao’s hand jumped in surprise, and he spilled part of his drink. It was hard to follow this woman. She never seemed to be thinking what he was thinking—or what he wished her to think.

Why, given its role in dealing with Bin Laden, said Lily slowly, rolling the thought around on her tongue. Why is the USS Carl Vinson patrolling off our coast? There are Muslims in Hong Kong, you know. I’ll bet Al Qaida’s there, too.

That’s ridiculous.

Is it? she asked. I come from Muslim people, and it’s a question that occurs to me!

Cao spat out a retort: The damned Americans are still playing big-stick Teddy Roosevelt. He squirmed uncomfortably on the couch. Besides, they’re in international waters.

Oh? asked Lily archly. It’s interesting how the Peoples Liberation Army has suddenly re-defined international waters! She lifted an eyebrow. Or is it Hilary Clinton I’m talking to here?

You are so full of shit. . .

The point is that this is what people are talking about. I know Hong Kong and I know people. You could change all that. Find out what’s going on with the Vinson. Just your presence in Hong Kong would reassure people.

Well, I suppose they don’t know you’re full of shit. And the Vinson does present an opportunity. . .

I’ve always wanted to see an aircraft carrier. God forbid, was she batting her eyelashes?

No, not so much that, mused Cao. I’d be interested in what one or two seamen out of a couple thousand on shore leave might know. I mean, think of the U.S. fleet dropping in on Hong Kong’s ‘cultural’ hot spots! Someone might say something in an unguarded moment. The statistics say do it for that reason, if nothing else.

What should I wear on the bridge of the . . . aircraft carrier?

Cao laughed at the foregone conclusion. What makes you think you’re going?

English ability. Cultural outreach. Arm candy. Maybe not in that order.

I like candy, he said, pulling her to him for a gin-laced kiss.

Lily’s stomach tightened like the bony knot called zhongguo shengjie. It wasn’t pleasant.

4

DRESS WHITES

A pale sun rose and shimmered on the horizon. A thin line of stratocumulus clouds faded into the distance as the weather front moved on. White foam curled away from the bow of the U.S.S. Carl Vinson as she cut through the South China seas.

The consensus among the officer group of Carrier Strike Group 1 was mild surprise.

Basically, it’s an invitation from the People’s Republic of China.

Yeah, quote, ‘a sign of the sound relationship between the two countries and the warm accord between our militaries and our nations.’

Since when? The skepticism hung thick in the air. Nevertheless, hours later four ships of the carrier group made port in Hong Kong harbor.

Before today, the prettiest girl in town had been the Lucky Lady. This was a gleaming white, 460-foot luxury yacht outfitted by Pierre Jean design in Paris, settled now at a Hong Kong pier. Lucky Lady was a knife blade in the water, a knife blade wrapped in glass-reinforced plastic. She did 26 knots with a range of 5,000 nautical miles. She was built on the body of the British Navy frigate Endeavor, and rumor said Lucky Lady carried armaments that made her just as formidable as her forebear. She was owned by Zhang Enterprises, a firm that knew better than most that celebrity was an evanescent commodity.

Judging from the press and the crowds on hand today, everyone now wanted to gawk at the harbor’s new debutante—the Vinson—all 1,092 feet of her. The four-and-a-half acre deck bristled with fighter jets and helicopters. As she passed by, she literally threw the Lucky Lady into shadows. The Vinson was nothing if not an exercise in potency. True, Sea Sparrow missile launchers, 20 mm. phalanx guns, rolling airframe missile systems, and roughly 7,000 seamen from the carrier group all were standing down for the moment. But how long is a moment?

Those of the Vinson’s crew with shore leave were all excited but still intent on minding their p’s and q’s. They bantered—carefully—with news media reps standing on their toes and sputtering questions.

That Bin Laden thing that made us notorious—and his burial at sea—we can’t talk about that, said one sailor to a reporter.

Another chuckled, Sure, the bigwigs have a party tonight. But, honestly, I’d rather be me for the next 48 hours.

The United States consulate general had organized a cocktail reception. Security was tight all around Fenwick pier. Guests would be given a ship tour and entertained in the best Navy tradition. Consulate spokesmen said the guest list could not be disclosed publicly for security reasons but added it was a cross section of people from Hong Kong, including officers of the People’s Liberation Army.

Look who’s coming to dinner, cracked the first mate, scanning the list.

His executive officer, Brian Partridge, thoughtfully tapped a pencil on his desk. Partridge had a crop of close-cut gray hair that sat like steel wool above lined forehead and penetrating blue eyes. Captain wants those guests to be met by our best and brightest, he said. Don’t look at this like it’s your high school prom. We need people who can make nice, but more important we need people who can listen for detail . . . something dropped carelessly in a conversation that might be meaningful. This is still the Navy, and this is priority stuff. Put some of our China Team on it. And make sure, like the Captain says, that they’re our best and brightest.

When the news was delivered to Cody Cochrane, she was not happy. The Navy had helped with her education. That was for sure. But the Navy didn’t seem eager to help her put it to use. She had been looking forward to seeing Hong Kong—not only for the tourist delights like taking the tram up to Victoria Peak or wolfing her way through the dim sum restaurants, but because, as an academic who was interested in ethno-feminist research, she would be able to search for references to the vanished boat people of Hong Kong. Seventy years ago, crowded sampans were thick in Hong Kong harbors, lying bow to stern like so many logs backed up at a lumber mill sluice. The matriarchal clans that lived on the sampans were some of the last indigenous people in what had rapidly become a city dominated by expats—British, Indian, Malay, Vietnamese, and, lastly, mainland Chinese.

She put her sunglasses back in the drawer and sighed. Really, she said to herself, It’s all Navy, all the time. She pulled her soft brown hair back into a bun. It was part of dropping back into the hyper-professional world of government intelligence.

Her stint with the Vinson was a long way from her days as a PhD candidate at NYU. Back then she dashed off a vitae statement with confidence. It read, Constance ‘Cody’ Cochrane is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations with an emphasis on Asian Culture and Rhetoric. She received her BA in Asian languages from Hampton University in Hampton Virginia, and an MA in economics from Penn State University. Her scholarly interests include ethnic rhetorics, feminist history, political theory, cultural studies.

She knew who she was then. Who was she now? According to OPNAV Instruction 5300.12 from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, she was part of a cadre of officers, enlisted, and civilian professionals who possess extensive skills in information-intensive fields. This corps of professionals will receive extensive training, education, and work experience in information, intelligence, counterintelligence, human-derived information networks, and oceanographic disciplines. This corps will develop and deliver dominant information capabilities in support of U.S. Navy, Joint and National Warfighting Requirements.

Was she still competing with her older sister, she wondered? It had been hard to escape the shadow of someone who seemed perpetually taller, faster, stronger. Her older sister was someone who seemed always to know the answers to problems Cody was confronting for the first time. Her sister had achieved, as a doctor, a conventional kind of success. But it had taken a toll. Her sister had grown more distant as an adult, less willing to share confidences. Her natural reserve had stiffened as the mortality rates in her pediatric oncology unit rose. It seemed that their sisterly relationship also had been one of the victims.

At 1800 hours there was a knock at her door.

Ms. Cochrane? The man saluted. "Good evening. I’m Lieutenant James Purdy. I’m to