Jed Barclay slid into the backseat of the car when the secure satellite phone he carried rang.
“Barclay,” he said, swinging up the antenna so sharply that it cracked against the bulletproof glass of the limo.
“Jed, this Colonel Bastian. Can you talk?”
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“We think the ghost clone may have been made by Taiwan, possibly by a private company. We’re looking into it now.”
“Taiwan?” Jed leaned back against the seat. “Taiwan?”
“That’s what it looks like. We’re not positive yet, though.”
“I’m going to talk to the President about Taiwan,” said Jed. “There’s a high-level conference between the premier of Mainland China and the president of Taiwan next week. We’re thinking of sending the vice president.”
“I don’t think that has anything to do with this,” said Bastian. “This is just one little airplane.”
“I don’t think the President’s going to agree,” said Jed.
Fortified by antibiotics and a shelf’s worth of vitamins, Jed’s boss walked shakily into the paneled conference room in the basement of the West Wing. Jed hovered nearby, ready to lend his arm or shoulder in case Philip Freeman suddenly ran out of energy.
Freeman’s presence made Jed feel considerably more relaxed than he had been over the past few days; there’d be no need to speak, except to his boss. While Colonel Bastian’s assessment that the Taiwanese were involved was bound to shock most of those at the meeting, Freeman would bear the brunt of the questions.
The President and most of the invited Cabinet members had already arrived, along with half of the service chiefs. They were already discussing the summit between China and Taiwan.
“We have to encourage the meeting, and the best way to do so is by sending the vice president,” said Hartman, the secretary of state. “He’s already in Japan. It won’t take anything for him to go to Beijing.”
“Too much too soon,” said Chastain. “Especially since the Chinese are still blaming us for shooting their aircraft.”
“The official protest has been withdrawn,” said the secretary of state. “The rest is just for internal consumption. It’s posturing.”
“I’d like to show them posturing,” said Balboa. He looked at Jed as he said it and winked.
“If we’re not there, we run the risk of being left on the sidelines,” said the secretary of state. “The vice president can say that he’s going to Beijing to discuss the unfortunate crash of the Chinese aircraft in the South China Sea.”
“Let’s not do that,” said Martindale. “If we go, we go. No baloney playing. Have we figured out what happened yet?”
All eyes turned to him.
“The Dreamland team has come up with a theory,” said Jed. “But we need more information.”
Jed could feel his face turning red as the others waited for him to continue. Jed glanced at his boss, who nodded. He’d already told Freeman in the car on the way over.
“It looks like Taiwan. Or actually, a private company working without the knowledge of the government,” said Jed.
“Taiwan?” said Hartman.
“We just got the information on the way over,” said Jed. “Colonel Bastian and the Dreamland team are looking for permission to enter the country to do more research.”
“Taiwan? Not Mainland China?” asked Martindale.
“Taiwan does make sense,” said Freeman, his voice raspy. “If it’s one of the old hard-liners, not the new government.”
“But a private company?” asked Martindale. “How? Who?”
“We’re still trying to gather data,” said Jed, “but the CIA expert working with Dreamland believes the plane was developed by a businessman who’s at odds with the present government. The companies that seem to be responsible are owned by a man named Chen Lee. He’s pretty old — he fought in Chiang Kai-shek’s army. The embassy says he’s one of a handful of hard-liners against the summit next week. Like I say, we’re still gathering information. This is really new, as of a few hours ago.”
“You sure this isn’t something Bastian cooked up to make himself look good, young Jed?” asked Balboa.
“I don’t think so, Admiral.”
“Colonel Bastian’s not like that,” said Freeman.
“What’s the status of the investigation into Dreamland?” asked Chastain.
“Unofficial investigation,” said Jed.
“Yes?”
Jed looked to his boss and then the President before giving the unofficial findings of the AFOSI. “They can’t rule it out, but everything points to no penetration.”
“A weapon such as the Flighthawk in the hands of the Taiwanese — whether it’s the government or not, makes no difference — is going to anger the Mainland-ers,” said Hartman. “It will make the situation extremely volatile.”
“If they have it, how come we haven’t figured it out until now?” asked Martindale.
Jed — one of the people responsible for figuring such things out — looked down toward the table before speaking.
“It may be that it’s been developed entirely outside of the ordinary military channels,” he said. “As a matter of fact, that seems most likely. Because otherwise, we’d have had indications. The Taiwan connection took the CIA totally by surprise.”
“It takes the Air Force by surprise as well,” said the defense secretary. It seemed to be a jab at the service chief, who hadn’t offered anything in the discussion — a sound political move, in Jed’s opinion.
“This is all very interesting, but it’s not going to contribute anything to our decision on what to do about the summit,” said Hartman.
The secretary of state got the discussion back on track, arguing for an American presence in the capital during the meeting. Chastain responded by pointing out that many of Taiwan’s neighbors were taking a very cautious approach. Japan in particular had yet to weigh in on its opinion of the meeting, a clear sign that it viewed it with suspicion at best. There was also the danger that high-level U.S. presence in Beijing at the time of the meeting would raise expectations beyond a reasonable level.
As the debate continued, Jed watched President Martindale. His face gave no hint of which argument he agreed with. Jed knew from experience that he liked to gather as much information as possible before delivering a pronouncement. This often made for a fairly long fact-finding period, though once the President decided, he never wavered or second-guessed himself. Jed admired that; he himself often worried after he made a decision, and even something as simple as picking a tie might be revisited three or four times.
“The real question is whether rapprochement is in our interests or not,” said Freeman. “At this point, I frankly feel the answer is not.”
“Long term it is,” said the secretary of state.
“I agree with the national security advisor,” said Balboa.
Jed thought he ought to pull out his pocket calendar and record the date — the admiral and his boss rarely agreed on what to have for dinner, let alone anything substantive.
“I don’t think we can actively discourage peace,” said Chastain. “But I do argue for caution.”
The President raised his hand.
“I think we have to encourage peace in Asia,” said Martindale. “At this point, we want the dialogue to go ahead. Obviously, we want to monitor events there very, very closely. And we don’t want any developments that would derail it.”
There was more debate, but Jed could tell the President had already made up his mind. Martindale let everyone take one more shot at having his say, then ended the discussion for good.
“The vice president will arrange his schedule to visit Beijing on the first day of the conference,” he said. “But
