Chinook by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

43

“You said something about Taiwan.” Drake wished he was at the crash, but he could hear what practical Lizzy would say, What do you know about helicopter crashes?

Not a damned thing.

He’d never actually seen Miranda’s team work in the field before, but all the wishing that he could even observe now wasn’t going to make Ru go away.

His duty and his problem was sitting across from him.

Their table was encapsulated in a strange, living bubble of privacy as the first wave of people drifted away from the fence line and a second wave pushed forward, all flowing around them in a constantly moving stream.

“With Hong Kong managed—” Ru forced Drake’s attention away from the crash.

“Repressed and trapped behind your abusive national security laws that fully violate the ‘one country, two systems’ principle that was agreed to—”

“By men now dead,” Ru put in.

“Because your present leaders permanently and aggressively retired them all.”

“Deng himself was old and died of Parkinson’s. Others?” Ru shrugged and laughed. “I like you, Drake. I always like you.”

“For fuck’s sake, why?”

“For that. You and Ru,” he tapped his own chest. “We both patriots. Both fighters. Damn diplomacy! Bring out the guns!” He thumped a fist on the table that threatened to topple their beers. Ru had finished his own and swept up Mei-Li’s untouched one.

If Drake had a gun at the moment, he’d…start an international crisis by murdering a member of the CMC on American soil. He knew that Ru was playing some game, but he’d be damned if he was going to play along.

“Focus. Taiwan.” Drake was unsure which of them he was lecturing.

“Yes. We own Taiwan. Everyone agrees.”

“Except for twenty-four million Taiwanese.”

“Even they do not dare deny our unity openly.”

“Only by staging the kind of protests that you people are experts at suppressing everywhere else.”

Lizzy placed a hand on his arm, as lightly as he’d touched Miranda—before Holly slapped him for it. Whatever Miranda’s strange reaction had been, Drake found the touch calming. Lizzy’s touch was always soothing, and it seemed to sap enough of his anger that he could think clearly.

He was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Losing his temper wasn’t an option. Yet there was something about Ru that burrowed under his skin every time. Miranda’s team and the US Air Force were dealing with the crash. Which meant it was left to him to deal with Ru.

“So, let us two warriors make world peace. But don’t hurry too much. I enjoy much staring at your lovely general. She is much better for looking at than you. Or me.” Ru laughed aloud at his own joke.

Drake could see by the set of Lizzy’s jaw that he himself wasn’t the only one Ru pissed off.

Maybe he should step out of the way, and see what happened when Lizzy went off the leash on the cocky bastard.

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