How Chubby Tracked Down Hassan Coleman's Assassins

Late August

The assassination of Hassan Coleman pushed the situation as far as it could go short of war. Behind the scenes, two missions with similar aims for opposite purposes were set in motion. The quickly unifying Insurgent resistance groups based in Memphis, in Ishpeming, and in Portland were communicating constantly, putting grudges and doubt behind them, and were working on a plan. 1) Kill the assassins of Hassan Coleman. 2) Find and rescue Cynthia Oglethorpe.

On the other side was fragmentation and disunity. Utah and the Intermountain West were quickly coalescingaround Ben Cadez, seeing him as a young, thoughtful “conservative” who might challenge the increasing insanity of Real-Prez. But many pockets were holding out. Turdashian had his own supporters, mainly in the gated communities of SoCal, while in deep Dixie and in various armed pockets around the country they held fast to Real-Prez. The propaganda from the Insurgency increased in volume and frequency, and appeared to be winning the war for hearts and minds.

Rumors began to spread about Cadez – was he ill? Still, no one suspected that Cadez himself was addicted to the synthesized Fungus made by the Howard Hughes Foundation.

Meanwhile, reports were circulating that GG was alive and working under duress – but where and for whom?

From The Fall of It All – A History of the Big Dump

Buy the SwiftPad Extinction

LET’S EAT,” SAID HESTER. ELWOOD WAS PULLING 
the barbecued onions and eggplant off the grill and 

piling them on a platter while Hester laid out the tomatoes, peppers, and corn.
Kip and Arkie walked up from the woods below and joined
them, and they sat around outside in the back, with their plates
on their laps.

“Did you dig the hole?”

“I’m not sure it’s deep enough,” said Arkie.

“I’ve got two bags of lime in the garage,” said Elwood. “We’ll
throw those in the hole. Then – we’re out of here tonight after we
bury them.”

“It was self-defense,” said Hester.

“Absolutely,” said Arkie.

“So I guess we are all in this – together,” said Kip. “OK, you
want to know what happened and how I got here?”

“Sure,” said Arkie. “We’ll be dropping you off in St. Louis,
and we can’t really talk in front of our driver. So what happened?”
“OK. Here’s how it went.”

So, after they shot down Coleman’s plane, things were
serious, and we got serious. The Memphis people didn’t
object when I insisted I be part of the team that went after
his killers. Because of my age and appearance we all decided
that I was the one who should do them. I mean, I had as
much motivation as anyone else. I knew Coleman, worked
with him, and as I said, it made sense tactically.

After Dashell Sketerson’s funeral, all the big shots got on
helicopters and headed out of town fast, mostly up to the St.
Louis airport. But our boys stayed around. We tracked them
to the Marriott, set up, and found out they planned to meet
some women in a downtown bar about 6:00 PM.

I walked into the Hot Shots and didn’t avoid the stares
of people who looked up and then turned away quickly. I
think looking back hard discouraged them from studying
my face. I was older, tending to fat, as you can see, and
trashy looking even for southern Missouri, deliberately
downright unattractive.

A sad song about a broken heart disguised as an old
pickup truck that won’t start was casting a gloomy pall over
the half-crowded saloon.

Behind the bar, a pretty blonde in her thirties stared
at her fone and not only ignored me but also my spotters, a
man and woman, both watching and occasionally reacting to
a preseason NFL game on the TV behind the bar. There was
an occasional whoop or shout of raw approval from the back,
but no one looked up to see what the excitement was about.
I walked by the bar and sat at an empty table, back near the
wall, facing the door.

“Wait, wait,” said Hester. “I am not glued to SwiftPad all day
like the rest of the world. I have too much work to do. What the
fuck is going on – I mean I heard about the plane crash in Mem-
phis, but what is this really all about? What the fuck is really
going on?”

Nate looked at Elwood, who shrugged and smiled a little.
Arkie, looking at his fone, said without looking up, “It is hard
to understand history when it is current events. I don’t know that
anyone can answer that question. Go ahead, Kip, but we got to get
going in about 40 minutes. Our ride is on the way from St. Louis.”

"OK, Hester, here’s the story."

****

My best friend from kindergarten, Jim Hunt, was murdered in
his own kitchen, and his pregnant wife, Cynthia Oglethorpe,
was kidnapped. You heard about that, right? Well, I was
there, helpless to do anything as she was led away at gunpoint
by masked men. I am still not totally clear who did it, but I
know they had some link to the Real-Prez junta.

