Sha Li's Blog, page 2
November 8, 2018
Soldiers and SIGINT Towers
Colorful flags outside the hotel window flutter in a cool breeze. Mai sits up, staring inwardly at her guilty conscience. She’s tormented by memories of Fuhui. Sitting in the back of a dark car, feeling his fat fingers stroke her hair. Remembering his voice. His audacious self-confidence.
This illustration makes use of sensuously printed rice paper in a soft pink for the fabric of the cushion upon which Mai sits.
Once Mai Martin escaped from the Chinese tentacles and made it to Sebastopol, the Department of Homeland Security entangles her into traveling back to Xi’an for a nanotechnology conference, exposing her to more danger. Commander Gao assures that she’ll be protected and has nothing to fear since the prosecutor looked at the evidence and agreed she shot General Ma in self-defense. Nevertheless, Mai must face her fears about the horrible events surrounding the ghastly death of General Huang and the killing of General Ma the day they jetted away to Kyoto.
The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!
Sha Li says, “In real life, I stayed at this hotel owned by the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) when I was attending the CAFIC Conference in Hainan. The top two floors, 5th and 6th, are reserved for government and military officers and are the only floors with internet. Yet I shared a room on the sixth floor with a roommate Lanping LI from Shanghai, an Associate Professor from Shanghai Maritime University.
“Adjacent to the hotel is the military HQ for Hainan, sharing a courtyard with the hotel but not accessible to civilians. In the morning I looked out the window to see colorful flags and soldiers in light green shirts and dark pants marching to musical accompaniment from loudspeakers. Towering above the HQ is a massive SIGINT array of microwave equipment.”
Excerpt:Promptly at 08:30 a knock at the door wakes them. By this time, the hotel staff ran yesterday’s registrations through a search filter and flagged the Beijingers, Ron Zhao, Commander Gao, and the Meiguonuren, Mai Martin. A notice was sent to the local National Armed Police who responded with surveillance orders.
“It’s the hotel techie to install the internet connection,” says Ron, “Get up.” He wraps his body in a hotel robe and steps out to talk to the man. He’s looking at his phone messages when Mai opens the door for the men to come in. Dark smudges show under her puffy, bloodshot eyes. She staggers back to the hard, Chinese bed and crawls under the duvet.
The Ethernet installation takes a few minutes. The man tests the connection for her and leaves a concealed miniature camera in the sitting room and another in the hall on his way out.
“Commander Gao is waiting for me in the dining room,” says Ron, disappearing into the bathroom. In a minute, condensation clouds the glass separating it from the bedroom.
Mai climbs out of bed, pads into the steamy bathroom and steps into the shower.
“I’m going out, what about you? Are you staying here?” he asks, lathering Mai with the complimentary mint scented shower gel.
She submits to his careful attention, dozing under the hot spray.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m skipping the morning session and sleeping. Meet you for lunch in the banquet room.”
She dries off with the bathroom door ajar, checking him out while he finishes dressing, pulling a Korean knit shirt over his head.
“I’m going downstairs to find the Commander,” he says to the open door, enjoying watching her as the fog clears in the glass enclosure.
He fastens a belt around polyester blend tan trousers and leaves her alone.
Mai rubs the clouded mirror and inspects her face. The dark smudges have dissipated, replaced by a robust glow. She wishes it was as easy to overcome the anxiety of being in the city where Huang was arrested, where he hid her that she lives and he’s dead. Frowning, she digs into her bag for a maternity tunic.
Colorful flags outside the window flutter in a cool breeze. She leans on the sill and looks down at soldiers in light green shirts and dark pants marching to musical accompaniment from loudspeakers in the courtyard below. Towering above the HQ opposite is a massive SIGINT array of microwave equipment sparkling in the clear morning.
September 30, 2018
Fast & Free job search; find security jobs in China
In Origin of Human Hybrids, demons drive the actionsTHE PRIVATE SECURITY SECTOR IN CHIN A IS BOOMING. Millions of authorized private security guards were operating, increasing each year. A million security personnel work for companies owned directly by China's public security bureaus (PSB), and three million personnel work for companies monitored and managed by PSB. In Beijing, there are 76,000 registered security personnel, compared to 50,000 police, and 18 cities and provinces in China have more than 50,000 registered security guards. The areas with the fastest growing numbers of security guards are Guangxi province and Tibet, where the numbers have more than doubled in one year. The four million legitimate security personnel are the tip of a much larger private security iceberg. Millions of unregistered or "black market private security" (heishi bao'an) personnel operate in uniforms almost identical to those of their authorized counterparts, and in some areas, the proportion of black market to legitimate guards is one to one.
Rick Martin unjustly treats his wife, Mai, as do the rest who involved her in mental telepathy experiment without fully disclosing what would be involved down the line. She collapsed, an expected event, but no one warned her. She’s injected with artificial blood and bots, again without her knowledge or consent, ostensibly to save her life and the fetuses. She’s being spied on, what else?
Facing her fear of returning to Xi’an where General Huang was falsely arrested and murdered, and where she hid to save her life. She feels guilty about Huang, thinks it’s her fault. Wonders if he’s the father of the baby. Wonders if Rick or Ron is the father.
The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!
A conflict over trust comes to an uncomfortable juncture when Ron and Mama return to Beijing and leave Mai alone in Sebastopol. With the Chinese National Police looking for her and the chaos after Liang’s assassination, fat chance she will ever get to return. She collapses over the keyboard and wipes a tear with her fist.
When sovereign nations interests are furthered by re-assigning Mai’s visa and passport status, Rick suddenly appears and whisks her off to a nanotechnology conference in China.
Excerpt:A silvery curtain screens the morning sun where he sits in his corner office, overlooking Beihai Lake. Ron’s catching up on work for the firm supervising the new offices opening in Taiwan and Pakistan, when another text interrupts. OK 2 TALK?
He calls her.
“Tangzi, sweetie, I’ll see you soon.”
“Rick told me today.”
“The same with me. Lawrence Wright called this morning.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” asks Mai.
“Don’t worry. That’s my job,” he assures her.
“What about Commander Gao?” she asks.
“He’s meeting us at the hotel tomorrow. How are you?” asks Ron.
“The baby and I are great. Talk to you later. Bye bye,” says Mai and disconnects.
December 11, 2016
3 New Book Trailers from CWP Publishers
With the release of the third in the series, Escape from Here, fresh opportunities for Sha Li to meet the public and read excerpts from the new book at the 2016 Ashland Literary Festival and the Siskiyou Writers Club.
Modern Media, Communications and Entertainment at CherylPetty.com presents three video trailers featuring Sha Li.One reader says, “The video from the Yangtze put it in great context. Music and other pix were totally appropriate and enhanced the reading. This is the best of the reading videos you've posted.”
At the Ashland Literary Festival in October, Sha Li introduced the audience to Ronald Zhao by reading about his rescue from the river by Jimo, the peasant woman. In the second clip, the complex and seductive relationship between Mai Martin and General Huang is revealed through the casting of the fortune of New China with the I Ching.
Sha Li shared the scene at the basketball court, when Ron Zhao suffers snowy flashbacks while catching up on news about the gangster Dong Zhiwei with the Siskiyou Writers Club in September.
This third in the series, An American in Beijing, extends Operation Sundown from the second book, Wounds of Attachment, putting the Homeland Security team under the temporary authority of the megalomaniac General Huang’s control.
Escape from Here on sale now at Amazon.com. in paperback or Kindle format. New images and excerpts for Escape are here.
