War of Eagles (21 page)

“I say once again that we should put a bullet in the back of his neck and move on,” Lung Ti said.

“A bullet won’t get us everything we want,” Tam Li reminded him.

“It will get me what I want,” the officer grumped.

“What is Le Kwan Po going to do about Chou’s actions?” another man asked.

“What does Le Kwan Po ever do?” Tam Li replied. “He functions as a buffer between the ministers and military on one side, and the president and vice president on the other. He does not solve problems. He merely prevents them from colliding.”

“Then you do not believe he will try to stop Chou?” Lung Ti asked.

“I do not believe he will,” Tam Li said. “We proceed with our own plans but I will have my own security people on alert in case Chou gets in our way. We will follow his staff and learn who his contacts and workers are. We will use them ourselves.”

Tam Li looked at the rear admiral as he spoke. It was Lung Ti’s intelligence that had suggested there would be assaults in Charleston and in Taipei as a prelude to an attack on the rocket. His people had become aware of the comings and goings of explosives experts from safe houses in the United States and Taiwan. That had been the first indication of fresh initiatives, as aggressive new intelligence actions were called. Once the individuals were flagged, the PLN3 watched them. There were requests for detailed maps, which went through a central logistics center. And travel documents. There was one other site on that list: the Xichang space center.

“We do not have a lot of time before the launch,” Tam Li went on. “I want to make certain that our operations are coordinated.”

He proceeded to review the PLA response, code named Sovereign Dragon. Twenty-four hours before the launch, Taiwan would put its military on alert. Any Chinese rocket launch was an excuse to scramble Taiwanese air and sea forces. Taipei would say the launch could be an act of aggression, a potential intercontinental missile strike. Typically, launches like these were a chance for the nationalists to strut their muscle without fear of reprisal.

Typically, but not this time.

Throughout their career, these seven veterans had watched the Chinese military become
shangsheh
—more and more of less and less. Though the PLA received budget increases, that money went to updating hardware in an attempt to gain parity with foreign forces. By that time, the enemy had advanced even further. China would always be behind in everything except manpower. That would be used for the backbone of Sovereign Dragon. Unfortunately, there were very few barriers to which that manpower could be effectively supplied. Over the past twenty years, China had become increasingly isolated and marginalized, militarily. To the north they were bordered by slumbering but still dangerous Russia. To the east was Japan, which was on the verge of deploying a ten-billion-dollar missile shield in conjunction with the United States; nearer to home were an increasingly Western-leaning Vietnam and the smouldering Koreas. To the south and west were India and Pakistan, whose Hindu and Islamic rivalry could become a nuclear showdown at any time. If China did not make a move soon, there would be no moves to make. The job of the PLA would become purely defensive, to keep other wars and nations out, not to enhance China’s international standing or power base. Without those, China would become what it was during the Boxer Rebellion: a carcass to be picked at by foreign powers. To Chou and his people, that was acceptable. Closing the doors and keeping the Communist vision pure was a victory. To Tam Li and his allies, that was an unacceptable loss of face as well as a slow death.

So they went over their plans and timetables, fine-tuned the specifics. They would begin with a response to the Taiwanese action. The PLN deployment would be modest and not unprecedented. But this time things would be different. Taiwan would be accused of capitalizing on a tragedy that was about to befall the PRC. As a result, the deployment of PLAN ships would be followed by the launching of PLAAF squadrons over the Taiwan Strait. While the world watched the buildup there, the PLA would seek—and obtain—the authority to establish buffer zones inside the current borders of Laos, Vietnam, and Burma to prevent opportunistic actions by those governments against coveted Chinese lands. The Central Military Committee would be granted those powers because they feared other terrorist actions like the one that was about to take down the Xichang rocket.

While all of this was happening, Taiwan would be blockaded. The United States would be told that an attack on the PLA would be met with devastating force. If they chose to move against China, China would invade the bordering states. Not even India could withstand an invasion of that magnitude. Either the United States had to accept a reintegrated Taiwan or face a massive war on many fronts.

