The Patriot Attack (3 page)

Off the Senkaku Islands
East China Sea

B
eing chosen as XO of Japan’s new state-of-the-art battleship had been the proudest moment in a life that Gaku Akiyama had always considered charmed. He’d been an exceptional athlete, earned a master’s in history from Oxford, and then joined Japan’s naval defense forces as his father had before him. His efforts to honor his family for everything they’d done for him had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Like so many dreams, though, this one had finally revealed its dark side.

He was standing at the edge of the deck watching the setting sun backlight a Chinese missile cruiser sailing at an intentionally provocative and impossibly dangerous half-kilometer distance. Beyond were the deep-orange silhouettes of eight more Chinese warships showcasing that country’s resolve and the superiority of its arsenal. Finally, at the very edge of his vision were the jagged outlines of a group of useless rocks known to the Japanese as the Senkaku Islands and to the Chinese as the Diaoyus.

Akiyama looked behind him at the men going about their duties, at the helicopters lined up on the deck awaiting orders, and at the 250-meter flat deck that had caused so much anger on the part of China.

Despite considering himself a great patriot—perhaps even a nationalist—he found himself in the rare and uncomfortable position of sympathizing with his opponent’s position on this topic. Retrofitting the
Izumo
to launch offensive weapons would be a relatively trivial task that could be carried out in a matter of months.

On the other hand, his own country’s leadership was correct when it pointed out that there would be no point to such an operation. While it was true that Japan had overwhelmed China in World War II, those days were long past. Their increasingly belligerent neighbor to the west now had a standing army of over two million men, a budget three times that of Japan, and a navy boasting more than seven hundred vessels. In fact, credible rumors were circulating that the Chinese were sending their new aircraft carrier into the area in an effort to humiliate the Japanese further by physically dwarfing the crown jewel of their fleet.

And for what? A few rocks sticking out of the ocean? Some oil beneath the ocean floor? Fishing rights?

No, in truth none of those things really mattered. This dispute was entirely about the past: The atrocities perpetrated by his own grandfathers on the Chinese people so many decades ago. The humiliation felt by the Japanese people at their eventual surrender. The newfound conviction of his own generation that they should not be damned to a life of penitence for things that occurred years before they were even born.

The Americans felt understandably justified at having fashioned the Japanese constitution in a way that forbade military force and limited the country to defensive troops. His ancestors had been a warlike and often even brutal people. But that world existed now only in the books he’d studied in school. Japan had become an incredibly wealthy country built on a fragile foundation of stability and economic cooperation. It had become one of humanity’s great innovators and a responsible world citizen that spent billions aiding its less fortunate neighbors.

Despite this transformation, though, the threats from China and the Koreas were real and growing. Could the United States be trusted to protect them in the current world order? And even more important, should this even be America’s responsibility any longer? In Akiyama’s mind, the answer was a resounding no. It was time for Japan to stand on its own feet.

This was, however, a seismic shift that would have to be handled with the utmost political skill and cultural sensitivity. The events unfolding around him were anything but the careful first steps that he’d imagined. No, this was a senseless escalation engineered by politicians concerned only with retaining their power. It had played out in history so many times but no one ever learned. Once the nationalist flame rose to a certain height, it could only be quenched with blood.

The breeze picked up and Akiyama raised the collar on his jacket, continuing to watch the sun sink into the ocean to the west. He was about to head belowdecks when the deceptive peace was broken by a high-pitched wail. The executive officer spun and saw the men on deck behind him freeze for a split second and then begin sprinting in every direction.

“Battle stations!” Akiyama shouted, dodging the men rushing by. “Battle stations!”

Over his headset he could hear a nearly unintelligible patchwork of voices. For the moment he ignored the calm drone of the captain’s orders and instead focused on the more panicked voice of a junior officer stating the reason for the alarm. A Chinese
Luzhou
-class guided missile destroyer had locked on their targeting radar.

Akiyama started to run the length of the deck, checking his men’s positions, offering words of encouragement, and shouting harsh criticisms when warranted. Above all, though, he did everything in his power to encourage calm.