Then, more than seven thousand (V)ICE wannabe storm
troopers invaded Portland. They were quickly routed and
expelled by a ragtag group of determined high-tech volun-
teers, assembled by the Insurgency. In the weeks following,
almost the entire West Coast was taken over by a loosely
organized, mostly nonviolent amalgamation of groups whose
unifying factor was extreme opposition to Real-Prez.

In Los Angeles, (V)ICE and the LA Insurgency had a
week long running freeway battle, with sudden “flash” traffic
jams, at exactly the right place and time to bottle up any
large-scale movement by Real-Prez forces. In Seattle, it was
a bloodless walkover. They read a manifesto in San Fran-
cisco that declared Real-Prez a traitor who was fraudulently
elected and therefore illegitimate. Local and state govern-
ments stepped up, and purged or isolated the Real-Prez
movement. Most of the northeast, from Richmond, Virginia,
north followed suit, but here in the heartland and South
they held out for Real-Prez. Except for Memphis and its east
bank surroundings.

“Illinois is still probably resisting,” said Elwood.

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“Shit,” said Hester. “That’s Chicago. Down here we ain’t
much different than Kentucky.”

For three weeks after the Portland Insurgency, nothing hap-
pened, just waiting, hoping life would return to normal. Then
the other shoe dropped. Coleman, the charismatic mayor of
Memphis, was shot out of the sky as his plane came in for a
landing at the Memphis International Airport. I was standing
on a balcony in my hotel room, looking out at the Mississippi,
and I felt the blast, saw the mid-air explosion and the fiery
crash. Former Army Ranger Colonel Hassan Coleman, along
with eleven others, died as they returned from co-leading
fewer than a thousand military specialists of the Portland
Insurgency to a complete victory over seven thousand (V)
ICE storm troopers. Wild rumors about who did it and why
quickly spread on SwiftPad, fueling the shock and anger
among Coleman’s supporters, galvanizing support for the
Insurgency. The assassination united the city, in fact united
the nationwide resistance to Real-Prez and his minions.
But it also unleashed something on the other side as well.

Two days later, six people at a Lawrence, Kansas rally that
was mourning Coleman, were killed by drive-by shooters.
Then that night, seventeen of Real-Prez’s most prominent
Kansas opponents, the core of the Kansas Insurgency, were
dragged out of their houses and apartments and shot in the
streets of Lawrence. Two days after that, Austin, Texas,
was declared a “lib-free zone” by militant Evangelicals, and
there were scattered reports of severe fighting and atrocities,
mainly among students at the University. Similar actions
took place in several Midwest college towns. RedHats were
striking back sporadically, with proclamations that they
were establishing “faith-based” governments.

“OK, I’m caught up,” said Hester. “So how did you kill them?”

The SwiftPad Extinction at Bookshop(dot) org

Review of "Death of a Red Heroine" by Qui Xiaolong

 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8145750166

“Death of a Red Heroine" is the first of the Chen Cao detective mysteries

by Qui Xiaolong. I have read two others and have two more on my shelf. 

In some ways this first one I have enjoyed the most so far, probably

because I am already familiar with Cao's circle of colleagues, friends

and family as well as who Chen is destined to become. Many of the

series’ minor characters will be fleshed out more fully in the later

books, so their brief appearances here have more impact than they

would if I had read this one first. But all of his characters sparkle and

stand on their own with insights and clever humor that is uniquely

Chinese. The way his minor characters play off of Chen as he goes

through his investigation carry the story.

 

Perhaps the underlying theme of the Chen Cao detective novels is how

a decent honest detective survives in China where the principle edict

is  “The Party’s interest must always be considered.”  Inspector Chen is

a poet and literary critic as well as a detective. The Party, in the

aftermath of the Tiananmen demonstrations/massacre, needs to find

ways to show a human face, and by allowing Chen to succeed and

become a minor celebrity is one of the ways they do it. 

Qui Xiaolong has a very unique style of writing. He mixes his police procedural narrative with many asides to Chinese literary history and poetry, because after all Chen would rather be editing a high brow literary magazine than solving murders in Shanghai. This poet/cop persona divides his attention and to some extent his dedication to his job as a cop. However, unlike his colleague and older deputy Yu Guangming, Chen is not cynical.  Yu is loyal to Chen, but has not had good luck in advancing in his career at the police bureau. His hard bitten realistic attitude often  brings Chen down from his literary cloud. Along with his hard working and practical wife, Yu lives in a tiny room and has to share a kitchen and bathroom with another family.  It is one of the many ironies that fill the book, because the crime that lands on their desk is about the murder of an attractive young woman, who is famous as a self-sacrificing “model worker” and a “loyal Party Dancer”, a reference from the Cultural Revolution when dancing was outlawed except for ‘stamping their feet to  show their loyalty to Mao Zedong’.  But this young woman had a secret life that entwined her with the corrupt social set of the children of high officials. 

