Razing Beijing: A Thriller (94 page)

President Denis scowled. “And so what’s the situation with
Taiwan?”

“Tense, high alert,” Secretary Daley replied. “So far as
Taipei is concerned, the mainland’s actually being coy. They’ve made no
significant military build-up in or along the Strait.”

The President nodded. “So we don’t—
really
—view this
as a prelude to forcefully taking Taiwan?”

“We don’t know,” Burns again admitted. “I mean, who
would’ve predicted that a move on the Spratly Islands would spread to Vietnam? They’ve
established a sizable naval buffer zone for whatever they may be planning to
do. With free reign of the SLOC, they can cut off oil to Japan, matériel
shipments, certainly anything that we might want to direct back from the
Arabian Sea.”

Joint Chiefs Chairperson Marcia Fuller announced a
coalition of the U.S., Japanese and Australian navies was preparing a joint
exercise in the Luzon Strait. She pointed out that all three were equipped with
Arleigh Burke
class guided missile destroyers.

“It doesn’t matter who participates, our preparedness for
conducting two protracted military campaigns no longer exists,” the Secretary
of Defense expressed once more. “Especially if in one theatre we’re defending
Taiwan against China, or south-central Asia against China, or Japan against
both China and North Korea. However, if we allow China’s tactics to go
unchecked we will surely lose valuable influence in the region. The net effect
may be indistinguishable from having fought and lost.”

Thomas Herman looked around the table. “Then why do
anything?”

General Marcia Fuller looked at the President. “Sir, we
need to re-deploy elements of the Seventh Fleet from the Arabian Sea back
through the Strait of Malacca—quickly.”

Secretary Daley agreed. “We must establish that we have no
intention of relinquishing stability in East Asia. We’ve already ordered
Kitty
Hawk
to the region from Pearl. Carrier groups
Vinson
and
Truman
have put to sea from Charleston and Jacksonville, respectively, and pending
your approval, they can arrive in the Western Pacific in sixteen days to
fortify the Seventh.”

“
Sixteen
days?” Denis looked as though he was going
to slide out of his chair.

“Neither can we walk away from Iran,” Daley said. “What we
see it coming down to is this, Mr. President: both theatres threaten to spiral
out of control. I think you know what that means.”

The President stared silently at the floor. He was
beginning to look and act overwhelmed, his elbows on the table and supporting
his head in his hands.

Fuller took a deep breath. “Sir, we can deliver the
tactical nuclear weapons with the 509
^th
and with Tomahawks.” Unlike
the B-2s, the special cruise missiles were already in-theatre.

Denis sat back against his chair. “Sounds like a recipe to
put Iran’s oil reserves off-line for a thousand years.”

“Of course, General Fuller should offer her view,” Lester
Burns replied, “but I think it’s important to consider Mossad’s input with
respect to the number of missiles which
may
be fitted with nuclear
warheads. They put that number at possibly four. There’s no way of knowing
whether any or all of these are sitting atop medium-range Shahabs or—”

“ICBM’s purchased from North Korea,” Denis said, blinking. “What
do we gain here? If I were sitting in Beijing, wouldn’t I just tighten my grip
around those Spratly oil fields? I mean, we nuke Iran, China will see no going
back from their seizure of the South China Sea.”

Herman turned toward the Joint Chiefs Chairperson. “What’s
our missile defense status?”

Marcia Fuller donned her reading glasses, looked down and
flipped through pages of notes. “SBIRS satellite constellation launches will be
completed in three weeks. NORAD and the Space Defense Office currently estimate
the probability of detecting and intercepting a launch through boost phase from
west/central Iran at 65%, slightly lower over east/central Asia. The infrared
satellite early warning of a missile launch is critical for existing Patriot
theatre missile batteries poised across the Taiwan Strait, a bit less so for
Aegis warships in the Gulf and Mediterranean.” Fuller removed her glasses. “Those
numbers will marginally improve after Vandenberg’s next two Titan IV launches,
assuming they come off on schedule. Congressional stop ’n go politics haven’t
helped matters.

“Regarding Iranian ICBM’s.” Fuller cleared her throat and
folded her hands. “It should not be overlooked that a trans-arctic launch at
the northeastern seaboard of the United States is also a risk.”

