Razing Beijing: A Thriller (92 page)

“We must not overlook that the cowards responsible for
killing hundreds in San Francisco remain at large. As you prepare to invade
Azerbaijan, you dare to accuse us of invasion? The United States has a demand
of our own: Iran must refrain from invasion of Azerbaijan, and for that matter
any of its neighbors. We will not idly stand by.”

“This is a threat?”

“It’s your prerogative to interpret my statement however
you wish,” Denis confirmed without hesitation. State Secretary Laynas shook his
head disapprovingly.

“Then know this, Mr. President. Any attempt to obstruct the
Islamic Republic’s efforts to repair the economic damage inflicted upon us by your
imperialist aggression will be met...will be met with annihilation.”

“That’s a bluff.”

“As you wish.”

“Iran had better wish for no more terrorist attacks on
the United States.
That
, sir, is definitely not a bluff.”

MINUTES AFTER THE
TELECONFERENCE
ended on that diplomatic note, the chief of staff
accompanied a notably pallid secretary of state and his deputy in gathering up
briefing materials and wordlessly departing the Oval Office.

National Security Advisor Herman sat alone with the
President. At 8:42 in the morning, each had already put in the equivalent of an
eight-hour day.

Denis said, “If I didn’t know better, I might suspect the
CIA of sitting on proof of Iran’s nuclear test until the most inopportune
moment for my presidency.”

Herman mulled over the President’s speculation. “I think we
succeeded in sufficiently tainting the standing of our intelligence chief in
the eyes of the cabinet. Word will get around.” Herman noted the President’s
expression. “We have no choice but to let this play out.”

“You don’t suppose there’s a strategy behind the timing in
all of this?”

“A strategy...?” Herman screwed his face into a confused
scowl. “You mean, us finding ourselves caught-up short on Iranian nukes without
missile defense?”

Denis issued a concurring grunt.

After a moment, Herman rose and shuffled toward the
fireplace where he stood, head hung low and deep in thought, beneath the
President’s inquisitive stare.

Herman looked up. “You’re suggesting a concerted effort to
subvert
your
authority, by misleading you, at a time of crisis?”

“What better time is there?”

The national security advisor shook his head. “That would
be one helluva conspiracy. Considering the convoluted way we in which we got
here, I don’t see how. The folks who flock to the minority party are so
tediously linear. And they’re really not all that clever.”

“Huh...I suppose you’re right. Well, I better hit the john
before the Pentagon circus arrives.”

“EXACTLY HOW FIRSTHAND
do you mean?” McBurney asked the naval intelligence officer aboard the Aegis
radar cruiser
USS
Cowpens
.

“Well, it might as well have been right in front of me. We
were wrapping up shore-leave in Yokosuka. I was standing out on the fantail. I’d
describe this as an irradiated...no, that’s not right. It was more like
fluorescence
,
with a thunderclap. Even shook the deck some.”

“An explosion?” McBurney waited breathlessly as he gripped
the phone.

“No. An explosion liberates material. There was no
liberation such that anyone could tell. This sound was more like two hands smacking
together, certainly louder but without the heavy concussion wave of an
explosion.”

“Were there any aircraft in the vicinity? Anything
suspicious in the harbor?”

“Uh, there’s the two big Tokyo airports. But look, whatever
it was, it struck
Cowpens
completely without warning and left absolutely
no calling card. All I can tell you is, if anybody has a clue as to where to
begin looking, they aren’t telling me. How about a stealth aircraft, maybe one
we don’t know about?”

“Perhaps,” McBurney chose to admit.

“Really?”

“On a very,
very
long shot.”

“Huh. I’ve received enemy fire before, but how an
aircraft would’ve done this is beyond me. There’s a cavern where the entire
fixed array used to be. Whatever munitions were used, this was absolutely
surgical
.”