Sha Li says“The secondary character, Ron Zhao, was the most popular character of the first book, Beijing Abduction. To correct the imbalance, I killed him in the second book, Wounds of Attachment. Fans were dismayed. I brought him back to life in book three, Escape from Here. But is a man who was once dead, and returned to life, ever the same after?”About the author
Sha Li prefers the shadowy anonymity of a pseudo-existence, shedding the metroplex culture and writing in seclusion of Northern California.
October 2, 2016
ShaLi at 5th Annual Ashland Literary Festival
With three published books, CWP Publishers presents ShaLi at the 5th Annual Ashland Literary Festival. ShaLi talks about her latest book, Escape from Here, divulges details about the characters and shows pictures of them in a multimedia presentation.
Third in the series, An American in Beijing, extends Operation Sundown from the second book, Wounds of Attachment, putting the Homeland Security team under the temporary authority of the megalomaniac General Huang’s control. In the first book, Beijing Abduction, Mai Martin discovers her husband works secretly for DHS and is pursued by an international bounty collection gang from North Korea.
Escape from Here on sale now at Amazon.com. in paperback or Kindle format. New images and excerpts for Escape are here.
About the author
Sha Li prefers the shadowy anonymity of a pseudo-existence, shedding the metroplex culture and writing in seclusion of Northern California.
EventsOctober 8 Ashland Literary Festival, Hannon Library 1250 Siskiyou Blvd
1:30-1:50 ShaLi Presentation
Free admission to the public, workshops on publishing and writing, film and commix, kid’s corner
10AM to 4PM
June 5, 2016
Escape from Here
Imagine China and the US collaborating and cooperating on espionage, cyber and physical spying, and the apprehension of international criminals for their mutual aid and benefit.
The main character, Mai Martin, flies into a web of deceit and danger. Every movement to extricate binds her in new ways. She’s forced to work for General HUANG by day and be his mistress at night while her husband is a prisoner in Beijing Military Region Prison No.1, all for the anti-corruption movement, Fan Fu Xing Dong.
Another character, Ron Zhao, returns from the dead, and the man who killed him is captured and sentenced to execution and organ harvesting. Ron’s return to the living, his own redemption, redeems the life of his murderer.
This third in the series, An American in Beijing, extends Operation Sundown from the second book, Wounds of Attachment, putting the Homeland Security team under the temporary authority of the megalomaniac General Huang’s control.
December 18, 2015
Sha Li's List - Best of 2015
Lucia Berlin, photo provided by the Berlin family
BEST BOOKSShanghai Redemption by Qiu Xiaolong
Qiu Xiaolong uses dialogue to explore edgy topics such as the Cultural Revolution, corruption and Mao. He weaves a son’s filial, Confucian, duty with the Qingming Festival for a setting and premise. Inspector Chen feels worthless. He’s let down his deceased father. The tomb has been neglected and a lateral promotion has broken the prestigious and powerful position he once held as Chief Inspector. He suspects it’s been engineered by his enemies.
Qiu draws on current events, creating characters based on real life CCP villains.
A TS Elliot meme drops into the storyline at crucial moments like at the inciting incident, a near miss scandal set up at a book signing of a poetry anthology translated by Chen Cao, the former Inspector.
Qiu is not without a sense of humor. “Green Jade was reaching for his belt and he hastened to stop her. His hand deflected hers and brushed up against something throbbing in his pants pocket. It was his cell phone…”
There is more enjoyment for the reader looking for a Chinese mystery with a contemporary setting.
News about QiuHis book The Red Dress has been picked up by BBC for a series of radio programmes and Shanghai Redemption has been named the Wall Street Journal Book of the Year.
Lucia Berlin 1936-2004Not a writer for everyone
Selected short stories, A Manual for a Cleaning Woman, hit the NY Times bestseller list, published posthumously.
Photo: Buddy Berlin (Courtesy Literary Estate of Lucia Berlin LP)
The stories share characters with each other, enabling Dear Reader to know Ms. Berlin’s fictionalized family members—alcoholic mother, mining engineer father, children, husbands and lovers. Accounts of her three marriages are intercut with horrors of alcoholism, drunk tanks and DTs, and the PTA, told in dry, wry, self-deprecating and ruthless ironic humor.
Berlin’s sporadic and spasmodic career is traced by citations of stories published in magazines since the 60s onward. She received the Jack London Short Prize in 1985, the American Book Award in 1991 and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Three-Body Problem by Liu XixinConversations with Einstein and Copernicus
This Chinese sci-fi story is named for a problem in physics and classical mechanics. It says, taking initial data specifying position, mass and velocity of three bodies at a particular point in time, predictions of their motion or direction can be made. The tale is told in familiar neighborhoods around Tsinghua University and Beijing as well as a remote Mongolian observatory called Red Coast.
It encompasses time from the Cultural Revolution to three hundred years into the future. A tough cop, Da Shi and scientist, Wang Miao, seek to solve the problem of top scientists committing suicide once they begin playing the Three-Body Game simulation. The game attempts to predict the moment of the destruction of an alien culture, Trisolaris, as an integral philosophy of a cult of the aliens on earth.
BEST TELEVISION SERIESCinematic inner turmoil
Jessica Campbell Jones Cage played by Krysten Ritter
Jessica Jones is based on a Marvel Comics superhero, but the comparison is skewed by the alternate realism of Jessica (played by Krysten Ritter) and Luke (played by Mike Colter) not knowing that in their other existence as comic superheros they are married to each other. The chemistry is there, and the audience is treated to satisfying adult scenes between Jessica and Luke. The series is dedicated to one story thread, Jessica’s struggle to rid herself and society of super villain Kilgrave, the obsessed, narcissist sociopath who stalks Jessica, PI, and her friends from episode to episode.
Mike Colter as Luke Cage
What makes this series different?
The main character is a woman who carries the story with her actions. There is a psychological quality to the story which is challenging to depict in film. Whereas novelists can spend pages and pages going over the motivations driving their characters, the film writer and director must convey the inner turmoil with visuals. What makes this series not different is that it’s set and produced in New York by a creative team of people bringing quality alternative entertainment to adults on Netflix.
Best Travel Story
Photo: Don Christian holds a charred sheep skull, an offering discovered on site at an Ovoo (Native Mongolian shaman religion) religious site outside Ulaan Bataar. (c) don christian.
Don travels to unusual places for recreation. Besides being a disruptive electric car engineer, he likes documenting remote waterfalls. Here is his post:
Photo: Don Christian instructs a class in savagery to a young Mongol horde (next generation) at the huge Chenggis Khan museum and monument on the steppes outside Ulaan Bataar. (c) don christian.
As they emerged into the subzero air, I greeted them with a threatening sword brandish and a big pirate "arrrrgh". They were alarmed at first. There are not many westerners there. Especially in winter. But they got into the game big time. My class quickly mastered the essential skills of hordery.
So I made it onto the big island in ROK adjacent to the border with DPRK. Just across a saltwater sound. It helps me interpret the old MacArthur history from 1950. Stuff that's calcified into memory as legends for that area. I was looking for the spot where these US Civil War soldiers were photographed, searching for the lost SS General Sherman. But I couldn't identify the hilltop.
I had a very good trip. Lots of new places.
BEST VIDEOFrom Inside USS Pueblo is the most popular of the many videos produced by New China TV and BonsaiBabe Productions. Dear Reader, you can see them now in one place. A Video Gallery on the CherylPetty.com site displays 26 short films going back to 2009 when I was publishing on Vimeo with John Cummins’ help on Sony Vegas software. Twelve of the films are about bonsai/penjing with interviews of Bay Area bonsai masters featuring their trees and one interview of Mr. Hu from the Shanghai Botanical Gardens Penjing Collection.