“This is insanity.” President Denis pushed himself up from
the table. “Walter, put together what you think we should do and schedule your diplomats
for a meeting with me to go over it. Let’s move the carriers to the west Pacific—but
you will
not
pull any of the Seventh Fleet back from the Arabian Sea.”

“We’re hours beyond our formal declaration of war,”
Secretary Daley reminded the President. “The appearance of our not—”

Denis held up his hand. “Not until I hear something
coherent on what China is really up to. Get on it, all of you.”

“PLEASE REMAIN ON THE LINE
for the President’s national security advisor,” McBurney heard the woman
say before placing him on hold.

A full three minutes later McBurney cradled the satellite
phone between his shoulder and ear, leaned against the bulkhead separating the
cabin from the cockpit and plucked an issue of
Time
from its rack. To
him, it seemed like ancient history. The jacket photograph showed the collapsed
George Washington Bridge, the caption pronouncing, ‘New War or Old Provocation?’
McBurney quietly cursed the White House communications operator as he exchanged
the magazine and flipped through various other periodicals. Today’s
Chicago
Tribune
featured the stern face of the Israeli prime minister before a bank
of microphones and the headline, Iran Mobilized; on the front page of the
Washington
Post
was the same photograph he had seen all over the airport, black smoke
roiling off the horizon of the South China Sea. It was this bleak state of
affairs he had seen reflected in the numb stares of other travelers marooned in
Toronto that morning.

“Hello?”

McBurney slid the newspaper into the rack. “This is
McBurney.”

“I’m told you’re finally due back into Dulles. I guess we’ve
closed Reagan National indefinitely. Any way, I’m sure you know we’ve got a
situation here...” Herman went on to explain his latest headache, that Atlantic
fleet warships were unable to pass through the Panama Canal because of a
malfunctioning lock.

“You can’t be worried about aircraft carriers getting through
the canal,” McBurney noted. “They usually round the Horn or—”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I need a primer from CIA about
naval logistics. My point was going to be that the Chinese foreign minister was
concerned enough to contact Secretary Laynas about it. I guess they’re afraid
we’d conclude this was somehow intentional on their part. Well, the President
isn’t convinced, so he’s decided to convene an emergency NSPG this morning at
ten. He wants you to sit in.”

Encrypted communications or not, McBurney thought it bad form
to broadcast White House operations deemed critical for national security. He
did recall that someone on Rotger’s embassy staff had been onto a scandal
involving the Chinese industrialist whose corporation managed the Canal’s
operations.
Something else that we should have pursued.
“We might have a
line on that,” McBurney admitted.

“Sam, I’d, umm, I’d like for you to head directly to my
office after you land. We can keep our meeting strictly private. I need some
straightforward answers from you.”

What the arrogant bastard needed was to find out what CIA
was going to say to his boss. He would love to know what might have happened to
rattle the prick. “I don’t know if I’m the right guy for the planning group. Why
not sit down with the Director? I’ve been out of the loop for a week.”

“If the President says you’re the right guy, then you’re
the right guy. What happened in Tokyo? I hear our contact—”

“Let’s not discuss contacts over the airwaves, if you don’t
mind. What if I told you these terrorist strikes may not be what you think,
that Beijing may have had a hand in them?”

“I’d say you’ve been out of the loop for a week. We caught
two Iranian intelligence actors red-handed. You guys never give up, do you? A
Chi-Com under every rock, isn’t that right?”

“Wait a minute. You just finished telling me yourself even
the President doesn’t believe—”

“It’s not enough that he personally invited you, with your
track record...let’s suffice it to say that we’ve already got enough warmongering
here to go around.”

McBurney heard the executive jet level off at its cruising
altitude. “It pains me to say I don’t even know where your office is.”

“I’m sending a limousine to pick you up at Dulles. I think
the driver knows where to find the White House.”

McBurney glanced at his watch, gripped the telephone and
took a deep breath. “All right. Ten o’clock is going to be tight. I suppose
maybe the limo’s not a bad...Tom?”

“What, Sam?”

