War of Eagles (10 page)

“I’m not sure I see the parallel, Mike.”

“The CIOC had Paul cut Op-Center back, then turned the knife on him,” Rodgers said.

“True, though I wouldn’t equate a West Wing job to being terminated,” Herbert said.

“Did Paul sound happy?”

“He sounded uncertain, dislocated—” Herbert said.

“That’s as good as it’s going to get for him,” Rodgers said. “If you’re not part of the inner circle to start, you aren’t likely to get in. That’s the same as a political execution.”

“I don’t know if I agree, and I don’t think Paul is concerned about that,” Herbert said. “He cares about the work.”

“Bob, that’s how the work gets done there,” Rodgers said. “Whether it’s at 10 Downing Street, in the Kremlin, in Beijing, or in Havana, it’s all about having the sympathetic ear of the core group. If I were to cold-call the CIA, do you think I’d get someone at your level willing to talk to me?”

“I hope not,” Herbert said. “You’re a patriot, but you’re still a civilian.”

“Exactly. It’s about access, Bob.”

“And trust,” Herbert reminded him. “Access gets a Bob Herbert on the telephone. Trust is what gets you information. And whatever I—we—think about Paul Hood personally, he has never been dishonest or unreliable.”

“No,” Rodgers agreed. “And Robert E. Lee disliked war. That didn’t prevent four years of ferocious bloodshed.”

This conversation was taking them down a rutted path Herbert did not want to travel. The men had never really discussed it because they did not want to let loose the resentment they both felt. But here it was, sneaking out the back door. Herbert had not approved of the cutbacks Hood had made or the effective dismissal of Mike Rodgers as deputy director. But those issues, those emotions, did not need to be on the menu right now.

“We can talk about precedent over a cup of joe,” Herbert told Rodgers. “Meanwhile, here is what I can tell you about the Chinese. It isn’t much, but I’m working on it. General Carrie called a meeting first thing this morning. She introduced herself and asked us to look into two, now three, incidents involving targets with a Chinese connection. The freighter that blew up in Charleston harbor, a sugar silo that was attacked in Durban, South Africa, and an explosion at an upscale brothel in Taipei that sent body parts sailing into the harbor.”

“Do you think those are all related?”

“Slave labor was involved in the harbor and brothel attacks,” Herbert said. “A spymaster, Chou Shin, apparently ran holdings in the sugar processing facility that was destroyed.”

“I’ve heard of Chou,” Rodgers said. “He’s a real hard-liner.”

“That he is. Have you heard anything else about him?”

“Not really. His name showed up a lot in a white paper on the Tian’ anmen Square uprising.”

“You remembered it just from that?”

“Oh yeah,” Rodgers replied.

“Why?”

“He was out there running plays for the police, pointing out individuals he wanted for interrogation,” Rodgers said. “They call him the ‘eagle’ because of the way he just looked down from a balcony and plucked people from the square.”

“I don’t understand,” Herbert said. “Why would a diehard Red invest in capitalist enterprises?”

“The Unexus think tank was all over that question when we got involved with the Chinese,” Rodgers told him. “There are parallels regarding Middle Eastern, Colombian, and Japanese investments. What we view as naked capitalism Beijing regards as a means of control. Think about it. How does a foreign country gain influence in the United States? Through real estate holdings, owning businesses, even laundering money through banks. They help to drive our economy. That helps elected officials stay elected. It gives you their very attentive ear. How does a foreign government make money for those often extravagant enterprises? They invest in something people will always need, like sugar or tobacco, diamonds or gold.”

“I guess that makes a kind of lopsided sense,” Herbert admitted. “As long as you don’t become what you seek to destroy.”

“You know as well as I do that a lot of sleeper agents and fifth columnists are seduced by a better life and a big bankroll,” Rodgers said. “That’s always been a problem when foreigners infiltrate the United States. They try to recruit sociopaths and ideologues, but those kinds of people tend to stand out.”