The first video completed in 2009, Horned Dragon, is an arty experiment combining poetry and calligraphy. You can see A Taste of Dunsmuir from 2010 and a lot of happy, mildly drunk people in the snow. That same year produced Lights Fog Wind Grass, filmed at the Dunsmuir Botanical Garden’s annual Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra concert, featuring an original composition by Gabriella Smith. Iris Credo sings and plays acoustic guitar at an art show and Linda Tomoko Mihara folds origami in San Francisco. 2010 produced sixteen films, a major learning curve!
The year I was in Beijing, 2011, New China TV presents a contemporary ballet based on a Ming dynasty story Peony Pavilion. The dead people, in striking costumes, dance a sequence with the King of the Underworld. There’s more to the story. Read about it here in April 2011 Breakfast Letter.
In 2015 CWP Publishing produces book trailers for Beijing Abduction and Wounds of Attachment, including an interview with Sha Li at the Dunsmuir Public Library and a launch party with Sha Li reading excerpts from Wounds.
Two Korean travel videos in 2015 garner the most views at You Tube where you can see my channel. Read about it here in Christmas 2013 Pyongyang Breakfast Letter. The most popular, From Inside USS Pueblo is a screenshot of a video they showed me on a large screen set up in the main mess area like a tiny theater. If you can get past the very different (to our eyes) graphics and the darling, accented narrator, you will see newsreel footage of the incident which is rarely shown of Captain Bucher, his men and ship, President Johnson and US Army Maj. Gen. Gilbert H. Woodward. A bit of our history which 'we' stifle.
Sha Li's List - Best of 2015 loo
Lucia Berlin, photo provided by the Berlin family
BEST BOOKSShanghai Redemption by Qiu Xiaolong
Qiu Xiaolong uses dialogue to explore edgy topics such as the Cultural Revolution, corruption and Mao. He weaves a son’s filial, Confucian, duty with the Qingming Festival for a setting and premise. Inspector Chen feels worthless. He’s let down his deceased father. The tomb has been neglected and a lateral promotion has broken the prestigious and powerful position he once held as Chief Inspector. He suspects it’s been engineered by his enemies.
Qiu draws on current events, creating characters based on real life CCP villains.
A TS Elliot meme drops into the storyline at crucial moments like at the inciting incident, a near miss scandal set up at a book signing of a poetry anthology translated by Chen Cao, the former Inspector.
Qiu is not without a sense of humor. “Green Jade was reaching for his belt and he hastened to stop her. His hand deflected hers and brushed up against something throbbing in his pants pocket. It was his cell phone…”
There is more enjoyment for the reader looking for a Chinese mystery with a contemporary setting.
News about QiuHis book The Red Dress has been picked up by BBC for a series of radio programmes and Shanghai Redemption has been named the Wall Street Journal Book of the Year.
Lucia Berlin 1936-2004Not a writer for everyoneSelected short stories, A Manual for a Cleaning Woman, hit the NY Times bestseller list, published posthumously.
Photo: Buddy Berlin (Courtesy Literary Estate of Lucia Berlin LP)
The stories share characters with each other, enabling Dear Reader to know Ms. Berlin’s fictionalized family members—alcoholic mother, mining engineer father, children, husbands and lovers. Accounts of her three marriages are intercut with horrors of alcoholism, drunk tanks and DTs, and the PTA, told in dry, wry, self-deprecating and ruthless ironic humor.
Berlin’s sporadic and spasmodic career is traced by citations of stories published in magazines since the 60s onward. She received the Jack London Short Prize in 1985, the American Book Award in 1991 and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Three-Body Problem by Liu XixinConversations with Einstein and CopernicusThis Chinese sci-fi story is named for a problem in physics and classical mechanics. It says, taking initial data specifying position, mass and velocity of three bodies at a particular point in time, predictions of their motion or direction can be made. The tale is told in familiar neighborhoods around Tsinghua University and Beijing as well as a remote Mongolian observatory called Red Coast.
It encompasses time from the Cultural Revolution to three hundred years into the future. A tough cop, Da Shi and scientist, Wang Miao, seek to solve the problem of top scientists committing suicide once they begin playing the Three-Body Game simulation. The game attempts to predict the moment of the destruction of an alien culture, Trisolaris, as an integral philosophy of a cult of the aliens on earth.
BEST TELEVISION SERIESCinematic inner turmoilJessica Campbell Jones Cage played by Krysten Ritter
Jessica Jones is based on a Marvel Comics superhero, but the comparison is skewed by the alternate realism of Jessica (played by Krysten Ritter) and Luke (played by Mike Colter) not knowing that in their other existence as comic superheros they are married to each other. The chemistry is there, and the audience is treated to satisfying adult scenes between Jessica and Luke. The series is dedicated to one story thread, Jessica’s struggle to rid herself and society of super villain Kilgrave, the obsessed, narcissist sociopath who stalks Jessica, PI, and her friends from episode to episode.
Mike Colter as Luke Cage
What makes this series different?
The main character is a woman who carries the story with her actions. There is a psychological quality to the story which is challenging to depict in film. Whereas novelists can spend pages and pages going over the motivations driving their characters, the film writer and director must convey the inner turmoil with visuals. What makes this series not different is that it’s set and produced in New York by a creative team of people bringing quality alternative entertainment to adults on Netflix.
Best Travel StoryPhoto: Don Christian holds a charred sheep skull, an offering discovered on site at an Ovoo (Native Mongolian shaman religion) religious site outside Ulaan Bataar. (c) don christian.
Don travels to unusual places for recreation. Besides being a disruptive electric car engineer, he likes documenting remote waterfalls. Here is his post:
Photo: Don Christian instructs a class in savagery to a young Mongol horde (next generation) at the huge Chenggis Khan museum and monument on the steppes outside Ulaan Bataar. (c) don christian.
As they emerged into the subzero air, I greeted them with a threatening sword brandish and a big pirate "arrrrgh". They were alarmed at first. There are not many westerners there. Especially in winter. But they got into the game big time. My class quickly mastered the essential skills of hordery.
So I made it onto the big island in ROK adjacent to the border with DPRK. Just across a saltwater sound. It helps me interpret the old MacArthur history from 1950. Stuff that's calcified into memory as legends for that area. I was looking for the spot where these US Civil War soldiers were photographed, searching for the lost SS General Sherman. But I couldn't identify the hilltop.
I had a very good trip. Lots of new places.
BEST VIDEOFrom Inside USS Pueblo is the most popular of the many videos produced by New China TV and BonsaiBabe Productions. Dear Reader, you can see them now in one place. A Video Gallery on the CherylPetty.com site displays 26 short films going back to 2009 when I was publishing on Vimeo with John Cummins’ help on Sony Vegas software. Twelve of the films are about bonsai/penjing with interviews of Bay Area bonsai masters featuring their trees and one interview of Mr. Hu from the Shanghai Botanical Gardens Penjing Collection.
The first video completed in 2009, Horned Dragon, is an arty experiment combining poetry and calligraphy. You can see A Taste of Dunsmuir from 2010 and a lot of happy, mildly drunk people in the snow. That same year produced Lights Fog Wind Grass, filmed at the Dunsmuir Botanical Garden’s annual Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra concert, featuring an original composition by Gabriella Smith. Iris Credo sings and plays acoustic guitar at an art show and Linda Tomoko Mihara folds origami in San Francisco. 2010 produced sixteen films, a major learning curve!
The year I was in Beijing, 2011, New China TV presents a contemporary ballet based on a Ming dynasty story Peony Pavilion. The dead people, in striking costumes, dance a sequence with the King of the Underworld. There’s more to the story. Read about it here in April 2011 Breakfast Letter.