“Tom?
Dammit
. Tom? Goddamn satellite.” McBurney
snapped off the telephone. For a moment he envisioned Herman sitting in the
Oval Office looking like a whipped dog, neck turning red, the world shifting in
unexpected directions as he explained to Denis that a career spook had simply
ignored him.

McBurney poked his head into the cockpit. “Fellas, I need to
ask you for a favor.” He explained what he meant.

Russ Evans listened carefully. “Sure, we can do that. If
you don’t mind being blown out of the sky.”

McBurney realized the pilot was serious. “It’s that big a
deal?”

Evans tapped his finger on a flat panel displaying what
McBurney recognized as the GPS track of their flight plan. “We’re a designated
Special Flight. If we’re found squawking seven miles off the flight plan, then
ATC contacts us. Ten miles off, they contact the Air National Guard—no
exceptions.”

“How do we get that changed?”

“Not from up here. Why not just dial up a helo?”

“I don’t think we can screw around wading through all the
bullshit.” He glanced over his shoulder. Both Ross and Stuart were watching him
closely.

“Then maybe someone on the ground, someone with pull at the
FAA?” Evans suggested. “You must have friends at the FBI.”

Five minutes later, McBurney heard nothing but silence from
Special Agent Peter Kosmalski on the other end of the line.

“You there?” McBurney asked.

“Richmond, you say?”

“On a scale of ten, it’s eleven,” McBurney assured him.

“Uh, this is a little mind-blowing. And this last flap is already
drawing some big guns into the act. Number three guy under Dave Dolan is on his
way down there. Want me to see if he can meet you at the airport?”

“Which flap are you talking about?”

“You remember Agent Hildebrandt? Sounds like he broke open
that Thanatech espionage case.” Kosmalski explained what he knew of the
suspect’s latest evasion of authorities outside Richmond, Virginia. “We
actually do think he might’ve been involved in that abduction and rape case you
called me about. That female lawyer thought her abductor was left-handed.”

“So?”

“We always thought the Rivergate murderer might’ve been a
leftie, remember? There also seem to be some other similarities.”

Dumbfounded, phone pressed to his ear, McBurney stared
blankly into the cabin at Stuart. “What did...were Stuart’s two colleagues
seriously injured?”

“I don’t know all the details. If your plane has a fax
machine, I’ll have someone send you our work-up on Paul Devinn. One busy bee,
this guy. I guess this asshole might’ve fronted the vehicle used in the
Woodbridge refinery attack. And although Hildebrandt seems a bit too coy about it,
he claims he even has evidence that links Devinn to the GW Bridge. Listen,
they’re rip-shit up here that this character is still on the loose.”

Both pilots were asked to respond to a series of probing
questions, all aimed at proving that no gun or explosive device was being used
to threaten them.

“I’ll see what I can do, Sam,” Kosmalski advised afterward.

“Who should I look for to meet us at Byrd Field?” There
seemed to McBurney an endless shifting of personnel assignments and promotions
inside the Hoover Building.

“Name’s Lance Lee. I guess he’s deputy assistant director,
counter-terror.”

“I guess I owe you one.”

“That’s no shit.” The line went dead.

McBurney turned off the satellite phone and stared out
through the windscreen in front of the cockpit. Lance Lee, Lance Lee...
of
course.
He thought too late to grille Kosmalski over how the Ahmadi
evidence had finally surfaced—in front of the President. It sounded as though
he would have the opportunity to pose the question directly to Lee.

The co-pilot walked into the cabin a few minutes later, and
handed McBurney the FBI information that Kosmalski had promised. Among the
pages was an Ohio driver’s license photograph of Paul Devinn, a.k.a. Carl
Smith.
So this is Devinn...
McBurney stared at the face for the very
first time. He found it strangely familiar.
Where have I seen that face
before...?

AT THAT INSTANT
on
precisely the opposite side of the northern hemisphere—under cover of darkness
and the approaching ten o’clock curfew—a tectonic shift along the fault of
opposing power was occurring as it usually did in this part of the world,
beyond the eye of public scrutiny. The Old Defense Building on Iron Lion Lane
received a detachment of elite PLA Unit 8341 special security guards, as
befitting the stature of tonight’s visitors, all seven of whom arrived by
either limousine or subterranean tramway.