They would press for, then accept, a negotiated settlement that joined a healthy capitalistic society with a dormant giant. The symbiosis would allow both to grow exponentially. And in a very few years, China would be the greatest power the world had ever known.

General Tam Li wondered how Chou Shin would react to the sudden, wrenching change in Chinese society. How could anyone react negatively to their nation going from a Third World economy to one of the most viable on earth?

The PLA and the rest of China were about to find out. And then Tam Li would make certain of something else: that Chou Shin was arrested and executed for treason.

Morgan Carrie did not go home when Op-Center’s night crew came in. She waited until she had received messages from each of her marines that they had arrived. As she was leaving, the general learned that she was not the only one who was working late. Bob Herbert was still in his office, which was next to hers. The intelligence chief was looking at a series of figures on his computer on his desk to the left. It presented his profile to the general.

“Staying the night?” she asked, leaning in.

“There’s a crisis, I’m a crisis manager,” he replied without looking over.

“Do you have something new?”

“If you consider confusion as something new, I have it,” the intelligence chief replied.

Carrie was feeling more than a little hostility from Herbert. She did not know him well enough to determine whether it was her, the pressure, or overwork that was bringing it out.

“What’s the problem?” she pressed.

“I know what we’re looking at,” Herbert told her. “I don’t know what we’re looking
for.
”

“Pertaining to what? The bombings?”

“The trail from Charleston to Xichang,” Herbert said.

“You assume there is one.”

“No, that’s just something I have to consider,” he told her. “Putting aside the satellite launch for a moment, we seem to have this tit-for-tat struggle taking place between two men, a general, Tam Li, and an intelligence officer, Chou Shin. What we do not know is why. It could be nothing more than personal animus, manifested as attacks on their reputation, sovereignty, or economy. But there is also the possibility that it’s a proxy war between those two groups.”

“That’s unlikely,” Carrie said. “A struggle between the military and intelligence communities would be counterproductive. It’s also rare. Intramural wars are usually fought between rival intelligence units or military divisions.”

“A fight for funding or the ear of the leaders,” Herbert said.

“That’s a simplified view, but yes.”

“I agree,” Herbert said. “It does not appear as though the general wants to take over Chou’s position, or vice versa. There is nothing in their backgrounds to suggest that kind of personal ambition or professional interest.”

“So where does that leave us?” Carrie asked.

“With a prize that we have not yet identified,” Herbert replied. “To try to find that, we have to take a large step back and look at the picture of China overall. Before they went home, Ron Plummer and his hardworking assistant Robert Caulfield shot me a State Department bullet-point overview on China. What they are about, where they are going. One thing stands out, what State calls the Hong Kong Factor.”

“Which is?”

“The success of democracy as an economic spur,” Herbert said. “Since the Chinese takeover in 1997, Hong Kong has underscored the lie that Beijing has been promulgating for over sixty years, that Communism works.” Herbert scrolled to some figures. “Hong Kong has six million extensively educated citizens. The society is multilingual and highly Westernized, with a low crime rate. Here’s the fascinating part, though. At $24,750 in per capita annual income, the citizens of Hong Kong are twenty-five times wealthier than mainland Chinese.”

“Has Beijing tried to explain the discrepancy?” Carrie asked.

“They say that Hong Kong is not a fair laboratory for China,” Herbert said. “It is small and relatively homogeneous. China is too vast, too uneducated, and too culturally diverse to embrace the kind of democracy that has worked in Hong Kong and, of course, in Taiwan.”

“All true.”

“As far as it goes,” Herbert said. “It’s also true that if people got to vote, most of them would probably toss the Communist leaders.”

“Which would result in a fracturing of China in much the same way that the Soviet Union came apart,” Carrie said. “Every province would vote for policies that brought industry or agriculture to it.”

“Or new military bases,” Herbert said. He looked at Carrie for the first time. “That would give young people jobs, and older folks would run the support services that feed and equip it.”