In 2015 CWP Publishing produces book trailers for Beijing Abduction and Wounds of Attachment, including an interview with Sha Li at the Dunsmuir Public Library and a launch party with Sha Li reading excerpts from Wounds.
Two Korean travel videos in 2015 garner the most views at You Tube where you can see my channel. Read about it here in Christmas 2013 Pyongyang Breakfast Letter. The most popular, From Inside USS Pueblo is a screenshot of a video they showed me on a large screen set up in the main mess area like a tiny theater. If you can get past the very different (to our eyes) graphics and the darling, accented narrator, you will see newsreel footage of the incident which is rarely shown of Captain Bucher, his men and ship, President Johnson and US Army Maj. Gen. Gilbert H. Woodward. A bit of our history which 'we' stifle.
May 5, 2015
Behind the Scenes-The Players at PLA
PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) of the People’s Republic of China is represented by key players Commander GAO, Maj. Gen. HUANG, Lt. Col. GUAN and General MA.
Maj.Gen. HUANGMaj. Gen. HUANG Fuhui, Shao Jiang First Bureau Chief and Deputy Army Commander of the Beijing Military Region, is Commander GAO Bu’s boss, Dalaoban. He’s a charismatic and megalomaniac idealist for New China.
Maj. Gen. HUANG Fuhui
Excerpt Ch 3 p 11o Wounds
“Ms. ZHANG, may I introduce Maj. Gen. HUANG Fuhui, First Bureau Chief and Deputy Army Commander of the Beijing Military Region.” GAO turns to Dalaoban and says, “This is Ms. ZHANG Hong, Director of Media Communications Office. Sitting with her is Martin Taitai, she is an internet specialist and English Editor for the Communications Office.” Turning to the women he asks, “When did Martin Taitai arrive? It is a pleasant surprise to see her again so soon.”
“We just received the news last week, Commander,” answers ZHANG.
“Is there a special occasion for the luncheon?” asks Mai.
“Today, the Maj. Gen. is honoring regiment men who captured the felon MA Minho. Commander GAO and Maj. TANG received promotions.”
Informal gatherings like this are rare; Commander GAO’s men are stunned by the honor of lunching with Maj. Gen. HUANG. Commander GAO is neither happy nor sad, merely accepting the powerful man’s presence.
The same promotion cycle that brings a new slate of people into government positions will not impact Maj. Gen. HUANG unless his Dalaoban, Lt. Gen. MENG, takes voluntary retirement or dies. Something not unforeseen since MENG’s lifestyle has prompted organ transplants and life extending procedures. HUANG can’t imagine the man surviving another cycle. That could propel him into his boss’ vacant position, if he can out-maneuver his peers. Staunchly anti-corruption, he refuses to pay for the appointment, relying on his performance to speak for itself.
Today, Maj. Gen. HUANG wants to meet the famous team who captured the para-military gang, exposed corrupt officials and rescued captives: two campus security guards and an American man secretly working for the Department of Homeland Security.
While the men discuss in Chinese, the Media Communications department chatters away in English at their table. They ask Mai about her trip to Xi’an and the events on the cruise.
Mai turns her head and notices Commander GAO standing behind her chair.
“I am very sorry, Martin Taitai, duibuqi, about Ronald ZHAO’s untimely and accidental death. He was a brave soldier, an exceptional man without a peer.”
“Xiexie, Commander. I don’t completely believe it. Sometimes…” Mai’s gaze drifts out the window to the roses and beyond.
GAO pats her hand and bobs his head, “No need to talk. Wo zhidao. I understand.”
Back at his table, HUANG asks GAO, “Is this the American man’s wife?”
“The very one involved in the abduction and murder scandal on campus. The university president is furious. I wonder if he knows she is here. He cancelled her contract and revoked her visa while she was in California over Spring Festival. But you see, she is here.”
The American woman is more attractive, HUANG thinks, than the first time I saw her at the PLA hospital in November. The rumor that she is a movie star could be true. He turns his large head to stare into her intense eyes in a pale face framed with dark hair. A small, gold university pin winks at him on her lapel.
Sha Li says, "I loved meeting folks at the launch party in Redding, thanks for coming. Please write a review for me at amazon.com."
For Redding readers,Beijing Abduction and Wounds of Attachment are for sale at Enjoy the Store.
Commander GAOMaj.Gen. Shao Jiang Commander GAO Bu, Deputy Division Commander, First Bureau Office Director, Beijing University Security Office, busted the para-military gang last year in Wenzhou.
Commander GAO
EXCERPT Ch 9 p 399
22:25 (10:25PM)
Wright’s CR-V and GAO’s base Jeep arrive at the railway station together. GAO contacts the security superintendent and disappears into the safety office. Railway security has located the car, abandoned in the short term parking. The communications shack at Lintong base sucks bandwidth striving for a match from camera feeds at the ticket vending machines.
When Commander GAO leaves the door open on his side, soft, sweet night air floats Mai away into an exhausted dream. She rests her head against the back of the seat while waiting for the men to finish. Cool LED fixtures on tall poles leave pools of faint light in a regular pattern upon rows and rows of cars in the dark.
When HUANG’s Jeep pulls in next to GAO’s, Mai is drifting in a troubled nap. She doesn’t notice Rick and Jeff head off in the direction of the others. But she wakes with a start when Maj. Gen. HUANG slides onto the seat beside her.
“Ahhh, beautiful evening, is it not? I regret I don’t have my bar. I could use a shot,” he says. She feels the seat cushions shift from his weight while the man’s face swims into her view. He rests his arm across the back of the seat.
“Major General, wan-shang hao.”
“Hao, beautiful Mai. And you can call me Fuhui here, like this.”
“You must stop calling me that, Fuhui.”
“What? Not call you beautiful? Weishenme?”
Mai doesn’t answer.
“I enjoyed meeting your husband. He’s a lucky man and doesn’t know it.”
Mai still doesn’t speak, so he continues, “He in big trouble, beautiful Mai. He killed a Chinese national.”
“Dui, I know, this is very bad… what can you do to help him?”
“He must go to Military Court. Simple. He will be acquitted. Because I write recommendation.”
Simple? Nothing is simple here. “Feichang ganxie nin, Fuhui. You are very great man to help Rick.”
“He helped my daughter, Luyu. Saved her life and humiliation on my wife and me.”
“That’s Rick, he’s on a mission to save the world. How long will this take?”
“Justice in China can be swift or can be slow. Like with the man, DONG Zhiwei, who killed Ronald ZHAO.
“It galls me that a splendid man like ZHAO, an expert in martial arts, was cut down by a low knave,” says HUANG, lightly stroking Mai’s hair. “The prosecution of the Beijing gangster will also go through the Military Court system. Fuhui take special interest in his prosecution since I know its importance to you.”
“Oh,” is all Mai says, not understanding the Chinese judicial system at all. Hearing the name of Ron’s killer refreshes memories of Ron. They press on her, pushing her in a slow spiral that always ends the same: in self-recrimination and guilt. A slight tug on her hair pulls her into the present.
He’s saying, “These cases can linger for years. Sometimes people disappear from their families. There is no way to get word or find out anything. It is a lamentable feature of our culture in this era. In the future, we have transparent system with no graft or corruption.” He pauses, thinking.
This is news to Mai. Not about people disappearing. Annie, Alan Spire’s mistress, told her about that last year, when Rick was abducted. What she had not considered were the nuances of this powerful man’s character or his views regarding a utopian future. His male charisma over powers everything when she is near to him. His obvious attraction to her he holds in check, exercising considerable self-control. It’s as if he enjoys the slow and incremental conquest of his prey. She’s tired of thinking about it and rests her head again, this time against his arm. Everything seems futile and predetermined by fate.
