conversation.
“Mr. President, it is of great concern that I must discuss with you your nation’s military actions in the South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan. The past month of aggression by the PLA has left hundreds dead, thousands displaced, and it has hurt the flow of traffic through the region, degrading the economies of both of our countries.”
“President Ryan, I too am concerned. Concerned about your actions off the coast of Taiwan, sovereign territory of China.”
“I ordered the
Wei said, “You also, Mr. President, have brought your
“American interests are in the area, and it is my job to protect those interests, President Wei.” Before Wei’s translator finished the sentence, Ryan added, “Your nation’s military maneuvers, as bellicose as they have been in the past few weeks, can still be repaired with diplomacy.” Ryan continued speaking while the translator spoke to Wei softly. “I want to encourage you to make certain nothing happens, that you
Wei’s voice rose. “Are you threatening China?”
Ryan, in contrast, was calm and measured in his tone. “I am not talking to China. That is your job, Mr. President. I am talking to you. And this is no threat.
“Much of statecraft, as you know, involves trying to determine what your adversaries will do. I will relieve you of that burden in this phone call. If your nation attacks our carrier groups in the East China Sea, jeopardizing some twenty thousand American lives, we will attack you with everything we have.
“If you fire ballistic missiles at Taiwan, we will have no choice but to declare war on China. You say you are open for business? I assure you that war with us will be bad for business.”
Ryan continued: “I value the lives of my fellow countrymen, Mr. President. I cannot make you understand this, and I cannot make you respect this. But I can, and I must, make you acknowledge that this is the case. If this conflict turns into open war, then it will not make us run away, it will force us to respond with fury. I hope you realize Chairman Su is quickly taking China down the wrong path.”
“Su and I are in total accord.”
“No, President Wei, you are not. My intelligence services are very good, and they assure me that you want economic improvement and he wants war. Those two things are mutually exclusive, and I believe you are beginning to realize that.
“My assets tell me it is likely that Chairman Su is promising you we will not escalate past what he is doing and if he strikes out against us we will disengage and quit the region. If that is indeed what Su has told you, you have been given very bad information, and I worry you will act on that bad information.”
“Your disrespect for China should not surprise me, Mr. President, but I admit that it does.”
“I mean China no disrespect. You are the largest nation, with one of the largest territories, and you possess a brilliant and hardworking workforce with whom my country has done good business for the past forty years. But that is all in danger.”
The conversation did not end there. Wei went on for a few minutes about how he would not be lectured, and Ryan expressed the wish that they keep this line of communication open, as it would become very important in case of emergency.
When it was over, Mary Pat Foley, who had been listening in, congratulated the President and then said, “You told him your intelligence services were giving you information on high-level military decisions. Do you have some other intelligence service that I am not aware of?” She said it with a sly smile.
Jack answered, “I’ve been doing this for a while, and I thought I detected some indecision in his words. I played a hunch about the discord between the two camps, and I tried to turn his worry into paranoia with the comment about our intelligence services.”
Mary Pat said, “Sounds like armchair psychology, but I’m all for it if it makes life harder for the Chicoms. I have some funerals to go to this week for some great Americans, and I feel certain Wei, Su, and their minions are responsible for these men’s deaths.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Jack Ryan and Dominic Caruso sat in Gerry Hendley’s office and faced the ex-senator and the director of operations for The Campus, Sam Granger.
It was eight o’clock on Saturday morning, and while Jack imagined Sam and Gerry did not like getting dragged into the office so early on a Saturday, he was pretty sure that was not going to be their number-one complaint once they heard everything that had taken place the evening before in Miami.
Hendley leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and Granger sat with his legs crossed while Dom explained everything that happened the evening before. Jack chimed in here and there, but there was not much to add to the story. Both young men freely admitted that they knew their “vacation” down to Miami was in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of Granger’s order not to conduct surveillance on BriteWeb, the Russian data-hosting company.
When Dom’s story was finished, when it became clear to Gerry and Sam that three men were left dead in a motel room in Miami Beach a few hours earlier, and neither of their two operatives could either explain how Center knew they were down in Miami or promise that there was not a single fingerprint, camera-phone image, or CCTV recording that would tie Caruso and Ryan to the event, then Gerry Hendley just sat back in his chair.
He said, “I am glad you two are alive. That sounds like it was a pretty close thing there for a few moments.” He looked to Sam. “Your thoughts?”
Sam said, “With operators ignoring direct orders, The Campus will not be around for much longer. And when The Campus falls, America will suffer. Our country has enemies, in case you didn’t know, and we all, you guys included, have done a fine job in fighting America’s enemies.”
“Thank you,” said Jack.
“But I can’t have you guys doing stuff like this. I need to know I can count on you.”
“You can,” said Ryan. “We screwed up. It will not happen again.”
Sam said, “Well, it won’t happen this week, because you guys are both on suspension for the week. Why don’t you both go home and spend a few days thinking about how close you came to compromising our very important mission?”
Dom started to protest, but Jack reached out and grabbed his arm. He spoke for both of them when he said, “We understand totally. Sam. Gerry. We thought we could just pull it off without exposing ourselves. I don’t know how they found out about us being there, but somehow they did. Still, no excuses. We fucked up, and we’re sorry.”
Jack stood and headed out of the office, and Dominic followed.
We deserved that,” Ryan said as they walked out to their cars.
Caruso nodded. “We did. Hell, we got off light. It’s a shitty time to be on suspension, though. I sure as hell would like to be involved if we figure out who took down Zha and the CIA guys. The thought of the Chinese having assassins right here in D.C. makes my blood boil.”
Ryan opened the door to his BMW. “Yeah. Same here.”
Caruso said, “You want to hang out later?”
Jack shook his head. “Not today. I’m going to call Melanie and see if she can meet for lunch.”
Caruso nodded, then turned to walk away.
“Dom?”
“Yeah.”