“Perhaps,” Carrie said. “For China to build and modernize its military would require the kind of economy it simply does not have. We studied this at G2, extensively. It’s one of the great problems of our age. If the different regions are not held together by force, or do not get an across-the-board influx of prosperity, we will have another Africa or Middle East or Pakistan with warlords and tribal leaders coming to power and fighting one another. No one wants to see one-fifth of the earth’s population pitched into that kind of chaos.”

“Which is what puzzles me,” Herbert said. “Apparently, someone in China has figured out another way.”

“The Mob,” someone said from the hall.

Carrie turned. Darrell McCaskey was behind her. His eyes were half-shut and his five o’clock shadow had become a thicker-looking five A.M. shadow.

“You’re cracking your head on this, too,” Carrie said.

“It’s what we do, Bob and me,” McCaskey said. “Ron sent me the same data. We review it separately. If we come up with a lead or idea that matches, chances are it’s worth following.”

“So which mob are you referring to?” Carrie asked.

“The one with a capital
M,
” McCaskey replied, moving into the doorway. “The Cosa Nostra, ‘Our Concern.’ The one that runs its organization, its empire, just like China.”

“I didn’t think of that one,” Herbert said.

“You weren’t a G-man,” McCaskey said. “That’s why I was coming over to talk about it. The Mob has a bloated hierarchy, just like China. And how do they support it? By constantly moving into new businesses. They leave it pretty much alone and shave cash from the top. Then they plug that cash into diverse new businesses, some of them legitimate, so they can stay afloat in any economy.”

“I’m not getting your point,” Carrie said.

“It’s the other Hong Kong Factor,” McCaskey said. “China took the colony over, learned some new tricks about running a capitalistic society, and put some of the profits into the Bank of Beijing. What’s the next logical step?”

“Expand that into China, except—” Herbert said.

“That would not work,” McCaskey said. “The process would be too slow and too jarring to the current system, as you’ve said.”

“So you need more of the same,” Carrie offered.

“If you’re going to grow, yes,” McCaskey said. “But if you’re an old-school Red like Mr. Chou, you are going to resist that.”

“I wonder how he stood on the Hong Kong takeover,” Carrie said.

“He was for it, but with deep, deep reservations,” McCaskey said. “He sent a very detailed white paper to the National People’s Congress and to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party warning against allowing more ‘water under the foundation,’ as he put it.”

“Do we have a copy of that paper?” Carrie asked.

“A summary,” McCaskey said. “The FBI has a listening device at the NPC. Chou read excerpts pertaining to intelligence issues pertinent to folding a British colony into China.”

“The success of that merging, which relies on a handsoff policy, would obviously not sit well with him,” Carrie said.

“To say the least,” McCaskey agreed. “He would watch it closely, and he would also watch for other signs of erosion. He would use the system to provide funds for his own purposes, as in South Africa, but he would not want to see that free enterprise concept expand.”

“Especially among the people who are sworn to uphold the old ways,” Carrie added.

“We can be pretty sure his concerns about the slave trade have nothing to do with humanity,” Herbert observed. “Not with the way he has been blowing people up.”

“Which leaves us, still, with no idea what the endgame is,” Carrie said.

“I wouldn’t say ‘no idea,’ ” McCaskey said. “Getting back to the Mob analogy, if skimming off one society works, what is the next step?”

“Take another, as long as you think no one can or will stop you,” Carrie said. It was not so much an answer as the general thinking aloud. “Take another” was not just the approach of Mafiosi but of greedy heads of state. It was the way Saddam Hussein had taken when invading Kuwait. All the research G2 had conducted suggested that if it came to building or saving face—either because they were challenged or because they wanted something—China would not hesitate to stand up to the United States. The U.S. military could blockade the Chinese coast and enforce no-fly zones for a time, but what would we do if two or three million men suddenly moved into Burma or Laos? Fight another Vietnam War?