“Are you too tired to think about the safety of your husband, Martin Xiansheng?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, rolling her head to one side and looking at him in the dim glow of the LED lights.
“The best thing would be for this to go fast. Haoma? Then he will be out of the system. The longer he stays in, the less likely will be his release.”
“Can you make it go faster, Fuhui?” Suddenly Mai understands everything. Her entire life telescopes backward and forward in a moment of self-realization … and of what Maj. Gen. HUANG wants.
“You know what I want, beautiful Mai. I want you to say yes.”
Inside the dark car, his eyes glint like shiny coal, bituminous, like obsidian, like glimmering pools. “How does it work, then?” she asks.
“Ahhh, beautiful Mai, American Mai, always with the questions. Trust me. This is not so bad, to be Fuhui’s little mistress.”
A sudden puff of air clogs Mai’s ears. Sounds dull into white noise. She watches his lips moving but she’s not hearing…not hearing…not hearing…
“Mistress?”
“Bu dui? Then, it is not certain how long the detention hearing will last. In normal cases, not expedited by Fuhui,” he jibes, taking her chin and turning her face toward his. He gently strokes her jaw and down her neck, “It can be thirty days. Naturally, this is not normal. So, I cannot say.”
Mai returns her head to profile and stares at the back of the seat in front of her. “This is very sudden. Let me think, qing. Haoma?”
“Of course, because I want you to want me. Me. Fuhui. Not Ronald ZHAO. Not Rick Martin. I want you, beautiful Mai, to want ME.”
“I think mistress is a little too much, Fuhui. You mean, like a contract and an apartment and a car and allowance and all that?”
“Dui, why is that too much? This is the Chinese way. You were Ronald ZHAO’s little mistress, were you not? What is the problem? I can be more generous than Ronald ZHAO. I ensure the safety of your husband and provide your visa.”
The Lintong base texts: Suspect purchase 3 tickets to Lianyungang 835km.
The men standing around the safety office reach for their mobiles. Commander GAO thanks the security superintendent and they hurry back to their vehicles.
While Maj. Gen. HUANG reads his mobile, Mai’s head drops a fraction, not missed by her shadowy patron. His logic defeats her pride. Delicately, like reaching for a bird in the wild, fearful of frightening it away, he slips his hand around her neck and puts the slightest pressure on her to lean toward him.
The Major General is attuned to the sound of the approaching footsteps of the men. In the gloom, he slips into his own Jeep’s back seat.
The convoy continues 100 kilometers farther up the expressway to Luoyang Beijiao Airport (LYA), the closest one, but they just miss catching the last flight to Lianyungang.
Lintong Base Jeep
Frustrated, keyed up, wired on coffee and the thrill of the chase, they check into an airport hotel for the night where HUANG and GAO share a room.
HUANG asks GAO about Mai’s performance. The handling of the situation at the Hupan Hostel, for example.
“I am curious, GAO, how you and the Meiguo nuren came to be a crime fighting team?” asks HUANG, standing at the mini-bar, pouring out two drinks. He sets one in front of his officer and reclines on the bed with his.
“We were spying on her. Lt. GUAN almost abducted her on the campus, with our help!” answers GAO ironically, tossing the liquor into his mouth.
“But now you are the closest confidants. I have watched you together. You make a great team. How did this transformation occur?” persists HUANG, having his own reasons for knowing more about the Meiguo nuren.
“Indeed. The rational man eventually recognizes the truth. We couldn’t find any proof she was involved in another matter regarding her husband and a ransom from Iran. Things got escalated at one point. I cut off the investigation of Martin Taitai and sent Lt. GUAN back to Harbin.”
“That should have been the end of it,” continues HUANG, determined to get to the bottom of it. He rises and pours two more drinks from the mini-bar.
“Ranhou, and then, the husband comes to Beijing. His wife, Martin Taitai, arranges it. She has a private firm guarding her, Ronald ZHAO.”
“Oh,” says HUANG, sipping the liquor thoughtfully.
“When the Hanguo capture the Meiguoren, right in the parking lot behind the Main Building, it was Ronald ZHAO and Martin Taitai who were first to follow. That night, a man from the American Embassy wants to come into the Conference Room with a couple of Marines. Turns out they were tracking him the entire time.”
“Zhende?”
“When Martin Taitai walked into the room, she looked terrible. A cut on her chin left blood all over her face and clothes. She was a mad panther. Kicked the embassy guy over backwards in his chair. Right then I liked her.”
“Same embassy guy here? Lawrence Wright?”
“Same one.”
Lt. Col GUAN also known as DuLang, Viscous Wolf
Lt. Col GUAN
Lt. Col. GUAN Qinchen, first working for the corrupt official DIANGTI, he turns himself in and joins Commander GAO, going undercover as DuLang, Vicious Wolf, infiltrating the para-military gang.
EXCERPT AT QINGLINYUAN CH 6 P 164
GUAN returns to his newly rented and cramped apartment in the Qinglinyuan gang neighborhood in the northeast corner of Wudaokou. It is a run-down, abandoned industrial area not far from campus. He waits and practices developing his intuition through qi-gong.
After several minutes, until DONG is certain GUAN won’t be returning, he calls the General.
“Boss, the Zhongguonanren, [Chinese man], GUAN, was here looking for you.”
“Haode, very good, where has he been?
“Chongqing, doing construction labor. I told him you could use him on this job coming up. What do you say?”
MA is surprised by the new information. He considers it for a few moments while DONG continues talking.
“He’s real professional. A pro.”
“Wo zhidao, I know. Let’s do this. You know where he stays?”
“Dui, in Qinglinyuan.”
“Don’t call him. Let’s give him a surprise visit. Pick me up.”
They drive to a mini mart in the center of the area. The entrance to GUAN’s hostel is between a convenience store on one side and a tobacco and liquor store on the other. There are card games going at two tables set on the sidewalk. A small crowd of loungers look over the shoulders of the players.
“He should live somewhere here,” says DONG, parking in an enclosed area off the highway. The pavement in the parking strip ends abruptly in a ditch where a horde of men are working with heavy, earth-moving equipment. A Hyundai backhoe sits atop a mound of soil and debris.
“Call him now. Have him meet us at the car,” says MA.
GUAN anticipates the call. While practicing qi-gong in his small room, he feels the qi energy flowing through his body, carrying the whisper of MA’s presence approaching.
GUAN climbs into the back seat of the Tiggo.
The General turns and says, “It is very fortunate you weren’t arrested last year. You disappeared. We had no way to know what happened to you.”
“Thanks to Buddha, you were not executed. It is like a miracle that you are here,” replies GUAN. “I’m looking for work. A professional placement. I’m sick of day labor.”
“It is my lucky day to meet you, GUAN. I need someone with your experience and discipline. I see you are a changed man. You have a predatory look, like a wolf. I will call you DuLang: vicious wolf.”
GUAN ducks his head, accepting the moniker, delving deeper into his alter ego.
“A large shipment is coming through Guangzhou. If I can rely on you, it would be a great help. EU Sun is going to go to meet the shipment, but with you available, he can stay in Xi’an and prepare for the delivery.”
Xi’an. No surprise. “Tell me more.”
“A Ukranian man is bringing the shipment here with the assist of an African gang. I need you to coordinate receiving the crates, warehousing and forwarding the trucks. I have the documents at my room. I will send DONG to you in the morning with money and your travel papers. EU Sun will call you with more details.”
