this.”
“Me, too,” Herbert said. His statement was unenthusiastic, but it was not a lie. With the military presence at Op-Center and what he had just learned about NORAD, a picture was starting to form. An unsettling one.
Herbert called McCaskey when Rodgers hung up. The FBI liaison had just arrived and said he would be there in a few minutes. While Herbert waited, he went to the files of the field officers to send their pictures. He felt as though he were betraying each one of them. Yes, risk was part of the job. Herbert and his wife had known that when they went to Beirut. But this was different. He was helping to put these people in the line of fire, not for the stated mission but for what he sensed was a larger scenario. A scenario he did not yet understand. Herbert needed to find out what it was. Then he had to decide what the hell to do about it.
Herbert then phoned General Carrie to get permission for Mike’s request. She granted it, with the implicit warning that Herbert’s credibility was on the line. The intelligence chief was no longer in a slump. Unfortunately, a potential fight with his own people was not the boost he had been hoping for.
THIRTY-EIGHT
General Tam Li sat looking out the open window of the large office. The windows were clean, despite the dust from the constant winds that blew from the strait. He allocated manpower to clean them and to keep the grounds spotless. When American spy satellites looked down on them, he wanted them to know that he ran a very smart, proud installation. That was also the reason every man wore firearms, and they never lounged in public. The Americans had to see that the PLA was constantly alert and ready, as well as strictly disciplined. They were not like the Third World forces Americans had been sparring with since the surrender of Japan.
The night was clear except for some low, sporadic clouds. They were lit from above by a full moon. The treetops moved gently below the fourth-floor window. Their motion and sound were relaxing. The lights of the office were off. There were no distractions but the view, the trees, and the general’s own thoughts and ambitions. The sky and sea could not compete with those, he thought proudly. He had always had a rule about that. If a man could not dream greater than the things he could see, he was not much of a dreamer. And a man who did not dream was closer to the apes than to the stars.
The leaders of Taipei, for example. They were short-sighted, narrow-minded, and infallibly predictable.
The Taiwanese military reacted the way Tam Li knew they would. The commander in chief of the Taiwan Armed Forces put his Air Force and Navy on alert right on schedule, with all the same maneuvers. That was a Taiwanese show of strength as well as their exit strategy. As long as the Navy and Air Force did nothing different, Taipei assumed the Chinese would not perceive it as a threat. Beijing had never responded in kind, so the situation would not escalate.
Tam Li did not see it as a threat. But what if something happened that made it a threat? What if someone like Chou Shin were seen as wanting to seize this moment to weaken the military by blinding its new eye in the sky? What if Chou shifted the open war between himself and the general from an international staging area to a national one? Beijing would be distracted. Might not Taipei use the disaster as well to make a move against the legitimate Chinese government?
The sea spread darkly outside the open window. A sea wide and deep with promise, the stage for his dreams to be realized. There would be a temporary setback and a loss of face while the government dealt with Chou Shin’s treason. But Tam Li would seize the moment as well as the spotlight.
There was a respectful rap at the door.
“Enter,” the general said without turning from the window.
There was a click. The door opened. His security director entered.
“Sir, the enemy has begun moving out,” he said.
“Is there any change from the normal pattern?” Tam Li asked.
“None, sir. It is as you said.”
“What of the yachts?” Tam Li asked.
“Your associates from Japan have radioed that they are in position,” the security director informed him. “The third target, from Australia, will be at his coordinates in an hour.”
“You confirmed the escape plans?”
“The owners will all depart the yachts by helicopter, fearing for their safety, at precisely the time the enemy fleet appears on their radar,” the security officer told him. “The vessels themselves will turn and follow when it becomes clear to them that they are the targets.”
Tam Li smiled. “The yachts will broadcast one another to that effect?”
“Immediately, sir.”
“And we will record and intercept the transmission?”
“We will.”
“Thank you,” the general replied. “I will come down to the command center in a few minutes.”
“I will let them know, General.”
Tam Li heard the door click. A moment later the moon came out clearly and splashed light on the sea. It was a beautiful sight, but not as arresting as it would be in just a few hours.
He and his generals were quietly organizing the largest military counterstrike in modern Chinese history. It had been planned in phases so that absolute secrecy could be maintained, even from his own government. Over one hundred PLAAF and PLAN fighter jets were on regular and continuous patrol of the Chinese coast. Shoreline security was the primary function of Chinese military pilots. Long before the Taiwanese aircraft reached their fail-safe lines, before they could double back, eighty Chinese planes would be diverted in a targeted attack on the rearmost Taiwanese aircraft. That would cut the forward squadrons from retreat and allow them to be picked off by a second wave of Chinese aircraft, consisting of the remaining twenty airborne jets as well as another fifty that would immediately be scrambled from bases along the eastern seaboard. At the same time, three of the modern Song- class submarines, already at sea, would maneuver behind the Taiwanese Navy. The escort ships in the battle groups would be sunk and the destroyers surrounded.
By then, of course, Beijing would have learned what was going on. But it would be too late to recall the attack without losing face. Taipei would protest, saying that the patrol was routine. But the protest would be too little and much too late. Based on information provided by Tam Li, Beijing would argue that the Taiwanese expeditionary force was far from a standard patrol. The enemy intended to launch a surprise attack after the accident they would be suspected of having caused. The general’s suspicions would be sent out at once. The panicked audio recordings from the yachts would also be released. They would make the first impression. It would put Taiwan on the offensive.
That, too, was a showdown they could not hope to win.
The Taiwanese sailors would be brought to China and held until the grand gesture of their release could be used for political gain. Chou Shin would be tried, convicted, and executed for masterminding that explosion as well as the blast in the United States. That would rid the general of one nemesis. At the same time, the Taiwanese would suffer a swift and decisive defeat in the strait. Because of their defense pact, the United States would be forced into a confrontation they, too, could not hope to win. The best the Americans could hope for was a standoff. One that would diminish their status and elevate Beijing.
Tam Li thought very little about the price of the “trigger,” as he called it: the destruction of the satellite. The rocket would blow up on the launch pad, where the blast and the radiation would kill or poison all of the Chinese leaders in attendance. It would distract the government while the military moved against the Taiwanese expeditionary force. In the days to come, Tam Li and his allies would be very visible defenders of the realm. They would be populist heroes.
They would become the leaders of a new, militarized, and expansive China.
