War of Eagles (33 page)

“What would happen if the rocket blew up on the launch pad?” Viens asked.

“There would be a bunch of job openings in Beijing,” Herbert replied dryly.

“With the military, I mean,” Viens asked. “Would they be needed to keep order in a power vacuum?”

“The loss of the prime minister and a few ministers and generals would not have that serious an impact,” Herbert said.

“What if Taiwan were responsible for that kind of an explosion?”

“Then the PLA might very well strike back,” Herbert said. He shook his head. “You know, Stephen, the more I look at these, the more I wonder if we are being sucker punched.”

“How do you mean?”

“There’s no activity at the Dinghai or Nantong naval bases. None at all. It’s the opposite of business as usual. It’s the same at the air bases in Shanghai Longhua and Wuhu.”

“Suggesting what?”

“You ever watch police put down a riot?”

“No,” Viens admitted.

“The frontline guys come in to try to control the perimeter. They use hoses, maybe some gas, nightsticks. That takes some of the steam from the rioters. Then the heavy-duty troopers arrive from vans with shields, body armor, rubber bullets. They don’t slip that stuff on in public. They do it in private, then they really tear into the main body of the assault.”

“You’re saying these other bases are arming in hangars and dry dock?” Viens asked.

“I am saying they could be,” Herbert suggested. “Considering how I’ve been mucking about the last two days, getting nowhere, I would not put a whole lot of faith in that.”

“What kind of action would primary and secondary military strikes be considering?” Viens asked. “Who would be the rioter?”

“I don’t know. But now you’ve got me thinking the rocket could be a precipitating event somehow.”

“Or at least a participating event,” Viens suggested. “If it isn’t the trigger, it could be a distraction. Like a magician getting you to look the wrong way when he does a trick.”

“Possibly.”

“Well, it seems worth presenting to the new chief,” Viens said. He leaned closer. “How is she?”

“You haven’t had your audience yet?”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Is that what it is? An audience?”

“When a grunt meets with a general, you don’t call that a meeting,” Herbert said. “We shook hands, but it might as well have been a salute.”

“Formal?”

“Rigid and commanding,” Herbert said. “I get the impression that until proven otherwise, we’re all grunts.”

“Without the job security,” Viens said.

“I think Madam Director wants to test our mettle under fire before she makes any decisions,” Herbert said.

“Madam Director,” Viens repeated. He chuckled anxiously. “You remind me of my grandfather Jacques.”

“How?”

“He used to tell me stories about the Reign of Terror and how the instrument of justice was called ‘Madame la Guillotine.’ It was a title of respectful fear, not genuine regard.”

“Let’s just hope your analogy is a bad one,” Herbert said. He was still looking at the photographs. “This is good, Stephen. I’m going to bounce these scenarios off Paul and Mike and see what they say.”

Viens lingered. “It sucks,” he said.

“What does?”

“We’ve got surveillance in space, we’ve finally got HUMINT resources in the target area, Op-Center is lean and focused and fully functional—and we’re worried about our future.”

“No. We’re
anticipating
being worried about our future,” Herbert said. “We have to screw this operation up first.”

“Good point,” Viens said. “Well, I’m all thought out. I’ll keep an eye on the satellites and see what else they can tell us.”

The NRO liaison left, and Herbert tossed the pictures aside. He was frustrated, not just by the Chinese game plan but his own distraction with office politics. There was conflict and occasional drama under Hood, but that was easier to manage than not knowing where you—or the boss—stood.

It was the difference between democracy and tyranny.

It was the primary reason people rioted.

And it occurred to Herbert then, with a realization that chilled his neck, that General Carrie might only be the first wave of whatever was coming here.

The People’s Liberation Army Naval Flight Unit was based at the Shanghai Dachang Airbase. Thirty-one-year-old Lieutenant Commander Fa Khan was proud to be here, though he knew that assignment to Dachang was considered less prestigious than deployment at the Shanghai Jiangwan facility.