“Tai haole. I’m ready to leave this dump. Where will you be?”
“If you need me in Guangzhou, call me. Otherwise, I am traveling to Xi’an to supervise the final portion of the delivery.”
“How about money?” asks DuLang.
“Here,” says MA, reaching into his pocket and bringing out Col. DIANGTI’s qianbao, stuffed with bills. He counts a thousand yuan into DuLang’s hand. “Enough?”
The sight of the dead man’s qianbao shocks, he replies, “Bu-dui.”
“Da, da, how is this?” asks MA, after he counts out two thousand more.
“This is for me,” says DuLang taking the bills. “I need to get things. Still more for the job. And fifty-thousand per day. Over the cost of the operation.”
“You are tough to bargain with. I am a desperate old man! You think I am wealthy?”
“You will pay,” says DuLang, thinking, You’ll pay for killing DIANGTI.
Now that their conference is concluded, the men enter a local eatery and sit down to a hot pot dinner.
“You didn’t hear about the action in Xi’an a couple weeks ago?” starts DONG, glancing at MA as if to ask, is it ok to continue?
GUAN looks from one man to the other and grunts.
“DONG wants to tell you about the Chinese private dick he knifed,” explains MA, selecting a wad of shaved meat and plunging it into the simmering broth.
GUAN makes a quizzical expression and looks expectantly at DONG.
“We were supposed to carjack the Meiguoren, the same one we grabbed last year. The man and his wife and the Chinese dick. I followed them onto a cruise boat and fought the martial arts man. He’s dead now. Payback for shooting GONG Ho.”
DuLang exhibits no emotion, not the smallest flicker in his dead eyes.
“Who was GONG Ho?” he asks.
MA answers, “He was working for us, from the Xi’an circle. It’s just as well Ronald ZHAO shot him, he died a free man. If he had been arrested, they would have charged him with murdering the taxi driver and jacking his cab. That only leaves the Commander for my revenge.”
“What about the KIM brothers. Where are they?” continues GUAN conversationally, although he knows they were sentenced to laojiao. He grabs a chunk of fish out of the pot with his chopsticks, drops it into the sauce bowl and then into his mouth.
“That is another story. They were sent up after the trial. But they escaped just a few days ago and are in Pyongyang now,” says MA, helping himself to more rice.
“Zhende. Hen you yisi, very interesting.”
“Yes, they are lucky young men. They got a light sentence, even though the one, Sang-Bo, executed two running dogs, American CIA agents.”
“Zhende! What happened? How did it screw up?”
“The bitch woman followed us with the army. They were on to us from the start. The target, the Meiguoren, was wearing a beacon in his ear.”
“But what happened at the interview? DIANGTI…”
“He couldn’t take the stress. The Commander had us locked in. It was a shock to me when he grasped his chest like this,” MA simulates the desperate last actions of GUAN’s laoban. “I called out and beat on the door, but it was too late to save his life. I escaped in the confusion,” he lies.
Purchase Wounds of Attachment here.
April 21, 2015
Behind the Scenes Snapshots-Wounds of Attraction
US Spy Ship Captured by DPRK in 1968
Once the tour gets underway, it passes a mile of captured tanks, helicopters, guns and so on, arranged side by side by country. Beyond that, the Pueblo is moored. The shrapnel and bullet holes are clearly marked. The local guide points out some antennas on top of the bridge are missing. The Pueblo appears not to have received much shelling.
In 1968, at the height of the Viet Nam War hysteria, the United States sent a small ship filled with the latest in techno spy gear into Korean waters and managed to get caught. The 83 crewmen, officers and captain were held captive for almost a year, suffering gruesomely, before our government signed a paper to get them home. Captain Bucher was dishonorably discharged for not resisting the capture of his ship-- which would have left a lot of dead sailors-- he fought against this in court and lost. The captain's career was ruined, leaving him and his officers broken men. The whole story is a very strange and sad chapter of paranoid history, buried and covered up. The captain's book is available on Amazon.com, Bucher: My Story.
From Inside USS Pueblo, this ten-minute video of the incident comes with a lot of newsreel footage of the captain and his officers, also the various diplomatic exchanges, and President Johnson and Major General Gilbert Woodward signing the document.
More about North KoreaSee video here
Mai Martin, An American in Beijing, feels rich with thousands of yuan. She's back in China with her lover and deliriously happy. She imagines she will get her job back in Beijing and get her visa status repaired. After the accident on the Yangtze River cruise, she is coerced to work for the Homeland Security over a questionable sanctions violation, making her susceptible to the DHS pressure to cooperate.
The story begins:
Yangtze sunset
RICK
Highway 116 near Guerneville runs parallel to the Russian River.
Excerpt Ch 2 p 60
In Rick’s Narcotics Anonymous group, he met a woman about his age. She was a nurse in a local hospital who became over-familiar with the pill dispensary. She lost her job and her credentials. Mary Jo Thompson was divorced with two children in middle school. She shared custody with her ex-husband who worked for the City of Santa Rosa. After meetings, Rick and Mary Jo started having lunch together at Taco Bell. Soon, it became a regular part of their daily routine: finding enough things to fill the hours to mute the cravings. Mary Jo listened to Rick’s crazy sounding ramblings about secret agents and his wife’s travels. Rick listened to her domestic stories.
One day, Mary Jo didn’t show up for the meeting. The next day, she’s back with no explanation. From then on, her attendance was spotty, seemed to be falling off.
Over lunch one day, she said, “Noticed I’ve been cutting meetings?”
“Yeah,” said Rick. “Busy?”
“Naw, just having a rough patch. Hassles from my ex. Wants custody. Sent me a court summons,” said Mary Jo.
“What does that mean?” asked Rick.
“Means bullshit!!” she said angrily.
“I get it,” chimed in Rick, “bullshit!” he said with some conviction, thinking about his own BS.
“I scored some pills from a friend at the hospital.”
Rick’s white-blond head jerked up. Mary Jo was not as beautiful as Mai. She’s chubby, with curly brown hair. She wore tiny dangling earrings of butterflies or fairies, and carried a duffel sized purse filled with an amazing amount of unknown things she dug through to find her phone when it rang. Usually a call from one of her children.
She dug around now, and produced a prescription pill bottle, shaking it to demonstrate it contained pills.
Driving to Guerneville, they stopped at a couple vineyards to taste the new wines, and ended at Jenner late in the afternoon. Life was fun again, Mary Jo seemed prettier, everything seemed like it’s working out magically. Rick thought somehow today he would tell Mai how he felt and straighten out their tangles of yuanfen. He wanted to find the love they once shared at the center, vibrant and still beating. Not that he knew yuanfen from [image error].
On the way back up the Russian River Road 116 to the main Highway 101, he scraped the side of the Explorer on a guardrail. The sound and sudden off camber motion jerked Rick back to a shred of his senses. Mary Jo screamed, looking into a dark abyss down to the black river. The Explorer skidded to a shuddering stop on the shoulder. Rick walked around to look at the damage, pulling on a jacket. Back in the car, he tried turning the wheels toward the road. Something made a loud noise, and the steering wheel twisted out of his hands.
“I’m going to get help. Stay here,” he said.
The evening mist was falling. Must have skidded on the wet pavement, you stupid jackass. He pulled the hood over his head and started walking on the road toward the next town, leaving the scene of the accident.
Actually, they’re past Guerneville, and there’s nothing until you get to Highway 101, about ten miles farther up the winding, two-lane road above the Russian River. He plodded along, and it’s getting darker. He’s getting wetter. Cars passed but no one stopped for him. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and found a cigarette. There’s a lighter in the pocket, too, but not his phone which was back at the Explorer with Mary Jo. Not making good decisions.