“Okay. I understand why Chou might have invested in a sugar refinery,” Herbert said. “What I don’t understand was whether this attack was against the silos, the investment, or Chou himself.”

“I have no idea,” Rodgers said. “I just don’t want to worry that our satellite is in jeopardy.”

“Do you expect China to be a big part of your business in the future?”

“We hope so,” Rodgers said. “But that’s not my biggest concern.”

“What is?”

“The satellite has an RTG,” Rodgers told him.

Herbert grunted. An RTG is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, a lightweight, very compact system that provides energy through the natural radioactive decay of Pu-238. Though the plutonium is encased in a lead-ceramic alloy that would survive a crash or explosion, there was always the chance of an accident. One that could spread lethal radioactivity across a wide swath of the countryside.

“Is it a DoE component?” Herbert asked. Before plutonium-powered spacecraft were banned, the Department of Energy had built all of the RTGs used on American missions.

“No,” Rodgers said. “We built it.”

“So nuclear power is going to be a part of what Unexus offers in the future.”

“I can’t really talk about that, Bob.”

“I understand. It’s too bad you’re not tighter with the prime minister,” Herbert said. “You could put the question to him.”

“Do you think Paul might want to take a swing at that?” Rodgers asked. “You said he’s looking for something to do, and the White House has ways of communicating with the prime minister that we don’t.”

“Good point. Call him,” Herbert suggested.

“I will,” Rodgers said.

The intelligence chief did not want to phone Hood and say, “I was talking to Mike, and we were wondering . . .” That would seem like charity. It would carry more weight if Rodgers broke six months of silence with the request.

“Meanwhile, I’ll see what else Darrell and our overseas allies have come up with,” Herbert said. “Hopefully, the prime minister is just being cautious.”

Rodgers thanked him, and they made a dinner appointment for the following week. Herbert hung up feeling very strange. Here he was, doing his duty at Op-Center, while the guys who left were in a much better position to set the world on fire—one of them literally.

Obviously, doing the right thing is not the way to get ahead in the world,
he thought. You had to leave government service and shit-can your friends to do that.
But then you abandon the principles for which your wife died and you gave up your legs.

To hell with that. Bob Herbert picked up the phone and called Darrell McCaskey.

He had a job to do.

Prime Minister Le Kwan Po went home to his wife and a late snack of tea and apricots. Ever since he was a child he had liked dipping fruit in tea. The apartment in Beijing was a privilege of office. The very tart Mongolian apricots were his one indulgence.

They had also been an education.

The delicacy had taught him the joy of mixing elements to produce something new. It had showed him that different blends produced different results. It had proven to him that two of anything is superior to one. What he had still been puzzling over was how to convince Chou and Tam Li of that fact.

The prime minister sat across the table from his wife Li-Li. They were in a small dining alcove off the kitchen, Beijing spread below them. The rain had stopped and the streetlights shone like candles in the misty night.

Li-Li was a handsome woman with a round face framed by long, gray hair worn in a bun. She was dressed in a red silk robe and matching scarf. She was smoking a cigarette. When Le Kwan Po finished his apricots, he would join her in another smoke. Throughout Le Kwan Po’s adult life, Li-Li had been his most valuable and trusted friend and adviser. She possessed a calm wisdom that was characteristic of those who had been raised in a temple. In the case of Li-Li, it was the seventeenth-century Qingshui Yan Temple in the state of Fujian. Her widowed mother cooked meals for the priests, the acolytes, and the pilgrims. The women lived in a very small room behind the mountainside structure. Some might have described it as a boring life. To Li-Li it was a reflective life. She met her future husband when he came through the region with fellow soldiers. The mountain unit stayed at the temple for nearly three weeks while they pursued remnants of the
Guomindang,
the nationalists who were hiding in these remote regions. “The soldier and the lady,” as her mother called them, quickly discovered they shared a love of two things. One was the mountains. They enjoyed being where they could look up at the sun yet down upon the clouds. They enjoyed the grandeur of the sharp-edged peaks and the flora that dug its roots into the rock to thrive there. Li-Li marveled that such a small, delicate tendril could split stone.

