A Whisper on the Wire

The Hague slumbered under a blanket of damp, North Sea fog that softened the edges of its grand buildings and muffled the clip-clop of the occasional carriage horse on the wet cobblestones. In a richly paneled office within the Ministry of Colonial Affairs, however, the atmosphere was anything but sleepy. It was sharp, cold, and electric with tension. Minister Hendrik Van der Meer, a man whose portly build and florid complexion spoke of a life of fine food and undisputed authority, stared across his immense mahogany desk with an expression of profound irritation.

His late-night visitor, the Englishman Michael Abernathy, looked utterly unfazed by the Minister's hostile glare. He sat upright in his chair, a stark figure of lean intensity, a file resting untouched on his lap. He had arrived from Singapore with a speed that spoke of immense resources and imperial urgency, and he had not wasted a single moment on diplomatic niceties.

"Let me be blunt, Minister," Abernathy had begun, his voice cutting through the stuffy air of the office like a shard of glass. "Your entire colonial enterprise in the East Indies is in imminent danger of catastrophic collapse."

Van der Meer scoffed, taking a deliberate sip of his lukewarm coffee. "Mr. Abernathy, I have been dealing with British alarmism for twenty years. It is the default setting of your Foreign Office whenever one of our ventures proves more profitable than yours. You see conspiracies in every shadow."

"And you, Minister, see profits while your house is about to be set on fire," Abernathy countered smoothly. He opened his file and slid a series of glossy photographs across the polished expanse of the desk. The grainy, nighttime images of the freighter, the prahus, the rifle crates.

Van der Meer glanced at them with disdain. "Gun-runners. We are aware of the problem. A few dozen rifles will not dislodge the authority of the Royal Netherlands Army. Our garrisons are more than capable of handling petty rebellions."

"These are not petty rebels," Abernathy insisted. He pushed a second photograph forward—the clear, sharp dossier portrait of Prince Anak Agung Diponegoro. "You know this man, I presume."

"Diponegoro," Van der Meer snorted. "A toothless snake, declaiming his lost glory to a handful of malcontents in Singapore teahouses. He is a nuisance, not a threat."

"A nuisance who has just received funding that would allow him to equip a small army," Abernathy said, his voice dropping slightly. "Funding from a newly formed 'Chinese merchant consortium.' We have tracked the silver. It flows directly from the Qing Imperial treasury."

The mention of China finally gave Van der Meer pause. The Dragon Emperor's brutal conquest of Japan and his subsequent reorganization of the Qing state had sent a tremor of deep unease through every colonial power in Asia. The Chinese were no longer a decaying empire to be carved up, but a nascent superpower with terrifying ambitions.

Still, Van der Meer's pride and ingrained suspicion of the British held firm. "The Chinese are posturing. A show of strength to intimidate us at the negotiating table over trade rights. It is a bluff, Mr. Abernathy. A clumsy attempt to rattle us."

Abernathy leaned forward, his grey eyes locking onto the Minister's. He had hoped logic and evidence would suffice, but he saw now that he would have to use a blunter instrument. He had to use fear.

"Minister, my intelligence is not limited to financial transactions and photographs of exiled princes. We have… other sources. Human assets. Whispers from inside the new Qing war machine." He paused, letting the weight of his next words settle before he spoke them. "We have credible intelligence that the Emperor's plan is not merely to arm Diponegoro's rebels. That is merely the first wave. The second wave is far more insidious."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper, a tone that carried more menace than any shout. "They intend to deploy unconventional assets. Biological agents. We believe they have weaponized a cholera strain, developed in their new state laboratories."

Van der Meer froze, his coffee cup halfway to his lips. The word hung in the air between them, obscene and unthinkable. Cholera.

"They plan to introduce it into the water supplies of your primary garrisons in Batavia, Medan, and Palembang," Abernathy continued relentlessly, pressing his advantage. "To cripple your army before the first major battle is even fought. To turn your barracks and administrative centers into charnel houses. The rebellion will not have to fight a war; they will simply have to march in and execute the survivors."

The color drained from Van der Meer's ruddy face. His comfortable world of profit margins, shipping manifests, and colonial administration had just been invaded by the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares. An armed rebellion was a matter for soldiers and spreadsheets. A deliberate, state-sponsored plague was an act of such unimaginable barbarism that it shattered his entire worldview. The Chinese were not bluffing. They were monsters.

"Why?" Van der Meer whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse. "Why are you telling me this? What does Britain want?" He looked at Abernathy with new, terrified eyes, searching for the trap. A demand for trading ports? A share of the rubber monopoly?

Abernathy sat back, his expression cold and business-like. "What we want, Minister, is stability. A rabid dragon rampaging through the neighborhood is bad for everyone's business. We have no interest in seeing the Dutch East Indies fall and become a new province of the Qing Empire. It would set a precedent that would endanger us all."

He closed his file. "We do not ask for a formal alliance. We demand no concessions. We are offering you, free of charge, the tools for your own survival. We will provide you with a list of suspected Chinese intelligence operatives currently active in Batavia. We will provide you with the names of Diponegoro's key lieutenants in Singapore, men your own service has clearly failed to identify. And a British naval vessel, under a medical flag of truce, is already being loaded in Malta. It carries a full shipment of the latest Royal Army water-purification equipment, filtration systems, and enough medical supplies to treat a division. It will arrive in Batavia in three weeks. What you do with this information and these supplies is your own affair."

It was a masterful offer, a poisoned chalice of salvation. It gave the Dutch everything they needed to save themselves while allowing them to maintain the pretense that they had never needed British help at all. It was a gift that could not be refused.

Van der Meer, shaken to his core, his mind reeling with images of plague pits and dying soldiers, could only nod. "I… we accept your assistance."

"We are not assisting you, Minister," Abernathy corrected him coolly. "We are merely sharing information pertinent to regional security. There will be no official record of this meeting."

He stood to leave. "I would suggest you act with the utmost speed and secrecy. Your enemy is not some tribal chieftain. He is one of the most ruthless and intelligent men alive."

Minutes after Abernathy vanished back into the foggy Hague night, a priority telegram was being encoded by a trembling cypher clerk at the Ministry. The message was destined for the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in his palace in Batavia, a man who was, at that very moment, enjoying a late dinner, blissfully unaware that his world was about to be turned upside down.

The encrypted message was short and terrifyingly clear.

LION WARNS TULIP OF CREEPING SERPENT STOP PLAGUE IS THE VENOM STOP PURGE NESTS AND BOIL WATER STOP AID IS COMING STOP

The first move of the Alliance of Lions was complete. The prey had been warned. The hunter's ambush was about to become a trap. And on the other side of the world, Qin Shi Huang's perfect, deniable war was about to run headfirst into a wall of unexpected and informed resistance.