The two airfields were neighbors. Their importance had nothing to do with proximity to the coastline or to the heart of Shanghai. Jiangwan received more funding and the newest aircraft and radar because of ancient family ties between key military officers and members of the government.

Prestige was much less important to the pilots of each base. They saluted one another whenever they flew close enough to have cockpit visual contact. To them, the pride was the shared honor of being the homeland’s first line of defense.

Dachang was a staging area for the PLANFU while Jiangwan was primarily used by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Fa Khan was an eleven-year veteran of the PLANFU and knew this as well: the sharpest fliers were stationed with him at Dachang, where the technical and logistical facilities were the weakest. Though that kept him from piloting the newest fighters like the J-13, with its stealth capabilities, Fa Khan and his squadron could nurse miraculous maneuvers from the aging MiG-21s at Dachang. As he once explained it to his father, who repaired automobiles in the city, pilots recognized every groan and hesitation, every burp in the engines or response time variance from the stick. The Dachang pilots knew just how to compensate and how to get the most from their machines. The MiG was flown by a man, not by a computer. It had been designed for quick and cheap construction, like the earliest biplanes. It was the ideal craft for an air force that wanted to throw overwhelming numbers at an enemy. That concept of war had been the Russian and Chinese mind-set for centuries. The MiG-21 was simply a mechanical expression of that tactic.

Besides, he had joined the PLANFU to fly, and he had achieved that goal. He experienced renewed joy each time he pushed himself into the sky. The takeoff and flights were never the same. Indeed, change was something very keenly felt by Fa Khan and his fellow fliers. The clouds changed from second to second, the colors changed from minute to minute, the air currents changed from hour to hour. The landscape below changed from day to day, and the political situation shifted from week to week. The preflight briefing indicated that there was tension with Taiwan now. In a few days it could be South Korea or Vietnam, Japan, or even the United States. These struggles always played out in the air or upon the sea to the east.

He was a part of all that, and he was also apart from it, like one of the gods of old China. He had insight into what was coming and the tools to affect it. He was also vulnerable to these events. The thrill was constant.

As long as all the gear worked, Fa Khan was happy. Not many men got to sit where he was. As he prepared to take off into a sun-drenched morning, he did what he did every day: he cherished his life and work.

Fa Khan’s patrol sector was Sector Seventeen. That took him northwest for 200 kilometers and then east 150 kilometers over the Yellow Sea. He returned via a southward course over the East China Sea, then east again in a long loop that brought him west to return to base. It was a 1,400-kilometer round trip, 200 kilometers within the MiG’s maximum range. If Fa Khan spotted uncharted sea traffic—smugglers were a primary target—or if he faced an engagement with the enemy, he would be able to meet them, hold them until reinforcements could arrive, and still return to base.

These patrols were vital to national security. China did not yet have the satellite capabilities of the United States, Russia, and their allies. That would begin to change later this morning with the launch from Xichang. If he was lucky, he might be in a position to spot the flames of the launch and the mighty contrail as the rocket sped into the heavens.

Lieutenant Commander Fa Khan had only been aloft for a few minutes, his heart still racing from the G forces he took during his sharp climb, when he received a coded communiqué from the tower. It was a series of five doubledigit numbers, followed by a time code in letters, followed by another number. He put the MiG on autopilot as he wrote the figures on a pad that hung from a chain below the altimeter. Since he was still in his ascent to 22,000 feet, the pad was hanging slightly toward him, the always-reliable low-tech plumb in his cockpit. The tower asked Fa Khan to repeat the numbers, which he did. When the radio officer confirmed that the read-back was accurate, the lieutenant commander signed off. He referred to a thick but compact map book in a lockbox beneath the seat.

There were four maps on each page of the volume. The numbers referred to a section number, a page number, a map number, and then two coordinates. The last two numbers pinpointed a patrol zone.