Just as the revolutionary ideology of Mao did in 1919. He did not work and study in Europe as all the other Communist leaders did. He moved among the peasants to invent his own form of government. He put small roots in the rich soil of the Chinese working class where they grew into a powerful nation.

The other thing Li-Li and Le Kwan Po enjoyed was a lively discussion. She was always confident, soft-spoken, but very, very sure of her point of view. Some would say smug. Perhaps that was because Li-Li was raised in an environment where rules were incontrovertible. Le Kwan Po was more balanced in his thinking, more willing to listen to all sides.

The prime minister and his wife had been discussing the radical differences between the two men. She believed her husband should work behind the scenes to undermine the men.

“Remove their support structure, and they will fall,” she counseled. “What you must do is relocate their aides, their allies, their confidants.”

“This does not need to be so complicated,” he replied dismissively.

“Not this,” she agreed. “But you are not doing it just to stop these men. This situation is about the future. By undermining their network of conspirators, you will discourage others.”

“Fear is not a deterrent,” Le replied. “Even overwhelming force can be resisted, if not at the moment, then over time. The only thing that causes a permanent change is reason.”

“We have had this discussion before,” the woman reminded him. “The stakes are higher now. Do you believe you can convince these men that compromise is better than whatever they are after?”

Le nodded once. “They want power. But apart from that, men want to survive.”

“You just said fear does not work.”

“Not the act,” Le replied. “But the threat. That is different.”

Li-Li took a long puff on her cigarette. “What can you do to threaten their security? You cannot dismiss them. You cannot demote them.”

That was when De Ming Wang, the minister of foreign affairs, called on the prime minister’s cell phone. De Ming informed him about the explosion in Taipei. Le was not happy to learn of the disaster nor to hear of it from De Ming. The foreign minister wanted very much to become prime minister. Typically, De Ming withheld information to make rivals look ineffective. If the foreign minister were providing information, it was to maneuver someone into a situation that could prove difficult or embarrassing.

“Three incidents in one day,” De Ming said in conclusion. “We need to contain this situation immediately.”

His motives did not change the fact that the foreign minister was right. Which is what made him a danger.

“Was this Chou’s doing?” Le asked. “Those clubs in Taiwan host disreputable sorts—”

“This was very elite, and it employed girls from Guangdong province. The freighter this morning carried workers from Guangdong.”

That was not proof. But it was not a good sign.

“I will handle this,” the prime minister said.

“What can I do to assist?” De Ming asked solicitously.

Le lit a cigarette, blew smoke, and thought for a moment. This was a delicate situation. If De Ming were directly involved in any talks, he could sabotage the prime minister’s efforts at peacemaking. If De Ming were not involved, and those efforts failed, the foreign minister could go to the National People’s Congress and ask for a noconfidence vote on the prime minister. In a situation like this, Le felt it might be best to keep his enemy close.

“I will call Chou and Tam Li and arrange a meeting,” the prime minister replied. “I would like you to attend.”

“Certainly. When would you like to meet?”

“I will let you know,” Le replied cautiously. He folded away the phone and tapped it as he looked across the table at his wife. He told her what had happened. “War between these two men will force others to take sides,” he concluded. “I need to do something about it.”

“You are anxious. You should wait until morning before contacting them,” Li-Li suggested softly.

“I cannot afford to let the situation escalate.”

“You are also tired,” his wife insisted. “Mao said that a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.”

“They are tired as well.”

“Not so tired that they won’t perceive this as what it is,” Li-Li said.

“Oh? And what is that?”

“Desperation, not strength. Wait. And let the foreign minister wait.”

Le Kwan Po shook his head. “There is a difference between someone who is desperate and someone who is decisive. I have to find out if either of these men were involved in the attack.”