Mary Jo sat there in the Explorer for a couple hours, waiting for Rick to return. It’s pitch black night outside her window, now she’s cold and sober. She looked at her phone. No cell service here. Around 8PM a Highway Patrol officer pulled in behind the Explorer.
DHS 104 (Department Homeland Security)Nolan is a civilian case officer in a hybrid Homeland Security unit called DHS 104. It’s a fusion center located nominally in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. Above Nolan was Lt. General Alexander Conklin, formerly CIA, now called Homeland Security Station Chief since the major reorganization after 9/11/2001. This unit combined talent pulled from the many rival agencies and bundled them together under Homeland Security since the reorganization: geeky analysts and clandestine operators working together. They were tasked with making their own assessments and had the ability to act on those assessments. The focus was narrow and targeted, tactical: track down, capture or kill.
Rick Martin looks a lot like A Keller, infamous US spy. Imagine him six-foot-two with a shock of white-blonde hair he sometimes combs with his fingers, pulling it behind his ear. The good left ear. Not the newly fabricated right ear that replaced the one General MA cut off last November.
Mr. Lawrence Wright, Homeland Security USCIS Beijing Field Office Director, US Embassy, Beijing and Rick Martin, Mai’s husband, both work for Department of Homeland Security and report to Nolan and Duane Doolittle, another FBI caseworker, who for Alexander Conklin in Ft. Belvoir, VA
Purchase Wounds of Attachment here.
EU Sun
EU Sun the assassin
EU Sun, the DPRK Department of Surveillance assassin and Senior Agent, DPRK Department of Surveillance, Deputy Brigade Commander and assassin is the protégé of General MA and is leader of the para-military gang tasked with delivering the crates of guns to the triad chief in Xi’an.
EXCERPT Ch 9 p 29716:30(4:30PM)
EU Sun calls General MA about the mutiny by AeroTrak’s Nigerian contractor.
“It’s obvious, we make a discount. These things happen, EU Sun. Calm down.”
“Xiexie, Laoshi, for your wise counsel. The ambulance is coming for your fighter, DuLang.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Wo bu zhidao. He sits. He will be fine. I go now.”
BAO waits for EU Sun to get off the phone. Away from the others, they retreat into a glass office within the warehouse where they can talk privately.
“I am authorized to give you lower price. One third less. That is six million off the twenty million.”
“That’s seven million off.”
“Haode. And the relic.”
“No relic.”
“No deal.”
“My men kill you.”
“My men kill you.”
“Ten million off, you get the relic.”
“Haode.”
BAO bends his head to his mobile and gives the authorization code to the escrow agent at Macau Banco Delta Asia. He rises to open a locker and retrieve a travel bag. Reverently, he lays it on the desk and un-zips the lid. Nestled in bubble wrap and foam is a pair of green and gold, dripware ceramic horses. Flecks of blue speckle the rumps of the beasts. The antique beauty of the animals, the rare finish of the glaze, overcomes EU Sun. He gasps, transfixed.
“You must go now. Things will be busy soon. Go.”
Jinfeng is already waiting in the driver’s seat of the gold Landcruiser. DuLang is in the front passenger seat. EU Sun sets the travel bag into the boot and climbs in after it.
“I’m sitting here. Drive.”
Dripware Horse Ancient China 500CE Tang Dynasty
General MA IN BEIJING
Korean gun bling
Maj. Gen. MA Minho, double agent and former Deputy Army Commander and North Korean specialist from Harbin Reserve Force unit was busted by GAO in Wenzhou. By paying restitution to the victims, including Mai Martin’s husband, Rick Martin, and through a prisoner exchange was released into DPRK where he lives to exact vengeance on the Beijingers.
In the back of the gold Landcruiser is a small crate of surplus small arms and light weapons: (1) Type 73 machine gun, (2) Type 68 pistols 7.62x25 TT calibers, (1) each AK-47 Type 5.45mm and 7.62mm caliber and (2) of the CZ75 clone, semiautomatic 99mm pistols. And ammunition.
Excerpt Ch 5 p 144
That morning, while waiting at the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang, General MA receives a call from Viktoria Timchencko. She reports that the shipment has arrived in Mogadishu and is being transferred to boats for the ocean portion of the transit. He just misses Mai who leaves from Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 2 on the same Ilyushin-62 that MA arrived on earlier in the day.
General MA checks into the Chosun Beijing Hotel. He has showered after his long trip from Pyongyang and is lounging in a terrycloth robe and slippers when DONG ZhiWei knocks at his door.
DONG had a promising start in life, being the only son of an only son of a Red Guard. When his father was found guilty of hooliganism and shipped away, little DONG and his mother moved from relative to relative. The Triad offered him work, out of respect for DONG’s family name. Now, he doesn’t know any other life. The Tong keeps him in clothes and toys, extracting work from him in the form of managing the Wudaokou nightclub.
“Laoshi, you are in China a free man?” asks DONG, once he is inside, the door locked and chained.
“The Chinese government traded me and EU Sun for Chinese prisoners in Chaoxian.”
“You are wery fortunate, wery fortunate!” exclaims DONG.
“Dui, and I need your help.”
“Anything, Laoshi, that I can, I will. For you, Laoshi,” says DONG, producing a gift bottle of soju.
MA returns the favor with a parcel wrapped in plastic. “Bingdu, meta, moglyeon, [meth, magnolia brand].”
After the ritual of greeting, bowing and exchanging gifts, the men sit at a table near the television.
“I want to stay a few weeks in Beijing, at that same hutong as last time. On the university campus,” starts General MA, pointing the remote and lowering slightly the volume on the movie he had been watching.
“Aren’t you afraid someone will recognize you?”
“I will be disguised. I need a scooter for a few weeks. Nothing flashy. Something nice, but not new. And don’t tell anyone you saw me,” says MA, ripping the seal from the bottle. “Say we talked on the phone, if anyone asks. That I’m in Seoul.”
“What’s the plan?”
There’s a knock at the door. The hotel delivers room service for the two men: Korean hot pot and a dish of fried chicken.
Out of a backpack sitting on the floor at MA’s feet, he retrieves a revolver and sets it on top of the stack of papers. One of their new CZ75 clones, semiautomatic 99mm pistol, engraved and chromed with pearl handles.
“For you and your trouble,” says MA. He reaches into the backpack one more time, and places a bundle of cash next to the gun.
“What’s this?” It looks like old, US hundred dollar bills.
“Can you convert this to the new currency?”
Purchase Wounds of Attachment here.
Col. PANGCol. PANG Myong Cha, Sangjwa North Korean Deputy Director Airport Safety and Immigration, oversees the shipment of the crates of guns the same day Mai Martin arrives in Pyongyang as a tourist.
Col. PANG Myong Cha, Deputy Airport Director, left, RI Yongho, Director General Bureau of Surveillance, Chief to General Staff of Korean People's Army DPRK, right, discuss aeroplane maintenance with Russian mechanics.
EXCERPT Ch 6 p 169
In the morning, Mai is packed and ready to go home. She bought the SIM card thinking she would call someone. The only phone number she can remember is Rick’s.
“Who is this?” asks the voice on the other end of the connection.
“It’s me, Rick, I’m calling you from Pyongyang. Where are you?”
“No shit. Are you okay? When are you coming back?”
“Yes, I’m okay. They have been really nice to me. You’d think, since Americans are their sworn enemies, I’d get spit on or something. But not at all.”
“So, when do you get to Beijing?”
“Today, they’re taking me to the airport in a few minutes.”