It is 1990, the Year after Tiananmen, and a full decade since the official

end to the Cultural Revolution madness that Mao created to crush his

enemies.  However, the scars of that madness still weigh on every one

to some degree. Chen is swimming a system polluted by the politics of

the Chinese Communist Party, (CCP). His direct bossParty Secretary Li, a smart, unscrupulous Party functionary, warns

Chen “not to go too far” in his investigation of the murder.  The victim,

Guan Hongyin, works in cosmetics, is recent attendant to National

Party Conferences and has been featured in Party media as a virtuous

upright pillar of all that is positive about the Party.  Her national profile

is one of self sacrifice, and moral rectitude.  

Chen himself is being groomed for a high position.  He meets a young vivacious well connected journalist from Beijing who becomes his conduit to the unofficial Party rumor mill and who has a bright future to manage herself. There is a sexual attraction between her and Chen that can not be denied. It is one of the ironies of the novel.  Chen is slowly succumbing to the same forbidden “immorality” as Guan Hongyin, the murder victim.

“Death of a Red Heroine" has a tight criminal investigatory procedural plot with lots of diversions and plenty of local Shanghai color.  The undercurrent of distaste for the Party is apparent in all the dealings with witnesses and ordinary people who touch the investigation. This national distrust of the Party so soon after Tiananmen is one of the hidden forces which affects the investigation, and weighs heavily on Chen. 

For me the scenes of “old Shanghai” are particularly fun to read. Qiu Xiaolong through his descriptions of the Bund’s architecture and the side streets and the markets and alleys and the people who struggled to live in Shanghai before its recent physical  renaissance are delicious reading.  Today of course, Shanghai is perhaps the most modern city in the world, but Chen’s Shanghai is still grimy and teeming with streetwise authenticity. I brought my parents to the City in 1985 and my Dad looking around in amazement said, “It hasn’t changed a bit” since he sailed into the port as a 17 year old merchant seaman in 1937.  We went into the Peace Hotel and the Jazz band in the lounge was still the same men who had been there in the 1930s, when Noel Coward wrote “Private Lives” while living there. A couple of the band members joined us and reminisced with Dad about how alive and wild the bar had been back then.   

To sum up, let me say that the conclusion of the story feels true and is very entertaining as it ratchets up the tension.  But beyond its entertainment value, the novel  should be read by anyone trying to understand how the CCP rules and stays in power. The novel is a combination of a brilliant police story, with a tight story-driven analysis of Party politics along with a tender tale of love found and then lost. It's  a great read. 

Red City Review of "Farewell the Dragon"

RED CITY REVIEW is no longer operating or available. This review was posted about Farewell the Dragon, and it captures what I was trying to achieve when I wrote the novel. RIP RCR.

Lee

 6/11/2020

Professional Book Reviews & Annual Award Contest

Farewell the Dragon by Lee Barckmann - Red City Review

★★★★★

 Farewell the Dragon by Lee Barckmann is an ambitious, emotive novel exploring the troubles of an American ex-pat named Nate Schuett living in Beijing during the 1980’s. After an acquaintance gets a job as a stunt double—for no less than Peter O’Toole, who’s filming in China for The Last Emperor—Nate is tapped to inherit his friend’s vacant teaching at a local university. Before long, Nate makes himself at home—and ends up embroiled in a murder-suicide investigation involving two Europeans. 

Through numerous talks with Chinese of officials, Nate tells his story, and attempts to help solve the mystery surrounding these deaths. But Nate, perhaps, isn’t telling the whole story. The more he reveals about himself, the less he’ll come to understand about the city he lives in and the people he calls his friends. 

Barckmann beautifully captures the unique climate of Beijing—and China at large—in the months and years leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Through a careful unpacking of culture, religion, and economic zeitgeist, Barckmann begins to put his finger on the facts that separate East from West, if indeed there are any to be found. But, more than that, Farewell the Dragon is a rigorous examination of personal agency and universal morality. It contains all of the toxic glamor of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and a moderate dash of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. 

While undeniably dense, Barckmann’s novel is one that has achieved something rare: It has uncovered a unique corner of twentieth century culture and delicately sculpted it into a story worth remembering and reading for years to come. To purchase a copy of Farewell the Dragon, click below.

Buy direct from Lee's Author Kiosk