IN THE UNITED STATES,
investigators
lamented a similar lack of evidence suggesting that the current crop of
terrorists were in any way using aircraft to deliver their deadly munitions. The
Department of Homeland Security decided anyway to suspend international air
travel to and from the contiguous United States. Bureaucratic fiat inevitably
allowed for exceptions, and so it was with the Denis administration’s summons
for their China specialist, Samuel McBurney. The harried and exhausted
assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the task finally approved the request upon
returning to his office shortly before 7:00 o’clock Sunday morning.

Days after embarking on what he expected to be a
fourteen-hour journey, McBurney invited the stares of other weary, impatient,
and dank-smelling travelers inside the Ambassador’s Club lounge by gathering
his small entourage in order to leave. Their private flight from Toronto would
deliver them to Washington Dulles in a little over an hour. They became
airborne at 8:22
A.M.
Monday morning.

Stuart watched the Toronto cityscape recede beneath the
wing of what, for this final leg of the trip, was a Cessna Citation. He was
convinced that events had conspired to make their scheme to hijack the Chinese
satellite all but impossible. With the clock ticking down, it appeared that
even presidential grease on the skids for returning to the country would not be
enough. Thackeray’s telephone was apparently out of service, and he could only
guess how long Emily and Thack needed to complete preparations. With respect to
the dilemma of Emily retrieving her e-mail, he had no idea how to factor the
time needed to enter a facility cordoned off by federal marshals. A couple of
minutes? Hours? Was Perry going to be in the mood to offer help, or hindrance? That
his partner was apparently not taking calls was not a good indication.

“There’s still a ground stop in effect,” Carolyn Ross
replied in response to Stuart’s latest idea for addressing the problem. “I
don’t think the Richmond airport’s re-opened yet. Even flights into Dulles are
only with special permission, dignitaries stuck overseas, that sort of thing.”

“Unfortunately, our scheduled arrival time does not allow a
drive all the way down from Dulles,” Stuart said to McBurney, who had not indicated
that he might even dignify the suggestion. “It might make sense that we try to
arrive at CLI no later than nine-thirty or so.”

“It might,” McBurney replied, “but it doesn’t. What’s this
‘we’ business?”

Stuart worked his jaw. “I had hoped you were onboard to
help avert another attack.”

For a moment—Stuart held his breath—McBurney appeared to be
wavering. “I’m afraid I’m penciled in for another engagement.”

Stuart smacked his forehead with his palm. “Oh, yeah, the
President—how could I forget. Maybe that’s good. You can explain for him how
despite the opportunity you had to avert instigating war with the wrong fucking
country, you decided it might be better to be sitting there to advise him about
it rather than out doing something to prevent it from happening. I’m sure he’ll
give you an appreciative little pat on the head for that.”

While his sullen hosts stared down at Lake Erie, Stuart
wondered angrily if there was a way he could hijack the airplane. It was
another lesson that the Washington Game did not entail logic, as Perry always
liked to remind him. The consequences of his desire to remain ignorant of the
skills needed to play the game could not be more bitterly clear. Stuart balled
his fists—his personal failure was about to cost a lot more people their lives.

DEPUTY MINISTER OF STATE
SECURITY
Chen Ruihan saw events of the day building toward an unpleasant
conclusion. An hour earlier he received news by way of the ministry’s deep
Washington source that, not only had a minor operative been apprehended by the FBI
for questioning, but also a principal agent had narrowly evaded arrest—a
veteran agent, with more than the normal vertical operational knowledge. As it
now stood, Vice-Chairman Rong’s pressing objective remained unfulfilled. And
now the low quality surveillance report in his hands was being blamed on
weather, specifically the poor performance of a directional microphone during
last evening’s rainstorm.

“The recording required additional time to process,” the
intelligence officer explained the delay. She examined her superior’s face. “I
know the product is of unacceptable—”

“After the park, they returned to Commissioner Deng’s
residence?” asked Chen.

“They did.”

“And you’ve analyzed their subsequent conversation?”

“There was no further discussion between father and son.”

