Threat Vector

Excluding non-indigenous warships from the South China Sea created immediate difficulties for a few nations, but none more so than India. India was two years into a contract with Vietnam to conduct exploration for oil and natural gas in a part of Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone in international waters off their coast. To date, the exploration had not been particularly fruitful, but India had two corvettes, the Kora and the Kulish, as well as the Satpura, a larger frigate, protecting more than one dozen exploration vessels in the South China Sea only one hundred thirty miles from the Chinese coast.

PLAAF aircraft flown from Hainan Island, on the southern tip of China, began flying low and threatening over the Indian ships the day after Chairman Su’s speech, and three days after the speech a Chinese diesel sub bumped the Kulish, injuring several Indian sailors.

India did not take this provocation lying down. New Delhi announced publicly that one of their aircraft carriers had been invited by the Vietnamese to make a port call at Da Nang, Vietnam’s third-largest city. The carrier, already off the western coast of Malaysia, would enter through the Strait of Malacca along with a few support vessels, and then head up the coast of Vietnam.

The infuriated Chinese immediately demanded the Indians keep their carrier out of the SCS, and a second bump of an Indian corvette by a Chinese sub indicated that the PLAN meant business.

In Washington, President Ryan saw nothing good coming out of India’s carrier cruise of the South China Sea, and he sent his secretary of state, Scott Adler, to New Delhi to implore the prime minister of India to cancel the action and to move their other naval vessels in the SCS into Vietnamese territorial waters until a diplomatic solution to the situation could be found.

But the Indians would not back down.

FORTY-SEVEN

Melanie Kraft and Jack Ryan, Jr., had enjoyed their first night out together in more than a week. She had been working late into the evening at ODNI and he had been out of town. He’d told her he was in Tokyo; he’d been there on business before, and it seemed like it would explain his slight jet lag upon his return.

Tonight they’d eaten at one of Jack’s favorite restaurants, the Old Ebbitt Grill, right next door to the White House. Ryan had come here often with his family when he was younger, and it became a weekly get-together place for him and his friends when he was at Georgetown. This evening the food was just as good as he remembered it, perhaps even more so because in Hong Kong he’d not had the opportunity to sit down and enjoy a good meal.

After dinner Jack invited Melanie back to Columbia, and she’d readily agreed. As soon as they were back at his place they went to the sofa. They watched TV for a while, which for them meant making out through fifty percent of the programs and one hundred percent of the commercials.

Around eleven, Melanie excused herself to go to the bathroom. She took her purse with her, and when she was alone she reached in and removed the small drive with the iPhone connector on the end. The device was no larger than a matchbook, and Lipton had explained that she need not do anything but attach Jack’s phone to the device, and then the upload would happen automatically in about thirty seconds.

Her hands were perspiring with nerves and her mind was nearly overtaken with guilt.

She had had a week to think about this and to justify what she was doing. She recognized that having a locator on his phone would be preferable to having an entire surveillance team following him twenty-four hours a day, and since she did not believe he was involved in anything illegal or even unethical, she knew nothing would come out of a few days of tracking that led nowhere.

But in those moments of guilt when she allowed herself to be honest, she recognized fully that she was doing this for her own self-preservation.

This was not something she would do were she not being coerced and threatened by her past.

“Get yourself together,” she whispered to herself, then slipped the tiny device into the pocket of her slacks, and flushed the toilet.

She was out on the couch with Jack a few minutes later. She wanted to add the tracker before they retired to the bedroom, because Jack was a very light sleeper and she did not think for a second she could get around to his side of the bed and attach the device without him stirring. Right now his iPhone was under the lamp on the end table by him; she just needed him to go to the bathroom or the kitchen or back to the bedroom to change into his warm-ups.

As if on cue, Jack stood. “I’m going to make a nightcap. Can I get you something?”

Her mind raced. What could she request that would keep him busy for a minute?

“What are you having?”

“Maker’s Mark.”

She thought it over. “Do you have any Baileys Irish Cream?”

“Sure do.”

“On ice, please.”

Jack disappeared through the open kitchen door, and Melanie decided this was her moment. She would easily be able to hear him grabbing ice from the refrigerator for their drinks. She knew she would not have to worry about him popping back out into the living room until then.

She vaulted over to the other side of the couch, glanced down to pull the phone off the end table, and then took the FBI tracker from her pocket. With one hand on each device, she attached them together, all the while keeping her eyes on the door to the kitchen.

Thirty seconds. She counted in her head, even though Lipton had explained to her that the device would vibrate gently when the upload was complete.

In the kitchen she heard the opening and closing of cabinets, and the sound of a bottle being placed on the counter.

Come on! She willed the damn transfer to go faster.

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…

Jack cleared his throat, and it sounded like he was at the kitchen sink.

Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…

The eleven-o’clock news came on; the first story was about U.S. Navy jets engaging Chinese fighter planes over the Strait of Taiwan.

Melanie looked toward the opening to the kitchen, worried Jack might run out to catch the news if he heard about it.

Thirty. She started to take the device off the phone, but then realized she had not felt the vibration.

Damn it! Melanie forced herself to wait. She had not heard the sound of ice cubes yet, so she told herself Jack would be in the kitchen for a moment more.

The device in her left hand buzzed, and instantly she separated the two gadgets, slipped the FBI tracking drive into her pocket, and reached to put the phone back on the table. As she was placing it there, she stopped herself suddenly.

Had it been up or down?

She could not remember. Shit. She looked at the table and the phone, tried to remember which way it had been lying when she grabbed it. After no more than a second, she flipped it upside down, then placed it back on the table.

Done.

“What are you doing with my phone?”

Melanie jumped as she looked back to the kitchen. Jack stood there with a glass of Baileys in his hand.

“What?” she asked, her voice croaking a little.

“What were you doing to my phone?”

“Oh. Just checking the time.”

Jack stood there, looking at her.

“What?” she asked. Perhaps too defensively, she realized.