Fa Khan raised the visor of his helmet as he looked at the map. He checked it against the numbers. Twice. Then again.

There was no mistake.

He went back to the pad and worked out the letters. The corresponding numbers were six, zero, zero. Six o’clock in the morning. That was a little less than two hours from now.

The lieutenant commander had no idea what was up, but he knew how much time and fuel it would take him to reach the target zone. He calculated backward so he would arrive exactly at six A.M. He would also keep an eye open for other aircraft that would be converging on the target, a point just outside the territorial waters of the breakaway republic of Taiwan. The last number of the series indicated that Fa Khan would be joined by seventeen other fighter jets from Dachang. That was the remainder of his squadron as well as two other squadrons.

Apparently, this was a day when change was coming a little faster than normal.

And yet, one thing did not change: the determination in his eyes and spirit as he altered his flight path slightly in preparation for the rendezvous.

Paul Hood woke early.

The car to take him to the airport was arriving at six. From there, he would fly to Xichang. He lay in bed for a while, hoping to get back to sleep. But his mind was instantly on patrol, marching toward problems on the near and far horizon.

He did not want to think right now. There was no new information and no way to get it. He grabbed a book he had packed, a biography of the explorer Richard Francis Burton. It had arrived at his apartment shortly before he left. It was in a box of books his former wife had sent him. Sharon was still packing up his things and shipping them out when she had the time. Presumably, to make room for the stuff her boyfriend was leaving at the house, like his videotape collection of the Washington Redskins’ greatest games.

He stopped reading when Burton took an African spear through both cheeks. The graphic attack by tribesmen did not induce sleep. Hood set the book aside and just sat there. He was jet-lagged but overstimulated by his frustrating lack of information. He was used to having people to turn to, a team, specialists. None of that had been set up before his departure. Hood was in the midst of the evolving situation, yet he knew very little about the scenario or the dynamics between the different players.

He thought about Anita instead. She was completely devoted to her work and to her father. There did not appear to be room or need for anything else. Men at the party did not seem to notice her. Most probably knew who she was. Perhaps they had tried talking to her before and were put off.

Not everyone is a professional small-talker,
Hood reminded himself.

Anita apparently stayed in the two worlds where she felt comfortable: ivory-tower politics and academia. If anyone wanted to be with her, it had to be within those two disciplines. There was something to be said for that. Although it made her a poor spy, as she had demonstrated, it would be very difficult for anyone to take her by surprise, intellectually or emotionally.

The secure cell phone was set on Silent, so the light flashed without ringing. Hood reached over and picked it up. It was Bob Herbert.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” Herbert said.

“No. What’s up?”

“An unusual Chinese military buildup in response to a traditional Taiwanese military exercise,” Herbert said. “Have you heard anything about that?”

“No.”

“Is there anyone you have met who might know about it?” Herbert asked.

“I can ask the prime minister later, with the caveat that it probably won’t do any good,” Hood said. “If he does know anything, he might not be inclined to share the information with me. Have you talked to Mike?”

“Not yet,” Herbert said. “I’m frankly at a loss here.”

“You sound like it.”

“Is it that bad?”

“You sound winded.”

“Maybe. I feel like I’m sitting on the sidelines, though I don’t know if I’m catching my breath or scratching my butt,” Herbert admitted.

“It’s that dry out there?”

“Arid,” Herbert said. “You know how Chinese politics are. No one says anything to anybody.”

“Yes. I experienced that firsthand,” Hood admitted.

“All we see are the shadow results of conflicts, the explosions in Charleston and South Africa. Our associates in D.C. and Interpol have no more information than we do about what is behind this or what might be next. Sergei Orlov had some background on the key players. Chou Shin was considered a moderate because he was trying to reconcile the ‘brother’ Communists of China and the Soviet Union. When the S.U. fell, he turned on Moscow with a series of pretty riled-up speeches.”