Paris

Sitting in her room on the sixth floor of the Hotel Le Burgundy on Rue Duphot in Paris, Mei Ling was terrified. She had scheduled times for telephone conversations with her son, who was at sea with the Chinese navy, but he hadn’t called today. Under normal circumstances, an adult son failing to call his mother wouldn’t be cause for alarm.

But these weren’t normal circumstances. Ever since she had tried to coerce Zhou, who was then head of the Chinese armed forces, to appoint her son commander of the Chinese navy in return for her silence regarding Zhou’s plan to cut off the flow of imported oil to the United States, Mei Ling realized that she had let Zhou know how much she cared for her son. That evil bastard would have deduced, now that he was in power, that killing her son was a way of gaining revenge against Mei Ling for helping to thwart his Operation Dragon Oil and for challenging him for the Presidency. And she feared that’s what he had done.

Mei Ling grew weary of staring at her cellphone, resting on the desk, waiting for it to ring. She picked up the phone and called her son’s cell. The call went into voice mail. She tried again ten minutes later. Same result. And a third time, ten minutes after that. More voice mail. Her mother’s intuition told her something terrible had happened to him.

With trembling fingers, she dialed the cell of Qua Ping, her close friend and ally on the Central Committee. She explained the problem to Ping, who had known her son from birth. “What ship is he on?” Ping asked.

“The Empress of China.”

“I’ll make some discrete calls for you. Stick by the phone.”

An hour later the phone rang. It was Ping.

“Well,” she said anxiously.

There was a pause. Then a cough at the other end of the line. She feared the worst. Finally, she heard, “I spoke with one of the top naval commanders, whom I’ve known for many years, and who was a friend of your husband’s. While he kept me on hold, he called an officer on the ship. After a few minutes, he told me there had been an accident.”

Her hand was wet with perspiration. “What kind of accident?”

“He said that your son slipped on the deck and went overboard. He drowned. I’m so sorry.”

A bloodcurdling scream spewed out of Mei Ling’s mouth.

“I pressed him to tell me about the accident. At first he wouldn’t say anything. Finally, he told me that Zhou had ordered the captain to have your son killed. That’s all he was able to learn.”

Mei Ling screamed again. “No… No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“One day I’ll make Zhou pay for this.”

“You have to find a way to come back to Beijing and take the Presidency from him. That would be your revenge.”

“Believe me, if I ever have the chance, I will.”

“Opposition is growing against Zhou for his increasingly outrageous behavior. Business colleagues have told me that even Zhou’s brother is upset.”

She thanked Ping and hung up the phone.

Her grief was too overwhelming to bear alone. She had to tell someone, but in Paris she had no one. If she called someone in China, they might press her about her location.

Elizabeth. That’s who she’d call. Elizabeth would not only be comforting, but she’d tell Craig. He was now CIA Director, Mei Ling had read. It would give the Americans one more example of Zhou’s outrageous behavior. One more example of why this venal man should be ousted from his position.

With tears running down her cheeks, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Elizabeth.

Please help me, Elizabeth. Help me!