Breaking Point

PROLOGUE

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011 Daru, China

The sun rose from the gray sea and cast a fitful light upon the

wrinkled features of Old Zang where he sat on the weathered bench

outside the house, leaning forward slightly on his cane.  He was often

up with the sun these days to enjoy the dawn, knowing he would not have

so many more he could afford to waste them.  But instead of making him

sad, the thought made him angry.

This day seemed somehow sharper than normal.  His clouded sight was

clearer, his hearing keener, and even the wan rays upon his skin felt

somehow more intense than usual.

Old Zang had but recently moved to the village of Daru.  A mere dozen

years or so ago, a blink of an eye for a man his age, he had been

forced to leave his real home, which was flooded by the monstrous dam

project that forever altered the face of China's rivers.  At

ninety-four, he had outlived his wife, several of his children, and

even a few of his grandchildren, and he did not like it here, staying

with one of the grandchildren he had not outlived.  Oh, his room was

comfortable enough, the bed soft--not an inconsequential thing when

one's bones were as old as his--but the village was a mud hole of a

place and not where one wished to depart from the Earth to join one's

ancestors.

On the mainland across the stormy Formosa Strait from Taiwan, on the

coast just north of Quanzhou, Daru was peopled with many elderly

residents, some victims of the cursed dam, such as himself, some who

had actually lived and grown old here.  Save for a few younger souls,

fishermen mostly, it was a place of old men and women waiting to die.

Thinking about his forced relocation brought Zang to anger again, and

this time, the rage seemed to fill him with a hot glow, from his feet

to his face, staining red even his thoughts.  How dare they do such a

thing?  The foolish communists who saw everything in terms of their

immoral philosophy had ruined the country in but half a lifetime.  He

had hoped to live long enough to see the children of Mao plowed under,

but he was beginning to realize it was not to be.  And this angered him

even more.

He was old, old!  He had worked hard all his long life, and what was

his reward?  To be shunted to a half-wit grandson's home in a mud hole

village unfit for pigs?  It was not right.

Zang gripped the heavy cane tightly, and the veins in his hands stood

out to join the tendons and gnarled arthritic joints under paper-thin

and brown-spotted skin.  His rage enveloped him like a silkworm's

cocoon, warming his chilly flesh.  No, it was not right!

His sow of a granddaughter, only thirty-four and already so fat she

could hardly waddle, lumbered up the graveled path to stand in front of

him, her doughy hands on her massive hips, blocking the sun.  She said,

"Why are you out here again.  Grandfather Zang?  You will catch

pneumonia!  I would be happy if you did and died, but Ming-Yang would

be distressed, and I will not have it!

Get up and come inside, right now!"

The sow seemed fairly angry herself, which was unlike her.  Usually she

was merely torpid.  Dense as a post and twice as stupid, Zang

reflected, and the best his idiot grandson Ming could do for himself. A

shame.

"You are blocking the sun," Zang said.

"Stand aside."

"Are you grown deaf as well as stupid, you ancient fart-maker?  I said,

"Get up!"

" And with that, she reached out, as if to grab him and physically drag

him into the house.

This was a mistake.  With a speed and strength that surprised him, Zang

snapped the cane up and jabbed it into the sow's belly.

"Oof!"  she said, as she leaned forward, grabbing at her stomach.

Zang stood, pulled the cane back as if it were an axe, and delivered a

mighty blow to the side of her head.  The bone made a wet, but

satisfying crack!  and the sow went down in a heap.

Ha-ha!

Zang leaned over and smashed the cane into the sow's body with all the

strength he possessed.  Ah, this was good.  He hit her again.  Better.

And again.  Better still!

He was not the man he had been, but there were still a few moves left

in him, and the sense of rage he felt continued to burn as he beat

upon the prostrate and unresponsive sow. Block his sun, would she?  He

would show her!

He grew tired after a while, and decided to rest before resuming his

chore.  As he stood there contemplating the sow, he chanced to look up,

and thus saw his idiot grandson charging toward him, a three-lined

pitchfork in hand.

Amazing, since his grandson was the meekest of men, who would step

around a beetle to avoid crushing it, who let others prepare his chum

for him because he could not stand to hurt the bait fish, and who had

never in Zang's memory uttered even a harsh word in anger at another

human being.

"Old fool!  I will kill you!"  Ming-Yang screamed.

Old Zang smiled wolfishly.

"Yes?  Come and try, wiper of asses!"  He raised his cane to meet the

charge.

Zang was paying attention to how he planned to dance around the fork's

tines to strike Ming, but even so, with his heightened senses, he was

aware of his great-grandson Cheng, aged thirteen, rushing up behind his

father, a gleaming fish gaff lifted over his head.

Now, who was Cheng planning to skewer?

Well.  It did not matter, did it?  Zang would deal with him in due

course, just as he would deal with every other person in this mud hole

of a village.

He would kill them all.

Finally, a happy thought.  He laughed aloud.

 Thursday, June 2nd Quantico, Virginia

Alex Michaels pedaled his recumbent trike along the wide bike path

between Net Force HQ and the Chinese restaurant where he sometimes had

lunch, pumping hard.  The day was hot and muggy, despite a cloudy