“Well, have a safe trip.”
Col. PANG Myong Cha intercepts her at the Pyongyang Airport to return the flashdrive as promised in a private interrogation room.
“I checked on the man, General MA. I can tell you this. His leader, RI Yongho is Chief to General Staff of Korean People’s Army for the General Bureau of Surveillance.” He shrugs his shoulders slightly. Mai doesn’t know what that small gesture is supposed to convey.
“His leader is a very important man close to the center of power around our New Dear Leader. Iyu, why a nice lady as you would know this man?”
Mai doesn’t respond.
“You are right. He is dangerous, but I doubt he is aware of your visit, which you say is for tourism.” The Colonel saw General MA a few days ago at this airport with the minister from the munitions factory and his boss, Sr. Col. I-CHUN, the airport director. He knows the General left Pyongyang on the same plane and on the same date that Mai arrived on Friday. An interesting coincidence. A lot of coincidences with this American woman. He pauses and stares passively at her face.
Mai says nothing.
“You can call the North Korean embassy in Beijing with the contact information for the Ukrainian businessman.” He continues, “I have seen your file, pictures of you and your husband in California.” He pauses again and contemplates her face for a few more minutes.
Mai still says nothing.
“Be safe, Martin Taitai.”
Out from under the flashdrive in his large, boney hand, Mai sees the edge of a white card peeking as he transfers the drive and folds her fingers around it with both of his hands, repeating while looking steadily at her, no expression on his tanned, smooth face, “Be safe.”
Mai ignores the stares of the few Chinese and diplomatic passengers waiting to board in the cool morning.
The Colonel walks out the way he entered, without looking back.
Purchase Wounds of Attachment here.
April 7, 2015
Sebastopol, California
An American in Beijing political thriller series set in contemporary China jumps from one side of the country to the other. In the next book of the series, Wounds of Attachment, Mai Martin travels from Sebastopol, California, where she has been stuck for months as the antagonistic forces yank her visa and terminate her employment, to Beijing, where her husband, Rick, is awarded damages for the treatment he suffered last year as a captive of General MA and his para-military gang.
Mai is reunited with her Chinese lover, Ronald Zhao, and the unlikely threesome, including her husband, travels to Xi’an, with the North Koreans on their tail. From there things escalate. Mai returns to Beijing while the weapons of mass destruction are beginning their transit from Pyongyang through Abu Dhabi to Mogadishu.
“I can’t tell you everything! I don’t want to spoil it, but be ready to dive into a twisted tale of power, revenge, loss, patriotism and smuggling,” says Sha Li.
SebastopolBorn Maia Perizzolo, she shortened her name to Mai legally when she married Rick. Classic Gen-X’er, she was born in 1972 to hippie parents enrolled at Cal Berkeley who then migrated with the back-to-the-land movement to the Northern California idyll of Sonoma County. She grew up in a geodesic dome her parents built from recycled beams and hand-hewed redwood, with solar-powered lights and a composting toilet. The commune was a short drive from Sebastopol up Highway 12 in the Redwoods, called New World Utopia. It attracted dreamy idealists from the city who wanted to get in touch with their inner wa—harmony and peace—with the help of a little LSD, plenty of pot, a couple of hot tubs, and free love.
The Ford Explorer in the redwoods near Sebastopol, California.
With both parents Cal alum, she’d had a leg up on getting in, in spite of—or because of—being home-schooled on the commune. Meeting Rick, with his more “normal” childhood and middle-class personality, Mai fled into his world but never lost her Sonoma roots. When the dot-com bust knocked them out of their yuppie fast-track, they packed up computers, painting canvases, mountain bikes, kayak, boxes and boxes of books, and schlepped back to Sonoma.
Mai’s folks had moved on too, transitioning into a local CPA firm servicing the big agriculture families planting grapes and making wine in between the old apple orchards and pot farms. They’d moved into Sebastopol, a trendy, laid back, quintessential Northern California lifestyle community, bought a house in the historic district, leaving behind the old commune and the geodesic home.
Mai and Rick put first and last month’s rent and deposit on a farmhouse in the middle of an orchard. It belonged to one of Mai’s parents’ clients. Mai found a good location in the downtown, a hole in the wall, only twenty feet wide but sixty feet deep, where she opened a web-design business with her friend, Desiree, from the commune days, and put away her paints for a while. It was 2001, and they were starting over at 28 and 30.
What she didn’t yet know was that Rick had started working covertly for Homeland Security after 9/11, the same year they moved.
Purchase Beijing Abduction here.
Beijing
Contemporary Beijing, including the fictional university built on the grounds of a Qing dynasty palace where Mai Martin works near Wudaokou, the silicon valley of Beijing, and Sanlitun, a trendy neighborhood near the embassy district where poplar trees cast dappled shade upon the wide sidewalks covered with crowds of people hurrying in both directions.
Near the East Gate of the university.
Map of Wudaokou neighborhood
Map of Beijing
Beijing sunset on the road from Capital Airport.
ExCerpt Ch 1 p 41
Looking out the windows at the office or from the flat, the view was the same: tall buildings in the distance smothered in a gray shroud, all familiar features hidden from view.
It's a dismal, freezing morning like all the rest when an email from her lands in his inbox. Eagerly, he read each line and ran her JPEGs through a personal slide show, making Beijing seem less cold and nasty.
The city gradually emptied; the feeling of loneliness was almost unbearable. People queued up for train tickets, cars mobbed the airport lanes. Finally, it's his turn to leave the city.
Xi’anExcerpt Ch 2 p 45Near Lintong, they exit the main highway, taking Shuyuan E toward Lishan Mountain through a high plain region of red clay earth, dotted with farms on both sides. The Brilliances maintain their positions, one in front and one behind. The peasant houses, low squat things huddled in the middle of fields, compete for notice with ancient, unexcavated burial mounds and garden sheds to the hazy, blue horizon.
Downtown Xi'an
Pyongyang
Arrival on Air Koryo at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport on Russian Ilyushin-62 jet.
EXCERPT Ch 5 p 141
The long drive from the airport to Pyongyang passes through rolling hills of green, acres upon acres of fruit trees--peaches, apples, plums, cherries. Where the highway jogs and crosses a nameless stream, the minivan shares a wide concrete bridge with people walking, carrying loads on their back, pushing or riding bicycles and pushing or pulling carts.
GuangzhouExcerpt Ch 7 p 212Zhujiang River comprises a broad estuary throughout Guangzhou and the surrounding region. The Pearl River is the shelter sought by the fishing boats completing their journey from Somalia a week ago. At 10AM, the captain of the first boat is far off the coast of Viet Nam. A fast moving storm picks it up and propels it forward. The crew covers the hatches, and they hunker down to run with the wind.
The red RAV4 turns off the Inner Ring Road onto Gongye Avenue, continuing south. On the riverbank where the S81 Expressway crosses the river, they turn onto smaller and smaller roads. At the dead end of one of these roads is a cluster of worn metal warehouses. They pull up here and park.
Downtown Guangzhou
Ali Baba Restaurant
This primitive development is called Jimuzhou. It’s a convenient hutong enclave sheltered by the massive highway S81 bridge posts where it crosses the river. Hidden here, the residents employ their small boats from a shabby dock in the shadow of the super highway.
The scenario is familiar to Jo-Jo, a retired Sea Tiger, with wives in Somalia and Malaysia who speaks Mandarin and Cantonese. He leads the way toward the first warehouse. They enter, and the Shadow Team loses sight of DuLang for a few minutes. The telephoto dash cam, operated by Russ in the front seat, is set to take an image every minute while they wait a half mile away.
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