The town of Blackstone, Pennsylvania, was a place built on coal and grief. It clung to the steep hillsides of the Appalachian Mountains, its small wooden houses stained a permanent, grimy grey by the soot from the mines. Life here was hard, cheap, and often short. The "accident" at the Black Creek Colliery was a fresh, raw wound in the town's long history of them. A methane explosion, the company called it. A tragedy, the papers said. Seventeen men, fathers, sons, and brothers, were gone, their bodies entombed a mile beneath the earth.
Agent Artisan, known to the townsfolk only as Mr. Jin, a quiet, freelance journalist from a small New York paper, moved through this landscape of mourning like a phantom. He had masterfully executed Corporal Riley's brutally effective plan. He had spent weeks embedding himself, a quiet observer with a sympathetic ear and a ready notebook. Now, he was no longer observing. He was stoking a fire.
He met with Sean O'Malley, the union president, in the back room of the local church. Artisan presented himself as a man driven by a passion for justice, and he came bearing gifts of pure poison. He laid out the forged documents on a dusty table: the company memos callously discussing the unprofitability of safety upgrades, the falsified inspector's report with a forged signature, the fabricated ledger showing a trail of payoffs. Each document was a work of art, artificially aged, its details meticulously researched.
"They knew, Mr. O'Malley," Artisan said, his voice a low, somber murmur. "This was not an act of God. This was an act of greed. They knew the gas levels were high. They murdered your men to save a few dollars."
Sean O'Malley, a man whose grief had already hardened into a cold, diamond-hard rage, stared at the documents, his big, calloused fists clenching and unclenching. The forged papers confirmed his darkest suspicions. They gave his anger a target. He would have his justice. He called for a massive, peaceful protest march, a day of mourning to demand accountability. The powder keg was primed.
In his opulent office in Tianjin, Yuan Shikai read Artisan's latest report with a deep, visceral satisfaction. The report was a detailed account of his success, complete with copies of the inflammatory articles now appearing in the local Pennsylvania papers, articles subtly fed to them by Artisan himself. The plan was working perfectly. The protest was scheduled. The local thugs Yuan's agent had hired to incite violence were in place. He was on the verge of paralyzing a key American industry, a victory of immense strategic value. He saw it as a great personal triumph, a gift of chaos he would soon be able to lay at the Emperor's feet, proving the superiority of his methods.
But as he read the final lines of the report, a flicker of annoyance interrupted his satisfaction. The addendum was unexpected.
INCIDENT HAS DRAWN UNWANTED ATTENTION. A TEAM OF FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS HAS ARRIVED FROM WASHINGTON. MORE IMPORTANTLY, ONE OF THE FORGED MEMOS—THE MOST DAMNING ONE, DETAILING THE PAYOFFS—WAS LEAKED BY A SYMPATHETIC UNION CLERK TO THE NATIONAL PRESS. THE STORY IS NO LONGER LOCAL. IT IS BECOMING A NATIONAL SCANDAL. THE WHITE HOUSE IS NOW AWARE.
Yuan frowned. This was an unforeseen complication. He had intended for the conflict to be a contained, regional firestorm, a deniable act of economic sabotage. A national scandal that reached the desk of President Roosevelt was a different matter entirely. It elevated the risk significantly. Still, he thought, the outcome would be the same. The American government would be too busy dealing with the internal crisis to concern themselves with him.
He was wrong.
The Forbidden City was in a state of controlled alarm. An emergency audience had been called in the Hall of State, a smaller, more intimate chamber reserved for matters of urgent diplomacy. Qin Shi Huang sat on his throne, his face an unreadable mask of cold fury. Before him stood the senior American diplomat in Beijing, his own face flushed, his hands trembling slightly with a barely suppressed rage.
"Your Majesty," the diplomat said, forgoing the usual lengthy pleasantries, "my government has uncovered undeniable evidence of a deliberate and malicious plot to destabilize our domestic industry and incite civil unrest. We have traced the forged documents at the heart of this crisis back to their source: a specialty printing press in the concession district of Macao. A press with known and documented ties to your government's intelligence services."
He held up a magnified photograph of a watermark on one of the forged memos. "This is the printer's mark. It is unique. This is not the work of common criminals. This is a state-sponsored act of terrorism, an act of war committed against my country in a time of peace. President Roosevelt demands an immediate and full explanation!"
Qin Shi Huang was caught completely, utterly off guard. He knew nothing of Project Atlas. He knew nothing of an agent named Artisan, or of forged memos, or of a coal mine in Pennsylvania. He listened to the diplomat's furious, detailed accusation, and a cold, terrible understanding began to dawn on him. He had assumed the Americans were incompetent, that their agents were fools to be easily swatted aside. But this… this was a sophisticated, deeply embedded operation.
He immediately assumed it must be the work of Shen Ke's agency. An operation conducted without his knowledge. A rogue action taken by his own Spymaster. The thought was infuriating, a profound violation of his absolute authority.
He dismissed the American diplomat with a cold, noncommittal promise of a full and thorough investigation, his regal calm a thin veneer over a churning volcano of rage.
The moment the American was gone, he turned to his assembled ministers, who had been listening in stunned silence. Yuan Shikai stood among them, his face a perfect mask of calm, professional concern, feigning the same ignorance as everyone else.
"Who authorized this?" the Emperor's voice was a low, dangerous growl that echoed in the silent hall. "Who initiated an operation on American soil without my direct command? Who gave this order?"
He glared directly at the representative from Shen Ke's Ministry, a man who now looked pale enough to faint. "Your agency?"
"No, Your Majesty!" the man stammered, bowing so low his head nearly touched the floor. "I swear upon my life and the lives of my ancestors! Our agency has no such operation. Our focus has been entirely on the Russian border, as you commanded!"
Qin Shi Huang stared at the terrified man, then let his gaze sweep across the faces of his other ministers. They were all a mixture of fear and confusion. None of them knew. And then, the true, horrifying implication struck him. This was not an authorized mission that had gone wrong. This was an unauthorized mission.
He was not in complete control.
One of his ministers, one of his most trusted servants, was running their own foreign policy. They had their own spies, their own agents, their own secret war. A ghost was in his machine. A cancer was growing within the heart of his government.
The "gift" that Yuan Shikai had been preparing, the triumphant result he had planned to present to his Emperor, had blown up in his face. It had inadvertently created an international crisis that threatened to expose his secret ambitions and, far worse, had revealed to the most powerful and paranoid man on earth that his system of absolute authority was a lie. The first crack had appeared not in America's foundation, but in his own.