going back now,” Manning said.
McCarter appeared and made his way along the plane.
“Talk to you later,” James said.
They nodded to McCarter as they passed him halfway down the length of the plane and took their seats, leaving the Briton to join Mei Anna.
The woman had sat again and made a point of looking out the window. She kept up the pretence for a couple of minutes before turning to face McCarter.
“What do you want me to say, David?”
“Hello would be a start. Might make up for vanishing the way you did,” he stated.
“I had no choice.”
“Bloody hell, Anna, we all have choices.” McCarter controlled his outburst, lowering his voice. “What do you think I would have done? Locked you in the cellar and hidden the key?”
“Something like that,” the woman replied.
He moved to sit beside her. “Am I that much of an idiot?”
She laid a hand on his. “Of course not. You’re a caring man I have learned to trust and have affection for.”
“So why the disappearing act?” the Briton queried.
“You know why. If you had found out you would have tried to persuade me not to go. I was afraid you might succeed, so I decided the best thing to do was to just go. The last thing I intended was to hurt you. You have to understand my feelings in this. I was doing this kind of thing before we ever met. You know that. I would never change the times we have together, and I want that to go on. Truly. But what I do in China is something I can’t turn my back on. If a matter comes up and I’m needed, I have to respond. That was what happened, and it was why I had to go. Don’t hate me for that.”
McCarter put his arm around her shoulders.
“Hate you? Not going to happen, love. You are the best thing to happen to me in a long time. It’s just bloody hard to watch you haring off on some dangerous trek with a gun in hand and that look in your eyes. Honestly? It scares the pants off me. And I miss you.”
“Really? I haven’t given you a single thought since I boarded that plane out of England.”
“Comforting to know.”
“And not true. It was nice having you around. London can be a dangerous place.”
“Don’t I know it. Talking of dangerous places how was it going back to HK?”
“We have to be so careful now. The authorities have been coming down hard on any kind of antigovernment groups. Beijing is showing its tough face right now. Harsh penalties for anyone getting caught. It doesn’t show them in a good light when corruption or repression is exposed, so they use any means to strike back. Every so often they have a purge. Round up suspects, jail them without trial. Send them off to labor camps for reindoctrination. There are public executions, too. It doesn’t stop the groups though. Just makes the survivors more determined to carry on.”
“What the hell is it with Beijing?”
“The government is scared. They see the people getting restless, wanting change and being prepared to suffer, and die, to get it. The ruling group is terrified of allowing China its freedom because it would signal their end. They cling to power so desperately, the country pays the price.”
“So this missile deal is part of that paranoia?”
“Exactly. America is still the most powerful nation on Earth. Now Russia is updating its missile system, claiming it’s for defense. Beijing sees all this and has to respond, to bolster its own strength and to convince the people they are safe in the government’s hands. It’s all to do with saving face and maintaining the balance of power. No one has learned a thing, David. The wheel goes around and comes around.”
“More or less what we talked about back at base when we got the mission brief.”
“So we’re all after the same thing,” Anna said. “Only for slightly different reasons.”
“Not that different.” McCarter smiled. “I only said yes because I knew I’d see you.”
“Flatterer. But don’t stop, I like it.”
“Tell me about Xinjiang.”
Anna pulled a folded map from her pack and spread it. She pointed out locations.
“Northwest China. Close to Afghan border here. Some pretty harsh country where we’re going. Some desert areas. Rocky terrain. Desolate and isolated. Which is why China’s nuclear test site is located in the area. Here at Lop Nor. It’s a long way from where we’ll be operating, so don’t worry about picking up anything to make you glow in the dark. The missile research and development facility is here at Guang Lor, with a village close by to house outworkers. There is also a military presence in the area because the indigenous population, the Uygur, want autonomy from the rest of China. The Uygur maintain their Islamic religion, and they refuse to relinquish it. Some years back Beijing decided to send in Han Chinese to bring the area under control. The Uygur opposed that, believing it would erase their ethnic identity, which is probably Beijing’s intention. So there is unrest, resistance, military repression.”
“So there’ll be more military than we might normally expect?”
“Not necessarily where we’re going.”
McCarter frowned. “I don’t know whether to take that as a yes or a no.”
“Take it as an ‘I’m not certain either way.’”
He smiled at her firm reply. One thing he had learned about Mei Anna was her refusal to be intimidated in any way, as slight as the intention might be. At her strongest, she took no prisoners.
“Here, take this map. I have another. Use it to work out what you need to do,” the woman stated.
McCarter folded the map and tucked it under his belt. “Okay. Let’s talk about your people. How many? Where are they and can we get to them without ending up with the local militia coming down on us?”
“The latest report we had said they’re on the run from the military. They located the downed missile before a search party from Guang Lor could get there. They extracted the circuit board and took photographic evidence. But they were spotted and the military pursued them. From what I managed to pick up, there had been a running fight. Hung and his surviving team took refuge in the foothills. Something about a deserted village. It was shelled by the army during one of the strikes against the Uygur. Planes razed it to the ground, the people relocated. In real terms it means many of them were killed and buried in a mass grave.”
“Do they know we’re coming in?”
Anna nodded. “We managed to get a short message through to Loy Hung. He’s our team leader in the area. He understands we have people coming in to help and to collect the evidence because he’s been prevented from delivering it to Hong Kong.”
“The board and the photographs?” McCarter queried.
She
