every one of their exchanges down through the years, even if he did occasionally sound like a Master Sergeant in an ugly mood.
“Hey, Harcourt, old buddy. Glad to hear you’re still sharp, because right now I want you to give me an assessment. If you wanted to chase the Chinese out of the Indian and Arabian Seas, what action would you consider taking?”
“You mean as an American?”
“Christ, no. As an Ethiopian.”
This was too much for both Jack Smith and General Scannell, who both burst out laughing. Bob MacPherson and Admiral Dixon tried to restrain themselves. And even Harcourt permitted himself a deep chuckle — restrained, of course.
“You see, Harcourt,” Arnold Morgan said, smiling, “that’s the trouble with you Foreign Service guys…you’re always looking for the extra half sentence, to give yourselves an extra few seconds to think…it’s just a habit…. Yes, Harcourt, as an American. You got it the first time.”
“Well, first of all, I’d go and pray at the tomb of my former Emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah. Then I guess I’d come right back and advise you to blow the bastards right out of the water. Is that sufficiently primitive?”
“Harcourt,” replied the Admiral, unsmiling, his bright blue eyes narrowing dangerously, “I like it.”
At which point everyone laughed some more, but it was edged with nervousness, like telling a joke before an oncoming disaster. The Navy are good at that. In World War II no U.S. ship was ever blasted by bombs or torpedoes without one of the survivors observing, “Guess you shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke.”
The Admiral quickly regained his stride. “I’m talking politically…. You know our problems — the Iranian Naval base at Bandar Abbas, the new Iranian refinery, right there next to the warships, the Sino-Iranian refinery, effectively owned by the Chinese, just along the coast, and the new Chinese Naval Base and refueling docks on the Bassein River. All four of those installations represent a giant pain in the ass, not just for us, but for all nations that require oil and gas….”
Harcourt Travis nodded, an air of caution written right across his face. “Arnold,” he said, “I do not think we could just cold-bloodedly take out the Iranian base at Bandar Abbas. However covertly we moved, everyone would know it was us, and I think it would be construed as a blatant act of war. However, I think we would hold on to world opinion if we hit any warship we judged to be a threat to the free passage of shipping through the gulf.”
“Uh-huh. And how about the Iranian refinery?”
“Bad idea. If the situation in the gulf turned really ugly, we might just need the oil out of that refinery. We might even need to seize it. Let’s not destroy it, however pissed off we might be at the Ayatollahs.”
“And the new Chinese refinery?”
“That’s different. Because that refinery gives the People’s Liberation Army-Navy a reason to be operational at the western end of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. I’m not saying we go in and blast the place to smithereens, probably starting World War Three. But if that refinery was to…er…become disfunctional after some kind of…er…problem, well, I guess a lot of people would be pretty relieved.”
“And the base on the Bassein River?”
“That,” said Harcourt, flatly, “has gotta go.”
“Any drift on the state of mind of the Burmese government? Or Myanmar, or whatever the hell they call it?”
“Well, you know it’s a military junta, Arnie. It’s in power regardless of the results of democratic elections. And recently they appear to have become much less friendly toward the Chinese. But the Big Dragon sits right against their back door, and the Big Dragon has built roads and even railroads right through the country to the port cities on the Bay of Bengal. The Chinese have armed the Burmese military, sold them God knows how much hardware on long lines of credit. I’m afraid the Burmese are in too deep to get out. We’ll get no help from them. You want to get rid of that Chinese base, you’re on your own. But you’d have some cheerleaders in India.”
“They still pissed off about the tracking station on Great Cocos Island?”
“Very, very pissed off. The Chinese installed it with extreme cunning and furtiveness. Then they put an airstrip in there. Now they can pry deep behind India’s eastern coastline. Myanmar says the Seventy-fifth AF Radar Squadron is theirs, but everyone knows it’s Chinese. They probe straight across the Bay of Bengal and record all takeoffs from Calcutta Airport and any military airport along the coast. The Indians call them the Chinese Checkers.”
Bob MacPherson, another veteran of this Republican administration, interjected here in support of the Secretary of State. “There’s more trouble in that region than even we realize. The Chinese have spy ships all over the Bay of Bengal, and that’s thanks largely to their base on Haing Gyi Island. It would be a hell of a lot more difficult for them if it wasn’t there.”
“Trouble is,” said Harcourt, “that Burmese coastline is so damned strategic. The Cocos Islands are only just in Burmese waters, right on the Cocos Channel, the main seaway for
“Immediately to the south, around ten miles, we have the northernmost island of the Indian archipelago…you know, the Andamans and the Nicobars, stretching five hundred miles to the south toward the Malacca Strait. No one in the area feels safe, with Chinese warships constantly on patrol there.”
“I’ll tell you something else,” added Jack Smith. “On average there are three hundred ships passing through the Bay of Bengal every day. A lot of them are tankers to and from the east. There’re some new economic projections which suggest that in the next twenty years, fifty percent of all world trade will center on the Pacific- Asian countries. God knows how many more ships that will mean.”
“And China sees itself as the great controller of those seaways,” said Bob MacPherson. “But the elimination of the base on the Bassein River would set them back a quarter of a century.”
“So what are our priorities?” asked Admiral Morgan.
“I think we make it plain to the Chinese that we will sink any of their warships in the clearance zone in the Strait of Hormuz. We then quietly mastermind a problem in their refinery in Iran, and cause it essentially…er…not to work. That gets them out of the western waters of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The oil issue is irrelevant because it’s from Kazakhstan and the Chinese are going to get it anyway, probably via a pipeline into their western territories, and on to Shanghai.”
“Christ,” said Admiral Morgan. “That’s, what, five thousand miles or something? They can’t do that.”
“With respect, Honorable National Adviser,” said Harcourt in his best Cantonese accent. “They built a very long, very high wall. They’ll probably manage to dig a fucking hole.”
Arnold Morgan chuckled. But he was very preoccupied. “And our next priority?” he asked.
“I think you know the answer to that. Let’s chase them out of the Bassein River. Somewhat secretly. And probably earn the thanks of many millions of people.”
Admiral Morgan sat thoughtfully. He and Harcourt Travis had been through a few run-ins, but, despite everything, he liked the Secretary of State. And he liked him for one overriding reason…
“Harcourt,” he said. “I thank you. I thank all of you. Civilians may consider the meeting concluded. CNO, Tim, I’d like a half hour more to discuss tactics.” He stood and shook hands with the departing chiefs of Foreign Policy, Defense and Energy.
“I scarcely need to remind you of the hugely classified nature of the matters we have discussed,” he added. “There is no one who needs to know, save ourselves.”
Then he walked to the end of the room where Kathy had pinned up a large chart of the Strait of Hormuz, showing the coastline all the way from Bandar Abbas to the desert town of Kuhestak, way over on the long, near- barren eastern shore, forty-eight miles south of the Iranian Navy HQ.
“Come up here and take a look at this,” he said. “You see this place right here, Kuhestak? The Chinese refinery is situated right here, two miles along the coast to the south. It’s big. There’s a massive pipeline system running in here, all the way from the oil fields in Kazakhstan, one thousand miles, right across the heart of Iran.
“This precious Iranian seaport is soon going to give China its energy from the heart of the second-largest oil producer on earth. Because it can run tankers in here of virtually unlimited size, and then drive out straight across