“No one lifts a finger without direct orders!” he yelled repeatedly. “Is that clear? I don’t care what the circumstances are. No one acts without specific instructions from an officer!”

He clamped a hand on the shoulder of a terrified-looking boy who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. “You’re going to be all right. Do you understand? You’ve trained for this and you wouldn’t be on the
Izumo
if you weren’t one of Japan’s finest.”

The boy nodded weakly and Akiyama continued on. He felt a great sense of pride at the efficiency and speed with which his men were carrying out their duties, but much more than that he felt fear. The irony of a peaceful Asia was that neither player in this conflict had access to battle-hardened troops. The best he could do was stagger the younger sailors with those who had years in the defense forces. That meant very little, though, if those older men had never been in a combat situation.

There was simply no way to turn away from the fact that there were hundreds of terrified young people precariously balanced on opposite sides of a razor blade.

President’s Private Residence
The White House
Washington, DC, USA

G
ood to see you, Mr. Klein,” the head of the president’s protection detail said.

“Dave,” Klein said, returning the greeting.

He’d known David McClellan since the man had joined the Secret Service almost twenty years ago, and there was no more tight-lipped operative in the entire government. The perfect man for the job.

President Sam Adams Castilla was alone—it was nearly midnight and his wife, Cassie, would have gone to bed hours ago. He didn’t rise, instead watching his old friend approach with a cold Coors in his hand.

In the past, they’d been more open about their meetings, casting themselves as two childhood friends getting together to talk about old times. Lately, though, Klein had become concerned that the intelligence background that had made him an ideal choice to head Covert-One would raise suspicion. Now he flew as far beneath the radar as possible.

Castilla took a sip of his beer before speaking. “It hasn’t hit the papers yet but yesterday a Chinese missile cruiser targeted Japan’s new battleship with attack radar.”

“The Senkakus, I assume?”

The president nodded. “I’ve already got Russia, North Korea, the economy, and the entire Middle East to deal with. Now this.”

“It’s a lot of ships and a lot of bad blood in a very small area.”

“It’s World War Three in the making is what it is,” Castilla said, his voice rising in volume.

Klein pointed to the door behind which Castilla’s wife was sleeping, and the president lowered his voice. “It’s a lot worse than most people know. Look, I like Prime Minister Sanetomi and I’m sympathetic to the fact that what happened during the war is ancient history. But it frankly doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the
Chinese
think. And to those assholes, the Rape of Nanking might as well have been last Tuesday.”

It was yet another of those impossibly complicated problems, this time made worse by both countries handling it in the most destructive way possible. Nationalism was on the rise in Asia, and every day it seemed to grow in pitch. Politicians who until recently had been calling for calm were now seeing the writing on the wall and allowing themselves to be swept up in the fervor. The question was, where would it end?

“Did you know that almost half of Chinese television shows revolve around the killing of enormous numbers of Japanese?” Castilla asked.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Seven hundred million people just last season, Fred. That’s what? Six times the population of the whole country? I think the CIA told me it pencils out to twenty-two Japanese people per second, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. You take that kind of hate, add a faltering economy, an oversize military-industrial complex, and some rocks sticking out of the ocean, and you’ve written the recipe for disaster.”

“What did Takahashi do?”

Masao Takahashi was the chief of staff in command of Japan’s defense forces. A brilliant military man but not exactly a dove.

“About the television shows? I doubt he watches them.”

Klein frowned. “I was referring to the attack radar, Sam.”

“To his credit, nothing. The
Izumo
went to battle stations and then backed the hell away.”

“He defused the situation, then? I’m honestly surprised. Maybe he’s getting a little perspective in his old age.”

“Yeah. Just enough perspective that now I have to worry that the son of a bitch is thinking about getting into politics. You know he’s one of the richest men in Japan, right?”

Klein nodded. “Technology, energy, defense contracting, gaming, and I don’t even know what else. His family’s built quite an empire since the war.”