The question was whether circumstances of the suspicious
activity sufficiently coincided with other developments to suggest their
connection. Tonight, all eight members of the Standing Committee had been
invited to observe a live demonstration of the new People’s Satellite Control
Center. Rong was naturally looking to the technology commissioner to coordinate
the event. So, was the old cadre caught up in some plot of cutthroat succession
politics? Pro-democracy reactionaries such as his son might easily be party to
such a plot, although the brand of high treason displayed by Deng in Tokyo would
seem to share little in practice with pro-democracy hooliganism.

Chen’s professional instinct forced him to consider an even
more heinous conspiracy theory. He perused the grainy, high-speed photographs,
the envelope plainly visible in the commissioner’s hand. In the acoustic intercepts,
which the transcript revealed to be sparse and largely unintelligible, two
phrases spoken by the old cadre stood out: ...
destroyed should you be caught
,
and further down the page, amid signs of discord:
How else can you expect me
to help you?

Chen looked up at the woman standing before his desk. “What
was it they were referring to that might be destroyed?”

“We are not certain.”

“The contents of the envelope? Or one’s future, one’s life,
and whose exactly?”

“It simply was not clear.”

“You heard the tape, all I have is the transcript. Your job
is to interpret their expressions of voice, their gestures.”

“There may have been an exchange of currency, transacted
say, for conspiring to sell information to the West.”

Chen eyed the woman. “It strikes me as counterintuitive
that Deng would be offering his son both the contents of the envelope
and
the help. What were their other activities today?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Deng was driven to his office
this morning at the usual time. Peifu of course is an academic, and so he spent
much of the morning in bed, with his wife...”

Chen noted the woman’s embarrassment. “No need to be ashamed
of thorough work, Corporal. Please keep both men under surveillance. Inform me
of any further developments.”

“Yes, Comrade!”

Chen watched the young woman exit his office before eyeing
the piles of documents stacked around the desk—his plate was full enough
without this latest aggravation.

There was reason to maintain a positive outlook, he
supposed. Most of the initiatives that could be credited to him since attaining
his current post had escaped criticism. With succession ceremonies looming on
the horizon, the Standing Committee had given the ministry great leeway to
crush demonstrations and other forms of dissent. While the existence of a
high-level Beijing informant complicit in the Zhao affair was still
unconfirmed, the search for one had generated other political spoils and earned
him the vice-chairman’s guarded approval. And while broader aspects of the plan
were necessarily compartmentalized, it looked to Chen as though the
misinformation campaign to provoke wrath between America and Iran was proceeding
according to plan.

Fate, Chen believed, had fortuitously positioned him, and
he labored each day to preserve his foothold. There was no telling how Rong
would respond to their American principal agent’s latest debacle, particularly
should he discover that Chen had not only concealed it, but also that the
inscrutable Deng was somehow involved. It was just such shenanigans, he
suspected, which had led to his predecessor’s untimely demise.

Chen summoned his
mishu
. “I need thirty minutes
with Vice Chairman Rong.”

AN ENTOURAGE OF MILITARY
BRASS
accompanied by aides toting bundles of maps, battle plans and
intelligence analyses shuttled in and out of Vice Chairman Rong’s office. Chen
Ruihan stood to the side while the de facto chief of Military Affairs engaged,
disputed, cajoled, urged, and threatened China’s top PLA leadership over the
elements of plans they rolled out for approval on his desk. It was in this
urgent climate that Rong made his decision to summon Commissioner Deng Zhen
directly to his suite.

“How may I help you, Mr. Vice Chairman?” Deng Zhen’s voice
rose above the murmur as he entered the office, Rong’s
mishu
hard on the
commissioner’s heels.

Rong excused his tactical planning committee to resume
their debate in a neighboring conference room. He then gestured for both Chen and
the highly regarded cadre to be seated.

Deng eased himself down into the chair and divided his
attention between his two hosts. “A glorious night. We have prepared quite a
show for the Standing Committee.”