“Unfortunately, we can’t prove the voice transmission came from the fighter that launched on the Airbus, but it is my opinion, and that of my pals across the river, that this was a deliberate act. They tried to splash that airliner on purpose,” the Pentagon’s director of operations concluded. “We’re lucky anybody got off at all.”
“Admiral,” Arnie van Damm asked, “could you take that into a court of law?”
“Sir, I’m not a lawyer. I’m an airplane driver. I don’t have to prove things for a living, but I’m telling you, it’s a hundred-to-one against that we’re wrong on this.”
“I can’t say this in front of the cameras, though,” Ryan said, checking his watch. He’d have to do makeup in a few minutes. “If they did it on purpose–”
“No ‘if,’ Jack, okay?”
“Damn it, Robby, I heard you the first time!” Ryan snapped. He paused and took a breath. “I can’t accuse a sovereign country of an act of war without absolute proof. Next, okay, fine, they did do it on purpose, and they did
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it with the knowledge that we’d know they did. What’s that mean?”
Jack’s national security team had had a long night. Goodley took the lead. “Hard to say, Mr. President.”
“Are they making a move on Taiwan?” the President asked.
“They can’t,” Jackson said, shaking off his Commander-in-Chief s tantrum. “They do not have the physical ability to invade. There is no sign of unusual activity in their ground forces in this area, just the stuff they’ve been doing in the northwest that has the Russians so annoyed. So from a military point of view the answer is no.”
“Airborne invasion?” Ed Foley asked. Robby shook his head.
“They don’t have the airlift capacity, and even if they tried, the ROC has enough air-defense assets to turn it into early duck season. They could stage an air-sea battle like I told you last night, but it’ll cost them ships and planes– for what purpose?” the J-3 asked.
“So did they splash an airliner to test us?” POTUS wondered. “That doesn’t make sense, either.”
“If you say ‘me’ instead of’us,’ that’s a possibility,” the DCI said quietly.
“Come on, Director,” Goodley objected. “There were two hundred people on that plane, and they must have thought they’d kill them all.”
“Let’s not be too naive, Ben,” Foley observed tolerantly. “They don’t share our sentimentality for human life over there, do they?”
“No, but–”
Ryan interrupted: “Okay, hold it. We think this was a deliberate act, but we don’t have positive proof, and we have no idea what its purpose might have been–and if we don’t, I can’t call it a deliberate act, right?” There were nods. “Fine, now in fifteen minutes I have to go down to the Press Room and deliver this statement and then the reporters will ask me questions, and the only answers I can give them will be lies.”
“That about sums it up, Mr. President,” van Damm confirmed.
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“Well, isn’t that just great,” Jack snarled. “And Beijing will know, or at least suspect, that I’m lying.”
“Possible, but not certain on that,” Ed Foley observed.
“I’m not good at lying,” Ryan told them.
“Learn how,” the chief of staff advised. “Quickly.”
TH ERE WAS NO talking on the flight from Tehran to Paris. Adler took a comfortable seat in the back, got out a legal pad, and wrote the whole way, using his trained memory to reconstruct the conversation, then added a series of personal observations on everything from Daryaei’s physical appearance to the clutter on his desk. After that, he examined the notes for an hour, and started making analytical comments. In the process, he wore down half a dozen pencils. The layover in Paris lasted less than an hour, enough for Adler to spend a little time with Claude again and for his escorts to have a quick drink. Then it was off again in their Air Force VC-20B.
“How’d it go?” John asked.
Adler had to remind himself that Clark was on the SNIE team, and not just a gun-toting SPO.
“First, what did you find out on your walk?”
The senior CIA officer reached in his pocket and handed the Secretary of State a gold necklace.
“Does this mean we’re engaged?” Adler asked, with a surprised chuckle.
Clark gestured to his partner. “No, sir. He’s engaged.”
Now that they were aloft, the cabin crewman who ran the communications panel turned on his equipment. The fax machine started chirping at once.
“… WE HAVE CONFIRMED eleven American deaths, with three more U.S. citizens missing. Four of the American survivors are injured and are being treated in local hospitals. That concludes my opening statement,” the President told them.
“Mister President!” thirty voices called at once.
“One at a time, please.” Jack pointed to a woman in the front row.
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“Beijing claims that Taiwan shot first. Can we confirm that?”
“We are examining some information, but it takes a while to figure these things out, and until such time as we have definitive information, I do not think it proper to draw any conclusions at this time.”
“But both sides traded shots, didn’t they?” she asked as a follow-up.
“That would seem to be the case, yes.”
“So then do we know whose missile hit the Airbus?”
“As I said, we are still examining the data.” Keep it short, Jack, he told himself. And that wasn’t quite a lie, was it? “Yes?” He pointed to another reporter.
“Mr. President, with so many American citizens lost, what action will you be taking to ensure this does not happen again?” At least this one he could answer truthfully.
“We are examining options right now. Beyond that, I have nothing to say, except that we call on both Chinas to step back and think about their actions. The loss of innocent life is in the interest of no country. Military exercises there have been ongoing for some time now, and the resulting tension is not helpful to regional stability.”
“So you’re asking both countries to suspend their exercises?”
“We’re going to ask them to consider that, yes.”
“Mr. President,” said John Plumber, “this is your first foreign policy crisis and …”
Ryan looked down at the elderly reporter and wanted to observe that his first domestic crisis had been of his making, but you couldn’t afford to make enemies of the press, and you could only make friends with them if they liked you–an altogether unlikely possibility, he’d come to understand.
“Mr. Plumber, before you do anything, you have to find out the facts. We’re working on that just as hard as we can. I had my national security team in this morning–”
“But not Secretary Adler,” Plumber pointed out. Good reporter that he was, he’d checked the official cars on West Executive Drive. “Why wasn’t he here?”
“He’ll be in later today,” Ryan dodged.
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“Where is he now?” Plumber persisted.
Ryan just shook his head. “Can we limit this to just one topic? It’s a little early in the morning for so many questions, and as you pointed out, I do have a situation to deal with, Mr. Plumber.”
“And he is your principal foreign policy adviser, sir. Where is he now?”
“Next question,” the President said tersely. He got about what he deserved from Barry of CNN:
“Mr. President, a moment ago you said both Chinas. Sir, does this signal a change in our China policy, and
IT WAS JUST after eight in the evening in Beijing, and things were good. He could see it on TV. How strange to watch a political figure so singularly lacking in charm and adroitness, especially an American. Zhang Han San lit a cigarette and congratulated himself. He’d done it again. There had been a danger in staging the “exercise,” most particularly the recent air sorties –but then the Republic’s aviators had so kindly obliged by shooting first, just as he’d hoped they would, and now there was a crisis which he could control precisely, and end it at any time, merely by recalling his own forces to their bases. He’d force America to react not so much by action as by inaction–and then someone else would take the lead in provoking its new President. He had no idea what Daryaei had in mind. An assassination attempt, perhaps? Something else? All he had to do was watch, as he was doing now, and reap the harvest when the opportunity arose, which it surely would. America couldn’t stay lucky forever. Not with this young fool in the White House.
“BARRY, ONE COUNTRY calls itself the People’s Republic of China, and the other calls itself the Republic of China. I have to call them something, don’t I?” Ryan asked testily. Oh, shit, have I done it again?
“Yes, Mr. President, but–”
“But we probably have fourteen American citizens
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dead, and this is not a time to worry about semantics.” There, take that.