“And make no mistake, he’s the patriarch. People will tell you that his siblings run the companies, but take it from me, they don’t take a piss without asking Masao first.”

Klein leaned back and looked at his old friend thoughtfully. The United States was not a country accustomed to being caught up in the current, but this might be one of those rare occasions. Tensions between Japan and China went back to well before America was even a twinkle in Thomas Jefferson’s eye.

“So now we’ve got two of the world’s largest economies staring at each other over the brink,” Castilla continued. “China’s got the second-largest military in the world, including nukes. Japan technically doesn’t have an army but has the fifth-largest defense budget on the planet and a quarter million active-duty soldiers.”

The Japanese constitution prevented the country from building a military or projecting power by force, but that clause had always been open to interpretation and now was coming under increasing criticism. In reality, Japan was one constitutional convention away from tossing three-quarters of a century of codified pacifism into the dustbin of history—something China would not take sitting down.

Castilla waved his beer can a little frantically. “And do you know who’s right in the middle of this shit storm? Me. Because we have a treaty saying in no uncertain terms that the United States will protect Japan if it’s ever attacked. If the Chinese decide they don’t like the direction the political winds are blowing in Japan—even though they’re partially to blame—what then? Do they sink that fancy new battleship? Mark my words, Fred, I’m in the process of getting painted into a very tight corner.”

The strength seemed to go out of him and he fell back into the cushions. He didn’t speak again for almost a minute. “Still no word on Jon?”

Klein hadn’t been prepared for the sudden change in subject and he didn’t immediately respond. Thoughts of Smith continued to tie knots in his stomach. Klein was responsible for sending him to Japan and now he found himself second-guessing that decision. Smith had been his best man, but he’d had no real experience operating in that theater. Had Klein made an error sending him there? Was Jon Smith’s disappearance his fault?

“Nothing yet.”

“I’m sorry.”

Castilla stared down at the can in his hand, but he was clearly just waiting for the right moment to speak again. The president of the United States didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on the fate of a single man. Even one like Jon Smith.

“Where does this leave your investigation into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Fred?”

“It’s been a serious setback,” Klein admitted. “Our informant’s dead and the evidence he brought out of Reactor Four is missing along with Jon. After more than two years, I’m afraid we’re back to square one.”

Prince George’s County, Maryland
USA

H
ow are you doing?”

Maggie Templeton stood from behind her impressive bank of computer monitors, concern deepening the lines etched into her face by time.

“Good. Why wouldn’t I be?” Randi said, continuing toward an open door at the back of the spacious outer office.

Fred Klein also stood when she entered—a reflex bred into him at a time when formality and manners still mattered.

“How are you?”

“Fine. I’m fine, okay?”

Randi fell into a chair and examined the man. He looked like he always did—like he had in Cairo. Nondescript at first glance but upon closer inspection hiding something behind those wire-rimmed glasses. Cunning. Enough that it made Randi feel like she wasn’t in control of her own life—an unfamiliar sensation that she despised. Of course, Smith would have reminded her that Klein had never used his considerable power or intellect to do anything but stand behind her. Then again, the last time he’d been heard from, he’d been swimming out to sea with an arrow in his back.

“So why am I here, Mr. Klein?”

He settled back behind his government-surplus desk. “What do you know about Fukushima?”

“The nuclear disaster? Just what I saw on TV like everyone else. Earthquake, waves, explosions, radiation. Not really my area of expertise.”

He pulled out a pipe and went through his normal OCD ritual lighting it while the elaborate ventilation system that Maggie had installed started up.

“The plant had six reactors. One through Three were active, Five and Six were in cold shutdown for maintenance, and Four had been defueled. After the earthquake, One, Two, and Three went into automatic shutdown mode. Emergency generators came on to run the cooling system.”

“Then the wave hit.”

He nodded. “Forty feet high. It came over the seawall and knocked out the diesel generators. When the battery backups ran down, things got hot and the explosions started…”

“Causing the radiation leaks,” she said, completing his thought. “That was years ago, Mr. Klein. What’s it to Covert-One?”

