Quang Li was in a ruffled and agitated state even before he got to work. His six-month-old daughter had kept him and his wife awake half the night. The excessive amount of rice wine after dinner hadn’t helped, either. His stomach was queasy and his head was in a fog. But even though he was functioning well below his usual standard, he realized that something was radically wrong as soon as he walked into the control room of the chemical factory he managed. Technicians in white coats swarmed over the control consoles and computerized industrial monitors. They moved about frantically, clutching their clipboards and shouting loudly at one another.
“Hsan!” Quang Li shouted at his senior technician.
Hsan jumped as though the plant manager had him on a string. Within seconds he was standing in front of Quang Li.
“Explain,” said the plant manager. The single word was both commanding and imperious.
The senior technician quickly explained how all systems had shut down mysteriously just before the nightshift ended. The readings on the consoles had gone haywire. The LCDs were still lit, the switching systems were intact, but the readings were preposterous and made no sense at all.
Quang Li groaned aloud. They were already well behind their production schedule, especially with their chlorofluorocarbon production. If things got worse, his job might be on the line.
He stared contemptuously at the technicians who still swarmed over the consoles. They believe their sensors and their gauges and their computerized displays, he thought, but they don’t have the sense to go to the source of the problem.
Quang Li went directly to his locker, stripped down to his underwear and put on heavy duty protective overalls. Donning a hard hat and a set of gauntlets, he turned toward the technicians who hovered near him.
“Get Kwan Ho immediately,” he barked, “and tell him to meet me by the scrubbers.”
He began the long walk through the factory to the gigantic scrubber tanks in back. It was through these tanks that the chemicals wastes were liquefied and roughly filtered before flowing out into the small river that ran behind the plant.
He was not surprised that Kwan Ho reached the scrubbers before he did. The sturdy peasant from the North was the most reliable worker in the entire plant. A man without any formal education whatsoever, Kwan Ho had risen through the ranks solely through his ability to outwork everyone else. Quang Li spoke gruffly to him, as he did everyone, but had a secret respect for the man.
Quang Li pointed at the towering tank nearest to them. “Drain it out and open the access panel.”
Kwan Ho immediately fell to the task, keeping his eye on the large gauge as he wrestled against a huge valve, opening it wide.
“Look! Look!” he said urgently, pointing to the gauge. Quang Li stepped closer and examined the calibrations carefully. The gauge was designed to show the level of the chemical cauldron within. But the marker, which showed full, had not budged by as much as a millimeter. The two of them stood there silently, trying to make sense of what they saw.
“Open the main valve,” Quang Li said.
Though Kwan Ho knew this action went completely against the normal procedures and was in fact a dangerous thing to do on a full tank, he obeyed Quang Li without question.
He took a wrench from his tool kit and within a minute and a half had removed the seal from the spigot-shaped valve. Once again, both men were astonished. There should have been a high pressure stream of liquefied waste materials. Instead, there was not even a single drip. It was as though the inside of the scrubber tank was bone dry.
“Open the main access panel,” Quang Li said.
Kwan Ho’s already pale face was white with terror, but he obeyed immediately. Opening the main access panel when the gauge registered full would normally mean that a flood of toxic chemical by-products would engulf them. He hoped and prayed that Quang Li’s assessment that the scrubber tower was empty was correct.
Kwan Ho breathed a sigh of relief when the panel popped open safely. There was not so much as trickle of chemical residue. How could this be? he wondered.
Quang Li ordered him aside and stretched out full-length on the steel grate that lay below the access panel. He pulled himself slowly through the black opening, shining a flashlight into the interior. What he saw amazed him. Its contents had fused together into a huge, solid mass. His background in chemical engineering was sufficient for him to know that this could never have happened spontaneously. There was only one possible cause—sabotage.
Who could have done this? he thought as he backed out of the tower. The technology involved was considerable. And only one country could possibly have the resources to carry it off—America. It must be the beginning of an insidious campaign, he thought.
Within fifteen minutes of his discovery, Quang Li called the Party Chairman of the Province to advise him of the events. Though the man was abrupt and angry with him, Quang Li felt a certain satisfaction to hear his own assessment confirmed. “It must be the Americans,” said the Party Chairman just before he banged down the phone.