Free THE SPANISH REVENGE (Craig Page series) by Allan Topol Page B

General Zhou’s punishment.
    The passage of a year and a half had only intensified his hatred for Craig. Not a day went by without General Zhou dreaming about revenge. Getting even with Page—and then some. Sure, he could arrange Craig’s murder. But there would be no satisfaction in that. Rather, he imagined scenarios in which he succeeded in an operation and Craig suffered the humiliation of defeat. None of them seemed plausible, until this evening.
    As he watched Craig squirming in front of the CNN camera, he realized how painful the Spanish train bombing was for Craig. General Zhou had no idea who Musa Ben Abdil was. Or the Spanish Revenge. But he knew what he had to do: Find Musa and join forces with him to wreak such devastating blows on Page with future attacks that his career would be ended. Page would be regarded as a pariah among governments. Never to be appointed to a position anywhere. That would be revenge. Sweet revenge.
    The first step was getting to Musa. General Zhou was pleased hehad recorded Craig’s interview. He wanted to hear it again.
    He returned to the living room, hit the play button, and listened intently.
    As he did, he was struck with another idea. This Musa Ben Abdil could have value to General Zhou, apart from being an instrument for his revenge with Page. In his future plans, General Zhou not only wanted to be President of China, but he was determined to make China the preeminent power in the world. That meant surpassing both the United States and Western Europe. Musa had planned and executed the Spanish train bombing so brilliantly that General Zhou recognized in him the potential, if properly supported, to destabilize and weaken Europe, helping China to overtake it. His fertile imagination charged ahead. Europe and the United States, though rivals in some sense, were joined at the hip as the Western Christian forces in the world. While reluctant to admit it, both were at war with Islam. If he helped Musa build an army strong enough to weaken Europe, General Zhou could unleash him on the United States. Musa could be valuable to General Zhou in achieving Chinese world dominance.
    All of that was good, but he still had to locate and to make contact with Musa. As Craig’s interview played on, General Zhou, puffing on a cigar, heard Jean Claude say, “Will you confirm that the bomb wasn’t an IED, an improvised explosive device, but instead a sophisticated state-of-the-art Chinese bomb activated by remote control?”
    Excited by what he just heard, General Zhou hit the stop button, rewound, and played it again to make sure he had it right. Yes, he did. And then Craig conceded, “The bomb was manufactured in China.”
    General Zhou now had the wedge he needed to get into the door with Musa.
    Once he turned the power off, Androshka walked into his study wearing a pink lace bra, which covered about half of her gorgeous round breasts, a matching thong with lots of brown bush showingon the sides, and five inch stiletto heels that raised her height to his at six two. He had once read that beautiful women were more erotic in lingerie than nude, and this evening Androshka was proving that. Just the sight of her aroused him.
    He stood up, making no effort to tie his blue silk robe, letting his erection jut out.
    “You have a problem,” she said.
    “And I have a solution.”
    She kissed him on the lips, then pulled away, “Not when we’re having dinner at the Eden Roc. It’ll keep. Besides, you made me wait for dinner until you watched the Craig Page interview. I’m starving. You should get dressed.”
    “Five minutes. I have to make one call.”
    Using his cell phone directory, he looked through the list of top officials in the Chinese military, most of whom were still loyal to him, until he found what he was looking for: Freddy Wu.
    When he was still Chief of the Chinese Armed Forces, General Zhou had appointed Freddy the head of China’s Office of Military Supply-Western Europe and North