“Some things have come to light about the disaster that don’t completely make sense.”

Randi shrugged. “That’s not terribly surprising. Whenever a screwup that big happens the only people working harder than the disaster relief teams are the corporate hacks and politicians covering their asses. They’d probably have had enough power to cool the thing down if it weren’t for all the paper shredders firing up in Tokyo.”

“A fair assessment, but it goes beyond that,” Klein said. “The highest levels of radiation were measured in Reactor Four.”

Randi pondered that for a moment. “Didn’t you say that had been defueled?”

“I did.”

“I’m no nuclear engineer but defueled sounds safe.”

“It should have been. And setting aside the radiation levels for a moment, why, four days after the tsunami, was there an explosion in that reactor?”

She shrugged again. “Jon’s the scientist. But someone must have an explanation.”

“Oh, there are a number of them. Not one is even remotely plausible, though.”

“And that’s what Jon was working on?”

Klein took a long pull on his pipe. “I managed to make contact with a man who had smuggled out some suspicious samples right after the tsunami. He was passing them on to Jon when…when things went wrong.”

“I assume you misplaced the samples, too?”

He didn’t answer immediately, but her phrasing was clearly not lost on him. “The samples are gone.”

“I guess I don’t understand what we’re trying to get at here. Are you saying that the Japanese nuclear contractors might have cut corners and built an unsafe reactor? Or are you—”

“The man I was in contact with suspected some kind of sabotage,” Klein interjected. “And he was scared. He wouldn’t talk about it on the phone or even via encrypted e-mail. He suddenly decided he wanted to be rid of that sample and told me if I didn’t get someone over there in twenty-four hours, he was going to destroy it and disappear.”

“So that’s what got Jon sent to a remote fishing village in Japan.”

“There was no time to bring someone up to speed. Jon was my top operative so I sent him.”

Touché, Randi thought, keeping her face impassive. While she was closer to Smith than she was to anyone else in the world, she was also competitive. That was Klein’s subtle way of telling her that he thought Smith was better.

“Okay, sabotage,” she said. “Nuclear reactors are pretty well secured and pretty sturdy. Attacking them isn’t easy to do. Who? An antinuke group?”

“Maybe, but I’m more concerned about the possibility of foreign actors.”

“China.”

Klein took another pull on his pipe. “You know better than I do how the Chinese feel about Japan, and the situation in the East China Sea is headed nowhere good. The president is putting pressure on the Japanese prime minister to calm things down but, frankly, it’s easier said than done.”

“That’s an understatement,” Randi said. “Sanetomi is the Zen master of politicians, but the position he’s in is impossible. If he goes far enough to appease the Chinese, his own people are going to see him as selling them down the river. And if he stands his ground firmly enough to keep his job, the Chinese are going to start polishing up their ICBMs. The Buddha himself would fall off the tightrope he’s stuck on.”

“And then there’s General Takahashi,” Klein said. “While he’s being typically clever about it, he seems to be going out of his way to provoke China.”

“Okay, but why a nuclear plant? And why years ago before things got really hot between them? Are they concerned that the Japanese might be using Fukushima to create a nuclear arsenal?”

“We have assurances from Sanetomi that they’re not, and the intelligence community seems satisfied by that.”

“So maybe the Chinese were just trying to create an incident? Make the Japanese lose face and give them something internal to focus on. Or do you think they actually could have been trying to soften them up for an attack?”

“An outright attack on Japan would be a serious enterprise. It would drag in the US and the rest of the world from the first salvo.”

Randi tapped her fingers absently on the arm of her chair. “Leads?”

“Like I told you, the man I was in contact with in Japan is dead, the samples are gone, and there’s nothing but silence coming out of China. But I know you’re well connected there.”

Before turning her focus to the Middle East, she’d operated a great deal in China and spoke fluent Mandarin. “Okay. Let me nose around a little bit.”

“You have an idea?”

She stood and started for the door. “I just might.”