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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE
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28-03-09 6M p2 |
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The Chinese Shadow Game by Stuart Craigie |
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Synopsis An ancient and powerful secret Chinese clan with a worldwide network of Triads and deep roots in the Chinese and North Korea industrial military establishments is about to launch a devastating, hazardous and far reaching military operation, involving North Korean Nuclear Missiles. Their aim is to gain political and financial control of the main Asian centres at the expense of the US and Europe. Only MI6 special agent Mike Sanders can stop them if he is able to escape captivity in North Korea, where he is being held by General Kim Young, a leading member of the clan. * * * * Preface In a North Korean Gulag, a MI6 agent Roger Jones was suffering unimaginable torture, because of something he found out, during a routine mission concerning the illegal sale of restricted military satellite technology to the Chinese. Before his sudden, and in the age of detente and globalism, inexplicable disappearance in Shanghai he left MI6 a message; he had found out something important and would report back the next day. It concerned a joint Chinese North Korean operation called Jieguan, involving the use of a satellite missile defense system. This was not the first disappearance of intelligence people from the west recently for no apparent reason, after all the cold war had long since ended. The question the head of MI6, Steven Bartholomew asked himself was why. * * * * Chapter 1 The Protagonists Chapter 2 The Vanishing of Agent Jones Chapter 3 The Clan Chapter 4 The Mission Chapter 5 Encounters in Shanghai Chapter 7 The North Korean Connection Chapter 9 Arrival in North Korea Chapter 10 The Interrogation Chapter 11 Tourists in Pyonyang Chapter 12 The Journey North Chapter 13 Mt Myohyangsan Chapter 14 The rescue Plan Chapter 15 The clash in a Mountain Pass Chapter 16 Yongjo-ri Chapter 17 Meeting in Manchu Chapter 18 The Escape from Yongjo-ri Chapter 19 The Chase begins Chapter 20 Near the Chinese Border Chapter 21 The Clan starts Jieguan Chapter 22 The Border Crossing Chapter 23 The Recapture Chapter 24 The Deadlock Chapter 25 The End Chapter 26 Postscript
SAMPLE Chapter 22 The Border Crossing It was beginning to get dark and the two men, in the upper branches of the tree, were sore from their cramped, uncomfortable positions. Mike could hear their grumbles as he sat listening out at the bottom of the tree behind bushes nearby. Suddenly he heard voices and some soldiers approaching. Weon and the guide heard them also and stopped talking to each other just in time. The soldiers reach the tree, which offered a small open space on the side of the path they were following. They looked briefly around and then one of them sat down and lit a cigarette, while the other walked over to the bush Mike was hiding in. Mike tried to shrink as far as he could into the shadows of the branches, however, if the solder looked carefully he could be detected. Instead the soldier undid the zip of his trousers and started to relieve himself about a metre to the right of Mike. Fortunately his eyes were fixed on what he was doing, while he chatted to his colleague, sometimes looking back. Finally the soldier zipped up, turned and walked to the other asking for a puff of the cigarette. However their hope for a break in the day of marching up and down the slopes was short lived. They heard their officer calling his men back to assemble for their next orders. The one sitting said to his college, “Go head I will join in a moment, when I have finished my fag. It’s my last..” “What should I say; when they notice that I have turned up alone?” “I won’t be a minute, say I am relieving myself in the bushes back there.” “OK, don’t be long.” And with that he walked back along the path to the other solders. A few moments later the soldier got up and stubbed his cigarette out on the trunk of the tree, instinctually looking up as he did so. He was momentary stunned as he saw Weon and the guide not more than four metres above his head. Weon and the guide just stared petrified at him, watching what he would do. The solder recovered and slowly took his Kalashnikov rifle off his shoulder, pulled the spring release back and took aim and started to shout at them. However he barely let a syllable out, when he heard a sound behind him. He started to turn around, however it was too late; Mike had his arm around his head, with his hand on his forehead. With a quick twist Mike broke the man’s neck, killing him instantly, before he could let out another sound. “You two better get down here quick, we must move out immediately. The others may have heard his shout.” They climbed down and stood together trying to figure out in which direction to go. Their guide took the initiative and pointed in opposite direction, to which the other soldier had taken. He spoke briefly to Weon, who then turned to Mike and said, “He says there is an animal track near here, which leads down towards the village and the dam.” Mike nodded as he picked up the soldier’s weapon and some spare clips. He then quickly dragged the body into the bushes he had hidden in. As he did so, he said to Weon, “With a bit of luck his body will not be found until the next light. It is getting dark rapidly in these woods.” They walked down a very narrow path, which at places was so overgrown, that they had to crawl on all fours to get through. At times they could hear the search parties nearby on the main paths, often not more than a few metres away; in such moments they simply froze until the danger past. It took altogether about an hour to reach the outskirts of the village. From a position on the slopes, about fifty metres above the village, they could see what was going on below. The soldiers had lit up the main street and were rounding up the villagers as they went from house to house. They were hording the villagers like cattle into the middle of the street. Some of the villagers, including women and children, were hit in the sides, by the soldier’ rifle butts. Their guide nearly cried out as he saw his mother and father dragged out of their house and pushed into the street. His mother stumbled and his father bent over to help her up. He was then hit in the head by a soldier using his rifle butt and told to keep moving. The soldier then kicked his mother shouting at the old lady. Weon did his best to try to calm him down. He whispered, “As soon as we get across the border, I will contact Pyongyang and tell them what is going on here, The General in charge is acting on his own account and this has nothing to do with our beloved Leader. In fact they are against him and you will be richly rewarded, when we expose the General and his Colonel, who is leading this search operation and responsible for what they are doing to your village. I am a friend of the President that is why they are trying to stop us.” This seemed to calm the guide, although he never thought of Kim Jong II as his ‘beloved Leader’. When their guide had recovered from the shock of what was happening in his village, he got up and said Mike and Weon should change into villagers’ clothes he had brought with him, discarding their soldiers uniforms, after which he asked them to follow him. They circumvented the village and followed a path leading to the dam. Occasionally they had to duck low for fear of being discovered by a search party. Finally they reached an open space in front of the dam. From the cover of some dense foliage on the edge they could look up at the dam. It was an impressive sight, however it was not clear how they could cross it and they presumed it was heavily guarded. Weon looked at Mike and made a gesture of hopelessness. He then turned to the guide and asked, “How can we get across?” “There is a way; however we must wait until the early hours of the morning, when the guards are tired and less vigilant. There is an overgrown path leading to steps down to the entrance of the lower inspection tunnel, which is seldom used and not guarded.”
See www.stuartcraigie.eu for other publications of the author. |